Until now, the one who had always approached first and acted warmly was Ji Gwan-young. This was the first time Choi Tae-hoon had ever directly asserted or asked something of that man.
But even after hearing those words, Ji Gwan-young showed no particular reaction. He merely stared silently into Tae-hoon’s eyes with an expressionless face.
Which naturally left Tae-hoon feeling awkward instead.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said something unnecessary. It was then that he remembered the reason he had come here in the first place.
‘You two must become close.’
“Uh, um. Ji Gwan-young-ssi, why… did you become an actor?”
Tae-hoon blurted out the first question that came to mind without any structure. Unsure of what Gwan-young might think, he awkwardly rambled afterward, “Um, this is… part of getting closer. I don’t really know much about you, Ji Gwan-young-ssi.”
Gwan-young looked at his Guide with unreadable eyes before slowly opening his mouth.
“Because it’s noisy.”
“…Pardon?”
“Even if I just stay still, people gather around me. My name gets tossed around loudly everywhere. It makes it easier to hide.”
“Hide… what?”
Tae-hoon thought his own voice sounded a little stupid just then.
But in truth, this was the first genuine honesty the arrogant Esper had ever spoken aloud.
A deep truth that not even the most renowned researchers at The Center had ever managed to reach.
“Myself.”
Did he mean he had hidden the fact that he was an Esper?
Trying his best to understand the vague wording, Tae-hoon thought carefully. Since a childhood he could barely remember—more precisely, from the very beginning of his awareness—Choi Tae-hoon had lived his entire life as a Guide.
That was why he had accepted even sex with another man, despite trembling through it over something he had never once imagined possible in his twenty-eight years of life.
As long as it fulfilled his duty as a Guide, he could place even sleeping with an unfamiliar man above his own discomfort.
He had never once doubted that.
Because, all this time, he had felt at least a little proud of the fact that being a Guide meant he could save someone.
“Why do you need to hide?”
That was why Tae-hoon couldn’t easily understand Ji Gwan-young’s words about wrapping himself in a loud shell just to conceal who he really was.
The Esper did not immediately answer the second question. Instead, he silently swallowed another sip of black tea.
Because it was something even Ji Gwan-young himself had never really thought about.
Looking into those dark amber eyes staring directly at him, Ji Gwan-young felt as though they were brushing against the things he had locked away and buried deep inside himself for so long.
Honestly, he could have easily brushed it off with some relaxed answer. Like always, he could simply lie in a gentle voice.
But Ji Gwan-young found himself unable to spit out those familiar words so easily, instead questioning himself.
Why did I spend my life hiding?
Just as Choi Tae-hoon had never once doubted that he was a Guide, Ji Gwan-young too had been utterly convinced that he could only survive by hiding himself away deep inside.
Tae-hoon didn’t press him for an answer. He merely watched the Esper sitting across from him quietly.
The monster hurriedly turned over thoughts in his mind.
He had to say something. So that Choi Tae-hoon wouldn’t become suspicious of him.
Wouldn’t…
In the end, Gwan-young simply looked at his Guide’s clear face and spoke vaguely.
“…Who knows.”
Even while pretending to answer casually, his gaze never once left the man in front of him, as though carefully examining him.
At last, Choi Tae-hoon finally found the right word for Ji Gwan-young’s strange change in behavior.
Right now, the Esper before him was wary of him. That was wariness.
But Tae-hoon couldn’t understand why Ji Gwan-young was suddenly putting distance between them. In a way, it even felt a little cruel. He had finally gathered the courage to approach him first, only to be met with a gaze watching him from far away.
Meanwhile, Ji Gwan-young quickly noticed the subtle stiffening of Tae-hoon’s facial muscles and once again put on a soft smile.
They had started speaking more casually with each other, but there had been no real progress.
…Rather than becoming closer, it somehow felt like they had grown farther apart.
Tae-hoon scratched at his jaw.
