And what was born at the end of that darkness was none other than “Guide Lee Hansol.”
Hansol was treated as something both human and not human. Born in a corner of a laboratory, from the moment he opened his eyes, crawled, and began to walk, Lee Hansol was treated as nothing more than a Guide. A perfect “Guide” capable of matching with any Esper.
That was Lee Hansol.
“Jin-ah. I read a really interesting article.”
Oh Jinwoo said nothing. He merely glanced expressionlessly at his Guide. As though used to it, Hansol smiled faintly and lay down against Oh Jinwoo’s leg. It was a deliberately affectionate gesture, but the Esper’s expression as he looked down at him was only cold.
“Look. This. They say they have the highest matching rate in history, and even shared a Name.”
“……”
“How high do you think the matching rate will be?”
Inside the room, furnished with an obsessive cleanliness like a place where a robot might live, the most out-of-place thing was Hansol, the owner of that very room. Hansol was wearing a loose T-shirt and pants, a stark contrast to Jinwoo, who was dressed in a crisp suit without a single wrinkle from head to toe.
Hansol lazily swiped across the pad with his fingertips and laughed softly, taking in the well-groomed man displayed on the screen.
“Do you think he’s stronger than you?”
“I’m not interested.”
“Of course not. But you know, Jinwoo.”
Oh Jinwoo met Hansol’s eyes as he lay on his lap looking up at him. An Esper feels the strongest sense of fulfillment when they are with their Guide. That was true for Oh Jinwoo as well. But every sensation he felt was horrifying to him. The completeness of everything twisted falling perfectly into place only left the Esper with deeper disgust.
“You hate me, don’t you?”
Hansol read his Esper’s thoughts exactly.
Oh Jinwoo’s hand touched the ends of Hansol’s hair. Caught between the instinct that wanted to deny his Guide’s rejection and the deep hatred he himself carried, he bit his lip hard.
“I promise. If this one is stronger than you, I’ll become this person’s Guide.”
“…….Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I mean it.”
“Then say it properly!”
At Oh Jinwoo’s cry, which was almost a scream, Hansol slightly furrowed his brow and curved his eyes.
Ah. My strong, wonderful, lovely Esper.
Lee Hansol could tolerate any amount of his Esper’s petty complaints. Ever since his memories began, Hansol had always been taught that. That alone was Lee Hansol’s reason for existing.
“Say you plan to kill and steal a Guide ‘again’!”
“Of course.”
Lee Hansol smiled.
“Because I have to become the Guide of the strongest Esper.”
***
I really might die if we don’t actually get closer.
Choi Tae-hoon neatly understood his situation along with half a pack of cigarettes. After getting a Pair Esper, his smoking had increased incomparably compared to when he’d smoked, at most, one or two cigarettes a day. Tae-hoon, who had opened his eyes on the examination room bed, spent nearly a week like royalty. Though it took three or four days before he could properly move his body, the situation where everyone around him was desperate to take care of him even before he asked was extremely unfamiliar to an eldest sibling with five younger siblings beneath him.
“Tae-hoon-ssi. If you’re not feeling great, we can just postpone this.”
“I’m fine. Actually, lying down too much made my back hurt.”
At Tae-hoon’s sly reply, Lee Mihyun laughed softly, almost like a sigh.
The problematic Pair was now heading to the training room for the first time since their matching. Usually, this training had to be done once or twice a week, but because the two of them were so unusual, it had been postponed for quite a while. The fact that no method had been devised for training an unmeasurable Esper had also played a part.
Choi Tae-hoon stared at Gwan-young, who was walking about half a step ahead of him. Since the day Tae-hoon had lost consciousness from shock, Ji Gwan-young’s attitude had changed in a strange way. Instead of playful physical contact, only cautious fingertips brushed against him along with a faint smile, to the point where Tae-hoon sometimes worried, “Is it really okay to reduce contact this much?”
“Now. It may not be to your liking, but.”
As he walked while thinking about something else for a moment, they had already arrived in front of a huge door. Lee Mihyun grinned and quickly pressed the buttons beside the massive door several times. Tae-hoon, who had been distracted by concern for his Esper, suddenly felt yanked back into reality and gulped dryly.
“It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that all of the Center’s technology is concentrated here.”
“Wooow……..”
“It’s a place that can stay intact even if an Esper goes wild inside.”
There was one reason Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon had suddenly come to this training room. It was because of the sharply dropped low score in their matching rate. Usually, an Esper-Guide Pair’s score rises as they train together. The people at the Center were placing their hopes on that.
The moment Choi Tae-hoon stepped into the training room, he felt the inside, which had been fairly noisy, quickly fall silent, and the back of his neck stiffened. Even though he had prepared himself mentally several times, imagination and reality were different.
Right now, he was standing beside Ji Gwan-young in front of people for the first time.
The fact that only Pairs permitted to enter the Center’s training facility were in front of him wasn’t much comfort. In the end, they were complete strangers. Feeling as though cold sweat was running down his spine, Choi Tae-hoon only rolled his eyes around. Receiving the gazes of everyone scattered across this training room, which was the size of a soccer field—no, perhaps even bigger—was far more dizzying than he had imagined.
“Choi Tae-hoon.”
“Yes, yeees?!”
“Don’t mind them.”
…..Maybe it’d be better if you were the one who didn’t mind me, Gwan-young-ssi.
Choi Tae-hoon desperately repeated the words he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud. The low voice of a top star, more accustomed to other people’s gazes than anything else, had effectively stamped confirmation that Tae-hoon beside him was that rumored Guide.
