Once she confirmed that every gaze in the conference room had gathered in one place, the Director slowly opened her mouth.
“Right now, our Center possesses technology that falls short of no specialized institution in any country. From our systems to our training facilities, there are more places that come here specifically to tour our environment.”
Judging that a boring explanation was beginning, Ji Gwan-young’s posture tilted slightly askew. Tae-hoon nudged his Esper with his elbow.
“But about thirty years ago, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say we were an outdated institution that had fallen out of everyone’s interest. There was no training system for Espers, no design for a place capable of handling their power, and Guide management amounted to little more than scribbling on a few documents.”
Choi Tae-hoon had once heard that from the moment an Intelligence-type Esper became aware of themselves as an Esper, they could never forget anything they saw, heard, learned, or acquired until the day they died. So he had once asked Oh Yeon whether that was really true.
Instead of answering, Oh Yeon had, unusually, laughed out loud. At the time, Tae-hoon had thought that laugh meant, “Of course not.”
“That was how it was until that man entered The Center.”
But now, Choi Tae-hoon wondered whether the meaning behind that laugh had actually been a bitter affirmation. The Director’s eyes felt exactly like that. When their gazes met, Tae-hoon stammered as he asked,
“By that man, you mean…….”
“The person who created the definition of Esper—in other words, the concept of power. It should have come up in Guide education as well. ‘The first unmeasurable Esper.’”
For the first time, interest flickered in Ji Gwan-young’s eyes, which had looked bored the entire time. His Guide had been right. Even the damn Center education did have some useful parts. Gwan-young thought that as he chewed the last remaining piece of ice from his takeout cup.
“No one knows that person’s name. Everyone simply called him ‘Teacher.’ He never gave his name either. He came to this place when it was barely more than a signboard, and in exactly ten years, The Center obtained the foundation for everything you now take for granted.”
The matching system, anti-Esper training grounds, training programs……..
As the Director named, one by one, the things called The Center’s pride, her eyes sank slightly, as though tracing old memories.
“A genius whose limits no one dared fathom……. Yes, that was the ‘Teacher.’ Sometimes I even had this thought. No matter how much of an Esper he was, he was still human…… was it possible for a human being to be like that?”
Her words sounded almost like she was talking to herself.
The Director herself was also one of the most distinguished Intelligence-type Espers. Just the fact that she entered The Center in her early twenties, rose through the ranks without pause, and reached her current position was enough to show her ability. But in her voice as she explained the “Teacher,” there was even a slightly uncomfortable reverence. However, the Director immediately shook off that lingering emotion.
“But he, the ‘Teacher,’ began doing something with that ability that should never have been done.”
In truth, this was something the Director herself had never wanted to say aloud. What she was speaking of now was a fragment of the past that was also the most fatal shame carried by a severe perfectionist like her. The Director swallowed a breath, then slowly spoke as if confessing a sin.
“The cultivation of the perfect Guide. To create a special Guide with the power to show a high matching rate with any Esper. To create a ‘person’ for that purpose. I admit it. That act was unquestionably inhumane and immoral.”
“……”
“As soon as The Center had settled into place, Teacher immersed himself in that research. Nearly half of The Center’s annual budget was poured into it every year, and the researchers, including myself, turned a blind eye to it……. Only after seeing countless amounts of blood were we able to stop it.”
Her expression contained all kinds of emotions. Some researchers even lowered their heads at the sight of that face, which could not be fully described by a light word like regret. Choi Tae-hoon took that in, then brought out the question that had remained deep in his heart for days like a tangled skein of thread that refused to come undone.
“May I ask how something like that is possible? A Guide compatible with any Esper is honestly……. impossible, isn’t it?”
Guide Lee Hansol. He had clearly declared to Tae-hoon that Ji Gwan-young was “his Esper.” He had even said he could make him his Pair.
