“Ah, mic test, mic test.”
A clear voice filled the auditorium as it traveled through the microphone.
The crowd standing at the podium each straightened their posture, their shoulders stiff with nervousness.
Despite the tension on their faces, a subtle sense of pride and excitement shone through. It was understandable.
These days, landing a proper job was harder than reaching the sky, but if you were recognized as an ability-user, it was like a free pass to civil service.
And these people hadn’t just awakened as Espers but as Guides.
Like in the countless dramas and movies where ability-users play the lead, the dangerous work always falls to the Espers.
Now, the only thing left for them was the stable and privileged path of civil servants, with guaranteed salary raises.
Those who had only received their Guide certification, with no formal training yet, were lost in such daydreams.
– “We will now begin the 20XX New Guide Induction Ceremony.”
At precisely 10 a.m., the mic’s volume increased again, and the small murmur of noise quickly settled into silence.
Perhaps because the reception hall was large, the figure standing on the podium appeared especially small.
Their face seemed quite youthful.
Although everyone knew that the head of the Guide department had to leave urgently for a dungeon, and that this person had stepped in last-minute, no one dared to underestimate the petite Guide standing before them.
Instead, they gulped down admiration.
“Welcome, everyone. I’m Lee Hanseo, a Guide from the Seoul Central Branch, and I’ll be leading today’s ceremony.”
He probably didn’t mention his class to avoid intimidating the fresh, new Guides. After all, the title “Guide from the Seoul Central Branch” was far too simple to fully describe who Lee Hanseo was.
The first S-Class Guide in Asia. The adored grandson of a major conglomerate’s chairman.
Even that alone seemed absurdly unfair, like a cheat code for life.
But what kind of karma had he accumulated in a past life?
The red carpet that happeninged before Hanseo’s feet didn’t end there.
“…Oh my god. Hanseo is so cute. Look how tiny his hands are.”
No matter how much the large body behind the metal chair tried to crouch, it couldn’t fully hide.
Wearing a hoodie zipped up to the nose and a cap pulled low enough to cover half his face, he looked more like someone trying to draw attention than someone trying to avoid it.
Even though, in truth, that wasn’t his intention at all.
The new guides standing nearby kept glancing at the suspicious man.
Each time Guide Lee Hanseo stumbled over his words on stage, the man clenched his fists and made silent gestures of frustration, which made him appear even more peculiar.
The frequency and intensity of these sideways glances towards the man grew steadily.
No dangerous individual could have entered the reception hall of the Central Division, not after such thorough identification checks.
And yet, the man’s face—what little was visible—seemed oddly too handsome.
People who alternated between looking at Guide Lee Hanseo on stage and the suspicious man hiding in the back soon realized who he was.
“Excuse me… Are you perhaps Esper Park Woojun?”
“…!!”
S-class Elemental Esper, Park Woojun.
He was the luckiest man ever, having met Lee Hanseo at his first awakening and blazing through the bonding process like a highway with no obstacles.
His docile and non-assertive nature, quite unusual for an Esper, was also a stroke of luck for Lee Hanseo.
“N-no, you’ve got the wrong person… I-I’m not him….”
He frantically waved his hands in denial. Espers weren’t officially allowed to attend guide initiation ceremonies.
This rule was to prevent any high-classing Espers from coercively pairing with or stealing away inexperienced new guides.
After several incidents involving Espers making unauthorized entries, the rule was enforced strictly, whether the Esper had a bonded pair or not.
Having practically forced his way in using his title as head of the Esper Division, Park Woojun couldn’t afford to be caught now.
He had promised the event team that he would stay out of sight and quietly observe his guide from afar without being noticed.
“No, it’s him. His voice is the same.”
“Esper! Can you give me an autograph?”
“Park Woojun, Esper!”
What began as a mild stir soon turned into a full-blown uproar.
He was the nation’s first S-class pair, the youngest head of the Esper Division in history. Even if he weren’t tall and handsome, it was impossible to avoid fame.
In the past few years, how many public service ads and interviews had he done?
The interest in him, dubbed more influential than most celebrities, kept snowballing.
Sweating bullets, Park Woojun couldn’t even push away the crowd as he hurriedly apologized and disappeared.
– …….
From the stage, Guide Lee Hanseo watched the commotion happening.
The man, who had fled while shouting, was hiding behind a pillar near the exit.
