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In the world of Guides and Espers, humanity has evolved beyond ordinary limits. Some individuals, known as Espers , possess extraordinary supernatural abilities—telepathy, telekinesis, elemental manipulation, precognition, and countless other powers that defy conventional understanding. These abilities make them invaluable to society, whether in military operations, disaster relief, scientific research, or specialized fields like professional sports.
However, great power comes with great risk. Espers face a constant threat, going berserk—a dangerous condition where their abilities spiral out of control due to mental and emotional overload. During these episodes, an Esper's powers can become destructive and uncontrollable, potentially harming themselves and everyone around them.
This is where Guides become essential. Guides are individuals born with the unique ability to provide psychic and emotional stabilization to Espers. Through physical contact, proximity, or specialized techniques, Guides can calm an Esper's turbulent mental state, prevent them to go berserk, and help Espers maintain control over their powers. If Espers don't receive guiding, they become unable to control their own power, and are eventually consumed by it and die.
The relationship between an Esper and their Guide is deeply intimate, both professionally and personally. Guiding requires trust, emotional openness, and often physical contact, creating bonds that can be stronger than family ties. However, not all Espers and Guides are compatible—finding the right match can be challenging.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Being an B-class guide was hell on earth. In a world where you can be attacked by monstrosities that you only see in your nightmares, or have your skull smashed in by espers who go mad, being a guide was not exactly the best job in the world.
Sure, it was your job, and you were happy to have a job. But seriously, who would be happy having to guide big bastards who have more ego than brain cells?
Nobody, thank you very much.
Today's world was supposedly humanity's greatest achievement. Espers with supernatural abilities protecting society from interdimensional monsters, while Guides provided the psychic stabilization to keep said Espers from turning into the very monsters they fought. A beautiful symbiotic relationship, they said. A partnership forged in necessity and trust.
What a load of crap.
In reality, it was more like being a supernatural babysitter for overpowered adult children who thought they were God's gift to humanity. Sure, some Espers were decent—professional, respectful, treated you like an actual human being instead of a walking battery charger. Those were the unicorns of the profession. Most Espers fell into two categories : the ones who treated you like fragile glass that might shatter if they breathed wrong, or the complete assholes who acted like you were beneath them.
You'd dealt with both types. Give you the glass-treaters any day—at least they said 'please' and 'thank you' when you were literally keeping their brains from melting out of their ears.
The worst part? The bureaucracy.
The Esper-Guide Association had more red tape than a government office and twice the incompetence. Every session had to be documented. Every compatibility rating analyzed. Every personality conflict filed in triplicate with a psychological evaluation attached.
And don't even get you started on the pay. Apparently, the privilege of potentially dying from psychic backlash was supposed to be reward enough. The recruitment posters made it look glamorous—beautiful people in pristine white uniforms, hands glowing with ethereal light, saving the world one guiding session at a time.
They didn't show you the part where you spent half the time cleaning up esper vomit after particularly nasty crashouts episodes. Nor the lovely experience of having someone else's traumatic memories accidentally bleed into your head during deep guiding sessions.
But hey, at least the health insurance was decent. When you inevitably ended up in therapy from prolonged exposure to esper neuroses, it was covered.
You were in the middle of enjoying your lukewarm coffee and contemplating on your life when your supervisor, Minori, appeared at your desk like a bad omen in a pencil skirt.
"We have a situation," she said, dropping a file thick enough to be used as a weapon onto your desk.
You didn't look up from your coffee. "Good morning to you too, Minori. Lovely weather we're having. Yes, I did have a pleasant weekend, thank you for asking."
"Cut the sarcasm. This is serious."
Now that got your attention. You glanced at the file, noting the warning stickers plastered across the front like it was hazardous material. Which, knowing your luck, it probably was.
"Let me guess," you said, leaning back in your chair. "Another prima donna who thinks guides are peasants unworthy of their divine presence?"
"Worse."
You blinked. "Worse than Daiki?" Daiki had been a class-A nightmare who'd gone through fifteen guides in six months and had the charming habit of critiquing your guiding technique while you were actively preventing his brain from turning to soup.
"Much worse." Minori's smile was the kind of smile sharks probably wore right before they bit surfers in half. "Meet Sae Itoshi."
The name sounded vaguely familiar, which was never a good sign in this business. The famous espers were usually famous for all the wrong reasons.
You opened the file and immediately understood why it was so thick.
The first page was a standard esper profile, complete with a photo of what had to be the most smugly beautiful man you'd ever seen. Sharp teal eyes that looked like they could cut glass, hair that probably cost more to maintain than your monthly salary, and an expression that screamed 'I'm better than you and we both know it.'
You wanted to smash your fist in his beautiful head already.
Spatial manipulation abilities, ranked S-class. Tactical precognition. High combat effectiveness ratings. And then you got to the fun part.
"Twenty guides in one year?" You flipped through page after page of incident reports, psychological evaluations, and what appeared to be actual written complaints filed by former guides. "Jesus Christ, what did he do, murder them?"
"Worse. He broke them psychologically."
You read a few of the testimonials. Guide Aoi Hastume had apparently filed a formal complaint stating that working with Sae Itoshi had given her trust issues and a nervous tic. Guide Marcus Webb, a foreigner, had requested a transfer to the hazmat cleanup division, in his native country—literally preferring to scrub monster guts off the walls than deal with Sae (or any other esper really) for another day.
Your personal favorite was from Guide Lisa Park, a korean woman, who had written, and you quoted: "Mr. Itoshi possesses all the warmth and empathy of a particularly vindictive glacier. He criticized my guiding technique, my posture, my breathing, and at one point suggested I consider a career change to something more suited to my 'limited abilities,' such as professional doorstop. I would rather guide a rabid honey badger."
"Well," you said, closing the file. "He sounds delightful. I'm assuming his winning personality is why you're dumping him on me instead of one of our more experienced guides?"
Minori’s smile got even sharker. "Our more experienced guides have standards. You, on the other hand, have a track record of handling difficult cases."
"Difficult cases, yes. Not psychological warfare veterans."
"The Association is breathing down our necks. If we can't provide stable guiding for Sae Itoshi, they're threatening to transfer him to the Tokyo branch." She paused dramatically. "Along with his funding. And his research grants. And about forty percent of our annual budget."
Ah. There it was. The real reason you were getting volunteered for this suicide mission.
"So let me get this straight," you said. "You want me to babysit an S-rank esper with a God complex and the social skills of a cactus, purely because our department can't afford to lose his funding."
"Exactly."
"And if I refuse?"
"You won't." Minori’s smile was pure predator now, menacing. "Because you're the best handler of difficult espers we have, and we both know you're too stubborn to back down from a challenge."
She wasn't wrong, damn her. You had a reputation for taking on the cases everyone else ran screaming from (and maybe you had too much ego to back down from a challenge, maybe). It was probably going to get you killed one day, but at least you'd go down with your pride.
"Fine," you said, standing up and grabbing the file. "But I want hazard pay."
"Done."
"And first pick of vacation dates."
"Fine."
"And if he gives me a nervous breakdown, you're paying for my therapy."
"Deal." Minori was already walking away, probably before you could add any more demands to the list. "He'll be here at two for your first session. Try not to quit before dinner."
You stared down at the file in your hands, then at the smiling photo of Sae Itoshi with his perfect hair and his 'I'm-better-than-you' expression.
"Well," you muttered to yourself, "at least it can't be worse than that time an esper accidentally showed me his furry porn collection during a deep link."
Famous last words, probably.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Two o'clock came and went like a middle finger to your schedule.
Two-fifteen. Two-thirty. Two-forty-five.
You sat in the sterile guiding room, staring at the compatibility testing equipment that looked like it belonged in either a medical facility or a torture chamber. The psychic resonance scanner hummed quietly in the corner, its sensors calibrated and ready to measure the theoretical harmony between your guiding wavelength and whatever cosmic frequency Sae Itoshi's brain operated on.
