This S-Class Esper is Not an Obsessive Maniac

13.

After slowly finishing his shower and wiping off the water with a towel, Ryu Ho-yeon found a warm bathrobe, freshly taken from the dryer, placed right in front of the door. He put on the robe over his naked body and dropped the wet towel he had been wrapped in right where he stood. By the time he finished drying his hair and came out again, it would surely be gone.

Although he was still more accustomed to being alone than being with someone, and it felt a bit strange to entrust even such trivial things to another person, the young man named Choi Jae-won who had become his Guide seemed to have a peculiar hobby of taking care of others, uncharacteristic of his social background. So Ho-yeon always consciously created things for him to clean up, at least once a day without fail.

As he dried his hair with a hairdryer, he glanced around to check on Jae-won’s whereabouts. Sure enough, though not quite beaming with a wide smile, a young face clearly shining with joy and flushed cheeks diligently picked up the wet towel Ho-yeon had dropped. Judging by his expression, it seemed he wanted to dry Ho-yeon’s hair too, but Ho-yeon wasn’t ready for that yet.

“Hyung.”

It was Choi Jae-won’s voice. Ho-yeon just looked up blankly without answering. At this, the face that had clearly been that of a high school student in uniform just a few months ago, still showing signs of youth, flushed even deeper. However, this time, the cause of the blush seemed to be more from nervousness and excitement rather than just slight happiness.

While it might have been enough to be moved by someone’s eyes wavering so transparently and face blushing so innocently every time they looked at you… Unfortunately for Choi Jae-won, the person who had captured his one and only pure love happened to be Ryu Ho-yeon.

After all, with his inherently striking appearance, it wasn’t just Choi Jae-won who stumbled over words when facing him; there had been more than a few others before.

“No, I mean…”

Apart from his unrequited love, which was no different from a fever, the power of Ryu Ho-yeon’s face, like a porcelain doll crafted by a master artisan, was indeed strong. When their eyes met, a lethal dose of excitement rushed in, threatening to choke him. However, this circumstance was only Choi Jae-won’s private sentiment. Ho-yeon, as always, uttered just one word, “Why,” with his usual indifferent expression.

“No, no, it’s just…”

“If you called me, say something.”

Surprisingly, Ho-yeon still believed he was showing a relatively kind attitude towards Choi Jae-won. Hadn’t he asked another question, a whole seven syllables long, “If you called me, say something,” while still facing the person who hadn’t properly answered why he had called?

It was somehow troublesome. If he were to follow in the footsteps of the Kim Jun-young and Lee Jung-hyuk pair he had chosen as role models, he would have to pretend not to know Choi Jae-won’s feelings for another ten years. The occasional heartache would be a bonus. It hadn’t even been a full year yet, and his response was already this lenient. If he wasn’t careful, he might soon reveal his plan to actually treat him well. He was already worried about not being able to act like a proper Esper, and he couldn’t afford to make this mistake too. Ho-yeon decided to tighten the lock on his heart a bit more.

If Choi Jae-won had known that Ho-yeon’s idea of being a “proper” Esper involved behaving like those who go crazy every night, unable to resist the endless desire for their Guide, he would have fainted on the spot.

But who with common sense could have anticipated that such absurd prejudices were layered in that tiny head? Somehow, he had persistently clung on and barely made it to the starting line, but the finish line of Choi Jae-won’s unrequited love race seemed to be getting further and further away.

“Jae-won?”

It was Ho-yeon who spoke again, in place of Choi Jae-won who couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth. Even as he thought he shouldn’t be so obviously nice, that he should pretend not to know for ten years… when dealing with Choi Jae-won, the hurdles kept lowering uncharacteristically.

This was probably the result of Jae-won being his only friend’s cousin, being the first compatible Guide he had ever met, and clearly showing that he liked him to anyone who looked, all mixed together.

When Ho-yeon called his name, Choi Jae-won’s face, which had just been flushed, now burned as if it might explode at any moment.

“It’s, tomorrow. Tomorrow, we…”

At the repeated mentions of “tomorrow,” Ho-yeon’s eyes finally showed a change. While he was usually like this to some extent, he now understood why Jae-won was being so shy to the point of not knowing what to do with himself.

