Chapter 81
Perhaps sensing that I would get angry if they continued, the boys ended their game and slid over to me.
“Hyuuung~. When should we enter the next Gate?”
Ji Yeohoon laid down beside me, hugging me as he asked, and I thought for a moment.
It hadn’t been long since we’d gone in and out of a Gate.
For me, I didn’t go in directly, I just waited at the front and provided guiding when the Espers came out, so I needed to decide what to do while waiting.
Doing volunteer work like knitting hats for children while waiting wasn’t bad—it helped pass the time.
Maybe because Yoon Cheong couldn’t join us for the previous Gate, he looked especially curious about my schedule.
Although we didn’t go every week or month, Yoon Cheong headed to the Association quite regularly, so I thought I should avoid that.
“Should we go once a month?”
“That often?”
“After Yu-min’s birthday, he’ll be preparing for kindergarten, so I need to buy him gifts. He’s growing well now, but he’ll continue to shoot up, right?”
“We’ll need to buy him clothes.”
Yoon Cheong seemed to understand what I meant and responded.
When I nodded, Ji Yeohoon picked up his phone saying he’d check the schedule.
“There’s a perfect one. I think we can apply for all of them.”
Since we weren’t entering a Gate as part of school practice but as a raid team from our affiliated guild, the application was relatively easy.
Plus, Calling would send a field training document to the school.
“Should I schedule for May and June? Hyung, you won’t go from July because it’s hot, right?”
“I might not go in June either if it’s too hot. Let’s just apply for May.”
As I was gathering my thoughts while looking at the schedule, Yoon Cheong nodded.
“It works out perfectly since I can’t go in July because of the Association.”
He went in April and will go in July? I made a mental note of Yoon Cheong’s words.
If he won’t give me answers, I’ll have to barge in myself.
I now thought that just watching was reaching its limits.
I needed to find out what Yoon Cheong was hiding, using any excuse necessary.
After organizing the July schedule in my head, I got up from the bed.
“Where are you going, Hyung?”
“I need to wash up and sleep. I should sleep early so I won’t be late preparing tomorrow. Why? Want to shower together? If so, grab your clothes too.”
At my words, Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon frantically shook their heads and waved their hands.
“We’ll wash up on our own!”
“I can wash myself properly!”
“Of course you can wash yourselves well. So I’ll go shower alone first?”
“Yes!”
“Go ahead.”
Do they dislike it that much? I was a bit hurt that they rejected my offer to scrub their backs, claiming they were grown up.
Until Ji Yeohoon transferred to the third school, it was cute how he used to argue that he would shower with me…
Feeling somewhat wistful, I shook my head and headed to the bathroom first.
* * *
“He has no self-awareness, none at all…”
“Moon Soo-young’s lack of self-awareness is one-two-day?”
“Fuck, this is so unfair…”
“Yoon Cheong, really… Look at you cursing the moment Soo-young Hyung leaves.”
“And you, don’t deepen your voice the moment Moon Soo-young leaves. It’s annoying.”
Seated in their chairs, Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon stared at the door Moon Soo-young had just exited through, both rubbing their faces dryly.
What should they do about this Moon Soo-young?
How could someone be so insensitive as to casually suggest showering together like that?
They had known for a long time that it was difficult to show their romantic feelings to their Guide.
He seemed busy taking care of so many people.
They couldn’t help but notice how he continued conversations with Ye Han-dam, offering advice even though he could have just left him alone.
He was also helping Oh Ji-hyun, a freelance Guide, with her exam, ostensibly for his own future benefit. But considering he spent more time helping her study than studying himself after buying the workbooks, that said it all.
He appeared to respond lifelessly to the random chatter of the three Espers in their year, but later checks revealed he remembered everything.
If he only cared about classmates, they could attribute it to his role as class president, or having been one. They were friends who had been together since elementary school.
But what made Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon feel frustrated was that their Guide got involved in all sorts of affairs with a seemingly bothered expression, leaving no opportunity to focus on himself.
