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Chapter 27
Looking back, it had been a sign—an omen. She should have prepared herself in advance for the fate that was about to arrive. No. Even if she had prepared, what then? The only way to prepare for a surging tidal wave was evacuation, and this was something that simply couldn’t be avoided.
If it couldn’t be avoided, then at least she should have mentally prepared herself—but Im Jiseo hadn’t even managed that.
That was because she had been firmly convinced that she was an Esper with a low dependence on guiding. On top of that, it wasn’t just her own hasty judgment: the test results quantified by the research team and the continuous follow-up observations all proved it.
True to her realist nature, Jiseo didn’t believe in superstitions or jinxes of any kind. She found it merely cute that Minhyuk and Hayeon ran off to a “spot-on” tarot café every time something came up, and she thought Junho was downright pathetic for constantly checking online compatibility sites with Jeongyun. It wasn’t as if Jeongyun’s or his own birth dates and times would change just because he switched websites—yet if he didn’t like the result even a little, he’d check again and again. And not just that: MBTI, zodiac signs, blood type matching, Chinese zodiac signs… once, he’d even plucked a flower at a Gate to do a love-fortune test, only for it to turn out to be the tentacle of a plant-type monster.
“Just confess already.”
“Ha… You really don’t get it at all, Im Jiseo. A confession isn’t just charging in and shouting ‘I like you,’ okay? It’s—huh?—confirming each other’s feelings.”
“So you don’t even know what time she was born, but you’re checking compatibility with Guide Jeongyun? You don’t know her feelings, you don’t know her birth time—what do you know, exactly? Why do you always do such useless things? Write your reports or something.”
“…If I ask what time she was born, won’t that sound too much like a confession? Like declaring I’m checking our compatibility?”
“Good grief. Pathetic.”
Anyway, because of that disposition, Jiseo didn’t believe in dreams or omens. She thought stories about people dreaming of pigs and winning the lottery were nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecies—everyone who dreamed of pigs bought lottery tickets, so statistically, some of them were bound to win.
It was the very night she had parted ways with Baek Dohyeok, who had spoken with such certainty, saying that Esper and guide were the best possible beginning. Jiseo wasn’t the type to remember her dreams clearly, yet the dream she had that night was extraordinarily vivid.
In the dream, Jiseo was sitting in a guiding room. The guiding room was a space used when an Esper needed mucosal guiding—when their rampage levels were too high or in emergency situations. Though it was equipped with a bed and a shower, the interior was deliberately plain and devoid of flair to avoid feeling overly private, so much so that it felt almost desolate.
After becoming an Esper, Jiseo had only visited the place once during training and had never had any reason to use it.
Even so, the firmness of the mattress—designed to emphasize sturdiness rather than comfort—felt vividly familiar, as if she had experienced it many times before.
Why am I here?
As Jiseo slowly looked around, she startled at the hands gripping her waist and hurriedly lowered her gaze. She wasn’t alone.
In front of Jiseo, who was perched on the bed, a man was kneeling on the floor, posture lowered, arms wrapped around her waist as he rubbed his forehead and cheek against her knees. It looked like a large dog showering its owner with affection, but even Jiseo could tell that the meaning behind the act was far removed from anything cute. The hands clutching her were hot, and his breathing was ragged.
It might have been an Esper who had mistaken Jiseo for a guide.
She didn’t know how things had come to this, but her body wouldn’t move, making it difficult to restrain him.
She knew it was a dream.
Yet, like those dreams where no matter how much you run you can only flail helplessly without gaining speed, her body wouldn’t obey her will.
As a flustered Jiseo struggled to move her limbs, the man slipped his hand beneath the long skirt she was wearing and lifted it.
With force strong enough to seem like it might tear her clothes apart, he pushed her lower garments aside, raining hurried kisses over her exposed, pale thighs. His hands were large enough to hold her thighs with room to spare, burning hot like embers. And it wasn’t just his hands that were hot.
Chup, chuwup—.
Each time his heated lips passed over her fair skin, red marks bloomed in their wake. He sucked with force, scraping lightly with his teeth, then slowly licked upward with his bright red tongue.
As if tasting her skin.
