SOG Ch 119

“Have a safe trip.”

Then Jae-chan immediately turned his back and left.

Unable to pinpoint it precisely but feeling somehow unsettled, Woo-jin promptly followed after Seon Jae-chan.

However, all he could see was Jae-chan’s retreating back as he walked briskly away. Whether his departure had been planned from the start or not, Jae-chan immediately boarded the van the Guide Team 2 had been in. The automatic door closed and the vehicle carrying Jae-chan drove off. Woo-jin was left helplessly watching him go without being able to do anything.

That evening, after training had ended, he tried to contact Jae-chan again, but all he got was a response saying Jae-chan had dinner plans and couldn’t make time.

Then, later that night:

• Guide Seon Jae-chan visited Mrs. Gu Ji-eun’s house and just returned.
• He is now at the Mando Hotel rooftop bar. He was with Team Leader Han Tae-hoon.

Woo-jin received a report from the follower about Jae-chan’s incomprehensible movements. Han Tae-hoon, suddenly?

‘I came to ask a favor, but I didn’t know you were guiding.’

‘Ah, never mind, it’s nothing important after all.’

Jae-chan’s voice from a few hours ago came to mind, and Go Woo-jin was caught up in all kinds of delusions. Did Jae-chan think he was unreliable as a sponsor? So he went to Han Tae-hoon instead? Woo-jin grabbed his car keys and was about to leave immediately, but stopped.

It was probably an overreaction.

It still was. No matter that Jae-chan had allowed it, checking his every movement, obsessing, reading meaning into it, and trying to chase him to the hotel – how was that different from being a stalker?

Woo-jin tried to calm himself down and left a message for Jae-chan.

[If there is anything I can help you with, please contact me at any time. I’ll come to District 1. 11:23 PM]

The reply came quickly.

[Yeah haha ​​hurry up and go to sleep zZ 11:25 PM]

A smile of relief barely escaped me at the reply, which was no different from usual. Woo-jin gazed at Jae-chan’s message with a faint smile, then tossed and turned in bed for a long while. He only barely managed to drift off after receiving a report that Jae-chan had returned to his dormitory.

However, that was not the end of the confusion caused by Seon Jae-chan.

The next day, at the departure point for the flight training to Zone Z.

While waiting at the heliport, Go Woo-jin spotted a familiar face among the dozens of dispatched guides.

She couldn’t help but stand out, alone and aloof with a displeased expression amid the group filled with anticipation.

Guide Nam Hae-sol, her long hair flowing about. It was clear who had placed her on the list, despite her absence from it until yesterday.

*

“That girl, it was definitely Han Tae-hoon’s doing.”

After finishing the call, Chae Seong-hwan glanced at Nam Hae-sol. He had just contacted Tae-Hoon Han, the person responsible.

“He said Guide Seon asked him to put her in.”

To be precise, the request was to ‘Include all the apprentices Guides from Team 2, including Nam Hae-sol, added to the Z Town dispatch team’, but the result was the same. With a matching rate exceeding an astonishing 80%, the likelihood of Nam Hae-sol being in charge of Go Woo-jin’s guiding for the entire dispatch period was high.

How should he take this?

Woo-jin’s gaze sank like ice. Unlike him feeling sick at the sight of Jae-chan guiding a young female Esper, it was clear Jae-chan didn’t care if another guide guided him.

‘You’re not bothered at all?’

Woo-jin, who was suppressing all his boiling emotions by clenching his jaw, sneered. Come to think of it, there had been signs all along.

‘I’ll quit being your pair guide.’

‘How about changing the pair guide?’

‘Even if it’s not right away, I think it’s right to change it gradually.’

Seon Jae-chan was ready to move away from him at any time. He was just stupidly optimistic after being drunk on the sponsor game.

“…”

Go Woo-jin’s beautiful lips pressed tightly shut. Right. When looked at rationally, it was normal for a guide to not care who guided their pair esper.

He was the abnormal one.

And having realized his own abnormality, Go Woo-jin immediately committed an even more abnormal act.

• Team Leader. I’ll go separately.

He made the egregious move of notifying his superior of his unauthorized departure over the phone.

The thunderstruck Jin Dae-ho Team Leader called out to him in a pathetic yet slightly desperate voice, ‘Esper Go Woo-jin. Esper Go Woo-jin…?’ but Go Woo-jin, like a young man entering late puberty, only spoke in a mechanical tone, saying that he would accept the disciplinary action with pleasure and that he would try to arrive at Zone Z by tomorrow afternoon.

In his blinded state, there was only one thing in his mind.

