RG Chapter 19

← The Resurrected Guide Wants to Live Quietly

—I gave enough in return and got all the consent forms signed — what more am I supposed to do! If you’re just going to nag, hang up. I’m a busy person!

"Wait! Don’t hang up!"

—What. Got something else to say?

He’d started talking on impulse, but he couldn’t get to the point right away. He kept seeing that kind touch that had closed his eyes.

And even through his fever-blurred vision, Yu-geon’s worried gaze had been vivid.

A bitter smile touched Yi-yeon’s lips.

It was a shame — a real shame — but he had to decide before it got any later.

"I… think I’d better go back to the lab."

—Huh? Come back?

"Yeah."

—All of a sudden? Why? You said you wanted to see lots of sky. Meet lots of people. You left like a kid off to go swimming — and it’s only been days, and now you’re coming back?

"It’s just… I think it’s better this way."

He’d been mulling it over since dragging his aching body to work at the Center, and learning he’d allowed unknown watchers to follow him sealed it. He’d go back to the lab.

Just as Jo Min-young said, he’d caused far too many accidents in a short time. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he’d done the exact opposite of everything he’d aimed for. Following Yu-geon and Oh Yeon-seo to the field, meddling in Seonyeon’s business there and earning a grudge for nothing — all of it was just regret.

It had been needless meddling. Overprotection. When "Seon Yi-yeon" was alive, Yu-geon had been a minor who needed a guardian, but now he was an adult — and Yi-yeon had overlooked that obvious fact.

The guild master of the number-one guild. An S-class esper. His dazzling record built over a career approaching ten years. Fine colleagues with good personalities, too. If he was an "adult" — if it was Yu-geon — he would have handled it all on his own, yet Yi-yeon had hovered like an overprotective former guardian and made a pointless fuss, and that was how the mucous-membrane guiding had happened.

It was supposedly his first kiss… and he supposedly had someone he liked… and Yi-yeon had treated guiding lightly and maybe stolen something that would have been a precious memory.

He’d been rash. Honestly, if Yu-geon ever learned "Lee Ha-neul’s" true identity, he’d be disgusted. Yi-yeon could picture it: him furious, asking if Yi-yeon had raised him like a parent since childhood only to go into heat over him.

"Whether I had a wet dream or wet the bed, what’s it to you, Ahjussi! You’re not even my parent! Stop caring! To you, I’m just… just some brat…"

"Anyway, I’ll handle it myself, so stop caring!" It had been like that before. Around the time he hit puberty, Yu-geon had been unusually touchy whenever Yi-yeon brought up his sexual urges. Maybe that was when things had started going wrong between them. After that, conversations rarely continued.

Even if his identity wasn’t discovered, it was still a problem. He’d forced an unwanted kiss — an unpleasant experience — on him. Better to be somewhere out of sight than loitering where he could be seen. That way he could be forgotten faster.

…Maybe he shouldn’t have left the lab so early in the first place.

He’d only just become a guide and was still clumsy, and he’d lived his whole life on nothing but his "S-class esper" talent, so he knew nothing of the world. He should have had the leisure to study the world — focused on guiding training quietly at the lab, finished the term, and gone straight down to the countryside. He’d been shortsighted.

For all his talk of living quietly, he must have been secretly excited inside. With the vague hope of living a different life than when he was "Seon Yi-yeon."

He’d learned a lot in the past two days. He’d caused plenty of trouble — that was enough. Rather than dithering and wasting time, better to clean things up early and go back. Less of a burden on everyone.

"What do I have to do to go back?"

—What. You’re really coming back?

"Can’t I?"

—Nothing stopping you… but this flip-flopping ends here. If you come in, you don’t leave until the observation period is over. Come prepared.

"Yeah. Sorry. I won’t change my mind again."

He got up and tidied the bed he’d been indebted to, then turned his gaze toward the door. He could feel a presence, faint but there. Probably a big-built man, a high-rank esper. Looking out the window, he could sense the gazes of several ordinary people and espers as well.

Now that he knew who they were, he saw how absurd his misunderstanding had been.

—Okay. Noted. I’ll send a car to the hospital. Won’t take long.

Taking a deep breath, Yi-yeon stood straight and asked in a voice lowered to nearly a whisper.

"Thank you. And… can you help me with something?"

—…Hm? What?

Now that he no longer had any reason to endure their surveillance, there was no need to keep dragging them along.

He’d cut them off cleanly.

***

Riding to the hospital in Oh Yeon-seo’s car, Han Yu-geon pressed his forehead. A headache seemed to be coming on. He wanted to calmly retrace where things had gone wrong, but his head hurt and his thoughts kept scattering.

