—Gate cleared.
Late at night, Asher returned to the Association after finishing his final task.
He exhaled a long sigh and rolled his stiff shoulders, the joints letting out a series of cracks like breaking wood.
He had closed five Gates today alone.
“Good work, Asher.”
Asher chuckled at the voice behind him.
Lee Jaeram, who had been ghosting all his calls, only appeared when Asher’s guiding count had edged dangerously close to a contract violation.
As if enjoying Asher’s suffering, Jaeram wore a smile brighter than ever.
As Jaeram lightly stroked the back of his hand, guiding fluctuations immediately surged in, flushing out the impurity-like pain pooling in his body.
Asher let out an involuntary, low breath as the hand pulled away, then massaged the back of his neck as he spoke.
He didn’t particularly want to say it out of pride, but…
“Can’t you cut me some slack? We’ve been a pair for quite a while now.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
‘Shameless fox.’
Wearing an innocent face as if he knew nothing, Lee Jaeram gave a soft smile and sauntered away.
No matter how much of an S-class Esper one was, a human was still a human.
Pressing his temples at the feeling of pure physical fatigue—not the pain of a guiding deficiency—Asher let out a sharp, cynical laugh. It had been a while since he felt like this.
Lately, his assigned workload, just including the fieldwork of closing Gates, was over five per day.
It was true that the number of Gates opening in Korea had recently become abnormally high and measurement errors were frequent, but it was unheard of for a high-level asset like Asher to be worked this hard.
Though masked as “measurement errors,” there were plenty of Gates mixed in that were absurdly weak to justify calling Asher.
There were even occasional individual calls outside of team operations.
Seeing his mentor, the Association President, looking troubled and remaining tight-lipped was enough to confirm that external factors were at play.
Of course, Asher was one of only two S-class personnel, and they couldn’t treat him like this forever, so the load would surely decrease soon.
But this was exactly why Lee Jaeram was so annoying.
The Espers Jaeram kept under his thumb were one thing, but the family members who doted on him occupied all the major positions within the Association.
To think he was getting revenge like this just because they’d had a slight psychological tug-of-war over Suhyeon—one had to hand it to his sheer initiative.
“Ah, Jaeram.”
“Oh, it’s been a while.”
Watching one of his own team members crawl over to speak to the departing Lee Jaeram, Asher tilted his head.
“Hmm,”
Right, initiative.
Recalling the characteristics of his partner—whose species he couldn’t quite determine between a snake or a fox—Asher narrowed his eyes.
—Asher?
What came to mind was Suhyeon, whom he had seen earlier that day.
Seeing how Suhyeon had tilted his head as if he had no clue when asked if anything had happened, it seemed nothing actually had occurred.
‘I thought for sure he’d go after Suhyeon, but did I overthink it?’
Until now, Asher hadn’t cared much about Lee Jaeram’s targets or the people he found annoying, but he knew well enough that when Jaeram’s mood soured, he would find a way to immediately remove the person blocking his path.
And he knew that trait was even more pronounced if the target was a fellow Guide.
He had once seen Jaeram target a person with strange rumors, inflating them until they were forced to quit their job.
Perhaps because he was a Guide, or perhaps because he had his own set of boundaries, most of his methods were cowardly indirect strikes that avoided physical harm, but still…
“Hmm.”
‘Was my advice too much?’
—Don’t you want to go back to Canada? Taking Guide Chae Suhyeon with you.
Yet, to say his worry was excessive, there were the words Jaeram had spoken.
They could only be interpreted as Jaeram clearly finding Suhyeon an eyesore.
In Jaeram’s terms, he either wanted to get rid of Suhyeon even if it meant losing the Asher he already “held in his hand,” or he found both Asher and Suhyeon annoying and wanted to scrap the pair of them together.
“……Well, Shin Hajin is there, so it’s fine for now.”
Since it seemed Jaeram’s current focus was on tormenting Asher.
Asher shrugged after a moment of thought.
He turned and took the elevator down to the underground parking lot.
Through the transparent glass of the elevator high up in the Association building, the sparkling night view of Seoul was visible.
—Don’t you want to go back to Canada? Taking Guide Chae Suhyeon with you.
His green eyes flickered and sank. Asher let out a groan.
Once the words Jaeram had said entered his mind, they kept resurfacing, ignoring his better judgment.
