NOVEL NEXT 28.
28.
The change happened very slowly, yet definitely. Like a dark sky gradually brightening while sleeping, until the sun rises brightly.
At first, it seemed like the instances of strangely losing consciousness and collapsing decreased. Then, at some point, far from collapsing, there were one or two cases where he could completely clear S-class dungeons and still walk through the gate normally on his own feet.
Meanwhile, Choi Jae-won’s condition had already changed. Looking tired was common. During contact guiding, he would darken his surroundings to the point where he couldn’t even see the face right in front of him, and though he previously couldn’t bear not touching more, now he would startle and quickly create distance whenever Ryu Ho-yeon’s hand barely brushed against him.
That wasn’t all. Once he’d noticed it, there were numerous oddities, but the strangest occurred during difficult battles like today’s.
Originally, it wasn’t just Ryu Ho-yeon who was exhausted and panting after clearing an S-class dungeon, having drawn out guiding that wasn’t even coming anymore. Choi Jae-won also wasn’t in the best shape when crossing the gate, although he would grit his teeth and try to collapse later than Ryu Ho-yeon, acting as his guardian when Ryu Ho-yeon collapsed. But now, strangely, while he looked particularly pale and weak normally, in the dungeon he endured remarkably well compared to before. He looked so uniquely weak during normal times that it was almost as if he was secretly extracting and storing energy to use only inside the gates.
“…”
Ryu Ho-yeon, who had been staring at the car window—or more precisely, at the shadows of the figures reflected in it—soon shifted his gaze downward. To his own knee. He saw his hand tightly gripped by Choi Jae-won.
Perhaps because all transmittable guiding had long been completely passed on, despite holding his hand so desperately, all Ryu Ho-yeon could feel was lukewarm heat that had almost, but not quite, become warm. He didn’t particularly feel like pulling away. It wasn’t unpleasant. Come to think of it, he had grown quite accustomed to being together as a pair rather than alone. The relativity of time was truly remarkable. The year or so that Ryu Ho-yeon had spent with Choi Jae-won since his admission… felt longer than the twenty-five years he had lived before.
For twenty-five years, he had mostly lived as if preserved in a specimen case. Though there were sometimes happy moments and sometimes sad ones, when evaluated on the surface, there was no more fitting descriptor for his twenty-five years than “preserved.”
That’s why Ryu Ho-yeon…
“Jae-won.”
“Yes, hyung.”
…wanted to maintain smooth communication with Choi Jae-won and preserve this predominantly peaceful state. Fortunately, he had extensive data to use as learning models. Such situations appeared quite frequently in novels and comics. Very frequently.
Though Choi Jae-won had lost his qualification as an unrequited lover some time ago, Ryu Ho-yeon decided to reference the narratives and behavior patterns of other characters with unrequited love attributes. Sudden behavioral changes didn’t just happen. Surely there must have been an even more intense psychological change underlying the behavioral one.
Psychological change… Ryu Ho-yeon pondered as he categorized various works and characters that came to mind. If it was a psychological change experienced by a character with unrequited love attributes, there was only one possibility. They continue their pure, unrequited affection until they experience some kind of event, acknowledge their fatigue, and become aware of reality. How this led to changes in guiding status would require further investigation, but the basis was clear.
Choi Jae-won had changed, that change was based on psychological shifts, and those psychological shifts were most likely related to his unrequited love for Ryu Ho-yeon.
There were still nine years left until the ten-year standard Ryu Ho-yeon had set based on Kim Jun-young’s real-life case, yet such a special event was already occurring… Ryu Ho-yeon thought Choi Jae-won might be too fragile, but decided to understand him for now—he was young, only twenty-one despite the change of year.
The behavioral patterns of unrequited love characters at a crossroads generally fell into two categories.
First were those who decided to end their long unrequited love as their hearts wavered toward other “kind and caring” sub-characters who appeared. This was usually the standard path, and characters in this category would often be reborn as indifferent types before long.
However, Choi Jae-won acted as Ryu Ho-yeon’s shadow almost 24/7 except when Ryu Ho-yeon was away first, so this case didn’t seem applicable.
