* * *
Wonho wanted to hold Haebom tight, to the point of breaking—but he had no intention of causing him pain.
Though Haebom found him heavy, Wonho tried not to place his full weight on him.
Regardless of his efforts, Haebom desperately wanted to dash into the bathroom.
Wonho’s release hadn’t splattered anywhere else—it had landed all over Haebom’s upper body.
Even his face, though not heavily, had gotten some of it.
He needed to clean up.
With Wonho now draped over him, the mess on Haebom’s body had surely transferred to Wonho’s skin as well. Yet he didn’t seem to care.
‘Well, it came from him, so maybe he doesn’t mind,’ Haebom thought bitterly, though he himself couldn’t stand the idea of being covered in that stuff.
The real reason he wanted to flee to the bathroom was something else entirely.
“Why? You planning to finish off in there alone?”
Hah—Haebom exhaled sharply through clenched teeth.
Wonho had lightly pressed his knee against Haebom’s still-hard length, sending a jolt of sensation through him.
Haebom squeezed his eyes shut.
He didn’t want Wonho to know how aroused he’d become watching him finish.
But Wonho had already noticed—he’d been watching Haebom like he wanted to devour every inch of him.
He’d seen the bulge long before lying down together.
Truthfully, he wanted to strip him, touch him, taste him.
But doing that would shatter his resolve—and he knew he’d spiral too deep to recover.
“…Go wash up.”
As the stimulation disappeared—his knee no longer pressing, no longer rubbing—Haebom’s eyes flew open.
A breathy, confused sound escaped him.
‘Was I… hoping he’d keep going, even while feeling ashamed?’
“What, disappointed? Want me to keep going?”
“No—! No, no! Move, I’m going to wash up…!”
With a face full of regret, Wonho finally moved to the side.
He didn’t seem to care at all about the mess still clinging to his skin.
That somehow made Haebom even more embarrassed.
It wasn’t even his own—but still.
Shoving the shame aside, he bolted up and dashed into the bathroom—forgetting that it was, in fact, Wonho’s bathroom.
“Don’t run. You’ll get hurt.”
‘Who do you think made me run?!’
Haebom fumed silently, slamming the bathroom door shut.
Wonho just chuckled and stared at the door Haebom had disappeared behind.
Then, gripping his still-hard length—unstilled by climax—he began to move his hand again, fast, listening to the sound of the running water.
Only after finishing one more time did he finally head to the downstairs bathroom.
A few days passed, but nothing about Wonho’s behavior changed.
He still faithfully received guiding from Haebom, still looked at him like he was the best thing in the world—but never once pressured him for an answer.
Watching him, Haebom felt… strange.
‘He likes me, but maybe not enough to actually date me?’
The thought kept creeping in, even though he knew Wonho was waiting for him.
If Wonho ever found out he was thinking this way, he might just tear the whole Center down out of sheer frustration.
“…What’s wrong, oppa?”
“I told you not to worry. Has our Yoon Haebom always been this bad at listening?”
Overwhelmed with thoughts of Wonho, Haebom had stepped out of Jin Seyoung’s lab, thinking a short walk might help clear his mind—and immediately regretted it.
‘Why did I even think a walk would help…?’
But staying in the lab meant fielding endless questions from Jin Seyoung, so he hadn’t had much choice.
With no regular guiding sessions and nowhere else to be, Haebom had no better place to go than the lab.
He now regretted not just staying quietly and venting to Jin Seyoung instead.
If he’d just stayed put, he wouldn’t be seeing that right now…
He groaned softly.
‘Don’t raise your head. Just slowly back away.’
They hadn’t noticed him yet—it should be fine.
“Oh? Haebom Guide, out for a walk?”
They’d been far away—he was sure of it.
And yet somehow, a voice reached him from right nearby.
Damn espers, always so quick to close the distance.
Without raising his head, Haebom mumbled, “Yes, just heading out,” and tried to leave.
“I should join you. A walk sounds good, don’t you think?”
A gentle tone of voice rang out.
But unlike the tone, the voice itself wasn’t pleasant to hear.
At first, Haebom thought maybe it was because Na Hyunjoon had just gotten into a fight with Choi Yoonseo.
But he soon realized that wasn’t the case.
As Na Hyunjoon approached, it became clear just how unwell he was.
When the match rate is high, there’s a certain resonance you can feel.
For it to be this palpable… it meant that Na Hyunjoon hadn’t received any proper guiding recently and had been using his abilities continuously without rest.
Out of sheer disbelief, Haebom looked up and stared at Na Hyunjoon.
Then he glanced toward Choi Yoonseo, who was standing a little ways off.
Her expression resembled that of a tragic heroine who had just been wounded.
Well, she was the female lead after all, so it wasn’t necessarily strange.
Even though Haebom told himself he no longer thought of this as a fictional world, he still sometimes couldn’t shake the thought that Choi Yoonseo was the female protagonist.
Not that it really mattered anymore.
“I’m not going for a walk. Move, please.”
Seeing the stunned look on Choi Yoonseo’s face made Haebom feel sick to his stomach.
But it wasn’t because she looked like an abandoned puppy.
It was because this—this petty mess—was what had pushed Wonho, who was already struggling, all the way to death’s doorstep.
Wonho had always said Choi Yoonseo was nothing more or less than a high-match-rate guide.
But for espers, that kind of guide held a very specific meaning.
Haebom knew that.
And that’s why this felt even filthier.
Disgusting, really.
“Then will you guide me?” Na Hyunjoon asked.
“Haebom’s guide blocked all incoming requests, so I couldn’t even ask. Wonho’s a greedy guy—trying to monopolize Haebom’s guiding all for himself. That’s not very fair, is it?”
He smiled kindly as he said it, but was grinding his teeth behind that smile.
Even without the audible sound of it, Haebom could tell Na Hyunjoon was not in a good mood.
His resonance prickled against Haebom’s skin like static.
Haebom hadn’t checked their match rate, but if Na Hyunjoon’s reaction was anything to go by, it was pretty high.
And that annoyed him.
“My pair is Wonho, so of course that’s how it is. Esper Na Hyunjoon, you should go to your own guide.”
“…Ah, but when something tastier is right in front of you, it’s hard to be interested in what you’ve already got.”
Haebom’s face twisted with disgust.
‘Is he out of his mind? Is he seriously saying that?’
Even though she was standing a little ways off, Choi Yoonseo hadn’t moved at all while the two of them were talking.
In other words, she had heard every word Na Hyunjoon said.
And this—this—was the guy who got written as the male lead in the novel?
It was absurd.
Unlike the Na Hyunjoon in the book Haebom had read, the one standing here in reality saw guides as nothing more than tools to extract guiding from.
Disgusting.
Facing someone like that made Haebom finally realize that what Wonho showed him wasn’t some obsessive fixation on a high-match-rate guide.
This was obsession. This sickly, cloying, repulsive feeling.
* * *
