Chapter 7 – The Price of a Misjudgment
Yoon Ki-hyun reflexively whipped his head around. He wanted to see the expression of the young man who, until a moment ago, had been quite blatantly anticipating sex with him.
‘Why the hell is that guy here? Don’t tell me this bastard summoned him?’
He knew it was impossible, but the encounter was so abrupt that the thought crossed his mind. However, the other man seemed just as flustered; he glanced at Yoon Ki-hyun, his lips silently moving.
Do you know him?
That was clearly what his lips were saying.
Did he know him? He did. Not only that, he had happened to run into him on the street today. The problem was that Yoon Ki-hyun had spent that encounter being incredibly sarcastic and grating on the man’s nerves.
‘Anyway, you’re working hard. Team Leader Jeong Si-jun, fighting with all that bullshit.’
At the time, he had sneered with all his might, thinking he’d never see the man again, but he never imagined they would meet again in less than a day.
If he had known, he would have left the scene claiming he had the wrong person instead of being sarcastic. As Yoon Ki-hyun chewed over his belated regrets, his heart sank again at the lingering smell of disinfectant at the tip of his nose.
‘But is this guy even allowed to be at a bar? He was coughing up blood like that. What I’m seeing… could it be a ghost?’
His tipsy mind led him to a bizarre conclusion. It was partly because he was the type of person who couldn’t openly show his dislike for others, and partly because he had spent the whole day ruminating on the words he’d spat out in a fit of rage behind a flimsy screen.
‘Don’t you know you’ll die if you don’t get guiding?’
He had definitely asked Jeong Si-jun that.
But as they say, words have power. Perhaps the man had actually died from an outbreak after failing to receive guiding, and had returned as a ghost to seek revenge.
As Yoon Ki-hyun’s expression grew increasingly serious, Jeong Si-jun’s eyebrow twitched.
‘Just how much has he drunk?’
Feeling like shit, Jeong Si-jun had left the recovery room and sought out any random bar to drown his sorrows, only for Yoon Ki-hyun’s face to be the first thing he saw at the entrance.
‘He’s fucking hot, though.’
He had felt this since they worked [stolen unauthorized copycontent]at the Center, but the man was a striking beauty with very distinct features.
Yoon Ki-hyun possessed a unique aura that wasn’t hidden even by the dim lighting of the bar. His sharp eyes and perpetually indifferent expression were maddeningly stimulating to people’s interest.
Since his personality wasn’t particularly sociable, it almost fueled a desire to provoke even the smallest reaction from him.
‘But who the hell is this guy sitting next to him?’
After staring at Yoon Ki-hyun’s face for a while, Jeong Si-jun shifted his gaze to the man occupying the seat next to him.
The man, catching his eye, slightly shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head as if asking what was going on.
“Do you two know each other?”
“Ah, I actually just met Ki-hyun hyung here for the first time today…”
Ki-hyun hyung, my ass. He must have been in the middle of some ordinary bar hunting. Jeong Si-jun let out a short laugh.
“Could you excuse us for a moment? I have something to discuss with Yoon Ki-hyun.”
“Ye-yes. Go ahead. Have a great conversation!”
Wherever the boldness that had him clinging so persistently had gone, the man—overwhelmed by Jeong Si-jun’s menacing aura—quickly grabbed his phone and scrambled away from the table.
Yoon Ki-hyun, watching this blankly, let out a hollow laugh.
‘What the hell does he mean, “have a great conversation”?’
Stunned, Yoon Ki-hyun tilted his head and looked up at Jeong Si-jun.
As their eyes met, the man—who looked magnificent on the surface—smirked and tilted his chin. He looked as if he were asking if there was a problem.
‘This little shit, seriously.’
Yoon Ki-hyun flared up at that arrogant gesture.
He had no intention of rolling around with some guy named Jae-seo or Jae-min. He was grateful that the annoying pest had been removed, but if the reason for it was to pick a fight with him, that was a different story.
“What are you doing? You don’t have anything to talk to me about.”
At Yoon Ki-hyun’s retort, Jeong Si-jun smiled, revealing his white teeth.
For a moment, it was chilling. To anyone, he looked like a mad dog right before it goes berserk. Yoon Ki-hyun understood why his nickname was “Mad Dog,” but his irritation spiked.
‘Damn it. Mad Dog, public property, and a total lunatic. He’s got it all.’
No matter how he thought about it, the Awakener Center was definitely the most fucked-up workplace in the world.
“I guess you’ve forgotten that you declared yourself a Guide? I didn’t know you’d just ignore and blow off someone who’s coughing up blood and asking for help. Now that I see, your personality is truly something, Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun.”
It was funny how he had been calling him Team Leader Yoon just a moment ago, only to switch to “Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun” the second they were alone.
But he was strictly an ex-employee. Logically, the problem lay with the person who had shamelessly requested guiding from a stranger and then threw a fit because they were rejected.
“You look perfectly fine. The Center runs just fine without me, so why on earth would I bother guiding you?”
“I almost died.”
“Ah, I guess people who almost die visit bars these days too?”
As Yoon Ki-hyun sneered with a “whatever happens, happens” attitude, the muscles in Jeong Si-jun’s jaw tightened. [visit our site]Seeing his lips twitch, unable to snap stolen contentosition:absolute;left:-9999px;font-size:0;">[Read on Read BL Novels]back immediately, it seemed he had been hit where it hurt.
‘If you’re going to pick a fight, pick one worth fighting. What is he, a child?’