He had to get Lee Ha-neul to a hospital close to Seonyeon somehow. No — at minimum, he should have brought him along when leaving the hospital.

When Ha-neul had collapsed, the unexpected situation had left him no presence of mind, so taking him anywhere had been unavoidable. But he couldn’t understand why, when leaving the hospital, he’d left him behind.

No, actually… had even the way he’d woken up pestering to be guided, as if it were only natural, been deliberate? Had he kept urging guiding just to make Yu-geon leave the room so he could run?

…No. That couldn’t be it.

"Haa… Good work…"

"How are you… feeling…?"

A full thirty minutes of kissing — or, from Lee Ha-neul’s perspective, "mucous-membrane guiding."

Just an esper persistently trying to kiss him would have been hard enough for a frail guide’s body to bear; he’d been trying to guide on top of it, so the burden must have been greater. It had been guiding like self-harm, like hurling his body against a hard wall. No wonder he’d collapsed.

It couldn’t not have been hard, yet the moment their lips parted, what kind of face had Ha-neul been making?

A face flushed bright red, lips glistening with saliva, breath coming in ragged gasps that heaved his chest. He’d pressed his aching jaw with his hand and trembled for a long time, unable to even sit up straight.

And yet he’d looked after Yu-geon before his own body. Those black eyes that had looked up at him in a rush had been full of worry. Only after confirming the wavelength had stabilized did he seem relieved.

Those eyes, that breathing — none of it could have been a lie.

"Damn it…"

Then why had he disappeared?

Remembering the pale face that had seemed to sleep soundly under his hand, his insides churned unbearably.

"Guild Master, Vice Guild Master."

Oh Yeon-seo drove fast enough to only just avoid running red lights, and when they arrived at the hospital, Chae Jun-hyeok — who had been directing the people mobilized to find Ha-neul at the field — ran straight to the car.

"I’m sorry. You trusted me with him and I’ve only brought you disappointment…."

"We’ll sort out blame after we find him. What did the hospital say? Any chance it was an incident?"

"No. I never left the entrance unguarded for a single moment, and there’s no sign anyone broke in from outside. Even if he was abducted, it would have been after he left the room on his own. The hospital says it was a discharge through normal procedures."

"…A discharge through normal procedures."

"The discharge went through normally, and the hospital bill was paid in full."

"Then… even if there was no ‘break-in’ from outside, there must have been some ‘involvement.’"

"Yes. It seems he made a phone call after waking up. The phone was probably left by the medical staff. Given that they say it’s confidential and can’t tell me more, your guess is probably right."

"Let’s see the scene first."

With Chae Jun-hyeok, the two headed straight for the VVIP room.

Yu-geon was learning for the first time that the VVIP ward being on the top floor was such an irritating inconvenience. It was clearly a direct express elevator, yet each floor it climbed felt slow, and his insides burned black with impatience.

"They tried to clear out the room, but I barely stopped them because you’re listed as the temporary guardian, Guild Master. We’ll have to hand it over by today, though."

"Hah… Looks like he was dead set on it."

"I didn’t find anything unusual inside the room. The escape route looks like the window, but what bothers me is…."

While Oh Yeon-seo talked with Chae Jun-hyeok, Yu-geon strode ahead and opened the door of the room where he’d left Ha-neul.

The bed was tidily made.

Before leaving, he’d clearly seen Ha-neul lying on the bed, somewhat disheveled — but not a trace remained. The whole room was as clean as if no one had ever stayed in it.

His heart pounded loudly, as if his whole chest had become one giant heart.

A déjà vu strong enough to make his skin prickle spread through his body. It had been like this on the day Seon Yi-yeon died, right before he left to catch that monster — when Yu-geon had found the belated message and rushed home and opened the door. That time too.

The house had been spotlessly clean.

So clean it made him wonder if anyone had ever lived there — not a scrap of warmth left in the house the two of them had lived in. To be precise, no trace that "Seon Yi-yeon" had ever lived.

It was certain Yi-yeon had lived in that house. Even when Yu-geon didn’t reply, Yi-yeon would send messages and photos full of this and that. No photos of himself, but enough to tell he’d been living at home.

But he always tidied excessively. He’d throw away things anyone else would keep thinking "I might use this someday." He carried only what he needed right now, even at a loss.

At first Yu-geon had wondered if he was just a neat freak. Since money wasn’t tight, there was no need to keep extras, and he’d dispose of surpluses right away.

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