The Espers and Guides, at the very least, understood what basic decency meant, so they discreetly turned away and returned to their positions, leaving the two alone.
Yu-won knew it had to be done, but he stood still for a long time, simply gazing down at Rion’s face, unable to move.
“Ahem.”
A deliberately loud cough, clearly aimed at nudging him along, finally jolted Yu-won into action. After a deep breath, he leaned in and pressed his lips to Rion’s.
Soft, flushed lips touched against Rion’s.
Still too out of it to understand what was happening, Rion couldn’t even keep his legs steady. He simply followed the motion of Yu-won’s hand like a puppet.
“Mm…”
He was that far gone. But the moment their lips fully met and a soft tongue slid into his mouth, Rion instinctively clung to Yu-won.
It was just like that first guiding—crisp, intoxicatingly refreshing. No, it was even more electrifying than that.
He felt like if he didn’t cling to this warmth, to these lips, he might never make it through.
Before he knew it, Rion had wrapped his arms around Yu-won’s neck and was kissing him back.
He didn’t know who this person in front of him was. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was how sweet—how utterly overwhelming—this kiss was.
It had started with Yu-won initiating the kiss, but somewhere along the way, he’d ended up bracing himself on the ground with one knee, surrendering his body to Rion’s embrace.
Rion, practically hanging onto him for dear life, kissed him like he’d die if they parted.
No one knew how much time passed. But by the time it was over, Rion’s eyes had regained their sharpness, as if he’d never been in poor condition at all.
“…!”
And then, finally realizing what had just happened, Rion shoved Yu-won away.
He hadn’t even pushed that hard, but Yu-won stumbled back and landed flat on his butt.
Watching Yu-won’s solid frame go down like a sheet of paper, Rion found himself more shocked than anything else.
“I—I mean, uh…”
Flustered beyond belief, Rion stammered, his face burning scarlet. It was clear just how rattled he was.
Yu-won, still frozen in place where he’d landed, blinked slowly—then turned his head away.
“Told you not to be so stubborn.”
“….”
Same insufferable tone as always. But what irritated Rion more was that he had no comeback this time.
Which only made him feel even more awkward.
He hadn’t expected things to end up like this either. It felt like he’d just thrown a tantrum by himself and now had egg on his face.
“…Th…”
Still, Yu-won had helped him, so Rion figured he should at least say thank you.
But just as he opened his mouth, he caught sight of something—and fell silent.
Yu-won had turned his back to him and was wiping his lips with his sleeve, as if trying to erase something dirty.
Rion froze.
That wasn’t just “I don’t want to look at you”—that was something else entirely.
And yeah, this wasn’t the kind of thing you could just brush off like it was nothing.
But still, it was practically CPR. Was it really necessary to act like it was the end of the world?
Rion let out a bitter laugh.
Sure, he’d been the one being stubborn and caused this mess, so it wasn’t like he had any right to complain—but still, wasn’t there a line?
“…Talk about making a fuss over nothing.”
Putting on a deliberately unaffected act, Rion scrubbed at his lips with his sleeve and shot a glare at Yu-won.
But before long, he had no choice but to step back toward him.
All they’d done was put out the fire—he still wasn’t fully guided.
“…I think I still need more guiding.”
Better to suck it up and accept a proper guiding than let his pride drag him back into another mess.
After all, it was he who’d been avoiding Yu-won, not the other way around.
If anything, Yu-won had been the one pestering him to get guided, so Rion figured he’d take his hand immediately.
Feeling awkward, he reached out.
“Hey. Can’t you hear me?”
But Yu-won didn’t turn around. Not for a long time.
Eventually, he did stretch out a hand—but even then, he remained facing away, extending it behind him with obvious indifference.
Rion pouted slightly, a hint of hurt in his expression.
Guiding flowed firmly through their joined hands, and his physical state gradually improved—but mentally, he was only getting more and more tangled up.
Yu-won ignored Rion for the rest of the Gate run.
Sure, they’d never exactly been close, but this time, the cold shoulder was blatant.
And what—did he think Rion liked this?
