Soft sofas and light refreshments had been prepared, but Suhyeon remained standing the entire time, staring out the window.
—Suhyeon, you’re okay, right?
—Yeah.
Answering occasional messages from Ian, who had been making a fuss since before Suhyeon even arrived, he kept his gaze fixed outside.
The building Suhyeon occupied was perfectly peaceful.
Although Esper Choi Taewoo had reassured him that everything was fine, Suhyeon watched the site of the gate without rest.
The distant roars and vibrations echoed continuously from beyond.
How long had he been standing there?
Only an hour had passed, yet the time felt like an eternity. Finally:
“Ah, it’s finished.”
At the Esper’s murmur, the massive, shimmering rift—which had been relentlessly vomiting monsters and tentacles—began to slowly seal shut.
It shrank smaller and smaller until it vanished completely from Suhyeon’s sight.
—Gate clear. Gate energy dissipation confirmed. Please report onte status.
—Confirmed. Team 1: Zero fatalities. Zero injuries.
—Confirmed. Team 2: Zero fatalities. Two with minor injuries.
—Confirmed. Please return after post-processing. Good work, everyone.
The voices flowed through the pager in his ear amidst bursts of static.
Hajin had said he was in Team 1.
At the news that there were no casualties or even injuries, a long breath of relief escaped Suhyeon’s lips.
‘Thank goodness.’
Only then could Suhyeon regain his full composure.
“Mr. Suhyeon.”
Then came a familiar voice. Suhyeon turned around.
Hajin had entered the room along with Esper Lee Jeonghyeon, who had transported him earlier.
He looked exactly as he did when he left—so clean that no one would believe he had just come back from closing a gate.
The only difference was a faint, metallic scent lingering around him.
Before Suhyeon could even take a step, Hajin strode toward him.
In that moment, blue flames flared up from Hajin’s body, sweeping over him before vanishing.
With it, even the faint metallic scent disappeared.
Before Suhyeon could turn his head, Hajin’s arm wrapped familiarly around his waist, pulling Suhyeon into his embrace.
Only Hajin’s familiar scent touched the tip of Suhyeon’s nose.
Choi Taewoo, who had been standing still, and Lee Jeonghyeon, who had arrived with Hajin, let out strange gasping noises.
No one paid them any mind.
Suhyeon, who had been burying his face in Hajin’s chest for a long time, started to look up when a low voice reached his ears.
“Nothing happened, right?”
Hajin was asking the very question Suhyeon should have asked.
His blue eyes were focused entirely on Suhyeon.
Suhyeon nodded and scanned Hajin’s body.
There were no injuries, and not a single tear in his clothes.
His face was perfectly fine, without even a scratch.
It was the moment the last of the tension left Suhyeon’s body.
“Are you okay?”
“Didn’t I tell you there was no need to worry?”
Responding to the final question, Hajin pulled off his gloves and let out a low laugh, caressing Suhyeon’s face.
Noticing a faint trace of fatigue in the blue eyes directed at him, Suhyeon reached for Hajin’s watch.
The blinking number was 59%.
The gauge that had been nearly 100% before he left had dropped significantly. It was a stark reminder of how much the levels plummeted after using abilities.
Suhyeon naturally let his guiding waves flow.
Realizing what he was doing, Hajin closed his eyes and rested his head on Suhyeon’s shoulder.
Suhyeon gently stroked the back of the large man leaning on him and softly spread his guiding energy.
He heard the sound of a low, faint sigh.
And then,
“Ah, I was right.”
At the sound of a strange voice, the guards standing at the edges of the room moved.
The sound of safety catches clicking echoed, and guns were aimed from all directions.
Hajin whipped his body up fiercely.
Suhyeon flinched and turned his head toward the source of the voice.
“……Uh,”
Espers Choi Taewoo and Lee Jeonghyeon, who were in the room, let out stunned sounds.
“Whoa, how bloodthirsty.”
In the center of the surrounding guards, a flamboyant man stood with both arms raised, a smile on his face.
When the gate closed and the danger had passed, Lee Jaeram looked at the lone figure of Shin Hajin and smiled lazily, like a lioness discovering prey.
As always, she had come to the gate site because of her pair, Asher Delveron, but one of her goals this time was a chance to reach Shin Hajin.
It wasn’t often that Team 1 and Team 2 cooperated.
S-class Esper Shin Hajin.
Lee Jaeram stepped forward, whispering the name of the man she had desired from the first moment she saw him.
