Woo Jeongjae immediately looked at Yang Garam, but he was staring elsewhere, not at the window, pale with fear.
“What’s happening?!”
“T-the door……”
Bang, bang! From the loud noise hitting the iron door and Yang Garam’s expression, Woo Jeongjae realized that monsters were trying to enter the warehouse. He shoved his phone into his pocket and immediately jumped over the school fence to where Yang Garam was.
“Wait a little, hyung will come save you.”
“Hyung?!”
He could have called for help, but the monsters would break through the door faster than help would arrive. Even with his mind clouded by fever, Woo Jeongjae knew for certain that if he didn’t save the boy, he might die.
Yang Garam anxiously watched Woo Jeongjae’s back as he ran toward the gymnasium entrance.
‘What if hyung gets hurt because of me?’
Though Jeongjae had already disappeared from sight, Yang Garam’s worry didn’t fade. He climbed down from the window and crawled to the corner farthest from the warehouse door, anxiously curling up. The terrible noise of something pounding on the door suddenly stopped.
Then, beyond the warehouse, sounds much louder than before violently pierced his ears. He could feel the entire gymnasium vibrating from the rampaging monsters. Soon, however, the thunderous noises were replaced by the long, pained cries of the monsters.
And then, step by step, human footsteps—not a monster’s—reached the door. The half-crushed, misshapen door creaked open, and Yang Garam raised his head to blankly stare at the figure entering.
“Ha, found you.”
Woo Jeongjae, his face drenched in cold sweat, walked in slowly and immediately spotted Yang Garam hiding.
“Hyung!!”
His body, which had been staggering precariously, collapsed upon seeing Yang Garam, and Yang Garam rushed to embrace him before he fell. Due to their difference in build, Yang Garam ended up sitting on the floor while holding him. Looking at Woo Jeongjae, who was leaning against him and breathing heavily, Yang Garam began to cry again. Jeongjae’s body was like a ball of fire, making it hard to believe he had managed to endure until now.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
Woo Jeongjae barely raised his eyes to look up at Yang Garam as he asked, and Yang Garam, still crying, nodded repeatedly.
“Good, that’s a relief.”
His cheeks, flushed red from the fever, puffed up lovingly as he smiled. Yang Garam thought he understood why he was reminded of peach blossoms the first time Jeongjae looked at him, and why his heart seemed to drop.
“I’m sorry, but could you help support me?”
The dying voice of Woo Jeongjae reached Yang Garam’s ears as he sat in a daze.
“Hyung, you can’t die.”
“Haha, I won’t die. It’s okay.”
Despite his words, his body went limp like a corpse in Yang Garam’s arms. Yang Garam put Jeongjae’s arm around his shoulder. The urgent task was to escape the gymnasium first, and then they could somehow call for help. Yang Garam left the gymnasium warehouse with trembling legs. And then he had to sit back down on the floor.
“W-what is this……”
The gymnasium had been transformed into a sea of fire, with the ashy remains of monster corpses filling the space along with acrid smoke. It was a terrible scene, like a depiction of hell from Buddhism.
“Ah, was that too much? This is my first time, so I couldn’t control it.”
Even with his mind wavering from the fever, Woo Jeongjae could feel Yang Garam trembling with fear and tried to comfort him. Yang Garam snapped back to his senses at the sound of his voice.
“First time?”
“Yeah. I awakened right away thanks to you.”
“Hyung, did you awaken as an Esper today? Then, the reason you’ve been feeling unwell all this time……”
“Yeah, that’s right. It was manifestation fever.”
Espers experience manifestation fever before awakening. After going through the fever, they fully awaken as Espers. The timing of awakening varies, but usually, it happens when influenced by the waves from a nearby dungeon appearance. If the gate hadn’t opened in the gymnasium and monsters hadn’t poured out from the dungeon, Woo Jeongjae wouldn’t have been passing by that road at that time.
“I need to rest. There’s a phone in my pocket……”
Yang Garam stopped thinking and listened to Woo Jeongjae’s voice, which sounded like it was about to fade. Unable to finish his sentence, Woo Jeongjae’s arm fell from Yang Garam’s shoulder. His eyes were tightly closed, having lost consciousness, and his breathing was so faint it seemed like it might stop at any moment.
“…Hyung?”
Frightened by his condition that seemed like he might stop breathing at any moment, Yang Garam tried to drag him out somehow, but Jeongjae had been heavy enough to make him stagger even when he was conscious. It was beyond Yang Garam’s strength to carry the now unconscious Woo Jeongjae, and he collapsed to the ground after taking just a few steps.
