Chapter 6
Standing at the door was a stranger—remarkably tall, powerfully built. Even without touching him, the firm lines of muscle showing through his shirt made it clear his body was solid as stone. Maybe that was why, despite wearing nothing more than a plain white shirt and ordinary black trousers, he was impossible to look away from.
But it wasn’t just the clothes that held Hangyeom’s attention. A black cap pulled down low. Pitch-black sunglasses that looked impossible to see through. A black mask that hid his nose and mouth completely. He’d wrapped his face up so tightly that, ironically, it only made him stand out more.
“…A guide?”
From behind the mask, a low voice slipped out—smooth and deep, like an echo rolling through a cave. Hangyeom got so caught up in how good the man’s voice sounded that it took him a beat too long to register what he’d actually said.
Huh?
A strange feeling washed over him. Some subtle, undeniable energy surged around him, as if trying to wrap itself around his whole body. In answer, a sharp tingle raced down his sensitive spine, snapping every nerve to attention. A warning that the man in front of him was dangerous? Or was it trying to tell him something else?
“Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer right away. He just stared, unblinking. Hangyeom couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but he could feel them—scanning, cataloging every detail. It made his skin crawl.
Did Jaewoo send him?
The man was definitely a stranger. Which meant this was his first visit—so why hadn’t Jaewoo walked him in personally, the way he always did? That detail nagged at him.
He got past the barrier, so he’s got to be a client Jaewoo registered. But…
That was strange in its own right. Jaewoo was cautious to the point of paranoia—he’d rigged the barrier with audio monitoring practically at wiretap level and logged every single client cleared to enter. No matter how slammed he was, there was no way he’d fail to mention a first-timer.
As suspicion and confusion piled up, a flashy little flyer was thrust toward him.
“Heard you run a guiding business for unregistered espers.”
It was one of the flyers layered with Jaewoo’s barrier ability. He’d woven a thin barrier into each one so that only unregistered ability users could read the real content. To an Association-registered user or an ordinary person, it would look like nothing but a run-of-the-mill loan ad.
Since the man had read the flyer’s true content, he was, without question, an unregistered ability user—untouched by the Association’s reach. But that didn’t mean Hangyeom could take just anyone as a client.
The flyer listed only the ad copy and Jaewoo’s phone number—the broker’s line. Any new client had to go through Jaewoo first, and even when hooking them up with the unregistered guide, Jaewoo handled the introduction personally. Which meant the man showing up without Jaewoo was deeply off.
In a case like this, the broker’s verification and sign-off came first. Jaewoo also needed to check whether the client was blacklisted by other guiding peddler outfits. So for now, Hangyeom had no choice but to send him packing.
“Why come here for guiding? Go to the Association.”
He played dumb, glaring coldly at the man.
“You’ve got the wrong place. Leave before I call the cops.”
But when Hangyeom moved to shut the door again, the man shoved him back inside and stepped into the entryway after him.
“No—I think I found exactly the right place.”
“Like I said, I don’t know what the hell you’re—”
Bzzt—
As if cutting him off, the phone in his pocket buzzed against his hip.
[Hyeseong Noona]
Checking the name on the screen, Hangyeom answered without ever taking his wary eyes off the man.
—“Hangyeom, are you busy?”
The second he pressed the phone to his ear, Hyeseong’s clear voice came through. Kim Hyeseong was a woman in her forties, well-known among unregistered ability users as a plugged-in informant with connections everywhere. She’d also been their very first client—a long-time regular from back when Hangyeom and Jaewoo first started up the guiding business. On top of that, she was the only name on his client list he spoke to with any formality.
“No, I can talk.”
Even as he said it, he realized her appointment slot was coming up. He’d checked the time too late. Just as he was about to try tossing the man out again—
—“Someone’s coming to you instead of me, an esper. I’ll square it with Jaewoo, so treat him like a client, okay?”
So the esper Hyeseong was talking about was the man standing right in front of him. Kim Hyeseong sent unfamiliar espers his way like this every now and then.
These days the money was decent, thanks to a steady stream of espers who’d found him through word of mouth. But it hadn’t always been like that. Back then, with no real way to advertise and no connections to speak of, guiding one or two people a week was as good as it got. It was Kim Hyeseong who’d leaned on her informant’s network to funnel new clients toward Hangyeom and Jaewoo.
Remembering those days—and realizing how the man had ended up on his doorstep—Hangyeom let the razor edge of his guard soften.
