Chapter 22: The Guide Who Couldn’t Let Go

“Whew…”

This wasn’t something worth getting this tense over.

Standing in front of Chaewon’s lodging door, Su-ha let out a deep sigh.

He’d spent the entire afternoon trying to shake off the emotions he’d felt at lunch, but now that he was back here, facing Chaewon again, his heart refused to settle.

And to make matters worse, Su-ha hadn’t come to see Chaewon for just anything, he was here to do Guiding.

He already suspected that all those unnecessary feelings had been stirred up because of that damned guiding, and it bothered him enough as it was.

Now he had to go through it again before he’d even managed to fully suppress those emotions.

If he could, he honestly wanted to push the schedule back.

But in just a few hours, Chaewon would have to start training again.

It was a routine that continued without a single day of rest.

Even with pre-guiding, Chaewon often ended up bleeding and collapsing once training was over.

Without it, there was no way he could endure the steadily intensifying regimen.

‘It’s okay.’

‘I can handle this much.’

‘I’ll hold out. I can still keep going.’

Standing there, Su-ha suddenly recalled the phrases he’d heard most often while overseeing Chaewon’s training.

Even when blood streamed from his nose, even when he vomited blood, even when he lost consciousness helplessly or suffered through physical pain, Chaewon always pushed himself right up to his absolute limit.

He never quit first.

It was always Ye-seon’s role to forcibly put a stop to Chaewon’s training when he refused to give in.

Su-ha’s gaze sank low as he stared at the door handle.

He was the one who had watched all of that from the closest position.

And after training ended, it was always Suha who took care of Chaewon’s wrecked condition.

Perhaps conscious of Su-ha’s words, Chaewon tried to endure by relying on medication whenever possible.

And Su-ha, for his part, tried to avoid guiding more than necessary.

But each time Chaewon was pushed to the extreme, stabilizing him without Su-ha’s guiding was simply impossible.

So was Su-ha’s current emotional turmoil really just because of Guiding, or because he had witnessed every single one of those moments without exception?

Forcing the questions he didn’t want answers to out of his mind, Su-ha pressed the bell with a tense breath.

The words Chaewon had said, ‘my guide’, still grated in Su-ha’s mouth like grains of sand.

****

“Is it really okay if I receive guiding while lying down?”

Chaewon suddenly stopped on the way to the bedroom and asked.

The first few times, they’d conducted guiding in the examination room in case of unexpected side effects.

But ever since the day of the tests, nothing unusual had occurred.

Since then, they’d always done it like today, guiding in Chaewon’s quarters before heading together to the training room.

Su-ha had already been in and out of this place many times.

Yet for some reason, today, even the steps toward the bedroom felt awkward.

In response to Chaewon’s question, spoken as calmly as ever, Su-ha forced himself to sound composed.

“Yes. It’s fine. Do whatever’s most comfortable.”

Chaewon nodded lightly at Su-ha’s answer and lay down on the bed as he always did.

When Su-ha sat in the chair beside the bed, Chaewon rolled up his sleeve slightly and extended his arm toward him.

Su-ha’s guiding was always conducted by holding Chaewon’s wrist.

Ye-seon seemed eager to increase physical contact to improve efficiency, but Su-ha deliberately ignored that.

Given the recent training intensity, guiding that amounted to nothing more than gripping a wrist, without even holding hands, was obviously insufficient for Chaewon.

Yet Chaewon had never once asked Su-ha for deeper guiding.

Through Eunho, Su-ha had heard that the dosage of Esper Stabilizers used as supplements was increasing.

But since Chaewon hadn’t asked first, Su-ha didn’t feel inclined to take the initiative and offer more.

Chaewon lay there with his eyes closed, saying nothing.

It was always like this.

When alone with Su-ha, Chaewon behaved as though he didn’t exist at all, as if trying not to offend Su-ha’s mood in any way, as if he believed that his very existence would be unpleasant to Su-ha.

Considering the things Su-ha had said and done to him, it wasn’t exactly a misunderstanding.

Even that silence should have been familiar to Su-ha by now.

And yet, strangely enough, today that stillness felt suffocating as Su-ha slowly wrapped his hand around Chaewon’s thin wrist.

The moment he drew up his guide energy, Chaewon’s physical condition spread out before him like an unfolding map.