Yang Garam gave up on trying to carry Woo Jeongjae out and instead took the phone from his pocket to make a call. His trembling hands showed no signs of stopping even after completing the emergency call. Yang Garam placed his ear against Woo Jeongjae’s chest to check if his heart was still beating. The heartbeat was slow but strong, and though relieved, Yang Garam anxiously held his hand tightly as he waited for the ambulance.
“Please hold on just a little longer, please……”
While waiting for the ambulance, Yang Garam experienced, for the first time, a bottomless despair over why he was so small and weak, why he couldn’t be strong like this hyung.
In his past environment, which had been mostly without major challenges, he had known his incompetence and shortcomings but had settled for them. Even when he was bullied after entering middle school, he was more concerned with protecting himself than finding a way out, compromising with reality and just waiting for time to pass.
‘But that was the wrong way of thinking.’
Yang Garam discovered why he hadn’t tried, why he hadn’t struggled. He had blindly trusted in time—the optimistic thought that this moment, too, would pass. But when faced with a life-threatening situation, the time he had trusted in didn’t wait for him. There was no way he could suddenly overcome difficulties on his own after having lived without doing anything.
His past complacency had returned as an obstacle holding him back in the present. Through his meeting with Woo Jeongjae, Yang Garam was, for the first time, furious at his own incompetence.
‘Even if I die, I will definitely protect hyung.’
Embracing Woo Jeongjae, Yang Garam thought this. And if hyung survived.
‘Then I’ll give this life to hyung.’
* * *
“I heard about hyung’s condition the very next day. They said you couldn’t remember what happened because of the Esper manifestation fever.”
Yang Garam’s eyes rippled with sadness. But even deeper than that was the look of firm resolve.
“I thought it was rather fortunate. That you couldn’t remember my pathetic self.”
“……”
“And I promised myself that when we met again, I would become strong enough to protect hyung, just as hyung had protected me.”
His clear eyes, shining even in the darkness, were more beautiful than any jewel in the world, and before I knew it, I raised my hand to caress the corner of Yang Garam’s eyes as he looked straight at me.
“I see… That’s admirable.”
As he said, I couldn’t recall a single memory of Yang Garam. It must have been a significant event for him, and thinking that he had kept those memories alone, my heart felt heavy.
“I had no idea. That such a thing happened.”
I thought I had just collapsed on the street due to manifestation fever and been transported to the hospital. It didn’t feel real that I had made such a big impact on someone’s life in that short moment.
‘But thinking about it now, it really was a dangerous situation.’
The more I carefully considered what Yang Garam had told me, the more I realized how reckless my actions had been. It was only because I awakened as an S-class Esper that things turned out okay. I hadn’t even called for rescue, just charged in alone, caught up in a hero complex. We were both lucky to have survived, but if I had died, Yang Garam would have had to live with an unbearable, terrible memory for the rest of his life.
‘I really was reckless.’
I stopped imagining the situation that I couldn’t even remember and looked up at Yang Garam. He must have been watching me as I was lost in thought because our eyes met immediately. Looking at his face, I felt an odd curiosity.
“By the way, is it okay to tell me about your past like this? Didn’t you want to look good in front of me?”
Though I asked teasingly, I was genuinely curious about his thoughts. How could he so casually talk about his past, which could be considered a weakness? Was he really okay with it?
“How do I look to you, hyung? Do I still seem weak and pathetic like in the past?”
“No, not at all!”
At my strong denial, Yang Garam looked proud, like a child who had received praise.
“Then it’s fine. The past is just the past, and the present me is different from then. If you saw my past self in my current appearance, that would be quite embarrassing, but you said you don’t at all, so that’s enough.”
I made a face like I’d been caught off guard by Yang Garam’s response.
“Haha, that’s right. That’s the correct answer.”
I nodded at his words, laughing heartily.
The answer was found in Yang Garam’s sincere response, making my worries about how to reveal my pre-regression self seem foolish. I’m not my past self either, so why had I been hiding it so desperately?
“Garam has really grown up well.”
“You’re just realizing that now?”
“No, I knew it for a while now. You’re really cool.”
Yang Garam had changed his life for me, someone I couldn’t even remember.
Conversely, I had thrown away my entire life for Joo Seolhyeon, who didn’t even look at me.
We both had the commonality of betting our lives, but I had settled for reality, using unrequited love as a shield to eat away at myself, while Yang Garam had used all his energy to hone himself.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
