“Then what about me?”
However, just as he was about to turn away, Cha Jae-woo’s voice caught him by the ankle.
“If you use up all your mana here, you won’t be able to guide me.”
He had been too stupid to think that far. Halting mid-step and turning back, he saw Cha Jae-woo standing there, face set in a grim line.
“You saw me use my ability too, didn’t you?”
Since his mana reserves were low, even pouring every last bit into the man in front of him wouldn’t be enough to truly help. And after that, there would be no mana left to guide Cha Jae-woo. It was obvious.
“Even so, are you still going to do it?”
From what he could see, Cha Jae-woo’s wave hadn’t deteriorated sharply. If he had to prioritize, Cha Jae-woo came first. That side was clearly the more urgent.
“……No. I’m sorry.”
But he didn’t push further. Turning his back on someone who looked like he might collapse at any moment wasn’t easy. Even so, Cha Jae-woo was more important to him.
He won’t die. He’ll be fine.
Someone would definitely step in to help.
“Come here, then.”
The moment he finally managed to tear his gaze away, Cha Jae-woo jerked his chin toward him. He almost stumbled as he hurried over to him.
His steps felt heavy, as if sandbags were tied to his ankles. Yet, if leaving that man behind was the right decision, he wanted to get away from this place as quickly as possible.
“If he goes berserk, a lot of people will die.”
At that moment, a voice rang out behind him, almost like a threat, as if trying to latch onto him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pretended not to hear them.
“Go bitch at the bastard who made him like this.”
Cha Jae-woo spoke coldly as he roughly grabbed his approaching wrist. Without another word, he dragged him toward the car, threw open the passenger side door, and shoved him in hard.
With his head bowed, he stayed silent as Cha Jae-woo got into the driver’s seat. Anxiety and guilt billowed up inside him like smoke.
He still believed that the ones who had created that situation were the ones truly at fault. However, if that man really did go berserk and caused destruction, wouldn’t he, who had abandoned him there, be just as responsible for his death?
The thought alone made his fingers tremble violently. But Cha Jae-woo simply started the car. No words came from him.
“……”
After that, they drove in silence for a while. When he stole a glance at Cha Jae-woo, he saw his jaw clenched tightly, like he was barely holding back his anger. It was clear that his stubbornness had enraged Cha Jae-woo.
Still, he didn’t feel the urge to apologize. He knew that guiding the man earlier would have been exactly what “they” wanted. Even so, guilt was weighing down on him so heavily that he could barely breathe.
“……I don’t know.”
After what felt like an eternity, he finally broke the silence.
He hadn’t expected a reply.
“Just to see how I guide… was it really worth doing all this?”
What was so important about it? Even if he found out, it wasn’t like he could change anything.
“Why do I have to pretend not to know?”
He only had a limited amount of mana to use. If he had guided the man earlier with the method he usually used, he would have had more than enough left to guide Cha Jae-woo too.
But because he had to use a standard guiding method, he had chosen Cha Jae-woo instead. Was that truly the right decision? Really?
“Haah…”
Cha Jae-woo let out a deep, frustrated sigh. The tension laced in it made him instinctively shrink into himself.
“You’re my Guide.”
Cha Jae-woo declared to him firmly.
“Don’t guide anyone else but me.”
Ordinarily, those words should have made him happy. He had already given up trying to weigh their hearts on a scale. It was enough just knowing he was someone indispensable to Cha Jae-woo. He was even glad that his guiding was considered special.
But right now, it didn’t feel good at all.
Because Cha Jae-woo wasn’t even considering any exceptions.
“There might come a time when I have no choice.”
Today, he could excuse himself by saying that it had all been a setup. But if there truly was someone who desperately needed guiding, wasn’t it natural to step up?
“Sometimes, there are situations where you can’t help but—”
“There’s no such thing.”
“……”
“The only person you can guide is me.”
When he shut his mouth, at a loss for words, Cha Jae-woo let out another heavy sigh. Reflecting his foul mood, the speed of the car began to climb faster and faster.
“Don’t guide anyone else.”
He couldn’t agree to that. He didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep.
What if he encountered someone like Jung Hyun-soo, who had manifested and gone berserk? Was he supposed to just ignore them? That was something he could never do.
“Lim Haeyul.”
“If it’s absolutely necessary, then I will—ah!”
Screeech!
A deafening screech rang out as the car came to a sudden halt in the middle of the road. The closer they got to Cha Jae-woo’s house, the quieter the streets had become, so there were hardly any cars around—but still, it was dangerously reckless driving.
Grimacing, he straightened up his body that had nearly been thrown forward.
“Absolutely necessary? What situation would that be?”
