Guiding the Obsessive Yandere, Childhood Friend, and Nerd (2)

Hovering over her with both of her wrists pinned in his grip, Eun-chan breathed hard.

Oh... I've seen this scene a hundred times.

Seo-ah's eyes glittered as she stared up at him.

A woman pinned beneath a man, hands caught, gasping for breath—this was the classic childhood-friend TL setup, wasn't it? Her eyes began to sparkle in earnest.

Eun-chan, meanwhile, gripped her wrists even tighter. Great, her eyes have gone weird again. Right, Lee Seo-ah had always been this kind of person. He was a little scared to let go, honestly—no telling what she'd do.

"Seriously, I think you've lost your mind lately."

He looked down at her, her clothes barely hanging on, because he'd caught the unmistakable gleam of madness in her eyes.

Tak—

"Ow!"

He flicked her on the forehead, released her wrists, and sat up. Once he'd put his clothes back in order, he gazed at her sprawled across the bed.

"Snap out of it."

Figures.

Seo-ah sat up, mulling it over. Even if childhood friends made a perfectly good couple, she and Eun-chan were not that.

"You need to understand my position here. I'm the only one without a partner. The center won't even look me in the eye. I'm S-class, and I'm basically a shiny peach with a rotten core."

Eun-chan clicked his tongue at the look in her eyes.

"And they really say there's no match for you at all?"

"You can't go around telling people that. It's classified..."

"Classified, my ass. When would I ever set foot in the center anyway?"

An ordinary civilian with no powers couldn't so much as enter the building. And until an incident swept someone into a Gate, there was no reason he'd ever cross paths with an awakener.

Above all, Eun-chan didn't care about that other world. He'd simply lent an ear to a friend's troubles, that was all.

Meanwhile, having awakened as a Guide, Seo-ah could hardly even date an ordinary person anymore. Since she'd have to keep guiding anyway, ordinary people avoided awakener encounters altogether—which meant they avoided her.

Confronting that reality all over again, Seo-ah's face fell into a sulk. Eun-chan watched her for a moment, then—whether some thought had struck him or not—said something oddly magnanimous.

"If you want a relationship that badly, why not just date me?"

"Are you insane? You and me?"

That, she wanted no part of.

Seo-ah showed up at the center again today, like clockwork. With no matched esper, there was no Gate duty for her—a job that was technically field work but functioned as desk work.

Feeling she ought to be of some use, she had appointed herself to the paperwork.

At the center, she drew eyes wherever she went—thanks, of course, to the gold-rimmed ID badge around her neck, the mark of an S-class.

But what on earth did people hear about me that they won't even come near me?

She couldn't figure it out, because everyone clammed up the moment she approached. The only rumor she'd actually caught wind of was that she had picky eyes.

Having printed, copied, and sorted her documents, she headed for the breakroom.

As an S-class Guide, Seo-ah had, exceptionally, been assigned a private room—a space where she could wait on standby for guiding sessions or simply rest. In effect, the center had given her her own private office and lounge combined.

But the S-class Guide had nothing to actually do, which made using that private room feel unbearably awkward. So instead of sitting in her office, Seo-ah bustled around helping the staff: delivering documents to other departments, running print jobs, feeding the shredder, and cheerfully picking up any odd chore that came her way.

Her favorite spot among them all was the breakroom—the place that kept the lifeblood of every office worker in stock: coffee.

As she was brewing a cup, a man's voice drifted up behind her.

"Hey, hey, over there."

"No way. Why is the S-class Guide in here? Doesn't she have her own room?"

"No partner means no Gate duty, so word is she does paperwork out of sheer guilt."

"Honestly though, at my level I could apply, right?"

"...You? Are you nuts?"

I can hear you, you know. These ears do work.

Seo-ah pretended not to notice and stared fixedly at the coffee machine.

But apply for what, exactly?

She couldn't follow their conversation. Were they talking about applying for partnership? That wasn't something you could just apply for—it required a match.

Just as her confusion was piling up, the two men stopped talking.

"Whoa, whoa, let's go."

She heard them scrambling out of the breakroom. Once they were gone, Seo-ah let out a short sigh.

At that moment, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Um... Guide Lee Seo-ah? That's you, right?"

When she turned, a rather strikingly handsome man stood there.

So that's why they bolted.

Explained the mad dash for the exit.

"...That's me. But are you talking to me right now?"

It was a first since she'd joined the center.

"Yes. I've been dying to talk to you at least once. Because, you see, I'm confident."

