Chapter 84: Death Threat

Bodam, who had come out of Yi Jun’s hospital room, walked down the corridor on his own feet instead of using Team Leader Kim’s teleport.

Being confined to the room made his body feel heavy, so he wanted to move.

The high-floor corridor of the medical center, with few people coming and going, was quiet.

He calmed his complicated thoughts by looking out the window at the clear sky.

The hard texture of Kang Yi Jun’s skin wouldn’t leave his hands.

“There was a senior I knew.”

Bodam, who had approached the window and stopped abruptly, suddenly opened his mouth.

Team Leader Kim, who had been walking beside him, replied, “Yes.”

He was curious what Guide Yoon, who seemed deep in thought, would say.

“He told me I had a face that would always be swayed by Espers.”

Bodam, reflecting on his persistent two-hour guiding session with Yi Jun, suddenly recalled Senior Gu’s words.

Senior Gu had always dragged him along to smoke breaks and annoyed him, but he was a senior who had greatly helped him in life.

When he was younger, Senior Gu’s long-winded nagging had only made him uncomfortable.

Thinking back after he had matured a bit, all of it had been undeniably true.

“I thought it was absolutely not true. But….”

Unlike his head, which was tilted far back towards the sky, his voice sank endlessly.

Everyone was like that, but Bodam also didn’t want to live like a pushover.

Now, he wanted to live a new life, forgetting Attack Team 3 completely and living grandly.

Since he had been given the miraculous luck of sudden wealth, there was nothing he couldn’t do.

But.

He clearly had the confidence to walk away without looking back at the negligible past.

“Kang Yi Jun keeps bothering me.”

He had tried his best to recover that guy quickly and cut ties with him immediately.

He had planned to return home as soon as there was any sign of the natural imprinting phenomenon severing.

However, cold emotions, transferred from that bastard, gathered compassion in a corner of his heart.

He felt frustrated with himself for pitying the guy who had tormented him so severely.

His wounded heart and his compassionate heart became tangled.

‘Why am I so soft-hearted like a fool?’

“It’s because of the matching rate.”

Team Leader Kim said to Bodam, who was biting his lower lip and glaring at the sky.

“Of course, with such a high matching rate, you can’t help but be bothered.”

He had noticed it while watching Guide Yoon guide for an unnecessarily long time.

It seemed it wasn’t just for the sake of severing the natural imprinting.

Wasn’t it Esper Jo Yeon who said that?

That Bodam himself denied his good nature, which couldn’t simply pass by someone in pain.

Guide Yoon seemed like someone so kind that hearing he was kind didn’t even sound like a compliment to him.

“I don’t want to be pushed around anymore. And I hate looking like I am, even more.”

Bodam’s voice, as he unburdened his pent-up feelings, trailed off.

The very act of disliking someone became a heavy burden for Bodam.

It was so heavy that he eventually chose forgiveness.

He had even forgiven his father, who had brought hell upon their family.

To empty his own heart.

“I want to hate that Kang Yi Jun for the rest of my life.”

Yet, Bodam, holding the bridge of his nose in serious thought, lamenting that this young punk was unnecessarily pitiable, bumped his forehead against the window.

He disliked the other Attack Team 3 members just as much, but Kang Yi Jun had even brought him back to the Center.

Even if it wasn’t intentionally to trip him up, he was the kind of guy who would have brought him back using other methods anyway.

To think a day would come when his heart ached, remembering such a son of a b*tch.

‘Ah, Yoon Bodam, you pushover-.’

“You’re not someone who can be pushed around just because they want to, Guide Yoon.”

Team Leader Kim lightly tapped the window Bodam was leaning his forehead against, abruptly cutting off his negative thoughts.

Just by looking at the shadow on his fair face, it was clear what he was thinking.

“Among the guides I’ve seen, you’re one of the top three strongest.”

He was sincere.

Where else in the world would there be a guide who not only threw a wet resignation letter in Han Seung Ho’s face and stomped Kang Yi Jun into the ground on a rainy day, but also used an S-class Esper as a bread shuttle?

He even made the remaining unruly dog, who had no presence, loiter in front of his door every day.

“And being kind doesn’t mean you’re weak-hearted. It means you’re broad-minded.”

Bodam, touched by Team Leader Kim’s dependable voice and warm words, sealed his lips.

He didn’t want to show any signs of tears, especially since he was ranked among the top three strongest guides chosen by him.

Following Team Leader Kim’s mature smile, he pulled up the corners of his mouth and thought.

‘The partner of an Esper like this must be truly happy.’

“You should’ve been a bit slower….”

Bodam inadvertently blurted out nonsense and covered his mouth.

Fortunately, Team Leader Kim seemed uninterested in his slip-up, as he was timely answering a phone call.

To avoid disturbing him as he concentrated on the call, keeping a slight distance, Bodam diligently observed the bright sky.

“Where did you say?”

Team Leader Kim’s voice stiffening suggested the conversation was becoming serious.

Bodam wondered if another unregistered Esper issue had erupted outside.

He peeked sideways at the increasingly long call, then made eye contact with Team Leader Kim.

Just as he was about to avert his gaze again, Bodam’s phone rang.

***

The alley of eateries, filled with hazy dust and cries erupting everywhere, resembled a disaster movie.

