Pretending to Be the Lover of an Esper C29

 Chapter 29

[“I’m heading back up to Seoul after work. Didn’t say anything to Mr. Lee Taeon, and he didn’t ask. Nothing happened. Glad we could see each other, even briefly, over the weekend.”]

That was the message Yeonwoo sent on Saturday night. I didn’t even see it until Monday, and only replied by Wednesday—thanks to the whirlwind of the weekend’s chaos.

Fighting with Taeon, running into him by sheer coincidence, awkwardly reconciling, and then wallowing in the shame of it—three straight days of emotional natural disasters hitting in rapid succession.

It felt like a storm had ripped through my life, overturning random fragments without warning.
What was left afterward? Ruins—or a sea washed clear? …Still too soon to tell.

Either way, the awkward—at least for me—reconciliation on Saturday already felt like a distant memory by Thursday. Another week had flown by. In just five days, we were back to being as reserved and impersonal as we’d been weeks earlier.

Separate commutes, no meddling in each other’s routines, and only exchanging words at work—like nothing had happened. And frankly, that was… comfortable.

One thing hadn’t changed, though—the glacial pace of trying to find the sensory-sharing switch.

“This isn’t going well again. How’s it feel?”
“A little unfamiliar, but… doesn’t feel much different from a regular guiding session.”
“Ha… this is hard.”
“It’s been over 40 minutes—let’s take a break.”

Taeon tapped the guiding monitor. My load rate had jumped by 3%.
“All right. Let’s break for twenty minutes, then start again.”

Even after a whole morning of training and guiding him, the numbers barely moved. To see them climb by 3% in just forty minutes now—well, if not for his unusual physiology, it would’ve been worse.

I kneaded the back of my neck, accepting the break without argument.
He left, saying he’d get some air and be back on time.

Peeling the adhesive feedback patches off my arms, I stretched out long and groaned involuntarily.
Guiding was draining enough—but being locked in place for forty minutes added its own fatigue. Even with the ergonomic armchairs in the guiding rooms, tension made it impossible to appreciate them.

Especially with all my focus bent on manipulating the energy threads… even a small movement felt impossible.

“Ah… feels like we’re almost there,” I muttered.

It was that evasive sensation—something just out of reach, shapeless, slipping away no matter how carefully I tried to catch it.
I’d tried all sorts of approaches—sharpening my energy into a needle to prod his waveforms, mimicking his flow—and every attempt had failed.

We’d even tried leaving it to chance with standard guiding, hoping for a repeat of past luck. No dice. He’d suggested methods too—none worked.

“If only it’d click—just snap, and there it is.”

What good was a high resonance rate if it couldn’t pull its weight here? Matching a 10,000-piece puzzle would be easier.

I was idly sighing away the rest of the break when—

Bzzz… bzzz…

My phone erupted in violent vibration. I pulled it out, expecting a mis-set alarm—only to see a call from an unexpected name.

“Yes, hello?”
— “Guide Ji Yunseong! It’s Cha Jiwoo, Team 3 Leader!”

From the speaker came her urgent voice, pierced intermittently with background chaos.

“Yes, I’m listening.”
— “I rushed out without my pager, so I’m calling direct—where are you now? Basement? Ground level?”
“I’m in a guiding room. I’m with Mr. Lee Taeon; we were doing joint guiding.”
— “Perfect! What room? Wait, nevermind—you said you’re with Taeon. Are you mid-session?”
“No, we’re on break. Why, what’s needed?”
— “Can you help me out? Head to another empty room right now… Actually, what’s your current load rate?”

She was rattling off sentences so fast they nearly ran together, but still managing to ask precisely what she needed.

I answered while stepping out into the hall.
Plenty of rooms were free—there, A04.

“I’ll go to A04. My load rate’s just over 10.”
— “That’s fine! Stay in A04. I have four Espers coming up. Sorry for the sudden ask, but you’re the senior Guide with the best resonance rates for them right now. I’ll clear it with your team leader.”
“Got it.”

If they needed my guiding with their partners, it had to be important.

Quickly, I entered A04, propped the door so it stayed slightly ajar, and kept my phone in hand.
“This serious?” I asked.
— “I’ll explain when we’re there. Sometimes these things just… erupt out of nowhere.”

Her sigh was deep enough to grind stone, but the tone suggested it wasn’t an outright crisis—no alarms had gone out, no facility-wide shake-up.

— “All right, group of four—A04. Let’s go! Thanks, Guide Ji!”

Call over, the sudden silence in the room felt heavier.

“Oh, right—I should tell Taeon.”

No way was I disappearing mid-break without a word; I typed a quick text explaining I’d been pulled into another guiding room for Team 3.

Wandering the vaguely familiar room—one we’d used together before—I settled onto the sofa.

It wasn’t long before—

“Oh, door’s open—smart, Guide Ji!”

The door banged wider as Cha Jiwoo appeared, bustling fast enough she hadn’t even bothered with the keycard.

She was half-supporting a limp young man—one of the four, obviously.

The other three followed, looking equally drained, each leaning on another person in Guide’s uniform.

In seconds, the silence shattered.

“Here—this side!” I called, unfolding the sofa bed, dragging over chairs, even pulling the coffee table to make a passable arrangement.

The four Espers lay pale-faced across the makeshift setup.
Not too serious… right?

For a moment, I eyed Jiwoo with sympathy. Guides weren’t spared the burden of hauling their own partners—and some of these Espers looked heavy.

“Ugh, my back. My everything.” She thumped her shoulders and lower spine.
“What happened?” I asked, aware it might tread on touchy ground.

She sighed—deep, exasperated.
“They overdid it. Badly.”
“Overdid it meaning…”
“Blew past their limits without thinking. Practically ran themselves into the ground. I swear—”

I glanced at the four, recognizing youth in every one of their features. The one she’d carried in still had baby-round cheeks—not yet shed of adolescence. Barely twenty-two, maybe younger.

“Ah…”

The realization slipped out like air from a balloon.

“…I could die of embarrassment on their behalf. Sorry for dragging you into this, Guide Ji.”
“It’s fine. These things happen. Honestly, I saw worse when I first joined the Center—this is tame by comparison.”

She smiled faintly at the attempt to reassure her, but the look she shot at her exhausted charges was still equal parts mortification and frustration.