***
“Oh? Are you two finally getting closer now?”
At Lee Mihyun’s words, Choi Tae-hoon gave an awkward smile.
Tilting her head slightly at the ambiguous expression, Mihyun examined the Pair again. Ji Gwan-young’s eyebrow twitched faintly under that observant gaze.
That was the exact moment Lee Mihyun realized there was something strange in the atmosphere between the two men.
At first, she had thought things were improving since Ji Gwan-young had started speaking casually to his Guide, but judging by the situation now, it seemed to be the complete opposite.
Lee Mihyun was certain the reason lay with that foul-tempered, twisted Esper. And honestly, she was almost entirely correct.
Right now, Ji Gwan-young felt uncomfortable around Choi Tae-hoon.
The emotions he held toward his Guide were very simple.
The owner of a pet monster—someone holding the leash of a creature like him, someone worthy of receiving shallow affection and doting attention.
That was what Choi Tae-hoon was to him.
He found Tae-hoon quite lovable and fully intended to cherish him. But his tolerance ended there.
Ji Gwan-young had strict rules about the positions of the pretty owner and the monster remaining clearly separate.
A weak owner peeling back his thick hide and looking directly into his head was an outright violation of those rules.
Yet Choi Tae-hoon—that man—had tried to tear through the ugly, hardened shell he had spent years carefully building with terrifying ease.
Ji Gwan-young couldn’t stand it.
It bothered him that such a weak, fragile man—someone he could crush apart with the slightest gesture—kept crossing boundaries Ji Gwan-young had protected all this time.
It even disgusted him.
That clear-faced man drew out thoughts buried deep inside him far too easily. At first, Ji Gwan-young had nearly exposed himself completely before he could even build any sort of defense mechanism.
Gwan-young’s gaze slowly drifted toward his Guide.
The moment their eyes met, Tae-hoon naturally looked away and desperately pretended to think about something else.
“…We’ll begin the examination.”
Lee Mihyun spoke with a small sigh.
The official records regarding Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon were treated as top secret among top secrets within The Center. Officially, their compatibility had been finalized at 151.2, while everything after that had been classified and handled as special national research material.
That day, the Pair shattered the record for maximum matching rate.
‘171.8’.
But this was by no means purely good news.
Because opposite that monstrous score in the 170s, a new low score had also been recorded.
‘65.7’.
It was the complete opposite of previous examinations, where their low scores had stayed in the mid-90s.
Honestly, a score in the 60s would be perfectly average for a normal Pair. But Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon were not normal.
The newly updated low score painted the current situation clearly. It was undeniably a serious problem.
“You two fought?”
“……No.”
“Not at all.”
“The machine says your relationship is bad, though.”
At Mihyun’s words, Ji Gwan-young shrugged.
“Choi Tae-hoon. Have you ever fought with me?”
“……No.”
“He says no. I don’t remember it either.”
Once they had begun proper physical contact, their high score skyrocketed, but instead of their mental synchronization improving as well, it had started grinding apart instead, causing the gap between their high and low scores to become absurdly large.
Mihyun pressed a hand to her head at the unprecedented situation.
Standing several steps behind the problematic Pair and silently observing them, Oh Yeon finally spoke in his characteristic cautious voice.
“Ji Gwan-young-ssi. If this continues, the one who’ll suffer is the Guide.”
At Oh Yeon’s words, thick, straight brows twitched faintly.
But that was all.
Ji Gwan-young calmly accepted the stares directed toward him before quietly standing up and helping Tae-hoon with his coat as though escorting him.
Because of that, Tae-hoon barely swallowed down the sigh that almost escaped him before rising as well.
And that day, Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon slept together.
Even with hesitation written plainly across his face, Tae-hoon did not stop his Esper.
No—more accurately, he couldn’t stop him.
Because as long as he remained Ji Gwan-young’s Guide, this sex was one of the most important things he was required to do.
