When I woke up, darkness surrounded everything. Considering our scheduled departure was in the late afternoon, this was natural, but I had no way of knowing how many hours had passed since then.
However, rather than checking the time, I first checked if the guides were in the room. There was no sign of anyone.
“Where did everyone go?”
Though I seemed to have slept deeply without dreaming, I didn’t feel as refreshed as I expected. I got out of bed, opened the door, and expanded my energy sense throughout the entire ship to find the guides. As the structure of the ship became clear to me, I could immediately tell where the guides were. One on the deck, two on the second floor. Once I had located them, I finally became aware of my own condition. My stomach started to churn as if seasickness was coming on.
‘Where did I pack the motion sickness medication?’
As I clutched my stomach and looked around for my luggage, I heard a familiar voice from the corridor.
“Have you eaten dinner yet? I’ve made a reservation at the restaurant.”
It sounded like he was talking to someone on the phone, as no other voice could be heard.
“Ah, I see. Just me then. Understood.”
I had unconsciously moved right next to the door, listening to the sounds from the corridor. Tilting my head curiously, I gently pulled the doorknob. Seeing a back of a head that I could recognize from a distance, my lips parted.
“Woo Jeonghyun?”
“Hyung?”
The face that turned to me in startled surprise was indeed Woo Jeonghyun, as I had expected.
“Why are you coming out of there?”
That was actually what I wanted to ask. After all, it’s not common to accidentally run into family abroad, not in your home country.
“I’m here on a mission. What about you? Why are you here?”
“I’m also here on a mission.”
I found myself nodding at his obvious answer. Come to think of it, we’d never even gone on a family vacation abroad, so there was no way he’d be out here with someone else for fun. And even if he were going somewhere for leisure, he would have contacted me first, given his personality.
“You came with your guides too, right?”
I nodded again at Woo Jeonghyun’s question. Since his statement about being here on a mission meant he had come with his Esper partner, I didn’t feel the need to ask him about it.
“Who did you come with?”
“All of them.”
“Joo Seolhyeon too?”
My expression hardened momentarily at his words. Woo Jeonghyun’s last visit to our house had been before I terminated my contract with Joo Seolhyeon, so it was an innocent question, but just hearing the ‘Joo’ in Joo Seolhyeon made me feel like vomiting.
“Oh right, hyung gets severe seasickness. Have you taken any medication?”
Seeing me cover my mouth with a grimace, Woo Jeonghyun asked with concern.
“No, not yet.”
“I should have some motion sickness pills among the emergency medicines I brought. Let’s go to my room.”
I had brought some too, but I didn’t want to refuse his offer to help, so I followed Woo Jeonghyun.
“But didn’t you say earlier that you had made a restaurant reservation? Don’t you need to go?”
“Ah, that. Actually, I didn’t make a reservation. I just said that hoping they would come if I said so.”
Looking at Woo Jeonghyun’s self-deprecating face, I could guess who he had been talking to on the phone.
“Are you two having problems?”
“I don’t know. Is there a problem that I’m unaware of?”
Woo Jeonghyun sighed heavily as he reached his room and gave me the medication. I started to offer some words of comfort but ended up just silently patting his shoulder.
“So what kind of mission were you assigned, hyung?”
Woo Jeonghyun brushed off my comforting hand as if he didn’t like it and asked. Though I had made up the mission excuse, this was a deeply personal matter, and in some ways, something my brother should know about. I was at a loss for how to organize and explain it to him.
“Ah, I shouldn’t have asked that. We’re also here on a covert infiltration mission, and I thoughtlessly asked without thinking.”
Woo Jeonghyun waved his hands and laughed, interpreting my silence in his own way. I furrowed my brows at the significant words he had let slip.
“What’s on this ship?”
This time, Woo Jeonghyun asked in return.
“You said you’re here on a mission too. Weren’t you briefed?”
For a moment, I debated whether to be honest or pretend to know, but since Woo Jeonghyun would find out eventually anyway, I leaned toward being honest.
“Well, you might not have been briefed.”
But Woo Jeonghyun’s next words made me miss the timing to tell the truth.
“Half of the people here are participants in research being conducted on Quardo Island. But apparently there’s a foreign spy mixed in among them. We’ve been deployed to root them out.”
“Isn’t this just a regular cruise passenger ship?”
“It is a cruise ship, since half the people are ordinary civilians.”
As I listened to Woo Jeonghyun’s words, I noticed something odd about his expression. The term ‘ordinary civilians’ is usually used to refer to people without abilities. In this context, ‘third parties’ or ‘unrelated people’ would have been more appropriate.
“You’re talking as if those participating in the research aren’t ordinary civilians.”
“Oh, that’s right. They’re all guides.”
The chill I had felt on the back of my neck before boarding the ship ran down my spine once again. I realized where this sense of dissonance was coming from.
I remembered that when I previously visited Quardo Island, the drug the Center Director had obtained from the Research Center Director in exchange was related to ‘something about guides.’
