(BL) Hunting The Field Guide-Chapter 438: The third day after everyone arrived on the front lines

The third day after everyone had left for the front lines wasn’t as hard as the first day. Kellen planned to keep the rotation that he had for the first class, focusing on Charlie and his newly awakened determination to become the best. His second class came back the second day as if they had the keys to the palace and overwhelmed him with questions.

It was good, and a nice way to keep his mind focused.

Rhys was also a good distraction, and Kellen had enjoyed their cuddling time on the couch once both of them had gotten home the past two days. Rhys was comforting him, not forcing Kellen into anything more intimate than a few kisses here and there.

Kellen was the one who was making things more intimate, and he could tell how much Rhys liked that. Touches over clothes, grabbing him just to hear that little hitch in Rhys’ voice. Kellen was sure a new side of him had awakened, and it was probably to Rhys’ detriment.

He was also very sure that Rhys didn’t view it that way. Rhys seemed very happy with how everything was unfolding, and enjoyed making sure that Kellen knew that he was safe and comforted. Rhys had his hands full, but that didn’t mean that he stopped showing Kellen during the day that he cared for him.

It started on the third day. Rhys would send little gifts to him, mostly food, throughout the day from one of the cafeteria people. Kellen knew that they did deliveries, but this was the first time that Rhys had used them like this. Kellen only knew that they were responsible for stocking the apartments with ingredients, but when someone came knocking at the A Class gym to be let in with a huge platter of fruits cut in the shapes of hearts, Kellen could already feel his face warming.

He could feel how everyone had whipped to stare at him, except Charlie. He had been focusing on his exercise that Kellen had given him. The timer went off as one of the Espers got up and headed over to the door, letting the worker in. Everyone was staring at them, before glancing at Kellen and he made sure to write on his clipboard how many of the exercises that Charlie had done while the worker scanned the room before their eyes landed on Kellen.

They lit up with a smile, and made their way towards Kellen. The platter was twice the size of the worker. There was no way that they weren’t at least an F Class something, and if they weren’t, Kellen hoped they were making good money for this kind of labour. He didn’t have anything on him to tip them with.

"Kellen? What’s the next exercise?" Charlie asked and Kellen cleared his throat.

"Right. Sorry Charlie. Uh, wait a sec, alright?" Kellen suggested and Charlie was confused by that. He had been focused, working on a machine that blocked his view of the front doors since he had his back to them. He turned, looking over his stiff shoulders and Kellen heard him gasp.

"What’s that?" He asked, curiosity and glee filling his voice. "Is that...a platter of some kind?" He asked. A few of the Espers were working out closer to Kellen and Charlie, even if Kellen selected a machine far away from everyone.

They would gravitate towards them. Kellen was fairly certain it was because of the aura that Charlie had. He probably felt soothing just to be around even if the Espers didn’t know what Class he was. Kellen was a little worried about this behaviour, but he didn’t know how to bring it up without making it even more obvious that there was something special about Charlie.

The Espers who were around them and were watching everything that was happening around them chuckled, some even snorting at Charlie’s words.

"It is, little Guide." One of them said and Charlie frowned, glancing at them before he turned his attention back to the approaching person and platter.

Kellen swallowed.

"Delivery for Mr. Woods?" They said cheerfully, knowing who they were going to. Hearing them say the words just solidified that it was for him and Kellen didn’t know what to do as they came to a stop. The Esper who had let them in followed behind, clearly wanting to witness this whole interaction.

"That’s me." Kellen said a little gruffly and they chuckled.

"Oh, I know that." They said, smiling. "Where would you like me to put this down? I had very clear instructions to stay and make sure that you ate ’most of it instead of giving it away’." They said and Kellen felt his face warm. Of course that was the instructions.

There were only three people that Kellen thought would give that instruction, and two of them didn’t know that they could do deliveries from the cafeteria, so the list was actually just one person long.

"Who...who gave you that instruction?" Kellen asked, knowing that everyone was listening in. They smiled.

"Your boyfriend." He said and Kellen felt his face heat. No one had referred to him as such really, and it had a great impact on him. Rhys was his boyfriend. That was true. They weren’t just pairs, weren’t just partners who had a good compatibility score.

