Chapter 14 : Swapped Fates: A Guide to Living Together

“Then what should you say?”

“You should apologize! To me!”

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“For cutting contact unilaterally back then.”

“And for letting you overhear strange things when you came looking for me.”

“But it wasn’t for the reasons you think, and it definitely wasn’t because I disliked you.”

“It was just me being pathetic on my own, so please forgive me.”

Even with the apology that seemed readily prepared, Jihan’s anger didn’t easily subside.

Instead, he just rubbed his heated forehead firmly with a lingering sense of dissatisfaction.

“This is driving me crazy.”

“Apologizing so readily makes me even angrier.”

“Haha.”

Despite Jihan’s continued grumbling, his anger still simmering, Sekyeom just laughed, seemingly finding something amusing.

It was such a cheerful laugh that it could lift the listener’s spirits, making Jihan feel drained.

“Stop laughing.”

“Jihan.”

“What.”

Sekyeom’s voice turned calm and gentle.

Though he kept saying strange things with that nice voice.

“Let’s live together.”

Jihan, who had been responding sullenly throughout, doubted his own hearing, wondering what he had just heard.

After shaking his ear a few times with his hand, Jihan pointed to his ear with a dumbfounded expression.

“Hey, I think something’s wrong with your ears.”

“I just heard something strange—”

“I said let’s live together, Yoon Jihan.”

‘Ah, my hearing is fine.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’

Pondering deeply, Jihan concluded that the problem must be with Sekyeom’s head.

“Are you crazy?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“And if I were crazy, wouldn’t that mean your head isn’t okay?”

“Maybe your soul went crazy.”

“Fine, then.”

“Let’s just say that and live together.”

“…Explain properly before I really conclude you’re crazy.”

His condition was already terrible, and hearing such absurd things seemed to make him even more tired.

Feeling a headache creeping up, Jihan pressed his hand against his forehead and rubbed it.

Sekyeom, knowing full well why he was doing that, clicked his tongue softly but stood up from his seat.

Then he grabbed Jihan’s arm and checked the Esper Watch.

ECI level 46%.

Symptoms arising from guiding deficiency mostly appear when the EC level exceeds 40%.

The higher the level, the greater the pain.

After checking the level, Sekyeom quickly got up and went to the wardrobe.

He took out the clothes he had been wearing and rummaged through the pockets.

A moment later, Sekyeom pulled out a small plastic medicine container from the inner breast pocket, took out three pills, and returned.

On his way back, he didn’t forget to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Take this.”

“It won’t lower the level, but it should alleviate the symptoms somewhat.”

“Ugh, what is this.”

“Painkiller.”

Sekyeom supported Jihan’s shoulder to help him sit up.

With practiced hands, he gave Jihan the pills and held the water bottle to his lips.

After gently wiping away the water that trickled down Jihan’s chin with the end of his sleeve, Sekyeom tried to lay him back down on the bed.

Jihan grabbed Sekyeom’s arm, stopping him.

His grip was still uncontrolled, causing pain in the firmly held arm.

Sekyeom frowned, feeling like it might bruise, and was about to pry Jihan’s hand off.

“This isn’t it.”

“I need guiding right now…”

“Guiding?”

“That won’t be easy.”

“No, it’s easy.”

“There’s a Guide right in front of me.”

“No matter how I look at it, this isn’t something medicine can solve, right?”

“It hurts fundamentally because I lack guiding.”

“So, receiving guiding should solve it.”

Sekyeom moved his lips as if he had forgotten how to speak.

Jihan glared up at him and confidently held out his hand.

“So give me guiding.”

“…Me?”

“Who else is here!”

“Stop talking nonsense and just give me guiding!”

“I want to receive guiding in my own body, what’s the problem?”

“You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your body either, right?”

At first glance, it didn’t sound like a major issue.

However, there were underlying problems Jihan didn’t know about.

First, the side effects of guiding were a problem.

While they were fortunate last time to guide without side effects, the two hadn’t even undergone a matching rate test yet.

Guiding in such an uncertain situation could be even more dangerous.

If the energy became tangled incorrectly, the risk of rampaging increased significantly.

But besides these issues, there was an even more crucial problem…

“I don’t know how to guide.”

