Chapter 44: Guiding, Off Duty

“Nothing important, really. I think he was just a little worried about my condition after I passed out during training last time.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me in detail.”

Su-ha answered, carefully controlling his voice so it wouldn’t come out too stiff. Chaewon, who had been staring down at the floor, lifted his gaze toward Su-ha. Just then, the car stopped at a red light, and Su-ha also turned his head to face him.

Chaewon looked at those eyes as if spellbound, then opened his mouth.

“I was worried you might feel uncomfortable…”

At Chaewon’s words, Su-ha fell into thought for a moment. If asked whether he felt uncomfortable, honestly, Su-ha did. Even just now, the instant Min I-hyeon’s name came out of Chaewon’s mouth, he hadn’t been able to easily control the way his emotions wavered.

While pretending not to care, all of his senses had focused on every word Chaewon said. He knew Chaewon spoke kindly to everyone by nature, but Chaewon’s voice sounded especially gentle and warm, and that irritated him.

And knowing that warmth was directed not at just anyone, but at Min I-hyeon, only darkened his mood further.

But that didn’t mean Su-ha wanted to get angry at Chaewon or hear an apology from him. To be honest, what bothered Su-ha more was the sense that I-hyeon kept trying to approach Chaewon on a personal level.

The unresolved feelings he had once set aside were raising their heads again. Was this jealousy? Was it simply that he didn’t like I-hyeon showing interest in someone other than himself?

Still unable to grasp the answer, Su-ha spoke to Chaewon.

“It’s true that I wanted to become Min I-hyeon’s guide… but if I got irritated by everyone close to Team Leader Min, how would I survive at the center? Team Leader Min already has his own team members.”

As he said this, the most puzzling part was actually this very point. Before Chaewon became involved with I-hyeon, Su-ha had never been the type to feel jealous or bothered just because someone was close to him.

He had seen countless guides conduct guiding sessions with I-hyeon, some of whom were even close acquaintances. Even then, Su-ha had only hoped to do well himself and someday become I-hyeon’s paired guide. He had never once felt jealous of them.

So why was it that this one person, Lee Chaewon, not even a guide but an esper, alone bothered him so much whenever he exchanged even a few words with I-hyeon?

“But still…”

Chaewon trailed off. Su-ha could easily infer the words Chaewon left unspoken.

Chaewon probably thought he was a different case. Not just someone who happened to meet I-hyeon, but someone who had appeared directly in the way of Su-ha’s goal, someone who couldn’t be compared to others on the same footing.

In truth, Su-ha couldn’t say with certainty that Chaewon’s assumption was completely wrong. His own feelings were ambiguous, something he couldn’t quite explain even to himself.

“You’re not an obstacle, Chaewon.”

“…”

“I was mistaken, and that was my fault. It started because of me, but… I still hope you can let go of that thought as soon as possible. I’ll try harder.”

At the same time, the light changed again. Su-ha turned his gaze forward and started the car. Having missed the chance to respond, Chaewon watched Su-ha’s profile for a moment before turning his head back to face ahead.

Between the tall buildings, beyond them, a blue sky spread out. The weather was unusually nice today, and instead of telling Su-ha that he didn’t need to go that far, Chaewon quietly spoke.

“…Thank you.”

For some reason, Chaewon felt that Su-ha would like that answer more.

****

“What are you thinking about so deeply?”

At Su-ha’s voice, Chaewon finally lifted his head from staring blankly at the coffee in front of him and looked at the man sitting across the café table. The scenery spread out behind Su-ha felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

After finishing their meal, Chaewon had said he wanted to go to a café. It seemed like too trivial a thing to do on a rare day off, but Su-ha hadn’t hesitated to come here with him.

And now, Chaewon had been staring blankly at the café mocha in front of him for quite a while.

“When I worked at a café… watching the customers fill the place every day, I was always curious about one thing.”

“About what ?”

