# Chapter 35
Dr. Jeong’s tightly closed lips twitched as his jaw muscles bulged prominently. It was an expression that blatantly revealed his displeasure. Dohyuk internally sighed a couple of times before putting on a facade and nodding repeatedly at Dr. Jeong’s instruction to report all future casual contacts with Dr. Choi to him.
While Dr. Jeong had treated him like a dead person when he was transferred to another region, cutting off all contact, now he was sharpening his focus to receive reports on Dohyuk’s every day, leaving him breathless. In the past, he wouldn’t have felt this way. The two and a half years of separation from Dr. Jeong had been longer than he’d thought.
Perhaps sensing Dohyuk’s thoughts, Dr. Jeong patted Dohyuk’s shoulder with his palm in a benevolent voice.
“You’re not the same as before. Perhaps you feel hurt?”
“…”
“Esper Choi Dohyuk, it was unavoidable to protect you. It might have been too sudden back then. Still, I’m glad you’re healthy like this. If you knew how much I worry about you all day, you wouldn’t feel hurt.”
“I understand your concerns. I’m being sufficiently careful.”
“Good. You should know. Ah, by the way, are there any signs of you becoming more intimate with Guide Yu Junseo? Since you’ve discussed a partnership, there should be more potential for development.”
“Why do you ask? I thought you and the headquarters were skeptical about the partnership, so I assumed you wanted me to distance myself from Guide Yu Junseo.”
Dr. Jeong clicked his tongue briefly.
“That’s what those stupid ones think. I have a different perspective. I believe there might be a specific reason why Guide Yu Junseo’s matching rate is exceptionally high with you. I looked through Guide Yu Junseo’s matching rate status yesterday, and there weren’t any other Espers with high matching rates except you! If that’s the case, it might be better to pair you with Guide Yu Junseo…”
“…Dr. Jeong. Guide Yu Junseo is not a plant that can be grafted at will. I clearly stated that we’re not intimate enough to be connected just because I want to.”
Even as he spoke, Dohyuk’s mind wasn’t properly organized. His vision was turning white. Dr. Jeong had started showing interest in Yu Junseo. A mixture of concern for Junseo and a fierce destructive desire towards Dr. Jeong boiled within him. It was a feeling he’d never experienced before since meeting Dr. Jeong.
“Choi Dohyuk. When did you develop this bad habit of interrupting me? I never taught you that.”
The cold voice snapped him back to reality. His entire body cooled down as if doused with cold water. Even though Dr. Jeong had just lowered his voice tone slightly, Dohyuk’s body reflexively submitted.
“I’m sorry.”
The destructive desire that had lost its target flowed inward.
***
Five days had passed since his conversation with Dr. Jeong. During that time, Dohyuk had tried. After noticing that Dr. Jeong was aware of Junseo’s existence and had a great interest in him, Dohyuk had tried to distance himself from Junseo. He even considered it fortunate that the partner application hadn’t been accepted.
For two days, things went smoothly. Dohyuk was so busy hunting monsters that he barely had time to stay at headquarters. Naturally, his time with Junseo decreased, and he deliberately turned off his attention to his phone. Actually, “tried to turn off” would be a more accurate description. He kept fidgeting with the phone he had intentionally turned off. It was quite difficult to adjust to this small change, when in the past he wouldn’t even have known if messages came in. The pretty face kept appearing in his mind at random times. Remembering Seungmin’s words not to be mistaken, he deliberately focused on other matters.
By the third day, it was Junseo who started making moves.
Upon entering his personal room, Dohyuk was startled to find a familiar face occupying his seat, and he stood there blankly with his mouth shut. Junseo rose, cutting through the long silence that had fallen. The small personal room was filled with Junseo’s distinctive scent. Junseo approached right up to Dohyuk’s face before stopping. Dohyuk was simply dazed. When asked if he was receiving guiding well, he nodded. A lie. Dohyuk flinched at Junseo’s words, delivered with a smiling face.
That was all he could remember. Nearly an hour was completely cut out as he endured the pouring guiding. Though he had surely been standing firmly with his back to the door, when he came to his senses, he was half-leaning on the desk in his personal room. The neatly arranged desk was terribly disheveled, with objects half-spilled onto the floor. Junseo whispered something to Dohyuk, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to comprehend it. As always after the unauthorized guiding, something soft touched his forehead. Only then did Dohyuk realize it was lips.
‘Junseo. I told you not to do guiding outside the guiding room…’
‘You asked me to. I’ll listen better next time. If you stop lying and such.’
Dohyuk had no rebuttal to the gently expressed complaint. He turned his phone back on.
