7
Bang—
A gunshot rang out.
The students of Class 2-1 huddled in the corner of the classroom, clumsily forming a barricade with desks and chairs. Occasional muffled sobs could be heard. Outside, the sounds of something repeatedly colliding continued.
“What do we do…”
“Be quiet…”
The class president and vice president tried their best to calm the students. Everyone held hands or clutched each other’s uniforms, doing everything they could to prevent their fear from escaping as sound.
Just then, the sliding door of the classroom opened. The students held their breath.
“Teacher…!”
One student called out to the man who entered. The children looked at him with expressions mixed with relief and fear.
“Children… are you alright?”
The man called to them. He was carrying bandages and several medicine bottles in his arms. Sweat ran down his face as if he had rushed there in a hurry.
Quickly catching a bandage that was about to fall, the man approached a girl who was lying face down.
“Teacher, it’s Sumin…”
The students hesitantly made way for him. The man bent down next to the girl they called Sumin.
“Are you okay? Medical staff will be here soon.”
The man examined the girl’s uniform, which was stained with blood. A significant amount of blood was seeping from her arm where a bullet had grazed it.
With a serious expression, the man looked at the girl’s arm, then forced a reassuring smile to comfort the children as he quickly applied pressure to the wound with a bandage. These were items he had hastily taken from the infirmary.
“Teacher…”
Someone called to the man in a very small voice. “Hmm?” the man responded quietly. “What should we do?” the children whispered among themselves.
Footsteps could be heard in the hallway. There was also what sounded like someone talking.
The sounds were getting closer.
The children exchanged glances and covered their mouths with their hands. Silent screams echoed among them.
The man quickly straightened up. He pulled a nearby desk to block the door. He placed a chair on top too. His movements were swift but careful to avoid making noise.
Seeing this, the children moved together to place desks and chairs against the back door while the man blocked the front entrance.
The classroom was filled only with the soft sounds of children breathing. Just as they had managed to block the doors with desks and chairs—
Thud.
The door shook.
***
The school was quiet, as if nothing was happening. There was barely any sign of presence.
Where could the perpetrator be? Minjae surveyed the corridor. At the end of it, he could see a trail of blood droplets. The blood trail led to the stairs on the opposite corner.
“Are kids these days really this small?”
Minjae glanced at Eunjeong, who was grumbling as she walked beside him, and pursed his lips.
Eunjeong was an A-class esper with physical enhancement abilities. She boasted superior speed and strength compared to other espers. Because of that, she was taller and bulkier than ordinary people.
Naturally, her entire body was wrapped in solid muscle. The school ceiling was just barely high enough for Eunjeong’s head. Because of this, she had to walk while avoiding the lights.
Seeing this rather comical sight, Minjae pulled his cap down further. If she caught him laughing now, things would get troublesome. Eunjeong could be quite scary when properly offended.
After nearly bumping into a light fixture while walking awkwardly hunched over, Eunjeong cursed profusely.
“Shit, who builds a school like this? Aren’t they disrespecting the children’s potential?”
“You’re just tall.”
Looking at Minjae’s matter-of-fact criticism, Eunjeong stuck out her lips.
“Sunbae. You’re so cold.”
“It’s not cold at all.”
“Ugh, you sound like an old man.” Eunjeong shook her head as if tired of Minjae’s humorless responses. By then, they had reached the end of the corridor.
That’s when Minjae sensed someone’s presence. There was also a very small explosive sound, like something being dropped.
Eunjeong’s gaze sharpened. Judging by the rather clumsy attempt at hiding and the youthful voice, it didn’t seem to be the homeroom teacher who was supposedly running wild with hostages.
Could it be one of the children who hadn’t escaped yet? Don’t kids these days receive proper evacuation training? Well, such training is never really useful in actual situations anyway.
“What could it be?”
Minjae glared down the corridor he had just walked through and muttered in a small voice. Eunjeong started checking the classrooms ahead of Minjae.
Eunjeong quickly glanced inside the classroom next to them, then reached out and opened the door. Click. The lock broke easily and the door opened. Minjae frowned.
“Hey.”
“Hmm? What?”
Eunjeong turned to look at Minjae with an expression that suggested she didn’t understand what was wrong. Minjae gritted his teeth.
“I told you not to damage property so easily.”
Pretending not to hear Minjae’s nagging, Eunjeong entered the classroom and opened the cleaning supply closet. Brooms and mops were laid out before her eyes.
“What the, there’s nothing here.”
Minjae shook his head and began checking other classrooms. Eunjeong followed behind him.
It was when they started looking through the fifth classroom window from the outside. Minjae spotted part of a head poking out from under the teacher’s desk.
Hah. Minjae sighed. If he hadn’t spotted it, that student would have died. Who hides like that, practically begging to be found? This wasn’t a children’s game of hide-and-seek.
Minjae knocked on the classroom door with his hand. The head visibly flinched.
“Rescue esper here. Can you open the door?”
The head seemed to peek outside slightly, then appeared to mutter something toward the inside.
Mentally unstable from fear? As Minjae was contemplating this, Eunjeong pressed close beside him.
“There are three kids in there?”
“Three?”
“Yeah, there are two more kids crouched on the other side of the teacher’s desk.”
Being taller than Minjae, Eunjeong could see the interior completely. So the nodding head was consulting with others?
Minjae stepped back slightly from the door and gestured to Eunjeong.
“I’m going to open the door now.”
