Episode 46: I Don’t Believe, I Don’t Buy, I Don’t Do (17)

“……Huh?”

After being possessed—more precisely, after realizing that her rank was F-class—Sodam had thought she’d never hear those words again. Her brain took a moment to process them. As she frowned in confusion, lost in thought, Juyul clicked his tongue softly and spoke.

“I’m saying your Guiding alone is enough for me. Since your memory is completely gone, I’ll explain—there’s something called compatibility between an Esper and a Guide… and, well, Maeng Sodam? It seems like our compatibility is quite good.”

“I still don’t understand…….”

She replied weakly, but in reality, Sodam’s mind—thoroughly soaked in cliché fantasy tropes—had already grasped the meaning perfectly. In short, she might be ridiculously weak, but because of their compatibility, her Guiding was surprisingly effective for him despite her low rank. If by some miracle she managed to rank up like in those typical stories, that would be the best-case scenario.

That is, if you ignored the fact that Sodam, the person in question, had absolutely no desire for such a golden opportunity.

As she was drowning in a mix of complicated emotions, Juyul, who had been watching her intently, reached out and took one of her raised hands, bringing it to his lips. Her gaze naturally followed the motion, locking with his piercing blue eyes. In the deep, navy-tinted atmosphere, Juyul’s voice melted into the air.

“You don’t need to know the details. What matters is…….”

“…….”

“Maeng Sodam, Guide—I think we’ll be seeing each other quite a lot from now on.”

“Ah, haha… What an honor…….”

Her tone was anything but honored, yet Juyul chose to let it slide. Whether he did or not, Sodam had already resigned herself to the situation. She just wanted to finish the Guiding as quickly as possible, go home, and sort out this new information.

Somehow, she ended up straddling his thigh in an awkward position, but she was so focused on the need to complete the Guiding that she didn’t think too much about it. Despite her rational mind screaming at her to keep her distance, her body had already grown completely accustomed to kissing him.

Their hands found their respective places as if by instinct—Juyul’s on her waist, Sodam’s on his shoulders. As they pressed together, the only sounds left between them were the slick noises of their deepening kiss.

“Mm….”

Sodam moved her lips and tongue in a trance-like state, as if believing that focusing on the kiss would make the Guiding more effective. As she clung to the back of Juyul’s neck, completely absorbed, he furrowed his brows slightly.

Every word he had said to her—especially about their compatibility—had been the truth. Compared to the other F-class Guides he had experienced, Guiding with Sodam was exceptionally efficient. If he had been an ordinary Esper, he would have simply been pleased with the outcome. But as someone who placed an enormous burden on any Guide he worked with, this realization only deepened his dilemma. Their compatibility was excellent, and yet, the weight he placed on her never seemed to lighten. The bitter taste lingered on his tongue.

“…….”

He knew that once the Guiding was over, Sodam would be shivering from the cold again. So Juyul pulled her closer, tightening his embrace. If he held her without leaving any gaps between them, maybe—just for a little while—her warmth would linger.

It wouldn’t make much difference anyway, given that his body temperature was lower than hers. Anyone watching might sneer at his actions, calling it nothing but hypocrisy to soothe his own conscience. But this—this was his genuine intention.

Unfortunately, Sodam, who was still lost in the haze of their kiss, was too preoccupied to notice.

Their lips remained locked for a long time, and by the time their kiss extended past their mouths, trailing down to Sodam’s chin and jaw, both of them were left wet with indistinguishable traces of saliva. Lifting her head, Sodam gasped for breath, her chest rising and falling.

She was already drained from the Guiding, and the lack of oxygen made her slightly dizzy. In that dazed state, she let slip a comment that she would soon regret.

“Haah, just from a bit of Guiding, I’m already this cold… Cha Seonghwa’s energy feels completely different.”

“…What?”

Just a single sentence. A magic spell capable of lowering the temperature of the Guiding Room—despite its well-functioning heating—by at least two degrees.

Unfortunately, Sodam didn’t even bother to glance at Juyul’s eyes, which had instantly turned ice-cold. Instead, she simply rested her cheek against his shoulder, focusing only on catching her breath. The longer it took for her to recover, the more the temperature inside the room continued to drop.

She finally lifted her head from his shoulder by the time the once-sweltering 40-degree room had plummeted to 28 degrees.

