82.
If it weren’t for the employees who delivered food and other daily necessities by boat every morning, Choi Jae-won said he would have died. Had those who were placing the ice box in its usual spot and trying to leave not responded to the concerning groans coming from inside, that’s exactly what would have happened.
In any case, whether thanks to or because of their intervention, Choi Jae-won survived and was immediately transferred to a nearby Center’s medical facility, ultimately becoming Asia’s second S-class Guide following his cousin.
People called it a miraculous stroke of luck.
Not knowing that for the person involved, the entire incident was a miraculous misfortune.
Unable to die by his own will as he continued waiting and searching without knowing if there would ever be results, Choi Jae-won sometimes thought: if only he had died back then, at that place where Ryu Ho-yeon had abandoned him. If only all the blood vessels and nerves in his body had burst and killed him. How desperately he wished for that.
It had been nine years since he had clung to life so pathetically, unable to die in case, just in case, Ryu Ho-yeon might actually return. If he was going to die anyway after enduring like this for ten years, twenty years, or even longer, he should have just died in some unavoidable incident. Then at least he wouldn’t have had to wither away embracing such painful and futile feelings.
Once. Back when he was hovering around twenty to twenty-three, he had desperately dreamed of becoming an S-class Guide. That was an achievement he couldn’t attain even after personally hiring Dr. An and lying on his examination table from age fifteen to twenty-four.
But in the end, Choi Jae-won had done it. He had finally become the S-class Guide he had so desperately wanted.
The only problem was that the one Esper he had so desperately wanted to guide had vanished without a trace.
* * *
BANG BANG BANG BANG!!
There was a violent knocking that sounded as if the front door might break at any moment. Choi Jae-won, who had been lying on his recliner sofa in the living room with the lights off, letting time pass in silence, continued to maintain his quiet despite the door sounds that seemed almost angry.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear the noise, but since he could guess who was pounding with such fury and what the unwelcome visitor’s purpose was, there was no reason to feel any particular sense of crisis or curiosity.
“I know you’re in there! Open the door right now!”
BANG BANG BANG!
“Choi Jae-won!!”
Indeed, it was the voice of the person he had expected.
Choi Jae-won still didn’t get up. His daily routine consisted of checking search results all day, having his hopes crushed by the same results, and then lying limply in the same way. His sprawled limbs seemed to have impossibly little energy.
There was a cracking sound, and finally the door broke. The security system’s alarm rang loudly, hurting his ears.
Without even a casual greeting or complaint about breaking in despite no answer, he first answered the call from the security company on his phone.
While he was responding that it was just a malfunction and they didn’t need to dispatch anyone, the unwelcome visitor had already stomped up to him in his shoes.
“Choi Jae-won. What do you think you’re doing right now? This time it’s not just some inadequate guiding or risk of rampage. It’s a rampage precursor! A-class at that!! Unless you subdue it, either the whole of Seoul will be blown away, or we’ll have to kill that bastard before that happens!!”
As the twenty-four-year-old Choi Jae-won turned thirty-three, time hadn’t flowed only for him. The person standing in front of Choi Jae-won now, gritting his teeth, was Kim Jun-young, who had already entered his late forties.
“It’s been a while. When did you come up to Seoul?”
Choi Jae-won asked dryly. Kim Jun-young, ignoring this, grabbed Choi Jae-won’s shoulders and pulled him up. His powerless limbs wobbled under the rough grip of the S-class physical enhancement ability user. There wasn’t the slightest sign of resistance. Even the will to resist had evaporated long ago.
Kim Jun-young seemed to notice this and bit his lip once before releasing the shoulders he had grabbed. Momentarily dizzy, Choi Jae-won nearly collapsed back into his seat. The one who supported his body as it was about to fall was another unexpected visitor who had suddenly appeared, Lee Jung-hyuk.
“I’m sorry, Jae-won-ssi. We’re really short on time right now.”
“Senior Jung-hyuk.”
“Let’s move to the car first. I’ll brief you on the way.”
Despite Choi Jae-won having barely eaten, Lee Jung-hyuk easily hoisted the over-180-centimeter-tall man onto his shoulder and immediately crossed the ruined front door. Kim Jun-young followed behind Lee Jung-hyuk and the Choi Jae-won he was carrying, his expression still not completely free of anger.
