Jae-woo scratched his cheek with a bright grin.
“I don’t know if it’s just me, but the moment we held hands, my whole body started tingling like crazy. My head went fuzzy like I was drunk or something, and I felt really good.”
As he spoke, he suddenly leaned in with a startled look on his face.
“Don’t get the wrong idea! I still think the best guiding is yours, Hyung…!”
“I get it, so calm down.”
The way he was about to nuzzle right into his face with a cigarette between his lips, Han-gyeom turned his head and pushed Jae-woo’s face away with one hand.
As Jae-woo sat back down, Han-gyeom exhaled smoke to the side and asked,
“Isn’t that just how it usually feels when you get guided?”
Based on Jae-woo’s description, it didn’t even sound particularly remarkable to qualify as an extraordinary guiding. For espers, the sensation of guiding could differ slightly depending on the guide’s sensitivity and the concentration of GP. If the pleasant stimulation and euphoria caused by soothing the ESP pathway—specifically, the E-neurons—form the foundation of a guiding, then the degree of that sensation is determined by the guide’s skill.
In truth, what Song Jae-woo probably meant to say was: “I met a really talented guide—it’s surprising he’s unregistered.”
But Jae-woo shook his head vigorously in denial.
“No, it was different! I’m telling you, it felt insanely good! Even after the guiding was over, for a full 24 hours, my heart kept racing like I’d downed a gallon of coffee, and all I could think about was that person’s guiding.”
As he exhaled sharply through his nose, excited, Jae-woo’s eyes darted around as he tried to recall.
“You know that, uh… that thing you talked about, the pathway or whatever? It’s like mine keeps going wild, screaming at me to hurry up and get another guiding from that person.”
Watching Jae-woo struggle to explain it with his lacking vocabulary, Han-gyeom couldn’t help but feel something was definitely off. This wasn’t something one would experience from a typical guiding.
Guiding addiction?
Han-gyeom was well aware of the symptoms of guiding addiction. Even if the body was in perfect condition, the esper would grow anxious without guiding. They’d constantly crave care, and eventually, develop an obsessive attachment to the guide themselves. There were even some espers who, without their guide nearby, became completely incapable of using their abilities.
For espers, guiding wasn’t just a sweet elixir—it was the very embodiment of euphoric pleasure. So it wasn’t exactly shocking that addiction could occur.
However, based on what Song Jae-woo had said, there were some inconsistencies that made it hard to chalk this up to guiding addiction.
“Did you maybe get a deep guiding?”
“No way! I told you—we just held hands.”
Judging from Jae-woo’s earnest expression, it didn’t look like he was lying. Han-gyeom, too, suspected it wasn’t a deep guiding.
Guiding addiction typically only developed after receiving deep guidings frequently, over a period of at least six months, from the same guide.
Han-gyeom had only ever provided hand guiding to Jae-woo over the past five years. It wasn’t that Jae-woo overused his abilities to the point of needing anything more, but rather, he had always insisted on hand guiding alone, saying deep guiding was far too embarrassing for him.
It hadn’t even been two months since Jae-woo had started receiving hand guiding from anyone else. That short span of time made it difficult to consider guiding addiction a valid possibility.
What made things murky was how Song Jae-woo described his symptoms. Though they weren’t identical to the classic signs, the intensity of his words suggested a level of fixation that was suspicious enough to raise the question of addiction.
So that’s why he called it a strange kind of guiding.
A vague but gnawing unease crept over him. Han-gyeom ground out the cigarette between his lips in the nearby ice-filled ashtray without a second thought.
“Hold out your hand.”
Han-gyeom extended his own, as if requesting a handshake, urging him.
“Now.”
“A-Ah, okay.”
Feeling something sharp shift in Han-gyeom’s demeanor, Jae-woo hesitated a moment before slowly extending his hand. It felt oddly like the tense moment right before a teacher handed back a graded exam.
Han-gyeom firmly caught Jae-woo’s hand midair. His eyes instantly flickered with a faint red glow.
And then—
“Ugh!”
Jae-woo suddenly sucked in a gasp and yanked his hand away with force. It had barely been a second since Han-gyeom started channeling GP into him.
Practically slapping Han-gyeom’s hand away, Jae-woo recoiled, his mouth opening and closing in confusion. He kept looking back and forth between Han-gyeom’s face and his own hand, stammering.
“Wh-What the hell? Why did that happen just now?”
“What’s wrong?”
From Han-gyeom’s perspective, he hadn’t felt anything at all. The GP had been rejected the moment it began flowing—there hadn’t even been a chance to assess Jae-woo’s condition.
