While mechanically reporting that he’d secured Gentle Poison, he denied all of this again and again until going to bed.
But in the early dawn, Chris, who had tossed and turned before getting up, downloaded all of Yuri Sobolev’s information through his terminal. Everything up to the level of classified information he could access with his authority.
There wasn’t a single proper photo. Only one photo existed showing Yuri Sobolev’s back taken in a blur. The only facts that could be learned from it were that he had black hair and, judging by the height of the streetlamp standing beside him, he was considerably tall.
‘It has to be a coincidence.’
As morning approached, Chris muttered to himself as if urging himself on.
Would a mafia as significant as Yuri Sobolev boldly run a bookshop under his real name?
Books, phonographs, and Magnolia’s tranquil atmosphere felt like concepts existing on the completely opposite end from Yuri Sobolev.
Knowing that such perception would cloud his observational skills, Chris couldn’t bear it without denying that suspicion.
However, there comes an end to clumsy deception. All the books he’d bought were ones Yuri had selected. Even the order in which he’d purchased them.
That fact squeezed Chris’s chest coldly.
He recalled the Yuri he’d encountered on the street. The man driving an Aston Martin Classic who he’d judged to be just someone else who resembled him.
If it really was Yuri Sobolev, it wouldn’t be strange for him to drive around in that expensive classic car. It would also explain the strange sense of pressure he’d sometimes felt from Yuri.
He could report this fact to Yont right away, but Chris found it strange that Yuri had created the surname Danil while handing over books.
Danil, Chris Danil.
Coincidentally, Chris’s name was exactly the same as the name of the loyal hunting dog Yuri Sobolev had raised. Moreover, wasn’t he an Esper with platinum blond hair and blue eyes who had no memory?
‘That’s bullshit. Chris Danil is an Esper who uses telekinesis, and I’m a reinforcement-type Esper with wolf Beast Transformation ability.’
Though it’s not a long history, there have been no cases of an Esper’s ability changing so far. Ultimately, an Esper’s ability could also be used like fingerprints to determine identity.
The emergence of a person with multiple superpowers simultaneously hadn’t happened yet either. Unless he had terribly bad luck, there was no way Chris Danil would be that first case and that he himself, who’d lost his memory, was that very man.
Until he knew what this unpleasant coincidence—or deliberate confusion—meant, it was difficult to readily seek out Yont.
“I thought you’d ask if I was Yuri Sobolev, but this is unexpected.”
It must have been a joke. On the day they first met, hadn’t Yuri been the first to mention that mafia’s name? Since he’d introduced himself as Chris while leaving out his surname, perhaps he’d playfully created the spelling Danil and handed it over.
A normal bookshop owner wouldn’t even think that a customer who dropped by while passing was a Northern Light agent carrying out a secret mission, so he could make such an absurd joke.
That must be all it was.
Chris swallowed the sigh trying to rise as he cast his gaze between the gray buildings gradually taking on the sun’s color.
He knew his own thoughts were changing over and over.
From suspicion to denial, and then back to wariness.
The expression reflected in the window was a mess. His stiffly hardened lips looked clumsy, as if unable to hide his tension even in front of Yuri. For Chris, who could appropriately fake expressions even if not skillfully, he didn’t know his agitation would be revealed so nakedly.
Putting away his emotions, Chris got off the tram.
While forcibly swallowing thoughts of Yuri, he made his final compromise. If he found even one connection between Yuri Magnolia and Yuri Sobolev, he would immediately report to Yont and personally detain him.
Instead, he gave himself a reprieve to remain silent until then.
Because Northern Light had taken care of and protected him when he’d collapsed with his memory lost, the guilt Chris felt was considerable.
He felt a sense of purpose welling up to find Yuri Sobolev even more desperately than when he’d first arrived on the November Continent.
He couldn’t mess up work with personal feelings, so he had to find Yuri Sobolev before anyone else.
Being careful of tracking as usual, Chris arrived at Northern Light’s branch in Aurum City. When he showed the token from before, the psychic Esper opened the way.
When he entered the Guiding room, Luca appeared. His noticeably more haggard cheeks than at the beginning of the mission stood out.
Luca silently extended his hand, and Chris, sitting across from him, grasped it.
Since Esper energy waves couldn’t be seen with the eye, only after making contact and pushing in Guiding could he notice Chris’s condition.
