By Zephyria 
Today was my first day back at work after being discharged from the hospital.
Thanks to the useless things Vasily said during his interview, I had become a celebrity despite not having been with the company for very long. I was exhausted from the start of the morning because a team leader from another department, whose face I barely knew, kept acting like we were close and wouldn’t let me go on my way to work.
As I sat down and instinctively reached for my coffee, Jo Woo-yeon popped his head out from across from me.
“Gi-dam-ssi, are you feeling okay? You’ve already taken off your bandages?”
“Yes. I’m all healed up.”
“You’re sturdy… I feel like you should have awakened as an Esper rather than a Guide, Gi-dam-ssi.”
“I agree.”
I agreed with that sentiment. Since I had to enter the Gate anyway, if I had at least awakened as an Esper, I wouldn’t be dragged around by Vasily.
Though it had been a while since I’d seen my colleague, we couldn’t talk for long. Perhaps because it was Monday after the weekend, a flood of people waiting for temporary guiding poured in as soon as it hit 9 o’clock.
Work began frantically the moment I returned. I spent the entire morning guiding without even having time to go to the bathroom in between.
After finishing about an hour of temporary guiding for a D-Class Esper—the last person waiting before lunch—I was about to return to my seat when my boss called me from a distance.
“Gi-dam-ssi. A request for designated guiding has come in; would you like to check it?”
“Designated guiding?”
“It’s when an Esper chooses a temporary Guide they want and applies for them. You can refuse, so if the person seems strange, don’t feel obligated to accept.”
“Ah… I’ll check it.”
I tilted my head as I walked back to my seat. How long had it even been since I started as a temporary Guide that a designated guiding request had already come in?
As soon as I turned on the computer, I accessed the work system. A notification appeared stating there was one request for designated guiding. When I clicked the notification, a familiar face appeared on the screen.
“…Vasily.”
My mood plummeted instantly.
My face hardened as I looked at Vasily, who was staring past the screen with a cold expression even in the photo. I thought he would have lost interest by now, but was I mistaken? To think he would go as far as applying for designated guiding just to see me. I grit my teeth.
Right next to Vasily’s name was the reject button. I desperately wanted to press it, but I held back. In the status of a temporary Guide, I could not refuse a request from an S-Class Esper. Even if I did refuse, he would find a way to track me down regardless.
Furthermore, if I openly avoided him, Vasily might find it suspicious and try to approach me even more. Rather than stimulating his curiosity, the best course of action was to obediently play along with his whims until he gradually lost interest.
Click.
Along with the sound of the mouse clicking the accept button, my expression darkened sharply. Vasily’s name was automatically added to my schedule.
Thinking of Vasily, who hadn’t visited me in the hospital since the first day, I prayed fervently. Please, let him be too busy to come today.
However, my expectations were miserably crushed.
“It’s been a while, Guide Kwon Gi-dam.”
Despite the fact that I had intentionally entered thirty minutes late, I couldn’t control my expression the moment I encountered Vasily, who was welcoming me in the guiding room without a hint of discomfort.
“Hello, Esper Vasily.”
I greeted him with a forced smile. I still didn’t understand why he was here.
The time was currently 1:30 PM. I had entered thirty minutes later than the appointment time, yet Vasily was waiting for me patiently.
‘I thought he would have already left.’
Vasily was someone who valued punctuality to a degree that I considered it an obsession. I thought that if I were late for the appointment, Vasily would be offended and leave without receiving guiding. My plan to make Vasily leave on his own by intentionally arriving late had failed completely.
To think he would wait thirty minutes for a mere C-Class Guide.
I glanced at Vasily to gauge his mood. He seemed to be smiling, but I still couldn’t read his expression or his thoughts.
“You took off the bandages. Are you all healed?”
“Yes. There’s a scar, but I’m fine now.”
“Then we can do contact guiding today, right?”
Vasily asked with a smile. The moment I heard his question, I regretted nodding without thinking.
‘Contact guiding?’
Last time, it was only holding hands, so I was barely able to endure touching him. But the situation was different now. The thought that I would have to perform contact guiding while hugging him caused a strong sense of repulsion to squirm inside me.
