TGIC Ch 134

Chapter 134

“Hah.”

Vasily let out a faint, disbelieving laugh.

Why was it that the doctor’s words resurfaced now, of all times? Something about memory returning when met with shock—wasn’t that what he had said?

For days, no matter what anyone did, Gidam’s memories had stubbornly refused to come back. Yet at the mere mention of the word love, everything returned. Now Vasily understood all too well what Gidam must have thought of him before.

Gidam, meanwhile, still wore a face full of confusion as he looked around the room. Judging from his reaction, he seemed to have forgotten everything from the past days.

To lose his memories at such crucial moments twice in a row—his troublesome Guide irritated him enough that Vasily asked with a crooked tone,

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I guided an Esper who was in the middle of a rampage. Come to think of it, something burst at the back of my neck…”

“The suppression chip exploded. You lost your memories from the shock, Guide Kwon Gidam.”

“Ah, so that’s why I have this scar…”

Gidam murmured, touching the uneven mark on his nape.

“How do you feel now?”

Gidam glanced down at his naked body, visibly uncomfortable. When his gaze reached the inside of his thighs, flushed red, he spoke,

“The inside of my thighs… stings a little.”

“Yeah? We’ll have to put gel there next time, then.”

“…!”

Gidam’s eyes widened as he snapped his head up toward Vasily. Only then did he seem to realize what the dried white marks on his inner thighs were. His expression hardened instantly.

“What did you do to someone who had no memories!?”

“I told you—I didn’t go all the way.”

“Is that something you say with your mouth right now…!”

Gidam, who had shouted, suddenly froze. He pressed a hand to his forehead as if struck by a sharp headache, and Vasily steadied him when he swayed.

“Get ready. Now that your memories are back, you need to be examined.”

“…Understood.”

Gidam answered in a small voice and stepped out of the room.

He went straight to the bathroom. The moment he stepped into the shower booth, he turned on the water and covered his mouth beneath the falling stream in case a sound slipped out.

What the hell kind of memory is this…?

At first, he remembered nothing at all. Then, after a brief spike of pain, unfamiliar memories began pouring in one after another.

In those memories, he had mistaken memory loss for regression. And because things were different from the past he knew, he assumed it was a parallel world. The bigger issue was this—because he awoke already serving as Vasily’s Guide, the thought that he might have directly altered the past with his own hands never even crossed his mind.

“I revealed I was S-class… and even entered a gate…?”

The enormity of what the memory-lost version of himself had done left him breathless.

It would have been one thing if he had only entered the gate. But he had moved within it with entire familiarity, confronted beasts right in front of Vasily, and…

He had done it twice. And worse—he had acted and spoken as though he’d been repeatedly entering gates all along. He couldn’t even remember Vasily’s expression the first time he said he wanted to enter the gate, since he had been too overwhelmed to even look him in the eye.

As the memories resurfaced, the sting on the inside of his thighs became even more pronounced. And when he recalled the moment just before his memories returned—

Thud!

He couldn’t bear the shock and slammed his forehead into the wall.

Love? Vasily said… he loved me?

Impossible. Vasily, in love? And with him, of all people? Absolutely absurd.

Vasily was someone who stood far from the word love. He was someone accustomed to suppressing, restraining, and controlling others. Gidam had always believed he was a monster who didn’t understand emotions like love.

It made far more sense that Vasily would let him go. The idea of Vasily falling in love with someone was so unrealistic it bordered on fantasy.

And yet… because Vasily was not someone who would casually throw around such a word, Gidam could not simply ignore it.

“You took a while.”

When he stepped into the living room after dressing, Vasily—seated on the sofa—asked casually. Gidam nodded stiffly, unsettled by how normally Vasily behaved.

“…Yes.”

“Let’s go. I’ve already contacted your doctor.”

Vasily passed by him without hesitation and headed to the front door. Gidam frowned.

He had definitely figured everything out—so why wasn’t he asking anything?

Vasily had been suspicious of him for a long time. Implanting a suppression chip even before awakening, manipulating their matching rate, warning him about incidents that had never occurred, preventing accidents without any signs…

But Gidam couldn’t bring himself to explain first. The moment he admitted he remembered everything, he would have to reveal that he had regressed—and he would no longer be able to ignore Vasily’s murmured confession that sounded suspiciously like love.

He could claim breach of contract because Vasily forced him into the gate and demand contract cancellation… but would Vasily ever let him go? Impossible. Vasily would never give up the only S-class Guide capable of withstanding his energy. And besides, the contract he had hidden deep in his drawer had disappeared along with the other ruined belongings.

…I guess I have no choice but to pretend I still don’t remember.

If he insisted he had no memory, Vasily couldn’t force the truth out of him. He couldn’t hide it forever, but if he could buy time until he figured out how to explain…

Well, even if everything had already been exposed, denial was still denial.

In suffocating silence, they descended into the underground parking lot and got into the car.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, the world had changed—the house, the car, even the season. Only now did it truly sink in: he really had been living all this time without memories.

While Vasily drove in silence, he abruptly spoke.

“Don’t you have questions?”

“About what?”

“Aren’t you curious what happened while you lost your memories?”

“Judging from what happened this morning, I’ve already seen enough.”

He had all his memories back; there was nothing to be curious about. When he answered curtly, Vasily gave a faint smile.

“Really? A lot of interesting things happened.”

Interesting for you, maybe.

Dating you? Confusing me with that ridiculous lie? And everything else you did in the name of helping me regain my memories—just thinking about it made Gidam grit his teeth.

Still, asking nothing would make him look even more suspicious.

“What do you mean by interesting?”

“I realized Guide Kwon Gidam has more secrets than I thought.”

Of course Vasily would probe. And that one sentence stabbed him hard enough that he immediately looked out the window.

Outside, barren branches trembled in the wind.

Winter had arrived in full, bringing its unmistakable cold. It was the time of year when even standing close to Vasily made his naturally chilly aura unnoticeable.

Gidam sneaked a glance at him. The crisp air seemed to have improved Vasily’s condition—winter was, after all, his season.

“Congratulations on regaining your memories.”

The doctor greeted them the moment they reached the lab. It seemed Vasily had informed him already.

Remembering that he had often undergone tests at the hospital during his memory loss, Gidam asked,

“Where do I go for the examination?”

“We’ll conduct the tests on the seventh floor.”

“Excuse me? But that’s…”

“Ah—you didn’t hear it from Esper Vasily? Today is the comprehensive matching-rate evaluation.”

Gidam flinched. He immediately turned toward Vasily, who stood calm as ever, while his own face drained of color.

They already knew his rank and matching rate—yet they still wanted to test him?

Now that he thought about it, Vasily had said they needed to go for an examination but had never specified what kind. He had planned this from the beginning. And Gidam… had foolishly assumed Vasily was worried about his physical condition.

“Why are you looking at me like that? We agreed to do a matching-rate exam once the suppression chip was removed.”

“I only got my memories back today. Isn’t it too soon for such a test?”

“Matching-rate exams don’t strain the body. You’ll be fine.”

Vasily wasn’t wrong.

The test merely required attaching a device that recorded resonance waves and performing guiding. It was so simple it felt almost trivial—nothing his current condition couldn’t handle.