At nearly 190cm tall, his large frame couldn’t be fully concealed.
The way his tearful eyes peeked out every so often was endearing yet exasperating.
‘I told him not to follow me, but here he is…’
Lee Hanseo took a deep breath, trying to calm the bubbling frustration.
As much as that timid man would do anything Lee Hanseo asked, the fact that he had defied him to this extent must have meant that he really wanted to come.
“Hey, hey. They say Park Woojun’s here.”
“Where? They say he’s super handsome in real life… Wow… Even with that much of his face covered, he’s no joke.”
“They say he’s so devoted to his guide.”
“Right. If I were paired with an Esper like that, I’d volunteer for dungeons every day. I wonder if we could check our matching rate with him?”
That was the limit.
When the whispers from the bold people in the front row faintly reached his ears, Lee Hanseo decided he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Wake up. Do you even know who ‘that’ Lee Hanseo is?”
– Park Woojun, you idiot! Get out right now!!!
The mad dog who doesn’t hold back.
That was the title more famous than being the only S-class guide in all of Asia—Lee Hanseo.
* * *
“…….”
“…….”
Wide eyes darted around restlessly, as if trying to gauge the situation.
Lee Hanseo, sitting slouched and aggressively pressing the TV remote without a glance back, muttered, “Hold your arms up straight.”
Rustle!
The sound of fabric rubbing together was especially short and sharp, a sign of hurried movement.
Park Woojun, who had been sitting with his arms slumped, quickly raised them again, then slowly began to crawl forward on his knees.
After moving at an agonizingly slow pace that would drive anyone mad, he finally reached the edge of the sofa, resting his head against Lee Hanseo’s knee and waiting for his reaction.
“Ow.”
“Oops.”
“Hanseo, babe, my arms hurt.”
“…….”
“I’ve really reflected on what I did….”
Though he wasn’t a physically enhanced Esper but a natural one, his S-class status meant his physical abilities far surpassed those of a regular human.
There was no way his arms would hurt after just thirty minutes.
It was a blatantly cute act of exaggeration, one that nearly made Lee Hanseo’s lips curl in a smile out of habit.
But he quickly caught himself and forced his expression back to neutral.
His stubborn mouth and cold gaze made him look like someone with a sharp temper.
“Hey, Park Woojun.”
“Yeah?”
“What did I tell you last night? I said don’t come near me, didn’t I?”
The large eyes, blinking in confusion, quickly lowered as Park Woojun struggled to find an excuse.
“Well, but….”
“But what?”
“I… I just really wanted to see you… It’s your first time standing in front of such a big crowd….”
His voice trailed off, growing quieter towards the end.
Lee Hanseo knew better than anyone that this wasn’t an intentional act, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Park Woojun was faking it.
Every time the Esper acted so pitifully, he would inevitably melt, making him suspicious of Park Woojun’s true intentions.
“Babe, I’m sorry, okay? Don’t be mad, please?”
What could he do?
As an Esper who was woefully lacking compared to the expectations of an S-class, he had no idea about the complex emotions of his only guide, who always wanted to present a confident and strong front.
Once again, Lee Hanseo found himself softening.
Despite being clueless in most situations, Park Woojun was incredibly perceptive when it came to Lee Hanseo.
He quickly noticed the shift, lowered his arms, and climbed up onto the sofa, grinning as he planted kisses all over Lee Hanseo’s cheeks.
Lee Hanseo let out a huff but didn’t push him away.
If they had continued like this, things might have escalated, ending in a happy conclusion right there on the sofa.
But just as Lee Hanseo’s mood was fully restored, Park Woojun suddenly scooped him up in his arms and stood.
Lee Hanseo didn’t feel any sense of danger.
If anything, he thought, ‘Well, the bed is more comfortable than the sofa anyway.’
But something felt off when Park Woojun walked straight toward the refrigerator.
Holding Lee Hanseo in one arm, he easily opened the fridge door with the other.
This morning, the fridge had been half-empty, but now it was packed with various side dishes and containers.
Beaming, Park Woojun pointed at them one by one.
“This is beef jerky stew, this is stir-fried octopus with vegetables, and here’s the spicy anchovy dish you said you wanted last time….”
The rows of neatly stacked containers were just the beginning.
There were also pre-portioned fruits and several bags of bone broth stored in the freezer.
“I’ve put the stuff that lasts longer in the back, so make sure you eat the things in the front first.”
