# Chapter 25
Seungmin’s face was flushed red. Dohyuk awkwardly held onto his shoulder.
“What do you mean by sacrifice? It’s not like that.”
It’s true. There was no such grand sense of mission.
“I’m just saying there’s no need to worry because I’m fine. Even if rumors are going around, I don’t care. I mean…”
‘We did to you.’
‘…because of that.’
He closed his eyes tightly as the voices pressed into his skull, boring into his brain.
Where was this buzzing sound in his ears coming from? Confused, Dohyuk unconsciously stiffened his body, but fortunately, the source this time was Seungmin.
“What are you even living for?”
“……”
“Do you have any hobbies? Besides work, have you done anything that you made time for recently?”
Didn’t he ever get tired? Since they met at the Esper Training Center as children, Seungmin had consistently asked Dohyuk about his personal desires.
As a child, Dohyuk hadn’t known how to hide himself, so he couldn’t answer these questions.
“Is there anything you want to do?”
Now grown and having learned to hide appropriately, Dohyuk moved his lips while forcing a smile.
“…Of course there is. I’m dying for a break. Don’t pretend like you don’t sing about going home every day after work.”
Nothing grandiose. Doesn’t everyone live like that?
“Seungmin, if I’m having a hard time, I’ll tell you. I’m still okay.”
Dohyuk wished nobody would worry about him.
He hoped they would never get tired of him.
“Live your life a little. Please.”
“I’m trying to. Don’t worry.”
Today, the choker binding his nape felt particularly irritating. He scratched at his neck. Futilely.
*
After completing his ability test, Dohyuk, with an exhausted face that looked ready to collapse, called for Jihun and asked for guiding.
Dohyuk’s cold gaze was hazier than usual, but after blinking a couple of times, it regained its sharp edge. Usually, on days when he spent the entire day in the lab, his condition was so poor that he needed to be half-carried to the guiding room. This was because of the limit experiment tests that required him to pour out his abilities.
Normally, after a limit experiment test, a stabilizer is injected. Then, while unconscious, the Esper is carried to the guiding room and receives guiding from a Guide they don’t even know. But today, Dohyuk, with superhuman willpower, refused the medication and personally chose to call Guide Kwon Jihun.
“You’ve been calling for me quite often lately. I thought Esper Choi Dohyuk preferred random guiding.”
As Jihun guided Dohyuk and spoke in his neat manner, Dohyuk responded with an awkward laugh, making sound only with his mouth.
The truth was, it wasn’t so much that Dohyuk preferred random guiding; rather, he didn’t feel the need to select and call a specific Guide. It was a kind of indifference stemming from the thought that it didn’t matter where he received guiding, so why bother calling someone specifically? Since he couldn’t say that so bluntly, Dohyuk appropriately went along with Jihun’s words.
“Guide Kwon Jihun and I have a decent matching rate at headquarters. I’m more tired today, so I thought I’d like Guide Kwon Jihun to guide me. If it’s troublesome for you…”
“Not at all! It’s an honor if my guiding can be of help.”
The reason Dohyuk went so far as to call for Jihun—though it was regrettable to say—wasn’t because he wanted Jihun’s guiding, but because he was concerned that Junseo might come to the guiding room.
Unlike before, these days were busy, and it was quite rare for an S-class Guide to be matched with a non-emergency regular guiding for an A-class Esper, but he judged it better to be cautious in advance.
Dohyuk still didn’t have confidence in calmly handling a formal guiding session with Junseo alone in the guiding room for about 30 minutes. As Seungmin said, no matter how accustomed Guides were to excited Espers, he didn’t want to be that person. It was bad enough that he thought of receiving Jihun’s guiding first to stabilize as much as possible, then getting superficial guiding from Junseo again.
Dohyuk let out a low sigh and closed his eyes, and the guiding continued without conversation for a while.
As the guiding progressed, the deep depression and headaches that Espers carried like a daily burden subsided a little. Even the sense of helplessness that had already permeated his entire body seemed to spread out, becoming blurred. Dohyuk liked this level of guiding. Plain guiding that allowed him to maintain his rationality.
Even while thinking this, Dohyuk naturally thought of someone else. Despite feeling apologetic to Jihun just moments ago. It was beyond his control.
Junseo’s guiding, which scraped away all the dark blue depression and filled that space with warm comfort. The warm touch and tender affection that clung softly to his chest, making him want to settle in without propriety. The rainbow-colored fireworks that suddenly filled his mind even as he pretended to be well-behaved, endlessly settling in.