“What do those people talk about, sitting there like that?”

“…”

“When friends sit in a café chatting and laughing, what do they usually talk about? I know it’s probably things like school, work, daily life… I could vaguely imagine that much. But I think I was curious about more detailed things. At school, at work, in an ordinary life… what kinds of things other people experience, what they feel as they live.”

It wasn’t that he wanted to compare whose suffering was heavier or more painful. Everyone carries their own pain in their own place, and that wasn’t something others could rank or measure at will.

Chaewon was simply curious. What shape did other people’s worlds take? What color was the life they called “everyday”? In Chaewon’s life, there was no one to share such things with.

As Su-ha listened quietly, he spoke.

“So then, what kind of story do you want to talk about right now, Chaewon?”

“Pardon?”

“On a relaxed day off, sitting here with a cup of coffee, what kind of story do you want to tell?”

In the space where memories of the past had been drifting like fog, Su-ha’s voice pushed through, carving out something clear and distinct. It felt like light was pouring in through the mist, like a path was being made.

A relaxed day off. A cup of coffee. The words that came from Su-ha’s mouth finally seemed to seep into Chaewon through his skin.

Could days like this really become part of Chaewon’s everyday life?

It didn’t feel possible. He couldn’t believe that days like this could continue to exist in his life. Maybe all of this was just a midsummer night’s dream. Maybe it was nothing more than a vision seen right before death.

Everything he had tried to accept as reality suddenly began to sway, feeling unreal.

“I… I…”

The words caught in his throat. He wanted to answer Su-ha’s question, but nothing came out. Chaewon’s daily life had been filled with nothing but heavy, sticky hardships, things he couldn’t bring himself to lay out in front of someone else.

No one wanted to hear about poverty and death, and he especially didn’t want to unload such gloomy stories in front of Su-ha.

“Do you like movies?”

Once again, it was Su-ha who spoke first, cutting through the heavy air Chaewon couldn’t break.

At the sudden change in topic, Chaewon blinked, gripping his coffee cup with both hands. Su-ha continued.

“There’s a movie theater right next door. If you like movies, shall we go watch one together?”

Movies. Another unfamiliar word rolled gently toward Chaewon.

For Chaewon, movies were limited to whatever aired late at night on TV, watched through a small, old set. Watching a film on a huge screen that took up an entire wall of a building belonged to the realm of imagination.

“I do like movies, but…”

Chaewon hesitated. Could he really say that he liked movies? He’d never once seen one in a theater, was it okay to say that?

But whenever a movie aired late at night, Chaewon would watch it despite having to go to work early the next morning. The stories unfolding beyond the small screen were fun and fascinating, and he laughed and cried along with them.

Then didn’t that mean it was okay to say he liked movies?

Chaewon could only drink café mocha, with its generous whipped cream, when the café owner or coworkers bought it for him, but he loved its sweetness so much that, if he could, he wanted to drink it every day.

Even if he couldn’t often buy it with his own money, wasn’t it still okay to say he liked café mocha?

What would be a simple question for someone else felt overwhelmingly difficult to answer, from start to finish.

But Su-ha didn’t rush or pressure Chaewon as he hesitated. He waited quietly. That silence somehow became courage, and gripping the cup now damp with condensation, Chaewon spoke.

“I… I like watching movies. I’ve never seen one in a theater, though…”

“Good. Then we’ll watch a movie, and after that, we can sit in a café and talk about the film we saw.”

“Ah…”

“Then you’ll have something to talk about at a café.”

Chaewon suddenly felt like a fish pulled out of water, gasping for breath. Su-ha’s words seemed to form a massive vacuum bubble, trapping him inside. He had never experienced such gentle comfort, such careful consideration before.

Trying to remember how to breathe, Chaewon blinked rapidly. If he let his guard down, it felt like tears would spill out. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want to embarrass himself and make Su-ha uncomfortable by breaking down like this.