# Chapter 17
I didn’t always think of being a guide as just a job either. I too had a time when my heart raced with excitement. I simply realized the truth about this profession a bit earlier than others.
That goes back 20 years. It was when I had just been certified as a guide and got hired at the center. Back then, I had great pride in my profession.
The thought that I could heal someone’s wavelength, the fact that I was providing tremendous help to espers who dealt with terrifying gates—my heart pounded with excitement every day. In my teens, I was literally like a wild colt. I always pushed my body to its limits to treat espers.
I think I worked like that for about three years. I didn’t mind getting sick or being ill for days. I loved this job. Until an older B-class esper said those words to me.
[What’s the point of a C-class trying so hard? Take it easy. Your guiding barely makes any difference anyway.]
It was a truth he shared because he felt sorry for a young kid working so hard. At that moment, I snapped to my senses as if I’d been struck by something. He warned me to be wary of certain espers who particularly sought my guiding.
[Don’t get friendly with those guys. Take care of yourself. They’re pathetic. And they call themselves espers. Tsk.]
Only then did I realize that the espers who received my guiding had been snickering behind my back and mocking me. They had deliberately pretended to feel refreshed and acted friendly. They had an agenda.
[When is that kid going to grow up? I want to fuck him already.]
[Look at this bastard’s conscience. He should at least lose his virginity. When he becomes an adult, he’ll be eager for that too, right?]
[He’ll be passed around like a rag. He’s already grinning at anyone who comes along.]
I was thirteen at the time, and according to center guidelines, I was doing remote guiding. Physical contact guiding for underage guides wasn’t allowed until they turned nineteen. They were investing their efforts with plans to do things to me six whole years later. All because they thought my face was pretty.
After learning that, I stayed away from the field for quite a while. I didn’t want to meet any espers or earn money.
But it wasn’t up to me. From the moment I manifested as a guide, I belonged to the state.
I took as much time off as I could. Even so, it was only about three months. After returning, I acted like a completely different person.
When the set time and amount were done, it was over. Some espers slapped me for not doing it properly, but I just spat at them and that was it.
[What do you expect from a C-class? You talk shit behind my back, but now you should feel ashamed.]
[What? You little shit!]
[Hit me one more time. Haven’t you heard the compensation for assaulting guides has gone up? I might take your entire month’s salary. Hit me! Go ahead!]
A wounded teenager was strong. I don’t know what gave me the courage to charge in headfirst like that. Probably the hurt. The sense of betrayal of trust, that kind of disappointment. Seventeen years have passed since then.
Some of those espers who sexually harassed me eventually committed the crime of sexually assaulting another underage guide and were dishonorably discharged.
After that, they were immediately imprisoned, as far as I know. Since the Association dealt severely with sexual assault of minors, they had chips forcibly inserted to prevent them from using their abilities.
They simply became ordinary sex offenders. Still, I didn’t feel particularly satisfied. Rather, I just thought something that should have happened much earlier had happened too late.
Time passed like that, and no one reopened those wounds. If someone made lewd comments or tried to mess with me, I’d just beat them up.
But the wound Kim Haewon gave me was somehow different. Was it because he was my first pair esper? Maybe I had unknowingly expected something. That if I used all my energy to save him and help him recover, he might also develop trust in me.
“People really do repeat the same mistakes even after getting hurt like that.”
It was ridiculous. I lay face-down on the bed and sighed. I desperately wanted a cigarette, which I’d quit long ago, but it would do more harm than good. Anyway, Kim Haewon was probably trembling with anger at the thought of being ignored by me and cursing me out.
“Idiot.”
I clicked my tongue and looked at my phone. I saw the familiar banner notification icon.
[Notification] <I’ve Been Possessed by a Real-Time Serial Novel> Episode 8 has been uploaded.
The author HatefulCat had appeared after a week. But I felt too annoyed to tap and read it. Anyway, the author was somehow portraying Kim Haewon in a positive light, and the Park Garam in the novel was already infuriatingly pitying him or accepting him as a colleague.
