DPGR 161

“Haa…!”

A shock slammed through his entire body. Seo Jiho jolted upright with a dry cough, gasping for breath.

Thud

When he propped himself up beside his hip, something rolled away at his fingertips. Only then did Seo Jiho take in his surroundings.

‘W-where… is this?’

The bed beneath him was a mess of wrinkled sheets. Medicine bottles and empty liquor containers were scattered all around.

Crumpled tissues and bits of trash, purpose unknown, were strewn across the floor. And on the small table sat stacks of instant noodle cups, the kind no one could remember eating.

The scene looked familiar to Seo Jiho. As his mind cleared, he realized where he was.

‘This is… the guiding room…’

It was the same guiding room he had used when he was working with Unpaired Guide Team 1.

As soon as his breathing stabilized, Seo Jiho forced strength into his trembling legs and climbed down from the bed.

Clatter–clack

Empty pill bottles bumped against his feet. Seo Jiho instinctively picked one up and looked at the label.

[Sleep Stabilizer / Seo Jiho]

It was a bottle of sleeping pills he’d once been prescribed from the Center’s medical ward. The inside was completely empty. He glanced up at the three other bottles strewn across the bed.

Tranquilizers, sedatives, sleep aids, things like that.

Of course, they were all empty too. Jiho tilted his head, he caught sight of his face in the mirror attached to the wall.

‘That’s… my face…?’

The god had said he would place him in a body compatible with his soul. Apparently, it had been the first-round version of himself. Then where had the original soul of the first life Seo Jiho gone?

‘No way…’

A bad feeling crept up his spine. Shaking his head, Seo Jiho pushed the thought away and stepped closer to the mirror.

His eyes were badly swollen from crying, and dried tear streaks clung to his cheeks. Frowning, he wiped his face roughly with his hand.

‘Ugh. I didn’t have the best hygiene habits back then, but this is disgusting.’

He has gotten used to a clean lifestyle living with Baek Dojin, Jiho wrinkled his nose and threw open the window to air out the foul-smelling room.

He had just turned around and reached out to start cleaning when–

“Cough, hack! Blegh…!”

A strange sound came from outside the window. Jiho flinched, his shoulders jumping in surprise.

Worried someone might be hurt, he leaned out the window, and spotted a very familiar head down below.

‘Hyung?’

Jiho’s eyes widened. Though the man’s head was bowed and he could only see the back of it, Seo Jiho could recognize Baek Dojin from his hair alone.

‘It must be the first life version of Hyung!’

Thump, thump, thump

His heart pounded. For some reason, adrenaline surged through him. It had been so long since he’d seen Baek Dojin conscious, breathing, and moving like that.

Even though he knew the Baek Dojin of the first life was a different person from the one he knew, Seo Jiho couldn’t help feeling a flutter in his chest.

He hesitated, unsure whether to call out or not, and quietly observed first life Baek Dojin.

Baek Dojin didn’t seem to notice the gaze pouring down on him from above. Still dry-heaving, he eventually turned and slumped against the wall.

“Huff, ugh…”

Pained groans escaped him. And just then, dark red clots came into view, previously hidden behind the back of Baek Dojin’s head.

Seo Jiho’s heart began to pound in a completely different way.

‘Blood…? No way…!’

Judging by his condition, Baek Dojin was suffering from a guiding deficiency. At that level, the pain must’ve been unbearable.

The moment he realized that, Seo Jiho quickly turned on his heel. Even if it was first life Baek Dojin, he was still Baek Dojin. He couldn’t just leave him like that.

“Huff, huff, huff…!”

He burst out of the guiding room and sprinted down the hallway, catching everyone attention around him.

Seo Jiho rarely left the guiding room on his own. Let alone running like this, it was completely unprecedented.

“Wh-what the–?! Guide Seo!”

“Where do you think you’re going without permission?!”

The guides from Team 1 he passed called after him in confusion, but Seo Jiho ignored them all.

He ran straight to the back of the building, where Baek Dojin had collapsed earlier.

“Huff… huff… haa…”

Pausing to catch his breath, Seo Jiho scanned the area for Baek Dojin. Thankfully, he was still sitting in the same spot.

Jiho crept forward cautiously, like approaching a feral cat. When his long shadow finally reached Baek Dojin’s feet.

“…?”

Baek Dojin looked up. His pain-clouded black eyes met Seo Jiho’s, and then widened.

“Uh… ah…”

From his slightly parted lips came a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh.

He just stared blankly at Jiho, lips trembling as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. Jiho tilted his head, surprised that Baek Dojin seemed more coherent than expected.

‘He’s still conscious? But he was coughing up blood from guiding deficiency…’

Seo Jiho stared back and observed Baek Dojin carefully.

‘He’s… different from the Hyung I knew.’

The entire atmosphere around him was off. He seemed more withdrawn. Sensitive. Mentally frayed. The look in his black eyes, focused entirely on Seo Jiho, held a kind of rebellion.

Gulp. Seo Jiho swallowed hard. For some reason, he felt nervous. The Baek Dojin he knew would never hurt him, but this Baek Dojin, he wasn’t sure.

