This Bratty Esper’s Karma? I’ll Handle It

At those absurd words, Lee Yoon-gyeom lifted his head. He glared at Yoo Hae-seong as though he wanted to kill him, but the man didn’t stop talking.

“Congratulations on awakening. Seriously. You were hurting so much over it… and on that rooftop, ha, now we can finally become a pair.”

Well, would you look at that? What a load of bullshit. Lee Yoon-gyeom could only marvel at Yoo Hae-seong’s tear-jerking performance. Yoo Hae-seong smiled with moist eyes.

“We went through some hardships… but it’s all in the past now, so if we start over, we can be happy.”

“How greedy.”

A languid, low voice cut through the conversation. Baek Han-gyeol, sitting crookedly on the sofa, shifted only his eyes and stared at Yoo Hae-seong. His gaze was as though he were looking at an insect.

“You had him beside you for eight years, and if you drove him all the way to a rooftop, doesn’t that make you incompetent?”

Baek Han-gyeol swept back his bangs and studied Yoo Hae-seong’s stiffening expression. Then he rested the back of his head against the sofa and continued saying what he wanted.

“A bastard who already has a paired Guide is even coveting someone else’s Guide. How vulgar.”

Then Baek Han-gyeol instantly erased his cold expression and gave the dazed Lee Yoon-gyeom an affectionate look.

“Seeing you drool all over the place, you don’t seem much different from a male whore.”

“…Baek Han-gyeol!!”

Finally unable to endure it, Yoo Hae-seong shouted, huffing with anger. Baek Han-gyeol ignored him and smiled prettily at Lee Yoon-gyeom as he finished.

“I’m brand-new, aren’t I?”

Amid the increasingly hostile atmosphere, Lee Yoon-gyeom suddenly slapped himself across the cheek.

Smack!

The dull sound naturally drew everyone’s attention. A bright red handprint appeared on his pale cheek.

“Ah, sorry. I keep thinking I’m hearing bullshit.”

Then Lee Yoon-gyeom slapped his own cheek again. With the loud sound, one corner of his mouth curled crookedly upward.

“Now I finally feel like I’ve come to my senses.”

Lee Yoon-gyeom smiled as though relieved.

When he’d first heard Yoo Hae-seong’s words, Lee Yoon-gyeom had felt miserable.

And at the same time, he’d wavered ever so slightly.

Because every word he’d thought was shameless was something he’d desperately wanted to hear.

‘Let’s be happy.’

He was only hearing those words now. When his worn-down heart turned toward Yoo Hae-seong, he could finally see what was in the man’s heart.

An expression filled with certainty.

That expression seemed to ask Lee Yoon-gyeom this.

‘Can you really live without me?’

Only then could Lee Yoon-gyeom truly come to his senses. His former lover, Yoo Hae-seong, the man who had given him wounds that would never disappear, didn’t look sorry at all.

He’d even only begun saying things like this after Lee Yoon-gyeom became an SS-rank Guide. That meant if he’d never become a Guide, none of this would have happened.

How could there be forgiveness when there had been no apology? All he could do was pity himself for ever loving something like that and calling it human.

Lee Yoon-gyeom let out a deep sigh and desperately wanted to smack Yoo Hae-seong’s handsome face on the spot. But he was an intellectual, so he couldn’t commit such an impolite act in front of the Center Director.

That was why Lee Yoon-gyeom had no choice but to slap his own cheek. And as he did, he carved one thing firmly into his mind.

Yoo Hae-seong was a hazardous substance to him.

“…Ah, I’m good at naming things.”

It suits him. At least shit can become fertilizer. Swallowing the latter thought, Lee Yoon-gyeom made his expression calmer than ever. Then he spoke.

“Esper Yoo Hae-seong and I don’t know each other.”

“…We don’t know each other?”

Yoo Hae-seong asked again. Lee Yoon-gyeom quietly turned his gaze toward him and replied coldly.

“Yes, that’s what we agreed on.”

“…….”

“I have no idea who you supposedly dated.”

“Yoon-gyeom-ah, what are you talking about? We just had a little fight…”

The Center Director briefly raised one hand, and Yoo Hae-seong stopped talking. Then the Center Director asked again.

“Guide Lee Yoon-gyeom. So you’re saying you and Esper Yoo Hae-seong aren’t lovers?”

“No, not at all.”

At Lee Yoon-gyeom’s answer, the Center Director looked obliquely up at Yoo Hae-seong.

“Then would you leave now?”

“……Center Director.”

“Esper Yoo Hae-seong.”

The Center Director called Yoo Hae-seong’s name in a low voice, then looked away as though there was nothing more worth hearing. Baek Han-gyeol, who had been watching from the side, casually threw in a comment.

“Is that insubordination?”

Yoo Hae-seong bit hard on his lower lip and swallowed a breath. After glancing once over Baek Han-gyeol’s mocking face, he started walking. Only after his slowly retreating figure disappeared behind the door did Lee Yoon-gyeom relax.