As Ho-yeon nodded in understanding, Choi Jae-won’s Adam’s apple moved with a big gulp. Somehow, Ho-yeon felt nervous too… His hands, which had been calm until now, started trembling without him realizing.

Tomorrow was the day Ryu Ho-yeon and Choi Jae-won would enter an S-rank dungeon for the first time. Which meant…

“Sh-should I come to your room, hyung?”

“Ah, no. Let’s just do it in your room.”

It meant they would have to perform high-intensity guiding for the first time.

It had been nearly a month since they started running A-rank dungeons under Park Woo-jun’s observation. To be honest, the B-rank dungeons they experienced in the first week of practical training were just a taste of the basic ecological environment of dungeons, quite different from the outside world. The guiding needed for Ho-yeon to use his abilities could be substituted by simply holding hands for a longer time.

However, from A-rank dungeons, the level of required guiding became completely different. Because of this, Ho-yeon (though it was a blessing, not a burden, for Choi Jae-won) had to endure the unfamiliar sensation of another person’s lips overlapping his own for the first time. The only reason he could somehow bear it, clenching his fists tightly, was because it was just a light kiss without involving tongues.

He felt goosebumps all over his body whenever he felt the other’s hands, which seemed almost hot, carefully cupping his face, or when the lips pressed against his like a stamp tried to move even slightly, or when he sensed hot breath from the prominent nose that had suddenly turned at an angle. It was too strange, too much.

Having rarely met his mother and not having any history of even shaking hands, let alone kissing, with anyone other than Lee Han-seo, with whom he had lost contact 5 years ago, the very fact of another person’s body contacting his own was unbearable for Ho-yeon. The guiding that was transmitted more strongly as soon as the level of contact increased was equally strange. Even when he wanted to stay still, his toes would wiggle, and he felt like screaming from deep in his throat.

It had been an agonizing time of endurance just to bear such light kisses, but today they had to, had to “sleep together.” Could the act of sleeping together between paired Espers and Guides really mean just sleeping in the same place under the same blanket, as per the dictionary definition? It meant that “sleeping together” in the common sense, which normal pairs would do right away on the day they moved in together.

“Hah…”

Standing in front of the door, Ho-yeon let out a deep sigh as if the world was ending.

Choi Jae-won’s shoulders, who had been following closely behind Ho-yeon without daring to speak, jerked noticeably. Does he still dislike it? However, stabilizing the internal guiding levels before entering an S-rank dungeon was an essential requirement for the safety of the Esper himself and other team members.

After sighing a few more times while holding the doorknob, Ho-yeon seemed to make up his mind and flung the door open. Unlike Ho-yeon’s room, which was messy with comic books, novels, and abandoned game controller joysticks, Choi Jae-won’s room was so neat it almost looked barren, with just a bed and a table.

However, Ho-yeon had no leisure to notice such differences. He already felt ashamed that he had to tell the cruel reality again to his young and fragile bottom (no) who was only expecting to be embraced by an Esper (no, not that either).

He solemnly walked over and sat down on the edge of the monochrome bed. When he patted the space beside him, the frozen Choi Jae-won quickly approached and took his seat.

“Jae-won.”

“Yes, hyung.”

“Do you remember what I said before?”

“Which…”

For Choi Jae-won, who remembered and constantly ruminated on every word that fell from the lips of the person he loved with pure devotion as if they were scripture, such a broad description as “what I said before” was not a very appropriate relative clause.

In the brief moment while Ho-yeon lowered his eyes and fell into thought, Choi Jae-won’s mind raced at high speed as if it were an internet search engine. What words could he be referring to? The instruction to lower his height when kissing so Ho-yeon’s neck wouldn’t hurt? The request to delay mucosal contact as much as possible because it was unpleasant? The suggestion that once-a-day guiding seemed sufficient?

“I…”

However, it was none of these.

“I have no desire.”

“Pardon?”

“I told you when we first met. That I think I’m asexual.”

“…”

“I’m sorry. I know what you might be expecting, but it can’t be helped. How could I possibly have a relationship when my body doesn’t undergo any changes to begin with? If you insist, I’ll try to endure it.”

“…”

“Ah, right. Maybe I should have asked this first. You don’t have any problems, do you?”