But Choi Tae-hoon, who for over twenty years had never once resisted a Guide’s “primary duty,” nearly pushed his partner away several times in the middle of it for the very first time that day.
An indescribable anxiety felt like it was tightly strangling his heart. But Ji Gwan-young’s relentless pace overwhelmed him first.
“Hngh, ah, ahh—ah, it hurts, Ji Gwan-young-ssi!”
A faintly tearful voice spilled from the Guide’s lips as he wrapped his arms around the Esper’s neck.
More than the unfamiliar sensation of his legs being spread wide and pinned down while the inserted cock thrust upward inside him, Tae-hoon found it harder to endure the fact that he had ended up begging another man like this.
Flash.
For a moment the world turned pure white, and whenever his unfocused vision blurred into indistinct shapes, Tae-hoon instinctively clung to the body before him.
Every time Tae-hoon touched him, the solid, sweat-damp body leaned closer as though making it easier for him to hold onto.
Then, with heated sighs, Gwan-young scattered kisses across Tae-hoon’s trembling face and body.
Those ticklish kisses were Choi Tae-hoon’s only support.
The affection was gentle, but not polite. And that still frightened Tae-hoon.
Panting, his curled-up shoulders trembled.
“…It’s okay. Breathe slowly.”
Brushing back sweat-soaked dark brown hair, Ji Gwan-young whispered lowly.
The flushed cheeks.
The trembling eyes shaking from pleasure mixed with pain.
The rough breathing desperately trying to follow his instructions.
The firm skin reflexively wrapping around his waist with tense legs.
The warm inner walls tightly squeezing his cock.
Sex with Choi Tae-hoon felt incredibly good.
Separate from the satisfaction of having a Guide meant solely for him, there was another kind of pleasure in watching a tall man who had never accepted another man before spread his legs beneath him, sobbing and clinging to him in surrender.
At this rate, there’s no way rebound symptoms could happen.
That was what Ji Gwan-young thought.
Yet unlike himself, the thought that continued to sit uncomfortably in the corner of his mind was the Guide who would suffer horrific aftereffects after sex.
Still, maybe this time it would be better.
Whether it was rationalization or consolation, he wasn’t sure, but that thought was completely betrayed the next morning after they fell asleep pleasantly following sex.
No—not only that, it also made him desperately recall Oh Yeon’s warning that he had previously half-listened to and ignored.
***
Ji Gwan-young sat several meters away from Choi Tae-hoon.
Usually immaculate and flawless, Gwan-young looked unusually disheveled now, his hair and clothes slightly messy. His leisurely smile was nowhere to be found either.
He even looked somewhat irritable.
“Heart rate normal. Breathing normal. Temperature normal.”
“……”
“The matching rate was insane, and apparently the rebound is too. I can’t believe he went into shock.”
One of The Center’s medical staff sighed in relief as though they had barely gotten the situation under control.
But Ji Gwan-young didn’t react at all to those words. He simply kept staring at the pale man lying there.
When they had fallen asleep after sex, Choi Tae-hoon had been perfectly fine.
No—if anything, he had still been flushed from lingering arousal heat and draped limply against him.
Watching that, Gwan-young had fallen asleep feeling deeply satisfied.
The sensation of the stiffness at the back of his neck loosening, of something subtly out of sync finally fitting perfectly into place, had been enough to lull even him—someone who never slept deeply—into closing his eyes while intoxicated by another person’s warmth.
Of course, the moment he woke up a few hours later, that pleasant feeling was hurled straight into hell.
‘I can’t breathe.’
Tae-hoon had barely managed to move his lips with his eyes only half-open.
An ordinary person probably wouldn’t even have understood what he was saying. Thank god he was an Esper.
After that, Ji Gwan-young’s memories became hazy, as though covered in thick steam. He had taken in too much information all at once.
Choi Tae-hoon’s temperature.
The faint wrinkles at the corners of his closed eyes.
The method needed to save him.
The distance to The Center.
Every passing second.
