Out of Guide 6

Tension automatically built up in my jaw and between my eyebrows, making my head throb. It’s always like this. By now, I was sick of myself.

“I’m sorry.”

Yang Garam bowed his head to me, who was completely tangled up inside. I turned to look at him without relaxing my furrowed expression. Yang Garam’s face bore a pitiful light, as if he might cry at any moment.

Are you hurting too?

I almost asked that, forgetting the situation. That is, if Yang Garam’s hand hadn’t touched the wrinkle settled between my eyebrows.

“…”

“I made a mistake. So don’t make that expression.”

I could feel the energy flowing from his fingertips soothing and embracing my energy that was seeping out sharply. I slowly blinked my eyelids as my muscles relaxed involuntarily. I quietly observed thousands of needles that I had been pointing at myself scattering like dandelion seeds.

In that moment, I realized one thing with almost disheartening ease: those five years of being conditioned by Joo Seolhyeon weren’t something I could fix simply by trying hard. No matter how much I struggled, I would end up hurting myself.

“Okay.”

This wasn’t something Yang Garam needed to apologize for. He certainly had no obligation to care for my personal emotions. But I didn’t stop his hand as it moved from between my eyebrows to the top of my head. I let him gently stroke my hair.

If I couldn’t comfort myself, then at least not rejecting a touch that treated me preciously was the way to take care of myself. I would receive plenty of guiding that I couldn’t get from Joo Seolhyeon, and plenty of love that I didn’t receive from him. Without shame, I decided to gladly accept this kindness.

“Thank you, Garam.”

When Yang Garam’s hand came down to my cheek, I smiled, gently rubbing my cheek against his hand.

“I feel better now, thanks to you.”

I could feel his hand on my cheek stiffen unnaturally. I had been looking down, but when I raised my head in confusion, I met Yang Garam’s eyes, which seemed to be experiencing an earthquake in their pupils. Yang Garam, whose face had turned bright red in an instant, looked flustered, not knowing where to set his gaze. Yet his hand didn’t leave my cheek, even though the guiding had already ended earlier.

“By the way, what have you been hiding behind your back?”

I ignored Yang Garam’s awkward behavior and nodded toward whatever he had been hiding behind his back.

Yang Garam took even the hand he had removed from my cheek and put it behind his back, showing an attitude of trying to hide something completely. I faintly heard the rustling sound of paper and looked toward the table.

“Is that the contract?”

The contract document that had been on the table was gone.

“Yes.”

Yang Garam finally extended his hand forward hesitantly. In his hand was the document we had just contracted. Perhaps conscious of my gaze, Yang Garam bowed his head deeply.

“Why did you…”

I was about to ask why he was hiding it, when Yang Garam suddenly lifted his head.

“You won’t terminate the contract, right?”

“…”

“We just had a good time, didn’t we?”

I alternately looked at Yang Garam, who was saying something strange as if he had seen it somewhere, and the document. I understood his meaning a beat late.

You were hiding the document with one hand while guiding me with the other because you were afraid I would terminate the contract?

When I made an incredulous expression out of bewilderment, Yang Garam, with a thoroughly intimidated face, secretly hid the contract behind his back again.

“…Will you?”

Anyone watching would think I was about to burn that document with fire.

Yang Garam, who was watching me closely, was looking at me with an expression like a puppy abandoned in a box on a rainy day.

“I won’t.”

For some reason, my mouth tasted bitter as I stated the obvious. I’m not such garbage that I would terminate a contract less than an hour after making it, but because of Yang Garam, who was giving me a look like he had already been abandoned, I had to feel unnecessarily uneasy.

“Really?”

Seeing him confirm again, I could roughly imagine how I must appear to him, so I raised my hand and pressed hard between my eyebrows. Sure enough, wrinkles had formed on my forehead without me realizing it. Though the anger directed at myself had already been dissolved by his guiding, Yang Garam seemed quite shocked by my habit of furrowing my brow when I didn’t understand something.

If you wonder when this habit started, it was probably after meeting Joo Seolhyeon. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant past, so I deliberately cut off the thought and said to Yang Garam:

“I have no intention of terminating the contract.”

I firmly nailed it down so he could feel reassured.

“I like you.”

A bright smile, like when we first met, appeared on Yang Garam’s face. He rushed in and hugged me abruptly. I was about to ask if this was guiding again, but this time it wasn’t. It was purely an action that came from joy in this moment.

“Thank you. I’ll really do well, hyung.”

