Only My F-Rank Touch Calms the S-Rank Hunter novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The A-Rank

Ji-seok stood up so fast the stairwell lights flickered.

He put himself between Si-woo and the landing without a word, his hair down over his shoulders and the front of his trousers ruined.

Yang Tae-min leaned on the rail and grinned.

"Relax, Captain. I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Leave."

"I'm leaving. I only came to see why the whole team was shouting."

Yang tipped his head to look past Ji-seok's arm.

"Hey. F-rank. Come find me in the canteen tomorrow. I have something to say that you'll want to hear."

He left.

The fire door sighed shut.

Ji-seok did not turn around.

"I'm sorry," he said to the wall. "I shouldn't have gone down in front of..."

"In front of one person, who was already leaving." Si-woo pulled up his zip. "Ji-seok. You were wonderful."

Ji-seok's shoulders moved.

"Let's go home," said Si-woo.

The next day Yang found him before he could find Yang.

Si-woo was in the Bureau canteen with Ga-eul, splitting a tray of kimchi stew.

Yang dropped into the chair opposite with a coffee in each hand.

"Nam Si-woo," he said. "May I call you Si-woo?"

"No," said Ga-eul.

"I wasn't asking you, plum hair."

"I like him," Si-woo told her.

"You like everyone."

"That's not true. I hate the soup."

Yang put one coffee in front of Si-woo.

"I'm A-rank," he said. "I flare. Not like Cha, he's a natural disaster, but I've burned through six guides in two years."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"You walked into a basement full of falling ceiling and calmed the biggest flare in the country with your bare hands."

"I got lucky."

"And you get paid nothing for it, I hear."

Yang leaned in.

"Come to Team Two. Triple what the Bureau gives you, from my own pocket. I'll put it in writing."

Ga-eul stopped chewing.

Si-woo looked at the coffee.

Triple his pay would cover his mother's laundry rent for a year.

"Why me?" he said.

"Because Cha is a selfish bastard who keeps the one guide who works all to himself," said Yang pleasantly.

"And a man who flares like I do can't afford manners."

"Take the weekend," he added, and left, whistling.

Ga-eul turned to Si-woo.

"No," she said.

"I haven't said anything."

"You were thinking it. Don't. Not for money, not for him." Her voice shook. "Not you."

"Why not me?"

She looked at her soup for a long time.

"I can't tell you yet," she said. "Eat."

Si-woo told Ji-seok that evening, because he did not know how to keep a thing from him.

He told him in Ji-seok's kitchen, while Ji-seok was trying to boil water.

Ji-seok stood at the stove with his back to him and said nothing for a long time.

"Will you go?" he said.

"I don't know."

Ji-seok's hand closed on the edge of the counter.

The marble cracked under his fingers with a sound like a branch.

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