“Rumors are just the tip of the iceberg. Compared to the real thing, they’ve only captured a tiny speck of dust. After I awakened, that was honestly the first time I’d ever experienced guiding like that.”

 

As Marcelo’s expression grew dazed again while recalling that moment, Kevin’s envy swelled even more intensely.

 

“That good, huh? You’re deliberately exaggerating just to make me suffer and die of jealousy, aren’t you?”

 

Kevin tried hard to deny reality, but Marcelo only looked at him with something like pity.

 

“Whatever. Talking more is just going to make my mouth hurt. If you don’t want to believe it, then don’t. I’m done.”

 

When Marcelo acted like he was about to turn and leave at any second, Kevin panicked and grabbed him.

 

“Okay, okay! I’ll shut up and just listen. Tell me more. In detail. From start to finish, don’t skip even a single second, alright?”

 

Faced with Kevin clinging and pleading desperately, Marcelo pondered how best to describe the sensation from back then.

 

“How should I put it… First, she just grabs your hand, right? And in that instant, it’s game over. By the time you come back to your senses, the guiding is already finished, and you feel like you’ve been reborn in a completely new body.”

 

“More! Give me more details. Did you really lose consciousness, or was it so good that you felt like you were losing it? Huh?”

 

Kevin, despite his huge, muscular build twisted and squirmed pathetically, barely holding back his exploding curiosity.

 

Marcelo gazed at him sideways with hazy eyes and slowly continued.

 

“We’ve all gotten quite a bit of guiding from S-class guides, right? Even back then we were like, ‘Whoa!’”

 

“Yeah, we were.”

 

“But Jin is SS-class. Honestly, I used to think, ‘How much difference could there really be?’ Since S-class is already incredible. But Jin… she’s straight-up heaven. Instant express ticket to paradise. The moment she holds your hand, the guiding energy rushes in terrifyingly. It’s so intense it gives you chills. It floods in so hard you can barely breathe.”

 

“I’ve heard the guiding energy is insane, yeah…”

 

“It’s way beyond just ‘insane.’ That energy spreads through your whole body in an instant, like whoosh, and it snakes right to wherever your tangled wavelengths are, like it’s possessed or something. The control is unreal. And then suddenly, it feels insanely good. Like, ‘Ah, I could die right now and have zero regrets!’ kind of good. I’m explaining it in words, but all of that happens in what feels like less than a single second.”

 

Kevin knew Marcelo was genuinely trying his hardest to describe Jin’s guiding, unable to ignore his desperate pleas but the more he heard, the less his curiosity was satisfied, and the more his body burned with unbearable frustration.

 

“I’m going crazy, seriously. I’m so curious I feel like I’m losing my mind. Haven’t a ton of guys just given up waiting and dropped out on their own?”

 

“Nah. They’ve waited this long, so they’ll stubbornly wait even longer out of sheer spite.”

 

“Argh! Everyone’s got way too much patience for no reason! But didn’t you say the barrier’s been down for a few weeks now? You only held hands, right?”

 

At Kevin’s words, a fleeting shadow of disappointment crossed Marcelo’s face.

 

“That’s the thing… For us, it’s great and yet kind of a shame, you know?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“If it were any other guide, at that level you’d obviously need insertion guiding. But with Jin, it just ends with holding hands. Her guiding energy and control are that insane. Your body gets completely healed and fine just from that, how could you possibly ask for a kiss or insertion guiding on top of it? Unless Jin herself offers to do it first.”

 

“Ah…”

 

Only then did Kevin finally understand why Marcelo had that disappointed look.

 

“So if insertion guiding actually happened with her…”

 

“What more needs to be said? It’d be fucking amazing. Insanely. Extremely. Fantastically.”

 

The moment Marcelo finished speaking, he watched Kevin frantically open Moribelle’s reservation system and start spamming requests like a madman and burst out laughing.

 

And from a short distance away, Ruern, who had been quietly listening to the two of them, clenched his fist tightly.

 

Ruern ripped off his mask and gloves, tossing them aside with irritated force. His face was viciously blank, chillingly cold.

 

“What the fuck kind of bullshit…”

 

This wasn’t the first time he’d overheard conversations like this about Jin, yet every single time it grated on his nerves and twisted his guts.

 

Whenever other espers lusted after Jin, whenever they raved about how mind-blowingly euphoric her guiding was, rage boiled up so violently it choked the breath out of him.

 

“Jin is mine. She’s my guide… only mine.”

 

Deep in his chest, the black swamp churned violently.

 

His head knew, he absolutely could not burden Jin with this. 

 

Yet his insides were burning alive. He resented Jin for pretending she didn’t notice his feelings, but at the same time he comforted himself that she might still be confused about her own emotions, so he endured.

 

But could he really keep going on like this?

 

What if all this patience ended with some bastard sweeping in and taking Jin completely?