Assuming he ever bothered to show up.
At three o'clock, you gave up and called the front desk.
"Yuki, has Sae Itoshi checked in yet?"
"Oh! The pretty one. No, haven't seen him. Want me to call his handler?"
"He doesn't have a handler, that's why I'm here. Never mind."
You hung up and contemplated your life choices. This was exactly the kind of power play you'd expected from reading his file.
Make the lowly B-class guide wait around like a servant, establish dominance from the start. Classic asshole behavior.
Well, two could play that game.
Fifteen minutes later, you were stalking through the facility's training wing with the determination of a woman who had better things to do than babysit spoiled espers.
The training rooms were where espers practiced their abilities in controlled environments, away from the general population and expensive equipment they might accidentally destroy.
You found him in Training Room 7.
And immediately understood why twenty guides had fled screaming into the night.
Sae Itoshi was beautiful in the way that expensive sports cars were beautiful—sleek, powerful, and absolutely lethal if you weren't careful. He moved through the training course like physics were merely suggestions he'd chosen to follow out of politeness. Objects hung suspended in mid-air around him, rotating in complex patterns that defied every law of motion you remembered from high school.
But it wasn't his abilities that made you want to turn around and walk away. It was the expression on his face.
Pure, concentrated boredom.
He looked like a god who'd been forced to entertain himself with finger painting. Like this incredible display of spatial manipulation was so far beneath his capabilities that he was practically falling asleep while doing it.
The training course—designed to challenge even A-class espers—was being completed with the enthusiasm of someone doing their taxes.
"Sae Itoshi," you called out, your voice echoing in the large space.
He didn't stop. Didn't even glance in your direction. A training dummy went flying across the room with enough force to embed itself in the reinforced wall, and he still looked bored.
"Sae Itoshi," you repeated, louder this time, for him to ignore you again. “Sae,” you said one last time, hoping that calling his name would maybe piss him off.
This time he paused, letting the floating objects drop to the ground with a series of metallic clangs that sounded like a death knell for your patience.
When he turned to look at you, those teal eyes swept over you with all the interest one might show a piece of lint.
"And you are?" His voice was exactly what you'd expected : smooth, cultured, and dripping with the kind of condescension that made you want to check if he'd somehow stolen your lunch money without you noticing.
"Your appointment that you missed," you said, crossing your arms. "I'm your new guide."
Something flickered across his expression. Amusement, maybe. Or possibly both.
"Ah," he said, turning back to reset the training course. "Another one."
Another one. Like you were a pizza delivery driver instead of the person keeping him from being a rabid dog.
"We have a compatibility test scheduled," you continued, fighting to keep your voice level. "You know, that thing that determines whether we can work together without one of us ending up in a psychiatric ward?"
"How fascinating," he said in a tone that suggested it was anything but. "And I suppose you expect me to drop everything and accommodate your schedule."
The audacity was actually impressive. Here was a man who had missed his own appointment and was somehow making it sound like you were the inconvenience.
"Well," you said, "since the alternative is you getting transferred to Tokyo and losing the best training facilities in Japan, yeah, I kind of do expect that."
Now you had his attention. He turned around fully, those sharp eyes focusing on you with the intensity of a laser sight.
"Threats already?" There was something almost approving in his voice. "Most guides spend the first session apologizing for existing."
"I'm not most guides." And maybe you sounded like those pick-me, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care
"No," he agreed, looking you up and down like he was evaluating a particularly interesting bug. "You're not, are you? What class?"
The question was casual, but you could hear the trap in it. This was where he'd dismiss you as beneath his notice, probably make some cutting remark about being assigned a B-class guide like it was a personal insult.
"B-class," you said, chin up. "Problem with that?"
His condescending look was sharp enough to cut glass. Now you understand why Akito—another guide who had the doom to “work” with Sae, stated in the files he would piss himself if he came across Sae in the corridors.
"Oh, this is going to be entertaining." He said without any joy.
Somehow, these words sounded more ominous than any threat he could have made.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
The compatibility testing room looked like the bastard child of a medical lab and a torture chamber. Sterile white walls, humming machines, and a chair that was way too reminiscent of a dentist's office for comfort.
You hated this room. Every guide did.
Compatibility testing meant touching, and touching meant either a pleasant buzz of psychic harmony or the mental equivalent of shoving a fork into an electrical socket. The fun part? You never knew which until you tried.
Sae Itoshi didn't look fazed in the slightest. Of course he didn't. He strolled in fifteen minutes late like punctuality was a concept for peasants, hands in his pockets, teal eyes cutting across the room and landing on you with all the warmth of a frozen lake.
"This again?" he asked, nodding toward the scanner with obvious disdain. "How many times do I have to prove these machines are defective?"
"Defective?" You powered up the resonance scanner, ignoring his attitude. "Or maybe you're just incompatible with basic human decency."
"Funny." His voice was flatter than roadkill. "The last guide said something similar. Right before she left and she decided to change careers to become a psychologist."
You'd read about that one. Guide #17, if you remembered correctly. Lasted three days before she decided that leaving was preferable to dealing with Sae's personality.
"Well, I'm not her," you said, gesturing to the chair. "Sit."
He did, with the kind of reluctant grace that suggested he'd rather be anywhere else. The way he settled into the chair was pure predator—relaxed but ready to strike. Like he was humoring you but could end this whenever he felt like it.
You strapped the resonance bands onto his wrists, trying to ignore how he watched your every movement like you were a mildly interesting bug he might squash later.
"So," you said, calibrating the machine. "Twenty guides before me, huh? That's got to be some kind of record."
"Twenty-one," he corrected without emotion. "You're forgetting the one who quit during orientation."
"Smart woman."
"Weak woman." His eyes were cold as arctic ice. "Like all the others."
The casual cruelty in his voice should have pissed you off. Instead, it just made you curious. Nobody got this hostile without reason.
"Right," you said, placing your hand on his wrist. "Let's see if we're eternally doomed to work together or if I get to join the prestigious ranks of your ex-guides."
Skin met skin. The machine beeped.
At first, nothing. Just the usual static buzz of an esper's mental energy brushing against yours, like touching a live wire that hadn't decided whether to shock you yet.
Then—
Slam.
Your head filled with the sharp, cutting clarity that was Sae Itoshi. It wasn't just his power flooding through the connection, it was him—cold, precise, mercilessly controlled. Like stepping into a blizzard where every snowflake was arranged in perfect, lethal symmetry.
Most espers were noisy inside their heads, chaotic. Sae was terrifyingly quiet. All sharp edges and endless control, with an underlying pressure that felt like it could crush you flat if he decided to let it loose.
But here's the thing—it didn't hurt.
It should have. That level of psychic intensity should have felt like getting hit by a freight train. Instead, it was like... like finding the missing piece of a puzzle you didn't know was incomplete.
The machine went completely haywire, numbers spiking higher than you'd ever seen, alarms beeping frantically.
Compatibility: 99.7%.
Your hand jerked back like you'd been burned. "You've got to be shitting me."
Sae's expression shifted, just barely. A flicker of something—surprise? Confusion? It was gone so fast you might have imagined it.
"What?" His voice was carefully neutral, but his eyes had sharpened.
"Ninety-nine point seven percent." You stared at the screen like it had personally betrayed you. "That's... that's not possible. Your file says you're incompatible with everyone."
For the first time since you'd met him, Sae Itoshi looked genuinely unsettled. "The machine's broken."
"The machine is fine. We calibrated it this morning." You grabbed the printout, scanning the numbers with growing horror. "This says we're basically the same person, psychically speaking. Like, soulmate-level compatibility."
His face went completely blank. "Run it again."
"Itoshi—"
"Run. It. Again."
