A mental-type Esper?
The moment he tried to develop the thought further, a hand as white and pale as sculpted from ice touched Chris’s cheek. Unlike when wearing gloves, a thrill that seemed to penetrate his body instantly seized Chris.
Different from any sensation he’d known until now. Too accompanied by severe thirst to call it joy. He momentarily mistook it for despair, fearing this moment would end, but it couldn’t be called that as ecstasy was stacking up neatly to the ends of his body. It was like gathering light and flowing it into his veins.
He couldn’t know how he’d breathed before this moment. The world felt completely different, as if a new filter had been applied. The weight of the ability he’d lived with unknowingly as a curse was lifted in an instant, and his whole body was light.
As if walking on clouds.
Chris clung like a dog rubbing its body against its master’s hand. He engraved Yuri in those blind eyes.
The feeling of the void being filled that he’d lived not knowing was empty, that indescribable fullness, was like a miracle.
Unable to contain the joy, he clenched his teeth and felt the tough texture of Yuri’s leather glove. His chest grew cold at the thought that if he hadn’t been holding this in his mouth, he might have drooled.
He deliberately curled his body at the intensifying sensation. Though he didn’t realize it yet, his body was gradually heating up.
“You, this bitch in heat…”
Yuri looked down at Chris with a face full of disgust. Chris was seized by pain like his heart was collapsing at the emotion crossing that face that seemed ascetic, as if it would know nothing of sexuality.
Since he didn’t actually feel physical pain, this must clearly be due to emotion.
What he couldn’t understand most was the fact that he wanted to kiss those lips that uttered such humiliating words toward him.
But all he could feel on the tip of his tongue was the taste with the artificial scent characteristic of leather.
“You got hard?”
At the indescribable shame, embarrassment, and the fact that Yuri of all people had caught this, Chris felt his head go blank. The smooth shoe heel trampled over Chris’s penis lying on the floor.
“Ugh…”
Chris moaned with the leather glove in his mouth. Though over clothes, the stimulation applied to his erect state was too intense.
Yuri grabbed Chris’s hair and lifted his head. Yuri’s red lips parted slightly as he blatantly observed that face mixed with pain and pleasure. And—
***
“Fuck.”
Waking from sleep, Chris irritably swept back his hair. It had been a horrifically vivid dream. Thinking the aftertaste couldn’t be filthier, Chris, who was about to get up from his seat, was shocked.
The penis that in the morning would merely ‘get erect because it’s morning’ was standing stiffly.
‘This can’t be.’
He bolted up from his seat and headed to the bathroom. After roughly throwing off his clothes and entering the shower booth and turning the lever, a shower of cold water poured down. Because he’d forgotten to turn on the boiler.
“Damn.”
Nothing was really going right. But even while spitting out curses, Chris didn’t leave the shower booth. It was because he thought he should cool down the heat filling his body this way.
When he lowered his head, his still-angry member was throbbing between his legs. This was the first time Chris had seen it completely erect like this.
‘I got in heat like this from dreaming about someone I saw for the first time yesterday? And from getting hit in that dream…?’
Chris stroked his penis that showed no sign of calming down while bracing against the wall. With teeth clenched, lest a groan flow out and pierce the thin wall.
Moving his fingers, he could feel the blood vessels wriggling through the palm wrapped around the shaft. The tapping friction sounds mixed with water sounds and echoed strangely inside the narrow walls of the shower booth.
“Haa…”
He seemed to feel the texture of the leather glove held in his mouth and its artificial taste.
The pale face of Yuri seen in the dream, and his red lips contrasting with it, kept coming to mind.
It couldn’t be anything but a perverted dream. Verbal abuse and physical violence, and later getting erect just from skin contact and even getting caught at it. Not only that, the Yuri in his dream looked down at him with contemptuous eyes and even trampled that penis with his shoe heel.
Nevertheless, he was excited to a degree that could only be described as being in heat. If it had ended with a dream that would be one thing, but this pathetic state of waking up and hiding in the shower booth to masturbate!
Even after one ejaculation, his penis didn’t subside. Only after soothing his lower body two more times could Chris walk out of the shower booth with a haggard face.
Lifting his head while gripping the grimy sink with both hands, he saw his reddened eyes.
