Our family home where we had lived our entire lives was reduced to ashes, and the only hollow answer we received about that day’s fire was that the cause could not be determined. Our mother, who must have been waiting for us while preparing dinner at home, wasn’t even found as a corpse and was simply processed as missing.
After that, my brother and I, completely exhausted, moved to our current house. Since our parents were an Esper and a guide, the disaster compensation was generous, and fortunately, we didn’t end up on the streets. Our parents had left behind considerable assets, so naturally, my brother and I could set up our household with that money, and we had no immediate financial difficulties.
But what we brothers, just barely 21 and 20 years old, needed wasn’t money. Feeling the absence of our mother, we slept embracing each other as pillars of support in a house with just the two of us.
And as time passed, I, at 22, welcomed Joo Seolhyeon as my dedicated guide and slept in my brother’s arms right up until I moved to the house where I would live with him.
“Hyung, are you awake?”
I only overslept that first day; after that, I was always the first to open my eyes.
Seeing my brother’s face when I woke up gave me the feeling that I was still in a dream. Three days had passed since my regression, but I was still unable to escape from the past.
Originally, I would sleep so deeply that I wouldn’t notice if someone carried me away, but after the regression, I often found myself waking up abruptly at dawn. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t sleep; every time this happened, the terrible sensation of overloading ran through my entire body. I had promised myself not to repeat the unhappy past and thought I had shaken it all off, but my body couldn’t forget the horrible moment of death.
“Yeah. Go back to sleep.”
My brother had lost sleep at dawn because of me. Feeling sorry for waking him, I hugged him from behind and gently patted his back.
“Mm.”
Perhaps because it was warm, Woo Jeonghyun’s voice stretched out lazily. Watching my brother fall back into a deep sleep, I closed my eyes too. All three guides had said they were available in the afternoon, so I had nothing scheduled for the morning. It was a day when I could just sleep in without thinking about anything.
‘I guess it’s okay to postpone the dedicated guide contract for a while longer.’
Even though I felt sorry for my brother who would be left alone at home, I hadn’t hesitated to leave after falling for Joo Seolhyeon at first sight. From a young age, I had been looking forward to the day I would be matched with a dedicated guide, watching my parents, and I was naturally prepared to leave home. That hadn’t changed even after experiencing the sudden misfortune.
But now, after sleeping face-to-face with my brother for a few days, I suddenly thought that contracting a temporary guide might have been the right choice after all.
My brother, who had seemed more mature than me in my memories, was still just a big kid longing for his family’s embrace.
‘Sleep well, my little brother.’
Listening to Woo Jeonghyun’s steady heartbeat, I also fell into a deep sleep.
In the afternoon, as lunchtime was ending, my brother and I got out of bed and ate a late breakfast that doubled as lunch. My brother, who already knew from me on the day itself that I had contracted with a temporary guide rather than a dedicated one, nodded half-heartedly when I told him that the contracts with other guides would likely be finalized today.
“Who are you contracting with today?”
At Woo Jeonghyun’s question, I tried to recall the names of candidates 1, 2, and 3.
“Jeong Seyeon, Do Wonjin, Yang…”
“Hyung, w-wait.”
I was about to mention the three names one by one, folding my fingers, when Woo Jeonghyun cut me off.
“How many in total?”
“Three. Including Yang Garam.”
After I mentioned the name that Woo Jeonghyun had cut off, his face turned serious.
“Hyung, didn’t it occur to you to discuss with me when choosing these people?”
“Huh.”
They’re my guides, not yours, right?
As if reading the hidden meaning on my face, Woo Jeonghyun let out a deep sigh.
“Don’t you realize that your brother is a guide?”
What is he trying to say with such remarks?
I narrowed my eyes at Woo Jeonghyun, who was carrying all the burden alone.
“I’ve only been active as a guide for a year, but you know this field is small. I know pretty much all the rumors about most guides.”
I had carefully checked their personal information, but nothing seemed particularly problematic.
“No, to begin with, it doesn’t make sense that you terminated the dedicated guide contract with Joo Seolhyeon, who has good character and abilities, and kept him as a temporary guide.”
Seeing Woo Jeonghyun quite agitated, it seemed he really didn’t like the three people I had chosen.
I let Woo Jeonghyun’s perception of Joo Seolhyeon go in one ear and out the other while waiting for him to continue.
“Those three, no, excluding Yang Garam since he just came up, the other two.”
Woo Jeonghyun stopped mid-sentence and looked at me cautiously.
“Why do you stop talking?”
“There’s quite a bit of talk about them among guides.”
“What kind of talk?”
