Chapter 8: Waking Up

“You need to receive guiding.”

Bodam didn’t move, his voice only growing hoarser.

He had neither the strength nor the desire to return to the dining table.

This was Bodam’s own form of revenge.

***

According to the Center’s rules, an Esper could not refuse guiding from their dedicated guide.

If a guide determined that guiding was necessary after checking the Esper’s wavelength and physical condition, the Esper had to comply unconditionally.

One might wonder what kind of crazy Esper would refuse guiding, but that crazy bstard was none other than the leader of Attack Team 3.

Team Leader Han hated guiding.

To be precise, he felt a repulsion to physical contact.

He made it painfully clear that the contact was an unavoidable necessity to calm his wavelength.

He would barely manage with wavelength stabilizers, only calling for Bodam just before he reached a dangerous state.

Therefore, guiding sessions with the team leader were rare, but whenever they did happen, he was completely drained.

The more unstable an Esper’s body was, the more energy was consumed during guiding.

Clack.

The coffee cup placed on its saucer rattled rather harshly.

As befitting a man who loved rules and regulations, Han Seung Ho accepted the guiding.

“Guiding room at 9.”

“But you need to receive it today.”

“Right. Today.”

“…9 PM?”

“Am I being difficult to understand?”

As the ominous feeling of working overtime washed over him, Bodam turned his head back and met Tae Hwan’s eyes.
He was glaring at him with a terrifying look, as if he were about to tear out his organs.

‘Why the hell is that guy angry every single day?’

“Answer.”

Averting his eyes from Tae Hwan, Bodam hurriedly answered yes to Seung Ho’s command.

‘Couldn’t I just do it right after that bstard Lee Tae Hwan since I’m already here?’ he wanted to ask, but he didn’t have the courage.

The news of confirmed overtime made his heart sink.

To get overtime as a bonus on top of this blood-pressure-raising bullsht.

I’m about to burst and die from it all.

***

[Are you feeling okay?]

Lying on Tae Hwan’s wide bed, Bodam took a long, deep breath as he looked at the message from Jo Yeon.

He was in a state where he felt like tears would fall the moment someone asked if he was okay.

It was clear that crying more would only raise his fever, so he just savored a mouthful of sweet citron tea.

“Mmm- delicious.”

Though the only thing he could taste through his stuffy nose and dry mouth was bitterness, he playfully muttered to himself.

“I’m back from the supe-, cough.”

Trying to make a pointless joke only made his cough worse.

Covering his mouth with his hand, Bodam let out a painful cough, then suddenly pulled a pillow closer and coughed all over it.

It was the pillow Lee Tae Hwan used for his naps.

Espers couldn’t catch colds, but he wanted to at least get it dirty.

“Haaa…”

The sighs that followed his coughs were endless.

On days like today, with an early morning meeting, all the team members were gathered, so he could have done the guiding quickly and hoped to leave on time.

Except for Kang Yi Jun, everyone’s wavelength was generally stable, so they rarely called him more than once a day for guiding.

He wanted to go home early, especially since he wasn’t feeling well.

‘Why did I have to act out instead of just shutting up and living like I always do?’

I guess I was too sick to have the presence of mind to control my temper.

“It’s okay. You did well.”

He let out a faint sound through his listlessly parted lips.

The team leader, whose wavelength was more or less in the stable range, couldn’t have been unaware that he had requested guiding just to be spiteful.

So, he must have shown him that even a mouse will squeak when you try to step on it.

Even if he couldn’t bare his teeth, a squeak can be damn annoying.

Bodam vowed that he would grab the hand of the team leader who’d gifted him overtime as stickily as possible.

‘I’ll make sure to cough my lungs out in his direction, too.’

Bzzzt.

As he was making a vile smile like he was plotting some grand revenge, he picked up his phone at the vibration of a text.

It was another message from Jo Yeon.

[I made you food since dawn and even diligently brewed you citron tea, and all I get back is you leaving me on read. That’s so Bodam-like^^ I’m so happy, this is great]

Seeing the angry emoticon, Bodam let out a small laugh and sent a picture of the thermos in his hand.

[Chugged it in one go! I’m crying from how touched I am]

[You’re really crying? Can you talk?]

