GP | Chapter 3.2

Guides didn’t go all the way to the scene, so there was no danger, but they did have the duty of guiding the Espers when they returned from the work. Waiting until then was the only thing a Guide could do.

Before long, he had reached the front of the trailer.

Seoh stood still and stared at the door. The Guides would be inside now. He also had to go in since he was a Guide too, but he didn’t want to. On assignments like this, usually only B-rank and below were sent, not A-rank Guides, but since he was always treated as an exception despite his rank, he was often mocked by them too.

Suddenly, he remembered what had happened in the lobby of the Guide Center.

“…”

The day he had been drenched with five tubes of gel, called a male prostitute, called dirty.

He also remembered that not long ago, Song Taejoon had said something similar to him. Those were the kinds of things he was used to hearing. They were part of his normal life, his world. After spending so long alone in a quiet place, he had forgotten for a while.

Thinking about it now, what Song Taejoon had said was already the same kind of thing he had grown accustomed to hearing all along. For something so unremarkable to become meaningful just because the person saying it was Song Taejoon… Seoh gave a bitter smile and slowly returned to his usual state of mind.

When Seoh opened the trailer door and went inside, the noisy interior fell silent in an instant. Among Espers and Guides alike, there was no one who didn’t know Yoon Seoh. The only difference was whether they knew him in person, and unlike Espers, Guides were familiar with his face. They lived in the same dormitory and used the same cafeteria. That was only natural.

Yoon Seoh, who had gone into Song Taejoon’s care and disappeared from view for a while, was now here. Which meant Song Taejoon was here too. That man, considered by Guides to be the worst Esper of all.

The Guides stared at Yoon Seoh. Seoh, however, merely lowered his head in response to their familiar gazes and sat down in an empty seat. He would have to wait here until Song Taejoon looked for him or until work was done. That was what a dedicated Guide was supposed to do.

The silence filled the trailer.

Then someone burst in, swinging the door open and stepping inside with long strides. Everyone’s eyes turned toward him. He swept the interior with a glance, found Yoon Seoh, and laughed out loud.

“Wow, damn. It was true? The male prostitute bastard really came?”

That familiar address, that familiar voice. Seoh, who had been staring at the floor, stiffened before he could stop himself.

“I heard you became Song Taejoon’s exclusive guide… so, how is it? Living satisfied?”

It was an unexpected arrival. Fear toward this person, deliberately buried deep inside, started to rise bit by bit. Seoh swallowed dryly.

“If Song Taejoon alone has to satisfy our male prostitute bastard, that’s not gonna be easy, huh. He’d have to be insanely good, not just good, to keep you from looking for someone else. Can he handle it?”

Not dedicated Guide , but exclusive guide. And there were plenty of other insults besides that, spilling out one after another.

Seoh slowly lifted his head. An all too familiar face appeared. The man who had dumped gel all over him at the Guide Center. The A-rank guide called Ace, Kang Mingyu. It was unusual for an A-rank to come on a job like this.

“Still, you two do match. An asshole Esper and a male prostitute guide. A match made in heaven, aren’t you? Get along well. It’s nice to look at.”

“…”

“You disappeared all of a sudden, so I thought you’d run off somewhere far away with an Esper. If I’d known that day you were going to Song Taejoon, I wouldn’t have touched the gel tubes. Kind of makes me sorry, actually.”

When Kang Mingyu showed up and treated Seoh like he always did, the other Guides who had been quiet also snickered. Mingyu had told them that if he came here today, they were to inform him first and wait. So they had called him and been waiting for him.

Kang Mingyu was the son of Kang Heejoo, the director of the Guide Center, and a special A+ guide who could calm Espers with ranged guiding alone. He was also the most likely candidate to become the next director of the Guide Center. Since there was no S-rank guide in Korea, the Guides had no choice but to rally around him.

“I wasn’t supposed to come here originally, but I got curious and applied. It’s hard to believe it’s real. A dedicated Guide appearing after… what, almost twenty years?”

“…”

“A Guide who gave up the Guide Center and went to an Esper. That’s exactly the sort of thing our male prostitute would choose.”

Mingyu, who had moved close before Seoh noticed, looked down at Seoh, who was staring blankly at him. An A-rank guide with such a bright future, and yet he was desperate enough that he couldn’t keep his hands off his ass. What a waste of talent, what a waste of rank. At first they had said he wasn’t like this, but people really did change in an instant.

“But why are you dressed so lightly?”

“…”

“You’ll catch a cold like that. Put something over it at least… ah, is it because you don’t want to waste time taking off your clothes?”

Seoh kept his mouth shut despite the humiliating words. In situations like this, staying quiet was the best way not to provoke them. But Mingyu had already become thoroughly irritated by Seoh’s lack of response every time.

