FETCH 40

The commotion that had flared up was fortunately extinguished quickly. Jaechan entered the office with a pleasant smile.

For once, Han Kang had been submissive while receiving guiding today. Was the shock of the empty name tag in the chronology he saw at the Monster Museum a few days ago responsible?

Whatever the reason, Han Kang’s change in attitude was quite gratifying, and the curve of Jaechan’s smile deepened.

Since there was light training in the morning, he was able to finish with simple contact guiding. Furthermore, Han Kang seemed satisfied that it wasn’t the high-intensity guiding from before, waving his hand and saying, “See you later.”

Feeling somewhat proud, he let out a long sigh, haaa, when Ji Sangtaek, who had returned to the office first to handle some work, let out a low chuckle.

“Why are you so excited?”

“Because Han Kang was receptive to the guiding.”

“Ah, I guess a ‘honey’ really is different? Han Kang was one of the hardest Espers to guide.”

He thought the Center wasn’t in its right mind for just tossing a rookie at such an Esper. Anyway, it was a relief things were working out. If they hadn’t, his mind went blank just thinking about what kind of trouble he would have faced.

Jaechan flopped down onto his desk and replied, “We aren’t ‘honey’.” Though since rumors that the two of them were a couple had already spread like wildfire through the Center, his words wouldn’t even make a dent.

Just as he was swallowing a low laugh, he-he, Ji Sangtaek started with, “Oh, that’s right.”

“Do you have other plans today?”

“When?”

“After work.”

At the unexpected question, Jaechan looked at him blankly as if he didn’t understand the reason. It wasn’t that he had anything specific scheduled, but he still had various things he wanted to do.

First, he planned to fill the bathtub with hot water, dissolve some Dead Sea salt to soothe his neck, and then turn on a favorite movie while playing mobile games. Han Kang would grumble that it was a habit not particularly good for preventing dementia, but for Jaechan, there was no rest as sweet as that. He wanted to properly reward himself for the hard work of coming into the office.

After that, his goal was to lie down in his cozy bed and fall asleep before ten o’clock. It wasn’t that Center life was purely exhausting, but living with his nerves on edge in his own way had made his body ache.

Above all, he thought he needed to do some grocery shopping on the way home. He also felt like he should organize the refrigerator, which he hadn’t looked into for a while…

Ah, before that, he had to stop by Han Kang’s and tell him to receive guiding for the afternoon training as well. Though he had been submissive in the morning, the afternoon could be different, so Jaechan swallowed hard just thinking about it.

But separate from his wishes, why did he feel like all these plans were about to go down the drain?

Jaechan subtly rolled his eyes and checked the expressions of the team members. It was even more ominous that every single one of them was grinning foolishly. He looked back at Ji Sangtaek. Leaning against the partition, the man was smiling brightly with his chin resting on the back of the hand he had placed on top of it.

“Not particularly… I don’t have anything else, why?”

He asked while desperately hoping to hear a voice saying, “Yeah, get some good rest,” but.

“The whole team is participating in the Team Zero dinner today, you know that, right? Since the Espers started training again, many of them are failing to adjust and are exhausted. They even have outside training in the afternoon, so everyone’s condition will probably be a mess. We have to feed them plenty of delicious food so they’ll train hard, so don’t anyone miss it.”

“Ah.”

“They say Kang has been receiving guiding well lately; think how tired the kid must be to actually receive it.”

“Ah…!”

No, it’s not like outside training is something they only do for a day or two! And what did he mean by “how tired he must be to receive ‘it’”? This was clearly a remark aimed intentionally at him. The gaze looking at him mischievously was full of playfulness, as if asking, “Are you really not going to come even after this?”, but Jaechan flared up.

It wasn’t like they were going out to a major international competition for a day or two, and he had long since grown accustomed to the whims of Espers.

So did it make sense to suddenly talk about boosting morale?

…That is what he thought, but in the end, Jaechan had no choice but to nod his head and say he understood.

“You’re coming, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

Just as he was scratching the back of his neck, having agreed since he had no real excuse or intention to skip, it happened.

“Oh, that’s right. Seokyoung said he was coming too. He said he’s wrapping things up so he can start coming into work from next week, and when I told him about the dinner today, he said he’d come.”

“Oh, really? That’s good.”

Jaechan’s ears perked up at the unexpected name.

His gaze naturally moved to the seat opposite the partition that had been empty for a quite a long time. The Guide named “Seokyoung” had been on a long-term leave ever since the Olympics ended. He hadn’t heard the reason properly, but it was good news for Jaechan, who had been curious about him while assuming there must be a valid circumstance.

