I Wish They’d Just Leave Me Alone 78

Chapter 78

There was no contact from Hong Yun-hak.

After the first contact, he seemed to send a few messages saying he thought it was fate, but after about a month, they stopped abruptly.

Since he wouldn’t answer when I tried to contact him, there was nothing I could do.

I needed to verify what I had learned from that conversation, but I didn’t feel the need to specifically look for someone who wouldn’t even answer my calls.

He was the type of person who made everything exhausting, so I thought it might be better to ask the Ye brothers instead.

Things were a bit uncomfortable with Ye Han-seo after the confession incident, but if I could find out about the situation, why be picky?

Meanwhile, school reopened, and Ji Yeohoon knocked on my door every morning with an excited face.

During the two years of middle school, he’d come for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and now it would be the same for another two years.

It had already been a month since he started venting his frustration about not being able to properly hang out together for a year.

“Hyung, I talked to Yoon Cheong hyung about the Gate raid we agreed to apply for together.”

“Yoon Cheong isn’t going again?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s obvious from the way you’re telling me.”

If your tone changes as if you’re tattling to me, wouldn’t it be stranger if I didn’t notice?

Apparently, Yoon Cheong said he wasn’t going on this Gate raid and was going to the Association instead.

“I specifically applied for this one because I wanted to try a slightly higher-ranked Gate, but Yoon Cheong hyung says he’s not going. I researched and applied because they said having Gate raid experience during high school looks good.”

“I don’t need to go.”

“You’d be fine.”

“I wouldn’t be fine.”

At my words, Yoon Cheong made a startled face.

I never applied for Gate standby alone.

I only applied when Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon were going.

Since I’m an S-class with a large amount of bigar, guilds check my matching rates in advance and specially assign Espers with a lower probability of reverse guiding.

Usually, after guiding Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon first, they add additional personnel to allow other Guides to guide comfortably, but if even one of the two doesn’t go, that many more people will be assigned to me.

From the beginning, they’ve been imprinted on me even without realizing it, and since I’m still a student, I don’t want to worry about other Espers, so I tend to minimize the number of guidings.

But if this guy doesn’t go, the number of others I need to take on increases.

Moreover, since both are high-ranking Espers above B-class, if just one is missing, more than two C-class Espers would be assigned… I was already tired.

“Sorry…”

“Do you even know what you’re sorry for, you jerk.”

“Hyung~, should I beg the Guild Master to let me be the only one you guide?”

“They’ll demand an exclusive contract with Calling, so no.”

“Too bad~”

“Instead, I’ll guide you for longer.”

“Great!”

Ji Yeohoon was joking, even though he had no intention of actually talking to the guild.

Since it was just an excuse to tease Yoon Cheong by using his 100% attachment to me, I responded casually as well.

Yoon Cheong’s situation of not telling us about his Association-related activities was dragging on.

I checked with Ye Han-dam too, but the information was mostly the same.

The same answer—that he did it because they paid a higher hourly rate than regular part-time jobs and the work was easy.

The only response I got was that it was mainly moving collected documents.

I asked him to let me know if there was anything else, but no other information came from Ye Han-dam.

“Will you be late this time? What time do you finish?”

“I’ll go before lunch and finish around three.”

“Oh? Ji Yeohoon, what time was our Gate scheduled to end?”

“We finish in the evening. I’d like to get out earlier, but since it’s a B-rank Gate…”

“Looks like we can’t eat lunch together either way. Uncle and Auntie aren’t going in either, right?”

“No. They said they’re going on a trip.”

“Well, they have been to a lot of Gates recently.”

“I’m sad we can’t eat lunch together…”

“Move away a bit. You’re making it hard for Moon Soo-young to walk.”

“I don’t want to.”

Ji Yeohoon pouted his lips and wrapped his arm around my neck, grumbling.

Yoon Cheong spoke with an irritated expression, but Ji Yeohoon remained the same.

But Yoon Cheong, you’re not exactly letting go of my hand either. You’re pulling so hard it hurts, man.

I had noticed for a while that their physical contact was getting more intense.

But I didn’t really feel like pushing them away. Their faces seemed comfortable, perhaps thanks to the guiding bigar, and it was actually nice to see them fighting as usual.

[Did you know that if the future doesn’t change much from before the time rewind, the time periods before and after can merge?]

