TGIC Ch 94

Chapter 94

The bright sunlight streaming into the room forced my eyes open. It had already been a month since I’d moved into this house. Even the ceiling that greeted me when I woke each day was becoming strangely familiar.

I groped around the bed to silence the alarm shrilling by my pillow. My fingers met something hard, and I picked it up—it was my phone. On the screen where the alarm notification blared, a memo was written.

“Hotel collapse…?”

What was this again? Tilting my head in a daze, the realization suddenly struck me with horror.

How could I have forgotten this?

Tonight, a Gate¹ would erupt, and the resulting shock would bring down an entire building. Because it would happen in the middle of the night, when nearly everyone was asleep—and because the building in question was a famous five-star hotel in the very center of Seoul—the casualty count would be immense.

I had entered the note into my calendar, but between all the chaos of recent events I’d completely let it slip my mind. Of course, I did have a plan. The problem was, it required Vasily’s help.

Rushing out of my room, I went to find him.

I burst a door open and found him in the middle of knotting his necktie. Relief washed through me—thankfully, he hadn’t left yet.

“Today, I’ll be going with you to the Association² as well.”

“You said you weren’t planning to go to the Association for a while. What changed?”

“…”

Unconsciously, I averted my gaze and fell silent for a heartbeat.

Recently, I’d been deliberately avoiding him, except when guiding was necessary. Feeling how strangely close we’d grown, I’d chosen distance as a way to deal with my own confusion—the gap between my past life and my present reunion with him.

Feigning calm under his gaze, I answered,

“A week of nothing but being holed up at home has me restless. And besides, I’m your Guide. Since we never know when you’ll need guiding, I figured it’s better if I stay by your side.”

The words slid easily off my tongue, but Vasily’s expression suggested he didn’t quite buy them.

“Hmm. There aren’t any raids scheduled today, so it shouldn’t matter if you come along.”

“Then I’ll get ready right away.”

Once he gave permission, I closed his door behind me and left.

Vasily had been especially busy this past week. Gate raids, public events—half the time he didn’t return home until late at night.

The day I’d learned about the suppression chip injection’s prognosis, I had subtly told him to avoid Gate raids for now. But that was unrealistic. He’d been dispatched into Gates nearly every day since.

Still, at least he hadn’t recklessly over-used his power to the point of returning home broken as before. Which meant for me, guiding had been limited to simpler contact—just holding hands, sometimes brief embraces—that was enough.

Part of his improved stability was no doubt due to the shifting weather.

As I crossed the living room, I glanced out the window. The days were still hot and bright with sunlight, but cool winds blew at night. Soon enough—the temperature would fall sharply, and Vasily’s favored season would return.

When I’d regressed and gone back in time, it had been spring. Now, already, summer was waning. So many things had happened, yet barely half a year had passed. Time felt both fast and agonizingly slow.

For the first time in a long while, I accompanied Vasily to the Association. We rode in silence, heading down familiar streets—until a building outside caught my attention.

“Esper Vasily. Could you freeze something that tall?”

I pointed to a high-rise, maybe around twenty stories tall, crowned with a major corporation’s logo. Vasily’s eyes followed my finger.

“That much? Easily.”

Far too confident, I thought, frowning. After a moment’s pause, I clarified,

“But… you can’t freeze the people inside.”

“Mm…”

He tapped his finger against the steering wheel thoughtfully. The fact that he’d so naturally excluded this from his consideration when I first asked left me shaking my head in disbelief.

“It’d be tricky, but possible. Why do you ask? Should I try it right now?”

“No—! Absolutely not! It was just a hypothetical question!”

Alarmed, I waved him off quickly. The last thing I needed was to wake up to media chaos about a suddenly frozen office tower because of my careless question.

At least it means it’s possible, I reminded myself, turning back to the window. The hotel fated to collapse tonight was about the same size. The problem was figuring out how to get Vasily there before the Gate appeared…

Maybe I could suggest a spontaneous night drive? But with no exact timing known—only that it would happen in the night—looping aimlessly around the same streets for hours would arouse suspicion. Vasily wasn’t stupid.

No clear plan in sight, we arrived at the Association.

The parking lot was quiet—reporters were gone. Maybe the Association had finally succeeded in driving them out. Or maybe it was simply because I hadn’t shown up alongside Vasily for a while, so they’d given up.

