Special Operations Team 1 had a perfectly respectable and impressive official name, but people usually called them things like “rejects,” “fucking garbage,” or “bastards you couldn’t deal with.” Kwon Dajung was one thing, but the others were hardly any better when it came to their spectacularly awful personalities.
“Why do you think! We heard you passed out, Team Leader!”
The short Choi Sunwoo bounced up and down as he shouted. His light brown hair fluttered with every jump.
At a glance, Choi Sunwoo barely looked twenty, but despite appearances, he was the same age as Kwon Dajung. He only looked younger because he somehow never lost his cheerful innocence no matter how horrific the situation. Today was no different. In his usual bright voice, he heedlessly fired off question after question.
“How did you pass out? Huh? And what’s this about guiding dependency syndrome?”
Gyujin was exhausted by the endless stream of questions before he could even answer. True to form, Choi Sunwoo had no sense of moderation and simply kept saying whatever he wanted regardless of whether Gyujin looked tired.
“We came back from a gate and heard you’d collapsed! Do you have any idea how shocked I was? Moon Guk, you say something too!”
“Are you sure it isn’t guiding dependency syndrome?”
Moon Guk, who had been standing silently beside Choi Sunwoo, sounded on the verge of tears.
Startled by the tremor in his voice, Gyujin hurried over to him.
“Don’t cry, Guk. It’s not guiding dependency syndrome.”
“Then why did you pass out? You’re not dying of something, are you?”
“I told you I’m not….”
No matter how much Gyujin insisted, none of them looked convinced.
He turned toward Kwon Dajung with a look that clearly meant, Do something about this.
Dajung, who had been standing there with his arms crossed the entire time, blinked slowly.
“He showed symptoms suspicious enough to suggest guiding dependency syndrome, but it isn’t guiding dependency syndrome. He’s nauseous for no reason and has no energy, but anyway, he’s healthy. I offered to go into the examination room with him, but he insisted on going in alone, but anyway, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Kwon Dajung smiled when he finished.
Maybe Gyujin should have been grateful that he was at least making his displeasure blatantly obvious.
Gyujin let out a long sigh.
Deciding they should at least move somewhere else, he started walking away from them.
Choi Sunwoo followed after him whining, while Moon Guk trailed beside him sniffling. Song Youngju and Kwon Dajung followed right behind as well.
At times like this, Gyujin found himself wondering whether he was a Guide or a mother duck.
Every single one of these bastards was far too dependent on him. Dajung was bad enough, but the others were also the sort who would happily pretend to die if Gyujin told them to.
Gyujin dropped heavily onto the living room sofa.
As naturally as breathing, Kwon Dajung immediately sat pressed against his left side.
Song Youngju, Choi Sunwoo, and Moon Guk settled on the floor opposite them.
Just looking at the arrangement, they might as well have been children gathered to bow to their parents on New Year’s Day.
“…Why are you sitting on the floor like that? There’s plenty of room next to me.”
Only after Gyujin pointed it out did all three start getting awkwardly to their feet.
Even then, the way they kept glancing at Kwon Dajung was almost pitiful.
Partly to help them out and partly to improve Dajung’s mood, Gyujin quietly held out a hand.
Kwon Dajung understood immediately and laced their fingers together.
Seizing the opportunity, Choi Sunwoo, Moon Guk, and Song Youngju sat down on the sofa one by one.
“Anyway, I don’t have guiding dependency syndrome. My condition is only temporarily bad, so there’s no need to worry. And more importantly, regardless of me, all scheduled training and other plans are going ahead as usual.”
Gyujin delivered the order firmly.
If he didn’t spell things out this clearly, there was no telling where these idiots might run off to, so his tone kept growing increasingly rigid.
Song Youngju opened his mouth to protest, but Choi Sunwoo was faster.
His hand shot into the air.
“Team Leader, but didn’t you say you’re sick? If you’re sick, how are you going to guide us? This training is on a large scale, so we’re definitely going to need guiding in between!”
Song Youngju nodded beside him.
What large-scale training did we have coming up again?
As Gyujin tried to remember, Kwon Dajung tightened his fingers around Gyujin’s and supplied the answer.
“The joint metropolitan-area exercise in two days. The one where we enter an A-level gate.”
“Ah… that’s already in two days.”
Gyujin muttered awkwardly.
Normally, he rarely forgot training schedules, but after the recent shock of discovering his pregnancy, everything else had blurred into the background.
In other words, he had completely forgotten all about the damn training.
True to the name “joint exercise,” it was fairly large in scale. It was jointly organized every quarter by three institutions—the Guide Center, Esper Bureau, and Gate Administration Bureau—so it attracted plenty of media attention as well.
“I’ll personally find someone to fill in for me there. So you can just go without me—”
“That replacement isn’t Ko Hyeguk, is it?”
Song Youngju asked with open disgust.
