Chapter 66: The Moment I Realized I Wasn’t Alone

Eunho, who had frozen along with them for a moment, was the first to pick up on the atmosphere between the two. Smiling to himself, he took a step back.

He’d always been worried because of Su-ha’s attitude at first, but now it felt like there was no need to worry so much anymore, which left him feeling lighter.

“If that’s the case… then that’s a relief.”

Su-ha answered after a long pause. The end of his voice trembled unlike him, but neither of the two paid it any mind. After brushing Chaewon’s face a few more times, Su-ha slowly straightened up and stepped back, then spoke to Eunho.

“Please proceed with the examination.”

“Yes.”

While Eunho prepared the remaining steps, Su-ha leaned back toward Chaewon and whispered,

“When the examination’s over, let’s go back to the dorm together.”

“…Okay.”

Let’s go back to the dorm together, it was clearly nothing special. Up until now, the two of them had always gone back to Chaewon’s dorm together to do guiding.

And yet, it was strange how that simple sentence felt unfamiliar and new, both to the one saying it and the one hearing it.

“I’ll do the guiding once we’re back, so… even if it’s a bit hard, hang in there.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

As if shy, Chaewon’s cheeks flushed as he nodded obediently. Feeling embarrassed at how strangely he was reacting to an utterly ordinary schedule, he couldn’t bring himself to look at Su-ha’s face.

And so, Chaewon didn’t notice that Su-ha himself was also blushing uncharacteristically, his gaze wavering as he looked back at him.

****

“Today… we’ll do the guiding while lying down on the bed.”

Su-ha had to put real effort into keeping his voice from trembling suspiciously as he said that. Just saying something so trivial made his heart churn unbearably.

Considering the kinds of words that had been running through his head whenever he looked at Chaewon today, it was a perfectly natural reaction.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Chaewon nodded calmly. Ever since he’d begun juggling multiple kinds of training at once, they’d consistently been doing close-contact guiding, so he seemed to have grown somewhat used to it.

Since guiding sessions had gotten longer than before, lying down was actually more comfortable in many ways than standing or sitting, both for maintaining posture and overall endurance.

Given the special nature of the bond that existed only between an esper and a guide, it wasn’t something that could reasonably be suspected as personal or inappropriate.

Even knowing that, Su-ha still felt uneasy. He was anxious that the feelings he himself hadn’t yet been able to define might be noticed by Chaewon first. It was ironic, could someone else really sense emotions that even the person feeling them couldn’t clearly identify?

Unable to settle his complicated thoughts, Su-ha slowly lay down on Chaewon’s bed and stretched out one arm, as if offering it as a pillow. Everything about the action could have been completely ordinary.

The larger the area of contact, the closer the intimacy, the higher the efficiency of guiding, this was common knowledge. Holding Chaewon fully in his arms to achieve effective guiding in the shortest time possible wasn’t suspicious at all. Not even a little.

The only thing in question was Su-ha himself, doubting his own emotions.

Chaewon carefully climbed onto the bed. His small body settled into Su-ha’s arms with hardly any weight at all. Su-ha wrapped both arms around him firmly and held his breath for a moment, anxious that his suddenly quickened heartbeat might be transmitted to Chaewon.

“I’ll begin the guiding.”

It wasn’t as though none of the espers Su-ha had temporarily guided in the past had required close-contact guiding. There had even been plenty of occasions where urgent mucous-membrane contact guiding had been unavoidable.

But all of that had been work. Some pairs did end up becoming lovers through repeated acts like that, but for Su-ha, it had never been any different from performing medical care on an injured colleague. His heart had never raced like this. He’d never felt anything like this.

Lee Chaewon was the first. The only one. And because of that, Su-ha had no idea how he was supposed to control these feelings.

“Hng…!”

As Su-ha began the guiding amid his intense inner turmoil, energy seeped through their bodies in contact, and Chaewon sucked in a breath, suddenly clutching tightly at the fabric near Su-ha’s waist.

Most of Chaewon’s old scars had nearly faded by now, but fatigue from recent training still seemed to linger.

As the stiff, knotted muscles began to loosen, Chaewon let out soft, strained sounds from within Su-ha’s arms. Honestly, Su-ha felt like he was dying. It wasn’t the first time Chaewon had made sounds like that, but today they felt especially unbearable.

