Churu for the Angry Guide

35

In the quiet hospital room shrouded in darkness in the early hours of the morning, the sound of a humidifier softly echoed. Siwoo was still in a deep sleep, not even stirring.

A cool sensation touched Siwoo’s cheek.

Siwoo’s eyelids twitched at the cool feeling on his cheek. While he hadn’t woken up to various other sounds, this faint touch on his cheek quickly brought his distant consciousness back.

What is it? A water bottle?

Without the strength to open his eyes, he just slightly turned his head. The cool sensation on his cheek instantly disappeared. He wondered if he had imagined it in his half-asleep state. The sensation had been that faint.

“…”

He slowly opened and closed his mouth before falling back asleep. No matter how much he slept, his body still felt heavy. Only when the cool sensation touched his cheek did he briefly feel lighter. Though he couldn’t tell what it was.

By the time Siwoo fully opened his eyes, the sun was high in the sky.

“Oh, you’re awake?”

The guide team leader happened to be visiting. Fortunately, he woke up when no Baekya Guild members were around.

“How do you feel? Can you get up?”

Siwoo tried to answer but burst into a hoarse cough. He looked up at his superior with bleary eyes from under the blanket, still coughing. His gaze was full of resentment.

“…Right, I’m sorry for deceiving you.”

The team leader acknowledged his mistake. He had placed Siwoo, who was trying to run away from the Baekya Guild, right in front of them, leading to this disaster. Siwoo had looked unwell even before meeting Esper Yoo Jihan, and he ended up collapsing.

The memory of Siwoo’s pale face as he desperately asked for help, trusting him, made the team leader feel even more uneasy.

“You should have explained the situation in detail. If it was serious, I would have hidden you properly.”

He still didn’t know what had happened between the Baekya Guild and Siwoo. From what the doctor said, the cause of the fainting seemed to be Siwoo’s health rather than the Baekya Guild, which was somewhat relieving.

“You idiot, what’s with the malnutrition? Malnutrition in this day and age when food is so abundant.”

The team leader scolded Siwoo for neglecting his health, raising his voice unnecessarily. The doctor said he had lost consciousness due to a cold on top of accumulated fatigue. The main cause was sudden stress.

Siwoo, who would normally have talked back immediately, remained quiet. He just let out a dry sigh and rubbed his face. He seemed to lack even the strength to speak.

Watching this listless behavior, the team leader looked around the luxurious hospital room with an awkward expression. He felt uncomfortable, almost regretting taking time out of his busy schedule to visit.

He felt sorry for the already thin guy looking even more haggard, and was puzzled as to why this guy was in a VIP ward.

Even he, as a team leader, had never set foot in such a place. This room was only provided to top-tier guilds.

“Are you going to keep silent? What’s your relationship with the Baekya Guild?”

Siwoo remained silent as he tried to sit up. The team leader stopped him and made him lie down again.

“You just woke up after two days. Stay hospitalized until your strength recovers, and don’t move around carelessly.”

“Is this really a hospital room?”

The team leader clicked his tongue at Siwoo’s cracked voice, which sounded like he had barely managed to speak. He lifted Siwoo’s wrist himself to show him the IV drip in his arm.

“It is a hospital room, so stay comfortable. The Baekya Guild is covering it, so don’t worry about money.”

Even to him, this place seemed more like a luxury hotel than a hospital room. It was a space that someone not belonging to a top-tier guild would never experience in their lifetime.

And here was this rookie chick who had just joined the center, lying comfortably. And such a troublemaker at that.

“Hey, don’t pull out the IV carelessly! You’ll hurt yourself!”

“I want to leave now.”

Siwoo tried to pull out the IV needle in his arm.

After peeling off the band, he hesitated, realizing the needle was thicker than expected. Siwoo hated pain more than anything.

“…Please take it out.”

“What do you mean take it out! Just finish it all.”

The team leader reattached the adhesive band and pressed Siwoo’s forehead down to the pillow. But Siwoo fidgeted, looking uncomfortable.

“I need to get out quickly. Please help me.”

Siwoo pleaded with the team leader with a desperate expression, just like that day. The team leader hesitated, unable to firmly refuse.

“Is it because you don’t want to meet the Baekya Guild?”

“…Yes.”

Seeing how much the kid disliked it, it did seem like he had some bad blood with the Baekya Guild. Yet the Baekya Guild had provided Siwoo with a VIP room and had been visiting throughout his hospitalization to check on his condition.

The medical staff praised them endlessly, saying they were very worried about Siwoo and took care of him with utmost dedication. When they curiously asked if Siwoo was their next dedicated guide, the team leader just shrugged. He knew nothing, so he had nothing to say.

No matter how talented he might be as a guide, Siwoo was just a rookie who had only manifested his abilities half a year ago. How could someone like that be assigned to the top guild in the country?

Of course, it wasn’t impossible. Matching rate was more important than experience, after all.

The team leader rubbed his temples and looked down at the coughing Siwoo. The Baekya Guild might have been charmed by his outstanding appearance, but there was one more clear reason that was more suspicious.

“You… have you met Leader Kang Taebeom before?”

If he had a high matching rate with that mental esper… then it would make sense for the Baekya Guild to be so fixated on Siwoo. They would be desperate to have him.