“The A-class Esper experiencing rampage precursors is a natural fire ability user, currently at 22 percent guiding. It’s already been two hours since it fell below 25 percent, and given the nature of the ability, direct contact is impossible. A-class Guides are trying to maintain the levels through radial guiding so they don’t drop further, but it’s becoming really difficult.”
Lee Jung-hyuk conveyed the facts in a businesslike tone as they took the elevator down, put Choi Jae-won in the passenger seat, and even fastened his seatbelt for him.
Kim Jun-young, who had effectively lost his place next to his Guide, settled in the back seat, still glancing at Choi Jae-won with less than friendly eyes. Though not officially affiliated with the government, Choi Jae-won was clearly a high-ranking Guide, and Kim Jun-young seemed to want to criticize how he could turn his back on an issue where lives were at stake.
Once again, it was Lee Jung-hyuk who stopped Kim Jun-young as he was about to say something. As always.
As far as Choi Jae-won knew, the more rational one between the two had always been Kim Jun-young, but perhaps with time, or perhaps with more interaction with the two, he now knew it was the opposite.
Lee Jung-hyuk didn’t say anything more and smoothly started the car. Lee Jung-hyuk’s vehicle, which had been an SUV until a few years ago, had changed to a more dignified sedan. This change revealed the passage of time anew.
Kim Jun-young, whose physical aging was slower and whose appearance was hardly different from his early twenties, and Lee Jung-hyuk, who looked much younger than his age but still showed clear signs of aging. Having both of them, always seen together as a pair, in his field of vision was somewhat painful for Choi Jae-won.
Now, judging by appearance alone, Kim Jun-young looked younger than Choi Jae-won. When facing his smooth face without a single wrinkle, Choi Jae-won would fall into meaningless fantasies of returning to his twenties, when he first entered the Center and took his place beside Ryu Ho-yeon. Then, seeing Lee Jung-hyuk’s face with its traces of time right next to him, his heart, which he thought couldn’t crumble any further, would collapse again like mud mixed with monsoon rain. He was no longer a child who only knew how to swell his heart with dreams of first love, and his first love, more precious and beautiful than anyone else in the world, was nowhere to be found.
“The target guiding level is 30 percent through initial radial guiding, then converting to contact guiding for up to 35 percent after monitoring the condition.”
“…”
“After that, other Guides on standby will handle the rest. I’m counting on you.”
There was no drawn-out argument about why he hadn’t responded immediately, or whether he didn’t care if people died.
Perhaps they could guess his feelings—how desperately he resented this world that Ryu Ho-yeon had saved by abandoning him, how cruelly it seemed to go on peacefully without Ryu Ho-yeon, leaving him struggling in despair.
“Choi Jae-won-ssi.”
“…”
They had already arrived at the scene. Choi Jae-won opened the car door himself and got out. A pungent smell, as if something were burning, repeatedly stung his nose.
Though Choi Jae-won often acted as if he wished the world would end, whenever tragedy was thrust before his eyes, he obediently discharged his guiding.
He truly wished this world would perish, but in the end, it was the world that Ryu Ho-yeon had saved.
For Choi Jae-won, this perfectly functioning world, though he hated to admit it, was essentially the last relic left to him.
* * *
“What are you doing there?”
“Ah. Nothing. Just that the night sky is beautiful.”
The foreign country located near the equator was always hot, day or night. The humid air was stifling even at night, but the one thing he liked was the regular clouds that seemed much closer to the ground than he remembered.
“You always do this every now and then? You have appointments scheduled early tomorrow, right? Come inside already.”
“…Okay.”
Staring blankly at the night sky for hours, missing someone he didn’t even know, was a useless act that no one else in this refugee camp bothered with.
The romantic act of looking up at the night sky and moistening one’s heart with longing didn’t help fill empty stomachs or fatten up the harsh realities of life.
“Why? Do you remember something?”
“…”
“Sigh. I shouldn’t have asked. Let’s just go inside.”
“…Okay.”
For some lingering attachment, he looked up at the night sky one last time before following his friend back to bed. The soft-looking clouds against the blueberry-colored background looked just like a splendid carpet. Like a magic carpet from a fairy tale.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
