“Nice to meet you.”
The man with a bright, cheerful face greeted Yu-won. Yu-won shook his hand and introduced himself.
“I’m Lee Yu-won.”
“It’s great having two young S-rank Guides at the Center now. Oh, and by the way, Yu-won is Rion’s matching Guide.”
Ji-soo added as she looked at Yu-won.
“Jin-ha, you probably haven’t had your matching rates checked with the Center’s Espers yet, but usually, anything over 70 percent is considered high. But with Rion and Yu-won, their rate is 99 percent.”
Ji-soo puffed up her shoulders with pride, boasting on Yu-won’s behalf since he remained expressionless.
Jin-ha responded with an easy smile.
“That’s amazing. I heard that when the matching rate’s that high, they usually register as a pair. So… are they a pair?”
The question could’ve easily made things awkward. Ji-soo flinched and glanced at Yu-won. Anyone working at the Center knew how much those two hated each other. But the newcomer clearly had no idea, and every innocent question he asked felt like a live grenade.
“My partner didn’t want to.”
“Ah.”
Jin-ha fell silent at the cold reply. Unless he was completely oblivious, he would’ve understood what that meant. Rejecting a 99 percent match said enough.
“Ahem. Well, pairing’s pretty rare anyway. It’s not like a high matching rate means you have to form a pair, so don’t worry about that.”
Ji-soo jumped in, trying to ease the tension. She’d gone out of her way to drag Yu-won out of his room—he rarely left—to introduce him to another S-rank Guide in hopes they’d get along. So far, not very promising.
“Still, it’s nice to have another Guide our age around. We probably won’t run into each other much in Gates, but I look forward to working with you.”
Jin-ha smiled at Yu-won again. Unlike the curt Yu-won, his expression remained open and friendly.
As he’d said, it was rare for a Gate to require two S-rank Guides. The chance of Yu-won and Jin-ha meeting inside one was slim.
“It’d be best if we never had to meet in a Gate. Still, I hope we get along well inside the Center.”
“Yes. I look forward to it.”
Yu-won nodded quietly.
His reputation inside the Center wasn’t exactly glowing thanks to his constant fights with Rion, but Yu-won got along fine with the other Guides.
Though he and Rion were at each other’s throats almost daily, Yu-won was always polite to other Espers and Guides. He was a bit blunt and never made the first move, but Ji-soo still found herself wanting to look after him.
It’d be nice if Jin-ha became his friend, she thought, and with that, she tried to lighten the mood.
“Let’s all get along, fellow Guides.”
“Sounds good.”
“Yes.”
The air, which had briefly gone tense during the pair talk, soon relaxed like nothing had happened. The conversation continued casually until someone’s tablet chimed with a ding.
“Oh, not mine.”
“Ah, that’s me. They’re calling me in to check matching rates with the Espers.”
Jin-ha held up his tablet as he stood.
“They said they’ll go through all the unpaired high-rank Espers one by one… It’s going to take a few days.”
“The world’s moving forward fast, but why is the matching scanner still stuck in the Stone Age? Geez. Good luck.”
Ji-soo grumbled about the outdated scanner tech. Yu-won, having gone through the same long, tedious process himself after his pair registration was canceled, nodded in agreement.
“If someone with a high match rate shows up again, the whole Center’s going to go nuts. Right, Yu-won?”
After Jin-ha left, Ji-soo asked Yu-won. His image in the Guide Center wasn’t terrible, but he wasn’t exactly chummy with others either.
Ji-soo was the only one he talked to personally, and she often went out of her way to check in on him.
“Even if no one hits 90 percent, someone around… 80 would still make this a lucky year.”
Yu-won wasn’t naturally outgoing, but he wasn’t the type to push people away either, so he and Ji-soo got along reasonably well.
Yu-won nodded again and added,
“True. But… I also read an article once that speculated how years with a lot of newly awakened S-rank Espers and Guides also tend to have more dangerous Gates. So I’m a bit concerned.”
