Yoon Tae-ha lay still, staring at the ceiling. It was a feeling similar to when she had to return to headquarters without finishing a job properly.

She fiddled with the fingernails on the hand resting on the blanket, then quietly turned onto her side. The blanket was rolled up so tightly that her profile wasn’t visible at all.

What was this feeling called? Defeat? Loss? She brought up names of all sorts of negative emotions, then erased them with a sigh.

The clock showed 10 PM. She never fell asleep at 10 PM. She would probably have to spend the entire night awake. She moved her foot out from under the blanket and tapped it silently.

Should she count sheep?

She tried a classic method to induce sleep.

“One sheep, two sheep, three sheep...”

She managed to count up to 300, but beyond that, her concentration blurred. The fact that he was lying next to her made her feel like she was dying.

Was I always this impatient?

The researchers always told her she was very patient. Like a reward. Professor Yoon was the only one who ever praised her patience. Of course, he meant her tolerance for pain.

She opened her eyes again. She didn’t want her thoughts to drift to childhood memories. As she was quietly killing time, Cheon Geon-young said in a low voice.

“You’re not sleepy at all.”

“......”

“I know you’re not sleeping. That’s not the breathing of someone asleep.”

“Yeah.”

“Give me your hand.”

She slowly slipped her hand inside the blanket fort. She felt Cheon Geon-young take her hand. A soft guiding energy poured into her from his large hand that enveloped hers. Yoon Tae-ha flinched.

His guiding felt particularly stimulating today. Had it been a few days since she last received it? As the energy he transmitted flowed up her arm, her breathing quickened. It didn’t feel significantly different from usual. Why was she being like this? She even felt her face and neck flush as if they were kissing passionately.

She endured the unusual guiding and squeezed her eyes shut.

•

The next day, they arrived at their destination. They parked the fully armored vehicle at a safe hideout just before dawn.

Two fully armed guides left to scout the surroundings. Yoon Tae-ha moved to Choi Bo-mi’s car and was reviewing the operation together. Choi Bo-mi pointed to a part of the map with her finger and said.

“Dog-type chimeras are often sighted in Sector E45.”

“It must be to guard the perimeter.”

“That’s probably it. To keep anything from getting close. People or monsters.”

“Unnie’s team will go to E45. We’ll go to N21.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“This is an area where aerial monsters appear. It’s right for me, with my psychokinesis, to go.”

Choi Bo-mi tilted her head, observing Yoon Tae-ha’s condition. She carefully looked at her lively cheeks and rosy lips, then raised the corners of her mouth in satisfaction.

“You look good.”

“Really?”

“The old Tae-ha used to look a little uneasy when going on missions with a guide. I couldn’t say anything to your face, though.”

“Did I look that uneasy?”

“You seemed more comfortable when you were running around alone without a guide. We used to sometimes say among ourselves that you didn’t seem like an esper at all. Because you hated having a guide so much.”

Professor Yoon did put a lot of effort into making her a being that wasn’t an esper. Yoon Tae-ha swallowed the words she couldn’t say and smiled bitterly.

“You weren’t tied down by guiding either. Thinking about it, even when you were little, Tae-ha, you didn’t move because of guiding.”

Choi Bo-mi, who had been pondering, continued.

“When we were in the North, we used to fight about that a lot. We’d give the person who finished their assignment first the chance to go to the guide who was the most fun and gave out the best snacks.”

“I remember. There was also a gray cat living in the popular guide teacher’s lab, right?”

“That’s right! You remember. I always wanted to go to that teacher. Do-jin oppa had the same taste as me. So, I had a big fight with him once.”

“If you even fought with unnie, that oppa must have been really something.”

“That’s probably why he blended in so quickly in the North. His emotions were always clear.”

Choi Bo-mi chuckled, saying it was even more fun to talk about that oppa who was far away.

“The Center Director contacted me yesterday.”

Yoon Tae-ha, leaning back against the stiff sofa backrest, raised an eyebrow.

“He asked about the mission progress as a formality. The main point was to ask if our Tae-ha was getting along well with her guide.”

“What did you say?”

“That you looked the healthiest I’d ever seen you.”

“Good job.”

“That wasn’t a report that would get me disciplined for making a false statement, was it?”

“You saw me send a mole flying, didn’t you? How much do you think it weighed? When I was locked up in the underwater prison, I couldn’t even lift a baseball with my psychokinesis.”

Choi Bo-mi showed a rare hint of displeasure.

“That was because of the drugs. How many different sedatives do you think they used on you back then?”

The reason she couldn’t escape the hated Ark was right in front of Yoon Tae-ha.

She liked the people she had grown up with. They were people who could make each other laugh but also bare their teeth at each other. She believed that the reason she hadn’t gone crazy and survived the nightmare Professor Yoon had created was thanks to the invisible shield they had surrounded her with.

Choi Bo-mi sipped her lukewarm tea, as if trying to erase her unpleasant feelings. She fiddled with the holster that had her and her guide’s initials engraved side by side and asked.

“What’s Cheon Geon-young’s personality like?”

