#76
This is why Espers are like this!
Do-hyun, who had downed the whiskey he had earlier scolded Ho-woo to drink slowly, panted while internally cursing in place of the dejected Ho-woo.
“So you’re going to quietly play along with that bastard’s schemes?”
“I already like him, what can I do?”
A deep sigh mixed with inerasable bitterness blended into his breath.
Yes, he already likes him. Even though there was an undeniable uneasiness remaining about the intentional approach, he had given his heart.
He said he hadn’t approached because Ho-woo was a guide, but Ho-woo didn’t fully trust those words. He also didn’t believe that Oh-yul had said he wouldn’t lie to him.
He was just quietly covering it up.
Burying it in a corner of his heart, he hoped it would become insignificant as quickly as possible, holding his breath and waiting for this anxious time to pass.
“Sigh…”
Understanding Do-hyun’s frustrated reaction towards him, Ho-woo emptied his glass one last time.
He had spilled out all the stories that were hard to tell while sober, so borrowing the power of alcohol was enough for now.
“You’re not drinking more?”
At Do-hyun’s offer, Ho-woo slowly shook his head. If he drank more, it would interfere with tomorrow’s schedule. That would be troublesome.
“No. I have to go exercise tomorrow.”
“Ah, you said you were getting training, right?”
“It’s more like physical conditioning than training. Thanks to that, I’m dying from muscle pain from doing exercise I never did before.”
“That’s why I told you to exercise with me when I offered.”
Do-hyun secretly scanned Ho-woo’s thin body that showed no sign of muscle. Tall but with a slim build, Ho-woo had overall delicate lines for a man. Although he considered himself ordinary, Ho-woo had a neat, fair-skinned beauty.
Thanks to that, many classmates had suffered heartache.
Recalling the past and smiling to himself, Do-hyun suddenly remembered something he had learned in that past and casually asked Ho-woo, whose face was flushed red from the slight intoxication:
“But, are you okay?”
“With what?”
“I mean, your father. He hates Espers terribly.”
Do-hyun thought for a moment and added, “guides too.”
“……”
Ho-woo wrinkled his nose, forced to face the worrisome matter he had tried to push into a corner and forget.
“What are you going to do?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
He couldn’t hide it forever. But now wasn’t a good time at all.
His father never talked about why his mother had passed away. However, living together for a long time, things become apparent, and Ho-woo vaguely felt that Espers were connected to his mother’s death.
So, telling him that he had become a guide on the anniversary of his mother’s death, and not just a guide but the lover and guide of an S-class Esper, was not a good choice at all.
It’s not just bad, it’s being a fire-attribute unfilial child.
“For now, I’m planning to visit and see how the atmosphere is.”
“Should I go with you?”
“I’d be grateful if you did.”
Thinking it’s better to share the beating, Ho-woo gratefully accepted Do-hyun’s offer. At least he knew all about his family situation, so he would be of considerable help.
“When are you going?”
“I’m planning to go next Saturday, is that time okay for you?”
“Weekends are all I have anyway.”
“You’re definitely coming with me, no backing out?”
“I said I got it.”
Before forgetting, Ho-woo sent a message to his father saying he would visit next week with Do-hyun, then rubbed his drooping eyelids with the back of his hand.
With his mind slightly relaxed, his tired body and the bit of alcohol met, and a deadly sleepiness belatedly rushed in.
Ho-woo yawned widely and tugged on Do-hyun’s sleeve, smiling broadly.
“Let me stay over. Get me a toothbrush and some clothes.”
“Did you leave them here?”
Grumbling but diligently providing Ho-woo with a new toothbrush and comfortable clothes, Do-hyun willingly gave up half of his bed to Ho-woo who came out after washing. Ho-woo, burying himself in the comfortable bed that was as expensive as it was cozy, let his lips crumble. A drowsy smile emerged, tinged with the effects of alcohol.
“Hey, I’m a guide.”
“You said that earlier.”
“I did, but it’s still hard to believe.”
I clearly saw his eye color change. How is that possible?
Do-hyun pinched and shook the tip of Ho-woo’s reddened nose at the continued mumbling of the drunkard who was belatedly feeling the effects of alcohol.
“Stop talking nonsense and go to sleep.”