A familiar thirst rose within him. He wanted to hold Chaewon even closer, wanted Chaewon to cling to him just as tightly. He wanted to press kisses to his forehead, his cheek, his lips, and carry the guiding deeper.

And the thought that all of this desire stemmed not from professional necessity, but from his own personal feelings, made Su-ha hesitate even as he guided.

Chaewon’s bright, smiling face suddenly surfaced in his mind. He thought it was beautiful. Adorable. Not just because Chaewon was that kind of person, this was something more personal. Almost reflexively, Su-ha gently stroked the back of Chaewon’s head.

Was this really because he’d developed special feelings for Chaewon? Or was it just a secondary reaction born from growing emotionally closer through their paired bond?

“Su-ha…”

How did pairs who became lovers ever learn to tell the difference?

Turning over thoughts he’d never once considered before, Su-ha instinctively tightened his hold as Chaewon burrowed closer, calling his name.

These feelings were all an unfamiliar, unknown world to him, and he could only hope that the moment he’d thought of the word love had been nothing more than a fleeting illusion.

****

Chaewon had been silently staring at the phone in his hand for a while now. He had something on his mind. The lit screen displayed the main page of a portal site.

Yes Chaewon was seriously debating whether or not to read articles about himself.

“Do I really need to look…?”

He muttered that, yet still couldn’t bring himself to turn off the screen. To be honest, he’d grown a little curious about what people were saying.

After all, when everyone he met kept bringing up similar topics, it was inevitable that even someone uninterested would start to wonder.

He told himself there probably weren’t many good things being said, since he hadn’t really done much. But at the same time, he figured that if there were mostly bad comments, people around him wouldn’t keep mentioning it so openly.

Aside from his grandmother, Chaewon had lived his entire life without receiving any special attention from others. And yet now, countless people who didn’t even know his name were talking about him and what he’d done.

No matter how many times he thought about it, the reality of it refused to sink in.

Chaewon first skimmed through the headlines on the main page. Amid various serious social issues, articles related to awakened individuals appeared frequently enough. Then, one headline caught his eye.

“National Disaster Response Agency Announces Press Conference Next Week — Will the Esper Shrouded in Mystery Finally Be Revealed?”

His heart began to pound violently. The “esper shrouded in mystery” mentioned in the headline was undoubtedly him. Even seeing it with his own eyes, it didn’t feel real.

Although his name wasn’t mentioned, the fact that an article visible to everyone, one with real public influence, was talking about him felt utterly surreal.

Of course, one could argue that it was no more unrealistic than recovering overnight from a terminal illness and awakening as an S-rank esper.

But ever since then, Chaewon had been staying inside the center, so he hadn’t had many chances to truly feel how much his life had changed.

And since this was a place filled with awakened individuals, it was hard to even feel that his abilities were exceptional.

Just looking at people like Min I-hyeon or Joo Gi-yoon, or even Su-ha, who, despite being a guide, had far superior physical ability, made it difficult to think much of himself.

Using telekinesis alone didn’t feel like enough to call himself impressive, not when his shortcomings were so obvious every day.

Chaewon let out a deep sigh. His trembling fingertips hovered over the article title. What was this, really? It was just a few lines of text. Why did it make him this nervous?

When he wasn’t thinking of reading it, it hadn’t bothered him at all. But the moment he decided to look, he couldn’t stay calm.

Still feeling as though he were half-dreaming, Chaewon finally tapped the article.

The article carefully laid out how the incident had come about, describing in detail how the previously unknown, unannounced esper who appeared in the city had used an exceptionally unique form of power.

The sentences, packed with words that felt straight out of a novel, almost seemed deliberately written to stoke public anticipation.

It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t that extreme.

Chaewon kept forming silent rebuttals in his head as he read.

The article even went so far as to vividly recount the image of Chaewon coughing up blood and collapsing, before concluding with speculation over whether the upcoming press conference by the National Disaster Response Agency would finally answer all remaining questions.

Thinking of Ye-seon’s face as he cautiously told him that he would be appearing at the press conference in person, Chaewon scrolled further down.

The comment section came into view.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

A 90-Year-Old Ace Agent Retires to Become a Mom in a Gacha Game

another worldGender BenderOriginal

Read Now →
Not interested