Why did he care about Ye Han-seo, who was a year younger? Why did he bother with Do Yoon-seo, whom he didn’t need to care about despite receiving affection and attention from two Espers in the same class?
Of course, they never doubted that they occupied the center of that affection and attention.
They couldn’t judge who had priority between them, and they decided to avoid confirming it out of fear, having spent so much time together. But they knew they took precedence over others.
However, the reason they didn’t stir up their affection, or Moon Soo-young’s affection, was because they had decided to just watch their Guide, who always seemed to be frantically finding things to do.
They didn’t mention that he should be aware of it—that they were waiting, and that his affection reached them more than others—because their Guide, who pretended to be strong, didn’t want to show his wounds.
They had clearly trusted the people named Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon, but for some reason, he also showed signs of not trusting them, so they decided to just watch quietly.
“This isn’t right though.”
“Hah…”
Ji Yeohoon slammed his hand down, quickly hiding the broken keyboard, while Yoon Cheong smoothly took out an identical keyboard from the drawer and installed it.
With Ji Yeohoon pressing his forehead as if it was throbbing, and Yoon Cheong sighing deeply while cleaning up around them, they resembled their Guide perfectly.
“He would be horrified if he knew what dreams you and I have at night.”
“Don’t talk about it. Moon Soo-young would really run away. I can’t say those things to Hyung. I won’t. Even if I could, now is not the time.”
“I know… But we can’t stop him from saying things like that either…”
In the midst of their self-loathing time courtesy of Moon Soo-young, neither of them could put their hands on the mouse, listening to the distant sound of running water.
How could an Esper’s body be so high-performance that they could even hear that sound?
“When Hyung comes out later, please take care of his appearance. I’m 100% sure he’ll come out with water dripping everywhere.”
“Hah… Why is it my turn again?”
“Should I go do it myself then?”
“I’ll break your wrist, seriously.”
Their agreement was still being smoothly implemented.
* * *
When I woke up in the morning, Ji Yeohoon told me he couldn’t sleep.
“A call about an emergency Gate came in at dawn.”
“Emergency Gate?”
“It seems Calling was contacted first, but since all the adults were already in their own Gates, the call probably went to another guild.”
Makes sense. Ji Yeohoon’s parents had gone to raid another Gate in order to attend today’s first birthday celebration, which meant more people were allocated to other Calling Gate raids, making emergency Gate raids impossible.
They couldn’t just randomly tell Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon, who had spare time, because these two were still temporary, provisional members of Calling. Not official and not adults, but students.
The winter Gate we entered was nearby our school, and since Calling was scheduled to enter it, we had to go in for a faster raid. But there was no need to support during normal times.
Ji Yeohoon’s parents couldn’t force these guys to go to an emergency Gate they themselves had no intention of entering.
“Since Calling is first priority, they contacted them first to check if a raid was possible. I got a call suddenly after 4:30 and talked about it.”
“And you both refused?”
“Yeah. We had our own schedule, plus this emergency was an E-class Gate. Around 5:00, I checked and Chaehwa had entered it.”
Then it doesn’t matter. If the rank had been higher, they would have gathered all available personnel for the raid, birthday celebration or not.
The higher the rank, the faster the probability of Gate explosion increases.
Since Chaehwa went, I thought there wouldn’t be anything relevant to us and was about to lose interest when Ji Yeohoon grabbed my hand.
“What?”
“Ye Han-dam Hyung called me.”
“Ye Han-dam?”
“Since it was dawn, I just answered. He said he’d leave a message, so I said okay and hung up.”
“Oh, really?”
Since Ye Han-dam rarely had urgent matters to text me about, it must have been pretty urgent.
Did something happen to Ye Han-seo?
The two guys hadn’t checked my text message, as the message popup was still showing on my phone.
It was certain they couldn’t check when the hold button was pressed.
[Ye Han-dam> Hyung, he came to the raid today. But his expression is really bad. I don’t know what happened since I couldn’t hear, but he looks completely dead. I’ll contact you after the Gate raid ends.]
