IMPRINT 29

Beep, beep, beep. An alarm sounded to announce the end of the guiding.

“Guiding is finished. But Team Leader, are you really okay?”

“With what?”

“The guiding efficiency. You should truly get a checkup at least once…”

“Later. When I have time.”

I pulled my captured hand away. It certainly felt as though the guiding efficiency wasn’t great, just as he said… but my life was currently too weary, painful, and busy to fret over such minor details.

And the fact that the person who made my life so weary, painful, and busy is just one man is truly…

“Let’s go down together. It’s my shift change too.”

“Alright.”

I left the guiding room with Yu Seonjae, who had brushed himself off and stood up.

As I listened to Yu Seonjae’s trivial chatter inside the elevator, we arrived at the first floor in no time.

Ding—

[The elevator doors are opening.]

The moment the doors opened along with the monotonous announcement voice.

“What’s this?”

“Huh? Why are there so many people here? Did something happen? What is it?”

The lobby, which had been deserted when I passed through earlier, was bustling with people. Just as I was feeling flustered, thinking an accident of some sort must have occurred, Juyoung—who was wearing a tearful face amidst the crowd—spotted me and came rushing over in a hurry.

“Team Leadeeeer!”

“No, what on earth is…”

Before I could even ask what was going on, I realized exactly why the crowd had gathered thanks to the figure appearing behind Juyoung.

“…Kang Juha.”

I clearly told him to wait quietly in the office. Why did he come here to cause a stir again? And Juyoung, whom I had attached as a lookout just in case, why couldn’t he manage this one guy…

…Actually, Juyoung’s face looked far too haggard to say that. It was the face of an innocent person who, to anyone’s eyes, had not intended this situation at all.

I could only press my hand to my forehead at the situation that was so easily envisioned.

“…Wow, that is a damn handsome door frame.”

In the midst of this, Yu Seonjae, who was standing beside me, blurted out such a thing the moment he saw Kang Juha in the flesh.

“Now that you’ve seen Kang Juha in person, I suppose you can join that ‘Meeting Him in the Flesh’ gathering or whatever it was.”

As I muttered in a half-resigned voice, Yu Seonjae finally covered his mouth with his hands, his eyes filled with emotion.

But there are dozens of eyes here in the lobby right now; does that gathering even hold any meaning?

Standing before me, Kang Juha looked at Yu Seonjae with expressionless, cold eyes.

“You said you were going to work.”

“Yes, I came to work.”

I had nothing to hide. Receiving guiding was a part of an Esper’s duties and an obligation. It was clearly stated in the Center’s Labor Standards Act.

However, Kang Juha’s head tilted askew as if my answer did not please him.

“What kind of work did you do?”

“What would an Esper come to the Guiding Bureau to do? I came to receive guiding.”

“Did you hold hands?”

“Yes.”

Kang Juha’s gaze dropped straight to my hand. After staring intently for a long time, it soon shifted to look at Yu Seonjae’s hand.

Yu Seonjae was so moved by seeing Kang Juha in the flesh that he looked as though he was about to practically bite his own hand, and his eyes met Kang Juha’s.

“Gasp… Crazy, this is crazy.”

He seemed to have no grasp of the situation at all.

“With this person?”

“I cannot tell you.”

It was a blatant lie, but I had no reason to speak the truth. Besides, he was wearing an obviously foul expression; who would answer him submissively? He looked as though he wanted to tear Yu Seonjae apart and kill him right now.

“I see. You can’t tell me.”

Fortunately, the current Kang Juha was not the seven-year-old Kang Juha, and having recently established a precedent by tearing Kim Kunwoo apart, he was currently exercising self-restraint and didn’t seem to intend to escalate things recklessly.

“There are many watching eyes, so it would be best to return to the office now.”

“If Teacher comes with me.”

“It is my office, so of course I must go.”

“Then come.”

Wondering what he meant by that, I looked at Kang Juha, and he spoke clearly once more.

“Come to me.”

Only then did I realize that what Kang Juha meant was not an invitation to the office. Kang Juha was displeased by the situation where I was standing as if in opposition to him.

Moreover, because Yu Seonjae happened to be by my side and a crowd of onlookers had gathered around us. It seemed he had internally played a childish game of picking sides.

Looking at him at times like this, he still seems like a seven-year-old through and through.

I submissively stepped close to him. Then, I grabbed and pulled Kang Juha’s wrist.

“Satisfied? Let’s go.”

For some reason, the arm of his that I grabbed felt as though it had turned stiff, but fortunately, the situation was more or less settled.

Juyoung, who was gauging the mood, couldn’t even squeeze in between Kang Juha and me and followed behind hesitatingly.

