This time, it was a kiss wholly steeped in Han Ju-oh’s raw desire. Even though Seo-ha wasn’t guiding, Han Ju-oh didn’t seem to care as he thoroughly explored every corner of Seo-ha’s mouth. Normally, neither of them took the dominant lead. They would switch roles, or Seo-ha, the one sending energy, would take a more proactive approach.
But not this time. While Seo-ha was too startled to close his mouth, Han Ju-oh delved deep inside. He gently bit Seo-ha’s already swollen lips, inflamed from the earlier stimulation, grazing over the tender flesh. Sensitive and delicate, the touch made Seo-ha flinch and grab tightly onto Han Ju-oh’s shoulders.
He could have just pushed him away, but Seo-ha hesitated. He was returning the favor, in a way, feeling sorry for all the times Han Ju-oh had held himself back during their guidings.
Han Ju-oh willingly took advantage of that hesitation and indulged himself fully in Seo-ha’s mouth.
Meanwhile, Seo-ha recalled another reason why he wasn’t pushing Han Ju-oh away.
‘We’ve made kissing a norm by now, so it doesn’t feel uncomfortable at all.’
This kiss, shared after learning of Han Ju-oh’s feelings, didn’t feel like something he needed to avoid. And… it felt good. Since they weren’t guiding, it was just a pure kiss—he could lose himself in it completely.
‘Could I share a kiss like this with someone else?’
This kiss, wrapped in the comfort of familiarity and scent, was too cozy, too pleasant. The answer came quickly—no, he couldn’t do this with a stranger. The breath exchanged with Han Ju-oh was irresistibly sweet, and he was certain it wouldn’t feel the same with anyone else.
That meant he didn’t need to test whether guiding with others would raise their energy levels. He only needed to care about Han Ju-oh. Just this kiss with him was more than enough.
The very act of constantly trying to find reasons to accept Han Ju-oh proved that Seo-ha’s heart was already leaning toward him—but he hadn’t realized it yet.
When Seo-ha had finally reached the limit of what he could endure on shallow, broken breaths, Han Ju-oh let him go. Only then did Seo-ha cover his lips with the back of his hand, a troubled expression forming on his face. What they’d just shared hadn’t been guiding—it had been a kiss. That clear distinction unsettled him.
“Want to know why I fell for you?”
Han Ju-oh seized the moment and tugged at Seo-ha’s attention. Coming in like this… Seo-ha should have said he didn’t need to hear it—but human nature didn’t work that way.
“Back when I didn’t know you well.”
Having just returned from overseas, Han Ju-oh hadn’t known much about Seo-ha. Seo-ha had assumed Han Ju-oh already knew all about his situation. If they’d talked sooner, this minor misunderstanding could’ve been avoided.
“Learning about you bit by bit… that was poison.”
“Poison?”
Seo-ha raised his voice in disbelief. After all that lip-mashing, he had the nerve to say this? This was exactly why people said you shouldn’t kiss coworkers.
“When I saw you giving your all even with your meager energy.”
Instead of replying, Seo-ha stuck his lips out in a pout. Was this really turning into a full-blown confession?
“When you endured with persistence, when you shrewdly used every tool at your disposal, when you objectively evaluated your own abilities.”
‘Is this a performance review now?’
“And when you struggled to take responsibility for me, no matter what. All of it was poison. I got addicted to you.”
“Isn’t that basically a threat?”
Seo-ha voiced the thought that immediately popped into his head.
“It’s your fault for being so damn attractive.”
“Well, excuse me?”
So that’s how he wanted to play it?
“And what about you? You think you’re not poisonous? Huh? It’s too bad I’m not addicted to you.”
Seo-ha crossed his arms defiantly, daring Han Ju-oh to refute him. In response, Han Ju-oh just gave a relaxed chuckle, clearly unbothered. Seo-ha wondered what he was planning to say next, when Han Ju-oh’s eyes landed on his swollen lips.
“Take a good look inside your heart.”
“What? Are you telling me to try liking you or something?”
“It’ll help with our guiding too.”
Seo-ha didn’t immediately grasp the meaning behind the words, prompting Han Ju-oh to give him a seductive smile and an insinuating gaze.
“I’ve learned something. That thing about how more energy flows because the Esper is pushed to the limit.”
Seo-ha’s face hardened as he instantly recalled what the doctor had said. The atmosphere, which had just been tender and warm, instantly dropped into something more serious.
