# Chapter 31
The languid gaze, having lost its place after the book was snatched away, looks at Sangjun as if trying to ensnare him. Only after Sangjun spoke did the gaze bestow its attention upon him. Junseo opened his mouth, but what he uttered wasn’t an answer to Sangjun’s question.
“Are you just quick with news, or is the Director getting sloppy enough to be leaking his call logs?”
“Let’s say it’s the former. I’m Ji Sangjun, not the dog next door.”
Junseo asked indifferently, finding the way Sangjun shrugged his shoulders irritating.
“Is that so? How was the meeting, then?”
“I-I couldn’t tell! The mental-type Espers had everything layered with barriers, so I just stood there stupidly like a Christmas tree. Why? What’s the reason for the general assembly? What did you do today?”
The contents of the general assembly were classified to the extent that even S-class Espers didn’t have the authority to hear them. Junseo tilted his head slowly, deep in thought. Eventually, his answer remained as concise as ever.
“I checked whether my second partner application document was approved.”
“Are you going to keep talking nonsense? Why would they hold a general assembly for something so trivial?”
“That’s all there is to it. And the document was rejected, so I got a little angry…”
Sangjun frowned in confusion as he listened to Junseo. Unless there was an issue with the form, partner application documents were never rejected. If both an Esper and a Guide agreed, the headquarters had no grounds to block their agreement.
It seemed unlikely that the rejection was due to formatting errors; Yu Junseo wouldn’t fail to complete such simple paperwork correctly. There must be another reason, but Sangjun couldn’t think of what it might be. It was also vague whether the rejection was due to their different ranks, as there were already quite a few ability users at headquarters who were active partners despite having different ranks.
“The final approvers are the Esper Director and the Guide Director, right? Since I don’t know which one rejected it, I said I’d sue the Korean Ability Management Headquarters for fairness. Rejecting a document without errors or reasons is tyrannical. I also mentioned I’d give some interviews as an S-class Guide who’s been neglected due to the headquarters’ factional disputes all this time.”
“In these times when rumors spread even when you do nothing, an S-class Guide from headquarters is going to sue headquarters? And what, neglected? That’s just you burying yourself with no motivation.”
“Isn’t the point of a lawsuit to create noise? Besides, on the surface, I was neglected. The headquarters wasted an S-class ability user, a precious national asset. Along with a tremendous amount of taxes.”
Sangjun covered his face with his palm and groaned.
“So what was the outcome?”
“The rejection was canceled, and it’s still pending. They said the Esper’s consent form was lost and needs to be resubmitted.”
“Are you sure you weren’t caught forging the consent form?”
“Ha.”
Junseo twisted up one corner of his mouth, but Sangjun had already fallen into reasonable suspicion. Honestly, the theory that Junseo had forged an A-class Esper’s consent form, fabricated the documents, and then got caught, resulting in the rejection of his partner application, seemed credible. Didn’t he say he was rejected at first?
“Come to think of it, this is weird. You definitely said you were rejected at first. But then that A-class suddenly gave you a partnership consent form? It’s not like you suddenly became likable. And think about it. Has the headquarters ever overstepped its authority regarding partnerships between Espers and Guides? There’s your answer. Forgery of official documents.”
“Drop it.”
“Or perhaps you threatened them? Maybe that Esper has a family to support with a rare disease, and the hospital bills were too much. The Esper’s salary wasn’t enough. So you used money…”
Just as Sangjun was getting excited as if he’d become a drama writer, Junseo cut him off like cold water.
“I cried.”
When Junseo responded with an expression devoid of any vitality, Sangjun’s eyes flew wide open. He looked like he doubted his own ears.
“What?”
“I tearfully begged him to please be my partner.”
“You’re insane… I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Anyway! You have a weird personality. Why threaten the headquarters instead of waiting or resolving things amicably? Do you even know how terrifying the crime of insolence is? I can already tell how much the headquarters will harass you from now on.”
“I’m thinking of living a troublesome life now, so give me my book.”
After finishing his words, Junseo gestured upward with his eyes. Under that calm gaze, Sangjun snickered and twirled his finger. The book flew through the air, following the direction of his finger. Sangjun felt a strange satisfaction at seeing Junseo’s displeased face as he watched his poetry book float high enough to almost touch the ceiling. His voice naturally became buoyant.
