Lee Mihyun told him everything Ji Gwan-young had done, leaving out only the part where he had truly, sincerely tried to kill them. Choi Tae-hoon was an ordinary person with perfectly normal common sense, more than capable of being shocked by the fact that an entire training room had been utterly destroyed because of him. Sure enough, after hearing what had happened, Tae-hoon froze for several seconds, forgetting even to close his open mouth.
He couldn’t believe that just because he had shed a few tears from the aftereffects of the terror incident, his Esper had completely reduced that well-equipped, spacious training room to ruins. Looking back, the researchers at The Center he had seen on the way while being dragged along by Gwan-young had seemed rather wounded in their pride.
The Center’s pride, which had only ever suffered minor damage during countless large and small training sessions and had never once been smashed beyond repair like this, had been turned into a complete mess in an instant by one Esper’s temper. It was understandable a hundred times over.
Choi Tae-hoon, feeling terribly awkward toward The Center researchers who knew everything from his face to even the smallest details of his family relationships, apologized on his behalf. But Lee Mihyun merely shrugged once and laughed it off heartily, saying, “Oh Yeon-ssi’s team will be the ones suffering, I guess.”
Rather, after hearing why Tae-hoon had started crying without realizing it, she looked startled, hugged him with all her strength, and even hurriedly ran out, saying she would bring a counselor specializing in mental care. That was the kind of person Lee Mihyun was.
Left all alone in the reception room, Choi Tae-hoon naturally let out a deep sigh.
Ji Gwan-young, that Esper, was truly a man whose inner thoughts were impossible to read.
But even if he didn’t know anything else, there was one thing he had now realized with near certainty. Tae-hoon recalled the man who had held him so tightly in the training room that his arms had hurt. He really was impossible. His personality was worse than Tae-hoon had imagined too.
No, Choi Tae-hoon was certain that of all the people he had met in his twenty-eight years of life, Ji Gwan-young had the most twisted personality. It was truly unfair for someone to act like that while looking so splendid and perfect.
Tae-hoon rubbed the back of his stiff neck.
In the empty reception room, his full lips parted slightly.
“Gwan-young-ssi, are you very busy right now?”
The Esper did not come. But Tae-hoon had an inexplicable certainty. His Pair, somewhere in The Center, was listening to every word he said.
“I thought about it carefully.”
Tae-hoon took a small, deep breath. Then, as if steeling himself, he opened his mouth bravely.
“As expected, Ji Gwan-young-ssi is weak.”
Weak.
It was one of the words least suited to Ji Gwan-young.
And it was what the Esper had said to the Guide during the first sex of this troublesome, scandal-filled Pair. But now, the Guide was returning those very words to the Esper.
Even though Choi Tae-hoon had spoken boldly in the empty room, his heart was pounding as if he had done something wrong, so he needlessly scraped the toe of his innocent shoe. At the sound growing loud enough to ring in his ears, Choi Tae-hoon squeezed his eyes shut.
How long had passed like that? It was not merely a few seconds, but not quite a few minutes either. Tae-hoon slowly opened his eyes at the touch of someone’s fingertips against his cheek.
Ji Gwan-young stood before him with an unreadable expression.
At first glance, his face looked gentle, but when it revealed no emotion like this, it was terribly difficult to read his thoughts. Perhaps it seemed even more so because the man’s black hair, which was always neatly styled to some degree, now fell messily as if untouched, nearly covering his eyes. The silence in which they simply looked at each other without a word for a long while was broken, as always, by Choi Tae-hoon.
“This side is weak.”
Tae-hoon poked his Esper in the chest with his finger. At that, Gwan-young, who had not budged even against Lee Mihyun’s flames hot enough to melt him, flinched slightly. And for the first time, a trace of emotion appeared on his expressionless face.
It was asking what he was talking about.
“You’re the definition of glass-mental, really.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ji Gwan-young was having his first proper conversation since Choi Tae-hoon’s shock episode. But everything Tae-hoon was about to say from here on would be rather grating to the ears of that man whose insides were twisted a hundred times over.
Tae-hoon opened his mouth slowly but clearly, in a tone like he was admonishing his younger sibling.
“Ji Gwan-young-ssi, you’re afraid of getting close to me, aren’t you?”
Ji Gwan-young only stared piercingly into his Guide’s eyes and gave no reaction whatsoever. The expression that was neither affirmation nor denial was the outer shell of a monster built up layer upon layer over a long time.
Choi Tae-hoon had no power to look at invisible things and fight against them. But he could see the Ji Gwan-young hidden deep inside, where others could not. The heart behind the hideously tangled mask.
“Why? Do you think I’ll suddenly die and leave you behind like your parents?”
