# Chapter 42
That thought was almost identical to what had crossed Ko Eungyo’s mind exactly one minute ago. The probability of him making two incorrect predictions was nearly zero, and—
“J-Jeju Island.”
His stammering wasn’t intentional. Lee Seungwoo asked, his eyes filled with an emotion that was hard to distinguish between possessiveness or obsession, yet using a gentle tone.
“I like winter beaches too.”
“…”
“Who… are you going with?”
This had to be flirting.
As Ko Eungyo became flustered, Lee Seungwoo seemed to regain his composure.
Ko Eungyo had only mentioned Jeju Island as a hasty excuse because of the gate situation—he didn’t actually have vacation plans. But he had never met someone who spoke to him so suggestively.
He could feel his face burning up.
Lee Seungwoo reached out and lightly rubbed Ko Eungyo’s cheek where he had wiped earlier. Ko Eungyo jumped back as if burned, but Seungwoo’s steady hand only withdrew after perfectly removing the dust from the earlier commotion.
Far from stopping there, Seungwoo proceeded to brush dust off from his shoulders all the way down to his knees. Ko Eungyo was too shocked to either push him away or stop him, standing awkwardly as Seungwoo tended to him like a father or uncle.
Finally, while touching Ko Eungyo’s knees, Lee Seungwoo asked, “Shall I take you there?”
“…What?”
Did he think this was just a trip around the neighborhood? Getting to Jeju Island required at least an airplane. Or did he mean he’d take him home? When Ko Eungyo made a confused face, Lee Seungwoo straightened his back and raised one eyebrow.
“I’m faster than an airplane.”
‘What the…’
Since when did Lee Seungwoo know how to joke like this?
It was certainly strange. A skilled joke coming from someone who seemed serious about everything.
A breathy sound escaped Ko Eungyo’s lips. He barely registered that he had laughed.
“No thanks.”
Then he pulled his arm from Lee Seungwoo’s grip. The hand released smoothly. The next moment, he turned his back to Lee Seungwoo and walked forward.
The moment Lee Seungwoo saw Ko Eungyo smile, the desire to see his smile again finally vanished when Ko Eungyo smiled at him once more. And the satisfied desire began to grow in an entirely new direction.
Watching Ko Eungyo’s retreating figure, Lee Seungwoo muttered with a dazed expression.
“…He smiled.”
It really was strange.
To think the day would come when Ko Eungyo would laugh at his joke.
*
He felt like he’d heard about it before. About guys who put only one Esper in their ‘my’ list and acted as if they were dating them.
Of course, it wasn’t real dating. He’d heard that when abilities manifested early, the young ones were often educated together, and being so young, they became close quickly. Since they were often paired up for training, they developed special bonds.
It was considered betrayal for a Guide to add Espers other than their own, and likewise, Espers wouldn’t request Guiding from other Guides no matter how urgent the situation. Especially if a Guide decided to remain an ordinary Guide, they would often provide Guiding exclusively to that Esper for life.
He had thought only high school students did such things. A typical adult Guide would add Espers with high matching rates to their ‘my’ list according to the Center’s policy. And Guides who disliked hassle and didn’t need Guiding allowances would carefully select an Esper to Guide until the Esper completed their mandatory service period, then quit being a Guide to live with that Esper.
It was a life completely unrelated to his own, as he had been obsessed with work.
But looking at his ‘my’ list now…
‘It’s exactly like that.’
The profile of newly registered Esper, Lee Seungwoo, was blinking blue. Seungwoo was his only Esper.
He looked at it and snorted in disbelief.
Dating at a time like this… No, and even if he were to date, would it be with Lee Seungwoo? Though Seungwoo was acting strangely lately, and though his initial impression resurfaced making his heart flutter a bit, these feelings would fade away in a few days.
It wasn’t the time to think comfortably about Lee Seungwoo, nor was he someone he wanted to think about. His desire for their relationship to improve was solely because of the gate, not because he had forgotten what Seungwoo had done or because he’d started to like him.
There were more pressing matters. The Jeju Island gate.
Despite the detector’s prediction that a gate would appear soon, Jeju Island remained quiet. He was supposed to go to Jeju Island once the gate appeared to discuss with his team how to clear it, but with no gate forming, his time was essentially suspended.
When Jang Iju was in charge, there were many tasks to fill such floating time, but Ko Eungyo had only one job assigned to him.
As he lay on his bed killing time, his phone screen suddenly lit up.
“…What?”
He checked his phone without thinking. And then… he confirmed that the Esper in his ‘my’ list was about to enter a gate.
There was no time to think. He jumped up, frantically searched for his coat, and rushed to the door. One arm carried his coat while the other hand held his phone and car keys.
The gate Lee Seungwoo had just entered was a C-class gate, a common nest-type. During the one-minute elevator ride down, he confirmed through the Center application that Lee Seungwoo was about to enter a spider nest-type gate, and that there was one more gate he was scheduled to clear this month.
‘Could things work out this well?’
The spider nest gate’s difficulty was the lowest possible. It didn’t even require a powered individual. Ten armed soldiers could enter with firearms, burn everything down, and the gate would be cleared. The spider queen had poison which made her tricky to capture, but wearing gas masks or having a flame-type Esper provide support from a distance would solve that problem.
If he could enter such an easy gate with Lee Seungwoo and clear it as a side job…
He wouldn’t need to go all the way to Jeju Island. He ran down to the underground parking garage as soon as he got off the elevator. He found his SUV and drove out at maximum possible speed.
But then.
“The entry time has ended.”
“…Pardon?”
What nonsense was this?
“Weren’t you a regular Guide anyway, Guide Ko Eungyo? I thought you couldn’t enter, so I went into the gate as soon as preparations were complete.”
Even so, how could he just enter without respecting the basic preparation time?
For Ko Eungyo, who had always lived by the book, this was infuriating.
Even though it was fashionable these days to deploy high-spec Espers to quickly clear low-level gates, could they really proceed with work while ignoring all procedures?
“I received a temporary license.”
“Ah… I see.”
As if this could end with an “I see.”
His head understood, but his heart didn’t at all. To be honest, he was so annoyed that Lee Seungwoo hadn’t said a word to him about the gate schedule that he could hardly express it. He tried to calm his boiling insides, thinking he would use any means necessary to remove that damn ‘temporary’ tag. An easy path was right in front of him, but the bus had already left.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t told Lee Seungwoo that he had a temporary on-site Guide license. So naturally, Lee Seungwoo just went in alone…
“Haah…”
It was his fault for not telling Lee Seungwoo in advance. Of course, Lee Seungwoo wasn’t entirely blameless for not sharing his schedule with Ko Eungyo either.
But Lee Seungwoo didn’t seem like the type to tell others his schedule in detail, and because of Ko Eungyo’s mistake, he had lived without meeting a proper Guide. So he probably didn’t know he needed to inform his Guide about gate schedules.
Ko Eungyo’s damn karma.
‘Fine…’
Since he was already here, he might as well pick up Lee Seungwoo. After clearing a gate, he would be drained of energy and not in his right mind anyway. Then he could tell Seungwoo about his temporary on-site Guide license and suggest going together when there was a gate schedule.
With that thought, his urgency subsided like a lie.
The reason he had rushed here so desperately was because there was no guarantee the Jeju Island gate would definitely appear.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
