Hyun Tae-oh’s lips curled ever so slightly, barely a smile, as he stared at the tablet screen—clearly amused by Kang Chi-yu’s cuteness.
Because they’d signed a temporary pair contract today, Kang Chi-yu’s scheduled guiding session—originally set for this morning—had been canceled.
Tae-oh couldn’t help thinking, If I’d known this ahead of time, I would’ve just signed the contract with him sooner. He’d always felt uneasy about Chi-yu doing contact guiding with random Espers.
Unlike Espers, who were assigned to patrol fixed gate locations or sent on support missions elsewhere, Guides had to take shifts at the center and guide whoever applied. There just weren’t enough of them to be picky.
Tae-oh understood the necessity, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
It was a shame, really—he’d spent his whole life not caring about Pairs or Imprinting, only to realize now how damn convenient and comfortable it all was.
He checked the time on his tablet, then tapped on his schedule.
“Wait, J-02? Weren’t you in charge of all of P-01? When did that change?”
Kang Chi-yu, peering over his shoulder to get a better look at the screen, tilted his head and asked.
In doing so, he unknowingly leaned in closer—so close their bodies were nearly touching. But too surprised by the sudden schedule change, Chi-yu didn’t notice a thing.
Tae-oh, on the other hand, stared at the smooth, well-groomed strands of Chi-yu’s hair now dangling right in front of his eyes.
He’d come to a strange realization not long ago: for some reason, Chi-yu was the only person he could stand being this physically close to.
Not even his parents were exempt from his near-pathological need for personal space. Yet with Chi-yu, it just… didn’t apply.
He’d long since stopped wondering why. And he’d given up the theory that it was just because they’d been friends for years.
No matter how many times he mulled it over, there was no satisfying answer. The only truth was that this obsessive boundary of his simply didn’t activate around Kang Chi-yu.
And he was certain that it was entirely Chi-yu’s fault that he now felt this way—after dodging him for two weeks like some guilty little punk.
“Last week, maybe? I kept getting flooded with support missions from other regions. Cleaning up all of P-Zone on my own was getting out of hand, so I asked for a reassignment.”
The P-Zone.
More specifically, the P-01 subzone that Tae-oh had been handling alone. It had far more monsters than any other area.
Normally, zones were divided between two teams—one that handled gate clearings and another that managed monster habitats—but P-Zone was so bad that no one wanted it. That’s why Tae-oh took it on solo.
The monster population was overwhelming, and gates could open without warning, making the zone especially volatile. It was dangerous enough that Espers and Guides had died there.
The job? Keep the habitat’s monster numbers in check through regular exterminations. And Hyun Tae-oh, with his SS-rank, was perfect for it.
The monsters often roamed in aggressive packs, and you couldn’t even destroy the Ridune energy sources in the area—it was just one hassle after another.
There was a time, long ago, when no one had cleaned the habitat at all. The monsters bred like crazy, eventually spilling into other zones and even civilian areas. The death toll was horrifying. The damage, catastrophic.
In response, the government mandated routine clean-ups by Espers.
Wiping them out completely would’ve been easier, but the Ridune they produced made that impossible.
And so, Hyun Tae-oh had been in charge of the P-Zone. Until now. Now he’d been moved to J-Zone.
“Yeah, there have been a ton of emergencies lately. So I’ll be working in J-02 all week? I seriously thought I was screwed, stuck running myself ragged in P-Zone.”
“Yep.”
“Then who’s handling P-Zone now?”
“No clue. They split it between three S-ranks.”
It would’ve been nice if he’d named them for the shoot, but Tae-oh never paid attention to other people in the first place. Asking him would’ve been pointless.
Chi-yu nodded with an effort and set the tablet down on the table.
“Two hours left.”
While Chi-yu muttered to himself, wondering how to kill time, Tae-oh stayed as unbothered as ever.
Just as the director instructed—“Act like you usually do.”—he leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes like he could actually fall asleep right then and there.
Given how much of his off-duty time was spent sleeping, this was nothing out of the ordinary. But Chi-yu wasn’t about to sit in front of the camera, alone and awkward, for two whole hours.
He quickly called out.
“Don’t fall asleep, Hyun Tae-oh.”
Tae-oh’s eyelids lifted slowly at the sound of his name.
His lashes—absurdly long ones—filled Chi-yu’s view.
For someone with sharp, narrow eyes, Tae-oh’s lashes were somehow longer than Chi-yu’s, whose eyes were objectively bigger.
