It wasn’t exactly wrong. Gyujin had always had a particular weakness for anything young and pretty, and back then Kwon Dajung had been painfully beautiful—and young, too.
Gyujin, who had been stubbornly staring out the window, flicked his eyes sideways.
“But you weren’t really that fucking awful. Just a little sensitive, maybe?”
Kwon Dajung snorted with laughter. Just then, the light changed and the car slowly came to a stop. He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and met Gyujin’s eyes.
“I’m pretty sure you’re the only person, past or future, who’d ever describe me as ‘a little sensitive.’”
“Mm……”
Gyujin awkwardly rubbed his chin. Kwon Dajung was surprisingly self-aware, while Gyujin was hopelessly biased by comparison. Maybe their current relationship had been born from that very difference in perspective. Dajung, who was unexpectedly hard on himself, had needed someone willing to look at him with a little more patience, and when it came specifically to Kwon Dajung, no one was more forgiving than Gyujin.
“So if you’re sick, tell me you’re sick. You can at least be honest with me.”
Kwon Dajung whispered as he took Gyujin’s hand. Gyujin blinked blankly at the abrupt change of subject. Every time his fingers twitched, Dajung tightened his hold a little more.
“It is guiding dependency syndrome, isn’t it? Maybe the symptoms aren’t severe, but it still hurts.”
At the half-certain tone, Gyujin lowered his eyes. Even if he denied it now, Kwon Dajung wouldn’t believe him. What was the point of making some transparent denial when Dajung had already decided what he thought?
Wouldn’t it be better to just tell him about the pregnancy here?
Making him worry over some pointless false problem or making him worry after learning about the pregnancy—there wasn’t much difference in the end. If anything, sharing the actual situation and looking for a solution together felt far healthier. Like Yoon Palsik had pointed out, Kwon Dajung was the baby’s father. He had a right to know.
After agonizing over it, Gyujin kept his gaze lowered and parted his lips.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
Dajung pressed the accelerator as the light turned green. The car moved down the wide-open road. Feeling the engine vibrate beneath him, Gyujin carefully searched for the right words.
“This is completely hypothetical. Really, completely hypothetical. If I somehow ended up having a baby, what do you think you’d do?”
“……What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden? Who’s having a baby?”
“No, I mean, hypothetically—”
Kwon Dajung suddenly slammed on the brakes.
Gyujin’s body lurched forward with the abrupt stop. Car horns blared behind them in a chaotic chorus.
Dajung stared straight ahead for a long moment before slowly turning his head.
“We were talking about guiding dependency syndrome. Why the hell did the conversation suddenly jump to that?”
“Huh? No…… I mean, I—”
“You saying shit like that just put a really fucking weird thought into my head.”
Kwon Dajung had been chuckling, but his expression abruptly went flat. His gleaming eyes fixed on Gyujin.
“Guiding dependency syndrome is weird too, if you think about it. They said it usually happens when a Guide guides way too much, or keeps guiding Espers whose ranks don’t match theirs. But that doesn’t apply to you. Me, Choi Sunwoo, Moon Guk, Song Youngju—we’re all around your rank, and how often do we even get guiding from you in the first place? So why the hell would you get sick?”
The car rattled and shook.
Dajung’s agitation had begun affecting their surroundings through his ability. The windshield wipers started thrashing wildly, and the lights inside the car flickered. Alarmed, Gyujin shook his head.
“No, Dajung, that’s not—”
“Isn’t it fucking strange? Unless you’ve secretly been guiding some other Esper behind my back, it makes no sense. And why would you suddenly start talking about babies right in the middle of this incredibly important conversation about guiding dependency syndrome? Why bring up some fucking kid now, like you knocked somebody up while you were guiding them?”
Kwon Dajung’s theory skimmed dangerously close to the truth.
In one sense, it wasn’t entirely wrong. Reality, however, was the exact opposite of what Dajung had imagined.
“Who is it? Who did you get pregnant? I won’t get mad, so just tell me the name. Okay?”
His gently smiling face drew closer.
Cold sweat slicked Gyujin’s palm where Dajung was gripping his hand hard enough to hurt.
“It’s…… not like that. I already told you. Dajung, my hand……”
“Gyujiiin. I’m really not mad. Just tell me the name. Just the name. What fucking bastard did you make a baby with? Hmm? Is that why you said you were quitting? Why? Were you planning to run away with them behind my back, have the kid, and live happily ever after?”
There was no getting through to him.
Gyujin was just about to say, That baby is yours and mine, when Kwon Dajung suddenly burst out laughing.
“Haha. Listen, Gyujin. I don’t give a shit whether it has your blood or not. Anything that gets between us, I’ll kill with my own hands. I’ll make sure it never even gets born. I’ll rip its fucking throat out myself. So tell me that fucking Esper’s name. Hmm?”
