Chapter 36

"You don't like guiding? Are you sick?"

"It's not a guiding problem..."

Nain stopped mid-sentence and let out a deep sigh.

"Then do you dislike me now?"

Ash blinked with his head lowered. His face was expressionless, but only his eyes were moist. Seeing that pitiful appearance for a moment, Nain flinched slightly. Without realizing it, he softened his words a bit.

"...Right now I do find you a bit annoying, but that's not the reason."

It was sincere. Nain didn't feel tremendously bitter about Ash dragging him here in such a way. He was just curious about why he would go this far.

Ash tilted his head slightly as if he didn't understand. He really seemed clueless.

"I told you. I don't really know how to do guiding properly anyway, and I don't feel much from it, so it doesn't matter. More than that, I just don't like physical contact itself. It feels like selling my body."

Ash let out a hollow laugh with surprised eyes.

"We're making a contract with mutual consent, so how is that selling your body?"

"Esper-nim, do you really think this is truly consensual?"

"Well, it's not."

Ash chuckled. Knowing that and still saying such things... A hollow laugh escaped naturally. Having decided to say everything he wanted to say since he'd started, Nain pulled out all the thoughts in his head in a whatever-happens-happens manner.

"Why me specifically? Is it because I'm someone who's easier to deal with later compared to others? Because I have no power, no one to take my side, I'll become a stranger once I turn away, and I'm a Guide who's not even like a Guide? Because I'm easy to toy with?"

Ash listened quietly to Nain's words, then raised his finger and intermittently tapped on the desk. He seemed to be carefully choosing his words. After thinking for a moment, Ash opened his mouth.

"I've never once thought you were easy to deal with. Do you think I'm easy to deal with?"

"..."

He flinched slightly. He couldn't exactly say no. A little, no, a little more than a little, he was easy to deal with. Nain kept his mouth shut without even politely saying no out of courtesy.

"I find you difficult."

"...Me?"

It was unexpected. Was this really the attitude toward someone difficult to deal with?

"Yes. I still don't know how I should treat you. I don't really understand why I'm acting like this either. ...It's the same now. Because I don't want to be hated, I think several times and choose my words in my head before speaking them out loud."

Good heavens, that was him choosing his words carefully? Then how thoughtlessly did he usually speak? Though he couldn't verify the truth of those words, they just sounded like excuses to Nain.

"...Yes. Let's say that's true for now. But I really don't understand, Esper-nim."

"I told you it's Ash."

"Right, Ash. Unlike you, other people don't even treat me as a Guide. They call me F-grade."

Ash answered with a grin.

"I'm glad there's no competition."

Competition, what nonsense. Nain's eyes narrowed triangularly.

"You're insulting me right now, aren't you?"

"Of course not... I meant I'm happy I can monopolize Nain."

Nain shut his mouth and looked at Ash. Unlike his cold gaze, he maintained a smiling face while looking back at him. Whether Nain glared at him or was displeased, Ash always looked at Nain with those eyes. If gazes had temperature, his would always be considered gentle and warm.

"I heard you dislike guiding."

"I used to dislike it."

He gently asserted in past tense. It was also inconsistent. He dislikes guiding, yet what he wants from him is guiding?

"But now I don't really dislike it."

Ash subtly pulled and grabbed Nain's hand. Feeling like he'd get entangled without realizing it if he just sat there stupidly, Nain put strength in his eyes and yanked his hand away.

"Answer me first."

"...Nothing goes by easily. Why are you only interrogating me? And yet when you hear something you don't want to hear, you slip away."

He's so selfish anyway. He muttered to himself, then sat in a sulky posture with one eye squinted. His face, drained of laughter, was quiet like dawn.

"You asked why I'm acting like this, right?"

"..."

"Why do you think I'm acting like this?"

Instead of the answer he wanted, Ash threw the question back to Nain. The reason he was acting this way toward him... Nain hesitated and hesitated again, then blurted out words he had never spoken aloud before.

"Are you perhaps interested in me?"

"Of course I'm interested."

"You know what I mean."

"...?"

"...Do you like me?"