“I interpreted that as me giving you everything I had. I poured my heart into our guiding.”
He said he’d found a way to have just as much impact without needing to be pushed to the edge.
“So if I start liking you… our matching rate might go up?”
“Maybe.”
Han Ju-oh didn’t give a definitive answer, but he didn’t deny it either.
“Then what’s the reason for raising the level of physical intimacy? That helped too, didn’t it?”
Their current matching rate was 20%. Compared to the beginning, that was an enormous improvement. But they still had a long way to go.
“If you come to like me, we can find out. Whether there’s a difference between just increasing the intensity, and actually opening our hearts to each other.”
“That…”
Seo-ha opened his mouth, wanting to protest, but then shut it again. Accepting Han Ju-oh’s words just like that wasn’t easy.
“I think I need to think about this on my own.”
Seo-ha stepped back, realizing that if he kept letting himself get swept up in Han Ju-oh’s words, he wouldn’t be able to come to a proper answer.
“See you in two hours.”
Even in the midst of all this, he wouldn’t skip the guiding appointment, prompting Han Ju-oh to let out a baffled laugh. Regardless of Han Ju-oh’s reaction, Seo-ha gave a half-hearted wave and exited the training room.
Come to think of it, there didn’t seem to be many people left in the guild. No one had entered the whole time he and Han Ju-oh were talking.
***
“Let’s think this through, step by step.”
Mumbling to himself, Seo-ha began piecing together everything he’d heard. He wished he had a notebook right now, but his head was already full of thoughts on the way to the guiding room. He figured he could sort it all out once he got there—first, he just needed to recall what had happened.
“Han Ju-oh… likes me.”
He’d heard it directly, so there was no room for confusion.
“And that affects the guiding? But…”
There were things he couldn’t say in front of Han Ju-oh. That’s why he said he needed time to think alone.
“But back when I liked Seong-hyung, the matching rate didn’t go up.”
Confident that no one was around to hear, Seo-ha murmured aloud. He had mentioned this briefly during a consultation with the doctor, even with Han Ju-oh present, but it wasn’t a topic that came up easily.
He had liked Moon Seong, and Moon Seong had reciprocated his feelings. If he factored in the fact that their imprinting had nearly occurred moments before Moon Seong’s death…
“Ah…”
He remembered something he’d missed. He had expected that the matching rate would increase if they imprinted. But since the imprinting hadn’t been confirmed, he had no way of knowing for sure.
If he and Moon Seong had successfully imprinted and made it out of the Gate alive, would their matching rate have increased?
“It’s not an entirely impossible scenario.”
Outside of Moon Seong, no other Esper had felt that deeply for him. And the only Espers who had approached him while he was in extreme situations were Moon Seong and Han Ju-oh…
“So it really might be about feelings.”
After all those tests and matching attempts with countless Espers, the reason nothing worked—was it really because of emotions?
“I’m not sure if psychological factors actually control the energy inside me.”
It kind of made sense, but also didn’t. He had thought he’d be able to organize his thoughts, but they were only getting more tangled.
“This is complicated.”
Of course it wasn’t going to be simple… But because it was so complicated, he also felt an urge to just accept things as they were. While Seo-ha stood there lost in thought, a familiar face appeared before him—a man who looked like a gloomy puppy.
“You’re…”
It wasn’t a face that could be forgotten, no matter how long it had been.
“What brings you here, Ha-cheol?”
He called out to him in a friendly tone, but Cho Ha-cheol’s gaze only sharpened further. He had approached Seo-ha first and blocked his path, but clearly didn’t like being addressed by name. Then he shouldn’t have come over acting like he knew me.
As Seo-ha looked at him with mild distaste, Cho Ha-cheol jutted out his lower lip.
“So that talk about quitting guiding was just your way of angling to transfer to a guild.”
“Hm? It wasn’t like that—but I guess you wouldn’t believe me even if I said so, right?”
Knowing Cho Ha-cheol’s personality, Seo-ha quickly changed his approach. He’d always been the type to nitpick and sneer at everything Seo-ha said—there was no trust between them, and there never had been.
“Shame we never built any rapport between us. I really was planning to quit. Things just… happened.”
“Liar.”
He had deliberately repeated himself to emphasize the truth, but—as expected—Cho Ha-cheol wasn’t having it.
“You planned this from the start. I hear no one here even dares to say a word against you.”
Was he talking about the guild’s unspoken rules?