“…What?”

Jihan’s body flinched as he held his hand out confidently.

Then he blinked repeatedly, as if trying to understand what was said.

Sekyeom gave a mischievous shrug towards Jihan.

“How would I know how to guide?”

“Today is the first time I’ve ever been a Guide.”

“Can you use my ability then?”

Embarrassed, Jihan secretly tried to exert force with his hand.

He furtively glanced around, wondering if the surroundings had changed at all, but nothing was different.

Feeling sheepish, Jihan quietly retracted his outstretched hand.

And silently buried his face in his palms.

“I’m screwed!”

“Why did I have to end up in such a crappy body…?!”

“Crappy?”

“Someone lived in that body for 26 years, isn’t that a bit harsh?”

“Harsh!”

“Give it back, give me back my body!”

“Take it if you can.”

No matter how you looked at it, Jihan was getting the short end of the stick.

For instance, that guy was currently laughing and joking around, looking full of life, while he himself was suffering from guiding deficiency.

What was the point of becoming an Esper if it was like this?

He couldn’t use the power, but his body just ached.

Weren’t there only downsides?

Feeling wronged, Jihan yelled loudly, and Sekyeom helped lay him back down on the bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin.

Then he spoke in a gentle, soothing voice.

“That’s why I suggested we live together.”

“…Explain properly.”

“It means we need to align our living patterns as much as possible.”

“We need to share our conditions and situations, and living together is the most efficient way to do that.”

“And most importantly, we need to learn.”

Not understanding what they suddenly needed to learn, Jihan blinked his large eyes.

“Learn what?”

“Each other’s abilities.”

“…Abilities?”

“You need to teach me how to guide, and I need to teach you how to use my ability.”

“That’s the only way we can even try to pretend to be each other.”

There was no reply from Jihan, lying neatly tucked under the covers.

He was also trying hard, in his own way, to accept the situation.

Because this concerned no one else but himself.

However, that limit revealed its bottom too easily.

Eventually, Jihan returned to his initial emotions.

Anxious and restless.

“Hey, Sekyeom.”

“What?”

“What do you think… why do you think this happened to us?”

Not wanting to transfer his anxiety to Sekyeom, Jihan fixed his gaze on the hospital room ceiling.

However, he couldn’t hide the tension in his jaw or his trembling eyes.

Sekyeom watched him silently for a moment, then deliberately lightened his voice.

It was an attempt to alleviate Jihan’s anxiety even slightly.

“Well, I don’t know either.”

“Isn’t there anything suspicious?”

“Like the Guild Leader said, something like this wouldn’t happen without a cause, right?”

Sekyeom paused, lost in thought.

Jihan glanced at him as he returned to the guardian’s seat and sat cross-legged, feeling a strange sense of novelty.

It was definitely the face and body he saw every day, yet just because Sekyeom was inside, the atmosphere changed.

His downcast eyes, lost in thought, looked profound, and his firmly closed lips seemed somehow reliable.

Even though he had never thought of himself as having narcissistic tendencies.

But Jihan clearly felt a different vibe from his own face than usual.

“If I had to find a cause, maybe that monster was the problem, or maybe entering its stomach was the issue.”

Just then, Sekyeom, having finished organizing his thoughts, looked up and met Jihan’s gaze directly.

Feeling like he was seeing a complete stranger just because the way he moved had changed slightly, Jihan reacted a moment late.

“That pink slime monster?”

“Yeah.”

“If not that, then guiding was the problem, but I’ve never heard of bodies swapping as a side effect of guiding before.”

“Is that so…”

Jihan’s expression turned serious as well.

As Sekyeom said, the only variables were the environment inside the monster’s stomach and the guiding done within it.

However, since he’d never heard of such a side effect from guiding, the probability of that being the cause was extremely low.

“But that thing died, right?”

“Does that mean there’s no guarantee we’ll return even if we find another monster like it?”

“…Are you worried?”

“Of course, I’m worried!”

The bodies they had lived in for 26 years had been swapped.

It was no different from their entire lives being turned upside down.

Beyond the absurdity and disbelief, the worry about whether they could ever return to their original bodies grew with time.

If they couldn’t return to normal, what would happen to them?