—“Noona, come on—you should’ve connected him through Jaewoo first. You can’t just slap your trace on him and send him over.”
Looking more closely, he spotted a women’s cufflink fastened to the sleeve of the man’s white shirt. No mistaking it—it was the decorative piece from the blouse Kim Hyeseong had worn to her last guiding session. That had to be why the barrier hadn’t flagged him as an intruder.
Kim Hyeseong could make anyone carrying her trace appear as her. Jaewoo had probably assumed the person crossing the barrier was his scheduled client and let it slide. Though by now he was surely bolting over here in a panic, having caught the conversation playing out inside.
—“Sorry, I’m swamped and my head’s all over the place. But I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so I patched in another client instead of just canceling.”
—“And what if even I hadn’t caught it?”
The man’s frame was broad enough to blot Hangyeom out entirely. Picturing himself mistaking someone this physically imposing for the slender, striking Kim Hyeseong was—in its own way—genuinely unsettling.
—“Oh please, I know exactly what you can do.”
Hyeseong laughed softly, adding it like reassurance.
—“That esper’s a client I’ve worked with a long time too. Every deal we’ve done, his payments and his follow-through have been spotless. Good manners, the whole package.”
Still—if Kim Hyeseong was vouching for him like this, he was worth trusting. The man had clearly been doing steady business with her, so he’d have at least the basic decency she described. If only to save face for a regular like Hyeseong, taking the man on as a client seemed like the right call for now.
“…Fine. Call Jaewoo right now and explain it to him properly, so this doesn’t turn into a headache for no reason.”
—“Yeah, will do.”
With a light laugh, Hyeseong tacked on a “Thanks, I owe you,” and hung up.
Hangyeom exhaled a short sigh, still glaring at his phone, when the man strode in and shut the door behind him.
“So. Can I get some guiding now?”
His tone said do I have to keep waiting? And fair enough—he’d been left standing at the entrance while Hangyeom took a call.
“…Sit over there.”
Hangyeom jerked his chin toward the chair in the middle of the room and headed for his desk. The cigarette he’d left in the ashtray had already burned down to the filter. What a waste.
“Like the flyer says—guiding’s $10 for five minutes. First time, I cap it at ten minutes so I can read our wavelength and check how efficient the guiding is.”
He said it was about wavelength and efficiency, but the real reason was that espers who’d struggled to get proper guiding often lost half their minds on the first hit and lunged at him without warning. Unregistered users couldn’t easily gauge their own rank, so there was no telling their compatibility with a guide. So Hangyeom used the first session to figure out how deep the client sank into the guiding, and how much it took to get proper results. That way, next time, he could deliver exactly what they paid for—nothing more, nothing less.
The man settled into the chair without complaint.
“But after the first time, more than ten minutes is on the table?”
“Yeah. Depends how much cash you bring.”
Hangyeom crushed the smoldering cigarette into the ashtray and held out his hand toward the man.
“Since you’re standing in for noona, I’ll skip the emergency rate. $20.”
Maybe Kim Hyeseong had tipped him off—the man produced $20, neatly folded in half, and handed it over at once, like he’d had it ready.
Hangyeom tossed the bills onto the desk and put his hand out again. This time it wasn’t for money—it meant take my hand.
Leaving the cap and sunglasses in place, the man peeled off only the suffocating black mask. He didn’t take Hangyeom’s hand right away, though; he looked down at it for a moment first. And in that same moment, Hangyeom studied the face he’d just uncovered.
Gorgeous.
The cap and sunglasses kept most of it hidden, but even the high bridge of his nose and the clean line of his jaw were enough to mark him as strikingly, almost exotically beautiful.
Then the man tilted his head up, meeting Hangyeom’s gaze where he stood. The motion lifted the shadow the cap had thrown, and the sharp angles of his face came into clearer view.
“Guiding’s done just by holding hands?”
“Basically, yeah. Touch anywhere else without permission and I’ll dock your time, so watch it.”
“Sounds like you’re saying I could go further than that, if I asked nicely.”
“Right. I’ll do more, if you want. Assuming you’re filthy rich.”
Hand guiding was the only kind Hangyeom offered, but he bluffed on purpose. The guy was new; there was no guarantee he’d become a regular. Dangling a little vague possibility is how you hooked their interest—so they’d keep coming back here, no matter what the competition dangled in front of them.
Not like he’s actually rich anyway.
Among unregistered ability users (people forced to live buried like frightened mice or run as fugitives their whole lives), how many were rolling in money?