That’s how I went to see Seon Jae-chan. Coincidentally, he had been on duty all day, so Woo-jin waited patiently near the Guide’s dormitory, suppressing his presence.

It was already mid-November, so the sun set early. As street lamps flickered on one by one above Woo-jin’s lowered head, the person he was waiting for appeared on the quiet entrance road.

It was Jae-chan, wearing a long coat over his guide uniform. The bag in one hand swayed lightly, likely containing sandwiches and snacks.

Despite the utterly mundane sight, Woo-jin couldn’t take his eyes off him. It was only after Jae-chan entered the dormitory building that his footsteps, stiff from the cold, sluggishly followed.

He walked through the warm hallway, feeling sore all over, and knocked on the familiar door of the room.

“Who is it?”

Jae-chan opened the door without hesitation. His eyes met Woo-jin’s, who stood there with a few buttons of his shirt undone.

“Can I come in?”

After a moment, Jae-chan nodded. Pretending not to notice his startled expression, Woo-jin pushed his way inside. Click, the door closed behind him.

Dumbfounded by the sudden situation, Jae-chan looked up at Woo-jin, who seemed even taller than usual today and asked the first thing that came to mind.

“What about the dispatch?”

Woo-jin responded with silence. All Woo-jin could see was the blinking of Jae-chan’s eyes, the wrinkles of the bridge of his nose, and the movement of the lips in front of him.

“… Are you okay?”

So cold. Jae-chan ended up having to grasp Woo-jin’s bone-chillingly stiff hands, despite being careful not to touch him recently. Just standing nearby was enough to feel the coldness seeping through. It was like ice.

Moreover, the esper wavelength transmitted through his palms was also uneven. Didn’t Hae-sol guide him yesterday? While not to the point of immediately needing wavelength stabilization, it didn’t seem like he had received any guiding yesterday.

However, Woo-jin just shook his head as if he was fine, pulling Jae-chan into an embrace. His lowered voice reached Jae-chan’s ear.

“Sorry. I’m cold.”

Once he embraced Jae-chan, Woo-jin immediately felt his breathing at ease. The taut nerve strings that had been standing on end like thin ice also loosened.

It wasn’t simply because Jae-chan was warm, nor due to the guiding transmitted through their touching chests. It was a sensation that transcended all of that. Appeasing one’s thirst. Like a wanderer lost in the desert receiving the baptism of a gushing stream, Woo-jin tightly closed his eyes and tightened his arms around him.

Woo-jin wished this warmth was something special that could only be given to him. But knowing it wasn’t, resentment simmered within. Seon Jae-chan was now devoted and kind to anyone.

“I want to sleep.”

In the end, leaping over the myriad emotions and questions, Woo-jin returned to square one.

He greedily held Jae-chan in his arms and spoke. And Jae-chan, who had remained meekly in his embrace until then, responded awkwardly.

“…Okay.”

“I want to have sex with you.”

The explicit desire spilled out in a low voice.

“…”

“…”

“… Okay.”

Yet Jae-chan’s reaction did not diverge from his expectations. A bitter smile formed on Woo-jin’s lips.

Even after arbitrarily keeping his distance, then arbitrarily barging in demanding to sleep together, this man didn’t get angry. In a situation that should rightly provoke fury at his ‘why are you acting like this’, he just accepted it without asking why.

Jae-chan merely slipped out of the embrace and silently grabbed his coat. Woo-jin persistently scanned the silhouette, which was thinner than he remembered, and then locked the door.

The rattling sound caught Jae-chan’s attention. Woo-jin went straight into the room and took away his coat. He hung the light clothes on the chair and pointed at the bed where Jae-chan’s body scent would have remained.

“Let’s do it here.”

Jae-chan also did not express any objection this time.

Jae-chan remained silent, then nodded his delicate chin once as if he understood. At that moment, Woo-jin felt the tattered reins of his sanity finally snap.

Go Woo-jin’s massive body pounced on Seon Jae-chan in an almost comically hurried manner. He promptly pushed Jae-chan down onto the bed as if crumpling him. With eyes wide open, he swiftly undressed him.

Kissing, touching, burying his nose in Jae-chan’s private places, tasting and biting. He had held back for too long. His patience was at its limit. As he showered frantic kisses all over Jae-chan’s body, Woo-jin suddenly realized he desperately wanted to kiss him on the lips. He lifted his head, attempting to explore Jae-chan’s lips.

But Jae-chan turned his head away. Just in the nick of time, the tip of their noses brushed against each other, and just as Woo-jin attempted to overlap their lips once again, like a predator pouncing on its momentarily lost prey.

This time, Jae-chan avoided him again.