My train of thought had reached the present.
“This might be guiding addiction.”
I grimaced self-deprecatingly.
I was trying to get some sleep, but if I actually fell asleep in this state, I’d suffer from terrible nightmares.
‘A body that can’t even sleep without guiding. I really can’t do anything without a guide.’
Before my regression, I somehow managed to endure without guiding. For a whole five years. But now that I’d properly tasted guiding, I didn’t think I could go back to the past even if I was asked to.
‘But I’m so sleepy.’
My mind knew I shouldn’t fall asleep, but my body grew heavier and my eyelids felt like they weighed tons. Someone once said sleep was one of the three basic human needs.
‘Just a little, just a very short nap.’
Unable to resist the wave of drowsiness, I finally buried my head in my curled-up knees and drifted off.
* * *
My entire body was too hot. Like my blood was boiling throughout my body, from head to toe, there wasn’t a single part that felt whole. What flowed inside me felt like lava rather than blood. The intense pain seemed to melt away even my consciousness—my lips and tongue that would cry out in pain must have melted away too, as no sound came out. It was a terrible feeling, as if the pain itself had become me.
Floundering in despair and fear, I wished I could just die, but my tenacious lifeline wouldn’t let me go so easily.
‘Why did this happen?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? It’s because you couldn’t receive guiding.’
More painful than the attacks being inflicted on me was their conversation. Voices that had been inaudible when I was on the verge of death now came alive clearly, cutting into my heart.
‘If you couldn’t receive guiding, you should have just stayed home. Why participate in the mission? We’re lucky it only erupted after the dungeon raid was over; we could’ve been caught in the crossfire.’
‘He’s been unable to control his wavelengths, stinking like spoiled milk, and now he finally erupted. And they call this an S-class Esper.’
‘Watch what you say, man.’
‘What does it matter? He’s about to die anyway. Just causing trouble for everyone.’
Whether due to heat affecting my optic nerves, I couldn’t clearly see the faces of those conversing. They were directing all blame at me, who was neither the state nor a guide.
‘Well, is it really just the Esper’s fault? I find the dedicated guide and the state more strange. Why abandon an S-class Esper?’
‘What a weirdo. Focus on attacking instead of wondering about such things. Now that the flames are under control, our attacks should be effective.’
I was approaching the end of the memory. I both desperately wanted this memory to end and wished it wouldn’t. When the memory ended, I would be completely consumed by eternal pain.
‘…10:44 PM, termination of berserk Esper Woo Jeongjae completed.’
As the memory that had been buzzing like a stretched tape ended, I returned to that moment and stopped breathing. Then I fell into an endless abyss.
“…jae-ssi…”
“Huh! Cough! Cough!”
In my dim consciousness, I heard a low voice. I hurriedly gasped for breath, then choked and coughed violently. Through it all, I clearly felt a cool minty scent mixed with the smell of water, and an energy that was calmly settling the unstable wavelengths raging within my body.
“Woo Jeongjae-ssi, are you alright?”
Before falling asleep, I’d been in a position with my knees pulled up, but when I opened my eyes, I found myself collapsed on the ground. As I blinked my dry eyes, tears that had pooled flowed down my temples, clearing my vision.
‘I don’t want to die.’
Something hot welled up inside me. The boundary between nightmare and reality was blurred.
The nightmare I’d just experienced had shaken me so deeply that my mind was in tatters. I desperately wrapped my arms around Jeong Seyeon’s neck, groping up his arms that were holding me. I was already half cradled in his arms, but I burrowed even more tightly into his embrace. As the contact area increased, I could feel his guiding flowing into my entire body.
‘I don’t want to go back to that time.’
I repeated to myself several times, trying to shake off the remnants of the nightmare.
The small space in the rock crevice was too narrow to accommodate two adult men. Despite how uncomfortable it must have been with me clinging to him, Jeong Seyeon didn’t push me away but instead embraced me back. Only after my trembling stopped and my breathing returned to normal did he cease guiding.
‘It’s Seyeon hyung again.’
I vaguely knew that nightmares became more intense when I fell asleep after using my abilities, but I didn’t expect to show him this side of me again. Both times, two out of two, I survived because Jeong Seyeon was there.
‘This is why I keep relying on him.’
Before falling asleep, I had thought I might be addicted to guiding, but now in this situation, I had no choice but to admit it was true.
“Is this position uncomfortable for you?”
His warm breath and baritone voice brushed against my nape and ear.
Only then did I realize I was hanging onto Jeong Seyeon like a koala. Embarrassment and shame washed over me like a tsunami, and I quickly unwrapped my arms from his neck and pulled away from his embrace.
