Still, it was better to have something to do than to be stuck in a barren guiding room.
Besides, when he’d thoughtfully prepared all these things for him, he didn’t feel like throwing a fit and telling him to take it all away because it was an eyesore. He was just curious.
“Team Leader Jung.”
“Yes.”
“How nice would it have been if you’d been like this before?”
“…What did you say?”
Jung Sijun’s eyebrows twitched as if asking what that meant. He didn’t seem to understand what Yoon Kihyun meant.
“Then should I get rid of all this?”
As expected, Jung Sijun, misunderstanding that he was picking a fight, grumbled with a thoroughly sulky face, and Yoon Kihyun shrugged his shoulders.
Why would he get rid of it? When someone was being considerate, you had to thoroughly take advantage of the benefits.
“No? I just remembered what Team Leader Jung did to me before, so I just said it for no reason.”
“What, I thought…”
“The TV’s nice. Can I connect an account later and watch movies?”
Yoon Kihyun rummaged through the basket looking for the TV remote. Then Jung Sijun’s lips twitched and he chattered in a cheerful voice.
“Of course. There’s also a tablet in there, you know? …Here it is. It’s fun to watch comics on this. Perfect for killing time.”
The sight of him pulling out a tablet box that hadn’t even had its plastic wrapping removed was exactly like a little kid. Watching his slightly flushed cheeks, apparently excited, Yoon Kihyun let out a small sigh.
He had no idea how his life was flowing.
It’ll work out somehow, I don’t know. Me neither.
Who lives today knowing the future? He decided to just focus on living the reality in front of his eyes.
“What do you want to watch first? A movie?”
Yoon Kihyun looked at Jung Sijun, who had already registered an OTT account and was scrolling through the screen, and quietly held out his hand.
“Let’s watch that later, we need to work. Give me your hand, so I can guide you.”
Jung Sijun, who had been quietly staring at Yoon Kihyun’s palm, seemed to finally come to his senses and put down the remote in his hand, muttering softly.
“Ah, right. Guiding.”
‘Ah, right. Guiding.’ What nonsense.
Yoon Kihyun shook his head as he grasped the calloused hand that carefully came up onto his palm. In the meantime, his wavelength had become a mess again, yet he wondered how movies could catch his eye.
Shouldn’t you do something about your wavelength first before watching movies or comics?
As Jung Sijun’s personal guide, his wavelength was now his responsibility. So he had absolutely no intention of guiding carelessly.
He intended to guide to the best of his ability, but the person in question was distracted by other things.
It seemed he really needed to get his act together. Otherwise, he felt like he’d lose his center and get swept up in a mess by Jung Sijun’s reckless behavior.
***
Yoon Kihyun’s appearance sitting on the sofa with his back comfortably leaning looked quite relaxed now.
This was after he’d become surprisingly accustomed to both the softness of the sofa that had become like a designated seat and the luxurious scent flowing from the expensive diffuser.
Anyway, that bastard comes here to play whenever he’s bored.
In the center of Yoon Kihyun’s gaze as he mulled over his lukewarm impression was Jung Sijun.
Just looking at him lying belly-down on the folding bed, completely absorbed in comics, sometimes gave him the illusion that this wasn’t the center’s guiding room.
The guiding room had changed in just a few days to the point where it was hard to recall its initial appearance.
When he didn’t refuse the things awkwardly filled in for Yoon Kihyun’s convenience, Jung Sijun began bringing in items in earnest.
How absurd it was to see him boldly walking in carrying things like a plush folding bed, neck pillow, heated eye mask, and massager under his arm.
It was exasperating, but instead of criticizing his employer’s lavish spending, Yoon Kihyun left him alone. It was unclear whether it was welfare provided to a personally hired guide or simply throwing money around, but he calculated it was better than nothing.
“Ah, right. What do you want to eat for lunch today?”
Jung Sijun, who had been reading comics on his tablet, lifted his head. Asking about the lunch menu had become a routine question just between the two of them over the past few days.
At first, after accepting the position as Jung Sijun’s personal guide, he’d planned to roughly settle meals at the cafeteria. The price was cheaper than restaurants, and he wanted to minimize his movements as much as possible. However, when Jung Sijun heard Yoon Kihyun’s answer, he was horrified.
‘Where is there a crazy bastard who makes a personal guide eat at the cafeteria? Don’t talk such nonsense.’
He glared, saying hadn’t they already agreed last time when they ate that he’d buy meals from now on, and it was enough to vaguely remind him of Jung Sijun’s nickname at the center. The cafeteria food was exactly worth its price in taste.
Besides, there was no clear justification to refuse when he was offering to buy meals. So naturally, he’d been eating lunch with Jung Sijun every day.
“Whatever Team Leader Jung wants to eat.”
Yoon Kihyun ate well without being picky. Since he didn’t particularly prefer any food, he always gave the menu selection rights to Jung Sijun. Whenever that happened, Jung Sijun always grinned, pleased about something.
“Today I’m kind of craving sweet and sour pork, you know? How about a Chinese restaurant? I know a place that makes good kkwabarou.”
“Sounds good.”
“Then let’s go with the Chinese restaurant.”
“Okay.”
As befitting a rich young master, Jung Sijun’s taste was refined. The restaurants he recommended were all excellent eateries without exception.