Touched again by the immediate reply, Bodam punched the pillow.

He comforted himself by thinking that having a friend like this meant his life hadn’t been a complete waste.

‘I really need to succeed somehow and repay Jo Yeon’s kindness. When you get married, I’m definitely buying you a refrigerator.’

Mulling over the words he’d promised Jo Yeon so many times he was sick of it, he sent a reply saying he was waiting for a guiding session.

[You’re that sick and they’re still going to receive guiding? Are those guys even human?]

[I don’t know and I just want to drink drink drink]

[As soon as your cold is gone, let’s go go go!! I’ll make sure your body goes from sickness to hangover with no rest in between]

“Pfft, cough.”

Thanks to Jo Yeon, a light laugh escaped Bodam, and his mood lightened a little.

After half a year with Attack Team 3, he was tired of even cursing them out anymore.

He had come to realize that no matter how much he badmouthed them or prayed for their downfall, the only thing being consumed was his own emotions.

Seeing his mind grow sick on top of his already weak body, he knew he couldn’t go on like this.

From a certain point on, whenever Attack Team 3 was out of sight, Bodam tried his best to erase them from his thoughts.

After work, he would empty his mind as if they didn’t exist at all.

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but after his efforts led to him waking up less in the middle of the night, he practiced it like mental training.

‘Let’s just endure for exactly 2 more years.’

Bodam promised himself two years.

Bodam, who thought of nothing but quitting whether he was awake or asleep, had no intention of working as a guide for long.

The small and precious Bodam, who was said to have made his mother worry from the moment he was born, was constitutionally weak.

For someone like him, who should have been working from home or in an office, to be running and tumbling around in the field, it was a wonder he had endured for six years.

Before being forcibly transferred to Attack Team 3, he had thought he would work until he was thirty, but considering the salary that rose in proportion to the difficulty of the job, he moved the goal up to twenty-seven.

He wanted to save up tenaciously while he could, so that when he returned to being a civilian, he could live peacefully like flowing water without worrying about making a living.

Right now, his life was a torrent of rough water.

‘So, let’s just do it for two more years.’

‘For two years, let’s just consider myself dead in Attack Team 3.’

With the resilience forged by Yoon the Pig and a mentality that bent and bent but never broke, he was determined to rake in money within two years.

People might click their tongues and ask who would live while being treated like that these days, but this was the life Bodam had chosen.

Therefore, he had no choice but to bear it and live on.

Without complaining to anyone.

‘Since I’m the one foolishly enduring, I’ll carve the character for patience into my mind and get through today as well.’

“Haa…”

Looking away from the chat window after Jo Yeon’s final worried message to not overdo it, Bodam pounded his frustrated chest.

Every day was a new kind of fcked up, but today he even felt like he was suffocating.

At times like this, he had to sleep.

Bodam relieved his stress by eating and sleeping.

He forced his eyes shut, recalling the pleasant conversation he’d had with Jo Yeon, not letting go of his phone.

Then he drifted off.

Even as he slept as if he had fainted, the deep furrow between his brows cast a shadow over Bodam’s pale face.

***

“Uungh…”

Deep in a dreamless sleep, Bodam tossed and turned.

The suffocating pressure in his chest that he’d felt just before falling asleep was growing even stronger.

Feeling as if he might stop breathing, he snapped his eyes open.

“B-brea… can’t brea—”

“For a sick guy, you sure sleep well.”

‘This son of a btch Lee Tae Hwan, doing this to a sleeping person.’

“Ah, let go… it hurts.”

A breathy voice burst out from his deeply hoarse throat.

Tae Hwan, who was hugging the soundly sleeping Bodam from behind on the bed, slightly loosened the arm wrapped around his thin chest.

As if he had no intention of letting go completely, he even buried his face in the pale nape of Bodam’s neck.

“Are you here to play? Get to work.”

“Haaa…”

“This bstard is sighing, fck, you don’t want to earn your money?”

“Do you pay my salary, cough.”

Held in Tae Hwan’s broad embrace, Bodam’s upper body shuddered with a ragged cough.

Just when it seemed to be subsiding, the coughing grew even more violent, enough to bring tears to his eyes.