If it had been this case, Ryu Ho-yeon would have felt relieved. In his own assessment, he was someone who could never properly love another person, and since their official relationship as paired Esper and dedicated Guide would continue anyway, he was more than willing to actively support Choi Jae-won if he could start a proper relationship with a proper person.
But no matter how he looked at it, Choi Jae-won fell into the latter category. Someone so tired of unrequited love that… they temporarily degrade themselves with hedonistic pleasures. This case had two possible endings: either continuing to deteriorate without ever recovering, falling into complete ruin, or meeting a caring sub-character while indulging in pleasures, like in the first case.
“You’re hiding something.”
Ryu Ho-yeon asked first, thinking he was giving him a chance for voluntary confession. But Choi Jae-won pretended not to know, feigning innocence with “What do you mean?”
“You know, what you’re hiding from me right now.”
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Hmm…”
Apparently, he had no intention of confessing right away. Sigh, managing delicate human relationships was really difficult. Ryu Ho-yeon lamented internally while shaking his head. Even though Choi Jae-won’s large hands, still firmly gripping Ryu Ho-yeon’s, clearly showed wounds he couldn’t completely hide, did he really think he had concealed everything perfectly?
Choi Jae-won often wrapped himself in thick blankets even in a well-heated house, claiming he felt chilly. And what about the many needle marks scattered across the backs of his hands and forearms? He seemed to wear only long-sleeved clothes to hide them from Ryu Ho-yeon, but living together, it would be more unreasonable not to notice, no matter how indifferent one was.
“Of all things…”
Ryu Ho-yeon muttered in dismay. He had barely moved his lips, speaking almost silently, so Choi Jae-won apparently didn’t hear him.
Of all things, yes. Of all things, Choi Jae-won… was a third-generation chaebol heir.
The body shivering from chills. Needle marks running down the backs of his hands and arms. Various pills—more than ten daily—swallowed under excuses like vitamins and supplements. All this was suspicious enough, but of all things, he had to be a third-generation chaebol heir on top of all this circumstantial evidence.
Through Ryu Ho-yeon’s mind flashed various inappropriate parties of chaebol children that occasionally appeared in the news, along with social injustice exposé films that made a splash whenever released. He also recalled the stubborn appearance of Chairman Choi whom he’d met at their quarters recently. When the corporate executive he’d only seen in news and newspapers appeared right before him, Choi Jae-won’s background, which he had forgotten for a while, became vividly real again.
Drugs? So it was drugs after all… Had he finally chosen that direction of corruption…
(In reality, these were traces of guiding ability and matching rate improvement experiments that Choi Jae-won was participating in without Ryu Ho-yeon’s knowledge, along with the necessary medications, but Ryu Ho-yeon hadn’t anticipated that possibility at all. This was because he knew better than anyone how much pain matching rate improvement experiments caused Guides. Who in the world could have expected that there would be a Guide crazy enough to voluntarily walk into that hellfire?)
Anyway, thinking of it that way, everything made sense. Though ability users were broadly categorized as Espers and Guides, Guides were, in reality, a type of special Esper. It’s just that their ability as Espers was to calm other Espers.
Therefore, the guiding generated in a Guide’s body primarily guided themselves, with the remaining wavelengths transferred to other Espers. If Choi Jae-won, discouraged after realizing his limitations, was numbing his senses with drugs and transferring guiding that was normally reserved for his own survival, guiding that couldn’t possibly be squeezed out with normal resolve…
“…Hyung?”
As this thought occurred to him, Ryu Ho-yeon suddenly felt chills and abruptly pulled his hand away. Though no guiding was happening, the urgent fear that what he was absorbing might not be simple guiding but someone else’s life force hit him first.
If that was really the case, then Choi Jae-won wasn’t falling into corruption from unrequited love fatigue, but had gone mad with love and was trying to jump into fire while carrying kindling. My unrequited lover (probably) is actually a self-sacrificing (definitely) lover…!!
Ryu Ho-yeon rubbed his face dry and banged his head against the car window, not even bothering to pay attention to Choi Jae-won who was looking at him with a startled expression. Ah, being born too beautiful was a sin at this point.