If Yu-won had just kept up his usual snide remarks, Rion could’ve snapped back. But instead, he made a point of avoiding him so openly that everyone else noticed.
“He must really hate me. Didn’t even look me in the eye until the boss fight was over.”
“Couldn’t even tease you. Jeez.”
Everyone else who’d entered the Gate with them felt the awkwardness too.
Guiding through mucous membrane contact was rare to begin with, and normally, to break the tension, people would crack jokes or mess around on purpose.
But this time, the mood made that impossible.
“His face was ghost white… I swear, I felt like if I teased him, I’d end up dead.”
Even Gwang-hyeon, who was usually full of mischief, couldn’t bring himself to joke.
If he had to stay quiet all the way out of the Gate, it was obvious how the others must’ve felt.
And just when Rion was already in a foul mood, the moment he returned to the Center, he was summoned by the Center Director—meaning he had to face Yu-won again.
“Have you lost your damn minds⁉”
It had been a while since Rion had seen the Center Director this angry.
Not since that day, back when Rion had gotten badly hurt in his rookie days after recklessly charging in without thinking.
Even that day didn’t compare to the fury on his face now.
“You just let it go because he didn’t want guiding? Didn’t you go through training before joining the Center, or not?”
“I did.”
“Does the manual say, ‘If the Esper refuses guiding, just shrug and let it slide’?”
“No.”
Yu-won got scolded first.
With a calm face, he bowed his head in silence.
And sure, Yu-won was the one getting yelled at, but Rion couldn’t relax either—he was the one who’d refused guiding and run away.
“You may not be officially registered as a pair, but you’re basically one. You think I assign you two together every time just because I enjoy watching you bicker?”
“…”
“Be thankful that happened at the start of the Gate. What if it had happened during the boss fight? Didn’t you say you were planning to study law? And this is the level of judgment you show? Where’s your sense of responsibility?”
The Center Director barely kept his anger in check.
Yu-won stayed quiet, not offering even a word of defense.
Anyone else might’ve argued, but he stood there, accepting the scolding without protest—and that only made Rion feel worse.
Eventually, unable to take it anymore, he spoke up.
“…He told me multiple times. I’m the one who kept avoiding him. I’m sorry.”
“Of course you did. Kang Rion, I knew you were going to pull something like this one day.”
With that, the Center Director’s fury pivoted toward Rion.
He didn’t argue. It was clearly his fault.
“I thought it’d be fine. It had been fine until now. If I’d known I’d drag the whole party down, I’d never have done it.”
Rion bowed his head as he spoke.
The thought that he’d become a liability to his party members inside a Gate was deeply unsettling.
“Your body when it doesn’t know proper guiding, and your body after proper guiding—do you really think they’re the same? And didn’t you hear this from Kang-woo too? And still let it get this bad?”
The Center Director threw a sheet of paper across the desk—it landed at Rion’s feet.
“If this is how you’re going to work, like it or not, we’ll have to force a pair registration. Don’t you remember what you said when I told you to take some time off? Acting like the whole Center would collapse without you—and this is what we get? You let your condition crash so hard that it screws with your job? This is what you call ‘keeping the Center running’?”
The paper that had landed at Rion’s feet was a pair registration form.
Technically, the Center couldn’t force it—pair registration had to be mutually agreed upon—but at this rate, they might have no choice.
“I left it to you because you said you’d handle it. I trusted you. I thought you had real conviction. Maybe I was wrong about you.”
The Center Director had always grumbled while still placing his faith in Rion. But this time, the anger was real.
Rion picked up the paper.
Yeah. It wasn’t a relationship he could avoid just because he didn’t like it.
Even he could admit he’d acted ridiculously immature.
What had he gotten into this line of work for, anyway?
And now, he’d nearly hurt people because of a personal grudge. That was unforgivable, even to himself.
Rion’s face went pale.
The thing he feared most—the worst-case scenario—had nearly come true.
He finally realized how stupid he’d been.
“…I’ll sign it.”
He reached out to the pen holder on the Center Director’s desk and pulled out a pen.
Name, age, organization—he began filling out the necessary fields, one by one.
And from across the desk, Yu-won watched him with a stiff expression.
