Maybe it was that damn dream from early dawn, but Eun-jo felt off from the moment he woke up.
He squinted hard, then reopened his eyes while flipping through the bookshelf. He wanted to stop by the infirmary for some headache meds, but he knew exactly how that would go—everyone would come running and drag him straight to the team Guiding Room.
Still, better than that… right?
Just thinking about Jin Mu-seong refusing to leave the kitchen that morning—insisting they all eat breakfast first—was enough to give him a headache. Pressing a hand to his forehead, Eun-jo pulled out a thick file from the shelf.
It was filled with material on Imprints. He’d come looking for information—whether Imprinted Espers could still receive Guiding, or if there were any ways to sever an Imprint entirely. He needed a fallback plan in case his powers didn’t return.
Book in hand, Eun-jo headed toward the large table at the center of the archive. As he pulled out a chair, the man sitting beside it turned his head.
“Oh?”
The voice was familiar.
“Guide-nim?”
The man stood up with an excited look on his face. Who was this again? Eun-jo gave a polite, slightly awkward smile, and the guy instantly pouted.
“You don’t remember me? I had a counseling session with you at the regional center!”
“Ah, chocolate!”
He was that rookie Guide—Eun-jo had given him some chocolate back then. Apparently, the nickname still stuck. The guy laughed and gave Eun-jo a playful slap on the shoulder.
“Man, you don’t even know how hard it was just to get that session with you. I did front rolls, back rolls—you didn’t see that?”
“Huh? Allergy?”
“No! Rolls! Tumbling! Your Espers guarded that place like sphinxes. Getting past them was brutal. At least a sphinx gives you a riddle—those guys just smack your forehead without warning!”
He whined about how that flick still hurt. Honestly, it hadn’t been that painful—and he probably deserved it. He was the one who kept showing up even after being told to scram.
“You really got hit?”
Eun-jo turned to him, expression serious, and peered closely at his forehead.
“Who hit you? Seriously—right there at the entrance… who?”
The guy looked like he might burst out laughing as Eun-jo seemed ready to brush his bangs aside to check for marks. This was exactly why he’d clung to Eun-jo back at the center. No one else had treated him like he actually mattered. Rookie Guides—especially low-rank ones—weren’t exactly in demand.
“I went through all that just to get a session with you, and you don’t even remember me…”
He muttered with a pout.
“That really hurts, y’know.”
“Who’d guess you were a rookie?”
Eun-jo let out a soft laugh. The guy didn’t look the part at all. Maybe it was the weariness in his eyes—or maybe it was the way he dressed—but he looked completely at home in the Central Center.
“You’ve changed a lot.”
“Right? Even my friends don’t recognize me anymore. Say I’ve lost all my country-boy vibes.”
He started rambling again, saying the air in the Central Center was different.
Getting out of the team office and chatting with someone who wasn’t an Esper felt like a breath of fresh air. Eun-jo didn’t have to think about powers, Imprints, or any of that other crap right now.
The guy seemed genuinely happy to see him, going on and on about how the food at the Central Center was better, the dorms were nicer. When he mentioned how tired the Director always looked, Eun-jo laughed like a kid.
“Oh—right!”
The guy suddenly let out a shout and slipped his hand inside his collar. What he pulled out was a name tag—the kind everyone scanned at the entrance. His name was printed right on it.
“You’re not gonna believe this, but Esper Jung Tae-seok actually got me hired! It’s a golden position, practically never opens up. He said it was my reward for that flick to the forehead!”
Beneath the grinning photo were three printed syllables. Eun-jo’s smile slowly faded as he read them.
Park Hee-won?
The protagonist of the original novel was Park Hee-won—the very man who took over as Team A’s Guide after Eun-jo died.
Park Hee-won? Seriously?
Right now? At this point in the story?
His thoughts were in complete disarray. The sudden loss of his powers, Park Hee-won’s face, the storyline from the novel—all of it kept flashing through his mind like a broken reel. A wave of dizziness hit him hard.
“Ah—!”
The binder he’d been clutching slipped from his arms, papers scattering across the floor. Just like that, it felt like all the plans he’d painstakingly laid out were unraveling in his grasp.
Park Hee-won quickly bent down to gather the documents, completely missing the ghostly pallor that had drained the color from Eun-jo’s face.
“The Security Team here? Totally ice cold. Apparently, my current position was supposed to go to the team leader’s son or maybe his nephew.”
“……”
“But then Esper Jung Tae-seok just swooped in and dropped me into it like a parachute recruit. Bam. Landed me the job.”
“……”
“Honestly, if it weren’t for Esper Jung Tae-seok, I wouldn’t have even gotten within sniffing distance of the Central Center.”
He held out the neatly collected documents with both hands.
“I was rotting away at the regional center. Dead end. Applying for that session with you? Best decision of my life. It was like winning the lottery.”
