Chapter 4 – The Price of Misjudgment
Yoon Ki-hyun arrived in a city he had only visited a few times on business trips. It was an unfamiliar city. That was why he was drawn to it. Because if he died here, no one would recognize him.
Yoon Ki-hyun looked down at his entire life’s possessions packed into a 21-inch suitcase.
The studio apartment he had lived in until now happened to be nearing the end of its lease, so he packed his things without renewing the contract. After throwing away everything unnecessary, the traces of his twenty-eight years of struggling to survive couldn’t even fit into a single suitcase.
‘Life is fucking…’
He never thought he had a grand life, but he never thought it was pathetic either.
Despite a somewhat poor family environment, he hadn’t gone astray and had taken care of himself. After luckily awakening as a Guide, he believed he had lived quite fiercely.
He earned a salary that others would envy at the Center and reached the rank of Team Leader at a young age, having his skills and grade recognized. Yet, all he had left in his stolen contenthands were a few Read visit our siteon Read BL Novelssets of clothes. When he thought about the loans he could never pay back despite earning that much, he couldn’t help but feel hollow.
Maybe he should have just hardened his heart and pretended not to know his father.
He cast a glance at the scenery of the unfamiliar city, indulging in a fleeting, pointless imagination.
The city, which maintained a steady stream of tourists regardless of the season, seemed to silently embrace those with their own stories. Of course, that tolerance was likely limited only to those with money.
Resigning and leaving the company properly was definitely the right choice. Yoon Ki-hyun smiled faintly, thinking of the severance pay and final salary remaining intact in his bank account.
The accommodation was a wonderful place where the sea could be reached with just a ten-minute walk.
After arriving at the lodging by taxi, Yoon Ki-hyun left his suitcase standing haphazardly and collapsed onto the bed. His entire body was aching, and combined with motion sickness from the taxi driver’s reckless driving, he felt like he was dying.
‘Let’s sleep first, then think about what to do.’
Now that he had quit the Center, a sense of leisure grew in his heart. Yoon Ki-hyun immediately sought sleep on the unfamiliar bed. Aside from tossing and turning a bit because the rustling stolen contentcontent -->sound of the hotel-style bedding bothered his ears, it was a fairly decent nap.
Upon waking, he checked the calendar on his phone, which had been silent ever since he changed his number. The schedules he had set previously remained.
Looking through the calendar, which was packed with dates for rent, utilities, credit card bills, and loan interest withdrawals, Yoon Ki-hyun added one new event.
He didn’t give it a name, but it was for midnight on the 30th.
At that moment, as the last day of the month transitioned into the first day of a new one, Yoon Ki-hyun decided he would die.
He felt that if he didn’t set a firm date, he would just drag his feet and end up entangled in even more troublesome affairs.
When he added the security deposit of his studio to his salary and severance pay, he ended up with more money than he had expected. It wasn’t enough to pay off all his loans, but it was certainly not an amount to be ignored.
How fickle the human heart is; as a large sum of money came into his possession, a will to survive began to stir faintly in a corner of his mind.
‘Wouldn’t it be okay to use this to hold out for a few months and figure out a way [Read on Read BL Novels]to live? There’s always a way. If I get a room in a goshiwon and even try interviewing for a private guiding agency… I might not earn as much as before, but…’
For a very brief moment, such thoughts occurred to him. However, his head soon cooled down.
Even if he rented a room in a goshiwon and passed an interview at a private guiding agency, then what?
Without a doubt, the way to make the most money as a Guide in Korea was to work as a Guide affiliated with the Awakener Center.
Private guiding agencies existed, but because the number of affiliated Espers was significantly lower and the pay was smaller, the guiding allowances were woefully insufficient. Moreover, the treatment of Guides at private agencies couldn’t be called better than the Center, even as a white lie.
He thought he had ended things on a fairly warm note with some of his team members on his last day at the Center, but the bullshit the Guide Director had spewed continued to bother him.
‘Team Leader Yoon, I didn’t think you were that kind of person, but seeing you now, you’re quite disappointing. If you keep navigating social life like that, you’ll learn a hard lesson later. Do you just have no intention of working as a Guide in Korea at all?’
At the time, he didn’t care what that middle-aged man—who had quit actual field work to focus on corporate politics and playing hospitality golf—was rambling about. He had only been thinking about dying anyway, and he had concluded that the Center was the end of his professional life.
However, the moment he entertained the hypothesis of changing his mind and [unauthorized copy]trying to live, a fear gripped him that that dog-like old fossil would sabotage his life.
He would need to leverage his experience as a Guide to make salary negotiations easier, but since private guiding agencies would also conduct reference checks, it was unfavorable in many ways.