The ice in his voice could have frozen hell over, but you'd dealt with worse. You reset the machine, placed your hand back on his wrist.
The second reading was identical. 99.7%.
This time, when you pulled away, Sae was staring at you like you'd just told him gravity was optional.
"This is impossible," he said, more to himself than to you.
"Yeah, well, impossible seems to be Tuesday's theme." You waved the printout at him. "Congratulations, we're stuck with each other."
He stood abruptly, those teal eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made your skin prickle. "You don't understand. I've been tested with hundreds of guides. Hundreds. The highest compatibility I've ever recorded was 12% percent."
"Well, apparently I'm special."
"You're B-class," he said, like that explained everything. You wanted to snark back "and you're asS-class," but seeing his livid expression made you change your mind.
"So?"
"B-class guides don't have ninety-nine percent compatibility with anyone, let alone S-class espers." He was pacing now, hands clenched at his sides. "There's something wrong with you."
"Gee, thanks. Really feeling the love here."
He stopped pacing and turned to stare at you, something dangerous flickering in his expression. "This changes nothing. High compatibility doesn't make you less pathetic than the others."
And there it was—the defense mechanism. When faced with something that didn't fit his worldview, Sae Itoshi defaulted to being a complete bastard.
"Right," you said, standing up and matching his stare. "Well, pathetic or not, looks like you're stuck with me. So we can either figure out how to work together, or you can explain to the Association why you can't keep a guide who's practically designed for you."
He said nothing, only watching you with that "I'm going to make your life a living hell" look.
You didn't find that really rassuring.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
The guiding chamber was designed for comfort and safety—soft lighting, cushioned chairs, ambient temperature control, and enough psychic dampening fields to contain a small nuclear explosion. It was supposed to be a sanctuary where espers could let their guards down and guides could work without fear of accidentally getting their brains fried.
Sae Itoshi made it feel like a gladiator arena.
He sat across from you with the posture of someone attending his own funeral, arms crossed, radiating the kind of hostile energy that could wilt flowers at fifty paces. The compatibility test results were clipped to your folder, those damning 99.7% numbers practically glowing in accusation.
"So," you said, settling into your chair and trying to project calm professionalism. "This is a standard guiding session. We'll start with basic synchronization, work up to—"
"No."
You blinked. "No?"
"I don't do 'basic' anything." His voice was arctic. "If you can't handle full synchronization immediately, you're wasting both our time."
Full synchronization. On a first session. With an S-class esper who had a documented history of putting guides in therapy.
"That's not how this works," you said carefully. "We build up gradually, establish trust—"
"Trust?" Sae's laugh was sharp enough to cut. "I don't trust you. I don't trust anyone. And I certainly don't trust some B-class guide who thinks a high compatibility score makes them special."
"Look, I know you're pissed about the test results—"
"I'm not pissed." His eyes were flat, emotionless. "I'm bored. Twenty-one guides, and they all said the same things. 'Build up gradually.' 'Establish boundaries.' 'Work within your comfort zone.'" He leaned forward slightly, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. "I don't have a comfort zone. So either do your job properly, or get out."
The challenge hung in the air between you like a loaded gun. This was his game—push the guide until they either quit or made a mistake that proved they weren't good enough for him.
Unfortunately for Sae, you'd been playing games with difficult espers a lot longer than he'd been terrorizing guides.
"Fine," you said, reaching his hands.
For the first time since you'd met him, Sae looked genuinely surprised. "You're insane."
"Probably. But you asked for it." You squeezed his hands, and man they were cold. "Fair warning though—if this goes sideways and I end up in a coma, I'm haunting your ass."
Something flickered in his eyes. Respect? Interest? It was gone too quickly to tell.
"Don't blame me when you can't handle it," he said, but there was less venom in his voice now. Almost like he was curious to see what would happen.
His skin was warm now, which surprised you somehow. Everything else about him was so cold.
"Ready?" you asked.
He nodded once, sharp and controlled.
You began the guiding.
The world exploded.
This wasn't the gentle brush of consciousness you'd felt during the compatibility test. This was Sae Itoshi at full power, unfiltered and unrestrained. His mind was a storm of calculated precision, every thought sharp as a blade, every emotion locked behind walls of ice and steel.
But underneath all that control...
Pain. Exhaustion. A bone-deep weariness that felt like it went back years.
You should have been overwhelmed. The sheer force of his psychic presence should have crushed you flat. Instead, you found yourself... adapting. Like your mind was reshaping itself to accommodate his, finding the spaces where you fit together.
The compatibility test hadn't been wrong. You were made for this.
Sae's eyes went wide, his carefully maintained mask slipping for just a moment. Because he could feel it too—the way your consciousness wrapped around his like it had always belonged there, smoothing the jagged edges and easing the pressure he carried constantly.
"What are you doing?" His voice was barely a whisper.
"My job," you said, holding the connection steady even as his power threatened to overwhelm your senses. "Now shut up and let me work."
For once in his life, Sae Itoshi did as he was told.
The session lasted twenty minutes—longer than most guides could maintain with an A-class esper, let alone an S-class nightmare like Sae. When you finally pulled back, breaking the connection, he was staring at you like you'd just performed a miracle.
"How?" he asked.
You slumped back in your chair, drained but triumphant. "Practice. Stubbornness. And apparently, destiny or whatever the hell that compatibility score means."
He stood abruptly, that familiar mask of cold indifference sliding back into place. "This proves nothing. Any guide can handle one session."
"Any guide, huh?" You pulled out your phone and showed him the time. "Twenty-three minutes. Your longest successful session before this was eight minutes, and that guide spent three days in medical afterward."
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Beginner's luck."
"Sure." You started packing up the equipment, fighting off the exhaustion that came with deep synchronization. "Same time tomorrow?"
"I'm busy tomorrow."
"Then the day after."
"Also busy."
"Sae." You looked up at him, noting the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands were clenched at his sides. "We both know how this ends. You can make it difficult, you can be an asshole, you can try every trick in the book to make me quit. But that compatibility score isn't going anywhere, and neither am I."
He was quiet for a long moment, studying you with those sharp teal eyes.
"You think you know me," he said finally.
"I think you're scared," you replied, and watched his expression go perfectly blank. "I think you've spent so long being untouchable that having someone who can actually reach you terrifies you."
The silence stretched between you like a taut wire.
"Thursday," he said finally. "Two o'clock. Don't be late."
And then he was gone, leaving you alone in the guiding chamber with the lingering scent of ozone and the distinct feeling that you'd just poked a sleeping dragon.
This was either going to be the best decision of your career, or the thing that finally broke you.
Probably both.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Sae Itoshi didn't run. He never ran from anything.
What he did was walk with purpose to his private training room, close the door, engage the soundproofing, and proceed to obliterate three training dummies with enough spatial force to embed their remains into the reinforced walls.
It didn't help.
Twenty-three minutes. Twenty-three fucking minutes of perfect synchronization with a B-class guide who had the audacity to look at him like they understood something. The longest he'd ever managed before was eight minutes, and that had been with Guide Yamamoto, an A-class specialist who'd trained for fifteen years specifically to work with difficult espers.
Eight minutes. With someone who was supposed to be the best.
And this... nobody... this B-class afterthought had not only matched him for twenty-three minutes but had made it feel easy. Natural. Like breathing.
Sae punched the wall hard enough to crack the reinforced concrete.
His knuckles came away bloody, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the mental chaos he was trying to suppress. Because for those twenty-three minutes, for the first time in his adult life, the constant pressure in his head had... stopped.
Just stopped.
The endless sharp edges of his own mind, the weight of his abilities, the crushing awareness of everything around him—it had all just melted away into something that felt almost like peace. And the guide had done it without even trying, like it was nothing. Like Sae wasn't the untouchable S-class esper who'd broken twenty-one guides before them.