 

He wasn’t playing the part of the nice, patient friend just to hand her over to someone else on a silver platter.

 

“No matter what, I’m going to be the one who has her first time. The second time, the third time, every time after that, it’s only going to be me…”

 

The heaving swamp slithered out slowly, creeping and coiling around Ruern’s heart.

 

The obsession and desire he’d barely managed to keep suppressed exploded in size in an instant.

 

Tell me you feel the same.

 

Tell me it’s only me.

 

Tell me you’ll only guide me.

 

Tell me you want to be more than friends, something deeper.

 

Tell me… you love me.

 

Ruern closed his eyes, took a deep, steadying breath, and forced down the overwhelming urge to run to Jin right then and there and demand answers.

 

☄️

 

Ivan’s office was filled with nothing but the faint sound of breathing, the occasional rustle of turning pages, and the soft taps of Ivan touching his tablet or signing documents.

 

Even at this late hour, not a single thing about Ivan was out of place.

 

His shirt was buttoned all the way to the collar, his tie knotted perfectly tight as ever.

 

Now in his late twenties, any trace of boyish softness that had once lingered in Ivan had completely vanished, leaving behind an aura so dangerously sexy it kept drawing the eye whether you wanted it to or not.

 

To Ivan himself, it wasn’t a particularly meaningful change, just that more and more people kept persistently approaching him, talking to him, which was simply annoying.

 

Ivan lifted his head and gazed quietly at Jin, who was terrifyingly focused on her reading.

 

“…”

 

It had become quite an old routine, Jin would bring a few books she wanted to read, sit in Ivan’s office, and lose herself in them.

 

The only person who came and went from Ivan’s office with complete ease was Simon. Even Charlotte, who feared nothing, found coming to Ivan’s office alone burdensome enough to hesitate.

 

So sharing the space with anyone other than Simon felt a little awkward and uncomfortable for Ivan.

 

Still, he let Jin come whenever she wanted.

 

Just in case the time she spent alone ever felt too frightening or too lonely.

 

Aside from Simon and Charlotte, even the long-time guides and staff at Moribelle found Ivan incredibly difficult to approach.

 

It wasn’t just his position as the head of the organization; the atmosphere Ivan gave off felt intensely defensive and cold.

 

He drew such a strong, unspoken line, “don’t come any closer”, that ordinary people instinctively kept their distance from him.

 

But Jin had been crossing the line Ivan drew since she was a child, stepping right up to him without a second thought.

 

Perhaps the fact that she always held his hand while going to and from compulsory education had helped erase some of her fear of him.

 

Ivan wondered if that single reason alone—the fact that he was the one who had taken her out of Zone 4—had instilled in her an unconditional trust toward him.

 

He pushed aside the faint bewilderment, the subtle sense of rejection, and the discomfort of having to share his personal space with someone else, and simply accepted Jin’s presence. 

 

He decided to think of it as a form of responsibility.

 

All Jin ever wanted in Ivan’s office was to read her books. Nothing more.

 

Sometimes when Simon brought her tea she would thank him and drink it, but she never once asked for anything first. 

 

She simply became part of the furniture, melting seamlessly into the space.

 

As those hours repeated and accumulated, both Ivan and Simon eventually came to accept Jin’s presence in the office as something completely natural.

 

He still felt a strong aversion to physical contact with others, yet Jin had become the sole exception, perhaps precisely because of the power of accumulated time.

 

“Was Jin’s schedule particularly packed today?”

 

“Yes. She had more guiding sessions than usual. I received a report that she was completely exhausted and went straight to bed.”

 

“Why was the schedule arranged so intensively?”

 

“The guiding schedule is entirely arranged according to what Jin wants…”

 

“Don’t let her take on so many guidings that she ends up exhausted. When that happens, intervene actively, Simon.”

 

“Understood, Representative.”

 

On the days when Jin didn’t come to the office because she was worn out from too many guidings, Ivan found his nerves frayed to the point of irritation. 

 

Habit really was a terrifying thing.

 

Whenever Jin came to read in the office, she always wore loose, comfortable clothing in oversized sizes. She avoided anything close to pajamas in case visitors arrived, but she also steered clear of anything that even slightly constricted her body.

 

From the moment she began naturally choosing her own clothes, Jin had gravitated toward garments larger than her frame.

 

She casually said it was just because they were comfortable, but the psychologist who had counseled Jin for a long time remarked that it was likely an unconscious behavior reflecting her inner state.

 

When Ivan first heard that explanation, the image that immediately came to mind was the small, dilapidated house in Zone 4 where Jin had lived from the day she was born.

 

Even though more than half of it had burned and collapsed, it wasn’t hard to imagine what it had looked like before the incident.

 

The house had been far too small for a family of three.

 

Until the day they left that place, she had barely been allowed to go outside, essentially confined, almost imprisoned.

 

So it was only natural that those memories still stretched like roots deep into her body and mind.