His throat felt like it wasn’t just raw, but being gouged out with a stone.

While he was battling the coughs alone, a large hand suddenly came to rest on Bodam’s forehead.

Lee Tae Hwan was steadying his dizzily shaking head and checking his temperature.

Wishing he would just back off, Bodam shook his head weakly and whimpered.

As Bodam tried to pull away, the body pressed against his from behind closed the gap, getting even closer.

“Your fever’s gone down. You won’t die.”

‘Who the hell are you to judge my body? Are you a fcking doctor?’

He wanted to spew out a torrent of curses, but his throat hurt too much.

He was in such a weakened state that he couldn’t even manage a proper retort, let alone a curse.

To the point where he couldn’t even let out a proper squeak.

“Stay still. Why do you keep moving?”

As Bodam’s hand fumbled around, searching for the thermos, Tae Hwan made a ‘Tsk-‘ sound.

‘They were truly persistent bstards.’

‘To grab a guide who was having trouble even walking and force him to give guiding.’

“Ah, are you not going to work?”

Tae Hwan, who was treating Bodam like a body pillow, snatched the pale hand that was crawling over the blanket.

The hand searching for the citron tea was stopped by a hot palm covering the back of it.

Gasping with his mouth wide open, Bodam choked out a sound like a person spitting out their last words before death.

“Wa-wate…”

“……”

Contrary to his expectation that Tae Hwan would ignore his plea for water and just leech guiding off him, he surprisingly brought him a water bottle.

What Bodam had wanted to drink was the warm citron tea, though.

Instead of the thermos that was probably rolling around somewhere on the bed, a cold water bottle taken from the mini-fridge was held out in the air.

“You asked for water.”

As he just stared at the opened water bottle with heavy eyelids, Tae Hwan acted annoyed.

He wanted to argue, ‘How am I supposed to drink when you’re holding my hand?’ but no sound came out, so he just opened his mouth.

Just as he was thinking he’d given up on drinking that water after hearing Lee Tae Hwan’s dry laugh next to his ear, Tae

Hwan reached out his hand and picked up the bottle without using his psychokinesis.

He supported the round head resting on his shoulder and even adjusted the angle so the water could go down.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

He even showed the sense to tilt the bottle and pull it away, allowing Bodam to drink in three separate swallows.

Having sufficiently moistened his throat, Bodam gathered the remaining water in his cooled mouth and swallowed.

Tae Hwan shook the bottle in front of him, making the water slosh, so Bodam, having no intention of drinking more, just shook his head.

And just like that, he put the water bottle away.

If this had been the Bodam of the past, he might have thought, ‘Oh, maybe this guy isn’t so bad after all,’ at this level of consideration.

But not anymore.

There were countless things he had experienced over the past half-year.

It would be better if he were a complete bstard like Min Ji Oh or the team leader.

Or if he had a ‘psycho’ warning sign pasted on his tongue like Kang Yi Jun.

Lee Tae Hwan confused people.

Therefore, Bodam was never swayed, even by the surprisingly frequent consideration he showed.

He hated him just as thoroughly as he hated the other Esper bstards.

Even if Tae Hwan were to lift him with psychokinesis after he’d fallen, he was still a bstard who could turn on a dime and start cursing and raging.

Even if the tight embrace, as if he were a cherished body pillow, felt warm, he would just dismiss it with, ‘I guess my body is just lonely.’

“Yoon Bodam.”
He didn’t know what kind of bullsh*t he would spew next to worm his way into the small opening in his heart and wound him.

Wounds received that way left bigger scars.
“You’re the team’s guide.”

Tae Hwan, who had reminded him of a reality he didn’t want to recall, was still holding onto Bodam’s small hand.

“Not Seung Ho hyung’s pair. You’re the team’s dedicated guide.”

‘What the hell does he want from me?’

As Tae Hwan fell silent after his random statement, Bodam just sent out his guiding.

Trapped by his heavy limbs, Bodam peeked his head out, rolled his eyes, and cautiously spoke.

“…Give me my citron tea.”

Now able to speak thanks to the water, Bodam ignored Tae Hwan’s uninteresting words and asked for the delicious citron tea instead.

He was craving something sweet after getting some sleep.