I stared at the notification, contemplating, but ultimately didn’t tap on it. I didn’t want to read the novel.
“What’s the point of reading this.”
I put down my phone and opened the “Crossword Puzzle Paradise” that the meal cart guy had given me to try when I got bored. Nowadays, everything has been replaced by phone applications, but he said nothing beats doing it by hand, so he got it for me.
It was the book I used to see at bus terminal kiosks when I was young. Even the pages made of newsprint were the same. I grabbed a pencil and opened the book.
Right now, this seemed more beneficial to me than that novel written by HatefulCat.
“Let’s see, across 1. Food made by coating seaweed with soy sauce, red pepper powder, etc., then dried and either grilled or fried. Three letters? Kim, ja, ban. Okay.”
The problems didn’t seem too difficult. I continued,
“Next, down 1. The second SS-class esper produced by South Korea, uses water-based abilities… Three letters…”
The answer was Kim Haewon. As soon as the answer came to mind, I slammed the magazine shut. Yeah. That’s who he was. Someone so famous he even appeared in puzzle magazines sold at bus terminals, someone known to everyone of all ages. The national esper who selectively solved important diplomatic issues.
“Just my luck.”
It was also annoying that I couldn’t deny his excellence. After being treated so dismissively, I regretted not tormenting him. When the Chicago gate opened, he should have been writhing in pain like a grilled squid, saying, “Garam-nim, please save me.” I should have withheld guiding until he begged and pleaded.
But at the same time, even imagining that scenario didn’t feel realistic. With his pride, he might have just gone berserk instead.
“Is that guy not even afraid of dying?”
I recalled the distinct pain that pierced my body at that time. Kim Haewon’s condition was the worst I had ever experienced, incomparable to any esper I’d encountered.
He must have experienced pain comparable to that every time. Perhaps he always felt like there was a knife at his throat during every mission. Because he had a body that could go berserk at any moment.
It seemed like the continued stress had affected his brain and warped his personality. Otherwise, his behavior was incomprehensible. Without even having a particularly precious pair relationship, his talk about me being filthy or questioning my morality made no sense at all.
And for someone counted among the world’s richest people, what kind of “sincerity” was it to make a big deal about giving me some money? When it comes to sincerity, shouldn’t the priority be to visit when someone is sick and sincerely say, “Thank you so much for saving my life”? It’s ridiculous that he reluctantly sent only his secretary.
The more I thought about it, the more my rage meter seemed to rise, so I decided not to think about it at all. But the more I tried not to think about it, the more his face popped into my head.
“What a shameless jerk! Filthy? Am I his lover or something? Did I cheat on him or what? He knows absolutely nothing but comes here just to get angry and leave? Ugh, this is really ridiculous.”
I opened the refrigerator and gulped down a bottle of water. Even after emptying the entire 500ml bottle, the frustration didn’t subside. The fire burning inside me wouldn’t calm down either.
The bitterness I felt thinking about the past was momentary. It was a very distant memory, and I had lived well since then, overcoming those memories. Through toughness and grit. Breaking everything down. When I confronted issues head-on without holding back, there was no lingering aftertaste. If I held it in and moved on, I felt uneasy the whole time.
The same applied to Kim Haewon, even though he was an insurmountable esper. It meant I didn’t need to feel intimidated because I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Naturally, the guilty one should feel uneasy. The same went for his misunderstanding and harsh words to me. I had obviously fulfilled my duty as a pair guide. I had never betrayed his trust. So I didn’t need to be consumed by these feelings.
I crushed the plastic bottle, threw it in the trash, and returned to the bed. Then I looked at the novel notification I had been trying to ignore. I felt vindictive—I hated both the author and Kim Haewon. But curiosity was still curiosity.
“I’m not planning to do anything with this, just reading it. After all, this contains things that are happening to me, and I have a right to know.”
Convincing myself like that, I tapped on the new episode of the novel. The beginning of Episode 8 was from Kim Haewon’s perspective.