“Uh… should we talk about when we were kids or something?”
Chi-yu glanced at the camera that had been filming only him this whole time, trying not to look too uncomfortable.
Seriously, having a personal camera focused on just me the whole time is way too much.
Click.
Tae-oh let out a low chuckle as he looked at Chi-yu.
“Cute.”
He didn’t say what was cute or who he was talking about. The subject was conveniently missing—as always. And it was too awkward to press him for clarification, so Chi-yu just rolled his tongue against the inside of his cheek in frustration.
“What, you want me to play pat-a-cake with you or something?”
Tae-oh smirked, clearly enjoying himself as he teased.
Chi-yu raised an eyebrow and shot him a look that screamed, Are you seriously laughing at that?
“Should we talk about the time you peed yourself as a kid?”
The moment those words left Chi-yu’s mouth, Tae-oh’s expression went stone cold.
“You remember that? When I was eight?”
Chi-yu didn’t remember the details perfectly, but back then, Tae-oh had just been confirmed as an SS-rank Esper—at eight years old. Naturally, he’d become the center of attention, swarmed by people desperate to get close to him.
Some even tried to yank out his hair as a keepsake.
It got to the point where he used his abilities—illegally—on civilians. He was just a kid, but the disciplinary action came down hard.
That experience, on top of his existing aversion to people, sent him spiraling. His contact phobia worsened. His germophobia reached obsessive levels. Eventually, he refused to even hold face-to-face conversations with others.
For most kids, even ones who liked people, that kind of relentless attention disguised as affection would have led to deep trust issues. But Tae-oh? He hadn’t even liked being touched by his parents to begin with. This was just the final push.
In the end, the only person he let stay near him was Kang Chi-yu—his childhood friend, someone who’d always been there.
Not that he was particularly warm to Chi-yu either.
But his parents, desperate over his refusal to do contact guiding, had turned to Chi-yu for help—the one person Tae-oh hadn’t pushed away.
Back then, Chi-yu wasn’t even confirmed as a Guide. He was just a kid who happened to give off a faint guiding aura—barely enough to be noticed.
But there was no choice. Tae-oh had reached his limit. Even medication couldn’t keep the surges under control anymore.
Still, even then, Tae-oh wouldn’t let Chi-yu touch him. With no other options, they resorted to full-day remote guiding sessions, locked in a room together.
And even then, Tae-oh had told him not to come any closer.
So they sat there with a bed between them—Chi-yu on one side, trying to guide just as his mom had taught him. Tae-oh eventually fell asleep under the flow of remote energy.
And then he wet himself in his sleep.
When he woke up and started crying, Chi-yu, still just a little kid himself, took off his own underwear and handed it over.
That memory came flooding back, and Chi-yu froze—realizing he’d just dug up a story that made both of them look ridiculous.
The kid with crippling germophobia had worn someone else’s underwear like it was nothing. And Chi-yu had spent the rest of the day commando, wearing just pants.
No matter how you spun it, they both took damage in that story.
“We’re filming, Chi-yu.”
Tae-oh gave him a look that said, Are you really planning to say all that on camera?
And for some reason, that smug expression triggered a weird, petty defiance in Chi-yu.
“Of course I know. That’s why I’m saying it. Viewers’ll love it—”
“The part where you took off your underwear and gave it to me, and we sat in a room together with a bed between us?”
Tae-oh’s voice dropped low, almost purring as he smirked—his tone dripping with mockery and amusement.
“If you’re that eager to let the world know we shared underwear, I’m game.”
“Y-You…!”
Chi-yu’s face flushed bright red.
“C-Can we delete that?!”
He turned and shouted at the director behind the camera.
The director violently shook his head in response.
Tae-oh chuckled under his breath, clearly enjoying the show.
“You think this is funny?!”
“Then why are you acting so out of character?”
“Because we’re filming! I’m trying here!”
“Didn’t you hear the director? Just act like yourself.”
“If you really acted like yourself, you’d go out on a mission, come home, eat, and sleep. You think that’s entertaining?”
“Isn’t that what they want?”
“Do you seriously think people tuned in to watch that?”
“Why do you even care what some strangers think, Chi-yu?”
Tae-oh turned to him, gaze sharp and focused for once.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to care about what your one and only friend thinks instead?”
“…Who said you’re my only friend?”
“I am.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Name one other friend.”
“I have plenty.”
“Who?”
Tae-oh’s expression instantly chilled.