Chaewon’s energy felt like a patchwork quilt crudely stitched together.

Su-ha knew exactly what that meant, the scar-like remnants left behind when an esper repeatedly received insufficient guiding as a stopgap measure.

Swallowing heavily, Su-ha began to carefully pour his energy into Chaewon, gently smoothing over those scarred areas.

Chaewon suddenly sucked in a sharp breath, his body tensing.

The tangled energies responded eagerly to the long-awaited warmth of a guide.

Su-ha looked down at the hand gripping Chaewon’s wrist.

He was a capable guide, confident in his ability to control his power better than most.

Even so, with such minimal contact, there was an undeniable limit.

A guide’s abilities were amplified the more intimacy he felt with an esper.

Conversely, without that sense of closeness, even the same amount of power yielded far poorer efficiency.

The reason greater contact allowed more effective guiding wasn’t simply about surface area, it was because it increased the likelihood of mutual intimacy.

Without affection between them, and with contact limited to barely a palm’s width, this guiding could only ever be a temporary fix.

“Hh…”

Hot breath leaked through Chaewon’s clenched teeth.

The fire inside him was already raging, yet all Su-ha was doing was trickling water through a thin hose, there was no way it could be enough.

Chaewon’s hand clenched the bedsheet so tightly that his knuckles bulged.

For someone supposedly receiving guiding, he looked unmistakably like he was in pain.

“…”

Su-ha wasn’t faring much better.

The composure he’d had at the start, when he could even look away, was long gone.

Guiding hampered by situational limits was a burden not only on the esper, but on the guide as well.

Su-ha swallowed dryly.

He wasn’t thirsty, yet a parching sensation rose in his throat.

The stifling, clogged feeling made his grip on Chaewon’s wrist tighten unconsciously.

It was the first time Su-ha had felt this kind of thirst during guiding.

His thumb brushed lightly against Chaewon’s skin.

It was an instinctive motion.

When the soft flesh grazed his fingertips, a shiver shot up his spine.

This wasn’t enough.

He couldn’t be satisfied like this.

Su-ha wanted to pour the tide of energy surging within him straight into Chaewon, to cradle and soothe that scarred body.

It was a fierce, overwhelming urge born of his role as a guide.

This was exactly why, why he’d never wanted to become the pair of any esper other than Min Ihyeon in the first place.

Su-ha tried to force those thoughts to the forefront, struggling to suppress the emotions stirring inside him.

But the sight of Chaewon’s bloodless hand, the memory of him silently enduring whatever treatment or words Su-ha threw at him, and the image of him still stepping forward with that small body to block the way, telling Giyoon not to threaten his guide, all of it kept resurfacing, fueling Su-ha’s turmoil.

The hand that had stubbornly held only Chaewon’s wrist slowly moved downward.

Chaewon’s pale hand was completely swallowed by Su-ha’s, which looked twice its size.

Ignoring the countless warnings screaming in his head, Suha couldn’t let go.

At last, he pried Chaewon’s hand free from the bedsheet and replaced it with his own, letting Chaewon grip him instead.

“Hngh-!”

At the same time, Chaewon’s head tilted back slightly, and a cry-like moan spilled from his parted lips.

Unfazed, Su-ha intertwined their fingers and pushed his energy in more forcefully.

It was nothing more than holding hands.

Yet the impact was immense.

Guiding that reacted through every point where their interlaced fingers touched was fundamentally different, an explosive force unlike the one-sided energy injection through a wrist.

For the first time, Chaewon, who had always lain still like stone, gripped Su-ha’s hand tightly.

It was instinct.

As an esper, he desperately yearned for the guide who had been so painfully insufficient.

Once the channel opened, Chaewon’s body began to draw in Su-ha’s energy with desperate intensity.

The thirst that had built up over so long couldn’t possibly be satisfied by this level of contact alone.

Trembling faintly and letting out strained moans, Chaewon clung to Su-ha’s hand as if it were the only salvation that would not abandon him.

And yet, the strength he was pouring into that grip, strength that must have cost him everything, felt absurdly fragile to Su-ha.

The realization struck all the harder: this unbearably weak man had endured his guide’s coldness and still made it this far.

Overcome by a sudden, belated surge of guilt, Su-ha’s fingertips twitched once more, right at that moment.

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