TDG Ch 19

As expected of an S-rank. He single-handedly drew in the equivalent of ten A-rank Espers’ guiding energy in one go. But more problematic than that was the fact that he had held out until it came to this. When necessary, he should have accepted guidance from other Guides, too, but he was so stubborn. What am I supposed to do with him?

Time passed, and finally, the vitals displayed on the watch shifted to a stable blue. Blood pressure and body temperature both returned to normal.

I let out a deep sigh of relief and loosened my arms from around his neck. Jihyuk braced himself with one arm beside my body and slowly raised his upper body. Along the tight, defined lines of his back muscles, his lats swelled. My eyes instinctively followed the well-defined, impressive abs. Clothed, he was slender; unclothed, he was all muscle. It was only natural for one’s gaze to be drawn to such an ideal torso.

I found myself staring before I even realized it, and only noticed when I caught Jihyuk staring right back at me. Flustered, I quickly averted my gaze.

“Did you… use a lot of strength during the Suitability Evaluation?”

“A bit.”

For someone of S-rank, the threshold for enduring the backlash from using their abilities was considerably high. A Suitability Evaluation alone shouldn’t be enough to cause serious strain or render them unusable.

No matter how I looked at it, there was only one culprit.

Song Hyunho.

“The reaction is different from the rehearsal. Were you always this cautious of a person?”

Song Hyunho made no effort to hide his boredom at Jihyuk’s entirely defensive stance. This wasn’t the kind of fight he had wanted, clearly.

But when the lock on the hostage zone was finally released, he seemed to realize what had actually been going on. Clicking his tongue with a dumbfounded laugh, the look on his face left quite an impression.

“Interesting.”

At the moment his blue eyes turned to the side, leaving an afterimage, Jihyuk felt a chill run through his chest. He sensed that Song Hyunho’s target had shifted to me, and immediately threw himself at him with full force to block him.

From the grip tightening around Song Hyunho’s shoulder, dark crimson flame flared up. At first, Song Hyunho tried to shake it off casually like before, but when cracks appeared in the aura shielding his body, his face twisted in shock.

“You’re serious? You really broke through his aura?”

Well, this guy didn’t know much, so I was going to give him a proper explanation…

“No one’s ever broken Song Hyunho’s aura before! You’re the first! This is a monumental record!”

…But I got too excited and completely failed to pull it off.

Even after my dramatic reaction, Jihyuk didn’t show any particular response. Strange—why is he still in such a bad mood?

Startled by the flames that penetrated Song Hyunho’s broken aura, he tried to shake Jihyuk off, but it wasn’t easy. With his strength and speed diminished from before, he inevitably exposed a weakness. Seeing the flames blazing at ultra-high temperatures begin to spread, Song Hyunho felt his life was in danger and resorted to his final technique.

Rebound Aura. A technique that compresses his aura into a single point and detonates it with several times its usual power, creating a wide-area blast. Even on its own, the technique had the power of a mortar shell. Add to that S-rank skill…

Thanks to that, I heard the training facility was blown apart, everything from the 3rd floor and above completely gone without a trace.

In the end, it turned out just as I predicted. Am I wrong? I’d love to see Director Kim’s face right now. I wonder what kind of expression he’s making.

What’s strange is how I managed to survive, even though I was near the epicenter of an explosion that destroyed an entire building.

The answer was simpler than expected. Apparently, Song Hyunho hadn’t entirely lost his senses; he used the last of his strength to extend his aura.

He was able to transmit the aura that protected his own body to someone else, and just before the heat of the explosion reached me, he wrapped it around me.

“I’m sorry. I put you in danger, Hyung.”

Jihyuk, looking ashamed, couldn’t even lift his head.

“What are you talking about? You didn’t do anything wrong. You did your best to protect me. It all happened in the middle of a fight…”

“No. I acted first.”

“You acted first?”

“The moment that guy turned toward you, I lost it. I couldn’t control myself.”

Ah, so that’s why he’d been looking so gloomy this whole time.

I shifted to sit up properly and began to seriously comfort Jihyuk.

“Jihyuk, don’t think like that. It wasn’t your fault. It was the situation. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Song Hyunho. A veteran Esper of that level only made things worse instead of trying to control the situation.”

“……”

“Listen. You should actually be proud of this. It means you were skilled enough to make Song Hyunho get serious. Take pride in that. You acted because you wanted to protect me. You panicked because you were afraid I’d get hurt, right?”

Jihyuk silently nodded.

Honestly, if it hadn’t been for that wildcard Song Hyunho, our kid here would’ve walked out of the training ground with a perfect all-clear score, head held high.

And come on, if two people are sparring and one of them apologizes for not being able to hold back, wouldn’t that be like killing your opponent twice over? If I were Song Hyunho, I’d rather die than hear something that humiliating from a green rookie who only awakened two months ago.

“If I were you, I would’ve done the same. So don’t blame yourself.”

The eyes looking at me were serious and deeply intent. Jihyuk stared at me like that for a long moment in silence before suddenly throwing his arms around me in a tight hug.

“I like you, Hyung.”

Before I knew it, his gestures and voice were brimming with childlike dependence, showing that he was finally feeling a little better. Touched, I gently patted his back again and again.

“I like you too. I really do.”

Jihyuk took my hand and rubbed it against his cheek, then asked, “You’re my Guide, right? Just mine?

“Of course.”

As soon as I answered without hesitation, his expression finally softened. Why was he confirming something so obvious all of a sudden?

