Pretending to Be the Lover of an Esper C3

Chapter 3

“What are you doing? Move. A person’s trying to get through.”
“You seem to have a more reckless personality than I thought.”
“Yes. I tend to live a bit recklessly.”
Sure. You’re really something, Ji Yunseong. Half resigned, I dragged my suitcase inside. Lee Taeon reluctantly stepped aside, though the disapproval on his face was obvious. What a killer first impression.

We were standing in a corridor that stretched between the entrance and the living room. There would be identical rooms at both ends—bedrooms equipped with bathrooms, dressing rooms, even small kitchenettes and extra multipurpose rooms.

The layout of two mirrored units joined together separates personal living spaces clearly for privacy, while the central common area enables smooth communication between partners.

The line from the lodging guide I’d received earlier came to mind. Turning, I addressed Taeon, who was still staring in my direction.
“Have you decided which room you’re taking? Left or right? You got here first, so I assume you’ve already chosen?”

Given his discourteous nature, I assumed as much, but asked anyway. Barging into a room only to hear, ‘That’s mine,’ later would’ve been even more unpleasant.

Taeon answered after a long, detached silence, voice slow.
“…The left.”
“Great. Then I’ll take the right.”
Without hesitation, I hoisted my suitcase. We’d already seen each other’s faces and exchanged names—nothing more to see there.

Hello, as of today, I’m your assigned partner-guide, Ji Yunseong.
Yes, hello. Esper Lee Taeon.
The determination I once had to open conversation kindly had long since crumbled. From the start, everything had gone wrong—or maybe the very first step simply hadn’t existed.

But my steps halted after scarcely three strides. I tried to endure it, but no, I couldn’t.

“By the way, what’s with that attitude? What gives you the right to greet me like that the first time we meet? What, you think my name’s Ji Yunseong—are your ears clogged?”

When you’ve spent half your life being rejected for being an orphan, you naturally learn not to endure hostility aimed at you. At least, I had.

Yet even as my words snapped, Taeon’s demeanor remained calm.
“Ah, first meeting… yes. To you, I suppose this is our first.”
“…You’re speaking as if you already know me?”
“Not entirely a stranger. Tell me, Ji Yunseong-ssi, do you really not know who I am?”
“Ah, sure. I’m honored that you do, at least. Then what about you, Lee Taeon-ssi—some nobleman’s son or something?”
“You didn’t think anything when you heard my name?”
“So what, are you expecting me to show respect now that I know you’re someone important?”
“Lee Taeon. Lee Taeyoung. Still nothing coming to mind?”
“No, I mean—why are you bringing up names all of a sudden… Taeyoung-hyung?”

What? My voice caught awkwardly mid-sentence, as though someone had struck the back of my head. The familiar name spilling from Taeon’s lips left me stunned. Why was that name surfacing here? My mouth froze as my mind scrambled to find the answer.

The noisy quarrel between us died instantly, replaced by a heavy silence. Unconsciously, I turned the two names over in my mind.
Lee Taeon. Lee Taeyoung. Taeon. Taeyoung. The names sounded similar. Lee was a common surname, and ‘Tae’ wasn’t rare either. It wasn’t impossible for the two to overlap—it just wasn’t particularly likely.

But resemblance of name and resemblance of face together—surely that wasn’t coincidence.

That well-defined jaw and stubborn lips. The feral air around him contrasted entirely with Taeyoung-hyung’s calm, but the delicate slant of his eyes and the sharp, clean-cut features were unmistakably similar.

Similar names, similar faces…

“…Are you perhaps the cousin he said he grew up with like a real brother?”
“So you’ve at least heard of me.”

This bastard? I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop the incoming curse.

[There’s a cousin of mine named Lee Taeon who works in Gyeonggi Province. He’s quiet and mild. A good kid—really handsome and tall. He’s highly skilled but dislikes attention, so unlike other S-Class Espers, he’s not as well known. You’ve probably heard his name once or twice.]

…Hyung, the only accurate part of that’s the handsome bit. Quiet and mild, my ass—look at this guy.

“Ah, yes. Lee Taeyoung-hyung’s cousin, Mr. Lee Taeon. But tell me, does that mean you can treat me like this? Or what, do you have something filthy in mind? You don’t like sharing guides with family, so you think you can just—”

“Last September. The Class-2 flying spiked monitor lizards that appeared on Mount Gwanak.”

