60.
David Howard, who awakened to the ability to control gravity at the age of thirteen, had actually been the center of public attention even before awakening as an Esper. This was partly due to his dreamlike beautiful appearance as a young boy, but mostly because the Howard family was a renowned prestigious lineage known for consistently producing at least one powerful Esper in each generation. In this family where heirs were scarce, Howard was the only child of his generation. Therefore, everyone assumed that young Howard would eventually awaken as an Esper, and the only matters of extreme interest were when this awakening would occur and how powerful his ability would be.
Before turning fourteen, the thirteen-year-old boy was reborn as a natural S-class Esper who could freely control gravity. His admission to a center was virtually guaranteed, but one minor issue remained: which country’s center would take in the young Howard. He was born to parents with dual British and French citizenship, and had let out his first cry in an American obstetrics clinic.
Governments of various countries engaged in an unyielding power struggle over the custody of this individual with triple citizenship.
Eventually, the boy, tired of the adults’ power struggle surrounding him, declared first. He would work in rotation, one year in each country across the three nations. In exchange, he requested recognition as a free-license Esper, not officially belonging to any single country.
The thirteen-year-old boy showed truly brilliant achievements as he turned seventeen, twenty, and then twenty-three and twenty-seven. To attract his heart even slightly more, the centers of the three countries selected Guides with good compatibility each time his work year came around, and placed them right beside him, as if searching for a Cinderella at a ball. Even amid all this, he never imprinted with any Guide. This was tacitly agreed upon by the three countries. If he had declared permanent allegiance to the country of a Guide he had imprinted with, it would have caused problems. The noble thinking of the higher-ups throughout the ages was that if they couldn’t have him, he shouldn’t fall into anyone else’s hands either.
And when the young Howard returned briefly to America after completing a total of two years of service, one year each in Britain and France, Hee-yeon and Howard met as a dedicated researcher and a special management subject.
Contrary to what many might expect given this backstory, these two capable young people never once regarded each other with innocent, heart-fluttering emotions.
To Hee-yeon, Howard was a living biological data repository holding the secret of Esper genes that were passed down without fail in every generation, and to Howard, Hee-yeon was by far the most capable among seemingly narrow-minded researchers, a living maintenance shop he could trust with the development and upgrade of combat equipment.
While it was clear that the abilities of Espers and Guides were determined at the DNA level, it was still questionable, both then and even now, whether there were genetic factors in the manifestation and awakening of abilities. It was an ambiguous issue that couldn’t definitely be attributed to genetics, yet couldn’t be dismissed as non-genetic either.
So as a scientist whose profession was to explore unclear yet vast truths, despite specializing in physics rather than biology, how tempting must this walking genetic sample have been?
In fact, Hee-yeon wasn’t the only scholar who wanted to put the Howard family on the experimental table. If the Howards weren’t producing mighty Espers who were at least A-class, usually S-class in each generation, several ancestors’ bodies would have already been split open on experimental tables through various unofficial channels.
The young Howard, tired of persistent requests from scholars, eventually surrendered genetic samples as if telling them to take it and leave him alone—hair, nails, oral mucosal cells, blood, and sperm—delivering them to the laboratory in bulk.
The opportunity came in a very coincidental moment. Was it someone’s birthday party at the dormitory, or just a simple Christmas party? Now, she couldn’t even remember what kind of party it was. What mattered was that one of the researchers, drunk to the tips of their hair, happened to be the person in charge of collecting and managing Howard’s genetic samples. They accidentally spilled over an entire box of Howard’s tissue samples that hadn’t yet been transferred to the lab, and by chance, two vials of sperm samples ended up in Hee-yeon’s handbag.
Hee-yeon had no idea about this until the next day when she woke up late with a throbbing hangover. Should she return them? No, she didn’t want to.
Had there ever been a time when Hee-yeon felt so thrillingly aware of being a sole entity with the almighty right to conceive life?
When she was very young, she sometimes felt resentful for not being born as the perfect “Ho-yeon” but instead as the “half-person” Hee-yeon. But what did it matter? Hee-yeon was already perfect as Hee-yeon.
Hee-yeon willingly threw herself into an easy impulse. As it happened, in America where Hee-yeon was staying, there were quite a few single mothers who wanted to have children without getting married, and an obstetrician friend at the research institute who knew well how fiercely Hee-yeon had survived in the suffocating hegemonic kingdom of conservative East Asia, believed without doubt that Hee-yeon had purchased materials through a sperm bank and proceeded with the implantation.
As her belly swelled, she clearly felt it. The child in her womb already possessed Esper abilities from the fetal stage. Hee-yeon was seized with certainty. If she gave birth to this child here, it would be taken away by other researchers with bloodshot eyes. No matter how strong the ability the newborn child might have, it would still be a newborn with undeveloped cognitive abilities.
A powerful Esper with Howard family blood who couldn’t resist. It was a combination that would drive any researcher crazy. Hee-yeon, as a researcher who had awakened to intellect before maternal instinct, knew this better than anyone.
When she became pregnant, Hee-yeon returned safely to Korea with a plausible lie that everyone would believe—that she missed her parents. She injected herself with several stolen guiding substitutes to prevent anyone from discovering that the child in her womb was an Esper.
The homeland she returned to was still conservative and suffocating to Hee-yeon, but at least it was slightly better than when she had left.
The shining trophy who had returned as one of the greatest scholars of her time was welcomed wholeheartedly by both her paternal and maternal families, who had previously looked down on Hee-yeon, lamenting that she was born as Hee-yeon and not Ho-yeon for life.
With both families able to mobilize above-average academic backgrounds and connections, plus her own exceptional competence, it was no trouble for Hee-yeon to secure a position at the Ability Management Agency under the Ministry of Defense at that time.
Hee-yeon safely overcame the hurdle of childbirth, pretending to have accidentally conceived a child from an unexpected one-night stand. To her American colleagues who later contacted her, she claimed she had miscarried due to stress.
Placing the child who let out a vigorous cry on her chest, feeling that shallow warmth. In that moment, Hee-yeon had a lightning realization.
This child, whom Hee-yeon had directly stolen and carried in her womb, enduring ten months with gritted teeth, giving birth through her own labor pains—only this child could rightfully be Ho-yeon.
The name “Ho-yeon” had been the most sensitive trigger for Hee-yeon’s inferiority complex throughout her life, but the moment she helplessly fell in love with the child she had given birth to and wanted to give the most precious and glorious name she knew from her shallow knowledge…
‘Hello, Ho-yeon.’
‘Waaaah. Waaaah.’
‘Ho-yeon, it’s mom… Mom is here…’
Hee-yeon discarded all her identity as Hee-yeon and simply became Ho-yeon’s mother. It was as if all the futures that young Hee-yeon had so desperately not wanted were realized at once, but what could she do?
‘Our Ho-yeon, thank you so much for being born safely. Mom loves you so much.’
Hee-yeon, who couldn’t be born as Ho-yeon, eventually gave birth to Ho-yeon herself, and came to know a terrible love that seemed insufficient no matter how much of herself she gave.
“I have come to this country. To take back what was stolen from me.”
But now he says he’s come to reclaim what was stolen from him. No one would dare take Ho-yeon away from Hee-yeon. She had been somewhat prepared for this since Ho-yeon’s existence became official and his face was clearly revealed in the media, but she couldn’t help feeling tense. Hoo, hoooo… After several deep breaths, Hee-yeon found her composure and put on the mask of a perfect research director with no blood or tears.
“It’s been a while, Howard. How have you been? Don’t be so hostile.”
The research director smiled warmly at her old colleague whom she was facing after a long time.
