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Chapter 21
“It’s okay. Guides often panic the first time they’re on-site. That’s normal. Even medical staff who’ve trained for years panic at first, too, you know. When someone you’ve always eaten with, laughed with, hugged, and held hands with suddenly starts bleeding right in front of you, their organs spilling out, bones sticking through—they faint. And earlier, the way I looked was definitely something that could be misunderstood. So don’t beat yourself up too much.”
“Do I look like I’m beaten down to you?”
Unlike before, Dohyeok’s voice was calm—clearly not the voice of someone who’d shrunk back in shame. With the hood pulled low, blocking her peripheral vision, Jiseo couldn’t see his face even when she glanced sideways.
“As long as you’re not discouraged, that’s good. You’re a valuable guide, Vice President. You shouldn’t lose heart over something like this.”
There was no response again. Jiseo stared for a moment at a line of ants crawling busily along the ground, then stood up.
“If you’re okay, that’s enough for me. I’ll be going.”
“I’m not okay.”
At Baek Dohyeok’s outburst, Jiseo turned around and found herself facing his resentful expression, unable to hide her surprise. Why on earth…?
She mentally retraced her words, wondering if she’d said something wrong. There was nothing that came to mind.
Out of habit, she reached back to brush her hair, but only ended up touching the smooth fabric of her hood. Awkwardly, she lowered her hand.
“You heard everything I said earlier, you saw what I did—was that really all you had to say to me?”
His eyes were still red from crying, now holding a kind of anger she’d never seen before. Yet she didn’t feel defensive, perhaps because his long lashes, heavy with moisture, drooped down and cast a gloomy shadow over his face.
“…People say all kinds of things when they’re really shocked. And when I said you’re a valuable guide, Vice President, I meant—”
“If I’m such a valuable guide, then why won’t you come over to me, Jiseo? Espers like guides unconditionally, don’t they?”
Oh my god.
This wasn’t even a confession—it was an attack demanding a confession. Jiseo blinked dumbly.
Turn crisis into opportunity.
If that hackneyed saying summed up LS Innotech’s path since the Gate era began, then Baek Dohyeok’s recent inexplicable behavior could be described as, “Turn crisis into opportunity, turn opportunity into reckless acceleration.”
Calm down a bit, Baek Dohyeok.
She’d come all this way to comfort him, and he was hitting on her instead? Seriously—he really was something else. Rolling her eyes, Jiseo replied,
“Who says espers automatically like guides?”
“A guide I know said so.”
“What would a guide know about an esper’s heart? Espers know espers’ hearts!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Jiseo thought, Crap. It was a ridiculously childish thing to say—hardly enough to rein in Baek Dohyeok’s reckless charge. It was the kind of argument that even Yeonseo had shredded when she was in kindergarten. Jiseo decided, once again, that she should never exchange more than five words with Baek Dohyeok.
“You’re standing way too far from me even now, aren’t you? And you came to comfort me.”
“…That’s because you smell. From the bodily fluids.”
“Smell? What smell?”
Baek Dohyeok looked genuinely clueless as he strode closer and grabbed Jiseo’s shoulder. His hand, resting atop the thick lining of her clothes, brushed her shoulder gently, and his face lowered close to hers. Like when he’d kissed her cheek during guiding earlier, the sudden closeness was far too familiar, far too unreserved.
To anyone watching, Jiseo—with her hood pulled down tight, strings neatly tied into a bow—might have looked like she’d gift-wrapped herself and delivered herself straight to Baek Dohyeok. That was how natural and intimate it appeared.
“There’s no strange smell at all. And honestly, I’ve always liked it—the scent you have, Jiseo.”
“Vice President, stop subtly flirting and crossing lines like that.”
“Is that not allowed?”
Baek Dohyeok asked as he gently blocked her escape when she tried to twist away from his hand.
“Lim Jiseo. Do you really not remember me at all?”
At the sudden audacity, Jiseo was dumbfounded.
Sure, she knew she could be pretty indifferent about many things.