“Ah…”
But separating created another problem. I was naked. Feeling Jeong Seyeon’s gaze scanning my unclothed body, an even greater embarrassment overcame me. If I had even just underwear on, it might have been different, but being completely bare without a thread on me was utterly unbearable.
“Don’t look.”
As I spoke, I covered his eyes with my hands. His long eyelashes tickled my palms.
“My eyes are closed.”
“Don’t open them, okay?”
As Jeong Seyeon nodded, the corner of his mouth seemed to lift slightly, but the change was so minimal that I thought I might have seen wrong and slowly removed my hand. Seeing Jeong Seyeon obediently keeping his eyes closed, I gently pushed his shoulder back.
“Please go out and bring me some clothes.”
“The clothes are right in front of me.”
“What do you—”
“I’ll keep my eyes closed, so would you help me take off my clothes?”
It would be a bit troublesome to undress alone in this cramped space. I almost nodded unconsciously, then noticed his attire.
Usually, even if he didn’t wear a tie, he always wore a jacket when going out, but he was only wearing a white shirt, indicating how much of a hurry he had been in.
‘Should I take his only piece of clothing to save myself?’
I wanted to maintain at least some human dignity, but out of guilt, I hesitated to answer. Then Jeong Seyeon leaned toward me.
“It’s fine, so please undress me. If it’s bothersome, you can tear off the buttons like last time.”
Did he just make a joke?
I was dumbfounded, but that comment immediately dispelled my concerns. With a solemn face, I began unbuttoning his shirt, and as his taut chest and abs were gradually revealed, I gulped. The fire I had lit before falling asleep was illuminating the corner of the rock crevice brightly, so there was no difficulty in admiring his body.
‘This is the first time I’ve seen it so clearly.’
His body was as beautiful as if a master craftsman had painstakingly sculpted it. But the upper body revealed as I removed his clothes wasn’t simply beautiful. The smooth, white skin was scattered with old scars and small wounds from injuries whose origins I couldn’t discern. My brows furrowed involuntarily.
‘What kind of work does he do to have so many scars?’
Following the wounds on Jeong Seyeon’s body, I had completely removed his shirt in an instant. His clothing had fully passed into my hands, yet I still couldn’t take my eyes off his body.
“Have you put it on?”
Jeong Seyeon asked while still keeping his eyes closed, and I hastily withdrew my hand that had been reaching toward the large, long scar on his side.
“J-just a moment.”
Like a thief caught red-handed, I stammered in embarrassment.
When I realized what I had been about to do, self-loathing washed over me.
Why had I tried to touch such a large scar?
I was already moving my arms to put on Jeong Seyeon’s shirt, but the space was so narrow that it was difficult to even insert one arm.
“It will be uncomfortable to dress, so I’ll go out and wait first.”
Jeong Seyeon probably said this because he was concerned I’d be uncomfortable dressing because of him, but I also wondered if he was avoiding my body because I had been staring so intensely. Even with his eyes closed, Jeong Seyeon slipped out through the entrance we had come in without losing composure. The entrance was so narrow that he had to bend his waist as much as possible, but even that seemed pre-calculated, as his exit was flawless.
I also came out not long after, having carefully buttoned up the shirt. Ignoring the height difference, the shirt that fit him perfectly reached down to my thighs when I wore it. In a situation without pants, this was fortunate, but it was inevitable that my pride was slightly hurt.
‘Well, this is better than exposing my lower body awkwardly with a shirt that’s too small.’
Of course, the shirt wasn’t very long, so every time I walked, the cool night breeze whistled between my legs, giving me goosebumps for a different reason than before. Still, satisfied that I had covered all the parts I wanted to hide, I approached Jeong Seyeon, who was leaning against a rock.
He was standing under the small fire I had deliberately set to keep wild animals away, arms crossed and eyes closed. His image, flawless from appearance to personality, now seemed more human like me, perhaps due to the shadows on his face, and my own expression naturally relaxed.
‘So hyung has this side too.’
After taking in his defenseless appearance once more, unaware of my approach, I called out, “Seyeon hyung.” At my call, Jeong Seyeon’s eyelids slowly opened. As the shadows of his sunken eyelids lifted, a pair of eyes was revealed. Within his blue-tinged black pupils, some emotion darker than the darkness itself flickered. But the moment Jeong Seyeon gazed at me clearly, the emotion he showed disappeared in an instant, and I was overcome with the feeling of having stolen a glimpse of something I shouldn’t have seen.
“You’re dressed now.”
As I couldn’t say anything, distracted by the look in Jeong Seyeon’s eyes, he approached me first.
His appearance was already striking, but standing there shirtless made me unsure where to look, so I lowered my head.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