Settling into the private room, I sank into the sofa with a sigh.

Even after a week away, nothing had changed here. Furniture replaced daily as though untouched, even if Vasily had frozen it all during an argument with me; by morning, a perfect duplicate would always be waiting.

For all I knew, even this sofa was a recent replacement from one of those incidents when I’d angered him by refusing my role as his Guide.

“Guide Kwon Gidam.”

I looked up. Vasily had approached, wearing a faint smile.

That smile was enough to set off suspicion immediately. What was he plotting now? I edged back, but the sofa’s high back blocked my retreat.

“You don’t seem busy right now. Guide me.”

“…Right now?”

I stared at him, blinking. The request was surprisingly normal.

Usually, he demanded guiding after a Gate raid. But today, he hadn’t entered one. It was a bit odd, but given he’d still been steadily fulfilling his scheduled four sessions per week, it wasn’t out of the ordinary.

“Fine. Then I’ll do simple contact-guiding.”

Seated beside me, he stretched out his hand as though that would suffice. Without hesitation, I took it.

As the guiding settled into routine, doubts crept into me. Would this amount really be enough, when I still had to rely on him so heavily tonight?

No matter how I concentrated, there was no real transfer—it was only the suppression chip that heated, while in my senses there was no true guiding. Normally, I should have felt both our wavelengths stabilizing together—my human warmth soothing the sharp coldness of his ice-born aura. But as always now, all I discerned was a chill, something between body heat and power, impossible to distinguish.

The thought pushed me to ask what I’d long wondered.

“Does my guiding even do anything for you?”

With a 4% matching rate, surely just holding hands couldn’t mean much.

“It barely works.”

“Then what’s the point—?”

“It’s warm. That’s enough.”

He raised our joined hands, pressing them to his cheek. The cool contact of his skin met the back of my hand. When he softly opened his eyes to glance at me, I still couldn’t tell what lay behind them.

“See? Warm, isn’t it?”

What nonsense was this?

The cold crept slowly into my hand while my thoughts turned again to the suppression chip. Six months… I couldn’t wait six months. Maybe I should call the number on Huai Yan’s nametag after all, see if he had a solution.

But no—more immediately pressing was stopping tonight’s disaster.

“Esper Vasily. Would you be free this evening?”

“There’s an event I’m supposed to attend.”

“Then skip it. Come somewhere with me.”

“It’s a difficult engagement to duck out of…” He spoke in the tone of a man inconvenienced.

I couldn’t help scoffing. After all the times he’d left events early—or not shown up at all—leaving the Association scrambling, now I was supposed to believe it was impossible?

“Tell them something urgent came up.”

“They won’t fall for that excuse.”

“Then invent something else.”

“Mm. An excuse, huh…”

He trailed off, stalling.

I sighed heavily, waiting until finally—I yielded.

“Alright. What do you want in return?”

His lips rose faintly, as though he’d been waiting for me to ask.

“Nothing much. Just come with me on the next Gate raid.”

“That’s all?”

“I get bored going alone. And you haven’t come with me to a Gate in a while.”

True—after he’d heard from others that I’d been pretending to be an Esper inside Gates, he hadn’t brought me along again. The only time I’d since entered a Gate was when Vasily had clashed with Huai Yan.

“And… this one’s going to be a long raid. If I don’t have guiding for days on end, who knows what I’ll do.”

That was practically a threat. I almost nodded—then froze.

Could it be the Gate I’d glimpsed in the piles of paperwork on his desk? That vast, week-long raid?

No… I had been determined never to go near that one. My expression slipped before I could stop it. The thought of losing my chance at freedom while he was away crushed me.

But there was no room to maneuver. Composing my face, I spoke evenly.

“Understood. And that’s your only condition?”

“Yes.”

Satisfied, he finally gave the permission I’d pushed so hard for.

“I’ll tell the Association I’m skipping tonight’s schedule, then. So where are we going?”

“It’s not far—still in Seoul. Just… a place I want to see.”

“Alright. That’s hardly difficult.”

He agreed readily, without demanding explanations. Did he think I only wanted another easy evening together, like watching some film again?

If so, he was in for a rude awakening. Because tonight’s ‘outing’ was something Vasily would absolutely not enjoy.