“I’m going crazy.”
Chris muttered. His voice was low, as it was morning.
He had never shown such a disgraceful state to any guide before.
Strictly speaking, Yuri in the dream wasn’t reality, but that didn’t make it any easier to lessen the shock Chris had received.
To clear his head, Chris turned on the cold water and poured it over his head again before coming out. Turning his head with wet hair, he saw a pile of books that had collapsed beneath the bed. It seemed this had happened while he was tossing and turning.
I-D-I-O-T
The initial letters, unusually vivid in the morning sunlight, were engraved in Chris’s mind in order. The pile of books seemed to mock him, calling him an idiot.
Even if that wasn’t the case, he even had a thought bordering on pure superstition that his bed had been cursed because he’d used the books Yuri had carefully selected as a footrest.
It seemed he should buy a chair of appropriate height on his way home from work today.
Or change the mattress.
***
After the aftermath of the dream had somewhat settled, Chris left his apartment, got on a tram, and headed to Aurum District 4.
Getting off at the station, he naturally entered a shabby building not far away. At the desk sat a man with an indifferent face, trimming his nails. He didn’t seem interested whether anyone came or went. In the end, Chris spoke first.
“I’m Chris, starting work today.”
Only then did the man glance at Chris’s face and hand him an employee ID that had been carelessly stacked in front of him. His beige nails gleamed smoothly.
“Fifth floor. Insert your photo yourself.”
Chris nodded and took it. Though it looked ordinary, this man was also an Esper. Moreover, he was a psychic-type Esper. While just now confirming Chris’s face, he would have registered him in this building’s database.
So the employee ID was literally just for show. When Chris scanned his surroundings, cameras were positioned in every corner. If anyone other than an Esper secretly dispatched by Northern Light entered this building, they would be politely escorted out after having their memory erased.
Since they were carrying out Northern Light’s operations on the November Continent, there was no choice but to handle things carefully in many ways.
Passing through the lobby, Chris discovered three more Espers in hiding besides the security. If three were caught by his B-rank perception ability, there were probably a few more.
Arriving on the fifth floor, Chris confirmed that several offices hadn’t even been wallpapered yet. Walking down the corridor, he saw the only place with lights on. Opening the door and entering, he saw several team members had already arrived inside.
After greeting them and taking his seat, Yont Günter appeared before long. Perhaps he’d disguised himself for coming here, as his dyed hair was noticeable.
Well, team leader-level personnel at Northern Light were all composed of A-rank or higher Espers, and their faces were likely known to the outside. Since they’d want to keep their entry into the November Continent secret, that level of disguise could be considered ordinary.
After confirming all the team members, Yont began the briefing.
“We’ve confirmed the circumstances of the elimination of Old Anastasia, a drug dealer who was active on the November Continent. Chris Danil is suspected to be behind this assassination, and he hasn’t appeared since. Our goal is to confirm Chris Danil’s death. Additionally, we’ll thoroughly investigate the organization led by Yuri Sobolev.”
If the ‘hunting dog’ had truly disappeared, it wasn’t difficult to guess that the higher-ups would deploy full force to eliminate Yuri Sobolev. The mission to thoroughly investigate Yuri Sobolev’s organization would be the preparatory stage for this.
“Doesn’t Sobolev also deal in drugs?”
Chris thought that perhaps what he sold was fine, but he couldn’t tolerate what others sold. It was known throughout all continents that drugs replacing Guiding were circulating on the black market and that their source was the November Continent.
To begin with, under the current system, Yuri Sobolev was the only big player capable of distributing illegal drugs worldwide while evading Northern Light.
“This Old Anastasia had the gall to run a separate business on the November Continent. And as you can see, she paid a harsh price for it.”
On the projector prepared in advance was the corpse of an old woman murdered while sitting in an easy chair. The half-knitted lace on her lap and the fuzzy slippers on her feet looked so peaceful that it made the murder scene feel surreal.
“This is material received from the November Continent’s police.”
Since the Great Upheaval, the capabilities of public authorities like the police had long been rendered practically useless. However, in a reeling world, the system was something that couldn’t be easily discarded. Because in the midst of chaos, no one wanted to add to that complexity.