Cha Jae-woo didn’t seem the least bit fazed. He turned and stared at him as he asked, his voice as sharp and cold as a shard of ice.
“You have no power, so who the hell are you to pity others?”
“……”
“Fuck. I can’t stand this.”
His mind went blank. He couldn’t even manage to part his lips. Cha Jae-woo was showing him an attitude he had never once revealed since the first day they’d met.
“There’s no situation where you have to step up. You just need to hole up at home and guide me. Is that so hard to understand? Don’t go running around guiding others. Sit still and behave. Why the hell are you trying to judge what’s right and wrong?”
Cha Jae-woo didn’t even wait for an answer. His cold, merciless words stabbed straight into his brain with terrifying clarity. It felt like he was finally hearing all the thoughts Cha Jae-woo had been harboring all this time, now spilling out unfiltered.
“It’s not even that hard. I bend over backwards trying to match you, just the way you want, and yet you find this so fucking difficult?”
Was he hurt by those words? Strangely enough, not really.
It was more like he had finally understood the source of the discomfort he had felt from time to time—the faint sense that something had always been off about Cha Jae-woo’s kindness, his seemingly affectionate demeanor.
As expected, he didn’t actually like him.
“……”
Cha Jae-woo distorted his face and raked his fingers roughly through his hair.
He had thought his heart had swelled because they were truly in sync. But thinking back on it, there had always been a strange hollowness in the corner of his chest whenever he looked at him. Maybe, unconsciously, he had been preparing himself for this moment all along.
“……I’ll do that. I’m sorry.”
He answered after a long pause. Cha Jae-woo said nothing.
He stared absentmindedly at Cha Jae-woo’s fingers tapping on the steering wheel, then turned his gaze toward the window.
His heart pricked and ached. Even if he could play it off as indifference, having felt even a little of Cha Jae-woo’s emotions, it wasn’t possible to be completely unaffected.
Of course. What was he expecting? There was no way Cha Jae-woo would genuinely like him. He just liked his guiding. That was all.
That was why he had wanted to stay in the position of a Guide.
“……It won’t happen again. Really.”
After staring out the window for a while, he forced a smile and turned his head.
Cha Jae-woo, who happened to be glancing at him, twitched his eyebrow, but he decided not to care anymore.
He just wanted to go home. He felt like if he could get a good night’s sleep, this miserable feeling might fade at least a little.
***
[Second Berserk Incident in Downtown Area… Death Toll Reaches 32]
[Berserk Occurred During Transport to Guide Association, Cause Under Investigation.]
Lying in bed, he scrolled through the continuously updating news articles until he finally threw his phone aside. His whole body ached. Whether it was a fever or something else, every part of him was screaming in pain.
“Haah…”
He curled up tightly in his blanket, letting out a long, heavy sigh. His stomach churned with nausea, and he felt like he might vomit. For a brief moment, he even wished he could just melt away and disappear.
“……”
In the end, that Esper had died. Just as he had feared, he had gone berserk, leaving behind a trail of casualties.
The mere fact suffocated him.
But it wasn’t guilt that was tormenting him.
It was a rage so fierce he could no longer suppress it, boiling up to the very top of his head. His heart pounded so fast it hurt. His entire body trembled, and his mind was gradually numbing.
“……Those fucking bastards.”
He could have avoided going berserk. At the very least, if the people who had orchestrated that situation had taken him directly to the Association, if they had even the slightest will to treat him, it would have been entirely possible.
The fact that the area where the casualties occurred was far from both the place where we had been attacked and the Association itself—and the fact that the berserk incident happened at least three hours after we left—only confirmed my suspicions.
In other words, the man didn’t die because I failed to guide him.
Then why? Why had they let him die? Why had they allowed innocent people to be killed? The questions gnawed at each other endlessly in my mind.
But I couldn’t know their true intentions. Whatever it was, it was clear they had committed those atrocities for their own benefit. They had let a man die for something so trivial.
Maybe it was the price of witnessing such horrors—my head throbbed so violently it felt like it might split open. I sucked in a deep breath and clenched my eyes shut, hoping it would at least ease the dizziness.
But even with my vision cut off, the vertigo didn’t stop. If anything, it only worsened, like motion sickness churning in my gut.
In the end, I bit down hard on my lip and forced my eyes open. It might have been better to just throw up, but I didn’t even have the strength to sit up.
“……”
Staring blankly at the ceiling, unwelcome thoughts began to creep in, ones I desperately didn’t want to entertain. I tried to push them away, but once they surfaced, there was no stopping them.
‘Did Cha Jae-woo know this would happen?’
Did he already know that the Esper would end up dying somehow? And yet still chose to walk away?
Was he truly that cruel?
Ah, I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know.
