Chapter 13
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass that filled the entire front of the living room, a park could be seen, with dense greenery and people walking along the paths. It was a peacefulness you would not believe belonged to a world where gates burst open.
Baek Jin stared blankly down, then lifted his gaze. While he was gazing at the sunset pouring in, the light that had been stabbing at his eyes vanished in an instant. Baek Jin raised his eyes and looked at the large hand resting above his eyebrows.
“You’ll ruin your eyesight.”
At those words, only then feeling the ache, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. Perhaps he had missed the sky all that time, because Baek Jin kept hovering in front of the window.
“Come on, you need to wash up now.”
Baek Jin took the clothes thrust toward him, caught off guard. He glanced from behind at Seo, who kindly told him the bathroom was this way.
The apartment where he would be living from now on was on a completely different level from anywhere he had stayed until now. Security was thorough from the entrance, and in the basement a shelter had been built in preparation for gates. Inside, the living room and kitchen flowed together, and the spacious living room was filled only with necessary furniture on white wooden flooring, with a low sofa. At the end of the hallway was a door leading to the bedrooms, and among them was the room that would become his.
“Your toothbrush is in the drawer, so use that.”
At the voice from ahead, Baek Jin quickly withdrew his gaze from looking around the house and moved his feet.
With the words to wash and come out, the door closed. The bathroom, too, was spacious and clean. Spacious enough for several people to come in and wash together. He set foot on tiles without a drop of water on them, then belatedly checked his reflection in the mirror.
His face, gone pale from not having seen light for so long, and the dark circles shadowed beneath his eyes gave him a gloomy air. During the two days he had been hospitalized, he had washed in a bathroom barely a pyeong in size, but there was a limit to how much his grubby appearance could improve.
He took off, one by one, clothes that would not have looked out of place thrown straight into a trash can. Running his eyes over his scrawny body, he felt with his hand his upper body, clean without a single wound. Baek Jin turned right around and this time checked his back. It was fascinating that his body was perfectly fine, without a single red mark or bruise remaining, and he kept looking at it.
Soon, warm water poured from the tap. He held out a hand and stood under the water for a long time, then slowly wet his body. It was a habit that came from always showering covered in wounds. But today was completely different from the days when a shower had felt like torture because of his injuries. Even standing under the water until his body went slack, there was not a single place that hurt.
His shower unintentionally grew long. Standing under the hot water and washing his hair with shampoo that lathered well felt so good. How long had it been since he had washed like this? He scrubbed and rinsed his body with soap foam over and over again.
Baek Jin took out a neatly folded towel, wiped the water from his body, and put on the clothes Seo had set out for him. Perhaps because he had lost weight, the short-sleeved shirt was especially loose on him, making him look like a child wearing his father’s clothes.
He took hold of the doorknob, opened it, and slipped out quietly. Was no one there?
“You’re already out?”
At the voice behind him, Baek Jin’s shoulders jerked up.
“Oh, yes.”
“There are no wounds left, are there? Even with guiding, I can’t check every wound.”
“There isn’t a single wound.”
In that moment, Baek Jin’s mind grew complicated. At the place he had been before, there were things he had been required to do before receiving guiding. But the man in front of him had guided him without receiving any such ritual. Already several times. Even if the method was different, during guiding a guide shared an esper’s pain, so it was not something someone like him dared to receive.
Perhaps there was something else the man wanted. Clutching the towel he was holding and watching for a reaction, Baek Jin dropped to his knees on the spot.
“What should I do?”
He tilted his head all the way back and looked up at Seo. There it was again. Every time he knelt, the man’s expression crumpled, and that only made Baek Jin more anxious.
In that moment, at the sensation of his body floating up, Baek Jin’s eyes widened on their own. It was flustering enough to suddenly be held in an unfamiliar embrace, but Seo carried Baek Jin on his shoulder, as if moving a piece of luggage, and headed to the living room.
“Even an elementary school kid these days wouldn’t be this light.”
***
At the tsk of a clicked tongue, Baek Jin could only blink rapidly, unable to understand the situation. When he came to his senses belatedly and struggled, it was already after he had been set down on the sofa.
“Towel.”
Perhaps frustrated by Baek Jin sitting blankly, Seo took the towel from his hand and placed it on top of his head, from which water was still dripping.