Gyujin froze at the hatred and rage filling his voice.
Kwon Dajung meant every word.
It wouldn’t matter whether the child belonged to someone else or to him. If he decided it was unnecessary, he would try to kill it all the same.
Cold crept through Gyujin’s toes.
I almost made a terrible mistake.
Kwon Dajung didn’t want a child.
Forcing one on him and ignoring how he felt could only end in disaster. Gyujin narrowed his eyes and swallowed down a sigh.
“……Fine. I get it, so stop.”
Even as he said it, bitterness kept rising in his chest. He felt sorry for the baby too, as though he had made it listen to all those threats about being killed for no reason. Gyujin pulled his wavering emotions back under control and arranged his expression into something as neutral as possible.
“There’s no baby, and I’ve never been involved with another Esper, so please calm down. I just didn’t want to tell you I had guiding dependency syndrome. The symptoms aren’t even that bad, and I didn’t want you worrying.”
Gyujin rubbed his forehead and spoke without energy.
He had no idea whether Kwon Dajung would believe him, but this was the best excuse he could come up with. He was too tired to keep talking, so he simply shut his mouth.
Kwon Dajung stared at him in silence for a long time before sharply turning his head away.
The car began moving again through a horrible silence.
***
A small note sat beside the food laid out on the dining table.
Gyujin reached over and picked it up.
[Eat breakfast before you leave.]
He sighed at the simple message written in elegant handwriting and set the note back on the table.
“Where did he go this time?”
Normally, Kwon Dajung would have insisted on going to work with him no matter how much Gyujin protested.
And now he had vanished without saying a word?
Gyujin would have bet his left hand that it had something to do with the conversation in the car yesterday.
Afterward, both of them had deliberately avoided each other. Gyujin had been unsettled in his own way, and Kwon Dajung had seemed to be thinking something over as well.
Gyujin sat at the table and clutched his forehead.
Even now, the smell of food made his stomach churn. He got up, went to his room, and swallowed one of the morning-sickness pills he had hidden there. Even after taking it dry, he had no desire to eat, so he headed straight for the bathroom.
His mind remained foggy even as he mechanically got ready for work.
Since he had used guiding dependency syndrome as his excuse with Kwon Dajung, Dajung would probably tell the others too, and then everything would become even more complicated.
Patting his wet face dry with a towel, Gyujin let out what felt like his hundredth sigh.
He wanted to solve this problem, but he had absolutely no idea how.
At this point, he didn’t even have the energy to try anything else.
It would be ridiculous to have the baby when Kwon Dajung hates the idea that much.
Gyujin stroked his abdomen with a bitter expression.
“……I’m sorry.”
He would meet Yoon Palsik as soon as he got to work and schedule the procedure.
Once he terminated the pregnancy and recovered physically, going back to guiding as usual shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Then it would all be over.
All he had to do was give up one baby, and everything else would become easy to fix.
Carrying that restless ache with him, Gyujin headed for the Esper Bureau.
The Guide Center had been shut down after yesterday’s fire, so everyone had received temporary orders to report here instead. By the time he arrived, right on schedule, even the Esper Bureau lobby was packed.
“Oh, Team Leader Yoon!”
“Guide Gyujin!”
The Espers who spotted him came rushing over in a crowd. Once they had surrounded him, everyone started talking at once.
“Why are you alone?”
“Team Leader, it’s been forever! Have you been doing well?”
“What are you doing here without Kwon Dajung?”
“I heard there was a fire at the Center yesterday! You’re okay, right?”
With everyone firing questions at him simultaneously, it was impossible to answer any of them.
Even while Gyujin stood there looking uncomfortable, they simply kept saying whatever they wanted.
Just as he was starting to feel dizzy, the atmosphere abruptly turned cold.
The Espers who had flooded around him like the tide scattered just as quickly.
Every eye turned in the same direction.
Kwon Dajung was approaching Gyujin from across the lobby.
“Why did you come in so early? You could’ve rested at home a little longer.”
Kwon Dajung wrapped his arms around Gyujin and whispered into his ear.
He had been furious yesterday, yet today, at least outwardly, he looked perfectly fine.
Dajung’s moods changed at the drop of a hat, and Gyujin’s own mood immediately sank.
So he disappears without saying a word, and now he thinks he can just show up and act affectionate like nothing happened?
Gyujin’s own feelings about yesterday hadn’t been resolved in the slightest.
And that irritation showed plainly in his actions.
He quietly pulled Dajung’s arm away from around his shoulders.
At the unmistakable rejection, Kwon Dajung’s eyes narrowed.