A Thrilling Guide Life Chapter 16

“Jin, sorry for disturbing your break.”

 

“No, it’s not disturbing at all. Come in quickly, Director. Would you like some tea?”

 

“No need. I have to head out soon anyway. I just remembered and rushed over before I forgot again. Here, take this.”

 

Simon took out a necklace from the inner pocket of his jacket.

 

The moment Jin recognized the necklace, her expression gradually stiffened.

 

“The person in charge of the construction here said they found it under a cabinet and gave it to me. It’s been a while since I received it, but I kept forgetting. Today it finally came to mind, so I hurried before I forgot again.”

 

Simon placed the necklace on Jin’s palm.

 

It was a very simple design, an extremely thin platinum chain with a pendant the size of a thumbnail.

 

The pendant was a vivid green emerald.

 

On that day in the past, Jin couldn’t even clearly remember when, exhausted from Ruern’s one-sided conversation, she hadn’t properly taken care of the gift she received.

 

That was why she didn’t even realize it had been lost…

 

“…”

 

Seeing Jin’s complicated expression, Simon cautiously read the mood and quickly decided it would be better to leave her alone.

 

“Ah, the CEO is probably looking for me. I’ll get going, Jin!”

 

“Yes, yes. Thank you, Director.”

 

After Simon hurriedly disappeared from the guiding room, Jin, now alone, carefully wrapped the necklace in a handkerchief and placed it deep inside the cabinet.

 

As if fate were playing a cruel joke, the very next guiding appointment on her schedule turned out to be Ruern’s booking.

 

Perhaps Simon had instinctively sensed who the giver was when he happened to see Ruern’s name on Jin’s reservation list.

 

“Haa…”

 

One hour later, facing Ruern again after such a long time—

 

The days when her body and heart felt light enough to fly, the complicated feelings that arose upon seeing the necklace… all of it vanished, leaving only a throbbing headache tormenting her.

 

He used to be the one and only sunlight in her life.

 

Now he had become an existence that even stole her smiles away.

 

How did we end up like this?

 

Of course, it was a question meant only for herself, one she didn’t actually want an answer to.

 

The uniquely warm and beautiful smile that used to disarm people was completely gone from Ruern, who had arrived with bloodshot eyes, the whites veined red as if every capillary had burst.

 

He was giving off an unmistakably unstable and dangerous aura.

 

This wasn’t even the same as Ruern during his puberty years when his emotions were at their most uncontrollable.

 

“You… come here and sit down quickly. Why do you look like this?”

 

The jagged, razor-sharp waves coming off Ruern hit her fully.

 

It felt like thousands of needle-sharp points stabbing her entire body at once.

 

Guild-affiliated Espers never came to the Guiding House in this kind of condition. And for Ruern, nephew of the Guild Master and an S-rank Esper, this state was even more incomprehensible.

 

Moreover, it had already been a year since he became an adult, which meant he should have been receiving deep Guiding by now. 

 

Yet Ruern stubbornly kept putting off insertion Guiding.

 

Knowing that this disastrous state of his was because of her, a heavy boulder seemed to hang from Jin’s heart.

 

Ruern staggered inside and barely managed to sit down in the armchair. 

 

Jin quickly moved in front of him and held out her hand. But Ruern only stared blankly at it, showing no intention of taking it.

 

“Snap out of it, Ruern! Hold my hand right now!”

 

“…How many people did you Guide today?”

 

“What? Stop talking nonsense and let’s do the Guiding already!”

 

“Was it good? Who did you like the most?”

 

As he spoke, Ruern’s shoulders shook with a low, broken chuckle.

 

“Wherever I go, I hear your name, Jin. Of course, that’s not exactly strange. It’s been like that for years. But these days… I really can’t stand hearing it. It makes me want to kill them all.”

 

The glint in his upturned eyes was unnaturally bright and sent a wave of revulsion through her.

 

Still, more than what Ruern was saying, Jin was anxiously fixated on the state of his body.

 

“Just receive the Guiding first. We can talk while I do it. I’ll listen to everything. Okay?”

 

“How do you feel when you Guide me? The same as with the other guys? Not like me, right? Not like how I get this tingling from head to toe, so good I could die from it? That’s exactly why you kept ignoring me, ignoring my feelings.”

 

Jin’s hand, which had been trembling with anxiety and urgency, dropped limply to her side.

 

The Ruern who used to pour out uncontrollable emotions, then cry and apologize because he couldn’t stand himself for doing it, that version of him seemed to have completely disappeared. 

 

But now it appeared he had simply been hiding somewhere inside all along.