Don’t tell me he overheard Song Hyunho asking me to be his Guide…?

There’s no way he could’ve heard that from so far away… Right? Then again, with S-rank hearing that picks up even my laughter in his sleep, maybe he could. I shook the thought away. It’s not confirmed, so best to leave it for now. Anyway, as long as Jihyuk’s satisfied, isn’t that what matters?

Jihyuk gently laid me back onto the mat. Lips that had been resting at the nape of my neck trailed along the ridge of my neck and brushed my shoulder, leaving behind a ticklish sensation I struggled to ignore. I was about to push him away, but Jihyuk moved faster, leaning down to cover me completely from above. His long neck rested against my shoulder, and his solid shoulders pressed down just below my collarbone, making it impossible for me to push him off or sit up on my own.

“Hyung…”

At the damp, sultry voice brushing against my ear, my shoulders flinched reflexively. I must have tensed up without realizing it. It wasn’t unreasonable. I had never been in such close, prolonged contact with bare skin before. Jihyuk lifted his head. My reflection appeared in the black depths of his eyes, now so close.

Maybe the phrase “stealing your soul in an instant” was meant for moments like this.

I instinctively turned my head away as if to look elsewhere, but a large hand gently took my chin and turned it back toward him, as though telling me not to avoid him. Our noses brushed. His breath grazed the edge of my lips, and I felt my entire body freeze. I wanted to say something, anything, but no words came out.

And right at that exact moment, the hospital room door opened, and in walked a doctor holding a chart and a man in a Center uniform.

“……”

“……”

The doctor, seeing us tangled together with our shirts off, asked in a completely flat tone, “Should I come back later?”

Saying ‘It’s not what it looks like’ would’ve only made it more embarrassing. I could feel all the blood in my body rush straight to my face, giving strength back to my limbs. With all my might, I shoved Han Jihyuk off me and shot to my feet.

“P-Please, come in!”

The attending doctor informed me that it was nothing more than mild shock, a few bruises, and some scrapes. If nothing unusual showed up after monitoring me for a day, I could be discharged tomorrow morning. His strictly professional attitude was the only source of comfort for my still-unsettled heart. To be honest, my chest was still pounding needlessly, and I needed that cold, mechanical atmosphere to help cool me down.

After finishing his explanation, the doctor glanced at Jihyuk, who sat beside me with his shirt awkwardly thrown on, and flashed an enigmatic smile.

“This gentleman here came to see me thirty-eight times, so it’s truly a relief that you’ve finally woken up like this.”

…What? How many times?

Stunned, I turned to look at Jihyuk, who seemed a little embarrassed himself and quickly offered an excuse.

“You weren’t waking up, so I just asked them to run a few more tests to be sure.”

“The patient was in a normal sleep state, and all vitals were stable. So there was no reason to conduct unnecessary tests. I did inform him of this. Yes, thirty-eight times. And now, including today, that makes thirty-nine.”

Though polite, the doctor’s reply carried a trace of exasperation that silenced Jihyuk completely. He pursed his lips, sulking, unable to argue further.

Thirty-eight times? Not once or twice, but thirty-eight? That would’ve been enough to completely disrupt the clinic’s schedule, you little… The doctor must have been pushed to the limit that he even counted the visits. Since Han Jihyuk showed not a hint of remorse, I apologized on his behalf. The doctor simply brushed it off, saying it wasn’t something the patient needed to apologize for, and coolly walked out.

Then, the Center staff member, who had been silently waiting for his turn while holding a black document bag, finally stepped forward and extended his hand.

“I’m Chief Park Sangjun. I work under Director Kim Yuhwan.”

He brought good news.

“Congratulations, Esper Han Jihyuk. As of midnight today, your official national certification has been issued.”

It was the news we’d been waiting for. Smiling broadly, I patted Jihyuk on the shoulder.

“Jihyuk, congrats! You’ve worked so hard.”

“It’s all thanks to you, Hyung.”

Normally, the result would only be delivered as a one-way notification of pass or fail. But having an official come in person to deliver the results was special treatment reserved for an S-rank. Or so I thought, until I learned the real reason.

Apparently, Jihyuk had ignored the summons from the Center.

At first, I thought I’d misheard.

“You really… really didn’t go?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?!”

“Then you’d have been alone, Hyung.”

Jihyuk responded in a sulky tone, as if wondering why I’d even ask something so obvious.

If it had been me in that situation, the whole Guide Team 2 might’ve been caught in the fallout. I mean, we’re talking about defying a direct order from the bureau’s Director. Who would dare pull something like that unless they had a death wish? The team leader would’ve been dragged in for questioning over how he trained his rookies, and written apologies would pile up like mountains and rivers…

But Han Jihyuk wasn’t just anyone. He wasn’t some random Guide. He was an S-rank Esper. If someone like him refused to come in, then it was the other party’s problem. They’d have no choice but to come find him. On some level, seeing how Kim Yuhwan sent a subordinate without a word of protest after being stood up by some punk barely out of his teens… It really made you understand what power and influence looked like.

“Please hold out your wrist. I’ll be removing the suppression device.”

He tagged the device with the tool he’d brought. The violet light blinked a few times before the locking mechanism clicked open. Jihyuk’s wrist, clean and unmarked despite wearing it for so long, was revealed. Park Sangjun collected the remaining components of the suppression device from Jihyuk, who rubbed his now-bare wrist, then placed the black bag he’d brought onto the table.