This S-Class Esper is Not an Obsessive Maniac

3.

“Uh…, Ho-yeon?”

“…”

“…”

It wasn’t a mistake. The air cooling down with a hiss was palpably felt on the skin of everyone present at the scene. Even Ryu Ho-yeon, who had caused this awkward atmosphere, could almost hear the sound of ice cracking somewhere, like an auditory hallucination.

‘Hmm. Good, that was pretty cool and stylish.’

… Any cooler, and even a decade-long unrequited love might flee from such coldness. Ryu Ho-yeon was privately satisfied, believing he had perfectly established dominance. Given his fatal weakness of being unable to fulfill the duties of an S-class Esper who should be obsessed with their Guide and maintain an incredible relationship due to being blinded by love, he thought this level of dominance was necessary for their future partnership to run smoothly.

Though he had never explicitly used specific words to describe himself, Ho-yeon firmly believed he was a two-syllable word starting with ‘a’ and ending with ‘l’. This was because in his twenty-five years of boisterous existence, he had never once felt even a hint of sexual desire.

True to his media addiction, he had consumed all sorts of stimulating content available from a very young age, but no amount of exposure could create sexual desire where there was none. The erotic dreams that everyone supposedly has during puberty, and even the random morning events that typically occur for men, were all foreign concepts to Ryu Ho-yeon.

He had theoretically memorized the basic human physical development process, including secondary sexual characteristics. Being naturally short and small-boned, he hadn’t given it much thought in his late teens and early twenties, assuming his growth was just delayed. But at twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five, his height remained stubbornly fixed at 172 centimeters, not growing even 0.1 centimeters more than what he’d reached at seventeen. Ho-yeon humbly accepted that he perfectly fit that two-syllable word starting with ‘a’ and ending with ‘l’.

He hadn’t been particularly interested in or desired to interact with living humans, except for a select few, for quite some time, so Ho-yeon wasn’t particularly disheartened by this fact. However, now that he had been paired with the world’s strongest S-class Esper, wouldn’t that Guide’s feelings be different? They must have been eagerly anticipating falling into the arms of a perfect, obsessive Esper who lacked nothing. That was, admittedly, a bit embarrassing.

“Then let’s proceed with that.”

“…”

“Is that okay?”

“Ah, yes. Yes, yes…”

The Guide, who only appeared decent on the outside, remained visibly stunned throughout the official matching rate test and partner registration that day.

‘It can’t be helped. I suppose it’s also my role as an S-class Esper with leadership to guide my partner well.’

Ryu Ho-yeon, who had internalized a distorted social role without any external confirmation, proceeded to thoroughly interrogate the dazed Guide about his personal details.

The Guide, who seemed somewhat slow despite his sharp appearance, was actually twenty years old, five years younger than Ho-yeon. His guiding grade was at the ambiguous boundary between B-class and A-class, but it was mentioned that for various reasons, it wouldn’t look good to pair a B-class Guide with an S-class Esper, so his official grade would definitely be announced as A-class.

The final matching rate between the two was about 72.3 percent. Although slightly disappointing compared to the early 80 percent matching rate shown in the preliminary DNA sample experiment, it still exceeded the minimum threshold of 70 percent required to form a partnership.

As the exact matching rate was calculated, Ho-yeon finally began to feel the reality of the situation.

It wasn’t a well-scripted plot. It wasn’t a belated April Fool’s joke. It wasn’t a dream that occasionally disturbed his sleep.

It was real. He truly had a partner Guide now.

“I look forward to working with you. No, let’s drop the formalities. I’m older, so I’ll speak casually.”

“Yes, I look forward to working with you too…”

The barely twenty-year-old Guide, whose resident registration card’s ink had barely dried, dreamily shook Ho-yeon’s outstretched hand. The guiding sensation flowing from the point of contact wasn’t bad, and as Ho-yeon slightly tightened his grip, Choi Jae-won’s expression deepened dramatically, as if overwhelmed with emotion. Anyone unaware of the situation might have thought Jae-won was the one receiving guidance, not Ho-yeon.

