Chapter 78
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”
Even after clearing my throat, my voice sounded strange. It really has been a long time since I last saw him. The last time was when Song Ji-hyeok said he had “formed a pair”… About a month ago?
Perhaps because quite some time had passed, it wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. On the other hand, Jeon Hyeon-wook exuded an apologetic air with his whole body.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay.”
It’s a space anyone can use anytime, and there’s no obligation to knock when entering. So Jeon Hyeon-wook hadn’t done anything wrong. If anything, it was my fault for letting my guard down, thinking no one would come.
Then something caught my eye. I saw that Jeon Hyeon-wook’s left hand was tightly wrapped in bandages.
“Did you hurt your hand?”
“Ah, no, it’s nothing.”
Jeon Hyeon-wook hurriedly hid his hand behind his back, but it was a meaningless action since I had already seen it. Come to think of it, his face looked a bit scruffy, as if he had lost weight… Had he struggled in the field like me?
“Did it happen in the dungeon?”
“N-no. I… I made a mistake while sparring.”
I understood as soon as I heard it. It would be stranger if Espers who love to fight came out unscathed from their clashes. Still, if things got too heated, the supervisor would step in to mediate, so there shouldn’t be any major injuries. Maybe the mediation timing was a bit late.
“Be careful not to get hurt. An Esper’s body is their life, you know.”
“…Yes. Th-thank you for your concern.”
“It’s nothing. Well then, I’ll be going…”
“Um, wait.”
Jeon Hyeon-wook reached out and grabbed the hem of my clothes. He seemed surprised by his own action and immediately let go, but he succeeded in getting my attention.
His gaze was still directed diagonally downward. Well, even if he looked straight at me, it would be difficult for our eyes to meet because of his shaggy bangs.
“A-are you okay, Su-hyeon?”
“Pardon?”
“I-I was worried if you were alright too.”
“As you can see, I’m fine.”
I shrugged with a smile, but Jeon Hyeon-wook suddenly lifted his head.
At that moment, I unconsciously flinched. My assumption that his eyes wouldn’t be visible even if he raised his head was wrong. Our gazes met precisely through the hair covering his forehead.
“Really?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you really alright?”
“…I’m not sure what you mean by that.”
“G-guiding must be very hard on you.”
I smiled ambiguously but flinched again. I had just consulted with the doctor about that issue and even had tests done, so I couldn’t help but feel cautious.
After forming a pair contract with Song Ji-hyeok, I naturally stopped giving guiding to Jeon Hyeon-wook. And even when I did guide him, I never showed any signs of difficulty, and it wasn’t hard at all. So it was strange that he suddenly brought up the difficulty of guiding now, more than a month later.
‘Could he have heard something…? No, that’s impossible.’
I know that doctors must keep medical records just as I write daily guiding logs. While the person in charge would check the contents, there’s no way they would leak such sensitive personal information.
Even in the one-in-a-thousand, one-in-ten-thousand chance that such a thing happened, at this time, the doctor wouldn’t have even finished writing the medical records yet. In other words, there was no way it could have reached Jeon Hyeon-wook’s ears.
Ruling that out, only one assumption remained.
Like the saying “when crows fly, pears fall,” Jeon Hyeon-wook probably just said it without any particular meaning, but the timing happened to be like this, making me overreact.
Anyway, it wasn’t a topic I wanted to continue discussing, so I tried to change the subject while pretending to be nonchalant.
“It’s not hard at all. Physically, it’s much easier, haha. Well, have a good day.”
I bowed slightly with a smile and left the place. I heard a voice trying to stop me, saying “Um,” but I pretended not to hear and quickly closed the door behind me.
Of course, I didn’t feel good about it. I had no intention of ignoring Jeon Hyeon-wook, but that’s what it amounted to. However, I felt that if I had stayed and talked more, I would have felt even more uncomfortable.
It wasn’t just because of the guiding talk. The look in Jeon Hyeon-wook’s eyes when he brought it up strangely stuck in my mind. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but it felt somewhat chilling and unfamiliar.