—Explain what happened.

I shot the thought into his head. It was a method I didn’t usually use, but since both Juyoung and I were psychic-type Espers, we could communicate through each other’s special abilities even without speaking.

—The moment Esper Kang Juha realized the Team Leader had gone to receive guiding, he burst out of the office. I really tried to stop him? But a person can’t beat a bear. I am truly being wronged here!

Earlier he called him a tiger, but now he had become a bear.

At that moment, Kang Juha, who had been silent by my side the whole time, opened his mouth.

“Teacher, are you using your special ability right now?”

“Gasp.”

Juyoung sucked in a breath, and I immediately cut off the mental connection with him. Then, I asked back as calmly as possible.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Because I can feel a sort of energy when Teacher uses his special ability.”

What is this?

I hurriedly turned toward Juyoung, and Juyoung, who was looking at Kang Juha with rabbit eyes, looked back at me and shook his head as if he had no idea at all.

“…The energy of a special ability?”

“Yes.”

Can a highly developed S-class Esper feel even things like that? Truly? Just what is Kang Juha’s true identity?

“…It is nothing much. Don’t worry about it.”

I couldn’t exactly say I was chewing out a subordinate for failing to keep him restrained, so I glossed over it.

“And I believe I clearly told you it would be best to exercise self-restraint as much as possible while you are being disciplined.”

“That’s why I was behaving myself.”

“Does a person who is behaving himself come to the Guiding Bureau?”

“I was behaving myself in the lobby. I didn’t break down the door to the guiding room either.”

“…”

“I didn’t hurt anyone, and I didn’t get angry.”

It seemed Kang Juha’s version of “behaving” was a bit different from the one I knew.

“…Right.”

Normally, hearing such words would make me want to argue back first, but this was a case where I didn’t even know where to begin correcting it, so I ended up giving up.

“Teacher, do you like that guide?”

“Me?”

“Yes. He smelled exactly like the one you had on you before. It’s the same person from then, right.”

“…Ah.”

To think he would remember that. There was a time when Kang Juha told me I had an unpleasant smell.

“Are you going to pair with him?”

“I have no intention of doing so.”

Honestly, Yu Seonjae is too young to pair with me. I have no intention of doing so in the first place, but a person should have a conscience. What would I be trying to do with a kid who has just barely shed his adolescent look at the age of twenty?

“To begin with, that guide is too young to take as a pair. I don’t have a hobby of raising anyone.”

I didn’t even have the thought of taking anyone as a pair, but if I were to truly do so, I thought a moderately lukewarm relationship—one that was steady, independent, and respected each other’s boundaries—would be good. Because there would be nothing more unpleasant than wasting emotion pointlessly.

“Teacher, you were a researcher before, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I was.”

“Then, by any chance, have you ever researched how an Esper can become a guide?”

It was an out-of-the-blue yet novel question.

“I cannot say it is 100 percent impossible. There are actually cases where individuals manifested as both an Esper and a guide simultaneously.”

“Not that. An Esper becoming a guide.”

“That also cannot be completely ruled out as a possibility… but there are no reported cases.”

“Even through things like surgery?”

“No.”

Did Kang Juha originally have this much passion for academics? A talent lost to the combat field, perhaps?

“Then what would be the probability of me becoming a guide?”

“Pardon? A guide?”

Suddenly? Kang Juha as a guide. For some reason, I couldn’t imagine it… if he became a guide, it felt as though no Espers would ever come to receive guiding because they’d be too scared.

It was a bit funny to imagine Kang Juha sitting all alone in a guiding room.

“It would be a possibility so microscopic that calculating the probability would be meaningless. Well, I suppose being a guide was a dream of yours when you were young?”

“No. It’s a dream that formed recently.”

I thought it was a joke, but his face and voice were more serious than expected, so I felt a bit concerned. Because it was an undeniable fact that life as a combat-type Esper was more weary than life as a guide.

Moreover, in the case of someone like Kang Juha, he couldn’t even change his workplace voluntarily because he was an S-class combat-type. I at least had the right to choose, but Kang Juha…

The thought made my mouth feel bitter for no reason.

“I want to become Teacher’s pair guide.”

“Pardon? No, pardon?”

What on earth is this.

“I want to manifest as a guide and form a pair with Teacher.”

“…”

It was a statement so absurd that I felt cheated for having worried about Kang Juha internally. It wasn’t that he wanted to become a guide because life as a combat-type Esper was too painful; he just wanted to be my pair?

“There will be no possibility of that.”

In the world of science, one is never certain about anything, but this time I could say it with confidence. The possibility of that was zero.