Each kiss spread his heat through her like a wildfire. Her lower abdomen tingled, and her thighs trembled. At the same time, her vision blurred and strength drained from her body—and the realization that, deep inside, she was anticipating the pleasure to come filled her with sudden fear.
“Hh… um, excuse me…”
“Mm. Go on, Jiseo.”
His voice was thick and heavy, but the tone he used to answer her was gentle.
Even as he pressed his lips against her with desperate need, the way he tenderly called her name was so sweet that the sensation between her legs sharpened again.
“Um… I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“I haven’t. How could I ever mistake you, Jiseo?”
As he answered, the man stopped his caresses and lifted his head toward her.
The murmuring, coaxing voice was painfully familiar.
When he called her name once more, Jiseo finally managed to look properly at his face.
His gaze was feverish, his lips curved in a faint smile as ragged breaths spilled out. Calloused fingertips reached up and carefully brushed over her lips.
The man was Baek Dohyeok.
“I’ve lost my mind.”
That was the first thing Jiseo said when she woke up. Naturally, it wasn’t meant positively.
“Ha… Have you seriously lost it, Im Jiseo? Huh?”
She got up, shook out the blankets, and even while brushing her teeth she muttered “I’ve lost my mind” under her breath. When she put on a hairband to wash her face and caught sight of her lips in the mirror—the very lips dream-Dohyeok had caressed—she shuddered without realizing it.
Of course, Jiseo was a healthy adult woman with desires.
She’d had erotic dreams before.
But a dream this vivid? And about that man—an intensely obsessive narcissist whose lifelong wish was apparently to bite and suck on her (not that he’d ever said it like that), gazing at her with eyes practically dripping honey while calling her name in a way that raised goosebumps?
“I’ve really lost it. Completely lost it. I need to get a boyfriend or something.”
Jiseo smacked her cheeks lightly.
Then, after washing up and changing for work, she looked down at her thighs—perfectly clean, with no trace left behind—and groaned again.
She hated herself. Truly. So much.
The lighting in that dream, the temperature, the humidity… it had all been exactly like that moment right before something happened.
And it had all felt so natural. If she hadn’t woken up in shock at the sight of Vice President Baek Dohyeok’s face, the two of them would have just…
Was it because of the guiding? Or because of Baek Dohyeok’s story about having liked her for so long it bordered on pathological?
Whatever the reason, Jiseo was mortified that she’d dreamed something like that about Baek Dohyeok.
That it wasn’t someone else, but her, dreaming something like that while thinking of him, made her feel like she’d been caught doing something immoral. Lost in her shame, Jiseo skimmed over the notice Junho had posted in the Blue Team 2 group chat. Truly important mission notices were officially sent through Esper-only devices anyway; most of the things Junho, the team leader, posted were stuff like “Vote on dinner location,” or “Anyone know why Guide Jeongyun’s in a bad mood?”—that kind of nonsense.
Today’s was just as useless.
[We’re filming Stellatina’s “You’re My Only Guide” choreography challenge today, so make sure you all come in early. Don’t even think about leaving Im Jiseo out—attendance is mandatory!]
“Another lunatic here, too.”
Fifty minutes later, Jiseo arrived at headquarters looking no different than usual. A dream was just a dream. The kind that made you want to slap your own face out of embarrassment if you thought about it—but if you didn’t think about it, it was fine.
[Doing endurance training first.]
Ignoring the absurd notice, she sent a brief text and immediately started running.
She figured they’d come looking for her if she stayed in the training room, so she tore off along the brutal mountain path the metropolitan headquarters was infamous for. The hill was one of the staff’s biggest complaints—so steep that some joked about filing for industrial accident compensation for the knees worn down while climbing it. But Jiseo didn’t care, focusing solely on running.
She ignored every message and call as they came in.
Only when all she could think about was cold water did she finally stop running. As expected, her mind had been cluttered because her body had been too comfortable.
After thoroughly working up a sweat, Jiseo opened the door to the Blue Team 2 office, still dressed in a sleeveless top and biker shorts, a towel draped around her neck—
—to find a scene far more vicious than last night’s dream unfolding inside.
