FETCH 54

When Jaechan threw on some clothes and headed down to the line, Han Kang was indeed standing there in plain sight. Because the days had grown shorter, darkness had settled thickly around them, but even so, the hour was not particularly late.

“How did you get permission to go out?”

“I saw the team leader leaving for the day, so I caught him and asked him to write one.”

“Our team leader?”

“Yeah, Team Leader Ji Sangtaek.”

“He let you out?”

“When I told him I was going to meet you, he sent me on my way.”

Jaechan hummed and twitched an eyebrow. This was a problem whether it was true or not. Wondering if he really let him go just based on those words, Jaechan scrutinized Han Kang with a suspicious eye, but Han Kang simply shrugged as if asking what the issue was.

“Why, don’t you trust me?”

“He let you go just because you said that?”

“I don’t tell lies when it comes to your business, honey.”

Han Kang tilted his chin up triumphantly. After looking down at Jaechan with a swagger, Han Kang draped an arm around his shoulders and said they should get going. Jaechan still wore an expression of deep suspicion, but that didn’t last long.

If there had been a problem, his watch would have been going crazy by now, but it remained quiet.

“Where are we going?”

Jaechan asked as he walked in step with Han Kang. When he tilted his head slightly to look up, he saw that, for once, Han Kang’s bangs were brushed down neatly.

While it wasn’t always the case, he usually had his bangs pushed up when they were at the Center, so the look was a bit unfamiliar. Since it was a look he hadn’t seen in a while and made him look softer than usual, Jaechan let out a chuckle and playfully toyed with his bangs.

“What?”

“It’s been a while since I saw you with your bangs down.”

“Is it bad?”

“Well, personally, it’s a style I like. But don’t do it in front of other people.”

“Why? Is it a look you want to keep all to yourself?”

To the teasing remark, Jaechan simply shrugged his shoulders. When he fiddled with his nose out of slight embarrassment, Han Kang nodded as if he understood.

The place Han Kang led Jaechan to was the Monster Museum. Before joining the Center, Jaechan used to frequent this place constantly, and even after joining, he would visit whenever he was pissed off, but at some point, he had stopped coming entirely.

Staring at the museum where the night opening had begun, Jaechan exhaled a long, deep sigh. Then, Han Kang gave him a slow, heavy nudge with his shoulder.

“Why, do you not want to go in?”

“No, it’s not that…”

Rather than a matter of liking or disliking it, it was just uncomfortable.

A space that used to be responsible for relieving his stress had suddenly become a place that induced it.

The reason was clear. The Center, which was normally so quick with administrative tasks, had failed to put his name in the history records.

He had been assigned as Han Kang’s dedicated Guide, and everyone in the Center knew him, yet the Center had pointedly left his name out. That had become a source of subtle stress that tormented him.

Jaechan let out a weary, uncomfortable groan and glanced at Han Kang. Do we really have to go in? Looking at the history records that were likely still not updated felt like it would only further complicate his already messy thoughts.

When he let out a pained sound, Han Kang grinned and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“I guess we have to go in, right?”

“Yeah, I have something to show you.”

“What is it? Can’t you just tell me?”

“No, you have to see it.”

He didn’t know why Han Kang was making such a fuss. With a reluctant stride, Jaechan entered the museum with Han Kang.

People who were in the middle of viewing the exhibits whispered and stared at them. Since Han Kang was an Esper whose face was already as famous as it could be, the people who spotted him first let out gasps of admiration, and after confirming Jaechan beside him, they let out small cheers.

He figured it was because they had already set the internet ablaze with talk of being childhood friends and whatnot. On top of that, because Han Kang had said in an interview that the pet name they used for each other was “honey,” the public’s interest had reached its peak.

Naturally, since they were an Esper and a Guide, most of the looks were of acceptance. And Jaechan hated that. For him, the order of their relationship was all wrong.

Swallowing his uncomfortable feelings, Jaechan simply stared at the floor and trudged along. And the place where Han Kang stopped was, as expected, in front of the history records.

Jaechan deliberately did not look at them. It was a form of avoidance. Acknowledging this, Jaechan purposely averted his gaze and scanned the flashily displayed medals and trophies of the Espers.

The first Olympic gold medal, which hadn’t been there before, had been added. Seeing that even the portions for the Guides were fully on display, Jaechan swallowed a sense of bitterness.

It would have been nice if mine were there, too.

Just as that thought made him take a shallow breath, Han Kang called out to him, “Honey.” When Jaechan glanced at him, Han Kang gestured toward the history records with a nod.

“Look here.”

“I saw it last time.”

“I’m telling you it’s different now, look.”

How different could it really be?

Jaechan looked at the history records, fully prepared to be hurt. Thinking that if his name wasn’t there this time either, he’d take his frustration out on Han Kang, he looked at the spot.

“Huh?”