Kellen cleared his throat, feeling a little emotional as he looked around and sighed.

"You can put it over on that bench over there where no one is sitting. I promise I won’t share it, but I don’t want to keep you here when I still have work to do." They moved, putting the platter down on where Kellen had pointed towards before they turned, clasping their hands in front of them. They smiled.

"I have time to wait. This was my task today." They told him, as if that alleviated any guilt that Kellen was going to feel from them remaining here until Kellen finished running Charlie through his exercises.

Kellen was now greeted with two options because he didn’t like this situation. Halt the training time that was designated for Charlie, and he needed all of it. Or, he could pull the bench over and sit on it, the platter nearby, and eat while he worked. He already knew what the answer was because the third option, waiting? That wasn’t on the table for Kellen.

Not when they were a regular employee who were just doing their job and were waiting on him. He wasn’t a damn monster.

Kellen made quick work of pulling the bench over, a heavy look on his face before he plopped himself down and stared down at all of the fresh fruits cut into hearts. This must have taken a while to do. Kellen felt a frown touch his lips before a biodegradable fork was shoved into his line of vision.

"I was informed to bring at least one of these." The delivery person said and Kellen nodded and took it from them.

Then Kellen gave Charlie more orders from his bench, shoveling fresh fruit into his mouth as he worked. It was only when he was about halfway done with the platter that the employee nodded, took a picture with their phone, and then left. Kellen’s face warmed when they took the photo since he knew where it was going.

It was literally a few seconds after that that his phone vibrated and he was almost spiteful enough to ignore it, but he couldn’t. He put his fork down, Charlie not quite done with his most recent set and picked up his phone.

It was just a bunch of hearts and kisses from Rhys with several fruit emojis. Kellen tried to fight how his lips turned up at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, before he sighed. He typed a reply into his phone, before he put it down. It then went off several times.

If you had courted me with food, we would have started dating a lot sooner

~

By the time he got to his afternoon class, the Espers with their big mouths had spread news of what Rhys had done around the Guild tower. It had spread far enough that when Brent and Kellen spoke to each other, Brent mentioned it. Either that, or Rhys had asked Brent for the suggestion before he left for the front lines again.

Kellen didn’t ask Brent about the origins of the suggestion since it didn’t matter. He just called Rhys a silly guy and that was that, but Brent was grinning the whole time, and it wasn’t like Kellen was able to hide how sweet he’d found the whole thing.

His second class was having some struggles with the first second of the materials, and Kellen understood. The first steps were more about who you thought would make a good Field Guide versus others. It was something that would be hard for them, as new trainers, to understand.

The reason he had put it at the front of the book was for this simple reason. Sometimes you needed to understand that some people? They weren’t meant for certain jobs. That wasn’t a criticism, or a complaint, it was just the truth.

Some people weren’t built for certain jobs, and that needed to be pointed out at the beginning of the unit. If they went into this thinking that everyone could be a Field Guide, then Kellen would have set them up poorly.

While it was true that when he applied to become a Field Guide through the official means and that they had accepted anyone and everyone who applied, the training process was grueling for regular Guides and that had weeded out the weak. Kellen’s training program was even harder.

They needed to start thinking about that, and start evaluating everyone they worked with. He was candid with them too. The better they were at selecting people, the less likely they were to hear about someone’s death. What they were about to embark on wasn’t going to be as up close and personal with the gates which was true, but they were going to have to potentially deal with the consequences of their training.

And that consequence could be death or bodily harm to others. Having this conversation so soon was a good thing, since it put it into perspective. This was going to be a fun job, and it was going to be very rewarding, but there was a risk to it as well. Which was why they needed certain skills. Kellen would be able to teach them this, but some of it was inherent. They were going to have to awaken it, and also, they had each other as a resource as well. They could rely on others if they weren’t sure.

Kellen was not going to encourage them to distance themselves from the others. It wasn’t the Guide way, and Field Guides certainly didn’t keep their mouths shut when something didn’t look right. So they were expected to do the same.

Kellen felt that it was a heavy topic, but they seemed to take it well. He only had to speak to 3 students after class had ended, which was a lot smaller than he predicted when he’d put this part in.