“But where’s Jeong Se-eun?”
Throughout the meal, I had the feeling I was missing something, and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the root cause of all this trouble. Though I hadn’t aimed the question at anyone in particular, I could feel the atmosphere rapidly cooling.
I was so flustered by the frozen atmosphere—fortunate that I’d brought this up near the end of the meal—that I looked at Do Wonjin. The smile on his lips remained, but his slightly furrowed eyes openly revealed his discomfort.
‘Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Why is the atmosphere like this?’
At this point, I was the one reading the room. Watching me unable to get any words out, just moving my lips, Do Wonjin suddenly ruffled my hair.
“What, all of a sudden…”
Thanks to inheriting my mother’s perfectly straight hair, I’d never experienced bedhead. So even with rough handling, my hair wasn’t the type to get disheveled, yet the spot his hand touched bothered me for no reason. When I frowned and brushed off his hand, Do Wonjin firmly grasped my hand and grinned.
“Don’t read the room.”
I pulled my hand free from Do Wonjin’s grasp and looked at Jeong Seyeon. His brow was creased enough that you’d miss it if you didn’t look closely, and shadows lay beneath his eyes. Just from his complexion alone, it seemed certain that something had happened between Jeong Se-eun and them while I was gone.
“I’ll bring Jeong Se-eun after the meal.”
And after the meal, I understood why they’d reacted that way.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Because Jeong Se-eun appeared before me, head held high with not even a hint of remorse showing.
“That’s why I said let’s go together. Who told you to follow me? Even kids these days don’t follow when strangers ask them to come along.”
“……”
Jeong Seyeon’s expression hardened grimly without answering, and Jeong Se-eun also glared and bit her lips tightly. Her eyes, brimming with venom, looked firm in their will not to yield her opinion. Watching that sight intently, Jeong Seyeon stood up from his seat.
“Follow me out.”
He spoke in a commanding tone as he passed by the seated Jeong Se-eun, and she stubbornly held her position, shaking her head.
“I don’t want to.”
“Jeong Se-eun. My patience has limits.”
“If I hadn’t done this, you wouldn’t have even come home. You’re the one who did wrong first, Oppa. You said you were my guardian until I became an adult…!”
At first, I’d planned to have Jeong Se-eun apologize, lecture her a bit about not doing this again, and then forgive her. But seeing her attitude, it didn’t seem like something that could end so simply.
‘My mother passed away from poison.’
The details of Jeong Seyeon’s family circumstances I’d heard last night came to mind, making my head throb. Jeong Seyeon cooking meals himself in place of his busy father, having to protect his younger sister. Trying his best to ensure his younger sister, who still needed a mother, wouldn’t feel their mother’s absence. A whole morning drama unfolded in my head.
‘She lost that kind of oppa overnight, so she must resent me.’
If only I didn’t know why she was so obsessed with her oppa—but already knowing the situation, this kind of conversation seemed meaningless.
“Wait, both of you calm down.”
Seeing Jeong Seyeon’s face—which didn’t show much expression change—become even more menacing than before, and Jeong Se-eun’s voice growing louder, I urgently squeezed between them.
“Hyung, could you step out for a moment? I’d like to talk with Se-eun alone.”
When I removed Jeong Seyeon’s hand that was gripping Jeong Se-eun’s arm and spoke, he let out a deep sigh and stood up.
“…Then please talk.”
After sending Jeong Seyeon out, I looked at Jeong Se-eun. The face that had been snapping at her oppa was pale, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Se-eun.”
“Don’t call my name like we’re close. It gives me the creeps.”
Seeing Jeong Se-eun turn her body away completely as if she didn’t even want to look in my direction left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Honestly, what she’d done to me wasn’t right. It was only because I wasn’t an ordinary person and was a higher-ranked Esper than her that it didn’t become a bigger problem. But as Jeong Se-eun said, it was also true that I’d been careless, and I had provided the cause.
‘When I said I’d be living with temporary Guides, this was the problem Jeonghyun was worried about.’
As Woo Jeonghyun said, there was a reason they tried to become temporary Guides. I just didn’t expect to find out this way.
If I’d opposed the cohabitation more strongly to the Center Director back then, this wouldn’t have happened. Given social status, Espers have more say than Guides. If I’d taken a firm stance to the end, even the Center Director wouldn’t have been able to push things through arbitrarily.
But back then, I thought it wouldn’t work even if I spoke up. That it wouldn’t change—I gave up and surrendered first. I said I’d change after regressing, but I was still stuck in the same place. As a result, I’d created another victim just like my past self.
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
At my apology, Jeong Se-eun’s head, which had been turned away, turned toward me.
She had an incredulous expression, but the long tear stains on her cheeks showed she’d been crying just moments ago.
“If it weren’t for me, you’d be living with your oppa, wouldn’t you?”
Tears welled up in Jeong Se-eun’s eyes again. Before I could even stop them, watching the tears stream down, this time I was the flustered one fumbling about. Unable to find even a single tissue no matter how much I looked around the room, I reached out and wiped the tears from the crying Jeong Seyeon’s eyes.