So it wasn’t about Ye Han-seo but about Hong Yun-hak.
I decided to postpone the story about Hong Yun-hak, who had been in seclusion, until after my schedule.
It would be awkward to ask now since Ye Han-dam would be unreachable inside the Gate.
Originally we were supposed to go to the hotel by 10, but since we woke up early, it seemed better to go to my house right away with these guys.
And to see Yu-min after a long time.
“I’m home.”
“You came early. Yu-min, say hello to your oppa.”
“Oppa! Op-pa, pa.”
You’re my healer, Yu-min.
As I quickly embraced and lifted Yu-min, who was toddling unsteadily toward me, he grinned excitedly.
“His smile really looks exactly like Soo-young when he was a baby.”
At my mom’s words, Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon took out their phones and eagerly started taking pictures of Yu-min, which I pretended not to notice.
This is just because Yu-min is cute. It has absolutely nothing to do with me.
No matter how I looked at him, Yu-min resembled our mom a lot.
Yu-min, who was munching on organic snacks, stretched his hand out to me.
What’s this, is my brother a genius? He already knows how to show consideration by giving to others.
“Soo-young, if you really eat that, Yu-min will cry.”
“Ah…”
That’s still too much to ask. It’s okay, you can just grow up as you are.
While I was smiling because my brother was cute, Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon were staring at me with blank expressions.
What’s the problem now?
“This is the first time I’ve seen Soo-young Hyung smile like that.”
“Me too, first time.”
“What nonsense are you talking about? I’ve smiled plenty of times.”
“…Put your right hand on your heart and think about it.”
I thought I’d smiled quite a lot?
The more I tried to recall, the more uncertain it became.
I had smiled before, but I don’t think I’d ever smiled out of excitement.
“I’ve seen you sneer before. And smile like you’re plotting something…”
“Or raising just one corner of your mouth, or smiling wickedly.”
“I think I might have seen a slight smile before.”
“No matter how little you smiled, that’s a bit much.”
“Though he’s my son, Mom agrees with Cheong and Yeohoon. This is the first time I’ve seen you smile like this since you were a baby.”
I was surprised by my mom’s words. Really? As if reading my expression, mom nodded with a smile.
Though she was smiling, she seemed to have felt hurt.
Because of what I hadn’t told them, they worried about me. Even if I didn’t smile much, our communication had resumed, and they probably comforted themselves by thinking it was okay as long as I was growing up healthy.
“Did you worry a lot?”
I asked while holding Yu-min tight.
“Soo-young has his own thoughts. You’ve always been firm from a young age, so I didn’t worry too much. Regardless of your reduced expressiveness, you also became friends with Cheong and Yeohoon. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve grown up so well.”
I thought I had already grown up a lot.
Since I had regressed, naturally my real age was an adult, and I thought I was living a life that didn’t need concern.
Except for when I didn’t talk, I thought my parents didn’t worry about me that much…
“I’m sorry.”
For making you worry.
Come to think of it, even knowing I had traveled back in time, the reason I could keep my mind intact was because I had a place where I could feel at ease.
The places where people feel comfort may differ, but my happiness and peace were here.
“I just thought I was all grown up.”
“To Mom and Dad, our son will always be a baby. Our beautiful babies.”
Feeling awkward and embarrassed, I just patted Yu-min’s back.
Maybe being older doesn’t mean being fully grown; I stayed still, enjoying it when Mom briefly kissed my cheek and Yu-min’s.
As Mom told us to get ready quickly, Dad also ruffled my hair as he passed by.
Feeling stinging gazes, I glanced at Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon, who both let out deep sighs.
“Can’t beat parents…”
“This is crazy.”
Confused by their weak comments, I looked at them, and Mom was smiling brightly.
“Our beautiful son isn’t ready yet. Try a little harder.”
The two guys mumbled, “Yes,” in response. Why, what’s this about?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
