Chapter 22: My Guide

I fell asleep while receiving guiding.

I had intended to just close my eyes for a moment, but when I came to, the sun had set.

My arm was out of the bed, and the pillow was gone, so I must have tossed and turned a lot in my sleep.

Knock, knock.

A knock sounded as I sat blankly on the bed, blinking my eyes.

I had definitely just woken up, but for some reason, I just felt more tired.

“Come in.”

“Did I wake you?”

I was rubbing my eyes at the sight of Aran-noona, who had opened the door and entered, but stopped and shook my head.

I had been awake for a while.

Aran-noona picked up the pillow that had fallen on the floor and checked my wavelength.

The day before yesterday, Seung-jun Hyung had come, and yesterday, Hwang Gyu-tae-ajeossi had come.

Even though they were so busy that they could only see my face for a moment, they came every day without fail.

“You’re not feeling well?”

“It’s about the same.”

Aran-noona, who had examined my complexion after my wavelength, placed her hand on the guiding machine.

The machine, which was as bulky as it was loud, was placed next to the side table.

It was the spot where the Guide had fallen.

Aran-noona moved the IV stand, with its dangling needle, to the side and looked around the messy area.

“I heard Esper Min Ji-oh came by.”

“I don’t know his name, but an ill-tempered Esper came and went.”

“That’s Min Ji-oh. The loud one.”

“What kind of guy is he?”

Sleep completely fled as I recalled the events of the afternoon.

Min Ji-oh.

Esper Min Ji-oh.

Of course, it was a name I was hearing for the first time.

“An Esper from Attack Team 1. You’ve known him since he was in Attack Team 3 back in the day.”

“He threw a Guide. He cursed and shouted.”

“I heard Guide Seo Yeong-u bit him first.”

“He was the one who raised a hand first. He tried to hit me, so I blocked him.”

“First, give me your hand.”

Aran-noona lightly pressed the back of my hand where the IV needle had been pulled out.

It seemed she was trying to check the regeneration speed of the wound.

I stayed silent, preparing to ask Aran-noona, who already knew the situation, who she had heard the story from.

“Actually, you and Esper Min Ji-oh are pretty close. You might not believe it.”

“…No way.”

“Well, rather than being close, you often tormented Esper Min Ji-oh. Said it was fun to tease him.”

Aran-noona added that it wasn’t malicious torment and checked the wound on my forehead as well.

“That team had a lot of problems four years ago. You’ve known him ever since you helped him in various ways back then. He’s closer to the dedicated Guide than the Espers, though.”

“Aran-noona.”

I set aside the stories I wouldn’t understand even if I heard them and tried to talk only about what had happened today.

“He threw Guide Seo Yeong-u. That bastard.”

I tried to convey it calmly, but my words came out a bit strong.

I couldn’t believe Noona’s attitude, not reprimanding an Esper who had used force on a Guide.

“I know. That bastard is a bad guy. I gave him a warning, and he agreed to apologize. He’ll come see you again soon. I’ll tell him not to come if you’re uncomfortable.”

“I don’t need an apology. Have him apologize to Guide Seo Yeong-u—no, just have him come to me. Don’t go to the Guide.”

“Alright, so calm down.”

I took the glass of water Aran-noona offered and checked my wavelength.

I thought I wasn’t agitated, but seeing the number, which had risen to 55%, I obediently drank the water.

Seeing that actually made me angrier.

“Who did you hear it from?”

“Both.”

A faint laugh escaped me at Aran-noona’s reply as I rubbed my forehead.

I could imagine both Guide Seo Yeong-u and that Esper getting all worked up and telling their sides of the story, veins popping in their necks.

“I heard it more vividly from the recording file than from their stories.”

“A recording file?”

“Guide Seo Yeong-u recorded it on his watch.”

When did he even record it? My view of the Guide, who had rushed in so recklessly, changed a little.

Just a little, though.

“You must have heard about the test too.”

Aran-noona, who had straightened the crooked side table, gave a vague nod.

“I don’t know what kind of test it is yet either. I’ll look into that more. And this.”

Aran-noona took out a small box from the paper bag she had brought.

The outside of the paper bag, which smelled of food, had a restaurant name drawn on it, and the box had an unrelated apple-shaped logo on it.

“What’s this?”

“Your phone. You lost the one you originally used in the accident. I’ve only saved my number and Seung-jun’s and Gyu-tae’s. Eat the lunch box when you’re hungry.”

“What about the Guide’s number?”

Aran-noona, who was placing the lunch box on the side table, stared at my face at my indifferent question.

