Pretending to Be the Lover of an Esper C6

Chapter 6

About an hour had passed.

Lost in thought—a slight doze creeping in—I had finished off my now watery, bland latte and was just stepping out into the bright early afternoon sunlight when it happened.

“Ugh!”

Squinting against the sudden glare was my first mistake. I failed to notice the person entering as I exited, and our bodies collided with a harsh thud. What kind of person had a body as solid as a wall?

“Ugh, sorry…”
“Ah, sorry.”

For a moment, my entire body stiffened.

The familiar voice ringing from well above my head sent a cold shock through my heart.

I lifted my gaze reflexively, only to find the cruel coincidence that fate had arranged there before me.

In other words, the man known as Lee Taeon stood packed tightly in my line of sight.

What kind of absurd nightmare was this?

“…”
“…”

As soon as he saw my face, his brow furrowed deeply. My expression was likely no better. Our eyes locked, each silently asking why the other was here.

It made no sense at all. This wasn’t the only café near Gyeonggi Branch’s vicinity, yet on this golden weekend day, in this tucked-away café, precisely as its door was opening, I was forced into the most atrocious coincidence—colliding with Lee Taeon. It was maddening.

The tense stand-off ended only when Lee Taeon finally spoke.

“What are you doing? Move aside. Someone’s trying to get in.”
“W-what…”

That line sounded suspiciously familiar—something I had snapped at him just last night. So now he throws it back at me? I wanted to argue loudly, but since he was blocking the way, I stepped aside quietly.

“Do you come here often?”
“…What’s it to you?”
“If Mr. Lee Taeon comes here often, I probably won’t come anymore.”
“Yes. I come frequently. So don’t come.”

Lee Taeon replied coldly, hastily closing the door behind him. Indifferent to whether I was caught in the gap, I had to flee like a chased animal. There was no time even to say a word. The wind chime hanging above jingled long after.

Standing stupidly in front of the door, I must have looked expelled. Dazed, I thought—well, I was trying to leave the café…

“What the hell.”

Lee Taeon had already disappeared beyond the doorway, likely on his way to order a drink. I had no desire to look back at that detestable silhouette, so I just glared fiercely at the café’s signboard instead.

“No, seriously, what the hell is going on?”

That brief, accidental encounter with Lee Taeon tangled my already muddled thoughts even further.

I should have come straight out without hesitation. Now filled with belated regret, I trudged along the alley. My footsteps thudded heavily, echoing my mood.

Why I felt especially gloomy was because I had just met him again, right after the dream of breaking the pairing had been blandly shattered.

In some sense, I had been thinking about Lee Taeon—so meeting him was even more humiliating, or perhaps it felt like committing a crime. And I had indeed done wrong…

The thought of seeing his face again tonight, and having to say, “I failed. Let’s endure this year together,” sent my head spinning once more. His reaction was all too predictable; he would surely be displeased and perhaps sneer at me for it. Whether my poor, guilty mouth would keep silent then or not was anyone’s guess.

Growth of anger made me glance back once more, but I hadn’t realized how far I’d gone; the café sign looked just like a tiny dot. I sighed.

Right. First, clear my head as planned and find a way to refresh my mood.

After one last glare toward the café where Lee Taeon might still be, I set off toward the main street, still hoping that such cursed coincidences would not happen again.

To answer the question of “why,” one first needed to understand what had caused it. The reason for this streak of misfortune. The logical explanation for this bizarre phenomenon.

For me, both reasons applied.

Why in this vast, bustling area did I keep running into Lee Taeon?

Why, unlike any regular person exhausted by overwork and mild depression, did this man refuse to rest on a day off but instead wander around and barge into my life?

“…”
“…”

Lee Taeon and I stood with arms crossed, glaring silently at each other, discomfort plain on our faces—his and mine.

Tiny beads of condensation gathered on the glasses before us.

