Touched by Fingertips (1)
After Sa Hae-geon and the other team members had left, Hae-yoon noona, Guide Oh Jeong-woo, and I could only exchange anxious glances. Even as one hour passed and we approached two hours, the other team members showed no signs of returning.
The abandoned building surrounded by earthen walls faintly visible in the distance indicated that they were still engaged in fierce combat. Guide Oh Jeong-woo, who had been staring intently at the path where our teammates had disappeared, tilted his head and spoke.
“Huh…? Is that… the backup team bus? And what’s that car behind it?”
About two hours had passed at this point. Esper Oh Jeong-woo pointed at the window at the back of the car. A black minibus and a passenger car were heading toward the building that Shin Woo-jun had supposedly occupied.
“…You’re right. Why are they here already when it’s not the agreed time yet?”
Guide Oh Jeong-woo agreed with Hae-yoon noona’s words.
“Exactly. I hope nothing bad has happened?”
“That can’t be…”
At Guide Oh Jeong-woo’s words, I felt my heart sink. Had something happened that made the backup team arrive earlier than scheduled? What if something had gone wrong with Sa Hae-geon again?
My head was filled with such negative thoughts. Sa Hae-geon’s words, whispered just loud enough for me to hear as he closed the car door, were still clear in my mind.
‘I’ll be back soon. Just wait a little, hyung.’
Sa Hae-geon was someone who kept his word, so he would definitely return without any trouble. So I kept telling myself that the backup team had arrived earlier than planned because they had confused the time.
Hae-yoon noona, who had been watching my face anxiously, asked in a voice full of concern.
“Do-min, are you okay?”
“…What?”
“No, you look so pale… Are you worried about Esper Hae-geon?”
“Ah… Does my face look that bad?”
“Yes. You’re pale and… Are you really okay? And don’t worry too much about Esper Hae-geon. It’s probably nothing serious.”
It seemed my concern for Sa Hae-geon was clearly showing on my face. I tried to smile at Hae-yoon noona, pretending I was fine, but I couldn’t do anything about my anxious feelings.
Moreover, Sa Hae-geon had previously collapsed in an A-rank dungeon. Although he was someone who had always kept his word, remembering how he had returned being carried by Jong-hyeok hyung that day, I couldn’t completely trust everything would be fine.
Unconsciously assuming the worst-case scenario, I kept feeling restless and anxious. Seeing me clutching my hands together and staring persistently out the window, Hae-yoon noona muttered.
“It’s not like you’re waiting for a husband who went off to some distant war… Looking at you, I think you’re even worse than me.”
Those words hit me like a blow to the head. I was worse than Hae-yoon noona, who was dating Jong-hyeok hyung with marriage in mind? Noona was famous for being one of the most worrisome people in the Central Center, and for her to say something like that…
It suddenly struck me how serious I must look from noona’s perspective. But unlike noona, I wasn’t even dating Sa Hae-geon… Even I knew that one wouldn’t worry this much in a simple hyung-dongsaeng relationship.
Being weak for Sa Hae-geon, getting swayed by him, and unconsciously being aware of him all the time. I was vaguely aware that whenever I saw Sa Hae-geon, indescribable emotions kept welling up inside me.
What did I want to do with Sa Hae-geon? And what kind of relationship did I want to maintain with him? Whenever I thought about these questions, my mind became complicated and my chest felt tight, so I avoided them. Since this was the first time I had experienced something like this in all my Guide activities, it was difficult to face it properly.
In fact, maybe… I already knew the answer. And perhaps I had been avoiding it precisely because I knew it too well.
“Oh, there they come. They’re coming!”
At Guide Oh Jeong-woo’s excited voice, I quickly turned my head to see Sa Hae-geon and the team members walking in the distance. Unlike the other team members who were covered in dirt, Sa Hae-geon looked clean and fluffy as if he had just taken a shower, which was noticeable even from afar.
Soon, the car door opened. Unlike the team members who were hugging each other and celebrating, Sa Hae-geon and I just silently gazed into each other’s eyes for a long time. His eyes, sparkling like a deep sea reflecting stars, were filled only with me.
Sa Hae-geon’s lips, which had been quietly looking down at me, moved slightly.
“I’m back, hyung.”
“I’ve been waiting. Welcome back.”