The instant Ko Hyeguk’s name came up, Choi Sunwoo and Moon Guk’s expressions twisted violently as well.
Gyujin had no idea why they hated each other that much.
“If you don’t want Hyeguk, I’ll ask another Guide.”
He offered what seemed like a reasonable compromise, but the atmosphere didn’t improve.
Kwon Dajung, who had been kneading Gyujin’s hand between his fingers, added primly,
“Don’t waste your energy. I hate everyone except you.”
“You still have to receive guiding. There’s no guarantee I’ll be better in two days.”
Of course he would be exactly the same two days from now.
The baby settled inside him wasn’t going to suddenly disappear in the meantime.
There were still five weeks left until the twelve-week mark the doctor had specified.
On top of that, even Gyujin couldn’t casually say he would guide them again after actually passing out from it.
“It’s fine even if you can’t guide us. Just come with us that day.”
What kind of goddamn stubbornness is this now?
Gyujin shot Kwon Dajung an incredulous glare.
“Why would I go in there if I can’t even guide?”
No matter how much training he had, a Guide like Gyujin was still overwhelmingly fragile compared to an Esper in actual combat.
If staying out meant staying safe, why would he deliberately enter a gate crawling with monsters just to turn himself into dead weight?
“Yeah, come with us.”
“We’ll be too anxious without you, Team Leader.”
Choi Sunwoo and Song Youngju immediately chimed in as if they had been waiting for the chance.
Moon Guk silently nodded too.
Watching the Espers suddenly fall perfectly in sync only at times like this made Gyujin’s head throb.
“No, logically speaking—”
“Logical or not, I’m not changing my mind. If you don’t come, I’m not going either.”
“Me neither.”
“I’m not going either.”
“Neither am I.”
Gyujin looked around at his teammates answering with grim determination, then slumped weakly back against the sofa.
Just when he was about to forget, they would throw a tantrum like this and remind him exactly why people kept calling them “rejects.”
“Then Hyeguk is coming too. If you hate Hyeguk, then some other replacement Guide is coming with us. All of you are going to receive guiding properly right in front of me. If you don’t, I’m not going either.”
At Gyujin’s threat, Kwon Dajung reluctantly said fine.
Just imagining dragging these disasters all the way to training made a sigh escape him.
Gyujin still couldn’t understand why they were so determined to bring him along in the first place.
It’ll work out somehow.
At least it was fortunate that he had gotten medication for the morning sickness.
Just imagining the smell inside a gate was enough to make his stomach churn.
Maybe if he took the medication before going in, it would be a little better.
Kwon Dajung, who had been playing with Gyujin’s hand, was now subtly feeling up his side too.
Gyujin let him.
He figured Dajung would stop on his own eventually.
But as always, Kwon Dajung had no concept of moderation.
Song Youngju and Choi Sunwoo spotted him undoing Gyujin’s belt buckle and immediately showered him with condemnation and disgust.
Only then did Dajung stop, sticking out his lower lip in a pout.
Gyujin still didn’t think much of it either way.
***
For Kim Heemyung, a Guide who had joined three months ago, every moment still felt exciting.
But this particular training exercise held special meaning.
The fact that he would get Yoon Gyujin—a veteran Guide whose name everyone at the Guide Center knew—as his mentor was enough to make Kim Heemyung’s chest swell with excitement and anticipation.
“I’ll work hard, Team Leader!”
Kim Heemyung shouted energetically.
Every one of his senses, including his relentlessly pounding heart, was focused on a single person.
Yoon Gyujin.
Today was the first time he had ever seen Yoon Gyujin from this close.
Even inside the shabby temporary tent erected for the training exercise, surrounded by an unimpressive landscape, Yoon Gyujin seemed to radiate some kind of aura.
Ever since Kim Heemyung had entered the training program, he had heard Yoon Gyujin’s name until his ears nearly wore out.
And the people who talked about Yoon Gyujin always fell into exactly two camps.
They either hated him with a passion or worshipped the ground he walked on.
There was clearly something about Yoon Gyujin that drove both his haters and his fans completely insane.
Some people said there was no one as competent, well-mannered, attentive, and handsome as Yoon Gyujin.
Others admitted that, yes, he was handsome, but fiercely criticized his easygoing, go-with-the-flow personality as completely unsuited to being a Guide.
Yet both the fans and the haters unanimously agreed on one thing about Yoon Gyujin’s appearance.
He was “fucking gorgeous.”
Kim Heemyung would have been lying if he said he hadn’t been curious.
Fueled by curiosity and anticipation, he had applied to the Capital Guide Center where Yoon Gyujin worked, hoping that someday he might finally meet the famous man himself.
And today, that expectation had finally become reality.
Standing face-to-face with Yoon Gyujin for the first time, Kim Heemyung could think of absolutely nothing except the words—
fucking gorgeous.
Because Yoon Gyujin was, in all sincerity, really fucking gorgeous.