My legs felt frozen and wouldn’t move. My body had a rejection reaction just at the thought of having to get close to him.
But I couldn’t run away after coming this far. Moving my stiff, tense body, I managed to walk over and sit in front of him.
Still, this was a guiding room, so if anything happened, they would check the surveillance camera installed on the ceiling and come running. While unable to relax, I looked up at the camera, only to see a lump of ice clinging to the spot where the surveillance camera should have been, like an icicle.
“W-wait, why is the CCTV…”
“Ah, that? I don’t particularly like being watched.”
“Even so, how could you just freeze it!”
“It’s fine. I got permission from the association. See, nobody is coming, right?”
As he said, there was no sign of anyone coming. Normally, if a problem occurred during temporary guiding or if the CCTV screen simply froze, it would be judged as an emergency and the security team would rush in, but outside the door, it was silent.
“Are you scared?”
“….”
“Your body is shaking.”
Vasily asked in a low voice. I was completely frozen and couldn’t open my mouth. My thumping heartbeat grew faster, and I could feel that Vasily had noticed it too.
“…I was just a bit surprised.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything. I’m just here for guiding.”
I tried to act nonchalant, but my trembling voice leaked out. Vasily gave a soft smile as if to reassure me, but my heart sank when I discovered that his eyes weren’t smiling at all.
I grit my teeth, remembering how he had ruthlessly taken guiding from me. I was anxious, not knowing when he would reveal his true nature while acting kind.
Perhaps because the matching rate was low, he fortunately wasn’t showing excessive obsession right now, but the fear that he might suddenly change continued to linger in a corner of my mind.
In the narrow guiding room containing only chairs, a small table, and a cot, there was nowhere to run. The surveillance camera on the ceiling was useless. The only thing I could rely on was the fact that the soundproofing of the guiding room was very poor.
Amidst the suffocating tension, the guiding began.
“…Before we start the guiding, I will go over the precautions.”
Temporary guiding was slightly different from ordinary guiding. An Esper must never touch the temporary Guide’s body first, and unnecessary contact was not permitted.
Many Espers complained that it was an unnecessary regulation since they would be touching anyway, but this rule was the most basic safety device for the Guide. Because one never knows what an Esper lacking guiding might do, if a temporary Guide feels something strange, they can refuse guiding on the grounds that the precautions were violated.
“You cannot touch my body, and you cannot attempt unnecessary contact.”
“Even that isn’t allowed? How picky.”
Vasily made a dissatisfied expression, but soon nodded and waited quietly for me to approach.
Gulping, I reached out my arm while tense.
I felt a gaze watching me from directly above. Feeling my body stiffen further under that pressure, I carefully placed my hand on Vasily’s back.
The moment I touched his firm body, I felt a familiar coldness. Thanks to the suppression chip, I didn’t feel the sharp pain like before. Instead, a chilly frost seeped into my body and settled in my heart.
As I wrapped my arms around Vasily’s back, his cold breath touched the nape of my neck. Goosebumps broke out, and my body instinctively recoiled. He was like a giant wall. A giant wall that felt as if it would crush me firmly and ruthlessly.
Every single one of his minute movements felt like a threat to me. I felt as if I would freeze instantly at a single gesture of his. The images of the people he had killed flashed through my mind one by one.
He remained still and silent. Contrary to my expectations, Vasily was simply receiving the guiding quietly. I had even planned how to escape if he tried to do something strange, so I felt suspicious when he didn’t move at all.
Did he really come just to receive guiding?
However, I couldn’t understand his behavior in wanting to receive guiding from me. Even when I concentrated all my nerves, the feeling of guiding being transferred was minimal. Vasily must have felt that as well.
I recalled the information about Vasily that I had looked up before entering the guiding room. He currently had no dedicated Guide.
Vasily’s wavelength was as cruel as his personality. The sharp wavelength froze the opponent in an instant, and I, too, often suffered from frostbite even in the middle of summer.
That was probably why Vasily hadn’t been able to find a Guide who could withstand his wavelength until now. But since Vasily was an S-Class Esper, even if the matching rate wasn’t high, he should have had at least one auxiliary Guide he could request guiding from when his condition was poor.