Something about this situation felt incredibly odd.
Park Woojun had only returned to the accommodations provided by the center around noon yesterday after clearing an A-class dungeon.
Luckily, this time, the monster’s type and affinity seemed to have been favorable, so he hadn’t needed to use an amplifier, and there were no major injuries either.
Hanseo, who had been anxiously awaiting his safe return, spent a guiding session with his Esper that was so intense, it felt like his very bones and flesh were burning away.
“Hey, I’m just asking because I thought, just maybe…”
“Hmm, sweetheart. I’m starting to get a little scared, so can we smile and talk through this, hmm? Let’s try smiling.”
While Hanseo had left early this morning to prepare for an event, Woojun might have been busy preparing food.
He was always good with his hands and loved feeding others with dishes he made himself.
If you thought of it as him just indulging in his hobby after a long time, that should be the end of it.
But for some reason, it didn’t feel that way.
Not at all.
“Are you going into another dungeon?”
“……”
“Park Woojun.”
“……I’m sorry. But there’s no one else who can go except me—”
“Hey!!”
Hanseo yelled, squeezing his eyes shut.
This big, stubborn idiot… He must have found himself some more work again.
Unless it was an emergency with an S-class alert, there was no reason for an S-class Esper, who had just returned yesterday, to be sent out immediately.
If an S-class alert had gone off, the center wouldn’t be this quiet, so that wasn’t it either.
“H-Hanseo… Are you really mad?”
Wouldn’t you be angry in my shoes? Hanseo kept his eyes closed and took deep, slow breaths to control his fiery temper.
It had taken him years to get this timid, easily flustered guy to act this boldly.
As much as Hanseo had a quick temper, he didn’t want to be the kind of person who just blows up at his beloved partner.
Even though he felt as if he had just eaten two boxes of chestnuts without a drop of water, making his chest feel painfully tight.
“I made a lot of curry with only the meat you like, so let’s eat that for dinner tonight. Okay?”
Was he seriously getting dispatched today, not tomorrow morning?
“I’ll be back soon.”
“……”
With that stupid, carefree grin on his face, Woojun’s nickname flashed across Hanseo’s mind.
“Big. Stubborn. Idiot.”
* * *
“Sighhh…”
“Could you stop sighing and finish writing that report, Hanseo?”
The stern voice fell on top of Hanseo’s small head as he sighed so deeply it felt like the ground might cave in.
Usually, the voice of his boss, Lee Junghyuk, whom Hanseo respected and followed with great loyalty, would snap him out of it, but today was an exception.
It was because of Park Woojun, who had barely returned from the dungeon last night, only to march right back into danger of his own accord.
“Sighhh…”
“Hanseo.”
“Team Leader, you have no idea how I feel… Kim Junyoung doesn’t go into dungeons nearly as much as Woojun does these days…”
Lee Junghyuk’s partner, Kim Junyoung, had been Woojun’s former commanding Esper and now served as the head of the Bureau of Awakened Persons.
Both were S-class Espers, but Junyoung’s workload had shifted toward administrative duties, leaving Woojun to be deployed more frequently.
Even Junghyuk couldn’t argue with that.
Because of this, even Lee Junghyuk, as a guide team leader, had been going out of his way to accommodate the Hanseo and Woojun pair.
He’d even handled this incident quietly after receiving the report that Hanseo had caused a scene at the rookie guide’s induction ceremony as soon as Woojun returned from his mission early this morning.
If word of the incident got out, it would cause quite a stir, so Junghyuk had planned to settle it quietly with just one written apology.
“Look, Hyung, listen to me, okay? I wouldn’t say anything if it were just an A-class dungeon. But B-class? C-class? Why does Woojun have to go? They don’t need to call him for that!”
“…Yeah. I get why you’re upset.”
As Hanseo’s voice, tinged with anger, grew louder, his hand gripped the pen so tightly that even the simple phrase “I’m sorry” in the apology letter seemed to scream with his frustration.
Hanseo practically threw the apology form across the table.
Junghyuk remained silent.
Even before Kim Junyoung’s administrative duties piled up, he hadn’t taken on lower-level dungeons like B and C class, so clearly, part of this problem lay in Woojun’s tendency to volunteer for any mission when asked.
“And the most frustrating part is that Woojun goes running whenever they call! Ugh!”
Clearly, Hanseo was well aware of this, too.
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