← The Resurrected Guide Wants to Live Quietly
"It’s a fairly common presentation in eager but still unskilled rookie guides, so there’s no need for major concern. He’s recovering quickly — half a day of rest and he’ll be fine."
"But…"
"As you described it, there are points of concern, but… his numbers really are stabilizing fast, so for now, let’s watch him a little longer…"
"……"
Seon Yi-yeon opened his eyes to the murmur of voices. Conscious, but his head was fogged and his body heavy as lead. He still couldn’t move a finger.
He’d rolled through a dungeon for nearly a month once and never felt like this. The fragility of guides hit him all over again.
With no choice, he rolled just his eyes to look around — an unfamiliar ceiling, a bed. Medical equipment everywhere. Was this… a hospital?
"Damn it…"
While he tried to make sense of the situation with a sluggish brain, someone entered the room with a short curse.
He knew instantly, even through the haze. It was Han Yu-geon. Sure enough, his wavelength was badly frayed.
Seon Yi-yeon’s body — which had felt flattened into one with the mattress — moved.
"Esper…"
His voice came out cracked and dry as dead leaves. He wouldn’t have recognized it as his own.
But Yu-geon reacted, so apparently it got through. He crossed the room in long strides and checked Seon Yi-yeon’s condition.
"You’re awake? How do you feel? I’ll call the doctor back—"
"Guiding…"
"Hm?"
"…Take… guiding…"
"……"
"Your condition… I’m worried…"
"Hah."
Yu-geon’s face twisted with a disbelieving scoff.
"…Are you serious?"
He didn’t have the strength to answer properly — a few words left him wrung out — but of course he was serious.
Yu-geon looked badly shaken by finding someone collapsed in front of him; he seemed worse than when Seon Yi-yeon had seen him at the door. He’d barely gotten him calmed down… and even now he seemed to be getting worse by the minute. He was worried. In this condition he couldn’t help at all.
Reading Seon Yi-yeon’s stubbornness from his eyes alone, Yu-geon’s frown deepened.
"Do I look like the problem here? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? If I hadn’t gone to check on a hunch, you could’ve been found as a corpse…!" He’d been about to shout, then caught himself at the sight of the patient and barely reined his temper in.
While Yu-geon steadied his breathing, Seon Yi-yeon kept his mouth shut — not because he wanted to provoke him further, but because he disagreed. The opposite, in fact.
Found as a corpse — what melodrama. Utterly ridiculous.
He might not be an esper anymore, but this body wasn’t that weak. The battery of tests at the lab had shown solid results. Traces of his esper days seemed to linger: his stamina and strength were excellent, on par with a trained athlete, and the body itself was young and very healthy.
A body like that wasn’t going to fail from guiding aftereffects alone.
And even if something had gone badly wrong, this was a dormitory attached to a guiding center — someone would have intervened within a day at the latest.
No — the real problem was… the S-class esper with the frayed wavelength, wasn’t it? The same thing as last time could happen again.
"Guiding…"
"Ah, damn it…!"
"…Ngh."
The same words came out of his barely reopened lips, and Yu-geon exploded.
But right after, a loud noise burst near him made Seon Yi-yeon’s head ring, and he let out a groan — Yu-geon pressed his lips shut instead of raging further.
He glared, displeased, but with Ha-neul’s eyes squeezed shut and his breathing ragged, Yu-geon couldn’t bring himself to lash out further. In the end a sigh of resignation escaped his lips.
"…Fine. I’ll get guided, okay? I’ll take it. Happy?"
"Yeees. Yes. I’ll be right back." He looked thoroughly unwilling, brow knotted, but the answer came readily enough.
It was unexpected.
He’d blurted it out of worry, but honestly Seon Yi-yeon hadn’t expected Han Yu-geon to listen. The kid had been headstrong and stubborn — persuading him had always taken work.
Thinking back to yesterday, he didn’t seem particularly changed now… Was he soft toward sick people? The thought brought a smile to his lips even through the heaviness in his body.
Watching the smiling Seon Yi-yeon, Yu-geon let out a disbelieving "heh," but complained no further. He just came closer and gently closed his eyes for him.
"Go to sleep."
The hand on his feverish forehead was cold, but the voice was the opposite — so kind it warmed his heart.
Seon Yi-yeon rubbed his hot forehead against that big, cool hand and drifted into a deep sleep.