“You’re talking about Guide Seo Yeong-u, right?”

“There are no other Guides, are there?”

I shrugged and deliberately answered in a light tone.

It was a fact that everyone except me already knew.

Aran-noona narrowed her long eyes as if trying to grasp the hidden meaning behind my words.

I didn’t bother beating around the bush and asked directly.

“I’m imprinted, right? With Guide Seo Yeong-u.”

A familiar silence fell.

Aran-noona, who had relaxed her narrowed eyes, checked my wavelength once more and then sat down on the stool she had set upright.

“Yes, you are.”

Noona’s low voice echoed calmly.

“I figured you knew. There’s no way you wouldn’t. It’s rare to find a guy as quick on the uptake as you.”

“I almost didn’t.”

“Does Yeong-u know? That you know.”

I shook my head.

Adding a request for her not to tell him.

“Please keep it a secret that I know.”

“Why?”

“It’s still awkward.”

If possible, I didn’t want to bring up the imprint.

It seemed Guide Seo Yeong-u wanted to hide it too.

I didn’t know why he was hiding the fact that we were imprinted, but from my perspective, it was more comfortable for him not to show it.

“Do as you’re comfortable. Yeong-u would want that too.”

I paused for a moment, feeling like she had read my mind, and then fiddled with the new phone box.

Yeong-u, Seo Yeong-u.

The more I heard the name that lingered in my ears, the less I could focus on the phone or anything else.

Looking back at the slowly passing days, three days had already gone by.

Even though it had been three days since I got the phone, I couldn’t get used to how to use it.

Even the unfamiliar design was just awkward.

“What, where did everything go…”

Today, too, I was holed up in the rehabilitation room and came out to the lounge for a bit to take out my phone.

I had definitely installed various apps on the home screen, but they had all suddenly disappeared.

Thinking I had gotten a defective one, I turned the empty phone, which didn’t even have a keypad, this way and that.

No matter how I looked at it, I had no idea.

“What’s wrong? Is something not working?”

The man sitting at the next table showed interest as I placed the phone on the table and sighed.

The man, wearing a patient gown like me, had a hard cast on his entire left arm.

His face was also full of small scars.

“Ah, yes. All the apps I installed have disappeared. I think there’s a problem with the phone.”

“Disappeared? Let me see.”

The man, who was on his third can of cola since sitting down, pulled his chair over.

The sound of the chair dragging was quite long since the tables were spaced far apart.

He could have just walked over.

“Huh? It’s right here. Right next to it.”

“Uh…. How did you do that?”

The man swiped the screen with his thumb, and it suddenly changed to the home screen I had been looking for.

The man was even more amazed by me, who was amazed by the screen that had changed so easily it was anticlimactic.

“You just have to swipe sideways. Like this, whoosh.”

“Oh. Then how do you delete an app?”

“If you press and hold the screen, an X mark appears, right? If you tap this like this, it deletes. Oh, I really pressed it.”

The man, who smiled with his gentle eyes curved into crescents, saying he was sorry, installed the deleted app himself.

How fast his hands moved.

He pressed the App Store, which I still had trouble finding, in one go and then typed without even looking at the keypad, which was smaller than a bean.

“Wow.”

I smiled brightly for the first time in a long time and asked the man if he was busy right now.

Thankfully, the man was also just killing time and started a comfortable conversation, asking what else I was curious about.

“But do you only use text messages to contact people? You don’t use ‘Talk’?”

“What’s that?”

The man, who had taught me all the basic setting changes and even changed my wallpaper, tilted his head and then looked surprised.

At his look that said, ‘Don’t you really know?’, I said I didn’t, and he installed an additional yellow app for me.

“It’ll be more convenient to contact people with this. You can also create ‘group talk rooms’, so group chat rooms.”

“Is it free?”

“Of course. It’s free.”

I tried my best to put on a calmer expression so as not to seem too surprised.

The man, who looked to be in his early twenties at most, enthusiastically continued his praise and explanation of the messaging app.

The more I heard, the most amazing thing was that it was free despite having so many features.

“The people in your phonebook are also synced and appear in your friends list right away. Look at this.”

The man, who had brought up the screen, looked flustered at the empty friends list.

Since there were only four saved numbers, there were only four friends.

“Uh, why is only this showing up? Just a moment.”

“No. That’s all of them.”

I took the phone back and looked at the friends list on the white screen one by one.

There wasn’t much to see since the number was small, but my gaze lingered on one name in particular.

[Guide Seo Yeong-u]