“Oh, that old superstition? Don’t worry about that. We get dangerous Gates every year.”
Ji-soo waved him off. She knew about the superstition too but didn’t buy into it.
“I heard people said the same thing when Rion first appeared, but that year was apparently one of the smoothest ever. No major Gates, and they even got an extra S-rank Esper? Total win.”
“Gate appearances are totally random, seriously,” she said with a laugh.
“So don’t stress about it too much. Oh, looks like a team returning from a mission just arrived. Everyone’s tablets are going off.”
As they chatted, both Yu-won’s and Ji-soo’s tablets started ringing with new alerts. Yu-won stood and picked his up.
“Then I’ll head back to my room.”
“Sure, take care!”
Yu-won left to return to his room for a guiding session.
S-rank Guides had to prioritize high-rank Espers, and today, one of the now-familiar A-rank Espers was listed on his tablet.
A little while later, once the guiding session was complete and Yu-won began reviewing the Center’s internal updates via his tablet, his expression darkened.
***
“Whoa, we’re the same age? Nice! It’s actually hard to find people our age.”
Rion, who had been summoned for a matching rate test with Jin-ha, greeted him cheerfully. The Center was crowded, but people the same age as Rion were oddly rare.
There were plenty of twenty-three and twenty-five-year-olds—but not many twenty-fours. Outside of the Center, Rion had no chance to meet anyone, so Jin-ha felt like a breath of fresh air.
“And since you’re S-rank, I feel like we’ll probably see each other a lot.”
“But don’t you already have a matching Guide? Gate assignments go by matching rate anyway, and in the Center… would you really need to see another Guide?”
“…Well, you never know how things’ll go.”
Rion shrugged. As he said, he generally didn’t match well with Guides, and the odds of a second Guide with a 99 percent match were slim to none.
But Rion really couldn’t stand Yu-won. If his rate with Jin-ha came out to even 50 percent—hell, even 40—he was planning to switch to getting guided by him instead.
“It’s not like we can only meet in Gates, right? I mean, unless you end up pairing with someone else, I wouldn’t feel bad asking for guiding.”
“True… but ideally, you should be getting guided by your matching Guide.”
“Hahaha.”
Jin-ha glanced at Rion’s expression and chuckled. He’d already picked up on the bad blood between Rion and Yu-won earlier, but he was starting to suspect the issue wasn’t Yu-won.
Because Yu-won didn’t seem to dislike Rion at all.
“…Well. You’ve probably heard already, but my matching Guide is Lee Yu-won. And the guy is seriously the rudest person I’ve ever met…”
Rion grumbled with a face full of resentment. He couldn’t deny that Yu-won’s guiding was absolutely euphoric—but he hated the person behind it.
“So yeah, we might not run into each other much in Gates, but I’ll probably put in requests pretty often, so I hope you’ll be okay with that.”
That’s why Jin-ha felt like such a godsend. Even with a lower match rate, an S-rank Guide’s quality would still beat out most others.
“Alright then, let’s measure our matching rate.”
Come on, 40 percent. No—35 would be enough. That way, he could avoid Yu-won except when absolutely necessary and get guided by Jin-ha instead.
As long as it wasn’t as bad as that one time, it’d be fine… With that thought, Rion quietly placed his hand on the scanner.
“Oh, it’s out.”
A moment later, the Center Director, standing in front of the scanner, read out the result.
“Wow, you’re seriously lucky this year, huh? Might as well buy a lottery ticket on your way home. You keep this up, you’re bound to win something.”
At that, Rion shot to his feet and checked the matching rate himself.
“…With this, I don’t have to get guided by Yu-won anymore, right?”
“Well, I mean… it’s not a perfect substitute, but yeah, you won’t have to rely on him every time anymore.”
A bright smile lit up Rion’s face.
Good. This is enough for now. Thinking that, he reached out and took Jin-ha’s hand.
“Looking forward to working with you, Jin-ha.”
The number glowing on the scanner was 51. Not high, not low—just enough to mark a new beginning.