“Uh… It felt weird. L-Like, something was seriously off…”
Jae-woo fidgeted with the hand that had just been held, visibly flustered. Sensing something clearly abnormal in his reaction, Han-gyeom reached out again.
“Let me hold it again.”
“Ah…”
Jae-woo hesitated, his eyes darting uneasily. His hand trembled slightly, remembering the previous contact. But after a moment, as if bracing himself, he slowly reached out and took Han-gyeom’s hand once more.
Again, Han-gyeom let a flow of GP slip in under the pretense of guiding—when in reality, he was trying to check Jae-woo’s condition.
“Eep!”
Smack!
The moment the GP entered, Jae-woo flinched hard and instinctively smacked Han-gyeom’s hand away with a loud slap. Han-gyeom’s eyes widened—not at the stinging blow, but at the expression of pure disgust in Jae-woo’s eyes.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Out of nowhere, Lim Du-hyuk stepped in, grabbing Han-gyeom’s wrist and quickly checking his condition. The impact had been so forceful that Han-gyeom’s palm was already flushed red.
Du-hyuk’s face contorted with an intimidating scowl, and Jae-woo flinched again with the same startled Hik! sound, his shoulders jerking up. Even as he recoiled, he stared down at the hand that had struck Han-gyeom’s away, wearing a look of bewilderment as if he didn’t understand it himself.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Han-gyeom nodded at Du-hyuk’s concerned question, and the moment Du-hyuk stepped back, he turned his full attention to Jae-woo’s reaction.
Now, Jae-woo’s eyes no longer held disgust—only a flustered, overwhelmed guilt. His expression said it all, and the words of apology soon followed.
“I’m sorry, Hyung. I—I didn’t mean to hit you, it just… it just happened…”
“Take your time. Just tell me calmly.”
Han-gyeom was just as shaken by the whole thing, but figuring out the reason behind Jae-woo’s reaction mattered far more than his own confusion.
It had been the same guiding as always. In fact, because the focus had been on checking his physical condition, Han-gyeom had barely channeled any GP at all. It wasn’t a rich flow meant to provide a full guiding—he’d merely brushed through Jae-woo’s body with the lightest touch of GP. It had been so faint, so harmless, that there was no reason it should have caused such an intense response.
Jae-woo, still catching his breath, swallowed dryly and finally opened his mouth.
“I… I don’t even know if I should be saying this, but…”
“It’s okay. Say whatever you felt.”
Watching Han-gyeom’s expression carefully, Jae-woo opened and closed his mouth several times before letting out a heavy sigh and speaking in a voice full of guilt.
“It—it felt like a bug was crawling under my skin.”
“…What?”
For a moment, even Han-gyeom blurted out in stunned disbelief.
And Jae-woo, now thoroughly shaken, panicked even more. He looked as though he feared he’d just deeply offended Han-gyeom. He didn’t understand why his body was reacting this way, and the fear of having hurt Han-gyeom only made things worse.
“Hyung, I swear—I didn’t mean it like I hate you or that I don’t want your guiding or anything like that… I don’t know, I really don’t. Why is this even happening all of a sudden?”
His face flushed bright red from embarrassment, and he looked like he might burst into tears at any moment.
Han-gyeom quietly stared at him for a long moment before finally asking in a low voice,
“Don’t tell me… you formed an Imprint with that guide?”
His voice carried a dark, heavy weight. That one word—Imprint—was not something Han-gyeom could say lightly.
Jae-woo flailed his hands and shook his head frantically.
“No way! That’s impossible! I swear we only held hands… I mean it—just held hands!”
His voice started rising from sheer frustration, and he quickly cleared his throat to calm himself, lowering it again.
Imprints weren’t something that could happen just through hand guiding.
They required a deep guiding—and both parties had to be emotionally open and completely vulnerable for it to be possible. An Imprint was a bond that connected an esper and a guide on the deepest level imaginable. There was no way something like that could occur through something as simple as holding hands.
So if Jae-woo had only received hand guiding, just as he claimed, the idea that he had Imprinted with another guide was completely absurd.
And yet, the reaction he’d shown… was unmistakably that of an Imprinted Esper.
That was one of the very reasons why Seo Won couldn’t receive guiding from anyone other than his Imprinter.
The overwhelming revulsion—the polar opposite of the ecstasy typically associated with guiding—was a hallmark of the Imprint bond when it was violated.
“…That can’t be.”
Han-gyeom’s voice slipped out between his lips, disbelieving.
Song Jae-woo had been Imprinted by someone.
And he didn’t even know it.
