The Espers Who Regretted Losing Me Chapter 48

In the end, just like every other time, I was the one who reopened the conversation.

“I’d like to continue what we were talking about. You said you’d do anything I want, didn’t you?”

I tried to sound calm, but contrary to how I looked, my mind was anything but at ease.

Just talking to them is exhausting.

Anyone would feel that way. Holding a long conversation with someone you’re uncomfortable around is draining by nature.

At my blunt prompting, the three of them hesitated before turning their gazes toward me.

And in the middle of that, Lee Shinra got another nosebleed.

Blood slid past his lips, soaking his jaw and the back of his hand before dripping onto the ground.

At this point, Cha Eunhwi should’ve told him to stop using his abilities—but instead, he just hesitated.

He didn’t even offer the handkerchief he usually carried around.

You could take the barrier down now. Seeing blood all the time is distracting—no, irritating.

It wasn’t something I could just blurt out, so I asked indirectly, pretending ignorance.

“Why do you keep bleeding?”

“Huh? Ah—th-this is because I’ve been using my abilities too much…”

“Then why not just stop using them?”

Shinra’s face turned deathly pale.

“N-No. I can’t do that. If the blood b-bothers you, I’ll turn around.”

And he really did—whirling around on the spot.

I saw him wipe his face with his T-shirt when his hands weren’t enough.

If you’re going to act like that, you should just ask for guiding. This makes me more uncomfortable.

The fact that a year had passed for them, but only a month for me, felt like it was tripping me up in every possible way.

I let out a sigh deliberately and asked,

“Then where’s the guide? You said each unit has one.”

“…Like Eunhwi said earlier, our unit’s guide was you, Yoon Hyeya. That’s not a lie.”

“No, I mean besides me. You said I’ve been trapped here for a year. So there must’ve been another guide during that time.”

I was confident—not just because they’d seemed stable, but for a more practical reason.

There was no way headquarters would leave three valuable A-rank espers completely idle.

That was what I thought, but all three of them denied it at the same time.

“Absolutely not.”

“No, Hyeya.”

“That couldn’t have happened.”

They weren’t even talking to me, yet I flinched reflexively.

Seeing that, the espers flinched even harder.

“I’m sorry for startling you, Hyeya. I wasn’t angry.”

“W-Was my voice too loud? Sorry.”

Cha Eunhwi and Yeon Dogyeong apologized immediately, and Shinra hastily turned away again.

When I didn’t respond, Cha Eunhwi quickly continued.

“After Hyeya went missing, the unit was temporarily disbanded.”

That didn’t make sense.

The reason our captain position had stayed vacant was because no one could handle Yeon Dogyeong and Lee Shinra.

Of course, that wasn’t something I should be saying either.

I rolled the word disbanded around in my mind before asking,

“Then you’re all assigned to different units now? You just regrouped for this mission?”

“No. We didn’t do anything for a year. We just met every morning, sat around like idiots, then went home. That’s all. Then we heard this gate reopened, and… if your body was here, we wanted to bring it back…”

That was absurd. Headquarters approved that?

Questions kept piling up, but it felt hard to ask them freely.

Still, my curiosity faded quickly.

They’ve always hidden things from me anyway. And as long as headquarters doesn’t cause me trouble, it’s not my problem.

Besides, they were rare espers. Maybe they were given special consideration.

But what about me?

“A guide presumed dead returns alive after a year!”
They’d probably see me as nothing more than research material.

Honestly, even I would’ve thought the same if another guide disappeared inside a gate and came back alive.

Just thinking about it made me tired—and bitter.

As I sighed unconsciously, Yeon Dogyeong spoke in a casual tone.

“If what you want is to live here… then I guess it can’t be helped. How could we force you to come back?”

“…Ah. E-Excuse me?”

What are you saying? You’re exactly the kind of people who would drag me back.

If they’d been even a little kinder back then, I wouldn’t have lied about having amnesia in the first place.

I was so stunned my expression cracked, but I forced myself to look surprised and asked naturally,

“So you mean… you’re going back? Leaving me here?”

“Go back? Us? …Leave you?”

The distant look on Yeon Dogyeong’s face hardened instantly.

His eyes went off again.

Seeing that, Cha Eunhwi hurriedly smacked the back of his head—hard.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“You scared Hyeya.”

“…Captain, you’re getting real casual with the speech, huh?”

At Yeon Dogyeong’s blunt remark, Cha Eunhwi sucked in a short breath.

It seemed like he’d called my name without thinking, but honestly, I didn’t care.

I used polite speech to keep my distance from them, but they talked trash behind my back—it went both ways.

Calling someone by name didn’t suddenly make you close.

I replied flatly,

“Call me however you want. More importantly, could you answer my question—”

Cough.

A cough sounded right beside me.

It was Lee Shinra, who’d been standing silently.

Seeing him cough up blood on top of the nosebleed, Cha Eunhwi hurriedly pulled a pill bottle from his pocket.

“Shinra. Take it, even if it doesn’t sit well. And… drop the barrier.”

“……”

“It’s fine. If it was going to attack, it would’ve already.”

Cough, cough.

After coughing a few more times, Shinra swallowed the pill along with the blood.

Now I could tell for sure—his body wasn’t just in bad shape. It was wrecked.

Worse than when we’d first met eight years ago.

Seriously—why won’t they ask for guiding?

They knew how it worked.

Just like I trained alongside the espers, they’d been present during guide training too.

Even if I’d lost my memory, all they had to say was, “Hold hands and imagine something stabilizing.”

“…That cough isn’t stopping. Are you dizzy?”

“Ah, n-not yet. I’m okay.”

“Your healing ability is seriously useless. Why can’t you heal yourself? Captain, did you seriously forget your handkerchief today?”

“I didn’t have the presence of mind for that. Just sit down and don’t push yourself.”

When Cha Eunhwi forcibly pressed his shoulder, Shinra staggered and sat down.

Watching them deliberately exclude me like this made something click.

They weren’t even considering the possibility of receiving guiding from me.

They really lived an entire year without a guide…?

Yeon Dogyeong had said it earlier. That they’d done nothing for a year.

If they avoided using their abilities entirely, relied on stabilizers, and endured low compatibility, they might’ve survived.

And then they suddenly used their powers and the backlash hit?

They must be insane.

Realizing this so late only made me more frustrated.

When I sighed repeatedly without realizing it, Yeon Dogyeong spoke lightly.

“Don’t worry about it. Coughing up blood is normal for us. Look.”

Before anyone could stop him, he conjured a fireball in midair—and smiled as blood poured from his nose.

That wasn’t all.

He suddenly gagged and threw up blood too.

“…See?”

Cha Eunhwi pressed his palm to his forehead in disbelief.

I felt the same.

Watching silently made my chest feel like it would burst, so I finally spoke first.

“So… how do you do guiding?”

Of course, I maintained the amnesia act perfectly.

But no one reacted.

All three of them just stood there, blinking blankly at me.