 

Jin had thought that even though their relationship wasn’t exactly the same as before, they had at least managed to maintain a reasonably good friendship.

 

But just as Ivan had said, after spending who-knows-how-many more precarious, teetering days, the Ruern who once threw her into confusion had reappeared once again.

 

“Don’t say things you’ll regret later. Snap out of it. Are you trying to make me angry again? Is that what you want?”

 

Jin pulled her outstretched arm back.

 

Then she dragged over a small wheeled chair and placed it right next to the armchair where Ruern was sitting, so she could take his hand at any moment.

 

His condition was so severe that she was worried to death, yet the person himself was acting as if his own body didn’t matter at all.

 

Jin wasn’t unaware of the kinds of conversations Espers were having about her, both inside and outside the Gates.

 

There were plenty of Espers who would eagerly spill every tiny detail the moment she showed the slightest curiosity.

 

Now that there were no longer any restrictions on Guiding methods, she naturally knew what the Espers expected from her.

 

So she could roughly guess what kind of words had made Ruern’s eyes roll back in fury and brought him here in this state.

 

“Haa…”

 

As Jin sat on the small chair and let out a deep sigh, Ruern’s pupils trembled faintly.

 

The emerald eyes that had always been so clear and pure were, more than ever before, clouded and murky.

 

Ruern knew full well that Jin’s sigh was filled with frustration, but even so, he couldn’t bring himself to repeat verbatim what he had heard and seen. If she found out that such vulgar, filthy conversations were centered around her, it would undoubtedly hurt her deeply.

 

So why was he here, doing something that was no different from taking out his anger on her, even while worrying about that very thing?

 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, another self was screaming at him to stop right here, to apologize at this point and regain his composure. 

 

But the conversation he had overheard before coming here kept circling in his head, gnawing away at his reason.

 

“Isn’t Guide Jin seriously amazing? Is that really the kind of Guiding a guide her age can pull off?”

 

“Her Guiding energy poured into me and I couldn’t help but grin like an idiot. Was the control always that insane?”

 

When he was younger, hearing other Espers praise Jin’s Guiding used to feel genuinely good. She was such an incredible guide, and she was his best friend, his one and only precious person, so he felt proud and boastful.

 

But as time passed and Jin grew older, the tone of those conversations gradually began to turn sleazy.

 

“Fuck, why the hell won’t she do insertion Guiding? Huh? Has anyone actually done it with her?”

 

“If someone had, the rumor would’ve spread like wildfire already. There are more than a few bastards out there burning with desire to get with Guide Jin. Even hand-holding Guiding feels good, but insertion? That’d be on another level, right?”

 

“He’d probably cum the second he went in and pass out.”

 

“I want to see that blank face of hers collapse. See her sob from feeling too much. Begging for more. She’d look so fucking beautiful.”

 

Every time Ruern heard words like that, he was forced to confront the fact that, for a very long time, he himself had harbored thoughts far uglier, more secret, and more obsessive than any of them.

 

Even as he couldn’t shake the realization that he was just as low and trashy as they were, he comforted himself with the belief that he alone was the one who could do all those filthy things to her, that they would never get the chance.

 

While he felt both belittled by and anxious about people who didn’t even know how much he had endured and suppressed his feelings.

 

He had thought that once he became an adult, he would soon be able to enjoy deep contact and secret time just between the two of them. 

 

But no matter how openly he expressed himself, Jin never once crossed that line.

 

Her Guiding skills were simply too outstanding… she probably wasn’t ready yet… He kept trying to convince and rationalize the situation to himself.

 

But as time went on, the anxiety and impatience grew so intense that even his reason began to blur.

 

‘At this point, shouldn’t Jin have accepted my feelings by now? She couldn’t possibly be planning to do insertion Guiding with some other bastard instead of me, right?’

 

Every time he went to a Gate opening site, the conversations the Espers were having grated on his nerves to the point of driving him insane.

 

“Who the hell is going to be the first one to get insertion Guiding from Guide Jin?”

 

“Wanna bet? Who’s gonna claim her?”

 

“Then I’m betting on that Odyssey guy. He meets Guide Jin the most, doesn’t he? Lucky bastard.”

 

“Aren’t those two super close friends?”

 

“So what if they’re friends? Being friends might actually make it easier, no pressure.”

 

“No way, no way. I don’t think it’s him. I’m putting my money on myself!”

 

“What? Then me too! I’m the one who’s gonna get her!”

 

And then today, watching Espers place bets on who would become Jin’s first insertion Guiding partner, the thin thread of reason he had barely been holding onto finally snapped.