← How a Guide Copes with the Loss of an Esper
“A hundred roses? Are you serious?”
“If you can’t do it, forget the whole thing. A hundred roses in a hundred days. Not a single day late.”
Even an S-rank esper surely couldn’t make flowers bloom in a wasteland. What few plants had survived had been trampled to death by monsters. In this century, flowers were rarer than gold.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
Jaewan lowered his eyes and smiled. A chill ran down Nayun’s spine at that gentle smile, though he couldn’t have said why.
“I’ll bring you the freshest roses there are.”
The air shifted subtly.
As the sharp wavelength of an esper starved for guiding spread through the air, Nayun’s skin prickled.
He’s bluffing. Nayun muttered under his breath, his mood lifting despite himself. A hundred roses were no pretty little joke. He scratched his cheek, shaking off his unease. But he should have guessed how far Jang Jaewan would go.
For all his high stats, Jang Jaewan had gone a long time without finding a pair, scraping by on faint contact guiding.
It was as good as having waited for a guide his whole life — no, a long time.
Just when he’d given up even the hope of finding a pair, the Center had finally found one for him. Making a bet with an esper thirsting for guiding — what a foolish thing to do.
* * *
“Nayun-ssi.”
Out on a walk, Nayun was stopped by someone. A hand shot out, blocking his path. Nayun’s head snapped up as if struck by lightning.
“The first one.”
It was a blue rose. Jang Jaewan twirled the stem with a smile. Dried blood on his cheek had turned rust-brown. The smiling face was, incongruously, fresh and bright.
“How… did you get this?”
“I said I’d bring it, so I did.”
“Is this a real rose? Not a paper flower?”
Roses — blue roses above all — bloomed, rare as they were, only in the habitats of S-rank monsters.
The hand gripping the rose was mottled all over, and Nayun noticed. A flower grown in contaminated soil would be poisonous. Before the monster’s blood had even cooled, from a land desolate beyond words, he had plucked the flower.
“Your hand… is it because of the monster?”
“This? Just a scratch.”
“You call this just a scratch?”
Would an S-rank esper really get scratched up by a mere monster? Nayun wasn’t a fool. His stomach knotted uncomfortably.
He’ll give up soon enough.
But contrary to expectations, Jang Jaewan brought the roses without ever tiring. Each time, Nayun could say nothing at all, only take the flower.
Knowing about the wounds on that hand and pretending not to see was getting hard; his conscience pricked him.
“Why are you going this far?”
Nayun asked him point-blank.
Every time Jang Jaewan came back from a mission, he delivered exactly one rose. His frame was exhausted, but his face was full of smiles.
“Because Nayun-ssi likes roses.”
“Me?”
As if….
I only said it because I didn’t want to be your guide.
The words rose to his lips, but meeting that gentle smile, they sank back down his throat.
Only a psychopath could look at that smile and stay cold. “Ah, yes. I do like it.”
And Nayun was no psychopath.
Jang Jaewan believed he liked roses. He felt nauseous at the mere scent of roses, but he couldn’t explain herself.
Every day, Jang Jaewan faithfully went out and found one flower at a time. As the flowers piled up, so, naturally, did his fame.
“Look, look — that’s Jang Jaewan’s guide.” “Ah, the guide he’s courting?”
Wait. Isn’t this a bad deal for me?
By the time the thought crossed his mind, it was too late. If only he had given him all one hundred roses at once, the blaze would have flared up and died out. But Jang Jaewan brought them one at a time. It was open, shameless marking.
*He’s mine. Don’t touch him.* *That presumptuous bastard.*
Only the espers, who knew exactly what he meant, clicked their tongues. That was the devotion — the obsession — of an esper toward a guide.
***
Days blurred past, and before he knew it, he was waiting at the window — he didn’t even know for whom.
“Are you waiting for Esper Jang Jaewan?”
An esper passing by outside stopped and asked. Nayun disliked the curiosity in his voice.
“No.”
“You’re not Jang Jaewan’s pair?”
“Who said we’re a pair? We’re not.”
The esper who had struck up the conversation drifted away, giving him a what-a-weird-one look. Nayun rested him chin in his hand at the window, his expression blank.
So in the end, am I the one being worn down?
He tilted his head toward the vase on the windowsill. The blue roses gave off something other than fragrance. At first, he didn’t know what it was.
But soon he realized.
The smell of blood and ash and wind.
Jang Jaewan always smelled the same when he held out a rose. Blue roses grew only in a monster’s habitat. And there, blood and death were always thick in the air.
The higher-ranked the esper, the closer they always stood to death. Because he was stronger than anyone, Jang Jaewan had to stand on a more dangerous front line than anyone else.
The premonition that he would lose him someday.
That was why he hadn’t wanted to give him his heart or grow close from the start. No matter how beautiful…
He had sworn he wouldn’t give his heart.
But every vow proved useless.
It was a force beyond resisting.
Before he knew it, he was waiting for the man who came to him first, covered in blood and dust, and handed him a rose.
“This is the last one.”
Back from a mission, Jang Jaewan stopped at the guides’ dormitory first. He pulled off his blood-soaked gloves and held out the flower.
Nayun, by now accustomed, held out his hand and took it.
“…I never thought you’d actually pull this off.”
“I said I’d do anything for you.”
He must have been refused when he first asked to bring him a blue rose. But Jang Jaewan had done it without knowing.
“You really plan to do this till the end? You come back wounded every time — aren’t you tired of it?”
“This is all I can do.”
“…Sometimes you don’t seem human.”
The ability and talent to make the impossible possible. Jang Jaewan had that.
Nayun admired him, and at the same time felt the distance. When the hundred roses were complete, Jang Jaewan would win.
***
Nayun could already sense the outcome, and was preparing for defeat. It was the hundredth day. That day, even Jang Jaewan wore a hardened expression.
“Today’s the last day. Where’s the rose?”
“Here.”
Jang Jaewan held out the hand he’d hidden behind his back. Nayun looked long at the flower that appeared as if by magic.
The first thing he felt was bewilderment. How was he supposed to take this?
Feeling his eyes studying his face, Nayun belatedly lifted his head. His eyes darted aside, and Jang Jaewan pressed his lips shut.
“Ah, nice. You know what it means, giving this to me right now?”
“It’s my last gift to you.”
The last one…
Jang Jaewan’s eyes had sunk quiet. Nayun took in the rose he held out to him once more. A belated realization brushed his mind.
He did that on purpose.
“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”
“Not really.”
“Ha…”
A blood-red flower drove itself into his eyes.
After all that suffering, to hand him the final choice. Something hot surged up inside him. Nayun let out a small laugh.
Not knowing the meaning of that laugh, Jang Jaewan’s eyes wavered. Nayun looked down at the rose. A hundred days of devotion were held intact in it.
Could he refuse this?
He couldn’t. He might have refused anyone else, but not Jang Jaewan. Beneath that foolish devotion, his heart crumbled.
Nayun reached out and took the rose. He brought the petals to him nose and breathed in deep.
“It’s blue… So pretty.”
The rose carried a faint scent of wind.
“What does it mean?”
A shadow crossed Jang Jaewan’s face. Nayun read there the pain of suppressed, faint hope.
“This is my answer — about the rose.”
There would never be another love like this. Nayun felt, at last, completely defeated. But the feeling wasn’t bad. If anything, his chest felt clear.
***
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