This was because he now knew that the Guide he had run into every time he came to the Center to hand over Han Kang before his own manifestation was that man. That was why he was curious. Just why had he looked at him like that, and how far had his guiding gone with Han Kang?

The Center said Han Kang was used to everything, but he still wondered how far Han Kang had gone with Guides other than himself.

He felt like there was no need to be that curious about the progress of skinship his favorite person had with others, and perhaps it was a Pandora’s box, but now he was truly, purely curious.

Since he was already doing everything with Han Kang, there was nothing to be jealous of.

So when his eyes sparkled, Ji Sangtaek chuckled as if he understood.

“It’s Jaechan’s first time meeting him, right? Try to have a good talk while drinking today. He’ll probably be curious since he hasn’t even seen Jaechan’s face.”

“Totally. I saw Guide Choi Seokyoung a few times before I joined.”

“You did? He’s one of the two tops of our Center.”

Two tops? In what way? Jaechan blinked his round eyes and looked at Ji Sangtaek. The man leaned in close and rolled his eyes around as if he were sharing a top-secret piece of information that must not be leaked to the outside.

“Rank number two for people with the nastiest impressions in EKR.”

“Who’s number one?”

“Why even ask, it’s your honey Han Kang.”

Aha.

He thought that while the kid was a bit precocious, his impression wasn’t necessarily nasty, but he did agree that Choi Seokyoung’s impression was nasty.

Jaechan nodded slowly. In fact, when he first came to the Center and saw him, he had thought they should have a showdown.

He didn’t mean he wanted to fight; he wanted to clear up any misunderstandings between them and improve the relationship, and if it was a misunderstanding that couldn’t be resolved, he intended to say, “You live your way and I’ll live mine.”

But since the man took a leave of absence the moment Jaechan joined, there had been no chance to run into him. So he couldn’t help but be curious and feel it was a shame.

Furthermore, judging by the attitude of the team members, they all seemed to have given up on Han Kang, yet Choi Seokyoung had been in charge of Han Kang every time. So he had so many questions about this and that. Excluding the guiding, like ways to handle Han Kang well, or whatever. Anyway.

Jaechan suddenly felt happy about the dinner which, until a moment ago, he hadn’t welcomed. He muttered to himself in a low voice, “This should be fun.”

“Everyone, make sure to bring your respective Espers.”

At the instruction to personally take care of Han Kang, another sigh, haaa, escaped him. There was no other reason. It was just a sigh that came out of habit, and that sigh was quickly sucked back in by Ji Sangtaek’s words encouraging them to “go eat our fill of free meat.”

.✦ ݁˖

Jaechan was humming to himself as he walked. As time passed, his anticipation for the dinner grew. Even though he was tired, separate from that, he thought an Esper dinner would be quite fun. It was because they were all such drunkards.

To prepare for moments when they might lose control of their powers, the Center had a clause prohibiting Espers from getting dead drunk, but that didn’t work at all.

Furthermore, those living in a restricted environment were masters at playing tricks. They even said, “As long as we don’t get dead drunk, it’s fine; it’s not like they said not to drink at all,” and they would pour alcohol down until just before the point of being dead drunk, so even Han Kang’s dissatisfaction was no small matter.

But who could stop them? Even if they got dead drunk by a margin of one or two glasses, the Center Director was the type to overlook it as long as there wasn’t a glaring accident, so everyone seemed to be acting quite high and mighty.

Come to think of it, the Center Director was only stingy toward him. He must think it’s because they are all naturally manifested supernatural humans. Since he was still the same person who neglected and pressured him, Jaechan let out a long sigh, ehyu.

Still, he was in a good mood today. The Center Director hadn’t sought him out, and wasn’t he participating in the Team Zero dinner, which was rumored to be the most fun among Center dinners?

He thought he had even heard that the alcohol bill alone easily exceeded several million won; who was the person participating in such a dinner?

It was me!

Jaechan was already excited at the thought of drinking with the Espers. Furthermore, there was a generous word that they could rest tomorrow if it was difficult to come to work due to the aftermath of the dinner.

At first, he wondered what kind of extraordinary welfare this was. It turned out that the Center already had the Espers’ habit of liking alcohol perfectly figured out, and as they well knew that the Guides suffered for it, the Espers would proceed with training while the Guides would be given a day off.

So in the end, it was a kind of reward, not welfare.

But whatever. He could drink free alcohol and they were even giving him a day off, so for Jaechan, it was simply killing two birds with one stone.

He could even establish himself as a proper member of this team this time, so it was actually killing three birds with one stone.

“What’s so good that you’re laughing like this?”

He didn’t even reply to Han Kang’s grumpy remark from right beside him.