Luca clicked his tongue. Guiding energy was leaking out again this time too.
After inducing energy stabilization through Guiding for quite a while, Luca opened his mouth for the first time.
“You know your condition’s worse than last time, right? Stabilization isn’t working as well as before. It’s like some kind of Guiding interference phenomenon is occurring.”
Guiding interference phenomenon is a phenomenon that sometimes occurs when an Esper accustomed to Guiding from a Guide with better compatibility receives Guiding from a Guide with a lower matching rate.
Not only do they not accept the other’s energy well, but in severe cases, Guiding backflow can even occur. It’s a phenomenon that happens when receiving Guiding from only one Guide for a long period.
At least several years.
So it’s impossible for Espers affiliated with Northern Light, whose matching Guides change almost monthly.
Even if all the following conditions were somehow met, Guiding backflow was a truly rare phenomenon.
“Yes.”
“Close-contact Guiding, still not interested?”
It was gradually becoming burdensome to focus Guiding only on Chris. He was at best a C-rank Guide and there were limits to the energy he had.
Before long, Yont, who led Team Crow, would return for regular Guiding, and other team members were lined up besides him. Guiding all of them alone was truly something barely possible only by squeezing out physical and mental strength.
In this situation, Chris’s existence, like a bottomless jar, came as a great burden to Luca. Because he didn’t want to hear talk of being a Guide parasitic on Espers, Luca wanted to carry out the dispatch mission more perfectly than any other Guide.
It was also in this context that he repeatedly suggested close Guiding.
As he had every time, Chris shook his head.
“I want to end it with holding hands.”
Not simply because Guiding was unpleasant, but Chris extremely avoided contact with Guides. The only reason was that it felt like he shouldn’t.
Knowing it was crazy talk, he couldn’t even bring it out of his mouth. Perhaps because his ability transformed into a wolf that has one mate for life, he felt intense aversion to contact with someone he had no feelings for.
This emotion surging up from inside was forcing him as if it had existed there before his memories.
“Why exactly do you avoid contact? Is it because you have a lover?”
At Luca’s interrogation, Chris pressed his lips tightly together.
“Whatever the reason, I can’t let you walk out like this. At least raise the level to hugging. At this rate, you’ll be a threat to those around you too.”
At Luca’s words mentioning Esper Rampage, Chris gritted his teeth.
There was no way he could be more stubborn here.
“…Understood. Please.”
Luca, who stood up from his seat, approached Chris. His face, which people would say was sweet like cotton candy, was rigidly hardened.
He seemed tense since it was his first time doing contact Guiding with an Esper who rejected him. Chris closed his eyes and tried to soften his aversion.
Luca hadn’t done anything wrong. It was probably himself who was defective—an Esper who couldn’t even properly feel Guiding and drooled over drugs synthesized as fakes.
Because he’d awakened incompletely, Chris had little confidence in himself. He’d even thought that perhaps he’d forget again even if he tried to find out.
He could just ignore this fierce aversion to wanting to get away from a Guide who held nothing but goodwill toward him.
Luca’s flesh made contact, and he could feel Guiding energy flowing in. It felt like a rider roughly mounting a wildly running horse and tying the reins. Chris barely endured the impulse to shake Luca off.
It had to be terrible patience. It was desperately enduring because showing the Guide making the effort to Guide him that he felt discomfort at this act wouldn’t be courtesy toward the other person.
“Done.”
Chris, who had been feeling suffocated as if being strangled by a necktie, finally felt relief at Luca’s words. The wave of power that had been running wild was barely stabilized.
Luca’s face, which hadn’t looked very good from the start, had become even more haggard.
“Are you alright?”
“This much is nothing. I’ll get better with some rest.”
Luca’s appearance, smiling broadly while adding that Guiding doesn’t put much strain on a Guide’s body, was strangely forlorn. Like a bird with wings thoroughly soaked by rain.
“Thank you as always.”
Chris bowed his head in greeting. Luca scanned his face as if it were nothing new.
He vaguely guessed that the other person didn’t entirely welcome Guiding. Because when flesh meets flesh, there are things you inevitably come to know. A body stiffening with tension rather than excitement, fine hairs on the skin standing up with emotions he couldn’t show, and such.
