"Ohh..."
Park Taehee exclaimed at Hyeong Ki's words. Rim Young blinked without responding and turned back around to continue eating. Was Hyeong Ki being serious about being the first one to be guided by him officially? Rim Young had thought he would forget about it, but Hyeong Ki had come to pick him up personally.
If Su Iseul saw... it wouldn't be a good look.
"I will be waiting for you. Come up to the east guiding room when you're done."
"...."
Hyeong Ki walked away as he finished his words, not even waiting to hear Rim Young's response, who didn't turn around again and kept his head buried in the food tray, thinking of ways to avoid guiding Hyeong Ki. Should he grab Su Iseul and beg him to be let off?
"What's your matching rate with Hyeong Ki?"
Park Taehee, who was watching Hyeong Ki until the end resting his chin in his palm with his hand folded over his mouth, spoke out, redirecting his eyes to him.
"I don't know. We never took the test."
Rim Young didn't think much of it and answered the question flatly, but Park Taehee raised both of his eyebrows at him, seemingly surprised.
"Who did you take a match test with, then?"
"....Esper Wi Hajoon."
"And what was the match rate?"
"...."
He hadn't told anyone the match rate yet. Rim Young wasn't planning to tell anyone, honestly. It would only be Su Iseul if he agreed to help Rim Young become Wi Hajoon's guide.
"Must be a high number. Is that why you've been chasing after Wi Hajoon? Sounds fun."
"What's your matching rate with Esper Hong Juryeon?"
Rim Young tried to change the topic, and he was a little interested in knowing how high the percentage was for them to be paired and have a familiar of their own.
"90%... it could go higher than that, though... Esper Hong Juryeon, why don't we work more on that? Let's take it to a hundred."
Park Taehee glanced at Hong Juryeon, gently hitting his arm to urge him.
"It's been rising naturally. I don't see why we should 'work' more on it."
"Right... I've been liking you more and more every second of the day. It should reach a hundred soon enough."
How nice it must be to be this carefree...
Meanwhile, Rim Young couldn't even taste the food going into his mouth. He had been trying to think how he should convince Wi Hajoon to take him on that business trip, but now he had another problem on his hands. He should just leave now and search for Su Iseul. Picking up his tray, he stood up to leave.
"Are you good at guiding, Rim Young?"
Seeing him leave, Park Taehee quickly asked him, curious why an S-Class Esper had come to him personally for guiding when they didn't even have a high match rate.
"Not really. I'll get going now."
Rim Young hurriedly mumbled out a quick reply before leaving the cafeteria altogether, slipping away before either of them could stop him or ask further questions.
Catching the elevator up to the fifth floor turned out to be harder than expected. Since it was lunchtime, countless employees from the Center were moving between floors at the same time, and by the time the elevator doors opened, it was already packed with people shoulder to shoulder. Even so, Rim Young squeezed himself inside anyway. He was the one who insisted on forcing himself into the overloaded elevator, after all.
Now crammed awkwardly into the corner with barely enough space to breathe properly, he quietly endured the ride while staring at the changing floor numbers above the door. Honestly, he usually liked living carefreely. He preferred avoiding troublesome situations whenever possible. But somehow, there were always certain things he ended up involving himself in despite that. Certain situations he simply couldn't walk away from even when it would have been easier to ignore them.
Maybe... he was far noisier than he originally thought himself to be.
The moment the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor, Rim Young immediately raised his hand in a hurry.
"I'm getting off— excuse me!"
Pressed between people on all sides, he awkwardly squeezed his way through the packed elevator while someone near the front kindly held the door open long enough for him to stumble out. The second his feet touched the hallway floor, he finally breathed properly again. There weren't many S-Class Espers stationed at the Seoul Center to begin with, and the only S-Class Guide was Su Iseul, who naturally had his own separate office too.
And from what Rim Young had heard...
A very large one.
Glancing around the corridor lined with private office rooms, Rim Young immediately began comparing their sizes with narrowed eyes, searching for the most obvious candidate. Until he spotted it: this office was visibly bigger than the others. Without hesitation, he walked over and pressed his face right against the uncovered section of the glass window, trying to peek inside to confirm whether it was really Su Iseul's office or not.
Inside the office, there was only one person sitting there. He leaned comfortably back in the chair, his attention completely fixed on the phone in his hand as his fingers moved across the screen in steady intervals. A faint smile rested on his face, unmistakably real in a way Rim Young had rarely ever seen before. It wasn't difficult to guess who he was texting. The only person capable of making Wi Hajoon look at his phone with that kind of expression was Su Iseul.
Apparently, Su Iseul himself wasn't inside the office at the moment, yet Wi Hajoon still looked fully occupied with him regardless, smiling faintly at whatever messages were appearing on the screen.
Without realizing it, Rim Young ended up staring. For several long seconds, he simply stood there with his face pressed close to the uncovered section of the glass window, quietly watching Wi Hajoon from outside like someone who had unknowingly wandered somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.
Then the realization abruptly struck him. He shouldn't be doing this. He instantly pulled himself away from the window, creating distance so quickly it almost looked suspicious. Both of his hands remained awkwardly pressed against the glass for a moment longer before he hurriedly turned his body aside, trying to pretend he absolutely had not just been peeking into someone else's office.
Unfortunately for him...
At that exact moment, the office door directly beside Su Iseul's office opened. Hyeong Ki stepped out. And the moment he lifted his head, his eyes met Rim Young's immediately.
"...…"
Ah... I'm done.
Rim Young removed his hands from the window, and right then, the door to Su Iseul's office opened too. Wi Hajoon stuck his head out, instantly found Rim Young standing outside the office, and frowned.