Deal Breaker

It wasn’t as if the bastard would give up easily. With some b******t about taming Kanghyeon, he secured a guaranteed hour of private time with him every day. Then he proceeded to torture him mentally.

Though calling it torture was a stretch.

Whether it was suggestion or hypnosis, no matter what Borodin tried on him, Kanghyeon blocked it all. Feeling the gap as market popularity and experiencing it head-on were different things. The frustration Borodin must have felt upon realizing the stark difference in their abilities was beyond words.

[ You look like some gay bastard. ]

Maybe because of that, since yesterday he had started acting emotionally. Childishly so.

[ I heard Korean guys’ things are only as big as a c******s? ]

If that were true, the Korean population would have gone extinct long ago.

Laughing and mocking him, saying his must be the same, he must have forgotten by now that Kanghyeon received contact-type guiding.

Huh.

It was good that he forgot. He probably hadn’t thought as far as realizing that if he turned Kanghyeon into a s****l cripple, Hyeji would have no choice but to leave him and seek out another Esper.

That bastard whose brain was smaller than a c******s had at least made some ‘productive’ attempts during the first two days. He tried to rummage through Kanghyeon’s head to extract useful information. His clients’ secrets, meaning classified information from intelligence agencies of various countries.

Protecting that had consumed an enormous amount of mental energy. In just four days, even he could clearly see that he had lost weight.

What’s this guy going to try today.

Letting out a sigh mixed evenly with resignation and tension, he closed his eyes. Drag, the sound of a chair being shoved scraped against the concrete walls. He complied easily with the grip grabbing his hair and forcing his head back.

[ Open your eyes. ]

As ordered. He opened his eyes with a smile. As always, Kanghyeon’s face, which had been confidently provoking his opponent, slowly lost its smile. It was because Hyeji’s face appeared before him.

This time, it was suggestion.

The obscene cries of a woman and the sounds of flesh colliding echoed against the walls. Hyeji appeared naked before him, being shaken as Borodin, standing behind her, gripped her hair. Kanghyeon clenched his teeth.

You filthy bastard. This is getting added to your list of crimes too.

Unable to humiliate him directly, he was now humiliating his Guide instead. Kanghyeon had endured every suggestion with indifference, no matter what was shown, but this time he couldn’t.

He tried to break the suggestion and reverse it onto the bastard. But his concentration wavered as he focused on the scene before his eyes, and he failed again and again.

Sensing that his despicable trick was working, Borodin grinned unpleasantly. At that moment, Kanghyeon smiled the same way.

Which porno did you pull this from?

He felt something was off, and then realized why.

My Hyeji doesn’t look like that.

There was no mole on her chest. Only the face was Hyeji’s. The body wasn’t the Hyeji he knew. Of course it wasn’t. The only man who knew what Hyeji’s body really looked like was Kanghyeon.

‘Aaahng!’

Aaahng?

Listening closely, even the moans were different. As for the face, maybe he couldn’t find another photo, because it was the Center’s official profile picture.

Perverted bastard. What are you doing using someone else’s resume photo for this? The moment this is over, he’ll report him to the Center.

Borodin, who had been smiling confidently, suddenly went pale and froze. It was because Kanghyeon’s abilities worked the moment his mind stabilized.

My Hyeji is a cold, cold woman. While trying to put the ridiculous dinosaur pajamas she sometimes brought on business trips onto the fake body Borodin had planted in the suggestion, things slipped slightly, and he turned the body into a dinosaur instead.

[ Uaaagh, what is this! ]

The scream of someone who had insulted a deceased being from sixty six million years ago echoed out. Kanghyeon looked straight at the shocked bastard and smiled with curved eyes.

[ Thanks. I was just missing my Guide’s face. ]

While Borodin let his guard down, Kanghyeon grabbed Hyeji’s face and kissed her. Reviving the sensation etched into his memory was easy. After the brief kiss, he looked at the familiar face.

Hyeji really doesn’t smile, even in her resume photo.

“Noh Hyeji.”

Looking at that sullen face made him smile.

“I love you.”

* * *

…Love?

From that day, from that moment on, Kanghyeon couldn’t smile.

Borodin, mistakenly believing he had landed a blow, had been riding high for a while. As if it wasn’t enough to come by every day and inflict mental torture, he constantly hurled insults about his parents via telepathy, like some brat asking after someone’s parents during an online game. One day, it went on all day, and Kanghyeon couldn’t sleep a wink.

The intention was to drive him crazy. All the while unaware that Kanghyeon was going crazy over something else entirely.