Frowning, he growled, “Say something. How long are you planning to keep your mouth shut?”

What exactly did he want to hear? What reaction was he expecting? Looking at Kang Mingyu’s twisted expression, Seoh wondered. He wouldn’t believe anything Seoh said anyway, so what was the point of speaking? He had already raised his voice many times, but it was these people who covered their ears and refused to listen.

Or maybe he just wanted to feel superior by looking down on me crawling on the floor? If not that, then maybe he was irritated because my silence felt like disrespect?

The questions that bubbled up in his mind spread out like branches. Why did you only care about yourself and want to trample others? Even if I really was a male prostitute, if you genuinely cared about the dignity of Guides, shouldn’t you not manage things like this? You made someone into a deliberate object of ridicule and enjoyed watching it, so what more did you want?

But those questions cooled quickly. Even if he learned the answer, nothing would change.

Seoh avoided the gaze of Kang Mingyu, whose eyes burned with fury as he watched him. He had nothing to say even though he knew the reaction to come would not be good.

“Wow, seriously. Amazing. Amazing.”

Mingyu tapped Seoh’s leg with his foot and snorted.

“You really are good at making people feel like shit. Our little whore.”

As he laughed and mocked him, he suddenly noticed something at the side of Seoh’s neck. He leaned his head forward and frowned, as if wondering whether it was what he thought it was.

Seoh flinched at the oppressive closeness, and Mingyu grabbed his collar and yanked it downward.

“Ghk.”

“…What is this?”

At the exposed marks, the Guides around them frowned. Seoh’s shoulder was mottled as if he had been bitten by a beast, and the teeth marks were deeply sunk in. Not only that, the skin around it was covered in bruising.

Seoh hurriedly pulled his clothes back up and curled in on himself. Why was this… suddenly? It had happened in the blink of an eye, too fast to avoid or stop. His heart dropped with a thud.

“That… isn’t a bite mark?”

“At that level, it looks like flesh was ripped off.”

“Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s fucking creepy.”

“Damn, as expected of that psycho bastard…”

With the chilling feeling of indirectly experiencing Song Taejoon’s notorious reputation, the Guides took a step back with disgusted expressions. They had heard rumors that Song Taejoon was rough, but they hadn’t expected it to be that bad.

Usually, on days when Song Taejoon’s guiding took place, a healing-type Esper accompanied them, to treat the Guide after the guiding was over. The Guides didn’t know how badly they had been injured because they had been unconscious, but they still kept their distance, thinking there was a reason a healing Esper had to stand by. Thanks to that, Song Taejoon’s reputation was abysmal.

But there was one strange thing. Nowhere in the rumors had it ever said that Song Taejoon bit someone’s neck. The Guides, whose shoulders already hurt just from imagining those wounds, unconsciously looked away.

Unlike them, however, Kang Mingyu, who had been closest to him, stared blankly at Seoh’s shoulder.

“…Fuck, that’s insane.”

Then, not long after, his face turned red.

Kang Mingyu roughly shoved aside Seoh’s hand, which had tried to hide his wound, and seized his shoulder hard.

“Ghh! Aah!”

As Seoh cried out in pain, Mingyu gave a slick smile and asked, “What was it like when he first bit you? Did it hurt enough to make you want to die? Seeing that there was even blood, he must’ve bitten down really hard… Did Song Taejoon always have a taste like this? Didn’t know that.”

“Haa… ah, s-sto…p!”

Mingyu’s hand was rough as he pressed hard on the place Song Taejoon had bitten. Then he even scraped his nails over the hollow left by the teeth marks, and Seoh felt like he might go insane. No, the one going insane was Mingyu. His eyes looked half-crazed.

“Can our little whore match Song Taejoon’s tastes?”

“Haaah!! Ngh!”

“You must hate pain, right?”

The pain was completely different from the agony of being full of guiding energy. Seoh let a tear slip out. To dig into a wound that had only just started to heal. This time it really did feel like flesh might be torn off for real.

In the end, Seoh couldn’t take it and fled from Kang Mingyu. But just as he ran toward the door, he tripped over a foot suddenly thrust out in front of him and went crashing to the floor. Before he could even feel the pain, he struggled upright, only to have someone shove his shoulder violently into the wall.

“Ghk!”

With a heavy thud, a terrible pain shot through his shoulder and back.

“Where do you think you’re going? Guides are supposed to stay here and wait.”

“Haa…”

Caught by Kang Mingyu again, his shoulder was pressed down. Seoh heard the other Guides laughing at him. This place was a hellscape full of nothing but hostility and murderous intent.

Knock, knock.

“…!”

Then came the sound of knocking on the trailer door. Everyone inside, Seoh included, held their breath. A heavy silence fell, and a freezing chill drifted through the room.

“…”