Chapter 22: Sharing a Guide

Acting on reflex, Juju continued cycling the guiding as usual, only to flinch and yank his hand away when an excessively hot surge of energy struck him.

He immediately began releasing Radiation Guiding.

Lieutenant Colonel Miles closed his eyes with a groan, as if in pain.

“You need to keep your eyes open so I can check the progress of the guiding.”

Juju said in a polite yet businesslike tone.

Lieutenant Colonel Miles slowly opened his eyes.

They were black irises tinged faintly with yellow.

“Then I’ll resume Contact Guiding.”

Juju reached out and clasped Miles’ hand.

Miles’ hand was still hot, like someone who had plunged it into boiling water, but it was no longer unbearable.

Imagining bubbling magma and a deep, lush jungle, Juju initiated Contact Guiding.

“Mm…”

Lieutenant Colonel Miles made a small, animal-like sound and tried to rub his cheek against Juju’s hand, only to be stopped by Captain Russell.

“Ah, that was instinctive. Sorry.”

Miles spoke in a sly tone despite being a powerless patient.

Juju shot him a glance, pushed guiding energy deeper, and examined Miles’ body from within.

It was still far from properly stabilized.

On top of that, their matching rate clearly wasn’t high, guiding efficiency was far lower than expected.

“You’re going to have to come in for guiding pretty often.”

Even if Juju brought up matching rates, no one here would understand what that meant.

In the end, Juju had to keep holding Miles’ hand and continue running low-efficiency guiding for over an hour.

When Miles lifted his heavy eyelids languidly, his eyes had turned yellow, like a cat’s.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“I’m Juju Lee.”

“Juju Lee…”

As if determined not to forget it, Miles repeated Juju’s name several times.

When Juju pulled his hand away with a soft tsk sound, Miles’ large, thick hand clutched his again, almost pleading.

“Just a little more. Yeah?”

“Come back tomorrow.”

“Just a bit-”

“That’s enough, Colonel.”

With a knife-sharp expression, Captain Russell slapped Miles’ hand away.

Miles rubbed the back of his hand and made a sulky, rain-soaked-puppy face, but Juju didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.

“Fine. If you’re going to be that stubborn, I guess it can’t be helped.”

As if he’d never been sulky at all, Miles shrugged and stood up.

Michael hurriedly tried to stop him.

“You need to stay in bed for at least a week, Colonel. Your condition is a mess. You have to wait until your internal organs fully recover.”

“I know, Michael. But I’ve been in worse shape and still bounced around fighting Colonel Shan. You saw me flying earlier, didn’t you? More importantly, I haven’t felt this good in over a year.”

Chattering excitedly like a child, Miles looked down at his own hands with an almost moved expression.

“Yeah… it’s unbearable how restless I feel. I’m healthy again.”

“Go to Colonel Shan. The guiding is finished.”

Juju said curtly as he stood up.

Colonel Shan wasn’t here.

That was because he had nearly executed Lieutenant Colonel Miles on the spot when Miles was still writhing earlier.

If Juju hadn’t angrily stopped him, Miles would never have left that place alive.

Of course, Juju understood it rationally.

A guide who had just been exchanging tongues and sharing high-density guiding with him was now obviously going to guide another esper, there was no way Shan would want to let Miles live.

An esper’s instinct was to not want to share his guide.

Apparently, it felt like a jealousy intense enough to drive one mad.

Still, that was that, and this was this.

If Shan had accepted Juju as the squad’s dedicated guide, then he also had to accept guide Juju giving guiding to others.

Yet Colonel Shan had glared savagely at Juju for willingly guiding Miles and clearly disliked that Juju had defied his orders and insisted on continuing to participate in combat.

After putting Juju on his lap, coaxing him, kissing him senseless, only to turn ice-cold and tell him to send the colonel up once the guiding was done, then leave without another word.

Juju had posted Captain Russell and Sergeant Frank to guard the infirmary just in case, but even so, the lingering sense of hurt wouldn’t leave his chest.

‘Petty bastard.’

And on top of that, Miles was supposedly his childhood friend, his balls-and-all best friend!

And he’d been about to blow that friend’s head clean off.

“Really, thank you, Juju. If you have time later, how about we have dinner together?”

Miles said warmly, completely unaware that he’d nearly had his skull crushed.

As Colonel Shan’s childhood friend, he looked just as young as Shan did.

As a powerful elemental esper, he was strikingly handsome.

His red hair stood out vividly against pale skin, and although his manner of speaking was old-fashioned, it wasn’t bad at all.

Without thinking much of it, Juju nodded readily.

“Sure.”

He was going to end up eating in a crowd with the squad anyway, so there was no reason to refuse over something like this.

If Miles kept it up, he’d probably get tired and back off on his own.

****

Lieutenant Colonel Miles left the infirmary and marched off to find his longtime friend, Colonel Shan Pei, whose displeasure practically radiated from his pores.

“When are you going to remodel this damn office?”

“If you don’t like it, get out.”

Colonel Shan’s expression was downright terrifying.

Guessing the reason, Miles approached him with a weak, wheedling smile.

“You’ve got yourself a great squad member. Why didn’t you tell me, huh?”

“And what would’ve changed if I had?”

“Then I’d have transferred to your unit immediately!”

Miles widened his eyes and made a big show of it.

“I’m sick to death of missions, gates, and rifts. If the kids hadn’t been screaming bloody murder, this wouldn’t have happened, of all times…”

“Gate?”

“Yeah. Gates have suddenly been going berserk for the past month. Didn’t you know? Well, I guess not, you’re stuck in this godforsaken mountain region.”

Miles clicked his tongue.

“A gate that opened in the southwest not long ago blew three of my officers apart. They were on the brink of berserk, sure, but they weren’t the type to go out that meaninglessly.”

“What rank was it?”

“Unique.”

“So?”

“So my head snapped, and I went to close the gate myself.”

Miles laughed.

He was, in fact, the most dangerous esper in the entire region.

Even more so because he wielded fire.

All espers in this era lived with berserk as an inevitability, but Miles was considered especially close to that breaking point.

Given that he should have been exercising extreme restraint, personally closing a gate was absurd enough to draw bitter laughter.

Colonel Shan pressed a hand to his throbbing forehead.

“So you decided to die.”

“Yeah. Sorry I came all this way just to do that.”

Miles looked at Shan with warm eyes.

“It won’t happen again. Because… my unit and I are coming here. You’ll take us in, right, my friend?”

“Friend? I’ve never had a friend like you.”

“Cold as ever.”

Miles grinned playfully.

Despite Shan’s words, he already knew Shan had ordered the construction of an additional base facility.

“But seriously, where did Juju come from? With eyes that dark, he looked like an esper himself.”

“He isn’t an esper.”

“Really?”

Miles asked again, his expression turning serious.

“Come to think of it, his eyes weren’t completely black, more brownish. Then he’s a civilian? But if a civilian has abilities like that, isn’t that basically an esper?”

“He says he’s a guide.”

Shan replied stiffly.

“Yeah, I heard that too.”

A brief silence fell.

“And what does he get in return for guiding?”

Miles lowered his voice to ask.

Shan let out a deep breath through his nose.

Watching him with faint unease, Miles scratched the back of his head.

“I don’t want to live off someone else’s life anymore… but back then, I was so far gone from berserk that I thought I was seeing things. Still, your eyes seem like they’re returning to how they used to be, not that autumn-sky blue from before, but still. Is the price not that high? Juju said he’s your squad’s dedicated guide.”

“According to Juju…”

Shan clenched his teeth once, then spat the words out.

“There is no price.”

“…What?”