Seeing that melting expression, Ho-yeon immediately revised his initial judgment of Choi Jae-won based solely on his clean-cut and tall appearance. Ah, even if he was tall and sharply handsome, a Guide was still a Guide. These types, who had lived freely outside the Center until adulthood thinking they were ordinary people, only to end up dedicated to an S-class Esper who had struggled without a compatible Guide, needed no further explanation. One hundred percent.

“Then… can I call you hyung?”

This was definitely a character with the “naive” attribute.

* * *

Before the official partner registration, there was an even more important event for Ryu Ho-yeon. It was his birth registration, or rather, resident registration, which he was experiencing for the first time in about twenty years of his life.

He, who couldn’t even officially exist in this world on paper, was finally able to proudly register the three characters of his name, “Ryu Ho-yeon,” only after discovering a partner Guide who would firmly graft his roots to this world.

As this was something that Ho-yeon himself, his mother, and numerous people around them had vaguely dreamed of and long prepared for, the process went smoothly without any hitches.

While he had internally commented about the twenty-year-old Guide’s ID card ink not being dry yet, Ho-yeon, who didn’t even have such an ID card himself, spent a long time staring at his first ID card with his name and photo on it, without leaving any particular impression.

Needless to say, it was only then that he truly became Ryu Ho-yeon.

After the resident registration, he was listed as an Esper affiliated with the Korean Ability Management Office. It was amusing. Despite never having been outside the Center since birth, he was now officially becoming a part of it.

The lab director, sensing the growth of his son who had suddenly grown up, cried a little. The sound of sobbing over the phone somehow made Ho-yeon’s shoulders feel heavier. But Ho-yeon didn’t cry. He was a strong Esper after all. The strongest in the world.

It was obvious who suffered the most whenever Ho-yeon showed signs of struggle or felt confined within the Center.

An unmarried woman constantly pointed at for having a child of unknown father, enduring all the contempt to give birth to a child who turned out to be a congenital ability user… His mother, who could have lived freely achieving whatever she wanted as the only daughter of a fairly well-off family, instead lived a busy life with her most precious thing mortgaged to the state. There might have been some unethical things done in the process. Although they never openly discussed it, Ho-yeon, growing up in the research lab, heard many things.

So Ho-yeon couldn’t be weak. He shouldn’t be weak. As long as the evaluation of being a ruthless person shadowed his mother, Ho-yeon too had to calmly endure as the son of that ruthless person.

His particular interest in media was also part of this endurance. Movies, dramas, novels, and comics. The protagonists in these various stories with diverse events unfolding all seemed to naturally possess unusual births or difficulties they couldn’t tell others about. Immersing himself in these protagonists’ narratives while empathizing with them was quite comforting, even if unconsciously.

And today.

Ryu Ho-yeon, who had officially registered his identity, been listed as an Esper, and even partnered with an A-class Guide, was about to face another big event.

“Is this all your luggage?”

The Guide, Choi Jae-won, who for some reason seemed exceptionally cheerful today, asked this while naturally taking the bag Ho-yeon was holding.

This isn’t right. As an Esper, he should be boldly carrying the Guide’s luggage, not the other way around…

“…Yeah.”

Only thinking this in his head, Ho-yeon nodded slightly. He nodded again when asked, “Shall we go, hyung?”

Today was the day they would enter the dormitory where the two of them would live together for the first time.

While it had been fascinating to receive his ID card, his Esper public official card, and to sign the partner registration form, none of those days compared to today.

As far back as Ho-yeon could remember, he had already been living in the room adjacent to the current research lab. Although the size of the adjacent room gradually increased and various furnishings were added as he grew up, the basic place where he ate and slept remained unchanged. So, even though there were dormitories attached to the Center, his only experience with living spaces had been occasional invitations to visit the living area of Kim Jun-young and his Guide, who he was close to… Having a dormitory in his own name was still unfamiliar, but it was a surprisingly good feeling nonetheless.

It was Ho-yeon who guided the way, as Choi Jae-won was still unfamiliar with the Center’s geography. Arriving at the familiar building and taking the elevator up, they finally reached room 1101, the dormitory assigned to him and Choi Jae-won.