AAGULT Ch 85

Chapter 85

He tilted his chin slightly and sucked. Chup, chuup… The embarrassing and obscene sounds filled the space.

“Keuk…”

He greedily devoured the guiding Jaeha had only partially given. Rather than receiving what Jaeha offered, he ravenously yanked it toward himself as if to steal it, making it harder and harder to breathe. If Jaeha had once taken the guiding as cautiously as licking the outer skin of a watermelon, the man now tore it open, crushed it, and scraped every bit of flesh from the inside. As his blood was drained and all the guiding taken from him, a sharp pain began to torment Jaeha.

“Ugh, euup…”

He recalled the time when that man had personally tightened his collar and trained him thoroughly, and tried to bite his tongue hard in rebellion—but he kept failing. Moreover, the man’s forearm was pinning him hard against the wall, cutting off his breath. Everything about this situation reminded him of that “training.”

“Haah…”

This wasn’t merely a kiss. It was something else, something that robbed him of breath. He scratched fiercely at the steel-like forearm, but his breathing had already been cut off, and without air in his brain, his strength drained rapidly, and his consciousness began to blur. Jaeha’s pupils dilated, contracted, and rolled back as if he might faint.

“Urgh…”

So reverse guiding between espers really is possible. The thick tongue that barged in violently as if to gouge his throat made him want to gag. With the arm pressing on his neck, he couldn’t breathe at all. Rather than pushing or striking him away, Jaeha pulled at the man’s harness. To be precise, he dared to rebel—something he would never have even thought of in the past. And so, he succeeded in grabbing something firmly secured to the harness.

And then the man fell away.

“Cough, gasp, huff, huff…”

“Haah…”

Ha, ha… Tilting his head slightly, he chuckled again, unable to hold back his laughter. His neatly arranged teeth showed. The man lowered his arm. It wasn’t completely removed to the point of collapsing, but Jaeha’s balance was so broken he was practically leaning on the man’s arm.

“……”

Still smiling, the man lowered his gaze. More precisely, he looked at the gun Jaeha was pressing against his solar plexus. Realizing it was the very revolver he had used to “train” Jaeha, the man was not surprised. Rather, he looked as if he was pleased with Jaeha’s rebellion.

“—I made a mistake.”

Compared to his usual taciturn, calm demeanor reminiscent of a large black panther, this was strange, even frightening. Goosebumps rose all over. Jaeha struggled to place his finger on the trigger. The aftereffects of the reverse guiding were severe. His vision spun, and he felt like vomiting. If he hadn’t pointed the gun at the man so brazenly, the man might have drained him dry until he withered away. The lingering fear of narrowly escaping death was immense. So was the sudden return to a state of guiding deficiency he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Huh…”

Unable to say anything, Jaeha trembled as he looked at him. In the backlit shadow, only the man’s eyes gleamed strangely. And somehow, truly, for the first time—

[Should I just…]

His thought…

[…kill him?]

Was heard.

Who? Me? The President, wants to kill me?

“……”

It was he who held the gun. Yet the President was seriously thinking such a thing with complete indifference. His lips were drawn into a slow grin. Dimples, like claw marks, hollowed his cheeks. Rather than charming, he looked fierce—like a scar. His once dry lips were now damp. Knowing why made the feeling not so much shameful as eerie and agonizing.

Suddenly, it felt as if the strength in his hands would give out. He forced himself to keep holding on. The cold metal pressed against his flesh.

“You always ruin my plans.”

“P-President-nim…”

“I wasn’t planning to touch you until you were ‘complete’…”

“……”

The man chuckled lightly and tilted his head crookedly. Then he moved the arm that had been pressing hard on Jaeha’s neck and cupped his cheek. His hand brushed across one eye, almost closing it. It was a gesture like fondly petting a child. Jaeha tried to breathe as softly as possible.

“Why don’t you shoot?”

“……”

“It’s a good chance.”

The man reached out and wrapped his hand gently around the gun. Rather than redirecting it, he kindly, almost affectionately, helped load it. He spun the cylinder and stopped it randomly. Click. The metallic sound rang out. As his body, stiff with tension, further cooled, a chill ran down his spine.

“……”

“Pull it.”

If it were the usual him, he would’ve loaded only one bullet. Jaeha had expected as much from the moment he stole the gun from the man’s harness. It was a one-in-six chance, and he had always survived such odds. Under the mercy of that man’s hand… But now, he was pointing the gun at the man himself.

