Chapter 6

Go Woo-jin raised his black eyes as if confused, then hardened his lips once more to be scary.

“What do you mean already. Just in case you’re wondering, confession means you came to my house in a frenzy and screamed. Do you have anything else to confess?”

Damn it. Jae-chan heard Woo-jin’s words and realized that it was a possible situation. It was the worst.

Hey, you crazy bastard!

If he had returned, he should have gone before he confessed to this guy!

There was a difference between the heavens and the earth between one-sided love and confession of one-sided love. Jae-chan remembered the moment of confession that he had either completely forgotten or buried.

When was it? He thought it would be this summer… Argh! Just thinking about it made him scream as if he was standing on an acupressure plate.

“…Well. That’s.”

He couldn’t speak. He was so embarrassed that he suddenly became a fool.

What he claimed to be a confession when he was 21 years old was not an honest confession. He shoves a bottle of soju down his throat and speaks in gibberish because he was drunk. He was the type of person who remembers everything even if he was drunk, he thought he was eating the blanket after sleeping for a while. He even saw a therapist to get rid of his shame.

‘Haha, everyone has embarrassing memories. When you try to remember something, the wrinkles in your brain deepen. Allow it to enter your mind and reflect it. Oh, I’m embarrassed, and I’m letting go.’

He got goosebumps just thinking about his smiling psychiatrist. Because of the shock, he floated to a distant world for a moment before returning to reality with a sigh. He shook his head.

“That is… I was drunk and out of my mind.”

“…”

“You don’t believe everything the drunkard says, do you?”

Seon Jae-chan made the decision to escape. Confessing after drinking was the darkest history of his life, but it helped establish the excuse.

“You didn’t confess.”

Go Woo-jin asked quietly. Jae-chan was distracted as he nod his head.

“Yes.”

He took a step back while answering. Creak, he pushed the chair back by applying force to the front of the sneaker. He was clearly embarrassed, but he believed there was nothing he could do about it. It was because the confessional moment he had barely buried in his immature days was vividly revived, causing his face to warm up.

‘Go Woo-jin is so handsome! I like Go Woo-jin! I love you, you bastard! Go Woo-jin is handsome! Whaaa. I like you! Whaaa.’

Jae-chan wanted to run away like a rhinoceros. Why did you do that, crazy bastard? His stretched neck was a bright red color.

“I was drunk and said something wrong.”

He wasn’t sure where he should look. He considered persisting until the end. He sincerely hoped that Go Woo-jin would dismiss his confession as drunkenness.

Anyway, Nam Hae-sol will appear before the end of this year. It was already August. He wanted Go Woo-jin to get along well with her without worrying about his terrible confession and without any emotional burden.

“…”

With one hand, Go Woo-jin covered his face. His usually calm and polite face had become distorted. His tightly closed lips let out a low voice after a while.

“You were drunk and confessed like that. Now you say it wasn’t like that.”

The cold silence lengthened.

“Isn’t it said that the guide contract will also be unilaterally terminated?”

Jae-chan raised his head when he heard Go Woo-jin’s question. Woo-jin quietly straightened his disheveled collar in front of his partner, who held his hands together like a student being punished. He drew the collar and adjusted the sleeves’ buttons. Seon Jae-chan remained silent. Woo-jin took a deep breath and asked.

“Why is everything so easy for you?”

Seon Jae-empty chan’s hands shrugged in response to the question. It was as if the eyes that met were heated. This time, those beautiful eyes may be filled with contempt.

“Why do you do everything all by yourself? How much longer do I have to put up with your one-sided whim?”

A voice that was full of anger was uttered quietly. Seon Jae-chan thought it was a mistake. They were always thinking in different ways. He believes it would have been better to dismiss the confession and cancel the pair contract as soon as possible. It seemed that his standards have caused confusion for Woo-jin again.

Should he have said it more carefully? But how? Working with Go Woo-jin is never easy. He wanted to get through it despite how difficult it was, but the fact that he couldn’t always do so made it difficult for him.

“It’s nice to hear that you won’t appear in front of me, though.”

Woo-jin sighed and wiped his dry face once more. Seon Jae-chan’s chest dropped to his exposed face as his large hand fell on his knee.