The shops, which should have been busy preparing for the weekend evening rush, were all broken and in disarray.

Unregistered Espers, who usually appeared secretly to extort money or find guides and then disappeared like petty thieves, had appeared in swarms and turned the entire alley upside down.

Center barrier teams, who had responded to the report, were transporting injured civilians with the help of teleportation Espers.

“Ha, it really f*cking hurts.”

“Bomi, are you okay?”

“Didn’t you hear? I said it f*cking hurts.”

“It hurts that much?”

Bomi, who gave a few hard punches as if asking if it would just hurt a moderate amount, squeezed her eyes shut from the pain in her fractured leg.

Her store, which had been closed for a month due to an unregistered Esper incident, had another problem.

She was just about to start her part-time job again.

While her boyfriend and boss was preheating the oil to fry chicken in the kitchen, the glass door suddenly shattered.

Bomi, who had been scooping and eating macaroni snacks from a bowl, nimbly stood up a table to hide herself, which allowed her to avoid the flying glass shards.

“Why did you charge in then? Do you want to see Oppa die? Don’t ever do that again.”

Her boss and boyfriend, who had taken off his chicken shop logo cap and buried his face, spoke in a trembling voice.

Bomi, who would have avoided injury if she had quietly hidden behind the table, couldn’t suppress her rising anger and suffered a gash below her knee.

It was the result of charging at the crazy Esper who had entered the shop and tried to break the furniture.

Bomi even kicked the overturned table, which had been blocking the Esper from entering the shop, and cursed him out.

In his confusion, the Esper used psychokinesis to throw Bomi, causing her knee to be scraped by glass shards and fracture.

“Is it my fault I got hurt?”

“No, Bomi. It’s not about whose fault it is-.”

“We couldn’t operate for a month, and all this stuff is newly bought. How could I just watch those sons of bitches break it again! Ugh, seriously, this is so frustrating-!”

As she thought about it, Bomi’s booming voice grew louder, as if she was boiling with rage.

Her blood boiled when she thought of her boyfriend, whose shop had been closed for a whole month.

She also had pent-up anger towards the unregistered Espers who tried to kidnap guides.

The mere thought of what might have happened if Yoon Bodam had been there made her see red.

“Okay, Bomi. Let’s not get angry. Oppa’s scared.”

Her boyfriend, who could run around holding a 20kg gas tank in each hand but was utterly powerless against Bomi’s words, tried to calm her down.

Even though he too had been injured when he threw a pot of boiling oil at the Esper in defiance, he was busy taking care of Bomi.

He even offered his back, telling her to hit him instead of hurting her throat by raising her voice.

Bomi, who had been hitting her innocent boyfriend’s back, gritted her teeth, revealing her front teeth.

They looked just like them, yet they were so different.

A shiver ran down her spine thinking of the Esper who was fine even after boiling oil.

‘How on earth does Yoon Bodam work rubbing shoulders with them?’

Though she was the one who got hurt, she was more worried about the frail Yoon Bodam.

Bomi, who had once considered becoming an athlete, wasn’t bothered by an injury of this degree.

Above all, what worried her as much as her mother’s son was not her own knee, but her boyfriend’s face.

“Oppa, stop bleeding so much.”

Bomi, moving her hand from hitting her innocent boyfriend’s back to cupping his face, got angry for no reason.

Her boyfriend sniffled, saying he was fine, but blood was flowing from a cut on his forehead, and he had a nosebleed.

It was an injury sustained while trying to protect Bomi.

He had been thrown when he tried to stop the Esper, who casually brushed off the hot oil and approached, and he hit the wall, leaving his handsome face a mess.

“Those Esper bastards, I’m going to kill them all.”

“Ahem.”

The barrier Esper, who unexpectedly overheard Bomi’s death threat, cleared his throat to announce his presence.

Bomi and her boyfriend were following the Center staff’s instruction to wait for a moment, as their injuries were not severe.

Because the street was controlled for the unregistered Esper arrest, even ambulances couldn’t easily pass through.

“I’m a barrier Esper. I’ll teleport you to the hospital.”

Bomi lifted her head at the barrier Esper’s words and frowned intensely.

An intimidating aura flowed from the man whom the barrier Esper introduced as a Teleport Esper.

Her skin even felt tingly.

She looked up at the tall Teleport Esper with a deeply scrunched expression.

Bomi was someone who wouldn’t easily cower before anyone.

“You must never open your eyes during teleportation. Although you’ve already been explained-.”

The barrier Esper put a temporary shield around the chicken shop couple with a few instructions.

Teleportation only took a few seconds, but a temporary barrier was needed for contact with the Esper.

“What are you staring at so intently?”

Bomi’s boyfriend and soon-to-be unemployed individual, who suddenly stood up, spoke in a low voice.

The Teleport Esper, who had surprisingly striking looks, was staring intently at his girlfriend.

No matter if he was an Esper, he couldn’t just stand by.

He was excessively handsome, yet he knew how to appreciate beauty.

“Do you know Yoon Bodam?”

Ji Oh, ignoring the man who puffed out his gorilla-like shoulders, suddenly asked.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman who looked exactly like Yoon Bodam, in the neighborhood where Yoon Bodam lived.

She was just Yoon Bodam with long hair.

And she looked much healthier.

“Why are you speaking informally?”

A fierce-looking Yoon Bodam.