“Do Wonjin is known for rough guiding, and Jeong Seyeon’s personality is a bit…”
Wait, guiding is supposed to unravel an Esper’s waves and make them comfortable, so how rough could it be? Is that a problem? And no matter how bad their personality is, it can’t be worse than Joo Seolhyeon’s.
Seeing my confused expression, Woo Jeonghyun fumbled for words and then looked at me worriedly.
“You might have a really hard time.”
I felt like a lot of words had been omitted, but I didn’t think much of it.
“It’s fine. It’s harder not receiving guiding than receiving it. What could be difficult about getting guiding?”
Knowing the moment of overloading, I didn’t take Woo Jeonghyun’s concerns to heart. The contract intentions would have already been sent to the parties involved, so it would be ridiculous to look for different guides now. Moreover, if I were to choose someone other than those two, I would have to find them among the same A and B classes, and compared to those two, the matching rates were dismally low, so I wasn’t even tempted.
“You’re saying that because you don’t know those two.”
“Have you seen them directly?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Then you’ve just heard rumors?”
Woo Jeonghyun, seemingly frustrated, messed up his own hair and turned his head away.
“Ah, whatever. I was just worried about you, but do as you wish.”
He seemed upset by my gaze, which was like looking at a child. I chuckled and patted his disheveled hair.
“If I see them directly and think they’re not right, I’ll terminate the contract and find someone else. Thanks for worrying about me.”
Receiving such affectionate concern that I had never experienced while living with Joo Seolhyeon, the corners of my mouth unconsciously turned upward. Just being able to face my brother again and have these trivial conversations was happiness to me.
“You usually don’t say such embarrassing things, what wind suddenly blew your way?”
I just smiled as I watched my brother slightly blush, seemingly shy after hearing my thanks.
It was certainly a different scene from the past, where we were busy maintaining our pride and being snippy with each other despite caring for one another.
“Really, is the sun going to rise from the west today?”
Woo Jeonghyun brushed away my hand with a shocked face at what I said jokingly.
“Hyung, even an S-class Esper shouldn’t casually talk about the end of the world.”
“Is that so?”
I burst into laughter, and Woo Jeonghyun looked at me with an inscrutable expression while tidying up his hair where my hand had touched.
“What?”
Seeing his eyes that seemed to have something to say, I asked, and Woo Jeonghyun moved his lips before finally uttering a single word.
“You’re strange.”
“What is?”
“Since the morning of the 24th, you’re definitely my brother, but you’re a bit different from usual.”
That can’t be helped. I’m not the 22-year-old Woo Jeongjae, but the 27-year-old Woo Jeongjae from the future.
But since I couldn’t tell my brother such a story, I deliberately asked more playfully.
“Don’t you think your brother has matured a bit?”
“No, if anything, you’ve become more childlike than before.”
I made a deflated expression as I heard Woo Jeonghyun’s unyielding response.
“Jeonghyun, I think you should visit an ophthalmologist.”
“You’re the one who should grow up this year. Stop leeching off your brother.”
As expected of brothers from the same lineage, we kept throwing retorts at each other without backing down, and time quickly passed. I got up first as the appointment time approached.
Woo Jeonghyun, who had been bickering with me just moments ago, saw me off with a worried face again, and I left the house saying I’d be back soon.
As I went outside, the warm spring sunlight of a perfect day for a walk settled gently on top of my head.
It was truly a perfect weather for welcoming a guide other than Joo Seolhyeon into my life.
## 2. Temporary Guide
When the government official in charge of guide matching contacted me to say that an appointment had been set, what was unexpected was that it was with Yang Garam, an S-class guide. The appointment with him, which I had thought would be the latest, was scheduled the earliest among the three.
He was a newbie who had just started his activities as a guide at the age of twenty this year, but since he had awakened as an S-class guide at 18 and caused a huge sensation, there was hardly anyone in this field who didn’t know him. Even I, who hadn’t cared about any guide except Joo Seolhyeon, could remember Yang Garam’s face.
‘I wonder if he still looks the same as back then.’
Since my memory of Yang Garam was quite favorable, I found myself increasingly expectant without realizing it. I had been like this with Joo Seolhyeon too and got badly burned, so I needed to suppress my excitement as much as possible.
The trees at the entrance of the center, full of warm spring energy, had already shed their cherry blossoms and were sprouting leaves. As I entered through the center’s door with a light step, the staff sitting at the information desk recognized me and bowed their head.
The place I had chosen to meet Yang Garam was a private room within the center. While the reception room where I had met Joo Seolhyeon was a public space, the private room was an extremely personal space provided by the center to Espers.
The reason I specifically chose this space for making the contract was to express my own intention that I wasn’t taking this lightly just because it was a temporary guide.
Not long after I arrived first and opened the room, the familiar-faced government official I had seen before visited the room with a tall, handsome young man.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