I kept thinking about the text I had received from Hong Yun-hak.

What I focused on here was the part that said “if it doesn’t change much.”

Actually, I couldn’t understand it exactly either, but it seemed like an ability that doesn’t completely turn back time but rather uses an ability with a central axis to overlay time and modify it.

So if the present doesn’t change much from before the rewind, the time periods merge, right?

Given that Hong Yun-hak’s memories were overlapping, it seemed that because it was a situation caused by his own ability, he could identify differences from before.

The reason he focused on me inside the Gate was probably because I was the only unusual case in the overlapped timeline, so of course he noticed me.

Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon were known by name as the maximum contributors to C-rank Gate raids from their first Gate even before the regression, and Calling is originally a guild with quite a few famous Espers.

But I was a D-rank Guide who didn’t transfer to a specialized school and had no past where my name was known like those maximum contributors.

There’s no middle school S-class Guide with a well-known name in this timeline to begin with.

These were things I had changed.

But my return to the past was after age twenty-six.

I thought things had changed a lot so far, but considering there are still nearly ten years left, there could be plenty of opportunities for merging by then, so I kept checking on the guys several times even while living normally.

“Hyung, should we go ahead?”

Still hugging me, Ji Yeohoon lifted my body and moved away from Yoon Cheong at a fast speed before I could answer.

I heard Yoon Cheong’s voice shouting something, and Ji Yeohoon’s laughing voice rang in my ears.

It was a playful and ordinary day, so I held tightly onto Ji Yeohoon as he ran while carrying me.

“Hyung, hold on tight like that.”

“I will.”

“Stop running!”

“Then you’d better hurry, hyung!”

I won’t let go of these guys. I held onto Ji Yeohoon and stared at Yoon Cheong.

I resolved that I would never let these guys return to how they were before the regression.

* * *

The Gate raid ended without any issues, and Yoon Cheong, who had gone to the Association, also returned without any problems.

It was quite an ordinary daily life, except for my concern about Yoon Cheong’s activities.

“Hyung, what’s this?”

“A study guide for the general Guide qualification certification exam.”

“The one for getting a Guide license? You don’t need that, do you?”

“It’s good to have for a freelance Guide.”

“Are you planning to be a freelancer, hyung?”

“I haven’t decided, but just in case.”

Ji Yeohoon asked if he could open the package that arrived at the dormitory, and I nodded. He quickly opened the box, looked through the contents, checking this and that, then made a sad face.

“You’ve done a lot of guiding at Calling, and your grades at school are good. Do you really need it? You’re S-class anyway, so they’ll be begging you to join Gate raids everywhere even without a license.”

“It’s better to have it.”

Actually, if I really wanted to join a guild, I wouldn’t need certification like this.

But it was different for Guides who worked as freelancers.

Since they don’t just participate in one guild’s Gate raids, they needed to know about various unexpected situations and how to deal with them.

Unlike guild-affiliated Guides who don’t need to worry about certain things because the guild handles them, freelance Guides had many things to handle directly after raids.

They had to manage the process themselves if they got injured, as well as review guiding efficiency with matched Espers or distribute contribution shares.

That’s why the license exam was similar to the Association Guide employment exam. Just with some differences in difficulty.

There was a personality test, and it focused on showing that you could handle backend processing alone, asking about legal issues like Gate grade byproduct allocation ratios or guidelines for direct Gate entry behavior.

Still, it was more like a general qualification than a permit, so it was good to have but not strictly necessary.

But since it makes things a bit easier, I decided to get it.

Let’s say there’s a difference in preference from guilds because you have Association certification and a clear identity.

I could work as a freelancer without a license, and Calling would invite me anytime…

But even if I joined Calling after becoming an adult, I could still become a freelancer, or I might not join from the beginning.

Rather than dealing with the hassle of getting it later, it was advantageous in many ways to get it now as a student when I had plenty of time.

“But you can’t take this yet, right?”

“You take it at 17, so I can’t yet.”

I was still 16. I had to wait until my birthday to take the exam, but my summer birthday was still far away, so there was a lot of time left.

Since the exam is held once every three months, the next exam date after my birthday is in September.

“Hyung, then you have plenty of time. There’s still 5 months left?”

“Doesn’t that mean I can still have fun for now?”