By Zephyria 
I looked back at Vasily as we entered the house together and asked.
“Esper Vasily, shall we proceed with the guiding right away?”
“Yes. Where is comfortable for you?”
“The bed would be best, like yesterday.”
Since I remembered Vasily’s bed being comfortable, I chose it over the sofa. I planned to catch a few winks anyway, as the guiding would take over an hour.
“Ah, I’ll go wash up first, so could you wait a moment?”
“I understand.”
“For your information, if you’re naked when I come back, there will be no guiding.”
“Hmm…”
I issued a warning in advance so that a massive, muscle-bound naked body wouldn’t greet me without notice like yesterday. Leaving behind Vasily, who closed his mouth as if disappointed, I entered the bathroom on one side of the living room.
After a quick wash with warm water, my body felt much more refreshed.
Since I had already raised my body temperature with hot water, the guiding should be much easier. As I opened the bedroom door while roughly drying my hair with a towel, Vasily was indeed lying on the bed, waiting. Fortunately, he was dressed this time. At least from the waist down.
“You’re back?”
I paused for a moment when my eyes met his broad chest. I contemplated just closing the door and leaving, but I decided to let it slide and stepped into the room.
As I approached the bed, Vasily shifted his body to make room beside him. I sat on the edge of the bed and spoke.
“Let’s start the guiding immediately.”
Then, I flopped down onto the bed. Ah, I can breathe now. Just as I was about to close my eyes, Vasily asked from beside me in a bewildered voice.
“Guide Kwon Gi-dam, didn’t you come here specifically to provide guiding?”
“Ah, I’m going to sleep for a bit, so please just take the guiding on your own.”
“…….”
Vasily, who had been waiting for me with his arms open to receive guiding only to be blatantly ignored, looked full of dissatisfaction. Regardless, I turned away from him and lay on my side.
A moment later, I heard the rustle of the duvet, and a cold, firm arm wrapped around my waist. I felt the chill touching my back and curled the corners of my lips. See, you were going to take the guiding anyway.
As I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I faintly felt Vasily’s wavelength slowly flowing in.
A cool breath touched the back of my neck. Just as I thought it felt strangely ticklish, something cold and soft slid thickly across the nape of my neck.
Is it a tongue? I was about to let out a curse in horror, but Vasily sank his teeth into the back of my neck.
“Gasp…”
Along with the sensation of my skin freezing, the suppression chip stopped working simultaneously. A chill so intense it made the back of my head tighten pierced through my body, and the guiding began with tremendous momentum.
I snapped my eyes open and inhaled sharply. I could clearly feel Vasily’s wavelength flowing violently into me through the point of contact.
Cold, unrefined wavelengths surged into my body, making my entire being hypersensitive. As the wavelength, which had been tightly blocked by the suppression chip, burst through all at once, a sensation similar to pleasure enveloped me.
Unable to even close my wide-open mouth, my body shuddered.
It took a long time to adapt to the wavelengths rushing in like bamboo shoots after rain and to regain my senses. Barely holding onto my consciousness, I tried my best to seize the guiding wavelengths that were leaking out haphazardly.
I almost fainted. I struggled to push him away, but since all the strength had left my body, it was useless.
“What on earth is this, doing this so suddenly without a word…”
“A mistake?”
“There’s no way that’s the case!”
“You’re right, it was intentional.”
He wasn’t even bothering to make excuses anymore.
“Weren’t you the one who told me to take the guiding on my own, Guide Kwon Gi-dam?”
“Even so, freezing the suppression chip…”
“Isn’t it up to me how I receive the guiding?”
He was absurdly confident.
“Like you said, Guide Kwon Gi-dam, we haven’t started the preparations to remove the suppression chip yet, so it’s fine. And don’t worry too much; I froze it with careful control.”
I wondered why he was receiving the guiding so quietly; it seems he was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to freeze the back of my neck.
However, there was a part of me that felt it was awkward to be purely angry. Normally, I should have received the guiding after the suppression chip was removed, but I had continued guiding with the chip in place even after he found out about it. I already knew Vasily would find it displeasing.
I resumed the guiding.