"Fuck," he muttered, pressing his forehead against the cracked wall.
He thought of Rin. His little brother would probably laugh himself sick if he could see this. Sae Itoshi, the prodigy, the one who'd awakened as an S-class esper at fourteen and never looked back, reduced to having a crisis over a single guiding session.
Rin had always been the emotional one. Even as kids, before the esper abilities manifested, before everything went to hell. Rin wore his feelings on his sleeve, got attached to people, actually seemed to enjoy human connection.
Sae had learned early that caring about people was a weakness. When you were powerful enough to accidentally kill someone with a stray thought, when every emotion could manifest as reality-bending force, feelings were a luxury he couldn't afford.
And then there was the incident when he was sixteen. The guide who'd tried to manipulate him, who'd used their connection to dig into his memories, his fears, his dreams. Who'd tried to change him from the inside out. The Association had called it an "unfortunate breach of protocol." Sae called it a violation that had left him unable to trust anyone who could touch his mind.
Every guide since then had been kept at arm's length. Professional. Clinical. Safe.
This guide—he didn't even know their full name, he realized with irritation—had blown through twenty years of carefully constructed walls in less than half an hour. And they'd done it by... by what? Being competent? Refusing to be intimidated? Actually doing their job properly?
"I think you're scared. I think you've spent so long being untouchable that having someone who can actually reach you terrifies you."
The words echoed in his mind like an accusation. Because they were right, weren't they? He was terrified. Terrified of being vulnerable, of depending on someone, of letting another person have that kind of access to his mind.
But also...
Also, for twenty-three minutes, he hadn't felt alone.
Sae closed his eyes and tried to analyze what had happened. The guide's presence in his mind hadn't felt invasive or clinical. It had felt like... like coming home. Like finding a missing piece of himself he hadn't even known was gone.
Which was ridiculous. He was Sae Itoshi. He didn't have missing pieces. He was complete, self-sufficient, perfectly functional on his own.
Except for the migraines. And the insomnia. And the way his abilities were getting harder to control lately, requiring more and more effort to maintain the precision he was known for.
Except for the bone-deep exhaustion he carried everywhere, the weight of being constantly on, constantly perfect, constantly untouchable.
The guide had taken that weight away. Just... lifted it off his shoulders like it was nothing.
"Shit," he said again, more quietly this time.
He was in trouble. Real trouble. Because despite every logical reason to maintain his distance, despite the carefully constructed defenses he'd built over the years, despite the fact that caring about people was dangerous for someone like him...
He wanted to see them again.
Not for another session. Not for professional reasons. He wanted to understand how they'd done what they'd done. He wanted to know why they weren't afraid of him. He wanted to figure out why their presence in his mind had felt like coming home instead of being invaded.
He wanted things he'd trained himself not to want.
"You're scared," they'd said. And maybe they were right. Maybe he was scared of wanting something he couldn't control, couldn't predict, couldn't master through sheer force of will.
Maybe he was scared of wanting them.
Sae straightened up, pushing away from the wall. His reflection in the mirrored training room wall looked composed, controlled, perfectly put together. No one looking at him would guess he was having an internal breakdown over a single guiding session.
Good. That was how it should be.
He'd go to the Thursday session. He'd maintain his professional distance. He'd prove to himself that what had happened was just a fluke, an anomaly that wouldn't happen again.
And if the guide looked at him with those knowing eyes, if they somehow saw through his defenses again, if they made him feel that terrifying sense of connection...
Well. He'd deal with that when it happened.
For now, he had twenty-seven hours to convince himself he wasn't looking forward to it.
He was failing already.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Three weeks of regular guiding sessions, and Sae Itoshi was still an insufferable prick.
Sure, he showed up on time now. Sure, he'd stopped trying to psychically overload you during sessions. And yes, there were moments—brief, fleeting moments—where his mask slipped and you caught glimpses of something almost human underneath all that arrogance.
But he was still a bastard who criticized your whole existence, questioned your methods, and had the emotional availability of a particularly vindictive cactus.
Which was why you were less than thrilled to be suiting up for your first field mission together.
"Standard containment operation," Minori had explained, looking far too cheerful for someone sending you into potential mortal danger. "Class-B dimensional rift in the warehouse district. Should be easy."
Should be. Famous last words in this business.
The warehouse district at three in the morning looked like something out of a horror movie. Abandoned buildings stretched into the darkness, their broken windows reflecting the sickly glow of the dimensional rift that had torn through reality like a cosmic paper cut.
The rift itself was maybe ten feet across, hovering three feet off the ground, edges crackling with energy that made your teeth itch. Through it, you could see... not much. Just darkness and the occasional flash of movement that suggested something lived on the other side.
"Class-B, my ass," you muttered, checking your equipment one more time. The psychic dampeners were fully charged, your emergency beacon was active, and you had enough stimulants to keep you conscious through a small apocalypse.
Sae, of course, looked bored. He stood twenty feet away, hands in his pockets, studying the rift like it was a mildly interesting piece of modern art.
"Are you planning to stand there all night, or do you actually intend to do your job?" he asked without looking at you.
"I'm being cautious. You know, that thing smart people do before running headfirst into interdimensional hellholes."
"Caution is for people who lack confidence in their abilities."
"Confidence is for people who want to end up as monster chow."
He finally turned to look at you, one eyebrow raised. "Are you always this dramatic?"
"Are you always this much of a dick?"
Something that might have been amusement flickered across his face. "Yes."
Despite everything, you found yourself almost smiling. Almost.
The plan was simple: you'd provide psychic support while Sae used his spatial manipulation to destabilize the rift and force it closed. Standard procedure for dimensional incursions. What could go wrong?
Everything, as it turned out.
The first sign of trouble was when the rift started expanding instead of contracting under Sae's influence. The second was when something that looked like a cross between a spider and your worst nightmares came skittering out of the tear in reality.
"That's not Class-B," you said, backing up as the creature—the size of a small car and covered in what appeared to be both scales and fur—oriented on you with too many eyes.
"No shit," Sae replied, his spatial field snapping into focus around the creature. "Class-A, maybe Class-S."
The thing lunged. Sae's power caught it mid-leap, suspending it in the air like a very pissed-off piñata. But before either of you could celebrate, three more came through the rift.
Then five more.
Then the rift gave a particularly violent pulse and suddenly the warehouse was full of interdimensional nightmares, all of them very interested in turning you into a late-night snack.
"Fuck," you said eloquently.
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Sae agreed, his power lashing out to keep the creatures at bay. But even his abilities had limits, and there were a lot of monsters.
That's when things went from bad to catastrophically worse.
One of the creatures—a particularly clever bastard that looked like someone had mixed a wolf with a blender and given it anger management issues—flanked around Sae's defenses and went straight for you.
You dove sideways, rolled behind a stack of crates, and immediately realized you'd made a tactical error. The crates were empty. The creature was not.
It pounced, claws extended, mouth full of teeth that belonged in a fossil museum, and you had approximately half a second to contemplate your life choices before—
The creature stopped mid-air, suspended in a field of crackling energy.
"Move," Sae's voice was sharp, strained. "Now."
You moved, scrambling out from behind the crates just as the creature was hurled across the warehouse hard enough to crater the far wall.
"Thanks," you panted.
"Don't thank me yet."
He was right. More creatures were pouring through the rift, and Sae couldn't be everywhere at once. You needed to close that dimensional tear before you both ended up as monster food.
"I need to get closer to the rift," you said.
"Are you insane?"
"Probably. But I can disrupt its psychic resonance if I can establish a connection. Force it to collapse."
Sae looked at you like you'd suggested using your head as a battering ram. "That's not how dimensional rifts work."
"It's worth a try."
"It's suicide."
"You got a better idea?"
He didn't, and you both knew it.