Everyone knew that mental espers had chronic problems with guiding. That’s why the Baekya Guild kept changing their dedicated guides and bought all sorts of guiding machines.

Siwoo kept his mouth shut again. At this frustrating attitude, the team leader tilted his head even more.

Then, on the contrary, why was this guy avoiding the Baekya Guild?

If the Baekya Guild had been looking for Siwoo to recruit him, Siwoo should have welcomed it with open arms. He couldn’t understand why someone so desperate for work was avoiding the heavenly Baekya Guild.

“Hey, Siwoo.”

The team leader, sitting close to the bed, let out a deep sigh.

“I need to know something to help you. Do you not know what kind of people the Baekya Guild are?”

They were people whose words couldn’t be casually disobeyed or whose requests couldn’t be refused. Though their average age was younger compared to other long-established guilds, their achievements were incomparable to anyone else’s. This was a fact known to every citizen of South Korea.

“I’m asking because I want to help you. I’m not trying to scold you.”

He asked again in a serious voice, his expression hardening. He was about to burst with curiosity.

“What happened between you and the Baekya Guild?”

The whiskers on both of Siwoo’s cheeks trembled slightly. He bit his cracked lower lip, then let out a heavy sigh.

“I… deceived them.”

Siwoo confessed the mistake he had committed, swallowing his embarrassment.

It was all because of his gluttony. Everything started with his greed for Churu.

“I ate five Churus there every day.”

“Churu? That… cat treat?”

“Yes.”

“Um… okay, continue.”

The team leader listened as seriously as he could. It wasn’t a very long story.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure if it was even that serious.

* * *

Having diligently fulfilled his monster elimination quota for the day, Seojun had taken off his battle suit and finished showering. Unlike his other hyungs, he didn’t have a specific area to manage.

Like regular espers, he finished his work on his own after meeting the set monster elimination quota when the gate was calm. As such, his schedule was relatively more flexible compared to Jihan and Geonho. Seojun never used even a third of his full power.

“Good work, Esper Ha Seojun.”

Someone casually greeted Seojun as he left the changing room. It seemed they had been waiting to talk to him. This was quite a common occurrence.

“Thank you, you’ve worked hard too, Esper-nim.”

“Are you going straight to the guiding room again?”

When Seojun responded with a bright smile, the excited esper asked more questions. Many people were desperate to exchange even a few words with the Baekya Guild like him. As the youngest, Seojun had the most approachable image, so he often got caught up in these situations.

“You must be tired too, Esper-nim. Please go home and rest.”

“No, we always just deal with easy monsters, so it’s not tiring at all. It’s all thanks to the Baekya Guild!”

Seojun looked at the talkative esper and nodded lifelessly. Only after a full 10 minutes passed was he able to leave the changing room.

Once alone in the elevator, the smile disappeared from Seojun’s face. As if he had never smiled brightly, he stared at the decreasing numbers on the panel with a cold expression.

As usual, he was about to go to the guiding room, but he pressed a different floor number. It was the floor with a passage connected to the medical center.

He had nothing else to do besides receiving guiding, so he planned to just check and go. It seemed about time for the guide to wake up.

* * *

The guide team leader came out of the hospital room, scratching his cheek with a sour expression. He had broken a sweat trying to calm Siwoo, who insisted on leaving together. He had just managed to pacify him by saying they should wait and see how the situation develops until his body recovered.

He stood in front of the hospital room door and took a long breath, “Sssup.” Even after hearing the whole story, he was still puzzled. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why Siwoo was so scared.

“He didn’t even do anything that bad…”

Of course, a beastkin hiding their identity was clearly a crime. Criminals pretending to be animals and causing various incidents were always a big problem in civilian areas.

However, all Siwoo had done while hiding his identity from the Baekya Guild was… eat a lot of snacks.

“How much could that even cost?”

“Hello. Are you the guide team leader?”

Seojun approached the team leader who was pacing in front of the hospital room door. The team leader was startled and greeted Seojun with a bow.

“Han Siwoo just woke up.”

“Really? That’s good news.”

Seeing Seojun smiling with his gentle face, all his worries seemed to melt away. He couldn’t understand why Siwoo was so afraid of a guild with such a kind esper. Even if their leader was a bit intense.

“Um… I heard the situation roughly.”

The team leader hesitantly began. Although he didn’t understand, he hoped they would let Siwoo go, given how much he was avoiding the Baekya Guild.

“I’ll apologize on his behalf. I’m truly sorry for not managing my subordinate properly.”

He fully took Siwoo’s side, feeling that he hadn’t committed a crime so severe as to be unforgivable.

“Han Siwoo guide seems to be reflecting a lot.”

He earnestly defended Siwoo, hoping that even the youngest would take Siwoo’s side. He just wanted the issue to be resolved quietly without conflict, in the best possible way.

“He’s just a bit lacking in social skills. If you get to know him, he might be… he could be a good kid.”

As he was defending Siwoo while breaking out in a cold sweat, the hospital room door slid open.

Seojun, who had been smiling lifelessly, naturally looked down towards the door. The guide team leader also tilted his head and lowered his gaze, then swallowed a sigh.

A snow-white ball of fluff was peeking its face out through the gap in the opened door. As it tried to widen the gap with its white front paw, it suddenly froze upon making eye contact with Seojun.

Then it slowly crawled back through the gap in the door. Like a thief cat that had failed to escape.