“Chalice, come over and say hello as well. You’ll be visiting the facility often from now on, so it’d be good to get familiar with the faces here.”
“Rodeo. What kind of nonsense is this. You’re going to keep that person as a bodyguard because you’re afraid of getting kidnapped? You should know better than anyone that there are limits to old sentiment.”
“If I have him by my side every day, kidnapping becomes a difficult thing to pull off, doesn’t it? And everyone knows his skills. If I start showing signs of a Rampage, he’d probably throw me right out of the Earth.”
Rodeo laughed and rambled playfully at Ink, who had warned him with a composed expression.
“And you know, Turner keeps telling me I have enough money to just live and play… but if you remember ten years ago, you’d understand — my body’s too restless for that. Let me ask just one more favor.”
“What?”
“Even a guy like Carousel does that thing where he occasionally works as an Academy instructor. I want to try it too.”
“It’s not something you can just be handed. The qualifications—”
“I have some shame, I can’t exactly teach something like ability regulation. But if there are kids who want to train as agents, I can teach that.”
“Agent training at the Academy has been abolished. There’s a post-graduation program instead, so if it’s that—”
“I heard the Guide Academy still does basic combat education. Espers don’t do it? That’s a matter of pride.”
Ink let out a sigh and opened his mouth.
“Espers are no longer defined solely as tools of combat. That’s exactly the point we’ve been trying to emphasize by banning it. Every change has a reason behind it.”
“So you’re fine with kids like your son thinking they’re weak and pathetic? Does that sit well with you?”
“—!”
“He looked completely crushed. Learning only how to suppress his power and never properly learning how to use it. Is it because he’s a stepfather to you? You don’t even care?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“…I could see it all clearly. The sheer size of the power being suppressed. You can see it too. So why did you just leave it alone?”
Once the conversation turned personal, the executives who had been gathered began noticeably hesitating, drifting away one by one. Among them, a few cast disgusted glances toward Chalice standing at a distance — but even they quietly slipped out after reading the room. Only Carousel, the owner of the office, was left pitifully bearing the tension of all three, unable to escape his own space.
“Okay, let’s leave family out of this. Either way, the facility has a responsibility here. The victim of an accident jumped ten years into the future via Time Warp and can’t adapt to a society without training.”
“So a bodyguard position, and now a job on top of that. You’ll do everything exactly as you please. You truly have no shame.”
Rodeo laughed with a show of embarrassment, and caught between Ink and Chalice — both staring him down intently — Carousel fidgeted anxiously, eyes darting around the room.
“…I’ll open one class at the Academy in this region. It’s a class exclusively for those who apply, so don’t expect much turnout. Do as you like.”
After what felt like an eternity to Carousel passed in an instant, Ink broke the taut silence with a deep sigh. The moment the words left his mouth, Ink turned and walked out of the office in long, purposeful strides — pausing to fix a long, piercing glare at Chalice as he passed through the door.
And by the time the sound of his footsteps had faded a fair distance away, as if passing the baton, Chalice stepped into the office with no sign of his fury having subsided. Uncharacteristically, there was far too much force loaded into each step.
“I thought something was off, but how pitiful of me not to have anticipated something this insane.”
Chalice’s voice — sunken all the way down, rumbling low like a growl — filled the room alongside the harsh sound of friction. Rodeo, who hadn’t even had a chance to dodge, tumbled to the floor, and from down there, Chalice’s frame looked like a mountain. Chalice gave his fist a casual shake in the air as if dusting it off, then walked straight out of the room. Only Carousel was left inside with Rodeo, standing there with his jaw nearly unhinged.
That day, Chalice greeted a morning without Rodeo, unable to shake the unsettled feeling that lingered in him.
He had simply woken up a little later than usual due to falling asleep late — but Rodeo had already tidied up the entire room and disappeared. When Chalice found the keycard neatly placed on the living room table, even he couldn’t help a hollow laugh from escaping him.
But he had only been a guest for three days. There was something that nagged at him, but the freedom of being alone again was closer within reach. The fact that he could finally step out of the uncomfortable atmosphere and enjoy some solitude — that too was an undeniable, genuine feeling.
Chalice brewed himself some coffee and gazed at the scenery beyond the living room window. His expression — uncharacteristically carefree and softly smiling — slowly hardened as his gaze drifted past the view and wandered into every corner of the apartment. The more he chewed over the events of yesterday with the clear-headedness of morning, the more an objective judgment surfaced: that he had let his petty pride cost him an opportunity that would never come again.
“…What am I even saying now. I should have just said yes.”
Chalice exhaled one deep sigh after another. When he had so blatantly turned down the offer — I don’t need your help — there had genuinely been no thought running through his mind at the time. That was how enormously the mere recognition that he needed to accept help from an Esper like Rodeo had stirred up shame and revulsion within him. This was an unconscious part of himself that even Chalice had never dared to anticipate.
“Ten years have passed, so you’ve outgrown conversations like this? Who’s the embarrassing one here.”
Chalice leaned his weight onto the dining table, his usually straight posture bowing forward. His shoulder blades rose sharply above the thick muscles of his back, pressing against the thin fabric of his shirt until it pulled taut. He was not one to regret things easily — yet there he was, quietly sitting with his regret — and what pulled him out of that sinking feeling was the alarm that went off on his phone.
