By Zephyria 
The lights in the house were all off, leaving it dark. Holding my breath in the pitch-black darkness, I turned on the living room light, but Vasily wasn’t there.
Come to think of it, my bedroom door was slightly ajar. As I approached, a cold chill leaked through the opening.
He’s in here.
The moment I felt that cold air, I knew instinctively. Tense, I slowly opened the door.
Inside the dark room, Vasily stood there, his eyes shimmering with a blue flicker.
“What are you doing here—”
Click.
The moment I fumbled for the wall and turned on the light, I froze upon seeing the medicine in Vasily’s hand.
“You’re here?”
“Th-that is…”
I stuttered without realizing it. Why is he holding the medicine?
Sweat trickled down my spine. I unconsciously rubbed the back of my neck. No way… did he realize it’s medicine for an illegal suppression chip?
No, this is an illegal suppression chip. It’s not widely known to the world yet, and there’s no reason for Vasily to be interested in such things. Therefore, there’s no way he could know.
So, I decided to act confident.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came because there was something I needed to check for a moment.”
“Even so, coming here without a word like this…”
The priority was to get the medicine out of Vasily’s hand. I approached him to try and snatch it, but…
Vasily wouldn’t let go.
“Guide Kwon Gi-dam, you guided me yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Why on earth would I do such a thing?”
I frowned deeply, pretending it wasn’t true. Even to me, it seemed like a plausible performance. However, Vasily instead curled the corners of his mouth slightly and slowly tilted his head.
“Strange… the Esper in the isolation room definitely said so…”
“….”
I was speechless. He wasn’t just testing me; he was already certain. Sensing that he was waiting for me to confess the truth, I let out a deep sigh and asked.
“Sigh… did you threaten the Esper?”
“Threaten? When I asked what happened, they kindly answered everything. For your information, I heard in great detail exactly what Guide Kwon Gi-dam did.”
Damn it… that means he also heard that I performed mucosal guiding, so there’s no point in denying it. I’ve been completely exposed.
“I apologize if it made you feel uncomfortable. However, the Esper’s condition was not very good, and in that situation, I had no other choice for the guiding I could perform.”
“I have no intention of complaining about the guiding.”
“Then why on earth did you come?”
Vasily didn’t answer my question immediately. Instead, he looked down at the medicine in his hand and muttered as if talking to himself.
“After I regained consciousness, I noticed something strange… I came to check if it was just my imagination.”
“Check what…”
I don’t know when he removed the packaging, but a single red pill was held in Vasily’s hand. Before I could even realize it, the red pill disappeared between his lips.
Pop.
The sound of the soft capsule bursting inside his mouth was clearly audible. Before my horrified eyes, he chewed the medicine slowly, and the corners of his mouth curved into a smooth arc.
“As I thought.”
Vasily whispered softly. His expression betrayed a sense of euphoria.
An emergency light went off in my head. The moment I sensed that I was screwed, I tried to run, but my wrist was grabbed instantly.
Vasily asked me.
“Do you know what’s inside the cold medicine the Guide mentioned?”
“V-Vasily Esper-nim.”
Vasily added in a relaxed and calm voice.
“Monster’s blood.”
“What…”
“Cold medicine containing monster’s blood… I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“W-wait a moment.”
“Don’t you think we need to have a conversation?”
Vasily reached out to me. His fingers lightly touched the nape of my neck. To be precise… the area where the suppression chip was located.
“I’ve been curious for a while. What on earth is this?”
“W-wait. You said we’d talk…”
His cool fingers rubbed along the line of my neck.
“Ah!”
“Shall we try and guess?”
The nape of my neck froze cold. Simultaneously, guiding began with an overwhelming intensity.
“Hah…”
“Haa…”
I gasped for air and staggered. Unlike me, who was struggling between pleasure and pain, Vasily looked quite satisfied. He displayed a leisureliness like a sated beast, which could also be called euphoria.
Vasily’s face slowly approached. Before I could avoid it, our lips touched.