Eun-jo stared at him, face blank, mind reeling. Sensing something off, Park Hee-won tilted his head and looked at him curiously.
“Guide-nim?”
If not for Tae-seok… he never would’ve come here?
“Oh, absolutely,” Park Hee-won said with a sheepish grin, waving it off.
“I mean, someone like me ending up at the Central Center? No chance.”
Eun-jo bit his lower lip. He needed to calm down. It could just be a coincidence. Park Hee-won wasn’t exactly a common name, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
Same background, same role, same name… What are the odds of that?
The probability was microscopic. Still, Eun-jo slowly closed his eyes, then reopened them, steadying himself before asking,
“You said you’re a B-rank like me, right?”
“Huh? Yeah, that’s right!”
Park Hee-won nodded enthusiastically, a bit caught off guard by the sudden question.
Eun-jo studied his bright, unguarded expression while his mind raced. If things played out like the novel, and he ended up stepping down as a Guide, then Park Hee-won would step in to take his place.
If that’s why my Guiding ability vanished…
He didn’t necessarily believe everything would unfold exactly like the source material, but there were Espers’ lives on the line. Just thinking about Jung Tae-seok’s ragged breathing made Eun-jo’s blood run cold.
Then what am I supposed to do?
If he couldn’t perform Guiding—if he wasn’t even a Guide anymore—then what was left?
“Guide-nim? Are you okay?”
Park Hee-won reached out, lightly gripping Eun-jo’s shoulder with concern written all over his face. There wasn’t a hint of calculation in his expression. Just earnest sincerity.
Eun-jo exhaled a slow breath and called to him.
“Hee-won.”
“Yes?”
“Would you… like to have some tea?”
The corners of Eun-jo’s lips twitched upward in a stiff, trembling smile.
***
Possession stories all come with their share of clichés.
One of the most overused? The “canon-obsessed parrot.” The type of character who squawks “the original plot, the original plot!” like a broken alarm. They shove the love interest into someone else’s arms, then cry behind the scenes like martyrs. The worst kind of self-sabotage.
Eun-jo, a longtime fan of the genre, absolutely hated those types.
Why the hell would you make rice cakes just to hand them out to other people?
If the rice cake looked delicious, obviously you should eat it yourself. That’s just common sense.
From where he sat, Eun-jo stared beyond the examination room, eyes clouded and conflicted. Park Hee-won, unaware, blinked around the room like a kid who’d been tricked into following someone with the promise of pork cutlet.
He’d looked confused at first, but when Eun-jo made the request and offered to buy him something good to eat, he agreed without much fuss. Even so, Eun-jo couldn’t shake the unease gnawing in his chest.
At this very moment, Eun-jo was walking straight into the kind of storyline he hated most.
“You’re really gonna buy me something delicious if I do this?”
“Yeah. Whatever you want—I’ll get it for you.”
“Tteokbokki?”
“With fried snacks and soondae too.”
Only then did Park Hee-won’s face brighten. That innocent, simple smile made Eun-jo’s chest tighten even more.
“I’m sorry. I…”
“……”
“I’ll treat you to good food. Often. I promise.”
As if to say don’t worry about it, Park Hee-won gave him a big, sunny smile and shook his arms—jingles of straps and equipment swaying with the motion. It was like he wanted to show he was totally fine.
Eun-jo turned slightly, just enough to keep his face hidden, and scrubbed a hand down his face.
“God, what kind of mess am I dragging him into?”
He knew full well that this was unfair to Park Hee-won. He was pushing him into something without knowing the consequences. But he had no choice. If he wanted to protect the people depending on him, he couldn’t afford to ignore even the slimmest possibility.
If he really is the original story’s main character, then maybe… just maybe, he can pull off the Guiding.
If his powers never returned, he had to be ready for that day—to walk away from it all as a civilian. The image of Jung Tae-seok, trembling as he fought through the pain, flashed in his mind, and Eun-jo’s fists clenched tightly at his sides.
A staff member emerged from the testing room, having just attached a device to Park Hee-won’s wrist. Looking through the glass at him lying inside, the staffer asked,
“Just a standard rank assessment, correct?”
“Yes. And also…”
The staff member hesitated, then turned to look at Eun-jo.
“Could you also check… if he’s compatible with Team A for Guiding?”
A flicker of confusion crossed the staffer’s face. It was only natural. With four Espers already Imprinted on Eun-jo, there shouldn’t have been any need to test another Guide.
“You know the results go straight up to headquarters once they’re recorded, right?”
“…Yeah.”
With a soft whir, the cylindrical scanner pulled Park Hee-won’s body inside. Every mechanical beep that echoed from the machine made Eun-jo’s heart skip a beat. Part of him genuinely hoped the results would be good—and part of him, shamefully, selfishly, hoped they wouldn’t.