I had the illusion that he was wagging a large, invisible tail vigorously. That’s how blindly Yang Garam was looking at me. A smile escaped at that look.

“Yeah, I know.”

You probably won’t hurt me, so you pass.

Thinking that I just needed the other two candidates to pass, I patted Yang Garam’s back for a long time as he showed no signs of letting go. Except for my brother, it was a warmth from another person I had never felt before, but it felt better than I expected.

Yang Garam had another appointment afterward and had to forcibly detach his reluctant feet. With eyes dripping with regret, he repeated several times, “I’ll contact you, please answer my calls,” but I just nodded casually and pushed his back, telling him to go quickly.

“Go now, you’ll be late.”

“Do I really have to go?”

“Yes, go.”

We were having a conversation that went in circles right in front of the door, which led directly outside when opened. It really needed a period now.

“If you don’t go now, I won’t answer your calls.”

“I’m going.”

Yang Garam immediately grabbed the doorknob and turned it. As he walked out through the door that opened too easily, he turned to look at me one last time.

“Jeongjae hyung.”

Yang Garam’s hand shot through the door gap and grabbed the back of my head. In an instant, his lips touched mine, and the smacking sound brought me to my senses.

“I’m off.”

Though it was just a light peck like a child might do, Yang Garam waved at me with a happy smile as if he owned the world. And then, before I could say anything, he was already running across the corridor in the distance.

What is this, like a puppy kissing its owner because it’s happy?

I chuckled, having a rough idea of what feelings led him to bump his lips against mine, and then touched my mouth.

“I should stop smiling. I’ll get attached.”

I would accept his kindness, but I had no intention of giving him my affection yet. He was still just a temporary guide. It wouldn’t be too late to give him affection after he became a dedicated guide.

I closed the door Yang Garam had opened and disappeared through, came back into the room, and looked at the clock hanging on the wall. The appointment with Jeong Seyeon was at 6 PM. I had met Yang Garam at 3 PM, and the current time was 4 PM.

‘There are two hours left until the next appointment, so maybe I’ll take a walk nearby.’

Perhaps because I had been receiving continuous guiding from Yang Garam, my body had been feeling languid. With the nice weather outside, it seemed better than staying indoors.

‘It’s a shame the cherry blossoms have fallen.’

The street where the center was located had cherry trees as street trees. Since it was entering late spring, the flowers had all fallen, but this place was quite famous during the flowering season. The reason the center was deliberately located in the suburbs, away from the city center, was because it was a training facility for Espers, but regardless of that fact, people came to this secluded place every spring to see the cherry blossoms.

‘The center must be thinking it’s fortunate that the cherry blossoms have fallen.’

This cherry tree-lined path extended all the way to the riverside, which wasn’t far away. I enjoyed the leisure I had found after a long time and naturally moved toward the riverside.

“…”

After walking a short distance, I could see the flowing stream. Since the water was shallow and the width was narrow, there were stepping stones placed at intervals. I jumped across the stepping stones, lightly touched the water with my toes, and watched the birds that had come down to the riverside to catch fish. The wind was cool, and the spring sunshine was warm, making me lose track of time as I played.

“Oh, what time is it?”

After sitting on a bench on the walking path for a moment, I took out my phone to check the time just in case, and fortunately, it was only 5 PM. It felt like not even 30 minutes had passed, but I suddenly realized that I was getting too excited like a child for the hour that had disappeared in an instant.

‘It can’t be helped. It’s been a really long time since I walked around freely like this in this body.’

Before the regression, I couldn’t wander around freely like this because my risk level for overloading was high.

After my brother died, even though I had no reason to meet anyone except for official business, the state cut me off from the outside world, saying it was dangerous.

It wasn’t imprisonment, but I had to wear a control device with a location tracking function on my ankle, and I had to respond diligently to the calls that came every morning, noon, and evening. I knew even then that it was quite inhumane, but I couldn’t protest.

Because in that situation, which was caused by not receiving guiding, I was the one who stubbornly refused to change my dedicated guide.

“I should head back soon.”

It was the moment I turned away from the riverside, shaking off the bitter memories.

“…!”

The waves around me twisted abnormally, and the ground shook as if there was an earthquake. It wasn’t an actual earthquake, but the dungeon wave that occurs when a dungeon appears.

‘It’s in the water.’

With five years of field experience, I instantly discovered the source. Alien energy was leaking from the place where the surrounding waves were most distorted. I couldn’t measure it accurately, but I instinctively knew. This was at least a B-class dungeon or higher.

Author: Hyacinthus B

Hyacinthus