These were things he was afraid to even consider accepting readily, fearful of getting used to them. To make a comparison, Jihun’s guiding was like a single chocolate, while Junseo’s guiding was closer to a drug.
Beep, beep, beep.
The alarm sounded. A slower 30 minutes than expected.
Dohyuk lightly rotated his wrist and then stroked his arm with his own hand as if pressing it down. Although guiding couldn’t do anything about physical fatigue, his mind had become quite refreshed. Just the disappearance of the stabbing headache allowed Dohyuk to regulate his breathing and move his body.
“Good work.”
Dohyuk greeted Jihun with a visibly brighter face.
“Yes. Good work to you too, Esper Choi Dohyuk.”
Now I’ll go to the break room, close my eyes for about 20 minutes, and then contact Junseo. Thinking this, Dohyuk turned his gaze away from Jihun, who had approached to check the light on his choker, and pulled down the sleeve he had rolled up.
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yes. What about Guide Kwon Jihun?”
The two, who had quickly prepared to leave the guiding room since no special preparation was needed, engaged in small talk.
Swing. Dohyuk opened the guiding room door first and tried to hold it for Jihun, when Jihun added from behind:
“I’m leaving too. Would you like to have dinner together?”
“I’m sorry, but I have a prior engagement today. If there’s time next time…”
Halfway through the open door, Dohyuk stopped mid-sentence and swallowed his words when he saw something standing firmly in the corridor right next to him.
“…!”
A pitch-black gaze, tinged with red, was looking at Dohyuk. Meeting that gaze, Dohyuk stopped breathing and only blinked. The figure was so unexpected that he even wondered if he was hallucinating because he wasn’t in his right mind yet. Was 30 minutes of guiding too short? But he wasn’t in a state where guiding was so lacking that he would experience hallucinations. Dohyuk moved his lips while sorting out his complex thoughts, then looked ahead again.
Junseo, who had been staring at him while leaning against the corridor, finally regained his balance properly and approached Dohyuk. Unlike usual, his face wasn’t gently smiling, and it was so devoid of vitality that it hardly looked human. When Junseo stopped about three hand spans away from him, Dohyuk realized for the first time that he had a larger build than he’d thought.
Was it because he wasn’t weakly smiling, acting shy, and pretending to be much younger with Dohyuk? Even so, Dohyuk was only now realizing that Junseo’s eye level was subtly higher than his own.
Dohyuk just stood there blankly, feeling that Junseo was even more unfamiliar than the day they first met.
“Esper Choi Dohyuk?”
When Dohyuk had half-stepped out of the door and then stood frozen, Jihun, who was standing behind waiting for Dohyuk to exit, called his name with confusion.
In that moment, Junseo’s flat expression changed so suddenly that even Dohyuk, who was right in front of him, wanted to rub his eyes.
The first to move were his reddish lips. Junseo’s eyes, as he mumbled with his lips, became flushed. Come to think of it, even the whites of his eyes, which were always clear, were red. It was when Dohyuk unconsciously reached out to touch Junseo’s eyes.
His wrist was grabbed. A strong grip pulled Dohyuk close. By Dohyuk’s standards, it was a force he could resist if he wanted to, but so distracted by Junseo’s strange expression, he didn’t even think to resist and quietly approached as Junseo pulled.
As he got closer, as if the intimidation he had felt until just now was an illusion, Junseo smelled of fresh flowers. Lilac, perhaps. It was a scent that wouldn’t suit a large man, but strangely, it interlocked with Junseo like a puzzle. Mixed with undertones of citrus, it was a light and pure scent.
“Am I alone not enough for you?”
It was a much too refreshing scent to utter such a dramatic line.
“I know I don’t have much experience, so it’s possible that an experienced hyung like you might not be satisfied. But you said I do well too.”
Only after Dohyuk was pulled out could Jihun see the scene outside the door and face Junseo.
In fact, Jihun knew Junseo’s face. Since he had been a Guide who caused quite a stir in various ways from the time he first came to headquarters until now, it was natural. But the face Jihun remembered was more lethargic and lifeless. This meant he wasn’t the type of person to easily make an expression like someone who had returned from a business trip to witness their lover cheating with another man in bed. Jihun felt like his pupils were shaking, wondering if he had somehow become the “other man” in this situation.
“Was I alone so insufficient that you had to call another Guide right before my guiding?”
It seems I am the “other man” after all.