Jaechan’s eyes flew wide open.

“Ooh?”

As he let out another exclamation, the corners of his mouth began to curl upward.

“Hey!”

With a look of sheer excitement, Jaechan thwacked Han Kang’s forearm. Then Han Kang grinned proudly and said, “See, I told you.”

“I told you it changed.”

“What? When? How? It wasn’t here before.”

On the history records that Jaechan couldn’t take his eyes off of, Jaechan’s name was recorded plainly right next to Han Kang’s name.

[Guide Jeon Jaechan, dedicated to Esper Han Kang. S-class, member of Team Zero, manifested at age 20 and currently active]

He didn’t need anything else.

The words “dedicated to Esper Han Kang” bit into his eyes so deeply that Jaechan bit his lower lip with all his might. Emotion flooded Jaechan’s eyes as he fumbled to touch the name. He rubbed the engraved indentation endlessly with his fingertips.

“You would have regretted it if you didn’t come, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what kind of ruckus I had to cause with the Center Director, huh, to get them to carve this in?”

“You asked them to do this?”

“I’m the only one who takes care of you, honey.”

Indeed, he was.

Beside Han Kang, who was swaggering as if he had performed a magnificent feat, Jaechan gave a wide smile. When they had discovered the empty space together before, Han Kang had made a fuss about comforting him, but since Jaechan hadn’t realized he was still paying attention to it to this extent, the impact of the gesture was doubled.

However, that only lasted a brief moment.

Looking at Han Kang’s expression as he watched Jaechan while saying those words, the hollow feelings he had been harboring began to take a definite shape.

Life had changed. More accurately, the relationship with Han Kang had shifted.

While he was preoccupied with establishing himself as a Guide, something more important had been pushed to the back burner.

Before manifesting, he was certain that Han Kang’s heart belonged to him. Han Kang would say that whatever Jaechan wanted to do was fine, and he never pushed him away. Even if he was prickly to everyone else, he gave Jaechan special treatment.

Instead, he hadn’t given him his body.

But it was different after manifesting. Han Kang gave his body instead of his heart. And that act always came with the excuse of Guiding. Even then, he would push Jaechan away at every turn as if he were dissatisfied. He acted prickly, and they fought much more frequently than they used to.

Jaechan certainly wanted change. More accurately, he wanted progress.

Even though he held one thing, he couldn’t be satisfied with it and had sought after the other by becoming a Guide, but instead of holding the other, what he previously held was disappearing.

How long will I be able to endure this state? How satisfied can I be with this kind of life?

“Right, it says I’m your dedicated Guide.”

“Yeah, honey, you’re my Guide now. Everyone will see this.”

Jaechan pressed his lips together tightly.

What he wanted was not to be a mere Guide. Specifically, he wanted to be his one and only lover and Guide.

So that no one else could covet him, so that no one else but himself could stand by Han Kang’s side.

Was this perhaps the last chance? If he didn’t confess here, would he just continue treading water in this state? Just as he was about to open his mouth with that thought…

“Just like you said, there’s no turning back now. The fact that you’re my Guide.”

“…What?”

“I only made you suffer because of my stubbornness.”

Ah, Han Kang only sees me as a Guide.

There was nothing else he could say to Han Kang, who smiled brightly while drawing a clear line at being a “Guide.”

What if, then, he stopped being a Guide again?

In the first place, he was a Guide who had manifested through drugs. He was an incomplete Guide who had a high probability of losing his utility as a Guide if he couldn’t take the medicine.

If a problem were to occur and he could no longer be his Guide, they would have to be separated. He might not be able to see him anymore.

It could become a relationship worse than before he manifested.

In the end, he truly possessed nothing.

He hadn’t won the heart of the person he liked, and his value as a Guide was unstable.

If this state continued and his body and mind became so exhausted that he couldn’t endure it, then at that time…

‘I’ll probably end up quitting everything—being a Guide and being Han Kang’s friend.’

It was the worst-case scenario. Just as he clenched his fists tightly while thinking that, Han Kang covered the tightly balled fist with his large hand and smiled broadly.

“Honey, in the next Olympics, let’s win a medal together and hang it there. You hang two medals. Including the one I couldn’t give you last time.”

Strength was added to the hand squeezing his fist. Similarly, expectation for the future was carried on the corners of Han Kang’s mouth as he looked at the names written side by side.

Watching him, Jaechan exhaled a large breath and tried his best to steady his heart.

Right, what is there that I can’t endure?

Even if I end up running away because I can’t take it, let’s try to hold out for four years.

Even if I leave when I’m exhausted, I steeled my resolve to hang on with everything I have for four years and put a gold medal around his neck with my own hands before thinking about it.

That will be the truly final chance.

I’ll just hold out for four years, just four years.

As he thought that, a glint began to swirl in Jaechan’s dark pupils.