The recent incident had completely woken me up. When I touched the back of my neck, I felt the skin that had been frozen cold. Is it really okay? I wondered if I might get frostbite, but other than the strong influx of wavelengths, there were no other abnormalities.
Because I was accepting Vasily’s wavelength with my entire body, I became extremely sensitive. My body would shudder even if Vasily’s cold skin barely brushed against me.
“Hmm…”
Conversely, Vasily seemed very satisfied. He hugged me tighter than before, pressing himself against me without a single gap.
“Your body is especially warm today.”
“……It’s because I washed with hot water.”
“I wish Guide Kwon Gi-dam were this warm every day…”
Vasily murmured softly and buried his face in the nape of my neck.
I didn’t answer. Vasily didn’t seem to be speaking because he expected an answer, so he didn’t demand one.
“……Esper Vasily?”
Vasily rubbed his body against mine. He didn’t respond even when I called him, as if he were in a daze.
He’s completely lost it. Fortunately, he stopped at rubbing his body and didn’t do anything else strange. If I tried to push him away now, he might suddenly change his mood, so I decided to just watch quietly.
Come to think of it, is this the first time he’s received proper guiding?
On the day he discovered the suppression chip, Vasily had frozen the chip and forced a kiss to take the guiding. But since I fainted immediately, he probably doesn’t remember it properly.
Vasily was losing his mind over the first proper guiding he had received in his life. It felt like experiencing catnip in front of a cat vicariously. It was troublesome because he kept rubbing his body and face against me.
The guiding continued for a long time in that state, but I didn’t have a headache. It seemed to be because the suppression chip had stopped working.
Indeed, without the headache or fever, the burden on my body was less. Since I was guiding cold wavelengths, my body shivered slightly from the cold, but it had been a long time since guiding felt this easy.
Until now, I had been guiding at a C-Class Guide level while fighting the suppression chip, but as soon as I returned to being an S-Class guide, handling the wavelengths became much easier. While I’m grateful the suppression chip hides my actual rank, it really does lower my actual stats…
It’s getting colder. Since Vasily wouldn’t let me go, I gathered the duvet beneath us as best as I could and covered myself.
Ah, now it’s a bit warm. Vasily is cold, but since it’s cold, I can just bury myself in the duvet and warm up again. Since the weather is hot, it feels like I’ve turned the air conditioner on high and buried myself under a blanket.
Because it was comfortable, drowsiness washed over me again. I habitually tried to check the time, but then I realized there was no need to take the medicine while the suppression chip was frozen, so I stopped.
To think that just yesterday I had even booked a plane ticket to escape Vasily, and now I’m peacefully taking a nap in his arms… Thinking that this was an absurd situation even to me, I closed my eyes.
* * *
“Ugh…”
I bolted upright, suffering from a headache that felt like my head was going to explode.
Breathing heavily, I checked my surroundings. It had already grown dark outside the window. Vasily was fast asleep beside me.
It seemed we both fell asleep while guiding. Did the frozen suppression chip melt the moment Vasily fell asleep? I reached back to check my throbbing neck and almost burned myself.
Just how many hours had we been like this? I checked the time on my smartphone to estimate. At least five hours seemed to have passed…
Pressing down on my throbbing forehead, I looked at Vasily. He usually claimed to have insomnia and didn’t sleep, but now he falls deeper than anyone the moment guiding starts. Seeing as he didn’t wake up even though I woke up noisily.
Staggering, I got off the bed and went into the living room. In the dark living room, I rummaged through my bag, took out the medicine, and swallowed it immediately with water.
“Sigh…”
Usually, I could feel my condition improving quickly just by swallowing the medicine, but today, the pain remained the same even after several minutes. Is it taking longer to improve because the suppression chip overheated too much? I leaned back powerlessly on the sofa and waited for the fever to subside.
“Guide Kwon Gi-dam, what are you doing there without even turning on the lights?”
As I was doing that, Vasily walked out of the room shortly after. I thought he would be asleep until tomorrow, but he woke up unexpectedly early.
Click.
The light turned on. Unable to adapt to the sudden brightness, I squeezed my eyes shut.
When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was Vasily’s face, scowling as he stared at the red pills lying next to me.