"Mm…"
***
Han Yu-geon clutched his forehead the moment he left the room. A self-loathing painful enough to make his body tremble seized him.
"…What am I even doing?"
The more he replayed each moment, the more ridiculous he felt.
Why had he made such a fuss?
Ha-neul had a fever and couldn’t hold himself up — true, the guiding had taken a toll — but it hardly warranted getting worked up about near-death and barging in.
They’d kissed for a long time, but honestly it had been closer to kissing than mucous-membrane guiding. He hadn’t done all that much guiding. In the end it was just, as the doctor said, poor guiding technique — and Ha-neul had been the one clinging and insisting, so it wasn’t as if Yu-geon owed him responsibility.
And the Center wouldn’t have just left a sick A-rank guide unattended. They’d have managed him somehow; it wouldn’t have escalated.
Sure, he’d collapsed — but he’d still opened the door with his own hand, hadn’t he? He hadn’t been completely spent. He could’ve put off meeting him, asked Oh Yeon-seo, who was already watching him, to report on his movements, and been done with it.
And… the weirdness wasn’t over, even now.
His head was burning red-hot, and the heat hadn’t left him since he’d stepped out of the room.
It had started the moment he’d seen that face — flushed and feverish, breathing hot breaths while complaining of a headache — break into a beaming smile at the words "I’ll go get guided." Feeling that face nuzzle against his hand had made it worse. It wasn’t anger, wasn’t a fever — so what was this?
Maybe… frustration?
His body had given out badly enough to collapse from guiding, and still all he thought about was guiding. Anyone watching would tear their hair out.
And Ha-neul had met him only yesterday — why so desperate? Was he just affectionate, or a meddler?
And the funniest part was himself, putting up with that annoying personality.
Getting him to the hospital was already doing plenty. He could’ve ignored the rest and left it to Oh Yeon-seo — and yet here he was, groveling to the point of promising to get guided. If Oh Yeon-seo found out, her reaction… the mere thought was horrifying.
…Still, if I’m leaving, I should contact Oh Yeon-seo.
In his rush to get to a hospital — any hospital, as fast as possible — he’d come to the nearest ER, which was a good distance from Seonyeon. He needed someone to hand things off to.
"Guild Master Han Yu-geon."
Lost in anguish, he turned at the voice calling him from behind. A familiar voice, a familiar face.
Chae Jun-hyeok, if he remembered right. An A-rank esper with Seonyeon. He’d stood out in the recent dungeon raid, too. Someone Oh Yeon-seo trusted.
"The vice guild master sent me. She said to guard an important person."
"An important person?"
"A guide you know as well, Guild Master."
"Ah… I see. You came at a good time. I need to get to the guild. I’ll leave the rest to you."
"Yes. Go on in." He took the crisp salute and left the hospital.
Come to think of it, Oh Yeon-seo would know the situation even without being contacted. She wouldn’t have posted just one or two watchers. If anything, she’d been uncharacteristically slow this time.
Checking his phone on the way to the car, he found a pile of messages from Oh Yeon-seo, as expected.
[Oh Yeon-seo: You took Guide Ha-neul to the hospital? I heard he’s in bad shape?] [Oh Yeon-seo: I’m keeping an eye on things, but wouldn’t it be better to post a guard outright? You’re not staying there, are you.] [Oh Yeon-seo: What do you think?? Should I send someone?] [Oh Yeon-seo: Han Yu-geon] [Oh Yeon-seo: Yu-geooon~~~] [Oh Yeon-seo: Yu-geoon~~~~] [Oh Yeon-seo: Why won’t you look at them ㅠㅠ] [Oh Yeon-seo: Ugh, whatever. I’m sending someone on my own]
How had they piled up without him noticing? Honestly, he hadn’t even known they were coming.
He’d carried the collapsed Ha-neul to the car, driven to the hospital, run through the tests, gotten the results, talked to the doctor about them, and discovered Ha-neul awake — a long stretch of time had passed, and yet.
He disliked hassle, but he didn’t ignore the weight of his position — he usually checked messages periodically. Today must have been unusually frantic.
From the moment he’d seen Ha-neul gone limp in his arms, his mind had gone white; he didn’t think he’d been sane since.
Probably because he’d overlaid Seon Yi-yeon onto that sight, too.
Seon Yi-yeon had been an S-class esper, steady as a still lake — his wavelength, his condition, always evenly managed — so the only time he’d ever looked that frail was right before his death.
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