No sooner had Minjae’s words fallen than Eunjeong reached out and flung the door open. Simultaneously, the owner of the head rose and turned completely toward Minjae.
Minjae saw a blue jumpsuit. The man in the blue jumpsuit, for some reason, introduced himself with his arms raised in the air.
“Hero Center esper Park Jihwan… Sunbae?”
“Park Jihwan?”
Eunjeong called Jihwan’s name in a voice that had lost all composure. Ah, the S-class. Recognizing Jihwan, Minjae looked at him askance.
Jihwan looked at Eunjeong and Minjae, then roughly rubbed his eyes with his fists. Jihwan’s eyes were red. Sniff. Jihwan wiped his nose.
Don’t tell me he’s been crying? Minjae squeezed his eyes shut.
***
“There, there, the kids must have been so scared. Right? Don’t worry, this mister is here now.”
Eunjeong smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Eunjeong was particularly weak when it came to children—especially girls.
What are you, a kindergarten teacher? Minjae swallowed his criticism and approached the injured child.
The child’s waist was wrapped in white cloth, and judging by the blood soaking the side, that seemed to be where the wound was. The unconscious child’s face was pale.
“Is it a gunshot wound?”
“What?”
Jihwan responded to Minjae’s question with a stupid-sounding voice. Had he not even properly assessed that? Minjae’s eyebrows twisted in irritation.
“When I found her, she was already…”
A child sitting next to the injured friend spoke.
So no one witnessed the situation. Minjae untied the knot of the cloth wrapped around the injured child and checked the wound. It looked like a bullet graze. She seemed to have lost quite a bit of blood, but the injury didn’t appear deep enough to cause internal damage.
Minjae placed his hand on the child’s side. A faint light appeared. Through the torn clothes, the wound could be seen closing. The child beside watched the scene blankly.
Eunjeong glanced at the child sitting nearby, then grabbed the child’s hand. She then took out an antiseptic cotton ball from her pocket and began cleaning the dried blood from the child’s hands.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No…”
“Good, good. That’s a relief.”
After confirming that the wound was completely healed, Minjae fixed the child’s head in a comfortable position and stood up. Then he gestured to Jihwan.
When Minjae went to the back corner of the classroom, Jihwan followed awkwardly. Eunjeong, seeing this, engaged the child in conversation to distract them from paying attention to the men.
Minjae got straight to the point.
“Why are you here?”
Jihwan’s eyes widened at Minjae’s question.
“I was told to come here…”
“By whose authority?”
The current scene involved hostages, which required experienced espers. Since having too many people would likely cause more interference, only the highly experienced and efficient Team 1 had been dispatched.
So how did this rookie know the location of the incident and barge in on his own? Minjae’s nerves were on edge.
“I, I really received deployment orders! I was told that I could rendezvous with the field team if I came here first.”
Jihwan spoke as if wronged. The corners of his mouth were completely drooping.
Hah. Minjae exhaled deeply. Whether intentional or not, Minjae found Jihwan’s presence extremely irritating.
“Report the situation.”
“I met these kids in the second-floor corridor and used my clothes for hemostasis. And… I heard someone walking around, so I quickly hid. It was so scar—”
“Scared” was a taboo word during rescue operations. Sensing Minjae’s gaze sharpening, Jihwan abruptly stopped mid-sentence and glanced at Minjae.
“I’m so glad to have met you, Sunbae.”
Having finished his report, which was more like an emotional confession, Jihwan looked down at the floor. With reddened eyes again, Jihwan was squinting hard, seemingly not wanting to let tears fall. It was quite a grotesque expression.
His mental state is shot. Minjae thought.
Rookies are not usually deployed to scenes like this. There are reasons for that.
A place where minors—who until recently were the same age as him—are held hostage. Add to that a perpetrator with a gun, and there’s no telling what unexpected situations might arise. Moreover, seeing blood immediately upon entering the scene must have been disconcerting.
However, Minjae had no luxury to show sympathy in such matters.
“How much guiding do you have left?”
“Me?”
“Am I asking about mine to you?”
At Minjae’s irritated question, Jihwan fumbled with his answer.
“Still green.”
“Good then. There’s a regular emergency team at the playground, okay?”
“Yes.”
“Take them there. Fly. By the way, go down along the wall where there are no windows, not where windows are visible. Don’t advertise to the hostage-taker that you’re carrying a child.”
Minjae added a kind explanation, thinking Jihwan might not understand if given brief instructions.
At that, Jihwan’s eyes lit up again. His face was full of expectation.
Jihwan leaned his face a little closer to Minjae, who frowned and leaned his upper body back.
“Where are you going then, Sunbae?”
“…?”
I’m staying at the scene, where else would I go? Minjae was dumbfounded. Seeing Minjae’s face, Jihwan added:
“Please tell me which floor you’re going to. After delivering the children, I’ll quickly return to you, Sunbae.”
Jihwan’s face was solemn.
Ah. Finally understanding Jihwan’s question, Minjae let out a small exclamation.
“What nonsense you’re talking. You should return to the Center.”
“What?”
This time, the color drained from Jihwan’s face. Minjae looked at him with an expressionless face.
“This is not a place for you.”
He couldn’t continue together as it would cause interference. Jihwan didn’t seem to know why he had intruded on the scene, and his mental state was likely shaken, so making him return quickly was the maximum consideration Minjae could extend.
However, this was not what Jihwan had expected. Jihwan’s face crumpled like a wrinkled piece of paper.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