Since that had kept bothering him, Tae-hoon had even subtly probed Ji Gwan-young after regaining consciousness. Of course, Gwan-young had dismissed it as useless nonsense and kept silent about what happened afterward.
The Director quietly stared at Tae-hoon’s face for a few seconds before speaking in a somewhat drained voice.
“Would it be easier to understand if I said a Guide who had once been an Esper?”
“Who had once been an Esper?”
“A being whose entire nature had been completely mutated, all abilities castrated, and who was made to live only for Espers……. In the end, someone who became neither Guide nor Esper. We created ‘something like that.’”
Ji Gwan-young glanced at his Guide’s complexion, which looked slightly pale. Someone so upright and good that his heart could genuinely be moved by things others had done without hesitation.
Whenever Gwan-young saw Tae-hoon like this from so close, he often thought that if there was anything about his Guide he had to protect, perhaps it was precisely expressions like these.
“Lee Hansol is the only child who survived among the thousands, tens of thousands of experiments.”
The Director ended in a somewhat bitter voice.
***
Their matching rate had dropped.
To be precise, the minimum matching rate had dropped. “85.7.”
Of course, even that much placed them among the top ranks of ordinary Pairs, but Choi Tae-hoon found himself frowning at the number without realizing it. The maximum matching rate was soaring well past the 150s and even hitting 170 percent, but because of that, the gap with the minimum number had become far too large.
Since the matching rate itself was extremely delicate, Mihyun’s explanation that it fluctuated depending on condition did not comfort Tae-hoon at all. Ji Gwan-young, who had briefly stopped by between filming to take the test, noticed it immediately even in that short moment.
Recently, his Pair Choi Tae-hoon’s condition had not been good at all.
“Choi Tae-hoon.”
“……Yes.”
For some reason, his drooping shoulders were different from the usual Tae-hoon, who always maintained a posture so proper it was almost rigid. So Gwan-young wanted to say something, anything. The dark brown eyes where his usual liveliness could not be found looked a little tired.
Ji Gwan-young let his words trail off slightly.
“No, nothing. Just.”
Words that, when directed at the people of The Center, were endlessly sharp and smoothly assembled with their blades raised, only circled clumsily like this whenever he stood before Tae-hoon.
Throughout his ride back to the filming location, Ji Gwan-young kept worrying about Choi Tae-hoon. He looked weak. Could it be because of the matching rate? What was so important about that? At most, if you looked at the maximum number…….
Gwan-young had all sorts of thoughts, and only right before the shoot began did he think, I should’ve just asked him if something was wrong.
Only then did that brilliant mind of his realize that he had wasted effort on useless things when the easiest method had been right there. Ji Gwan-young was clumsy in relationships with people. Even more so when it came to relationships he cherished.
Throughout filming, he thought only of Choi Tae-hoon. During breaks, he considered calling to ask, but forced himself to suppress the urge. He figured that rather than contacting him for barely a few minutes whenever he could squeeze in time, it would be better to go find his Guide as soon as filming ended.
It was a relief that he was an Esper. His body could easily handle a schedule that would exhaust any ordinary Middle.
Meanwhile, Guide Choi Tae-hoon was, just as expected, the very embodiment of low spirits. What Ji Gwan-young would absolutely never know, however, was that the reason for that depression was himself.
Lying sprawled on his bed, Choi Tae-hoon stared at the matching paper he had brought from The Center, then crumpled it up and threw it away.
Choi Tae-hoon had no confidence right now. He had not known the weight carried by the name Guide was so great. From the time he first manifested as a Guide at five until he turned twenty-eight, he had never thought being a “Guide” was something so grand that it could create and sacrifice countless people.
And yet now, they said he was the Guide of the Pair with the highest matching rate. They said “Ji Gwan-young,” that strongest Esper, belonged to him.
In reality, that man was terrible to him. The arrogant man who did not listen to anyone else and acted as he pleased to an unbearable degree was the only one who held only Tae-hoon’s hand, smiled at him…… and kissed him.