“Huuuung!”
I’d been prepared for her to swat my hand away saying it was unpleasant, but instead Jeong Se-eun jumped into my arms, buried her face, and burst into pitiful sobs. Not knowing how to comfort her, I hesitated awkwardly before carefully patting her back.
“I’m sorry too.”
After shedding a bucket of tears, perhaps having calmed down, Jeong Se-eun spoke in a nasal voice.
“No matter how jealous I was, I shouldn’t have done that.”
I’d expected her to shamelessly insist she’d done nothing wrong to the end, so her honest acknowledgment of her mistake was a bit unexpected.
“But Jeongjae Oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“Sniff, if you’re sorry, can’t you break the contract?”
I was shocked watching Jeong Se-eun blatantly blow her nose on my clothes, then after hearing all she had to say, my face hardened.
“Break the contract?”
“It’s a temporary Guide contract anyway. Besides our oppa, there are three more Guides.”
Jeong Se-eun emerged from my arms with a clean face, having wiped all her tears and snot on my clothes.
“Is there a problem?”
As Jeong Se-eun said, there was no problem. Even without him, Do Wonjin and Yang Garam would Guide me. And even if I broke the contract with Jeong Seyeon, it didn’t seem like the Center Director would stop it. Since I’d arbitrarily formed a temporary Guide contract with Joo Seolhyeon from the start and found a Guide separately without consulting the Center Director.
‘There’s no problem. None, but…’
Scenes from last night with Jeong Seyeon flashed through my mind fragmentarily. His gentle touch pulling me from a nightmare. His outfit clearly thrown on in a hurry. His face deeply shadowed with fatigue, undoubtedly exhausted from wandering mountain paths late at night searching for me. Even that moment walking in the dim moonlight, relying on the small light I’d created.
“……”
From the moment I first met him after turning back time to what happened on Quardo Island a few days ago. Every moment spent with him flashed by quickly. My chest felt stuffy for some reason from that brief reminiscence accomplished in an instant.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at Jeong Se-eun and said.
“I don’t think I can break the contract.”
And there was something important missing here.
“And isn’t Seyeon hyung’s opinion the most important?”
More important than my opinion was the party’s opinion. Even if I wanted to maintain the contract, if Jeong Seyeon wanted to break the contract with me, there was nothing I could do about it.
Jeong Se-eun nodded with a dumbfounded face like someone who’d been hit on the back of the head at my answer.
“You’re right.”
“…?”
“I made a mistake. I’m going to apologize to Oppa now.”
Suddenly, like someone who’d remembered something forgotten, Jeong Se-eun stood up from her seat with a flustered face.
“Thank you, Jeongjae Oppa.”
I was puzzled about what she was thanking me for, but Jeong Se-eun bowed her head and disappeared from the spot without a trace. She’d used her spatial movement ability.
‘How urgent must it have been to even use her ability.’
Still, it seemed to be resolved well, so I patted my tense shoulders with relief.
Knock knock.
“Hyung, if you’re done talking, can I come in?”
I wasn’t the only one who felt Jeong Se-eun shake the surrounding wavelengths when using her ability—Yang Garam’s voice came from beyond the door. When Jeong Seyeon brought his younger sister, I thought he’d deliberately left to go sightseeing or something, but he must have been right nearby. When I told him to come in, Yang Garam opened the door and entered the room.
“Looks like you talked well with Jeong Se-eun.”
Looking at my clothes with Jeong Se-eun’s tear stains still vivid on them, Yang Garam wrinkled his nose bridge and smiled. I readily nodded and stared at Yang Garam. After talking with Jeong Se-eun earlier, I wondered if he too had given up something to live with me.
“I almost forgot to give this to hyung earlier.”
Yang Garam fumbled and pulled something out of his pocket.
“Ta-da!”
It was a phone charger. Feeling bewildered wondering when he’d prepared this, I looked at Yang Garam, and he placed the charger in my hand himself with a very proud face.
“From 10 PM last night, your phone was turned off so I couldn’t connect. I thought you’d need it, so I brought it.”
He looked at me with sparkling puppy-like eyes hoping for praise.
“I did well, right?”
In a situation where an emergency mission could come in at any time, having a dead phone battery was indeed an urgent situation. But right now, I’d cleared an S-rank dungeon and gotten a promise of leave from the Center Director. Though a week had passed, he said there wouldn’t be missions for a while, so the current situation wouldn’t be a problem.
‘Now that I think about it, there’s nowhere that contacts me besides missions.’
Not only official contacts, but there was nowhere for private contacts either. Because from the day my mother went missing, I’d cut off all relationships around me. At the time, I was sick of the reporters swarming to make my story gossip material and felt disillusioned with people in general, but thinking back now, there were people who’d contacted me out of genuine concern.
‘If I’d kept even one person on my side back then, my younger sibling wouldn’t have died to a villain, and I might not have been so desperate for Joo Seolhyeon.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