The man, who looked more like a noble statue carved by a god than a human, was strong, noble, and reigned over the Association like a tyrant.
Asher was similar, but… well, Shin Hajin was a man who fit Lee Jaeram’s tastes more perfectly.
How ecstatic would it feel if this man, who was as cold as ice and stood at the pinnacle alone, were to grovel and flatter at her feet like other insignificant people?
“Esper Shin Hajin, don’t you need guiding? I heard you didn’t even bring personnel for radiant guiding.”
Hajin’s blue eyes flickered down toward Lee Jaeram.
She wore her prettiest smile—the one that had already bewitched dozens of Espers and men.
“I can do it for you.”
“I don’t need it.”
However, the response was a cold, immediate rejection.
“Ah, Team Leader!”
As if he had only been standing there waiting for his team members, Hajin vanished instantly with the arriving Esper.
‘A teleportation Esper? I heard Shin Hajin hates the reporters who swarm when he returns from a gate; is that why?’
“…….”
Lee Jaeram, who had suddenly been left alone, twitched an eyebrow for a split second before smiling again.
Even if he was prickly now, his attitude would change once he became addicted to her guiding. She could punish him then.
After standing there for a moment, she turned around and saw her pair approaching, causing her to smile once more.
Right, actually, before Asher Delveron paired with her, hadn’t he been famous for being quite promiscuous yet cold to guides?
Though he had become rather half-hearted lately, it would be different now, immediately after closing a gate when he was desperate for guiding.
Just look at him.
A man of incredibly flashy looks stroding toward her, brushing off the blood of monsters that hadn’t even dried yet, as if in a great hurry.
Lee Jaeram would save this Esper—who must be feeling a burning pain throughout his body due to low guiding levels—with this single hand filled with guiding energy.
An Esper had no choice but to crumble before a Guide, before Lee Jaeram.
‘I should take this chance to grip Asher Delveron’s leash tightly.’
Thinking this, Lee Jaeram raised her head, but…
“……Asher?”
Contrary to her expectation that he would urge her for guiding, Asher simply walked past her.
“Ah, Jaeram. Go to the Association first. I’ll come get guiding later.”
Asher merely tilted his head toward her as if just noticing she was there, speaking dismissively as if it were a chore.
“Yoo Hyeonje!”
“Ah, yes!”
He then called the Team 2 teleportation Esper and vanished instantly, just as Shin Hajin had done.
Once again left alone in an instant, Lee Jaeram stared blankly at the spot where Asher had been standing.
Her high pride cracked with a strange, metallic screech.
Shin Hajin was one thing, but it was irritating that even her pair kept skittering outside her boundaries.
“Jaeram, you were here. It’s cold. Won’t you guide me today?”
Just then, one of the Team 2 Espers she occasionally guided when he acted cute approached her and draped a coat over her shoulders.
“Hm? I’m having a hard time.”
He was a small fry compared to Shin Hajin or Asher Delveron, but he was a man with a decent face who smiled and acted charmingly.
Lee Jaeram looked at him with an expressionless face before her eyes curved into a soft smile.
“What if you tell me where Asher Delveron went?”
“Eh? Where did the Team Leader go?”
“Yeah, he teleported. With an Esper.”
The Esper furrowed his brows in confusion before making a sound as if something had occurred to him.
“Ah, did the Team 1 Leader go somewhere too?”
Lee Jaeram blinked at the sudden mention of Shin Hajin, but slowly nodded her head.
“Yeah. Why?”
The Esper shook his head as if the answer was obvious.
“No, the Team Leader has been a bit strange lately. Everyone in the Association knows those two don’t get along, but recently he’s been poking around everything related to the Team 1 Leader. Specifically, he said he was looking for someone…….”
Lee Jaeram’s eyebrows twitched. It was because a bad memory had resurfaced.
When was it?
Right.
Back when Do Yejun—a man she had paired with in the past whose face she barely remembered—had been caught assaulting a guide and was locked in the detention wing while scandalous news articles circulated.
Someone had gone into an outbreak then, and for a moment, a guiding pulse that even Lee Jaeram and everyone in the Association could feel had spread.
Lee Jaeram remembered Asher poking around the Association for a while trying to find that person.
However, it seemed to be nothing more than a mirage; no guide appeared like a comet, and Asher Delveron soon gave up.
Consequently, Lee Jaeram had also lost interest.
“Right, I think he even told them to find the Team 1 Leader’s dedicated guide.”
Lee Jaeram was tracing back the memory of when her unpleasantness had surged, but she froze at the Esper’s following words.