Ho-woo, suddenly attacked, puffed his cheeks and made a displeased face, but Do-hyun had no intention of listening to more drunken talk. Covering Ho-woo’s eyes with his palm to forcibly make him close them, Do-hyun slowly patted Ho-woo’s chest. It was an embarrassing act to do for a fully grown 28-year-old man, but neither Do-hyun nor Ho-woo, whose reason was half-crumbled from intoxication, minded.
“Go to sleep quickly.”
With the slow and steady patting, a deep sleep like death soon settled over Ho-woo’s body.
***
Oh-yul sat on the living room sofa, blinking slowly.
Small footsteps tickled his ears.
Ho-woo tried his best to minimize his presence, but even the small noises or breaths he made couldn’t escape Oh-yul’s detection.
The Esper slightly raised the corner of his mouth, finding it very cute how Ho-woo was excessively conscious of him living next door, but soon furrowed his brow.
“Kim Do-hyun, is it?”
Given the limited number of people Ho-woo would meet at this hour, Oh-yul quickly guessed who he was going to meet.
After all, it was he who had cut off all of Ho-woo’s human relationships. The problem was that the only friend left was the most annoying one.
He found the only number saved in his phone and wrote a message.
[Ho-woo.]
The indicator next to the message disappeared immediately. However, no particular reply came.
Oh-yul imagined Ho-woo’s expression as he stood in front of the elevator beyond the thin wall.
The first expression that came to mind was one mixed with tension, surprise, and wariness. Perhaps even suspicion.
He didn’t mind and leisurely wrote the next message.
[Don’t stay up too late.]
It was displeasing that Ho-woo had immediately run to Kim Do-hyun as soon as he had a worry. Still, since that worry was because of him, Yul exercised patience generously this time.
Of course, it was also because he had other things to do.
After the minister fled the city with all his minions, some of them returned to the city again.
Of course, since Espers and guides naturally belonged to the Management Corporation, they were reinstated to their previous teams, albeit under scrutiny.
Among them, Oh-yul noticed two people who concerned him.
The two Espers who had encountered Ho-woo in front of the subway had left the city following Kim Dong-cheol and returned just yesterday.
Simply thinking, it could be seen as them returning to the city they lived in, but Yul didn’t think so optimistically. It stank, and badly.
With Kim Dong-cheol’s corruption being spread throughout the city daily, the fact that his minions, especially those who had directly encountered Lee Ho-woo, had entered the city made it impossible to dismiss suspicion.
Oh-yul didn’t think Kim Dong-cheol, who had fled with his tail between his legs from the threat of a rampage, would easily back down as long as the city was intact. Even though Oh-yul was designated to become the minister, that position was still vacant.
So he wouldn’t be able to give up, right?
The public forgets quickly anyway. Like water that boils up and cools down in an instant, he probably thinks that if he covers it with something new and waits, it will pass by somehow, so he has more than enough dirty tricks to employ.
Among them, how excited must he be to have found an existence he considers a weakness in an opponent without a single gap?
Oh-yul raised the corner of his mouth crookedly. A smile mixed heavily with displeasure and contempt lingered on his face for a while before disappearing.
It would be easy to cut off the bud so they couldn’t pounce in the first place. Because there was something more familiar than a moral solution. However, Yul didn’t strike him down immediately.
Kim Dong-cheol’s usefulness was still sufficient. After all, the fall of someone who was in the highest position is what focuses people’s attention, and there was still a long way for him to fall.
Although he had received criticism for this incident, he hadn’t lost all his power, so it wasn’t bad to watch for a while until he created a situation where he fell into the mud by his own hands.
Yul found a familiar name on the pager and connected. After a short ringtone, a voice tinged with tension came through the small device.
-Yes! Esper Moon Jin-hyuk! Ready for anything!
Moon Jin-hyuk, who had rewritten his incident report about a hundred times four times after pouncing on Ho-woo, gave a sharp, energetic answer.
After the S-class Esper’s rampage incident, the young Esper, who had clearly seen with his own eyes what kind of being of Oh-yul’s he had touched, realized painfully how fortunate he was not to have died then. Being an Esper himself, he understood it better. The survival instinct that had kicked in sharply raised Moon Jin-hyuk’s attentiveness to the extreme. His polite speech was extremely courteous.
“I’m going to give you an address now. Go to that address and keep watching Ho-woo from now on.”
-Is it an escort mission?
“No. Just watch, and if any problems arise, inform me.”
To gauge the right time and timing, he needed a flare to give him a signal. Oh-yul chose Moon Jin-hyuk as that flare.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