[10 o’clock meeting]
It was clearly a piece of work thrown his way as a substitute for the dedicated Guide arrangement falling through. Even now, Chalice felt that familiar dirty sensation deep inside him — like receiving charity — but when it came to the fact that he needed money, Rodeo had been right. He would put his pride to rest as of yesterday, and face reality. In the end, the dedicated Guide registration he had thought would be his last resort had also failed — which meant the apartment the facility had set him up with would need to be vacated soon as well. His original home had already been let go at a loss in the rush to leave it, and finding a new place quickly on a tight budget was not something he could afford to idle over.
Chalice bowed his head again, exhaling heavily — then lifted it as though nothing had happened, and began getting ready. The meeting location was, of all places, the facility. That meant he had no way of knowing what scheme the person who had arranged his security detail had in mind by summoning him — nor which particular pieces of garbage would come picking fights with him, nor how long he’d have to endure whatever pranks were being pulled with the Decorker.
Chalice steeled himself. Setting regret aside, in order to weather whatever trials the day might bring that he couldn’t predict, he had to consciously keep his head held high. If he responded with as much numbness as possible — as though nothing were happening, as though none of it mattered — the end of the day would ultimately come to him in peace. That was how it would be.
Even if that plan ended in a thrown punch.
At any rate — from the moment he arrived at the facility, and right up until he sent a text to Rodeo asking which room number to go to, Chalice had been feeling a faint trace of guilt and gratitude toward Rodeo. As the person most directly involved, he knew all too well how much Rodeo despised him. It was a story over twenty years old, but as though he could never forget it even for a moment, Rodeo had for years — relentlessly, with every ounce of his being — thrown himself at every turn in an attempt to block Chalice’s path forward.
It was right to feel gratitude for such a person making an offer like this. Not to let pride get in the way.
But for someone like that to have extended a hand…
No matter how he thought about it, that could only mean one thing — a question that already had its answer, pulling Chalice under: just how pitiable a state must he currently be in, to draw out that kind of sympathy. He felt an anger with no discernible direction over it, and at the same time, his own inferiority complex came crashing down on him as something shameful.
That was why he had no intention of asking for a dedicated Guide anymore. Not from Rodeo — and not from anyone. Say what you will, it had been a rejection delivered with humiliation to someone who had Time Warped ten years — and the guilt-ridden discomfort would only grow more unbearable with every time they had to face each other. And yet.
“Going forward, every time I come in for treatment, he’ll be accompanying me as my bodyguard — let’s have introductions. He’s the facility’s hero, after all — it’s been a while.”
That single line made both the gratitude and the guilt vanish entirely.
The one who had summoned him to the facility had been Rodeo all along — no one else — and Chalice had never imagined he would go so far as to mock him with talk of “the facility’s hero” — yet remarkably, he had done even that. In front of all those people gathered there, with enough power to reduce him to a Guiding machine in an instant.
Without ever once asking his opinion — he was supposed to accompany Instructor Rodeo to the facility each time, as his bodyguard, for every visit. The cruelty of it made him shake with rage. And so he had thrown a punch he hadn’t used in a long time. His body had moved before he knew it — and in that moment, he felt neither surprise nor regret.
Chalice rushed into his car and slammed the door shut behind him as though taking out his anger on it. He did not want to remain in a place like this for even one more second.
An Esper who disappeared ten years ago and came back — who exactly respects and treats me well enough to help me? Go on then, go to the facility and talk. See what happens.
The words he had spoken last night came crashing back, striking him hard inside his head. The “facility’s hero” was now a toy that Espers could push around however they liked without a word of protest — but the “unhinged Esper who disappeared ten years ago and came back” had every demand he made accepted without issue, no matter how insane it sounded. Even knowing nothing of the past ten years, Rodeo — an Esper — had everything available to him. While Chalice, knowing nothing, had been dragged to that place and stood there unable to open his mouth, Rodeo had been claiming his place there as though it were only natural.
As if that were the hierarchy between Rodeo and Chalice — the difference in where they each stood.
The sound of the horn Chalice had struck rang out loudly through the parking garage, and moments later the car sped out of the lot at high speed.
“Why are you here?”
The door to Carousel’s office burst open, and a silver-haired man stepped in uninvited.
“Oh, the… therapist.”
“It’s long past ten o’clock.”
Rodeo, sunk into the sofa, lifted only his head and offered a vague, barely-there greeting.
“I heard there was some kind of executive meeting on the schedule today. Your name came up, Rodeo-ssi.”
“Yeah, well. I had some requests to make…”
“The meeting seems to have ended a while ago… and the office owner isn’t even here.”
“Everyone’s always busy except me.”
The man walked naturally into Carousel’s office and sat down across from Rodeo. With every step, his loose trousers — clearly too large for his slender frame — flapped visibly.
“You know, Rodeo-ssi. It seems you’ve forgotten… you are also very busy.”
Rodeo, who had been deep in thought about something else entirely, looked up at those words with an expression asking for an explanation.
“Ten o’clock in the morning. Two hours every day for a month, no weekends. The rule is that you come to my office, Rodeo-ssi.”
“Ah.”
“Look at the clock. It’s well past ten thirty, and since you didn’t keep our appointment, I came looking for you.”