After uttering those last words, Nain immediately regretted it. If it was a misunderstanding, he would just be a little embarrassed, but if it was right? The moment he spoke those words aloud, he was suddenly scared that something between him and Ash might change.

"...Ah."

An exclamation close to a soliloquy. Eyelids blinking a couple times in a daze. In the short silence, Nain held his breath and quietly waited for the answer that would come from Ash.

"I guess so."

"...What?"

"That's right... I guess I do like you."

Ash chuckled as if finding it absurd. It was a moment of realization.

"So I guess that's why I wanted to have you. I wanted to keep you by my side constantly, and I got annoyed when I saw you talking to half-baked people. The feeling was so different from before that I wondered why I was acting like this."

"..."

His heart sank with a thud. This was trouble. Why did I ask? Who knew he didn't know his own feelings? Nain felt breathless with a sense of crisis. What now?

"I think I like you."

Ash smiled with crinkled eyes. Even knowing what those words meant, Nain began to escape from reality. R-right, the word "like" could contain various meanings. Simple fondness for objects or friendship between friends could also be lumped together under "like," couldn't it?

"Just in case you're wondering, I just confessed to you."

"..."

Damn it. Nain failed at self-rationalization and reality escape.

"It's not a joke and it's not liking you as a friend either. It's different."

A rosy vitality brushed across the man's cheek. His desperate denial also turned to bubbles. Nain's head spun round and round. Contrary to Nain, who was visibly shaken, Ash couldn't even hide his excited appearance.

"Um..., sorry but you don't have friends. How do you know it's not liking as a friend?"

"..."

"Just curious."

Ash just kept his mouth shut as if it wasn't worth answering. Only after a long while did he mutter quietly.

"I got rejected, didn't I?"

"Probably so."

"It's my first time being rejected too."

He didn't show any signs of being heartbroken at all. His strangely unaffected appearance made even Nain, who had rejected him, feel awkward.

"...Wh-when did it start?"

"Thanks to you, I just realized it so I'm a bit confused too, but can't you not be curious right now so I don't spoil the mood? I want to enjoy the afterglow a bit."

"I'm curious."

"What are you going to do knowing? Is that important?"

"Of course it's important! What was the trigger exactly?"

When Nain relentlessly piled on questions without mercy, Ash, who had seemed to be in a good mood, gradually narrowed his eyes and showed his displeasure.

"I don't want to. I won't tell you."

"..."

"Even if I tell you, it's not like Nain's feelings will change anyway."

He turned his head away sharply and closed his mouth. Of course, as he said, hearing the answer wouldn't change anything. But nevertheless, he couldn't help being curious.

"If-if it's convincing, my feelings might change."

"..."

"They might change, right? If it's plausible..."

"Really?"

"Yes..."

Nain answered while rolling his eyes in confusion. Ash had acted a bit strangely toward him from the beginning. If people's hypothesis about love at first sight was correct, was that moment inside the gate or when Ash opened his eyes again and they met at the medical ward reception?

Nain hardly remembered what happened inside the gate since he had lost consciousness. He had only heard that Ash had carried the unconscious him outside.

What happened after was as he remembered. Ash had collapsed for a week and couldn't even open his eyes, with no contact with Nain at all. Even right after waking up, there was no particular trigger. He had been kind to Nain from the beginning.

No matter how much he thought about it, there was no justification for him to obsess over him without reason.

"The trigger..."

Ash, who had been thinking deeply, drew out his words, then looked intently at Nain and continued.

"Sorry, but I really don't know either."

"...?"

"I just kept, kept thinking about you. So obsessively that you even appeared in my dreams."

He spoke with a serious expression, his laughter gone. His gray eyes stared straight at Nain without a single waver.

"So I couldn't forget you. Would you believe me if I said it feels like I've lived my whole life waiting only for you, Nain? Sometimes when my body was too painful and difficult, I missed you, and though I resented you, when I actually saw you again, I wasn't angry at all. Rather..."

Suddenly, the man's gaze darkened deeply. Not knowing and not wanting to know the identity of the emotion filling his pupils, Nain wanted to step back hesitantly.

What is this, what...