His hand trembled. The man pressed Jaeha’s finger onto the trigger, as if forcing him…

“P-President… nim…”

Before he knew it, the man had tilted his head. Their foreheads were so close they nearly touched. Their noses brushed. Smiling faintly, laughing intermittently, he didn’t look at all like someone facing a gun barrel. It hadn’t been long since the kiss, and his warm breath was still palpable.

“If you don’t pull it, I’ll kiss you again.”

“……”

“If you hate that, then shoot.”

He urged him. But in the end, Jaeha—

In the end.

“…I don’t want to.”

He lowered his hand from the trigger. His arm, still holding the gun, drooped. Though it didn’t fall to the floor, it was barely hanging on, ready to drop at any moment.

The man looked puzzled. But Jaeha didn’t waver.

Because, already… the vague suspicion he had long harbored had finally solidified into certainty.

“This… the chamber is empty.”

“……”

“……”

Silence followed.

The man neither denied nor confirmed it. Jaeha, afraid to look at his expression, lowered his gaze and trembled. He didn’t even know what he was waiting for.

“……”

But the longer the silence dragged on, the more fear grew—that he might really die this way. Eventually, he squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them to look up at the man.

“……”

But, anticlimactically, the President-nim was looking not at him, but toward the front door.

Clicking his tongue lightly, he then removed his hand from Jaeha completely. Without a word of explanation or reply. Just like that, absurdly—

“See you later.”

At that moment, the space tore open with a crunching sound. An arm reached through the rift. It was a familiar sight.

Whether the man had sensed the presence behind him or had coordinated it in advance, he stepped back without a hint of surprise.

And then, they vanished.

Boom!!

Even before Jaeha could fully grasp that it was Eunyul’s spatial teleportation, the sound of the front door being violently broken made him turn his head. With just a single kiss, he had returned to a time when he had no guiding at all, and now, with the tension gone, the sharp wave tearing through his body brought excruciating pain that blurred his vision. He dropped the gun. It hit the ground with a loud clatter but, of course, didn’t fire.

“A-Aiden…”

“Song Jaeha!”

“Urgh, uugh…”

The moment the man who had rushed over held him in his arms, Jaeha collapsed into his chest. His throat burned as if slashed open by a razor blade, and he struggled not to spit out the metallic liquid. It was a familiar side effect. But even without having taken the suppressant, he hadn’t expected it to be this bad…

Still, even as he writhed in pain, Jaeha instinctively realized something very important.

The gun really had been empty.

And—

The President-nim fled from Aiden-ssi.

The President-nim… cannot defeat Aiden-ssi.

Of course. Because the President-nim was, in the end, an esper too.

“Song Jaeha, stay with me…”

Aiden couldn’t remember the last time he had been this angry.

“D-Dirty. I’m awake…”

Trying to perform emergency treatment, he brought his face close to Jaeha’s lips, which were gushing blood, and tried to support his head. But this foolish, stubborn esper was resisting him, giving strength to his neck just because he didn’t want blood to get on Aiden. That wasn’t enough—he even turned his head away to avoid him, making it impossible to kiss. It infuriated Aiden to the core, but fortunately, he had more than enough power to take control of the situation.

“Song Jaeha, open your mouth before I put you to sleep by force.”

He forced the corners of his lips up. So much tension went into it that a slight spasm followed. He summoned his guiding without difficulty. Even the tiniest irregularity in the crackling waves matched perfectly. To the one and only person in the world he offered guiding for, he kissed Jaeha again as the man melted softly into him.

“Eup, uh…”

“……”

Unlike usual, this contact held no ulterior motive. Even as he kissed him, Aiden didn’t close his eyes. He focused entirely on assessing Song Jaeha’s physical condition. His hands roamed his body, checking him. Finger-shaped bruises were starkly visible on his neck. Worse, his body was completely empty.

Someone had shamelessly stolen every bit of the guiding Aiden had meticulously filled him with.

Most espers, even unconsciously, maintain some kind of defense. But in Jaeha’s case—having suffered from irrational gaslighting for such a long time—it was a different matter. The fact still grated on Aiden’s nerves, but Song Jaeha had not yet completely broken free from Baek Beomwoo. That meant it wasn’t hard to figure out who the thief was.

Baek Beomwoo, that goddamned bastard.