Chapter 27

"What do you think?"

One Esper asked Nain. Since how the person in question felt was the most important issue.

"Well... I did think he was more reasonable than what I'd heard."

"Is he crazy? How can he think that?"

"Of course, that was at first, but now..."

Now? The Espers looked at Nain with expectant eyes. Nain carefully selected good words from his mind and spoke them aloud.

"His personality seems a bit... unique."

"Hey. That's not unique, that's—!"

"Stop it."

The Esper who was about to argue that Ash's personality wasn't unique but just completely rotten was stripped of his speaking rights, being criticized by someone next to him for being too opinionated.

"It's fortunate it can be dismissed as just unique. Ash is a center native."

"A native?"

"The regional branches here have particularly many kids who've grown up in awakener centers since childhood. Not all of them, but some of those kids are... lacking in social skills, you could say."

"Hey, honestly it's not just the natives, you're also— Urk!"

"Shut up. I'm talking."

The woman who had been speaking punched the Esper who had suddenly interrupted right in the face. Thud. With a clean impact sound, the male Esper covered his struck face with both hands. Nain, who witnessed the scene right in front of him, gasped, but the woman brushed off her hand in the air as if it were nothing and continued speaking.

"If you look at the early stages of awakener education programs, there are virtually no subjects that develop interpersonal skills. Most of it consists of ability training. Well, since their career path is basically already decided, that's probably why they do it that way? This region isn't an exaggeration to call the world's highest gate occurrence area, so most of the Espers they take in have abilities optimized for gate deployment. The purpose is to create useful Espers for gates instead of spending time developing social skills. So I don't completely fail to understand the terrible personalities of center natives."

The Esper who got punched by the woman couldn't voice a single complaint and was stuffing crumpled tissues into his nostrils. It seemed this wasn't the first or second time this had happened. Though it didn't seem like something the person who had made that man's nose bleed without changing her facial expression at all should say, Nain quietly listened to her words for now. If he objected, that fist might come flying toward his face.

"I'm absolutely not defending that bastard. It would be easier to avoid getting entangled with natives if possible."

"...But I think it's already too late for me?"

"..."

Everyone fell silent at Nain's words. As he said, it was already too late for Nain to avoid Ash. They were already entangled. Ash had been frequenting Nain's workplace so obviously that everyone at the 11th Branch had noticed something strange. In a situation where things had already happened, the priority wasn't teaching ways to be careful but figuring out the cause of how it came to be.

But no matter how much they thought about it, there was nothing that could be called a cause. Among the awakeners who were wracking their brains together, one man muttered with an ambiguous expression.

"Just in case."

The man was a Guide from Public Support Team 2. When attention focused on that Guide, he added evidence to support his opinion.

"That bastard absolutely hates receiving guiding. Before, even when we mobilized an Ignore Esper to forcibly keep him in the guiding room, he threw the Ignore out the window and hung all the Guides on trees. Don't you remember how he completely wrecked the building, walls and ceiling and all?"

"Ah, that time..."

The expressions of awakeners who had worked at the center for a long time all became blank. Thinking of that time made their vision go dark.

It was quite a famous incident at the 11th Branch. They had to call ladder trucks to get down the Guides hanging like fruit on a large tree eight stories high, and it became the incident that gave them the trauma of acrophobia.

The building's plumbing and electrical wiring were all blown, and the furniture and fixtures were naturally all broken. Everything except the very structural foundations like columns, slabs, and cores that kept the building from collapsing was completely wrecked. After making the building unable to function immediately, he himself took the fastest flight to a resort in another country, and it took over a full month just to restore the building to its original state using restoration Espers.

"Nain... You said you were multi, right? ...You never know, maybe he unexpectedly liked your guiding."

At those words, the Espers all chuckled and shook their heads.

"Hey, that's really not it."

"He's just a Guide in name only, basically a civilian. When we had skin contact, there was nothing to feel at all."