What followed was possibly the most terrifying thirty seconds of your life. Sae carved a path through the creatures with ruthless efficiency, his spatial manipulation turning mundane objects into high-velocity projectiles. You sprinted behind him, trying not to think about the fact that you were running toward the source of all your problems.
You reached the rift, pressed your hands against the crackling energy, and immediately regretted every decision that had led to this moment.
It was like sticking your finger into a cosmic electrical socket. Pain shot through every nerve in your body, and for a moment you could see/feel/taste the space between dimensions—an endless void full of things that shouldn't exist.
But you held on, forcing your consciousness into the chaotic energy, trying to find the pattern that would let you unravel it.
And that's when something grabbed you from behind.
Not one of the creatures. Something worse. Something that felt like living shadow and spoke in voices that came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Come with us, it whispered directly into your mind. Come and see what lies beyond...
Your consciousness started slipping away, pulled toward the rift, toward whatever existed in that space between worlds. This was it. This was how you died—not torn apart by monsters, but dragged into some cosmic nightmare to spend eternity as an interdimensional chew toy.
Then Sae was there.
Not just physically—though he was that too, his hand clamping down on your shoulder like an anchor—but mentally. His consciousness slammed into the connection between you and the shadow-thing like a psychic freight train, wrapping around your mind with protective fury.
Mine, his mental voice was ice and steel and barely controlled rage. They're mine. Find your own.
The shadow-thing recoiled, its hold on you breaking, and suddenly you could breathe again.
"Close it," Sae said through gritted teeth, his power holding back both the creatures and whatever cosmic horror had tried to drag you away. "Close it now."
You didn't need to be told twice. With Sae's mental presence steadying you, you found the resonance frequency of the rift and shattered it.
The tear in reality collapsed with a sound like breaking glass, sucking the remaining creatures back into whatever hellscape they'd come from.
Silence fell over the warehouse.
You and Sae stood there, both breathing hard, both covered in interdimensional monster guts, both very much alive against all odds.
"Well," you said finally. "That was fun. And I think we can call that experience team bonding."
Sae looked at you with an expression you couldn't quite read. "You're an idiot."
"Yeah, but I'm a successful idiot."
"You almost died."
"But I didn't."
"You could have been dragged into another dimension and tortured for eternity by monsters."
"But I wasn't."
His jaw tightened. "You—"
"Sae." You turned to face him fully, noting the way his hands were shaking slightly, the way his usual mask of indifference had cracked. "I'm okay. We're okay."
For a moment, he looked like he might say something else. Something important. Then the mask slammed back into place.
"Don't do anything that stupid again," he said.
"Can't promise that."
"Then at least warn me next time so I can have a sedative ready."
Despite everything, you laughed. "Deal."
As you both trudged back toward the extraction point, covered in monster guts and exhausted, you couldn't shake the memory of Sae's mental voice: Mine. They're mine.
Possessive didn't begin to cover it. And you weren't sure how you felt about that.
Actually, that was a lie. You knew exactly how you felt about it.
You were in so much trouble.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
With everything that had happened, you didn't anticipate that Sae would need emergency guiding.
The adrenaline crash hit him halfway back to the facility. One moment he was walking beside you, making sarcastic comments about the incompetence of whoever had classified this as a Class-B incident. The next, he was stumbling, his spatial field flickering erratically around him like a broken light bulb.
"Sae?" You caught his arm as he swayed. His skin was burning up, and there was a tremor in his hands that hadn't been there before.
"I'm fine," he said, which was obviously bullshit since he could barely stand upright.
"You're crashing. Hard." You'd seen this before—espers who pushed their abilities too far, too fast. The psychic backlash could be deadly if not treated immediately. "We need to get you stabilized."
"I said I'm fine."
"And I said you're full of shit." You pulled out your phone to call for medical transport, but his hand shot out, clamping around your wrist.
"No." His voice was sharp, desperate. "No medical. No one else."
You understood immediately. Medical meant other guides, strangers who would poke around in his head when he was vulnerable. After what had happened with the shadow-thing, after he'd opened his mind to save you, the thought of letting anyone else in probably felt like psychological torture.
"Okay," you said softly. "Okay, no medical. But I need to guide you through this, and I need to do it now."
He nodded shakily, and you helped him to the nearest safe spot—an abandoned office building with enough psychic shielding to contain whatever was about to happen.
The moment you got him seated, his control shattered completely.
His spatial field exploded outward, sending debris flying. The windows blew out. The air itself seemed to twist and bend around him as his power lashed out without direction or purpose.
And Sae was at the center of it all, eyes wide with panic, completely lost in his own abilities.
"Sae." You approached carefully, hands raised. "I'm going to touch you now. I'm going to help."
He couldn't respond—he was too far gone, drowning in his own power. So you did the only thing you could do.
You tackled him.
It was like grabbing a live wire. His uncontrolled abilities hit you like a freight train, chaotic and violent and absolutely overwhelming. But underneath all that chaos, you could feel him—terrified, exhausted, fighting a battle he couldn't win alone.
You wrapped your consciousness around his, the way you'd been trained, the way you'd done dozens of times in controlled sessions. But this was different. This was Sae completely unguarded, all his walls down, every defense stripped away.
You could feel everything. His exhaustion. His fear. The bone-deep loneliness he carried like a weight. The way he'd been fighting his own power for years, never letting anyone close enough to help because trust was a luxury he couldn't afford.
And underneath it all, buried so deep he probably didn't even know it was there—the desperate, aching need to not be alone anymore.
"I've got you," you whispered, your forehead pressed against his, your hands cupping his face. "I've got you. You're safe."
Slowly, carefully, you began pulling his power back under control. It was like trying to tame a hurricane with your bare hands, but you held on, refusing to let go even when his abilities threatened to tear you apart.
Minutes passed. Hours. You lost track of time, lost track of everything except the steady rhythm of bringing Sae back from the edge.
Finally, blessedly, his power settled. The debris stopped flying. The air stopped twisting. And Sae collapsed against you, breathing hard, his face buried in your shoulder.
"Sorry," he whispered against your neck. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"Shh." You ran your fingers through his hair, feeling the way he trembled. "It's okay. You're okay."
He pulled back to look at you, and his eyes were different now. Raw. Vulnerable. All the arrogance and cold indifference stripped away to reveal something that made your heart stutter.
"You could have been hurt," he said. "My power could have killed you."
"But it didn't."
"It could have."
"Sae." You were still holding his face, your thumbs brushing across his cheekbones. "I'm not going anywhere. You can't get rid of me that easily."
Something shifted in his expression. His gaze dropped to your lips, then back to your eyes. The air between you felt charged, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes.
"You should," he said quietly. "Run. Everyone else does."
"I'm not everyone else."
"No," he agreed, his voice barely above a whisper. "You're not."
And then he was kissing you.
It was desperate, urgent, like he was drowning and you were air. His hands fisted in your shirt, pulling you closer, and you melted against him because this, this was what you'd been wanting without even realizing it.
He tasted like adrenaline and danger and something uniquely him that made you dizzy. When you kissed him back, he made a sound that was half relief, half desperation, like he'd been waiting his entire life for this moment.
When you finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against yours.
"This is a terrible idea," he murmured.
"Probably," you agreed.
"I'm difficult to work with."
"Understatement of the century."
"I don't do relationships. I don't do... feelings."
You smiled, brushing a strand of hair away from his face. "Lucky for you, I'm very good at impossible things."
He kissed you again, softer this time, like he was trying to memorize the feeling.
"You're going to regret this," he warned against your lips.
"Maybe," you said. "But I doubt it."
And for the first time since you'd met him, Sae Itoshi smiled. Really smiled, not that sharp, cutting thing he usually wore, but something warm and genuine and absolutely devastating.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Sae Itoshi had a reputation to maintain.