Amidst the clamor of conversations and laptop tapping inside the café, only we sat quietly, lips pressed tight, eyes fixed.

Ultimately, the reason we ended up back at a café—together—was painfully simple.

Wherever I went, wherever I passed, Lee Taeon was there! At one point, even catching each other’s eyes, we had hurriedly pretended not to know each other and slipped away.

They say if you meet three times by chance, it’s fate. By that measure, Lee Taeon and I were bound by an extraordinary, bitter destiny.

Maybe it was a bond stretching back several lifetimes; perhaps we were mortal enemies who killed each other’s parents in previous existences. This cycle of revenge could have persisted through multiple reincarnations, arriving now at this fraught present.

Lost in such frivolous thoughts, I glared at Lee Taeon—who suddenly spoke.

“Are you a stalker?”
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting, Lee Taeon?”

A harsh word burst out reflexively. I tried to reel it back, but it was already spoken. At this point, a few curses wouldn’t make much difference.

Lee Taeon looked weary and annoyed.

“Let’s say it happens everywhere else. Why did you come to the ladies’ clothing section, which has nothing to do with you?”
“I went there to avoid running into you! And you were in the women’s section too! You were following me, weren’t you?”
“I was the one trying to avoid you.”

His hand pressed tightly against his furrowed brow, veins bulging. His gaze was dark and menacing.

I flared my eyes back at him—he wasn’t the only one who knew how to curse with a look.

“Even if it’s a coincidence, what kind of coincidence is this…”

Muttering sincerely, I rubbed my forehead, no longer caring whether Lee Taeon heard me. He just sighed deeply without responding.

The last place we had come face to face had been the women’s clothing section on the fourth floor of this large shopping mall.

I had ventured there precisely because I hoped that nowhere—even here—would I run into Lee Taeon.

Unfortunately, if what he said was true, he’d been thinking the same.

As I slowly walked, expressionless, scanning women’s clothes that had nothing to do with me, I spotted his familiar silhouette coming toward me from the opposite direction. The first thing I felt was a kind of dread and fear.

In a short time, I truly began to suspect that Lee Taeon’s grudge against me was deeper and more sinister than I thought, that he stalked me like this to suck the blood from my life.

Had his face not been so mercilessly contorted when he spotted me, I might have continued holding on to that misunderstanding.

“Wait, Lee Taeon! Let’s talk!”

I impulsively grabbed him as he was walking away quickly, not thinking of the consequences. I was surprised he didn’t shove me off.

Anyway, I had brought him here as a pretext for conversation, but once here, I had no idea what to say or how to start. A thoroughly embarrassing situation.

Why do you follow me? Why were you at that bakery? I like their bread too. Why did you go to the sports store? I was looking for shoes.

The endless questions lodged like a lump in my throat, swallowing themselves back down unheard.

Suddenly, a bleak thought crossed my mind—that maybe all these coincidences came from having similar tastes.

The desire to deny the possibility that this uncertain speculation could be true writhed inside me. So I clammed up, and ended up hearing Lee Taeon accuse me of being a stalker.

“So, what do you want to say?”

Once again, it was Lee Taeon who broke the tense silence. He looked thoroughly exhausted as he uttered the words carelessly.

“Well, um…”

Yeah—since I called him, I ought to say something. But I didn’t really have much to say… oh, wait, there was something.

It was a topic I didn’t want to bring up right now, yet logically it was the right time. I cleared my throat.

“Let me be blunt. It’s a failure.”

“…”

Lee Taeon suddenly narrowed his eyes in disbelief, then let out a short, deflating laugh. He seemed to say, I knew it. I tasted bitterness.

“You acted as if you’d handle everything… and yet you said it wouldn’t be easy.”
“Well, the Director himself said so; what could I do?”
“Did you properly reject it?”

His words echoed the conversation we had in the café when we first met. Something inside me churned painfully at his repetition. I wasn’t so easy after all.