She could rattle off the names, stats, jersey numbers, salaries, key plays, and debut years of every player on her favorite baseball team, but she still couldn’t remember even the name of the girl group Minhyuk tried to sell her on every time. The accountant from some firm Junho had insisted she meet—claiming he was a great guy—she’d met him three times and still failed to recognize him later when they ran into each other by chance at a bar.
But Baek Dohyeok… honestly, he had the kind of face that was hard to forget once you saw it. Jiseo had attended an all-girls middle school and high school, and even her remaining college contacts were all women.
A man so rare women joked they should be classified as mythical creatures like dragons or phoenixes—one you’d talk about for years after meeting—that kind of exceptional beauty was Baek Dohyeok.
“Remember that guy? Seven years ago, in the fall, at the Sinchon Starbucks—when we were lining up to buy MD goods? The man who stood behind us.”
That kind of man.
Even Lim Jiseo wouldn’t easily forget a face like Baek Dohyeok’s. Especially not when he was taller than her by a full head. If she’d seen him before crashing into one of the only two cars of its kind in the country, she would’ve gone home and told Yeonseo.
“Unni, I saw a tall, handsome guy today.”
“So? What did you do? Did you get his number?”
“I just saw him.”
Something like that.
But no matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t remember seeing a man like him before that accident.
As Jiseo hesitated, Dohyeok let out a hollow laugh and sighed softly. Muttering something like, “I figured as much,” he leaned in and whispered by her ear, as if giving her some grand hint.
“Hayul Elementary School.”
Jiseo’s face turned into a giant question mark. Where was that? A school where a gate had opened? She waited for him to continue, confused by the name of what sounded like an elementary school straight out of a baby-name ranking list. Then, like lightning, realization struck her.
“Oh! I went there—until maybe fifth grade!”
Baek Dohyeok smiled like an apricot blossom after the last cold snap of spring.
His lips parted as if he were about to praise her with a “Good job,” but Jiseo’s incorrigible mouth got there first.
“Wait—were you that skinny kid with the byeongji cut who made fun of my dad for being unemployed, got punched, and had a nosebleed?”
“…Do you really think that was me?”
Baek Dohyeok’s face twisted mercilessly. The sweet smile warped into an unpleasant grimace, and it was hard to tell exactly what part of her words offended him.
Was it the assumption that he’d been a rotten kid who mocked a friend’s father? That he’d been the type to get beaten up by a girl? Or that a fashionable man with such meticulously styled hair might once have sported a byeongji cut—a style she couldn’t even imagine him having?
But the byeongji cut was an eternal classic among elementary school soccer kids!
“I don’t know—how am I supposed to remember elementary school friends? I didn’t even graduate from there.”
“Well, that sounds like you, Lim Jiseo.”
“That was an insult, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t insult you.”
“Then…!”
This was the pinnacle of all the ridiculous moves Baek Dohyeok had pulled so far. He dropped a classic drama-lead line—Don’t you remember me?—then refused to explain anything, only speaking in riddles. Just as Jiseo resolved to finally peel back his slick façade—
“Jiseo.”
Kwon Yul appeared silently, calling her name as he stopped a short distance away.
When Jiseo turned, Kwon Yul waved lightly with a bright smile, then gave Baek Dohyeok a polite nod.
“Ah, Esper Kwon Yul. This is Guide Baek Dohyeok. Vice President, this is Esper Kwon Yul—you know him, right?”
Dohyeok only gave a brief nod before his gaze immediately returned to Jiseo. He looked like someone who’d been enjoying himself immensely before being interrupted, but with one of the three espers in Korea most likely to be paired with him now present, Jiseo felt an inexplicable sense of duty to keep things cordial.
Having seen firsthand how closely an S-rank esper’s mental stability was tied to societal stability, that instinct was almost automatic.
“Hello, Guide Baek Dohyeok. I’m Kwon Yul. I look forward to working with you.”
There was no need to worry—Kwon Yul was well known for his good manners and gentle nature. The real problem was this rude chaebol over here…
“I don’t have anything I need from you.”