On the fourth day, Junseo, having realized the valuable fact that it was better for his mental health to visit Dohyuk directly rather than wait for him obediently, notified him.
♥Junseo♥
Do you like Japanese food or Korean food?
You seemed to like both. So both?
There wasn’t even time to refuse. As if hypnotized, Dohyuk found himself moving to help when Junseo, holding large paper bags in both hands, struggled to open the door to his personal room. Before he knew it, he was carrying the paper bags instead of refusing.
The Esper’s personal room, a small space solely for individual work with no need to entertain others, didn’t even have a common sofa. It was fortunate, if anything, that there was one small auxiliary chair as a spare. Dohyuk sighed after giving his chair to Junseo and sitting on the auxiliary chair.
‘What if I had gone out on field work?’
‘But you didn’t. It seems like we really do match well in some way.’
Despite not eating much himself, he had big hands. The 3-tiered lunchbox was packed with pretty side dishes, and there were even 32 pieces of sushi. It must have been time to feel hungry, because Dohyuk silently ate his portion. When he had emptied half his lunchbox, he frowned with concern at Junseo’s still-intact lunchbox.
‘Aren’t you eating? Want some water?’
When he opened the bottled water that came with the lunchbox and poured it into a paper cup, Junseo drank it in small sips. Dohyuk, who had unknowingly focused on feeding him, came to his senses as he was putting the fourth piece of sushi into Junseo’s mouth. The belated realization that he was treating a 24-year-old like a stray cat he’d met on the street made him pause briefly. Every time he munched with round eyes looking at Dohyuk, his cheeks moved like snow puffing up in a snowfall, pure white. Only after feeding him everything and receiving guiding as Junseo demanded did Dohyuk regain his senses.
Before he knew it, he was standing alone in his personal room, now as clean as it had been initially, lost in thought. Was he actually a gumiho, not a human? Honestly, even if he met an S-class monster gumiho, he wouldn’t be so helplessly enchanted.
*
Just as his chapped lips were about to tear again, something as soft as cream touched the corner of Dohyuk’s mouth.
“What are you thinking about?”
Junseo, resting his chin on his hand while extending the other toward Dohyuk, caressed his lips. When his tightly closed mouth naturally opened, a coolness, considerably cooler than Dohyuk’s body temperature, touched his slightly swollen lips.
“…Nothing in particular.”
It was strange. Although the hand was definitely on the cooler side compared to Dohyuk’s high temperature, it burned every time it touched him.
“You shouldn’t think nothing, aren’t you happy?”
“…”
“I’m extremely happy right now.”
It was problematic, if anything. Dohyuk couldn’t understand why pushing away this one weak Guide wasn’t as easy as he wanted it to be. Feeling perplexed, he gently removed Junseo’s hand from his lips and tilted his head.
“How did you do it?”
The partner application had been approved even though Dohyuk hadn’t submitted a new consent form. Dohyuk had just received the notification today and was still bewildered. The headquarters had seemed unwilling to accept it, so why suddenly?
“Oh, the partnership? They say they found the lost consent form. Isn’t that great?”
Even to Dohyuk, who had no talent whatsoever in inferring others’ inner thoughts, the headquarters’ intentions seemed questionable.
“It’s strange. So sudden.”
“Actually, this is a secret. I was raised with a lot of love.”
“I can tell. You have no rough edges and a good personality.”
At Dohyuk’s agreement, a faint blush spread over Junseo’s cheeks. Smiling with narrowed eyes, he fidgeted with his long fingers like a child playing meaninglessly with his hands, looking extremely shy.
“My family was worried because not only did I awaken suddenly, but I still haven’t met an Esper with a high matching rate. So my father probably… paid some attention to it.”
In short, he was saying he applied external pressure through family power. There was actually a detailed backstory about visiting the furious Esper Director separately and finding a compromise by alternating between stick and carrot, but Junseo pushed all of that beyond the tip of his tongue. There was no need to tell Dohyuk, who was already busy with his own matters. Shouldn’t external and family affairs be naturally separated?
Dohyuk, completely taken in by Junseo’s innocent, eye-sparkling evasiveness, simply nodded and said, “I see.” If anything, Dohyuk was even relieved that Junseo had a supportive family. Unlike himself, who had grown up alone since childhood, he was reassured that this delicate person would be protected within a strong fence and not easily exposed to danger. He wouldn’t be someone easily approachable by someone like Dr. Jeong.
When Dohyuk seemed lost in thought, Junseo conspicuously sat on his desk and spread his arms wide.
“To celebrate becoming partners, shall we do some intense guiding?”