Yoon Ki-hyun curled the corners of his mouth in satisfaction.
Then, Jeong Si-jun laughed as if it were absurd and slid onto the chair. Surprisingly, his slightly softened tone sounded almost like whining.
“Some guy worked his ass off in a gate and thought he was going to die because he couldn’t get guiding. And you’re laughing?”
After rambling on without being asked, Jeong Si-jun called the server and ordered empty glasses and ice. Seeing him act as if they had come together from the start, Yoon Ki-hyun rested his chin on his hand with a bewildered expression.
“You’re right here, perfectly alive. That’s enough. And is there some law that says I absolutely have to provide guiding there?”
“That’s…”
Unable to babble further, Jeong Si-jun poured alcohol into the glass filled with ice brought by the server. The way he poured the expensive liquor so lavishly was staggering.
“I didn’t tell you to drink that, Team Leader Jeong.”
“I can just buy it. How much could it be? Glenfiddich? Your taste is cheaper than [[Read on Read BL Novels]class="wm" style="opacity:0;font-size:1px;user-select:all;">unauthorized [unauthorized copy]copy]I thought, Team Leader Yoon.”
“Then try buying me something else.”
When Yoon Ki-hyun let out a scoffing laugh, Jeong Si-jun scanned the menu as if it were no trouble at all and ordered a new drink.
Yoon Ki-hyun wanted to bolt from the seat right now, but since he had spent the whole day tossing out petty, childish sarcasm at Jeong Si-jun, and they had met like this, he wanted to somehow tie things up through conversation. Though he wasn’t sure if it would go well.
“…Can I ask why you resigned?”
“No.”
When he gave a short answer to the question, Jeong Si-jun’s eyebrow twitched again.
That eyebrow really does twitch a lot. Yoon Ki-hyun let out a small laugh while looking at the neat, well-defined brow.
Come to think of it, Jeong Si-jun was an incredible bastard. His shitty personality and habit of blurting out whatever came to mind were one thing, but the fact that he didn’t even try to hide his expressions was the most impressive part.
Yoon Ki-hyun had always considered it a minus in professional life to let one’s mood be fully visible on one’s face. In fact, he still believed that.
But Jeong Si-jun was different. If he was in a bad mood, [visit visit our siteour [stolen content]site]it showed. He didn’t care where he was.
Whether it was a meeting with team members or a meeting with superiors, Jeong Si-jun’s dissatisfaction was always evident in his expression, so everyone knew his mood.
‘Now that I see him up close, I get it. He’s even more obnoxious. Some of us have to set a death date before we can live however we want, but this guy has just lived like that from the start.’
To Yoon Ki-hyun, that was a kind of power.
Since there would be a huge gap in the Esper forces deployed to gates if Jeong Si-jun were gone, everyone from the Head of the Esper Division to the Center Director seemed to cater to his whims.
He’d heard through the grapevine that his family was wealthy and influential, so he probably lived arrogantly without caring about others’ opinions. He was a man who lived in a completely different world from Yoon Ki-hyun.
“Your personality is really something. How did you stand it while working at the Center?”
Jeong Si-jun muttered something that sounded like a mix of a monologue and informal speech as he took a sip of his drink. In that moment, Yoon Ki-hyun’s rationality wavered precariously.
‘That’s because I had to live desperately to earn that dog-eat-dog money, you bastard.’
Just as Yoon Ki-hyun was barely suppressing the curse rising from within and gulping down his drink, it happened.
“Since we’re on the subject, I’m wondering… do you unauthorized copyhave any [visit our site]999px;font-size:0;">[visit our site]intention of rejoining the Center?”
The look in Jeong Si-jun’s eyes as he asked the casual question was somewhat dark.
It was partly due to the dim lighting of the bar, but even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself, Jeong Si-jun was conscious of Yoon Ki-hyun to the point that he frequently recalled the time they had sex.
“Now that I think about it, the only Guide whose wavelength matches mine at the Center… seems to have been Team Leader Yoon.”
The added words were spoken in a cautious tone uncharacteristic of Jeong Si-jun, but Yoon Ki-hyun’s expression remained cold. Meeting that gaze reminded him of what the young man who had been flirting with him earlier had said.
‘Are you an Esper?’
‘No. Not like that, but someone told me it’s great to do it with a Guide.’
It was one of the many prejudices about Guides spread by Espers.
Because Espers bragged about how incredible the feeling was when having sex with a Guide, Guides had come to be treated as a kind of fantastic sex partner in those circles.
Thinking back, it seemed the way Jeong Si-jun looked at him had started to change after that day they had sex following mucosal guiding.
This bastard, really. Finally unable to hold back, Yoon Ki-hyun muttered through gritted teeth.
“Hey. Would you do it if you were me?”
“…What?”
“Would you want to go back to work at that dog-like Center where the only people there are bastards who call someone working their ass off a ‘public property’?”
“….”
“I already don’t want to live, and it’s hard enough without you acting up, so if you understand, just fuck off. Let’s not see each other again, please.”
As if vomiting out the blood clots he hadn’t been able to expel today, Yoon Ki-hyun spat out his words with relief and bolted upright from his seat.
Stepping away from the side where Jeong Si-jun sat, he staggered, clutching his head.
He had ended up losing his temper again, but this time, he felt refreshed.
Enjoying the story?Support me on Ko-fi
Comments 0
You must be logged in to comment.
No comments yet. Be the first!