Confident about what? Since when did talking to someone require confidence?

So being S-class really is a big deal, huh. People are this careful just to strike up a conversation.

Seo-ah resolved to be even more careful with her own behavior.

But why does his face look familiar? Who was he?

She'd memorized the faces of every high-rank esper, so it rang a bell—but she couldn't place the name, and her gaze slid down to check his ID badge.

"Ahh."

There he was. Decent face, but a bit lacking in the height department. A bigger frame would've been nice too. That must be why she'd deleted him from memory.

At her inexplicable sigh of regret, the man's face began to stiffen. His nerves apparently got the better of him, because he blurted something out of nowhere.

"You're welcome to look at what's below. I'm confident about it."

Seo-ah's eyes went round as saucers. What kind of move is this? She'd never once heard flirting like this in her life.

"You're asking me to look at your... lower region right now? What exactly does your confidence have to do with me looking at it..."

Is he a new breed of groper? Except this was the center of all places. Sure, people said plenty of espers weren't quite right in the head, but this was novel.

"If you check, you'll be satisfied. You won't regret it. For all that I look like this, even my buddies acknowledge that I'm big."

Seo-ah's eyes dropped all on their own.

So being big is his business—why does it follow that I'll be satisfied? Is he bragging? Why...?

She got that he was confident. What she couldn't fathom was why that confidence had led to an offer to show her.

"No—why would I look at your...?"

She'd asked, but curiosity had already stirred at the words manhood... at big...

Frankly, opportunities like this didn't come around often. A lifelong single with zero dating experience, Seo-ah had never once seen an actual penis in all her years on this earth.

Unable to tear her downward gaze away, and before the man could say anything else, she opened her mouth again.

"...I know this is terribly rude of me, but shall we take a look, then?"

He's begging me to look; refusing would just be awkward. And I am curious how confident he really is.

Seo-ah lifted her chin and nodded at him.

Whether her gesture read as what are you waiting for, get it out, the man swallowed audibly, then slowly brought his hand to his zipper.

What followed was the unveiling of the manhood that had been held prisoner in his underwear.

In the manhwa Seo-ah had read all her life, this moment was always rendered as a glowing white-mosaic rod of light. Novels, to their credit, went into somewhat more detail:

A vein bulging along the dusky-red shaft, rigid and rearing toward the navel, a bead of clear fluid glistening at its tip...

The heroines, confronted with a forearm-thick cock swollen taut to the point of bursting, would all think the same thing: "If he puts that inside me, I'll tear in half!"

And yet the cock before Seo-ah's eyes—forearm? It was thinner than her slender wrist, and while not small, it didn't look intimidatingly large so much as... manageable.

Seo-ah didn't know this, of course, but the man's member was, by real-world standards, genuinely big enough to warrant his confidence. Compared to the average man, it was jaw-dropping.

"...Mm. You said you were confident."

Seo-ah lifted her gaze with complete indifference.

It was similar to the descriptions in novels, sure. But it was small.

She was disappointed. Honestly? Very disappointed.

I should give him an honest review, right? Otherwise he'll go elsewhere, whip out this confident cock of his, and sell himself short. That would be a tragedy.

"I gave it a good look. But by my standards, I'm not sure it counts as big."

B-class esper Lee Sang-hyun's pupils shook violently. But Seo-ah, a professional when it came to office life, hadn't forgotten a few words of encouragement either.

"That said, I do admire how confident you are about yourself."

Loving your own body is healthy, after all.

She flashed him a bright smile, picked up her freshly brewed coffee, and swept gracefully out of the breakroom.

From that day on, Seo-ah became a famous figure at the center.

B-class esper Lee Sang-hyun. The guide who had volunteered to guide him abruptly withdrew her application.

"And how is that my fault?"

When Seo-ah asked back, genuinely baffled, Kim Han just stared at her in disbelief.

"Haah... word got out that you rejected him."

"Lee Sang-hyun? Never heard of— oh."

She was trying to remember who that was when the memory of the recent, rather small cock surfaced.

"But surely other people had applied for him. You could just pair him up with one of them."

"...There were quite a few applicants. Right up until you turned him down."

"I don't understand."

Kim Han sighed at the pure, innocent look on her face.

"He asked you to look, didn't he."

"At what? Oh... ohhh. Right, he did."

"Why on earth did you look? The rumor isn't actually true, is it?"

Why did I look? Because he asked, and because I was curious. So I looked. That was the whole of it. Seo-ah answered with perfect calm.

"Oh! It was nothing, really."