“Tae-hoon-ssi. This way.”
It was Oh Yeon.
Tae-hoon’s face instantly brightened as if he had met his savior. Thanks to that, Gwan-young’s brows faintly twitched at the same time as he noticed the change in his Pair. He knew the words he’d offered as comfort in his own way had only made Tae-hoon look more appalled.
But Ji Gwan-young did not show any greater displeasure than that. After it became known that he was an Esper, he himself had already been harassed enough here and there, so being treated like an object of observation was unpleasant but not awkward. Still, he knew that for Choi Tae-hoon, who had lived an endlessly ordinary life, it would be different.
“Oh. So this is the Guide shrouded in mystery?”
“…….Park Seungwon.”
“Ah, why. Yeon, you’re too uptight as a person. Right?”
A shallow sigh finally slipped from Oh Yeon’s mouth. Park Seungwon was Oh Yeon’s Guide and lover.
Choi Tae-hoon bowed politely to Park Seungwon, whom he had seen a few times from a distance. Seungwon was a man who gave off the exact opposite impression from Oh Yeon, who felt so thorough and conservative that he almost seemed strict. No, the word young man suited Guide Park Seungwon better.
Choi Tae-hoon had once been quite surprised when he saw Seungwon, because Oh Yeon had told him at some point that his Guide was a soldier, so Tae-hoon had imagined someone exactly like Oh Yeon. The young man with light-colored hair grown softly and a relaxed smile curving his eyes seemed more suited to a university campus or a café than the military.
But unlike Choi Tae-hoon, Ji Gwan-young noticed that the Guide standing beside Oh Yeon was not an ordinary person and began assessing his intentions.
That Guide, who seemed to be standing loosely and smiling, in fact had no openings in his posture. His physical abilities were far above ordinary figures as well. Objectively speaking, he was clearly a top-tier Guide. Judging from his developed muscles and the oddly disciplined line of his clothing, there was a high chance he was……
Military.
Ji Gwan-young guessed Park Seungwon’s identity before anyone said anything and clicked his tongue softly. After the Center’s researchers, the most troublesome people were those affiliated with the military.
“Haha. Your expression is really scary. I’m a fan, Ji Gwan-young-ssi.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you. They say you smashed our Yeon’s laptop? I bought that for him for our second anniversary. Hahaha!”
Oh Yeon let out a small sigh and touched his forehead.
The Pairs in the training room were now no longer even pretending not to watch, busy staring at this fascinating situation. A Guide picking a fight with none other than “that Ji Gwan-young” with a smiling face—what could be more entertaining than this?
But Ji Gwan-young’s expression didn’t falter at Park Seungwon’s words. He simply curved his eyes gently. Whatever was inside, the Esper’s exterior alone was that of a flawless man.
“To secretly film with such a precious laptop. It seems he was quite careless.”
“Thanks to you, I got to buy Yeon another laptop……”
“Seungwon-ah.”
Park Seungwon’s mouth, which had been about to continue speaking, closed firmly. Seungwon was weak to his blunt, stone-like Esper calling him by name alone.
“For the time being, we plan to conduct training in the individual room over there. That will be more comfortable for both of you, won’t it?”
“…….Of course.”
Since entering the training room, Choi Tae-hoon properly answered for the first time, albeit in a voice that seemed to crawl into itself. The individual training room they entered as if fleeing was spacious enough that it absolutely couldn’t be called narrow. Only then did Tae-hoon massage the back of his stiff neck and relax his tense shoulders.
Gwan-young, who had been silent for a while, opened his mouth in a low voice.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Well. I’ll get used to it eventually, won’t I? Me, and the people outside too.”
Ji Gwan-young’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but instead of a long sentence, he only gave a small acknowledgement: “I suppose.” It was an endlessly cautious attitude, unlike the arrogant Esper Choi Tae-hoon knew.
It would actually make him feel more at ease if he acted a little shameless and brazen, as he always had. Feeling as though the man’s name engraved on his back prickled a little, Choi Tae-hoon slightly furrowed his brow.
[Are both of you ready?]
It was Mihyun’s voice, preparing the training program from the control room outside the individual training room. Tae-hoon answered in a voice utterly lacking confidence.
“By ready, what exactly do you mean? I’ve never done something like this before.”
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Choi Tae-hoon had been going in and out of the Center since he was five and had visited nearly every part of it. He had even once thrown a fit about not taking the matching rate test and gone all the way to the Center Director’s office. But this place, the Pair training room, was his first time.
It couldn’t be helped. Until now, Choi Tae-hoon had never matched with any Esper……
Except for Ji Gwan-young, standing beside him now.
[Hmm, so. Tae-hoon-ssi, for now, just prepare yourself mentally.]
“Mentally?”
Tae-hoon asked curiously at Mihyun’s voice flowing from the speaker on the ceiling.
[Gwan-young-ssi will take care of the rest.]
“What?”
Ji Gwan-young, who likewise had never done Pair training before, tilted his head crookedly as if he disliked that vague answer.
But neither Esper Ji Gwan-young nor Guide Choi Tae-hoon could continue leisurely conversing with the Center’s people sitting in the control room after that.
***
“—Lee Mihyun!”
“Oh my. So he did know my name. That person.”
Lee Mihyun spoke calmly as she listened to Ji Gwan-young’s voice booming beyond the special glass door. Until now, that man had never once referred to Mihyun by her proper name. It had always been nothing but an arrogant jerk of his chin or a slightly raised eyebrow as he mocked her while pretending to be polite.