As I spread my arms with a slightly cracked voice, Sa Hae-geon came into my embrace as if he had been waiting for it. The feeling of embracing a body much larger, firmer, and thicker than mine was overwhelmingly indescribable. Such sentiments were probably because the person in my arms was none other than Sa Hae-geon.
Sa Hae-geon and I continued to hold each other, rarely caring about the gazes around us. Esper Lee Cheol-min and Esper Hwang Ji-hyun teased us with some mischievous comments, but we didn’t pay attention.
Because Sa Hae-geon, who was catching his breath in my arms, somehow seemed tired. Still, it was such a relief that Sa Hae-geon’s wavelength wasn’t as chaotic as the worst-case scenario I had imagined. But I wanted to confirm directly with Sa Hae-geon.
“You didn’t push yourself too hard, did you?”
Sa Hae-geon then responded by vigorously rubbing his forehead against my collarbone like a puppy, mumbling.
“It wasn’t unbearable. I didn’t overdo it like last time. But I like that you worry about me, so I want to pretend I’m really tired. Is that okay?”
For a moment my heart sank, but after hearing what followed, I could only let out a relieved laugh. He really had a talent for surprising people. Still, I was proud of Sa Hae-geon for keeping his promise in his own way. I patted his back and answered.
“Yes. That’s okay. You worked hard, Hae-geon.”
Sa Hae-geon burst into a quiet laugh and hugged me tightly.
“But it seems like the backup team came earlier than the scheduled time. So at first I thought something had happened. Did the time change?”
Jong-hyeok hyung answered Hae-yoon noona’s question in a slightly subdued voice.
“No. The time remained the same, but I contacted them earlier because we needed a vehicle to escort Shin Woo-jun.”
The vehicle hyung was talking about seemed to be the passenger car following the minibus earlier. Hae-yoon noona, who was recalling the cars she had seen earlier just like me, nodded.
“Ah, so that’s what it was. Anyway, I feel like a years-old indigestion has finally cleared up. I’m glad it ended well. Team Leader An, you’re not hurt anywhere, right?”
“Why are you asking something like that…”
Jong-hyeok hyung trailed off awkwardly, checking the reactions of the team members. Only after noona urged him to answer did he reluctantly say he wasn’t injured.
At that moment, the vehicle escorting Shin Woo-jun passed by our car. Imagining Shin Woo-jun wearing ability-control restraints just like a year ago made me feel somewhat bitter.
I also recalled a conversation I had with Shin Woo-jun in the past.
‘Hey, why the fuck does a paired Guide not listen to their paired Esper and acts arrogant? What’s the reason? What do you think?’
‘Even though it may not seem that way, Guides can sense whether an Esper treats them as tools or as equal colleagues.’
‘So. You feel unpleasant if you sense they’re treating you as a tool? Then should I just not show it? But didn’t you awaken to provide Guiding anyway? What the fuck is the problem? I can’t fucking gauge where things go wrong.’
‘If you consider how people treat Espers as just monster cleaners, wouldn’t that help you understand a bit?’
‘Esper cleaners? Ugh, fuck. That sounds awful. If there are actually bastards who say that, I’d immediately… But the analogy is good. That’s how fucking bad it feels, right? Okay.’
It seems Shin Woo-jun had also tried in his own way to get along with Jeon Ju-hwan in the beginning. The problem was that his efforts were quite different from what people generally consider appropriate. I’m not trying to defend Shin Woo-jun, but he was someone who had some pitiful aspects.
“Let’s get going now. We need to head to the Center, submit our reports, and rest at least for half a day before we start preparing for the S-rank dungeon.”
“Oh, right. Hah… how do we tackle the S-rank dungeon? It’s really one mountain after another.”
With Esper Hwang Ji-hyun’s grumbling, the team members got into the car. Just like when he came, Sa Hae-geon naturally took the seat next to me and closed his eyes while leaning on my shoulder. If I lowered my gaze slightly, I could see Sa Hae-geon’s long, thick eyelashes.
I quietly gazed at his dense eyelashes and glimpses of his red lips before closing my eyes like him and beginning Guiding. At some point, I seemed to have dozed off. As the car bumped, my head shook back and forth before falling onto his head.
Sa Hae-geon carefully took my head and placed it on his shoulder. The sound of him quietly breathing in and out was so clear that I almost gulped.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
