* * *
“Now, try to draw it out. Imagine you are pulling it outside of yourself.”
Suhyeon nodded.
He had no idea how exactly to “pull out” this shimmering energy, but he felt that asking wouldn’t yield a helpful answer.
Or rather, even if he got an answer, he wouldn’t truly understand it.
It was a matter of intuition.
Focusing on the guiding energy that he could now feel vividly, Suhyeon’s light-brown eyes slowly drifted shut.
Within the pitch-black void of his body, the energy remained clustered, shimmering and scattering a faint light.
He tried several times to reach out with an imaginary arm to pull it, but the guiding energy was as elusive as a formless cloud.
Instead of being caught, it simply swayed in place, showing no intention of moving.
A small furrow appeared between Suhyeon’s brows.
‘How am I supposed to pull this out? Come out. Won’t you come out for me? Just try coming out.’
When no amount of focus or effort to “pull” worked, Suhyeon began to literally speak to it in his mind.
Still, the guiding energy didn’t budge.
It remained clumped and unresponsive, as if it were fundamentally incapable of moving.
Suhyeon grimaced.
Getting stuck at this stage was going to be a problem.
“I think you need to focus more. You have to feel the energy completely while drawing it out.”
Soyoung, who had been watching him silently as if sensing his struggle, offered her advice.
‘Feel the energy completely?’
“Simply being aware of it isn’t enough to move the wave. You have to feel the energy as if it’s a part of your own body; only then will the wave recognize your will and move.”
Suhyeon couldn’t fully grasp what she meant, but he understood he needed to try much harder than he was now.
He blinked for a moment, then buried himself deeper into the sofa and closed his eyes again.
The vision that had briefly brightened vanished back into darkness.
In the sightless void, Suhyeon approached the clustered energy once more.
He stared only at the energy, letting all other thoughts grind to a halt.
Slowly, very slowly, his senses—normally open to the outside world—began to shut down one by one.
Eventually, Suhyeon stopped caring about where he was.
Only the core in his chest, where the energy gathered like a halo of light, remained within the reach of his consciousness.
After a while of being in that state, his finger resting on the armrest of the sofa suddenly twitched.
Whoosh—.
In a split second, Suhyeon felt something open.
He couldn’t describe exactly what it was.
He experienced a “sensation.”
A sense he had never felt in his entire life had been unlocked.
And then, quite naturally, the energy that had seemed permanently coiled began to move.
Like a thread slowly unraveling from a spool, a thin stream of the wave leaked out and began to flow somewhere.
Suhyeon followed it blankly, not even knowing where it was going, when his senses finally reacted.
The fresh scent of spring brushed past the tip of his nose.
Beep.
A faint sound echoed in his ears, which had been muffled and silent.
He felt a small vibration in his hand.
Suhyeon’s white eyelids, which had been trembling like those of a child who had forgotten how to open them, rolled up.
Squinting at the sudden rush of light, he looked down.
The device in his hand was beeping, displaying the number 5% on its small screen.
But it was only for a moment.
As if it were a miracle that it had even come out, the unraveled thread of energy was sucked back into his body in an instant.
Suhyeon snapped to his senses and tried to grab hold of it, but the wave ignored his will, returning to its source.
Beep, beep-beep, beep-beep.
Naturally, the 5% on the screen dropped to 4%, 3%, 2%… until it flickered off entirely.
The sensation he had briefly felt, the “click” he thought he had mastered, vanished as if it had all been a dream.
The energy wave sat quietly in his chest again, as if nothing had happened.
“Haah, haah, haah…”
Suhyeon stared hollowly at the dead device, only then realizing the ragged breathing in his ears was his own.
The senses that had drifted far away rushed back all at once.
Panting heavily, he checked his condition.
He was drenched in sweat.
His heart was thumping wildly, as if he had just finished intense exercise.
A wave of exhaustion crashed over him. He felt like he might faint right then and there.
He took a glass of water from someone—he didn’t even know who—and gulped it down. He felt on the verge of collapse.