“…Huh? Wait, why did it suddenly get so cold in here? Did the heating turn off?”

“The heating’s fine. It got cold because I’m pissed off.”

“Most people heat up when they’re angry, but Esper Baek Juyul, you really are… something else.”

Sodam stared at Juyul with a gaze laced with pure insignificance. If it had been anyone else looking at him that way, he would have ignored it without a second thought. And if she had said nothing, he could have taken issue with it, teased her, and even skillfully extracted an apology. His confidence in handling such situations was absolute.

But right now, what Juyul needed wasn’t an apology—it was an explanation.

“Maeng Sodam, Guide.”

“…Yes? Why that face all of a sudden? You’re scaring me.”

Even in the face of her playful response, Juyul’s expression remained rigid. Her lips, which had been slightly curved in a smirk, slowly fell, and in the heavy silence that had settled over the room, Sodam could almost hear the ringing in her ears.

Then, Juyul spoke, his voice carrying an unmistakable edge.

“You… You’re also Guiding Cha Seonghwa? …The same way you do with me?”

A flash of jealousy, as sharp as a blade, ignited in his deep blue eyes.

Sodam had seen his expression before—when he had suspected her of being some strange, unidentifiable creature. But even then, his gaze had never been this dangerously intense. This was a whole new level of sharp-edged emotion.

Caught off guard, she instinctively pushed against his shoulders, putting some distance between them, before scanning his face carefully.

At first, she thought she must have misread him. But the more she examined him, the clearer it became—he was definitely furious.

Tilting her head, she held up two fingers and waved them in front of his eyes.

“Esper Baek Juyul, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two.”

“Huh… So your optic nerves are fine.”

Considering he was still holding her tightly and maintaining his balance, his motor functions seemed perfectly normal as well. And he hadn’t lost control or gone into an Esper rampage. In fact, by his own admission, their compatibility was supposedly excellent—so there was no reason for their Guiding session to have backfired in any way.

So then… where was the problem?

Deep in thought, Sodam grabbed his face and scrutinized every inch of it. But the moment their eyes met, something in the air shifted. It was as if someone had pressed the pause button—freezing both of them in place.

Amid the strange silence, Juyul gently grasped her wrist and murmured,

“I am perfectly fine, Guide Maeng Sodam.”

“…Ah, yes, yes… You certainly look that way…”

“So? Your answer?”

“Ah… Sorry, but what was the question again?”

Maybe because it was so out of the blue, Juyul’s question had passed through Sodam’s mind without leaving even the faintest trace. His grip on her wrist tightened slightly at her completely unserious response. His face made it clear that he was emotionally agitated, yet his grip on her was so careful that it was almost embarrassing.

Don’t tell me… is he being this cautious because of the mark he left on my wrist last time? I’m going to lose my mind.

Her heart had no business fluttering in this situation, yet it was doing exactly that. Instead of feeling apologetic, she was absurdly flustered. And just as she was about to get distracted by the steady pulse beating beneath his grip, Juyul furrowed his brows deeply and spoke again, enunciating every word through gritted teeth.

“Have you… done this kind of Guiding with Cha Seonghwa before?”

“Oh, um. ‘This kind’… you mean….”

Sodam trailed off, circling around the question because saying it outright felt far too embarrassing. But Juyul’s head moved swiftly before she could finish. Explaining with words was taking too long—and besides, he had half a mind to punish her lips for pretending not to understand.

He gave her lips a quick, wet lick before pulling away, feigning nonchalance. Then, with a slight jerk of his chin, he gestured toward her slightly damp lips.

“That. This kind.”

“N-No! Of course not! We’ve only seen each other twice—how would that even…!”

“Twice, huh? No… wait. You said you lost your memory, so technically just once for you. So that means we were complete strangers when we first mixed bodies?”

“That’s… that’s an exception! It’s not like I wanted to do it, it just happened…!”

The moment those words burst out in frustration, the deep crease in Juyul’s brow smoothed out. But that didn’t mean his mood had improved.

Quite the opposite.

The second Sodam caught sight of his lips curving into a sly smirk, she felt an even deeper unease than when he had been outright furious.

And as it turned out, her instincts were dead on—because that ominous feeling took the shape of Juyul’s hand and reached out for her without warning.