Cold. Untouchable. The kind of esper who could make grown guides cry just by existing in their general vicinity. He'd worked very hard to cultivate that image over the years, and he wasn't about to let it crumble just because he'd gone and gotten himself a guide who made him feel things.
Which was why he was currently having a minor crisis in the facility's break room at 6 AM, staring at two cups of coffee like they held the secrets of the universe.
"You're an idiot," he told himself quietly.
But you'd mentioned yesterday that you hated the facility's coffee. Said it tasted like "liquid sadness with a hint of industrial cleaner." And Sae had spent entirely too much time last night thinking about the disappointed, kicked puppy like face you'd made when you'd taken that first sip.
So here he was, like some lovesick teenager, bringing you proper coffee from the place down the street that charged obscene amounts for what was essentially hot bean water.
The break room door opened, and Sae quickly shoved the second cup behind his back, adopting his usual expression of bored indifference.
"Morning, Sae!" Guide Yuki bounced in, aggressively cheerful as always. "You're up early."
"I'm always up early."
"Right, right. Hey, is that coffee from Moonbeam Café?" She peered at the cup in his hand with interest. "That place is so expensive! Special occasion?"
"It's coffee," Sae said flatly. "Not a marriage proposal."
"Okay, jeez. No need to be so—oh my god." Yuki's eyes went wide as she spotted the second cup he was failing to hide. "Sae Itoshi, do you have coffee for someone else?"
"No."
"You totally do! Who is it? Is it your guide? Oh my god, you got coffee for your guide!"
"I will end you," Sae said calmly.
"This is so cute! Wait until I tell—"
"Yuki." Sae's voice dropped to that particular tone that made seasoned espers take a step back. "If you say one word about this to anyone, I will gut you, and use my spatial manipulation to relocate the parts of your body to the moon."
Yuki gulped. "Got it. Silent as the grave. But seriously, that's really sweet—"
"Moon."
She mimed zipping her lips and practically fled from the break room.
Sae sighed, grabbed both cups, and went to find you.
He found you in the guiding prep room, looking like you'd rather be anywhere else as you stared at the facility's coffee machine with obvious disgust.
"This thing should be classified as a war crime," you muttered.
"Try this instead," Sae said, appearing beside you and holding out the good coffee.
You looked at the cup, then at him, then back at the cup. "Did you... did you get me coffee?"
"The facility coffee is shit. This seemed more efficient than listening to you complain about it."
"Sae." Your voice was soft, and you were looking at him with that expression that made his chest do weird things. "Thank you."
He shrugged, trying to look like it was nothing. "Don't read too much into it."
But when you took that first sip and your whole face lit up, Sae decided that maybe bringing you coffee wasn't the worst way to start the day.
Even if Yuki was definitely going to spread rumors.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Sae was going to commit murder.
Not metaphorical murder. Actual, literal, hide-the-body-in-a-dimensional-rift murder.
The target of his homicidal intentions was currently leaning against your desk, flexing like he was auditioning for a protein shake commercial.
"So anyway," Takeshi was saying, his voice carrying that particular tone that made Sae want to relocate his vocal cords to another dimension, "if you ever get tired of babysitting ice queen over there, I'm always looking for a new guide. A-class espers are a lot more... fun to work with."
You were being polite, branding your "I'm totally not listening to your dumbass speech, fuck you" smile. But Sae could see the tension in your shoulders, the way you'd angled yourself away from Takeshi's aggressive charm offensive. He kinda looked like an obnoxious octopus.
Sae materialized behind the muscle-bound idiot like a particularly vindictive ghost.
"Takeshi," he said pleasantly.
The A-class esper spun around, his easy smile faltering when he met Sae's eyes. "Oh. Hey, Sae. Didn't see you there."
"Clearly." Sae's smile was sharp enough to cut diamond. "I couldn't help but overhear you offering your... services to my guide."
"Just making friendly conversation, man. No harm in that."
"Mm." Sae tilted his head, studying Takeshi like he was a particularly (un)interesting insect. "Tell me, how's your eyes these days?"
"My what now?"
"Your fucking eyesight. You know, your ability to perceive and understand the space around you." Sae's smile widened. "Because you seem to be having trouble understanding the space between 'friendly conversation' and 'harassment.'"
Takeshi puffed up like an offended octopus. "I wasn't harassing anyone—"
"You were leaning over my guide's desk, invading their personal space, and suggesting they'd be better off with someone else. In most cultures, that's called being a disrespectful dickhead."
"Your guide?" Takeshi's eyes narrowed. "Since when do you get possessive about guides? You've gone through like twenty of them."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Several nearby staff members suddenly found urgent business elsewhere.
"Twenty-one," Sae corrected quietly. "And none of them were mine. This one is."
"Says who?"
"Says the 99.7% compatibility rating. Says the fact that we've been working together successfully for three weeks. Says the fact that they can handle my abilities without ending up in therapy." Sae took a step closer, and Takeshi actually backed up. "But mostly, says me."
You cleared your throat. "Um, I'm right here, you know. I can speak for myself."
Both espers looked at you. Takeshi with hope, Sae with something that might have been embarrassment.
"Thanks for the offer, Takeshi," you said diplomatically, "but I'm perfectly happy with my current assignment."
"See?" Sae's smirk was insufferable. "Now run along before I demonstrate what happens when someone annoys me."
"You can't just threaten other espers—"
"Takeshi." Your voice cut through his bluster. Get the hell out before i smash your teeth out."
The A-class esper looked between you and Sae, clearly debating whether his pride was worth potentially getting into a fight with an S-class Esper who looked like he was hoping for an excuse.
Pride lost.
"Whatever," Takeshi muttered. "Your loss."
He stalked off, radiating wounded ego and protein powder.
You turned to look at Sae, one eyebrow raised. "Mine?"
"It was the most efficient way to make him leave."
"Uh-huh. You totally looked like a caveman here."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Right." You were trying not to smile, he could tell. "Well, thanks for the backup. Even if your methods are questionable."
"My methods are perfectly reasonable."
"You basically marked your territory. Don't piss on me next please."
Sae felt his face heat up slightly. "I... that was... shut up."
This time you did smile, and it was soft and fond and made Sae's chest do those weird fluttery things again.
"I kinda liked it, you deffending me I mean." you said quietly, "I didn't mind."
Sae stared at you, his brain temporarily short-circuiting.
"I have to go," he said abruptly, and practically fled.
Behind him, he could hear you laughing.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Sae had never paid attention to other people's eating habits before.
It wasn't his business if someone skipped meals or lived off vending machine snacks. Everyone was an adult, capable of making their own decisions about basic human needs like food and sleep.
But apparently, you were an exception to everything else in his life, so why not this too?
"You didn't eat lunch," he said, appearing in the doorway of your office like an accusation in expensive clothes.
You looked up from your paperwork, startled. "What?"
"Lunch. The meal that happens between breakfast and dinner. You didn't eat it."
"How do you even know that?"
Sae didn't answer, mostly because the answer was that he'd been keeping track of your schedule like some kind of obsessive stalker. Which was perfectly reasonable behavior for someone ensuring their guide maintained optimal performance levels. Obviously.
"I got busy," you said, gesturing at the stack of compatibility reports on your desk. "I'll grab something later."
"Later when? It's already past two."
"Sae, I'm fine—"
"You're not fine. You're running on coffee and spite, which might work for a few days but isn't sustainable long-term." He crossed his arms. "When was the last time you ate an actual meal?"
You were quiet for a moment, clearly trying to remember. "I had... toast. This morning?"
"Toast isn't a meal. Toast is bread that got too hot."
"It had butter on it."
"Butter doesn't magically transform bread into nutrition."
You stared at him. "Are you seriously lecturing me about nutrition right now?"
"Someone needs to. You're obviously not capable of taking care of yourself."
"Excuse me?"