How long had he spent lying blankly with the blanket pulled over his head?
His phone alarm rang noisily. It was time to go receive mental care at The Center. Guides visit a mental care counselor twice every week without fail. Truthfully, there had been a time when he wondered whether he no longer needed to go, but right now, he definitely felt like he wanted to confess something to someone.
Choi Tae-hoon forced his body, which refused to move, to sit up.
It had not been long since The Center established a Guide mental care system. The mental care system had begun based on the fairly plausible reverse idea that if Espers found mental stability through the existence of Guides, then the Guides supporting them would need something corresponding to that as well. What was amusing was that the first to support it had not been Guides, but Espers.
“You definitely look like you have something on your mind today.”
Tae-hoon, who had been blankly lost in thought for a moment, flinched at the low voice directed at him and raised his head. The mental care counselor was a fairly elderly middle-aged man, always wearing an easygoing eye-smile.
He was also the only person who had smiled good-naturedly in the subzero atmosphere when Ji Gwan-young had kissed him in the middle of the hallway before.
“Ah, yes, well, it’s not much…… My Pair’s matching rate dropped a little.”
“Oh. The Pair that boasts The Center’s highest numbers? How much did it drop?”
“The low score was originally in the high nineties, but it dropped to the mid-eighties……. I know I sound spoiled.”
Tae-hoon answered hesitantly, then gave a small sigh-like laugh and added the self-reproach. For the first time, the counselor’s face turned serious at that smile.
“Didn’t it once fall into the sixty-percent range before?”
“Ah, yes. Briefly.”
That had been when his Esper, who hated people terribly, had been pushing him away with all his might. Choi Tae-hoon let out a small laugh, feeling as though that incident had somehow become something from the very distant past.
Now Ji Gwan-young was not satisfied unless he pulled Tae-hoon into his arms even while reading scripts, and when he thought about it, it was strange to realize there had once been a time like that.
“In truth, the matching rate is an extremely sensitive number. It can change bit by bit just from catching a cold. That’s why each inspection extracts anywhere from several thousand to several tens of thousands of values and derives a standard point. …….Well. I’ve heard that Tae-hoon-ssi’s Pair displays the score immediately, though.”
“Researcher Lee Mihyun said the same thing.”
“Oh, in that case, I’m even more interested.”
Tae-hoon could not immediately understand the counselor’s words and tilted his head slightly. At that sight, the middle-aged man added leisurely with an eye-smile.
“The fact that a number you didn’t care about even when it fell lower than it is now has started bothering you means there must be some reason, doesn’t it?”
Choi Tae-hoon swallowed dryly without realizing it. He had hit the mark exactly. Tae-hoon looked straight at the counselor, then needlessly flicked his gaze around once as he chose his words.
“……Um, that’s.”
“You can take your time. And you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”
The counselor spoke in a gentle voice.
But Tae-hoon could not easily open his mouth, and unlike himself, he spent a long time repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists while his lips only moved soundlessly. The man waited without rushing through that tedious time. After who knew how long, Tae-hoon’s mouth carefully opened. It was very different from his usual self, who always spoke clearly and precisely in proper posture.
“…….I.”
Choi Tae-hoon could not bring himself to continue, swallowed a breath, then confessed quietly, as though admitting to a terrible sin.
“I’m the problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I’ve come to like Ji Gwan-young-ssi too much.”
For a moment, the counselor lost the words to answer and closed his mouth.
But there was not the slightest hint of joking or lying in that neat appearance and the low voice that suited it. Choi Tae-hoon—this Guide—truly, sincerely thought that was a problem. The counselor lifted his eyebrows enough for a faint crease to form on his forehead and wondered what on earth he should do with this impeccably polite young man.
“Why do you think liking Ji Gwan-young-ssi is a problem? Intimacy between Pairs should actually be an important factor.”