Woo Jeonghyun believed that an S-class mental Esper had been dispatched by the government to root out the spy, but what if…
‘What if they’ve planted an Esper who can control guides in order to use them for research?’
It might be a stretch, but the authority to assign missions to Espers rests with the Center Director. If this was related to him, sending an S-class Esper wouldn’t be that strange. Normally, they wouldn’t send an S-class Esper just to root out a spy who had infiltrated some research project.
‘Surely Woo Jeonghyun isn’t involved in that? He’s really just here on a mission, right?’
My brother was looking at me strangely as I became serious, but once suspicion began, it continued to grow.
“Hyung, how’s your stomach?”
My brother, who had seated me comfortably, changed the subject and asked.
“I just took it, but the effect is already… huh?”
Now that I thought about it, my stomach felt fine.
“What is this motion sickness medication? The effect is incredibly fast.”
I rubbed my completely normal stomach and opened my eyes wide in surprise, and Woo Jeonghyun smiled proudly.
“You can’t buy that just anywhere.”
“What? Don’t tell me you gave me something strange instead of motion sickness medication?”
“To you, hyung? That’s too much.”
“Fine, what is it then?”
Woo Jeonghyun grumbled that I made a fuss even when he helped me, but with eyes still full of amusement, he said:
“My guide is quite knowledgeable about medicine. They put some special care into the medicine I take.”
“Is that person a doctor?”
“No?”
“Then why are they meddling with medicine?”
“It’s nothing strange. They just used their ability to make it absorb into the body more quickly.”
I made a dubious expression, and Woo Jeonghyun zealously defended his guide. But as he spoke, he seemed to realize this wasn’t something he needed to be so passionate about, and suddenly became serious.
“Honestly, you’re the biggest beneficiary here, right? If it had been a regular medicine, you would have been complaining about feeling like you were going to throw up until the effect kicked in.”
That’s true.
I nodded at my brother’s valid point. Whatever they had done to the medicine, the important thing was that I wasn’t feeling seasick now.
“I’m sorry. Please tell your Esper that I appreciate the medicine and thank them.”
Looking at Woo Jeonghyun’s incredulous expression, I smiled awkwardly.
“If you haven’t eaten yet, shall we go eat?”
Wanting to say something before Woo Jeonghyun could start nagging, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be about food.
“What about your guides?”
“Hmm. Should we all eat together? I haven’t had anything since I’ve been sleeping all afternoon.”
Though I hadn’t been on many ships in my life, hunger was always secondary to seasickness. And even if I was hungry, it was problematic—since I would just vomit whatever I ate, it was worse than not eating at all.
Woo Jeonghyun didn’t mind my suggestion and said it was fine, so I took my brother and set out to find my scattered guides.
“I didn’t get to tell you earlier, but I terminated my contract with Joo Seolhyeon.”
Before extracting Do Wonjin, who was enjoying the casino, I casually mentioned this to Woo Jeonghyun. He was about to ask why, but Do Wonjin’s boisterous welcome drew attention, preventing him from inquiring further.
Afterward, we went up to the deck to find Jeong Seyeon, and also fetched Yang Garam who had returned to the room while we were out, and had dinner together. I hadn’t checked the time all along, but when I asked my brother before eating, there were still three hours left until we reached Quardo Island. I also learned that we were having quite a late dinner.
“I should tell my brother about this plan, right?”
During the meal, Woo Jeonghyun received a call from his partner and stepped away briefly. In the meantime, I sought advice from the guides.
“You haven’t told him yet?”
Rather, Do Wonjin showed a surprised reaction to my words.
“He’s your only family. Of course you should tell him.”
“I think so too.”
Yang Garam and Jeong Seyeon had the same reaction. Their responses made me feel a bit dejected, and I lowered my gaze.
“I wonder if he’ll be upset that I’m only telling him this now.”
I had thought of it as a problem between the Center Director and me, a personal vendetta that Woo Jeonghyun didn’t necessarily need to know about. But as a family member who had been sacrificed because of me, and with our mother currently brainwashed and held captive by the Center Director, it was no longer just my problem. As the guides said, I had missed this point.
“There’s been too much happening in such a short time, and hyung has been through a lot. You weren’t in a situation where you could look out for others. It’s not your fault, so cheer up.”
Yang Garam held my hand and comforted me, and Do Wonjin, while brandishing the knife he had been using to cut his steak, said:
“The person who’s really at fault is someone else, so there’s no need to feel down about this.”
Then a large hand came down on my head. It was Jeong Seyeon.
“If it’s your brother, I think he’ll be more sorry for not knowing and helping you first, rather than feeling upset.”
Encouraged by their uniformly warm words, I nodded again. I couldn’t predict how Woo Jeonghyun would react after hearing my story, but my heart felt much lighter.
“Hyung, I’m sorry.”
However, my brother, who had just finished his call and returned, was not alone.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