The breath I exhaled mingled with his cool breath. Our lips rubbed lightly, and then a cold tip of a tongue parted my lips and entered my mouth. The ice-cold tongue swept across the roof of my mouth and entwined itself around mine.
I tried to push him away, but he didn’t budge. As the kiss, which felt like being devoured, continued, my strength gradually drained away along with the wavelength.
I was barely standing, relying on his arm wrapped around my waist. Vasily craved the guiding, exploring the inside of my mouth for a long time.
After a while, Vasily slightly pulled his lips away and asked in a whisper.
“Since when have you had something this cute inside your body?”
“Hah… ugh…”
“Hmm? Tell me. Ah, is the stimulation too intense for you to speak?”
“L-let go of me…”
“You must have had it in when we first met, too…”
Vasily whispered, rubbing the area where the suppression chip protruded. Every time his lips moved, they brushed softly against mine.
“With this, we should have matched naturally… Could it be, even before your awakening?”
I inhaled sharply. His following words were so accurate that I couldn’t deny them for a moment.
“Did you know in advance that you would awaken? Even if that were the case, there would be no reason to implant this. Perhaps you knew in advance who you would match with…”
“…!”
“Haha, really? But as far as I know, there’s no way to check the matching rate before awakening yet, right?”
Vasily continued slowly.
“I wonder who Gi-dam-ssi didn’t want to match with so badly that he went this far…”
And then he murmured in a slightly lower voice.
“If that person were me… I think I’d feel really bad…”
As soon as he finished those words, Vasily’s gaze sank coldly. It was easy to reach the conclusion that it was him.
He looked… extremely displeased. The gaze directed at me was so sharp that I couldn’t say a word.
A long silence followed. Vasily continued to look down at me with cold eyes before speaking again.
“Guide Kwon Gi-dam, do you know how much terrible pain Espers without Guides live in every single day?”
“L-let go of my hand…”
“Have you ever thought about what it feels like to feel like you’re melting to death?”
“Ugh!”
It felt as if the arm he was holding would be crushed. No matter how much I writhed in pain, Vasily ignored me and continued his words.
“I feel that way every day. When the sunlight touches me, I feel like my body will burn up… but when night comes, it’s so cold that I can’t bear it.”
He continued to speak. Every time Vasily spoke, his chilled breath reached me. The silver-gray eyes looking down at me shone as cold as ice.
“So, every moment, I imagine freezing everything. The surrounding air, objects, people… covering the entire Earth in ice… and in the end, I freeze solid among them.”
I got goosebumps. I knew he wasn’t saying this lightly.
The fear that my arm might freeze climbed up from the part he was holding. I twisted my body to try and pull my arm away, but it didn’t budge.
“But right now, I don’t have those thoughts at all. Isn’t it strange? I’m just receiving guiding…”
Vasily whispered sweetly in my ear, as if telling me not to be afraid.
“If only we had met a little sooner… it really… would have been wonderful…”
Thump.
The strength holding my arm gradually loosened, and Vasily collapsed just like that.
“…?”
Did he actually fall asleep?
Flustered, I looked down at Vasily, who lay on the floor with his eyes peacefully closed. Suspicious, I nudged him with my foot, but his closed eyes showed no sign of moving.
Did he collapse because the tension broke after receiving such strong guiding? Even when the matching rate was 4 percent, he often fell asleep while receiving guiding, so it must have been hard to endure now that it’s 91 percent. Since his condition was that bad until yesterday, it was obvious without even thinking about it.
Now was the chance. I used the frictional heat of my palms to melt the frozen nape of my neck. Then, my neck became stiff in a familiar way, and guiding no longer occurred even when I touched Vasily.
‘Does the machine only stop working while it’s frozen?’
If so, that was a relief. As long as it wasn’t completely broken, I could still hide my rank and matching rate.
But does it even matter if it’s broken or not? Since I’ve already been found out.
Damn it, damn it, damn it! Cursing inwardly, I hurriedly packed my things and fled outside.
I’ll bolt overseas.
That was the conclusion I reached as I fled into the streets in the middle of the night.