‘…Is it because we’ve rarely made eye contact before?’
I glanced back, but the corridor was quiet. After looking for a moment, I turned my head again and, for some unknown reason, walked away with heavy steps.
***
That night, I had trouble sleeping. Thanks to the medicine the doctor gave me, my condition had improved quite a bit afterward, but various thoughts and worries kept me from falling asleep easily. After tossing and turning for a while, I finally put on earphones and forced myself to try to sleep.
When I looked in the bathroom mirror in the morning, thankfully, my outward appearance was fine. A night of restless sleep hadn’t left me with dark circles or sunken eyes.
On the way to work, I deliberately talked more to Song Ji-hyeok and kept making idle chatter. Perhaps because of that, he didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.
I received a message from the doctor around 11 AM. I had been discreetly glancing at my device from time to time, and as soon as I saw her message asking if I could come to the examination room, I got up from my seat.
The third-floor corridor where the examination room was located felt notably cleaner and neater compared to other floors. There were large directional signs on the freshly painted white walls, and air-purifying plant pots were placed at regular intervals on the floor.
Even though I had been here just yesterday, I felt a different kind of tension rising. I took a deep breath in front of the examination room door and knocked lightly. When I heard the invitation to come in and opened the door, the doctor greeted me in the same manner as yesterday.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you guide Song Ji-hyeok today?”
“Yes, I did it lightly this morning.”
As soon as we arrived at work, Song Ji-hyeok left for the field again. Before leaving, he came to me as if it was natural and asked for guiding, so I hid my nervousness and carefully took his hand.
“Any unusual symptoms?”
“It was fine today. But the guiding time was very short.”
Maybe because he hadn’t been to the skill training room yet, his condition was very good. When I slowly let the energy flow, I felt it being blocked and returning to me after just a few seconds. As a result, the guiding ended rather anticlimactically, and it ended up being more like just skinship with prolonged kissing.
Anyway, this time I carefully asked the doctor.
“Are the results out?”
“Yes, I’ll show you.”
After clicking the mouse busily a few times, the doctor turned the monitor slightly towards me. I noticed my name and date of birth written in small letters in the upper right corner.
Below that were various black and white graphs, but all the items were written in English that looked like academic terms, so I couldn’t understand what they meant. However, there were some prominently high values that were noticeable at a glance, which made me feel strangely uneasy.
Seeing me like this, the doctor spoke.
“To cut to the chase… it’s inconclusive.”
“Pardon?”
I looked at her with eyes that had unconsciously widened. I expected to hear either that there was a problem or there wasn’t, but “inconclusive” was completely unexpected.
“You see this line here? This line is the standard for determining whether there are guiding side effects or not, but as you can see, your values are all over the place.”
It was as the doctor said. There was a solid line drawn on each graph, and some test values were well above that line, while others were far below it. The uneasiness I felt as soon as I saw the monitor wasn’t for nothing.
“Usually, when we do these tests, the results are consistent. If it’s above the baseline, it means there are guiding side effects, and if not, we judge it as just a simple condition fluctuation. Sometimes one or two items might show different results, but… I’ve never seen a case with such large discrepancies across the board.”
When the doctor stopped speaking, silence hung in the air. I stared at the monitor with my mouth open for a while before speaking.
“Could it be that I have only specific side effects? I felt fine except for the headaches…”
“That’s not the case.”
The doctor’s explanation continued like this:
“These graphs don’t represent the presence or absence of different side effects individually. They’re items that help make an overall judgment.”
“…I see.”
As I nodded silently, a delayed question came to mind.
Then how should this result be interpreted? Does it mean I have guiding side effects or not?
“Has there been anyone with similar results to mine…?”
“Not that I can remember. As I said, I’ve seen a few cases where one or two items slightly exceeded or fell short of the threshold, but this is the first time I’ve seen such large discrepancies.”
Before a heavy silence could set in, the doctor continued.
“I think it would be better to do a retest.”
The thought ‘Will the results be different then?’ naturally came to mind, but I didn’t voice it. Even a doctor wouldn’t be able to know that.