“Why? Do you like that A-class enough to endure the trouble? Are you going to start dating next?”
In response to Sangjun’s teasing, Junseo smiled with his eyes lowered and replied in a tone kinder than anyone else’s.
“I told you to mind your own business.”
“You inappropriately ill-mannered bastard…”
While Sangjun muttered, Junseo took out a folding Glock from his gown’s inner pocket with a leisurely movement and instantly gripped it.
Click.
The sound of the safety being released. Like a button, the safety was engraved, and although it resembled a regular Glock in design, a closer look revealed it had no place for bullets. It was just a light pink toy gun that anyone would find suspicious, yet Sangjun raised both hands and complained. It was a scene that might have been mistaken for a strange play had anyone else seen it.
“Why are you taking out that dangerous thing! Are you crazy?! You know I could subdue you in an instant before you even pull that trigger if I wanted to, right?”
“Try it then.”
“Hey, what do you mean ‘try it’? There’s this thing called the best peace in an already harsh world. Let’s reconcile. I really won’t say anything anymore! If you pull that trigger, I won’t hold back this time either!”
Sangjun, who had once been thoroughly humiliated after mockingly sneering at that crazy toy gun, screamed.
The reason was simply that Ji Sangjun was the only suitable S-class to experiment on!
Sangjun was so dumbfounded he couldn’t speak. Even for an S-class on the nation’s leash, he had never heard of anyone being treated like this.
From what he heard, it was still in the testing phase. For the first time, Sangjun resented the sunbae who had handed such a thing to Yu Junseo with a kind face.
“Book.”
“You could just use words. Do you want to get some counseling for the public good, you crazy bastard with no deep troubles but still gone mad?”
Sangjun gritted his teeth and gently placed the poetry book he had sent flying back on Junseo’s desk. Since Junseo would act like a madman again if the cover was even slightly wrinkled like last time, he exerted all his effort to control his ability.
Junseo, with a gesture as docile as could be, neatly folded the strange Glock-shaped object in half and tucked it into his inner pocket. What the hell is that thing, shit? Even the color perfectly matched Yu Junseo. What a psycho. Sangjun glared at Junseo’s inner pocket as if looking at an enemy.
“Tell me honestly. You’re threatening that A-class with that shitty personality of yours, right?”
“Am I stupid? That would be doing it the hard way. I’m using my face, I tell you.”
Junseo picked up his poetry book again and put on an innocent face as if nothing had happened. But Sangjun, feeling like he’d been slapped for no reason, couldn’t just let it go as his insides boiled with anger.
“Let’s talk. Why did you suddenly get angry? That book scrap can’t be the real reason.”
Could there be anyone else who could maintain such an indifferent expression while facing an obviously angry S-class Esper right in front of them?
Junseo blinked slowly. His languid voice pronounced each syllable softly, as if reciting a poem.
“I’m already irritated that my partner application hasn’t been properly approved, and you had to say something to spoil my mood.”
It was an out-of-nowhere statement.
“What? What did I say?”
Sangjun, so dumbfounded that he half-forgot his anger, asked again, and Junseo added word by word, as if bestowing kindness by explaining:
“Dating? Why would I? If you date, you can break up unilaterally someday. Who would want that?”
As his expression gradually froze colder with each word, it finally turned snow-white. Junseo, who had put down his book and was looking at Sangjun without any sign of life, asked in a tone that gave goosebumps, like scraping a window with an awl.
Looking into those pitch-black eyes, Sangjun thought:
“Would you do it? Stop saying things to ruin my mood.”
That this was a madman not to be associated with.
That madman had gotten suddenly angry after imagining a situation by himself. At that point, it wasn’t a light affection felt for a highly compatible Esper, but simply a disease. Sangjun thought that as a human being, he should isolate and protect that A-class from that guy.
“Why do you, as a Guide, obsess over an Esper so much? My Guide doesn’t act like you.”
“Probably because you lack charm.”
Sangjun, who had proposed to his partner Guide thirty-two times and been rejected all thirty-two times, finally frowned with his face turning red and blue at Junseo’s cold reality check.