“…I should have expected as much, but this is truly impressive.”
Soyoung’s voice pierced through the ringing in his ears.
Suhyeon managed to catch his breath and look up.
The senior Guide was staring at him with wide, surprised eyes.
Lacking the strength to even look confused, Suhyeon just blinked.
“Usually, people don’t get the hang of it on their first try. You did very well.”
Was that a silver lining?
Suhyeon let his head hang.
He tried to recall the sensation from a moment ago, but it was gone, leaving no trail behind.
He could only feel the guiding wave peacefully clustered in his chest.
He felt his eyelids growing heavy and frowned.
His eyes kept trying to close.
“Let’s stop here for today. There’s still time left, so rest before you go. I’ll wake you up.”
As if noticing his state, Soyoung’s gentle voice reached him.
Drowsiness flooded in as if it had been waiting for the invitation.
Suhyeon couldn’t fight it.
He closed his eyes, and his memory cut off there.
When Suhyeon opened his eyes, he was greeted by a familiar ceiling.
As he sat up, feeling a stiffness in his chest, a soft blanket that someone had draped over him slid to the floor.
Suhyeon stared blankly at the red glow of the sunset pouring through the large windows.
He was lying on the first-floor sofa of the house.
He had no memory of anything after falling into that death-like sleep following the training.
He was supposed to attend the lectures, but it seemed he had missed them and ended up back here on his very first day.
Had Hajin brought him back?
“Are you awake?”
As if on cue, a voice spoke, and Suhyeon turned his head.
Hajin, looking like he had just showered, was approaching the sofa in a black robe, holding a mug.
One side of the sofa sank as Hajin sat down.
He pulled Suhyeon’s tilting body toward him, letting him lean against him.
A faint scent of shampoo mingled with Hajin’s natural scent in the air.
Suhyeon blinked to shake off the lingering drowsiness.
Even though he must have slept for a long time, fatigue still clung to his body.
All he had done today was feel the guiding energy inside him and draw out a tiny bit.
Recalling the small number 5% that had flashed on the screen, Suhyeon let out a long breath against Hajin.
5% was an almost embarrassing number to call “drawing it out.”
He couldn’t believe he had been so drained by just that.
“How was it?”
Hajin asked, lightly twirling a lock of Suhyeon’s hair.
Suhyeon felt even more dejected.
He needed to be able to handle guiding energy as naturally as breathing to guide Hajin, but it felt like he had a very long way to go.
What had been a mere premonition before training was now a certainty.
‘I didn’t think it would be this hard.’
It wasn’t that he thought it would be easy, but he had been influenced by the premise found in almost all the information he’d researched: “Guides instinctively know how to handle guiding energy.”
Furthermore, since he was ranked as an S-class Guide and had signed an exclusive contract with Hajin, he had thought he would somehow just “get it.”
Everyone had acted as if he possessed incredible power.
He had always considered himself someone who wasn’t easily swayed by others, but in this unfamiliar world of “Specials,” he realized he had been swept up in the hype.
It had been arrogance.
Suhyeon tilted his head back to look up at Hajin.
Hajin’s blue eyes immediately met his.
They curved with affection, just as they always did.
Though Suhyeon hadn’t said a word, Hajin seemed to have read his mood.
A firm hand slowly stroked Suhyeon’s hair.
A warm heat seeped in.
“Take your time.”
Leaning against Hajin, Suhyeon let out a deep sigh.
Once he had recognized it, it seemed to stay that way; even without any special effort, he could feel the guiding wave bunched up in his chest.
However, the wave seemed to be taunting him—just like during training, it wouldn’t budge, only swaying quietly.
The “sensation” he had briefly felt showed no sign of returning.
How on earth did people move this as naturally as an instinct?
On his very first day, he felt like he had hit a massive wall.
But. Suhyeon eventually lifted his gaze from the floor.
His light-brown eyes were shining with a rare spark of determination.
Since he had accepted this new life, he had to at least master the basics.
The moment he made up his mind, time began to flow rapidly.
* * *