“From now on, dry your hair in the bathroom before you come out. I’m only doing this this once.” “…….”
“You have to answer.”
Because his hair was being rubbed roughly dry, Baek Jin answered yes with a scrunched face.
After rubbing until no more water dripped, Seo pushed the shaggy hair covering Baek Jin’s face completely back behind his forehead. As his hidden features were revealed, his face could finally be seen properly.
“Here, lift your head.”
At the voice from above his head, Baek Jin hesitated, then lifted his head. Their eyes met exactly, the gaze quickly swept over his face, and the corners of the man’s mouth lifted in a grin.
“You’re good-looking, you know.”
At the words tossed out like that, Baek Jin’s ears burned.
“Thank you…….”
Seo worried. Teaching a child who knew nothing might be easier; trying to teach an adult again, when wrong habits had already hardened, left him at a loss.
But since he had said he would take charge of Baek Jin entirely on his own, rehabilitation, of course, and this kind of small-scale education as well, were his share. Seo sat down heavily in front of Baek Jin, who was still sitting on the sofa. He raised his knees and rested his arms on them.
“I told you, in Korea we don’t do guiding that way.” Baek Jin kept rolling his eyes, as if finding it hard to look down at the other man, but Seo met his gaze at ease.
“Don’t think about the place you were anymore. This is Korea, so I’d like you to follow the way things are done here. Can you do that?”
“……Yes, I can.”
Worried his tone might sound like scolding, Seo chose and chose his words in his head before beginning his explanation.
“As you know, your body is in a condition that makes it hard for a guide to guide. Have you heard of ERR syndrome? I don’t know.”
Seeing him shake his head as if hearing it for the first time, Seo swallowed a sigh inwardly, but continued his explanation in a light tone, as if it were no big problem.
“For some reason, your body is rejecting guiding. Guiding you probably wasn’t easy. Has it been like that from the start?”
“No, it hasn’t, but I don’t really know. The place I was at was a place where receiving guiding itself was difficult. Most things were handled with drugs.”
“In Korea, if you belong to the Bureau, anyone can receive guiding. Of course, in your case I’m in charge of you because of the ERR syndrome, but once your body gets better, you’ll be able to receive it comfortably from anyone too. And later, if you get a partner, the efficiency will be even better.” When Seo asked again whether he understood up to that point, Baek Jin opened his mouth.
“Can it be cured?”
“We’ll have to try. Yours is a first case for us too.”
“Will, will I be a burden?”
“Not at all? If anything, the mood is welcoming, because your combat ability is so good.” Watching Baek Jin look relieved at that, Seo continued the guiding education.
“There are two kinds of guiding. Contact guiding and mucous-membrane guiding. In Korea, unless you have a partner contract, you can only receive contact guiding, except in an emergency.” Seo, who had been resting his arms on his knees, reached out, extended his index finger, and tapped Baek Jin’s clenched fist.
“This is contact. From here……”
This time he had Baek Jin open his hand completely and held their palms together.
“Up to here. This is the range of contact guiding the Bureau permits. There’s no need to kneel, and no need to do anything.”
“Then what, what was done at the hospital…….”
“That was contact guiding too. Normally the Bureau doesn’t go that far, but someone was crying so much that I did it secretly, so let’s keep that a secret between us.”
Baek Jin quietly looked down at their overlapped hands. For no reason his palm felt ticklish, and without realizing it he swallowed dryly. Feeling he should not carelessly pull his held hand away, he pretended to look elsewhere, glanced at Seo sitting in front of him, and their gazes met in midair.
Following the corners of the mouth that rose in a refreshing curve, both eyes folded. A real smile. He stared blankly at that face. Nothing else came into view; his field of vision was filled only with Seo Young-woo.
He felt heat from within. But it was different from the hot inferno that always burned inside him. His chest felt ticklish, and Baek Jin barely held back the urge to twist his whole body.
“Even if you need guiding, that doesn’t mean you can just receive it from any guide you please. Even if someone offers, you mustn’t carelessly accept it. Understand?” Coming to his senses belatedly, Baek Jin nodded quickly.
“You mustn’t follow anyone who tells you to go with them either. For the time being you’ll be going around with me, but you need to be careful too, so no problems arise.”
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