# Chapter 28
He waited for Ko Eunso’s contact, but the expected communication didn’t come. Rather, as time passed, his anxiety increased, so he had to keep his hands tightly clenched to prevent himself from unconsciously biting his nails.
Well…
Let’s think about this calmly.
Although it was clearly against his will, now that Woo Sihyun had returned to his ‘my’, his excuse was essentially meaningless. The decision he had made would also lose its significance.
Even if Ko Eunso were to “release” the force now, Woo Sihyun would think that if he ever left Ko Eungyo’s ‘my’ again, he would be forcibly returned to his original position. So what if instead of Woo Sihyun doing it himself, he deleted him? He could restore this deactivated delete button to its original state and delete Woo Sihyun himself.
Yes, that would work. And if he happened to contact Woo Sihyun, he could say there had been a problem. He could add that he really had no intention of giving false hope, and that it was a misunderstanding that occurred during the process of handling the matter.
Thinking about it calmly, it wasn’t a big deal. Yesterday, he was too shocked to think about handling it himself. First, he would go to the Center, explain that there was a problem with his Center application, activate the delete button, and delete Woo Sihyun.
Just as he was about to put on his coat and leave, an alarm rang.
He slowly turned over his phone with a pale face.
It was a Guiding call.
…from Woo Sihyun.
Looking up at the Center with a dark expression, he entered as slowly as possible. For some reason, there were quite a few people coming and going in the Center today. Those who noticed his reddish face glanced at him, but didn’t approach to speak.
Surprisingly, quite a few people recognized ‘Ko Eungyo.’
Instead of approaching him, they frowned or pretended not to know him. Not a single person came up to talk to him. Wherever Ko Eungyo went, people just kept glancing at him. These were definitely not positive attitudes.
He moved amidst the gazes of others. Come to think of it, it was the same when he came to the Center because of the Director’s call.
The unpleasant gazes left an eerie feeling on the back of his neck. He hadn’t expected Ko Eungyo to have a good reputation at the Center, but he hadn’t anticipated this. He’d heard that Center Guides always had at least one rumor following them like a tag, but the situation was much worse than he’d heard.
Could this also be the doing of Woo Sihyun or Lee Seungwoo? But Lee Seungwoo had said that he had misunderstood him. And thinking about it, people didn’t seem to show a good impression when they talked about Ko Eungyo. Here, ‘people’ referred to those who had interacted with him when he was Jang Iju.
When he was Jang Iju, he spent all his time going between the gate, the Center, and hospitals, so he didn’t even know much about his own reputation. More precisely, it meant he didn’t have time to care about such trivial matters. Making friends, observing who liked or disliked whom, laughing, chatting—none of these alleviated the pain of life.
So he didn’t pay much attention to others’ reputations either. The only times he judged someone’s worth were when he experienced them directly or when he looked at their resume. In other words, he had never judged someone based on rumors.
Since I’m not in pain anymore, I’m paying attention to useless things, huh.
Instead of looking for the Director, he immediately went up to the floor where the department in charge of computing was located. He had already gotten permission from the Director for this matter, and since he had communicated the issue Ko Eunso had changed through Secretary Shim, he thought he just needed to activate the button.
The problem was that it was Saturday, so the high-level personnel weren’t working. Just in case, he approached an employee on duty, who looked up.
“What can I help you with?”
“There’s a problem with my Center app.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The delete button doesn’t work. It’s grayed out and deactivated. Here.”
The employee looked down at the mobile phone Ko Eungyo showed him with a businesslike attitude.
“Let me take a look.”
“Yes.”
The employee’s brow slightly furrowed as he took Ko Eungyo’s phone and checked the ‘my’ list. He tilted his head curiously after trying to press the delete button.
“You’re right. I’ll check why this is happening. Just a moment, please.”
“Yes, thank you.”
He felt greatly relieved at the thought that the matter could be resolved simply. The employee moved busily, perhaps needing to check on another computer, and seemed to go through several verifications. He stood anxiously, waiting for the employee’s confirmation.
“Excuse me, but you are Guide Ko Eungyo, correct?”
“Yes.”
“It says here that this was deactivated at Guide Ko Eungyo’s request.”
“…What?”
“It says the delete button management level was lowered at your request. The Center app’s level adjustment requires team leader authority, so if you want to change it, you’ll need to come back next Monday.”
“…”
‘At Ko Eungyo’s… request…’
This… was an aspect he hadn’t considered. He stood with a completely dumbfounded face, staring blankly at the employee. For what reason had Ko Eungyo lowered his authority, his Esper delete button authority?
It wasn’t hard to guess. Probably, someone… either by force, or by stealing Ko Eungyo’s phone, had repeatedly tried to turn on the Center application to press the Esper delete button. So he had walked to the computer room himself and requested the delete button authority to be lowered. And that attempt was probably Woo Sihyun’s…
‘I thought it was strange.’
There was no way only Ko Eungyo’s application would have a problem. This was just Ko Eungyo’s decision. Why hadn’t he realized that earlier?
Enough. Let’s stop. What’s the point of thinking more about this now?
He clenched his fists tightly, his face pale. Then, as calmly as possible, he said in a composed voice.
“…I forgot. Sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll come back next week.”
“Yes, please do.”
The employee spoke casually and sat back in his place. He walked out of the computer room in a daze.
‘…I just want to go home.’
But… he thought he should at least explain the situation to Woo Sihyun. That he thought he had become free, but it was actually a nasty joke, and that he should at least tell someone who had been caught off guard that it wasn’t true.
Even knowing he wouldn’t receive a good response, he forced his legs to move out of a sense of duty.
Strangely, the path from the 4th floor computer room to the 12th floor Guiding room seemed long and arduous. He wished the corridor would never end. With that thought, he opened the Guiding room door to find Woo Sihyun sitting loosely with a cold, hardened face.
This time, he had expected that the real Woo Sihyun would be there.
Unlike Lee Seungwoo, who had been blatantly late, Woo Sihyun had come early to wait for Ko Eungyo, but the reason was likely that he had a major grievance and came early to do something to him, so there was no joy in that thought.
His heart pounded. He didn’t know what Woo Sihyun would snap at him. He only desperately wished to close this door again and go straight home. But that wasn’t possible. There was a need to properly explain this matter at least once, and he thought there was no reason to run away, especially since this incident wasn’t something he truly wanted to happen.
As always, he took a deep breath and then went inside.
Woo Sihyun was surprisingly quiet. He was just sitting loosely, glaring at him with a cold gaze.
Though he was flustered, not knowing what to do, he sat opposite Woo Sihyun. Coincidentally, Woo Sihyun had called him at exactly the same time as the previous call—that is, when Guiding was called in Woo Sihyun’s name, but actually Lee Seungwoo had come. So, in fact, he had slightly hoped that Lee Seungwoo might be here this time too.
There were about 4 minutes left until 7 o’clock. The ticking sound of the stopwatch was the only noise in the room.
Guiding had to start at the set time and end at the set time. He was about to wait until 7 o’clock out of habit when he suddenly looked up.
He hadn’t come here to do Guiding. He had come to explain himself to Woo Sihyun.
“…It’s been a while, Esper Woo Sihyun.”
“…”
He spoke first to try to break this terrible silence, but of course, no answer came back. Only an even colder gaze was returned.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