“Much better than mine. He’s so considerate that I wonder if he even thinks about these things, but he doesn’t show off. He’s also very patient. And he doesn’t get prideful about strange things.”

“It’s true that there were more than one or two guides who felt inferior to you and rolled their eyes.”

Yoon Tae-ha said in a voice filled with sincerity.

“He’s too good for me.”

“If you’re going on missions like this together, you must have built up quite a bit of trust. Treat him well. It needs to last a long time.”

A long time. Could they last a long time? Yoon Tae-ha remained silent for several minutes after Choi Bo-mi’s request.

It was a contradictory situation. The guide she could rely on most comfortably was an outsider. Someone who could just as easily turn hostile towards her.

Was it possible for her to last a long time with him?

No matter how many times she ran the calculations, she couldn’t find an answer. She lightly twisted a strand of hair around her finger. Suddenly, she remembered last night’s guiding.

Recalling the sensation that had made her lose her mind, Yoon Tae-ha couldn’t hold back her curiosity and opened her mouth.

“What does it feel like to receive guiding?”

Choi Bo-mi, who had bent down under the table to tie her shoelaces, suddenly stood up.

“Guiding?”

“Is it too sensitive a question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just been a while since I’ve been asked a question like that.”

She waited for the answer with a slightly anxious feeling. She wondered if other people felt the same sensation as she did last night. If this was the ‘normal guiding’ that espers talked about. Choi Bo-mi, who had been deep in thought, said.

“It’s warm and nice. Like holding a moderately cooled hoppang in your hands on a winter day?”

“......Hoppang?”

“It has a moderately delicious smell, and holding it makes you feel inexplicably content.”

Hoppang, huh? That was a metaphor she had never considered.

Hearing the answer made her feel even more lost in a deeper maze. What was hoppang-like guiding? What she had felt was a sensation like being thrown into a raging fire.

Did it have something in common with appetite? What kind of metaphor was it that she couldn’t understand? Choi Bo-mi smiled brightly at her puzzled expression.

“You don’t get it?”

“I might have understood if it was winter, but I don’t really get it now. Suddenly, I want to eat hoppang.”

Choi Bo-mi laughed heartily and reached out to pinch her cheek. Yoon Tae-ha rubbed the spot where her hand had been. Just then, the car door opened, and the guides appeared. Fresh air flowed in through the briefly opened door.

The two thick-bodied men took off their helmets only after the door was completely closed. Yoon Tae-ha watched without moving as Cheon Geon-young’s black hair fell over his forehead. Perhaps because they had just returned from guarding the perimeter, his eyes looked particularly sharp.

“No abnormalities in the surroundings.”

“Good work.”

Choi Bo-mi greeted them with a smile. Shim Gyu-jong went straight to the refrigerator, looking for water. While those who had finished scouting caught their breath, Yoon Tae-ha also began to put on the equipment she had put aside.

Cheon Geon-young sat on the edge of a chair, looking at Yoon Tae-ha. She felt his intense gaze but pretended not to notice. It was something she always did naturally. But thinking that the man who had shared breaths with her last night was watching her made her hands feel stiff as if they were broken.

She tried to look calm as she put on her knee pads first. She wore a thin bulletproof vest made of new materials and attached the communication device. After putting on specialized goggles that covered a wider area than glasses, she even put on her helmet.

She usually went around with just a watch and communication device on her bare skin, but she couldn’t afford to only seek comfort in a place like the green sea. Having finished her preparations, she activated Jet through her watch.

“Hello, Jet.”

― Hello, Master. It’s nice to see you again in a place full of incidents and accidents.

― For this reconnaissance mission, your designation code is Lima 1-1. Agent Cheon Geon-young is Lima 1-2, Agent Choi Bo-mi is Lima 2-1, and finally, Agent Shim Gyu-jong is Lima 2-2.

“Acknowledged. Take care of me until communication is lost.”

― I will try my best.

With all preparations complete, the four of them stepped into the dark forest.

•

They walked together for about an hour after leaving the hideout. After that, the path diverged. Choi Bo-mi nodded as if to say not to worry, then headed down the left path first.

“Let’s go.”

Yoon Tae-ha said briefly and turned her body. Cheon Geon-young followed calmly one step behind, guarding the rear. Knowing that he was watching her back allowed her to focus on the front.

The dense forest was as silent as a dead mouse. Trees with red bark stood tall, looking down at them. The ground was covered with giant ferns, leaving no place to step.

Her sensitive ears caught the sound of small animals emerging from their burrows. She knew it was the sound of rodents or snakes moving, but a shiver of tension ran down her spine.

They walked for a full six hours without saying a word. In the meantime, sunlight slowly seeped into the forest. She could feel the crouching plants rising as if stretching.

― Lima 1-1 to Lima 2-1, all signals are alive.

Jet briefed the team members’ locations every 30 minutes. Taking that as her only comfort, Yoon Tae-ha walked silently forward. When the ferns became too large and thick to move through, Cheon Geon-young stepped forward.

Her true form emitted a blue light. There was no need to reveal her position to enemies first by taking out a glowing weapon during a reconnaissance mission.