Sae realized he'd said that wrong. He was trying to express concern, but it had come out as an insult instead. Feelings were fucking complicated.
"I meant," he said carefully, "that you focus so much on taking care of everyone else that you forget to take care of yourself."
Your expression softened slightly. "Oh."
"So we're going to lunch."
"We?"
"You think I'm letting you loose in the cafeteria unsupervised? You'll probably just grab a bag of chips and call it a meal."
"I'm not that bad—"
"You ate candy for breakfast last week."
"It was a protein bar!"
"It was chocolate with delusions of adequacy."
Despite your obvious exasperation, you were fighting a smile. "Fine. But I'm not going anywhere fancy."
"The cafeteria is hardly fancy."
"Not the cafeteria. Somewhere real."
Sae blinked. "Like... outside?"
"Yes, Sae. Outside. Where normal people eat lunch."
"I don't do 'outside' lunch."
"I don't care, today you do."
Twenty minutes later, Sae found himself in a small ramen shop three blocks from the facility, watching you demolish a bowl of noodles like you hadn't eaten in days. Which, given what he'd learned about your eating habits, might not have been far from the truth.
"Better?" he asked.
"Much," you said around a mouthful of ramen. "Thanks for dragging me out of the office."
"Someone has to make sure you don't waste away to nothing."
"Is that concern I hear in your voice, Sae Itoshi?"
"It's practicality. Dead guides are useless guides."
But when you laughed, warm and genuine, Sae thought that maybe keeping you alive wasn't just about professional efficiency.
Maybe it was about the way you looked when you were happy, relaxed, not buried under a mountain of paperwork and responsibility.
Maybe it was about the fact that he'd started planning his days around your schedule, looking for excuses to check on you, to make sure you were okay.
Maybe he was completely fucked.
"Same time tomorrow?" you asked as you both headed back to the facility.
"You're not going to remember to eat lunch tomorrow either?"
"Probably not."
Sae sighed. "Fine. But we're going somewhere with actual vegetables next time."
"Deal."
As you walked back, chatting about nothing important, Sae caught a glimpse of his reflection in a storefront window. He looked... different. Relaxed. Almost happy.
He looked like a man who was falling in love, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Fuck.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Sae knew something was wrong the moment he walked into the facility and didn't see you in your usual spot.
You were always early. Always at your desk with your terrible coffee and your mountain of paperwork, ready to face whatever fresh hell the day had in store. The fact that your office was empty at 7:30 AM sent alarm bells ringing in his head.
He found Minori in the main office, looking harried as usual.
"Where's my guide?" he asked without preamble.
"Good morning to you too, Sae. Your guide called in sick."
"Sick?"
"Yes, you know, that thing that happens when people get viruses or infections? Basic human biology?"
Sae ignored her sarcasm. "How sick?"
"I don't know, they just said they had the flu and wouldn't be in today. Why do you—oh no." Minori's expression shifted from exasperation to dawning horror. "You're not actually worried about them, are you?"
"I'm concerned about the disruption to my schedule."
"Uh-huh. And that's why you look like someone just told you your pet died?"
"I don't have pets."
"I can guess. Metaphorically speaking, Sae."
He turned to leave, but Minori's voice stopped him.
"They live in the Sakura Heights apartment complex, building B, unit 314. Hypothetically speaking. If someone wanted to check on them. Hypothetically."
Sae didn't dignify that with a response.
An hour later, he stood outside your apartment door with a bag from the pharmacy and absolutely no idea what he was doing. He didn't do sick visits. He didn't do caring about people's health beyond professional necessity.
But here he was, listening to what sounded like a dying seal coming from inside your apartment.
He knocked.
"Go away," came your voice, muffled and congested. "If it's another advertising delivery person, I promise I'll make you eat paper."
"It's Sae."
Silence. Then the sound of shuffling footsteps and multiple locks being undone.
The door opened to reveal you looking like death warmed over. Pale, shivering, wrapped in what appeared to be every blanket you owned.
"What are you doing here?" you croaked.
"You look terrible."
"Thanks. Really what every sick person wants to hear."
"Have you been to a doctor?"
"It's just the flu, Sae. I don't need—" You broke off into a coughing fit that sounded like it was trying to turn you inside out.
"Right. You're going to the hospital."
"I'm not going to the hospital for the flu."
"You sound like you're dying."
"I'm not dying, I'm just—" Another coughing fit cut you off.
Sae pushed past you into the apartment, noting the scattered tissues, empty soup cans, and the general disaster zone.
"When did this start?"
"Few days ago. It's not—"
"Days? You've been sick for days and didn't say anything?"
"It's not that bad—"
"You can barely speak."
"I'm speaking right now."
"You sound like a broken garbage disposal."
Despite everything, you smiled. "Sweet talker. You really know how to charm people."
Sae set the pharmacy bag on your kitchen counter and started unpacking it. Fever reducers, cough medicine, throat lozenges, the kind of soup that actually had nutrients in it instead of just sodium and regret.
"You didn't have to do this," you said quietly.
"You're my guide. If you die of neglect, I have to break in a new one. Do you have any idea how inconvenient that would be?"
But his hands were gentle as he checked your temperature, his voice softer than usual when he insisted you take the medicine and get back to bed.
"I'll be fine," you protested weakly. "You don't have to stay."
"Someone needs to make sure you don't choke on your own snot."
"Romantic."
"I'm not trying to be romantic. I'm trying to keep you alive."
"I love you," you said quietly, hoping he would returns your feelings.
"... I love you too, you idiot. Now, sleep." He gently cupped your head and kissed you sweetly.
After that, he stayed. Bullying you into drinking water and eating soup, making sure you took your medicine, and pretending he wasn't worried sick when your fever spiked in the evening. He loved you after all.
And he had absolutely no idea what to do about that.
And maybe a few days later, he caught the flu too.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
3 months later
Sae Itoshi was many things: S-class esper, spatial manipulation specialist, former terror of the guide program, an asshole, and—according to the latest compatibility reports—half of the most effective esper-guide partnership in the facility's history.
He was also, you'd discovered, surprisingly domestic when he thought no one was looking.
"You're staring," he said without looking up from the coffee he was making. His apartment kitchen was pristine, all clean lines and expensive appliances that he actually knew how to use. Who knew the man who'd terrorized twenty-one guides had a secret talent for perfectly frothed milk?
"I'm admiring," you corrected, settling more comfortably into the bar stool at his kitchen island. "There's a difference."
"Admiring what, exactly?" He turned around, two cups in hand, and you had to bite back a smile at the sight of him. Hair slightly mussed from sleep, wearing an old training shirt that clung to his shoulders, looking more relaxed than you'd ever seen him during working hours.
"Your kindness and generosity," you said innocently, accepting the coffee he offered. It was perfect, of course. Everything Sae did was perfect once he decided it was worth doing properly.
His eyes narrowed slightly, catching the double meaning, but there was warmth there now instead of ice. "I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"No," he agreed, leaning across the counter to kiss you softly. "I don't."
Three months. Three months since that first disastrous guiding session, since the warehouse incident, since the night you'd kissed him in an abandoned office building while his power tried to tear reality apart. Three months of figuring out how to be together when you'd both spent so long being alone.
It hadn't been easy. Sae didn't do relationships—he'd made that abundantly clear from the start. He was difficult, demanding, and had absolutely no idea how to handle feelings (even a two-month-old baby knew how to manage his feelings better than he did). You'd had fights that ended with him storming out and you throwing things at the door. You'd had moments where his walls went back up so fast it gave you whiplash.
But you'd also had quiet mornings like this. Nights where he'd fall asleep with his head in your lap while you ran your fingers through his hair. Guiding sessions that felt less like work and more like the most intimate thing two people could share.
And slowly, carefully, he'd started letting you in.
"Minori wants to interview us again," you said, settling back with your coffee. "For the quarterly review."