Still, he pushed down the tension and cautiously stepped closer. Baek Dojin looked more distressed than Jiho had expected. He couldn’t just walk away.

‘Just a little. I’ll guide him just a little and then leave.’

Without thinking, Seo Jiho grabbed Baek Dojin’s hand. Then, to get it over with as fast as possible, he pushed his guiding energy into him all at once.

Baek Dojin’s mouth fell open in shock and then he collapsed with a heavy thud.

Startled by the sudden collapse, Seo Jiho grabbed his shoulder in a panic.

“H-hyung? Hyuuhng!”

His tongue was stiff and the words came out garbled, but he kept babbling, trying to wake him up. Of course, Baek Dojin didn’t stir.

‘Wh-what do I do?! Did I knock him out?!’

Jiho flailed helplessly, half in a panic. But he quickly pulled himself together.

‘No, focus, Seo Jiho! You’re here to retrieve the artifact!’

In fact, this might actually be a stroke of luck. The sooner he secured the artifact and returned, the better chance he had of saving Baek Dojin.

‘Hyung used to always wear the resurrection artifact around his neck.’

After hesitating for a moment, Seo Jiho began to search the unconscious Baek Dojin’s body.

But there was no artifact on his neck, in his pockets, or anywhere else.

‘What…? Why isn’t it here…?’

Jiho tilted his head and let out a long sigh. It seemed Baek Dojin had stored the artifact somewhere else. Either that, or he hadn’t received it from Kwak Jiheon yet.

His plan to steal the artifact had fallen apart. Left with no other option, Seo Jiho tried to lift Baek Dojin up.

“Ughhh…!”

Pouring every ounce of strength into the effort, he broke out in a sweat, but there was no way someone with Seo Jiho’s weak body could lift Baek Dojin.

In the end, Jiho had no choice but to leave Baek Dojin and run to get help.

***

“Sigh…”

That evening, Jiho lay on the guiding room bed, trying to organize his thoughts.

First, he’d woken up in the body of first life Seo Jiho and encountered Baek Dojin, whom he then guided.

The collapsed Baek Dojin had been rescued by the passing Team Beta espers and transferred to the Center’s hospital. As for him, he’d just come back from being scolded by the Team 1 Unpaired Guide team leader for leaving the guiding room without permission.

No, scolding was putting it mildly. He was practically under house arrest. No one was standing guard outside his door, but the team leader, who was extremely sensitive to movement, had decided to sleep in the guiding room next door. So it was effectively the same.

‘What now…’

He needed to find the artifact, but as a member of Team 1, he had little freedom of movement.

He was even starting to wonder if he should wait for an opening and sneak out in the middle of the night.

‘No, I don’t even know where the artifact is yet.’

If he left the Center, it would be harder to approach Baek Dojin again. So until he figured out where the artifact was, it was better to stay put.

He made his decision. Jiho sat up and moved to the table.

Rustle

He tore a page from the calendar, since he had no paper, and began jotting things down with a pen he’d secretly swiped from the Team 1 team leader’s office.

_______

Goal: Resurrection Artifact
Location: Dojin-hyung…? (Or Director Kwak Jiheon)
How to obtain it: First, get close to first life Hyung and ask. Or sneak into Hyung’s office and search it?

_______

None of it was particularly brilliant, but at least it was something he could actually do.

‘Right, first I need to get close to the Hyung here. If he doesn’t have it, then Grandpa Jiheon probably does.’

But how was he supposed to get close to Baek Dojin?

Seo Jiho tilted his head. Should he try to win him over with guiding, or just boldly approach him and hang around?

“Yaaawn–”

Staring blankly at the paper made him sleepy again. His eyelids were so heavy they felt like they weighed a ton. He couldn’t hold on much longer.

‘Sleepy…’

He’d think about it more after a nap.

He had reached that conclusion, Seo Jiho tore the paper into tiny pieces and dropped them in the trash can.

He staggered back to the bed, climbed under the covers, curled up with the blanket in his arms, and shut his eyes.

Seo Jiho’s soft breathing echoed quietly inside the tiny five-pyeong (16 square meters) room.

***

As it turned out, all of Jiho’s fretting about how to get close to Baek Dojin was completely unnecessary. Everything went exactly the way he wanted. Like a pumpkin rolling in on a vine, Baek Dojin came to him.

And he came holding a pair contract.

“Let’s sign a contract.”

“……”

“A pair contract. You’re the only one who can guide me.”

“……”

“Just think of it as saving a life. Please…”

Baek Dojin clung to him, putting on his most pitiful act. It seemed he genuinely thought Seo Jiho might refuse.

But Seo Jiho had absolutely no intention of turning him down. In fact, he was grateful Baek Dojin had suggested the pair contract first.

“Mm-hmm…!”

Perfect. Now that they were officially paired, he could get close and find out where the resurrection artifact was. Then he’d take it and return to his own hyung as soon as possible.

Seo Jiho beamed. Unaware, Baek Dojin smiled brightly back at him.