“……”
“Or do you think I’ll use you to the fullest, like those bad adults who came running for your money?”
“…….Stop there.”
“Isn’t that why you live alone in that palace-like house? Because you’re scared.”
“Choi Tae-hoon!”
Over the back of Gwan-young’s hand, clenched so tightly it looked painful, Tae-hoon carefully placed his own hand. It was the first proper step from Choi Tae-hoon, who had always struggled with physical contact with his Pair until now.
Meanwhile, Ji Gwan-young tried to pull his hand away from the warmth traveling through the back of it, but it was immediately gripped tightly instead. There were many ways Gwan-young could ignore that. But he did not shake off the faint strength holding his hand.
“Ji Gwan-young-ssi. I have no way to betray you.”
The words were like an oath. Gwan-young looked at Tae-hoon, who did not avoid his gaze and instead looked straight at him, emphasizing each word one by one.
“Your name is engraved on my back,”
“……”
“and you’re the only person I can save, Gwan-young-ssi.”
It was not a lie. Until now, Choi Tae-hoon had not matched with any Esper. To the point that the fact he was a Guide had almost faded away.
“I’ll protect Ji Gwan-young-ssi’s weakness. That’s what I, as your Guide, am supposed to do. So……..”
Tae-hoon’s eyes were slightly red. The Esper stared blankly at that “Guide of his.”
“Ji Gwan-young-ssi, please protect me.”
“……”
“That was you back then, wasn’t it? In Gangnam.”
Ji Gwan-young almost reached out without realizing it when Choi Tae-hoon made a face like he was about to cry again. He hated that expression. The reason his vision had overturned in an instant and he had decided to kill the researchers leisurely sitting in the control room was because Choi Tae-hoon had furrowed his brows like that, trying to hold back the tears gathering in his eyes before letting them fall.
But this time, Tae-hoon succeeded in holding them back.
“Thank you. Truly.”
He even smiled in relief, as if he had finally said everything he wanted to say. At the sight of him smiling with slightly wet eyes, Gwan-young lowered the arm he had half-raised.
It was as if the tongue that always sharpened and chose elegant words before arranging them beautifully had stiffened completely.
He wanted to say something. He wanted to answer his Guide’s words somehow, but not a single word came out of his mouth.
“……Um, it would be nice if you were a little kinder to the people at The Center, but if you don’t feel like it, then there’s nothing to be done. What can we do?”
It wasn’t as if he was someone who would listen just because he was told to stop. Tae-hoon added awkwardly. Then he stood up from the table he had been leaning against. Tae-hoon’s hand, which had been touching Gwan-young, naturally slipped away as well. Choi Tae-hoon decided to flexibly interpret his Pair’s complete lack of response as meaning that the man probably needed time to think. It was a thank-you he had naturally needed to give, but still, it was a little embarrassing.
Choi Tae-hoon bowed politely to Ji Gwan-young and quickly left the reception room. Down the hallway, he could see Lee Mihyun hurrying over with a mental care counselor.
“Mihyun noona. I’m okay.”
“Still! Ah, we thought this level of training would be fine, but we were thoughtless.”
At Tae-hoon’s consideration in using noona, a word he normally only used at drinking gatherings, Mihyun looked even more moved and hurried along the counselor following at a leisurely pace. She was worried that today’s training might have revived Choi Tae-hoon’s trauma.
But when Mihyun turned her head back toward Choi Tae-hoon, who had been smiling at her just moments ago, her feet, which had been moving almost at a run, stopped almost reflexively. The researchers who had been running from the opposite hallway, grinding their teeth as they chased after Ji Gwan-young after he suddenly vanished from the interrogation room, did the same.
“……Mmph, wai, wait a sec……..!”
There was no time to run away.
Tae-hoon’s attempts to avoid the tongue pursuing him relentlessly only produced even louder, wetter sounds.
Tae-hoon naturally tilted his head back and struggled to escape from the arms of the man kissing him deeply, but it was useless. In this regard, the Guide was simply “weak,” unable to defeat his Esper.
When the flesh that had been brushing the rough part of the roof of his mouth slipped, during a brief opening, beneath his tongue to the endlessly soft area below, a small, muffled sound escaped from his blocked mouth. Ji Gwan-young had somehow pushed his Guide all the way against the wall and was urgently tangling their tongues together with almost ravenous impatience. He had no concern for anyone else’s gaze.
As though the man before him was lovely, as though he was precious, as though missing even one thing would be unbearable, he was utterly absorbed in pulling close the face trying to avoid him and kissing him without a single gap.
An irritated, hollow laugh slipped from Lee Mihyun’s mouth.
“So damn annoying. Is he the only one with a Guide?”
