Trash Can Guide

This work contains graphic depictions of suicide, self-harm, physical and emotional abuse, sexual exploitation, and systemic neglect. Themes of trauma, psychological manipulation, and non-consensual situations are present throughout. Reader discretion is strongly advised—please prioritize your mental and emotional well-being.

 

I endured relentless abuse from my stepfather and mother. And the year I turned twenty, I was sold off to an illegal guiding brothel to pay off my stepfather’s debt. Later, I was sent to Korea’s Ability User Center—nicknamed the “K Ability Center”—and for a brief moment, I thought life might finally get a little better.

But even there, I was never seen as human. All I amounted to was a trash can that absorbed all things negative.

My dignity as a human being was shattered. Both physically and emotionally, I became the receptacle for their filth.

By the time I’d started to forget who I was—what my name was, how old I was, whether I was even still human— I made the first decision in my life that was truly for myself.

As I sank into the sensation of blood draining from every vein, just before I closed my eyes for what I thought would be the last time, I caught their horrified expressions through a broken doorway— and died, confused by the look in their eyes.

.

.
.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the examination room where I had first been evaluated as a D-rank Guide. But this time, the results were different. I wasn’t D-rank anymore—I had become unmeasurable, a level that towered above them all.

 

***

 

‘If only... the Esper I had to guide had been the same person who once saved me... But he too belonged to the ‘K Ability Center.’’

 Nabin hadn’t said it aloud, but deep down, he hoped he might run into him again.

S-rank Special Class—Psychokinetic Esper, Lee Hayan.

It was the name Mr. Kim had told him, calling the man his savior. A person whose white hair matched his name so perfectly. The kindness he had once shown Nabin had been pure—like untouched snow no one had yet stepped on.