"I wonder if there's a grade lower than F-grade. Actually, maybe the grade can't even be measured and only his traits are Guide-like."

"F-grade?"

"Something like that."

They giggled saying they'd eat their hats if Nain was actually a Guide. The Guides present worried that Nain might be offended by being called F-grade and watched his reaction, but Nain was used to it and let the words flow by with an indifferent expression.

Then, the Esper with tissues stuffed in his nostrils opened his mouth and dropped a bombshell.

"Didn't he fall in love at first sight?"

"..."

Though it was a joke, no one laughed and silence flowed for a while. Nain was puzzled.

"Fucking bastard, watch your mouth. They say words become seeds."

"There's a limit even to crude talk."

The guy who brought it up got smacked on the back of the head a couple times and looked aggrieved.

But... Nain, who had been thinking for a moment, muttered. It wasn't like there was nothing that bothered him.

"Come to think of it, he steals a few of my things every time he comes."

No, actually, rather than stealing, it was more correct to say he boldly demanded them. Whenever Ash coveted Nain's belongings, he used the expression "borrow." "Let me borrow this for a moment," he'd say. That was the typical line used by thugs who unlawfully extorted other people's belongings.

"What?"

The murmuring voices stopped all at once and gazes focused on Nain. Following the Espers' words telling him to say more about that, Nain listed the items he had taken one by one. Starting with the fountain pen, then his spare name tag, handkerchief, mug, knee blanket, even unused tissue scraps...

"Really?... Taking tissues crossed the line."

"...See, damn it!"

The Esper who had been unfairly hit on the head twice jumped up and shouted. The bloody tissue wad popped out of his nostril and rolled on the floor. People unanimously apologized to him.

Ash would also sit beside him without having anything particular to say, pile up coin-shaped chocolates and eat them one by one before leaving, send away hypochondriac Espers who came to the medical ward with just a glare, and even urge Nain to tell interesting stories because he was bored.

When Nain asked "Is this also part of the payment?" he would make an unpleasant face and advise "If you live so calculatingly, keeping track of every little thing, you won't make friends." Nain almost wanted to hold up a mirror to his face. When he was the one without friends.

Contrary to people's worries about Nain, rather than being violent, Ash acted kind and reasonable, at least in front of Nain. And he was strangely obsessed with becoming close to Nain.

When Ash came, no one would approach Nain closely. Nain suffered from guilt feeling like he wasn't working properly and was slacking off, but the medical ward staff seemed unconcerned. No, rather, they were somewhat grateful to Nain. Because someone had appeared to exclusively mark Ash, whom they didn't want to deal with. Only Nain didn't know this fact and was at a loss by himself.

"Give up. Your life is ruined now."

The Esper who had heard the whole story defined Nain's situation in one sentence. He even shook his head as if there was no hope.

"Maybe he's just bad at making friends?"

Nain got the feeling of someone without friends desperately struggling to try making a friend for once.

"What... does that even make sense?"

People scoffed at those words.

"What friend would that bastard make?"

"He definitely has some ulterior motive."

Everyone asserted that it wasn't anything like that. Their expressions of disgust were masterful.

'Even so, we're both men, falling in love at first sight... Isn't that even more nonsensical?'

Nain thought with a reluctant expression. Even he, who found Ash's appearance to his taste, wouldn't assert that he had fallen in love at first sight. It was true that he had been interested seeing his looks, but that was all. Whether he would become good friends with him or not depended on his subsequent actions.

Perhaps because people here were awakeners, due to their job characteristics, they didn't show much burden about same-sex physical contact or emotional exchange. Men falling in love at first sight with each other. From Nain's perspective, it was somewhat like a new world.

* * *

It was the next day.

"Nain, I don't know if you know this, but..."

"What is it?"

"Ash has been... going around saying you're his Guide..."

"...?"

According to the person who delivered this news, when asked what his relationship with the dimension wanderer was, Ash would lower his voice as if sharing intimate stories and alternately answer "someone I share secrets with" or "my Guide."