Sae made a sound of disgust. "What does she want to know this time? Our sexual compatibility rating?"
"She's probably wondering why you haven't scared me off yet. You know she's got a betting pool going about how long I'll last."
"What are the odds?"
"Currently? Most people have money on me making it to the six-month mark before you drive me to a nervous breakdown and signaling I"m in an abusive relationship."
He looked genuinely offended. "Six months? I drove Guide Rindo to therapy in three weeks."
"Your reputation is slipping, Itoshi. You're getting soft."
"I am not soft," he said, but there was no heat in it. He moved around the counter to sit beside you, close enough that your knees bumped together. "I'm selectively... less hostile."
"To me."
"To you," he agreed. His hand found yours, fingers interlacing. It still surprised you sometimes, how tactile he was in private. How he sought out contact like he was making up for years of keeping everyone at arm's length.
You squeezed his hand, noting the thin scars across his knuckles from that night three months ago when he'd punched a wall after your first guiding session. He'd told you about that eventually, during one of those late-night conversations where the darkness made it easier to share secrets.
"Can I ask you something?" you said.
"You're going to anyway."
"Why me?" You turned to face him fully. "I mean, really. You'd been tested with hundreds of guides before me. What made me different?"
Sae was quiet for a long moment, staring down at your joined hands. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than usual.
"You want the technical answer or the real one?"
"Both."
"Technically, your psychic wavelength perfectly complements my mental frequency. Your guiding style adapts to match the esper's needs rather than imposing a standardized approach. You're able to handle high-intensity synchronization without losing your sense of self." He paused. "And you're stubborn enough to put up with me."
"And the real answer?"
His grip on your hand tightened slightly. "You weren't afraid of me. Everyone else—they'd walk into that room already defeated. They'd read my file, hear the stories, and decide I was going to break them before we even started. But you..." He looked up at you, and there was something vulnerable in his expression. "You looked at me like I was just another asshole esper having a bad day."
"You were just another asshole esper having a bad day."
"Exactly." He smiled, that real smile that still made your heart skip. "You treated me like I was human instead of some untouchable disaster waiting to happen."
"You are human, Sae."
"Sometimes I forget that."
You understood. The esper program had a way of making people forget their humanity. When you were classified by your abilities, when your worth was measured in power ratings and compatibility scores, it was easy to lose track of the person underneath all that potential for destruction.
"Tell me about before," you said. "Before the program. Before you were S-class."
It was a question you'd been wanting to ask for weeks, but the timing had never felt right. Sae didn't talk about his past easily—every piece of information was hard-won, shared in fragments during quiet moments like this.
He was silent for so long you thought he might not answer. Then:
"I had a brother."
"Had?"
"Have." He corrected himself quickly. "Rin. He's younger than me. We were... close, when we were kids."
There was something in his voice, a careful neutralness that told you this was complicated.
"What happened?"
"I manifested first. Spatial manipulation at fourteen—they said it was one of the youngest S-class awakenings on record. The Association fast-tracked me into the program, specialized training, the works." His jaw tightened. "Rin manifested six months later. S-class too, enhanced physical abilities. They wanted to put us on the same team."
"That sounds like a good thing."
"It was, until it wasn't." Sae's free hand clenched into a fist. "The program... it changes you. They train you to be efficient, effective, emotionally detached. Feelings are a liability when you're fighting interdimensional monsters. Caring about people makes you hesitant, makes you weak."
You waited, sensing there was more.
"I bought into it completely. Threw myself into training, cut ties with everyone who might distract me from becoming the perfect esper. Including Rin." He looked at you, and there was old pain in his eyes. "I told him he was holding me back. That if he wanted to work with me, he needed to stop being so... emotional. So human."
"Sae..."
"He told me I'd become a monster. Said I wasn't his brother anymore, just another heartless esper who cared more about power ratings than people." Sae's voice was barely above a whisper. "He was right."
"No, he wasn't."
"I spent years proving him right. I became exactly what the program wanted—untouchable, efficient, emotionally unavailable. The perfect weapon." He turned to look at you fully. "Until you showed up and reminded me what it felt like to be human again."
Your heart ached for him, for the boy who'd been told that caring was weakness, that isolation was strength. "Have you talked to him? Recently?"
"A few times. Works with the Tokyo branch now, has a guide he actually likes." Sae's mouth quirked up slightly. "Says he wants to meet the person who managed to civilize me."
"Civilize is a strong word."
"He used the term 'house-broken' actually."
You laughed, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. "I like him already."
"You would. You're both disgustingly optimistic about people."
"It's called having faith in humanity, Sae."
"Overrated," he said, but he was smiling. "I prefer having faith in you."
The words hit you harder than they should have, spoken so casually but carrying the weight of everything he'd shared. Sae Itoshi, who didn't trust anyone, who'd spent years believing that caring was weakness, had faith in you.
"I love you," you said, because it needed to be said, because he needed to hear it.
His breath caught, and for a moment you saw him as he must have been years ago—young, uncertain, before the program had taught him to hide everything behind walls of ice.
"I love you too," he said quietly. "Even if I'm terrible at it."
"You're learning."
"I'm trying." He leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours. "Some days I still can't believe you stayed. That you're still here."
"Where else would I be?"
"Smart guides run when they realize what they're getting into."
"Good thing I'm not that smart."
He kissed you then, soft and sweet and full of all the things he still had trouble saying out loud. When you broke apart, he stayed close, his nose brushing against yours.
"Move in with me," he said suddenly.
You pulled back to look at him. "What?"
"Move in. Here. With me." He seemed to realize how abrupt that sounded and cleared his throat. "I mean, if you want to. Your apartment is terrible anyway."
"My apartment is not terrible."
"It has no soundproofing, the heating is broken, and your neighbors play music until three in the morning."
"It has character."
"It has problems." His hands cupped your face, thumbs stroking across your cheekbones. "Stay. Please."
The please did it. Sae Itoshi didn't say please—not unless he really meant it.
"Okay," you said, and watched his entire expression light up.
"Okay?"
"Okay. But I'm not giving up my coffee maker."
"Deal. Mine's better anyway."
"Arrogant ass."
"Your arrogant ass," he corrected, pulling you closer.
"My arrogant ass, and you're my shithead too," you agreed, and kissed him again.
Later, much later, you'd think about how impossible this all was. How a B-class guide and an S-class esper who'd terrorized twenty-one guides before you had somehow figured out how to make this work. How Sae had gone from looking at you like you were an inconvenience to looking at you like you hung the stars.
But for now, you were content to sit in his perfect kitchen, drinking his perfect coffee, listening to him complain about the latest batch of rookie espers while his fingers traced patterns on your wrist.
"The new intake includes a speedster who keeps running into walls," he was saying. "And some kid who can manipulate gravity but only when he's emotional, which is constantly because he's sixteen and thinks everything is the end of the world."
"Sounds familiar," you teased. "Wasn't there an esper who used to throw tantrums when guides tried to work with him?"
"That's completely different."
"How?"
"I had valid reasons for my tantrums."
"Such as?"
"They weren't you."
God. Three months ago, if someone had told you that Sae Itoshi was capable of saying things like that with a completely straight face, you'd have recommended therapy. Now it just made you melt a little.
"You're dangerous," you told him.
"I'm an S-class esper. Of course I'm dangerous."
"Not like that. You're dangerous because you say things like that and mean them."
"I always mean what I say."
"I know. That's the dangerous part."
He smiled, that soft, real smile that was yours now, and pulled you closer. Outside, the sun was setting over the city, painting his apartment in shades of gold and orange. Tomorrow you'd go back to work, back to guiding sessions and mission reports and Minori's knowing looks.
But tonight, you were just you and Sae, figuring out how to be happy together.
And for the first time in a very long time, that felt like enough.
More than enough.
It felt like everything.