‘Ah, forget it. Once I’ve made a decision, I should just die. Being in pain is shitty and there’s no joy in living, so what’s the point of living longer.’
Once he set the date of his death with a light heart and steadied his resolve, Yoon Ki-hyun soon became indulgent toward everything again.
Right, I’m going to die anyway, so what does it matter who talks shit?
He didn’t have enough time to spend his money; wasting time on useless things was inefficient.
Spending the money he had lavishly while playing around suited Yoon Ki-hyun’s aptitude surprisingly well.
‘It would have been nice if I were born to a rich family. I wonder if I can be born into a rich family next time.’
Such useless idle thoughts would visit [style="opacity:0;font-size:1px;user-select:all;">visit our site]our siteoccasionally linger in his head, but then he wondered what the point of worrying about such things was.
The streets of the unfamiliar city, which he wandered through in a tipsy state after daytime drinking around noon, remained surprisingly kind to him. To the point where he met several guys who asked for his contact information, even though he probably reeked of alcohol.
‘It’s a weekday lunch, don’t they all have jobs?’
Ki-hyun walked slowly, stuffing the slips of paper with contact information he had received haphazardly into his pocket. He had been drinking heavily since noon with no particular goal, but he didn’t particularly want to meet anyone.
It wasn’t that he had an aversion to one-night stands; there were just no guys he felt like being with.
During his time at the Awakener Center, there were more instances than expected where mucosal guiding led to sex. Since a Guide could never beat an Esper’s physical abilities, Yoon Ki-hyun naturally ended up on the bottom.
After sex, most felt awkward seeing his face in the hallway, and some suggested dating or becoming sex partners. Of course, Yoon Ki-hyun was too busy making a living to even pretend to listen.
‘Where should I have another drink?’
He had been drinking so much lately that he worried he might die of alcoholism first. Drinking dulled the pain, but more importantly, it stopped the intrusive thoughts.
While walking around looking for a place to have another drink, he ended up drifting into a quiet alley where people were gathering in small groups.
“Entry is prohibited from here due to a gate appearing nearby.”
When he saw the police officer telling him to detour, he snapped awake as if he had been splashed with cold water.
Of all times, he had accidentally walked into a place where a gate had opened.
“Eh, then are the Espers inside there? I saw on YouTube that the color of that one isn’t a big deal.”
“Student, please step back. It’s dangerous.”
Only then did the entrance of the gate, shimmering eerily, come into view behind the groups of delinquent-looking students.
The gate that appeared near the residential alley was visit our sitenot of a very [visit our site]high grade, as the student pointed out. However, that didn’t mean it was a grade that could be taken lightly.
Perhaps out of professional habit, he felt as if he should be waiting inside that cordon, and as he glanced around the gate, he spotted a familiar face.
“Huh? Team Leader Yoon?”
It was Seo Jin-tae, the Team Leader of Guide Team 3. Just as Seo Jin-tae recognized him and acknowledged him, taking a few steps toward the temporary cordon—
“Oh, oh! It looks like they’re coming out!”
“Holy shit, this is crazy, wow.”
The surroundings became noisy in an instant. As human figures poured out from beyond the shimmering gate, the smell of blood suddenly spread through the air.
“…Team Leader Seo, where are you! Over here!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!”
At the shout of someone supporting an injured person, Seo Jin-tae hurriedly turned around and ran toward the gate.
Field guiding… they’re working hard.
The other side would be very busy from now on, but for Ki-hyun, the commotion was the perfect timing to slip away.
However, since quite a few people had gathered from the start, it wasn’t easy to head back out of the narrow alley.
It wasn’t even an enjoyable sight, but people were crowding in more and more at the news that people had emerged from the gate, creating a chaotic mess.
While he was trapped and unable to move due to the suddenly swollen crowd, someone abruptly grabbed Yoon Ki-hyun’s wrist.
“…It really is Team Leader Ki-hyun!”
The one who grabbed him was none other than Seo [Read [Read on Read BL Novels]on Read BL Novels]Jin-tae. Having missed the timing to blatantly pretend not to know him, Ki-hyun gave a small nod of greeting, and Seo Jin-tae muttered while clinging to his arm.
“It’s urgent, please help me for a second. Team Leader Jeong’s wavelength isn’t being caught well right now. Please, huh?”
Following Seo Jin-tae’s gaze, Ki-hyun turned his head to see an unpleasant bastard lying on the ground, bleeding. Though the distance was quite far, he could recognize him at a glance.
The one Seo Jin-tae referred to as Team Leader Jeong was Jeong Si-jun.
The very same young brat who was the first to give Ki-hyun the dog-like nickname “Public Good.”
‘Ugh, of all people, it’s that bastard.’
Yoon Ki-hyun began to seriously contemplate whether he should shake off this hand and run away right now.
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