Thanks to that, Yoon Kihyun was gradually regaining the weight he’d lost to heavy drinking that had been no different from self-harm. Since he needed to improve his diet anyway and could even reduce food expenses, it was killing two birds with one stone.
After the lunch menu selection was finished, Yoon Kihyun stared at the TV set up on one side of the guiding room. It wasn’t a program he enjoyed watching, but he’d turned it on to use as background music.
He was blankly watching the screen where laughter spread softly when an alarm sounded.
“Ah, why is a gate breaking again? Crazy neighborhood, seriously.”
Jung Sijun, who shot up from the folding bed, muttered a complaint mixed with irritation. During the few days living stuck in the guiding room as his personal guide, there were several things Yoon Kihyun had learned about Jung Sijun.
One of them was that Jung Sijun worked much more than he’d thought.
Even excluding the time spent attacking gates, including travel time to attack them, he was often away for physical training and practice.
Of course, whenever he had breaks here and there, he’d barge into the guiding room where Yoon Kihyun was and giggle while watching comics or such.
“It’s a B-rank gate, so I think I’ll be back before lunch at the latest. If I’m late, go ahead and eat first, giving my name at the restaurant. I’ll send you the restaurant location.”
Jung Sijun said as he retied his combat boot laces. Yoon Kihyun just slowly nodded.
There was still plenty of time until lunch. It was when his eyelids felt heavy because he’d tossed and turned a bit last night, and he was pressing them firmly with his hands.
“Are you tired? Should I turn off the lights so you can get some sleep?”
“No, I’m just… going to stay like this for a bit.”
If he turned off the lights, he felt like he’d fall asleep immediately. The contract only specified it was within the range of not exceeding legal working hours, and there were no clear working hours.
If Yoon Kihyun wanted, he could go straight home after finishing Jung Sijun’s guiding and it wouldn’t be a problem at all. However, he was voluntarily matching Jung Sijun’s commute times as much as possible.
Even though Jung Sijun said it didn’t matter at all as long as he mentioned it in advance when he was tired or had something to do, he himself couldn’t tolerate such autonomous work.
Yoon Kihyun’s ironclad rule was that since he’d received something, he had to show sincerity as much as possible.
Next week the test results come out, so I’ll go to the hospital and… then come back.
The schedule for living again had more leeway than he’d thought. At first, his heart had been anxious with the pressure and nervousness as if someone was chasing him at full speed with a knife from behind, but as he tackled things one by one step by step, even things that had seemed vaguely impossible to accomplish were manageable.
“Then I’ll be back. If anything happens, leave me a message.”
“Okay.”
Jung Sijun lightly tapped the floor with the toe of his combat boot, then grabbed the guiding room door handle. For someone who moved as if about to burst out any moment, he still hadn’t even opened the door yet.
“Aren’t you going?”
When Yoon Kihyun opened his eyes and asked, still feeling a presence at the guiding room entrance, Jung Sijun grinned.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
Only after finally hearing Yoon Kihyun’s answer did Jung Sijun leave the guiding room.
Left alone in the guiding room that quickly became quiet after the door closed, Yoon Kihyun mulled over Jung Sijun’s voice that still seemed to cling to his ears.
His way of speaking seems to be getting softer and softer.
The way Jung Sijun spoke that Yoon Kihyun remembered was always sharp, sarcastic, and with a tone as if picking a fight.
Should he say it was the type of voice that seemed dissatisfied with everything and naturally angry? Anyway, even when saying good things, he made them sound negative.
However, now those traces of that way of speaking were gradually fading. Although his language was still rough and curses were mixed throughout conversations, it felt like his tone itself had softened. It was a change Jung Sijun himself acknowledged.
‘Is it because my body hardly hurts after receiving guiding from Yoon Kihyun-ssi? I’ve become fucking generous as a person. Even today, I was going to tear into those team member bastards like dogs but let them off on my way here.’
‘…You really tear into your team members like that?’
‘Ah, well, if they don’t listen, I have to. If they freeze up inside a gate, they could die immediately, so I can’t just smile and laugh haha hoho.’
Jung Sijun would threaten that even if his team members tried to greet him on the commute as they had with him, he should thoroughly ignore them. Since Yoon Kihyun didn’t particularly plan to be friendly with Jung Sijun’s team members either, he said he’d do that.
Inside the gate… what’s it really like?
Yoon Kihyun lay half-reclined on the sofa, lost in thought. Although Guides were classified as Awakened along with Espers, they didn’t go inside gates together. This was because a Guide’s physical abilities weren’t different from non-Awakened people.
Although he’d often waited at temporary field bases for on-site guiding, he’d never directly seen what kind of mayhem unfolded inside.
Should he casually ask Jung Sijun when he returned later? Thinking that, he was applying pressure around his temples when he heard a knock.
The neat and tidy sound wasn’t Jung Sijun’s. In the first place, Jung Sijun was the type to barge in after scanning his access card instead of knocking.
When he got up and opened the door, he saw the face of an unexpected man.
“Ah, you were inside.”
“Team Leader Seo.”
It was Seo Igyeong, one of only two S-rank Espers at headquarters.
“Kihyun-ssi. Do you have time to talk for a moment?”
Seo Igyeong muttered with a bright smile.
What’s this bastard suddenly here for? Yoon Kihyun looked up at Seo Igyeong with a puzzled expression.