He didn’t realize it at the time, but the twenty-seven-year-old him could read Go Woo-jin’s expression. A face filled with emotional anguish. Confusion like a lost child is reflected in the gaze disguised as calmness.

“Get lost.”

… I.

I made it hard for you again.

Perhaps it was the result of focusing on the Black Swan and ignoring the emotional concerns. ‘Seon Jae-chan’ must have been a disaster as bad as Black Swan in Go Woo-jin’s life, but he thought too simply of the chaos he would experience emotionally.

“I’m sorry.”

The words of apology came out of nowhere. The pain-bearing face wrinkled as he exhaled. He turned his gaze down to the ground. As he had done in previous years when he stood in front of Go Woo-jin. In front of the twenty-one-year-old Go Woo-Jin, he transformed into the twenty-seven-year-old Seon Jae-chan and stared at the ground once more.

“It has been difficult for you. I’m sorry. The only thing I can do is apologize like this… I’m sorry.”

Jae-chan’s eyes were filled with emotions that he couldn’t hide. Go Woo-jin had also resigned due to the mistrust that had built up over the years. He has neither the mind nor the time to recognize the altered Seon Jae-chan. The two non-intersecting gazes were looking in different directions.

This guy is selfish even with apologies.

That was why Go Woo-jin was so determined. Because the other person appeared to be capricious until the end.

He pushed the bed with his palm, staring only at the bowed head, not knowing what his intentions were. Woo-jin exhaled with a cold expression as one foot landed on the floor.

“If you’re really sorry, don’t cancel the pair.”

…

“Keep being my guide.”

My guide. Contrary to the seemingly romantic word choice, the tone is like an active volcano just before an explosion. Jae-chan remained silent, his lips twitching. He had no idea the wind was messing with his hair. Go Woo-jin’s suppressed anger was pushing the air in sync with his Esper attribute.

Go Woo-jin immediately went out after a cold snap. The wind also died away. The sound of the door quietly closing until the very end mirrored Go Woo-jin’s personality, and Jae-chan’s heart was bitter.

It was as if his chest was engraved with a stone.

It was all something they had to put up with. Jae-chan lingered for about a minute and took a deep breath. He slowly pushed open the door. Woo-jin had already disappeared.

A long time had passed, and the guiding center had become stable. In the crowded corridors, guides sigh and stretch their legs. Jae-chan’s eyesight was also drifting due to excessive guiding for a long time, but he leaned on the wall. He walked out of the building slowly.

His collar fluttered in the damp wind.

It was the natural wind. He raised his head and gazed up at the dark blue night sky. The blue-grey clouds moved quickly to the west with the wind. Jae-chan checked the portal site on his cell phone. He found the article he was looking for by touching the screen.

[{Breaking News} Typhoon No. 13… On the 19th, near the 1st district. “200km/h”]

Jae-chan stood there, feeling the wind blowing like it was the eve of a storm. The point at which the attempt to cancel the pair contract was unsuccessful. This summer’s strongest typhoon was heading north as if devouring everything.

*

Around 2 p.m on August 18, one day before Typhoon No. 13.

“Look. Guide food poisoning case! Lunchbox discrimination controversy!”

Park Yu-ram, who was having lunch in the library staff break room with Seon Jae-chan, yelled. The two were sitting side by side in a long chair, biting a sandwich in front of a windy front window. Even though it was lunchtime, it was dark outside, most likely because Area 1 had already been hit by the typhoon.

An intermittent wind whistled through Yu-ram’s raised voice. The trees beyond the window shook their long branches like a rock festival crowd, but Jae-chan listened only to Park Yu-ram’s voice in the tranquility isolated from the heavy metal created by the typhoon.

“It’s completely different from the name. Esper’s lunch box was the royal king’s lunch box, and the Guide’s lunch box was the husband’s lunch box!”

Husband! That makes no sense! Yu-ram spoke enthusiastically about an emergency in which the Tempo Red incident appeared three days ago.

On the day of the incident, there was a large fire in the factory’s eastern section. The fire department requested assistance because the ignitable material was a special substance, and the center dispatched Espers.

As usual, there would have been no problem if Espers had been guided immediately after extinguishing the fire.

The problem was with the lunch boxes that the center provided to the on-site Guides. The Guides who ate their lunch boxes because of the long wait suffered from acute food poisoning as a group.