—……And do you have a way to make that happen?
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t tempted.
After that conversation, he had been pushed into a pit of work and hadn’t been able to think properly.
Asher leaned his head against the wall with a sigh.
Closing his eyes, he saw Suhyeon’s pale face.
A day from the training period, a day when he had closed in on Suhyeon under the guise of coincidence to beg for guiding—himself and Suhyeon.
Ding.
The elevator reached the basement, and his green eyes slowly opened.
‘Back then, I think I was purely filled with greed for the guiding.’
Of course, that didn’t mean he didn’t want Suhyeon’s guiding now.
That was definitely not the case. Getting into his red sports car, Asher swallowed a hollow laugh.
‘Not wanting it? There’s no bigger lie than that.’
After tasting Suhyeon’s incredibly sweet guiding once, his desire for it had snowballed to the point where his previous feelings seemed laughable.
Lee Jaeram’s guiding didn’t even come close to satisfying him.
Melting away pain was the same for all guiding fluctuations, but that fluctuation—the one that was so ecstatic it was sweet and violently blew away his dark impurities…
It was enough to make other guiding feel unpleasant by comparison.
That was why he hadn’t sought out Jaeram as much, and as a result, he was now paying the price for his actions.
If one were to ask why he refused such a poisoned apple of a proposal when he harbored a desire he could hardly control, well…
It was because if he acted so recklessly, he felt like Suhyeon would come to hate the human being known as Asher Delboron.
He felt those beautiful light brown eyes, usually so languid and indifferent, would fill with contempt and coldness.
“……I’m losing it, really.”
Having formalized that reason, Asher slammed his head against the steering wheel.
Asher Delboron was a man who didn’t give a damn whether someone hated him or not as long as he was satisfied.
He could just separate Shin Hajin, kidnap Suhyeon, fly straight back to Canada, erase all traces, buy a mansion in the mountains, and lock Suhyeon up.
—Since I’m in a relationship with Hajin, Mr. Delboron’s actions feel a bit burdensome.
The firm and somewhat cold look Suhyeon had given him the very first time he’d made a move.
Just the thought of Suhyeon giving him a look even harsher than that made him shrivel up.
“You crazy bastard.”
‘Have I actually developed genuine feelings? Me, Asher Delboron?’
Aaaaaagh! Tearing at his bright blonde hair, Asher started the car.
Vrooooooom!!!
The red sports car sped through the night streets of Seoul as violently as Asher’s troubled mind.
Whether the frequency of Gates opening had increased lately or not, Hajin’s fieldwork became more frequent, but regardless, peaceful days continued.
“Suhyeon.”
Suhyeon, who was buried under a blanket on the sofa as usual, looked up.
Hajin had approached him and was looking at him with eyes that sparkled somewhat.
At first, it was a pitiful gaze that almost made him give in, but now it was the dozens of times.
Suhyeon firmly hardened his expression.
“No.”
“I’ll send everyone else out.”
“I’m going home.”
“……You’re too firm.”
Hajin became dejected and slumped back to his desk.
Watching him trudge away, Suhyeon almost reached out to catch him, but he bit his lip, thinking of the disaster that would follow if he did.
As if he had a beast driven by instinct inside him, ever since they’d had sex in the office once, Hajin kept trying to poke and tempt Suhyeon.
The problem was that he didn’t just do this when they were alone; even during the day when people were clearly present, he would claim no one would know if they just locked the door, and try to kiss, touch, and pounce on Suhyeon. It was the same right now.
Suhyeon’s lover, despite acting stoic by buttoning his shirt to the neck and wearing gloves, was very faithful to his desires.
Suhyeon blinked slowly in the lazy sunlight and watched Hajin.
Hajin, who had been openly broadcasting his disappointment, soon began to read through documents with cold, focused eyes.
It was just a normal scene of him working, but Hajin’s appearance made it look like a scene from a movie.
After staring at him for a long time, Suhyeon closed his eyes.
A drowsy sleepiness began to creep in.
He thought he heard a low chuckle in his ear.
And so, with Asher’s warning already erased from his mind, just as Suhyeon was once again melting into the peaceful daily life with Hajin… the Korean Special Ability Association declared Situation Alpha: Emergency, as if to remind him that life is always a rollercoaster.