My body froze—not only because his voice turned icy all of a sudden.

September. Mount Gwanak. Class-2 flying monsters. The spike-winged lizard swarm. The words alone pierced through my anger, snapping it like brittle glass.

Automatically, I looked down to find my fingertips trembling.

“…It was just an accident. Didn’t you see the news? Or the briefing? That was reported to every branch in the country—you’d have to live under a rock to have missed it. Honestly, I never thought I’d have to explain this one day.”

Thankfully, my voice barely shook. Had he noticed the tremor beneath my composure? Probably. I was never good at hiding expression.

Feigning nonchalance, I crossed my arms to conceal my shaking hands. Then, unbidden, the image of Taeyoung-hyung lying pale and drenched in cold sweat filled my mind.

Lee Taeyoung—my fifth Esper partner.

But my explanation met only his silence. He stared at me with a look that demanded more, his expression grave, as though to say is that all?

I swallowed tightly. Whatever I said, I doubted he’d listen. The unease coiled in my chest like a living thing.

“If you’re going to trace blame, shouldn’t it fall on the observation manager—or better yet, on the monsters themselves? Class-2 fliers pretending to be Class-4 ground types?”

When those monsters first appeared on Mount Gwanak in September, they were observed as Class-4 terrestrial spike lizards. Their numbers were fewer than ten, each no longer than three meters, with low aggression—an easy enough target even for a B-Class Esper.

My partner then, Taeyoung-hyung, and I were assigned their subjugation. With the threat level so low compared to our combined ability and experience, we went alone—no backup, no support. A simple mission, or so we thought.

[Hyung, how about budae jjigae for dinner? There’s a new place with great reviews.]
[Budae jjigae? Hmm, sounds good. Watch your three o’clock.]
[They say if you put udon instead of ramen it’s really—wait. Hyung! In front! What the—what is that?]

If only that had been all. If only those damned lizards hadn’t suddenly inflated and taken to the air.

Reassessment later revealed them to be Class-2 flying spike lizards in breeding season, merely camouflaging as ground types while searching for nesting grounds. When we attacked, they reverted to their true forms in defense.

Aroused and frenzied, a breeding swarm of that kind couldn’t be handled even by a single A-Class Esper.

[Where’s the support team? Ten minutes? How the hell are we supposed to last ten minutes?!]
[Yunseong, fall back!]
[Damn it! I’m out of ammo—Taeyoung’s fighting alone at this point…!]
[Don’t let them cross the ridge!]
[Hyung, wait—ugh! I’ll pour everything I have into guiding, just hold on a little longer!]
[Yunseong!]

In that sudden chaos, he fought to the very end—to protect me. Desperate. Relentless.

He lost consciousness just as an S-Class Esper, four A-Classes, and a defense team arrived. A doctor helicopter took him to the hospital, where even then, he remained unmoving.

It wasn’t just external injury or blood loss. The extreme depletion of both his mental and physical reserves from overusing his ability had pushed him beyond what my guidance could replenish.

He lived, thankfully. The physical wounds weren’t deep. They said the body simply chose a restorative sleep, that once it had recovered enough, he’d wake. That was my only comfort.

However.

“I’ll say one thing. It’s true that protecting a guide during battle is an Esper’s duty—but that doesn’t mean I just stood there doing nothing.”

My molars ground together. As he said, he did wake—two days later, perfectly fine. But those days weren’t peaceful.

“…”

Even so, Taeon’s eyes on me remained cold. As if accusing me of intentionally letting that happen to my partner—or as if it simply didn’t matter to him at all.

Heat surged through my chest.

“Have you ever even heard of a guide’s combat-support duty? Do you know why we’re trained separately?”

During those two days he lay unconscious, what tormented me wasn’t the monsters, nor the damned misreading of their classification.

“You think it was easy for me? He was my partner.”

The disgust at my own helplessness. The guilt that gnawed like rot. The pointless thought that if only I’d been an Esper instead of a guide, things might’ve been different.

Why must a guide’s body remain ordinary, unable to match an Esper’s?

You don’t know. You never did. You don’t want to know.

“So what, that’s all you’ve got to say?” he replied suddenly. “You’re making completely irrelevant noises.”
“…Sorry?”

His response left me dumbfounded. His gaze stayed chilly, but his expression now clearly said he found me utterly pathetic. The reaction stunned me so much, the tension between us unravelled as if it had never existed.