“Why? What is it? What? I'm scared!”
Supervisor Shin, who'd been beaming wide, instantly freaked out and jumped. Assistant Manager Seong looked at his sniveling face with an expression of total enlightenment.
“Han Shinyul, that guy, he's lost it. He just won't listen to reason. I said let's go protest to the higher-ups and he said no. He went straight into a dungeon briefing instead.”
“Huh? Why? With Shinyul's schedule he can't even get proper guiding!”
“Exactly. But he says he'll just tough it out on guiding meds.”
“Whaat?”
Supervisor Shin's eyes bulged like they'd pop out. No, why?
A guide's guiding and the guiding meds the researchers made were as different as heaven and earth. Guiding meds were what an esper took as a last resort when they couldn't receive guiding. They didn't even compare in efficiency and stability, so the center too tended to recommend a guide's guiding over guiding meds, and espers loathed taking the meds in the first place.
What difference an esper felt, he, an ordinary person, couldn't know, but seeing as every esper dreaded them that much, it absolutely wasn't down to personal taste, and on top of that, Shinyul had only just managed to meet his guide.
For someone who'd suffered his whole life and could finally receive proper guiding, there was no reason to go out of his way to use guiding meds and run dungeons to the limit. Especially when, if this incident were just properly explained, it was a penalty he didn't even need to take, and he was running dungeons while giving up guiding too? Han Shinyul had clearly, truly lost his mind.
“The psychiatrist here at the hospital was really decent, maybe Shinyul should also...”
“I said that, and that's how I got booted out here just now.”
“Oof.”
“We're screwed now... Han Shinyul, that bastard's condition, the dungeon scheduling, there's a mountain of stuff to handle. Don't even think about going home. Even as an example, they'll probably grind him for a month, so we'd better figure we're on a month of emergency-status overtime too, I guess.”
Assistant Manager Seong, frustrated, let out a deep sigh and rummaged busily through the inner pocket of her suit looking for a cigarette, then lifted her head as if struck by a thought.
“Ah, come to think of it, what's the matter with Heeyoung? Why'd he suddenly call us? It's because of Han Shinyul too, right? His body's weak and all, getting a shock like that, what'll we do. Let me have one smoke and we'll head back up.”
At Assistant Manager Seong's words, Supervisor Shin's body went rigid. No, Assistant Manager. Shinyul isn't the problem. A nuclear bomb went off here.
“Um, Assistant Manager... Heeyoung, he...”
“What. Chirping away again? Going on about how young this and that? Isn't that genuinely adorable? Maybe it's 'cause his face is like an angel. Even when he's mad it doesn't feel like getting cussed at.”
“No, he didn't cuss... Or did he? Did he?”
“Then? Ah, no lighter. They won't sell them at a hospital convenience store, right? Supervisor Shin, you came out to get Heeyoung to calm down, right? Then let's take a lap outside first. Air out the cigarette smell too.”
“Well...”
Watching Assistant Manager Seong say let's go and turn to leave first, Supervisor Shin fidgeted, then grabbed her forearm and blurted it out. However tense he was, his spirited voice rang out across the hospital lobby.
“Assistant Manager Seong! I have something to tell you! I kept meaning to but never got the chance...!”
“Wh-what is it?”
Supervisor Shin hung his head low and gripped Assistant Manager Seong's arm desperately. Please, just save me, Assistant Manager...!
Lacking the confidence to clean up the catastrophe Heeyoung had unleashed on his own, Supervisor Shin hesitated, ears flushed red. Blaming his own useless self for being unable to handle work flawlessly without the Assistant Manager, his body shrank smaller and smaller.
In the dead center of the hospital lobby, not even noticing Assistant Manager Seong's expression growing more and more twisted. Not even remotely aware, either, that the hospital-gowned patients and visiting patients who'd been watching them from before, along with their guardians, were murmuring and watching as he dithered.
“What, what, what is it? What are you trying to say? You're scaring me.”
“It's because I don't know what to do, that's why...!”
Assistant Manager Seong's expression twisted miserably. She didn't want to hear any of it.
What? Is he confessing? At the sound of people murmuring from afar, Supervisor Shin seemed to snap to his senses, and, thinking he couldn't openly state the information of a guide he was in charge of, leaned in close to Assistant Manager Seong's face and whispered:
“Heeyoung... says he wants to see the matching rates with other espers...!”
“What?”
Assistant Manager Seong froze with a jolt, then, face gone pale, freaked out and jumped.
“What kind of insane nonsense is that!”
Assistant Manager Seong was about to press Supervisor Shin for a more detailed explanation, then stopped and glanced around. She grabbed his necktie and dragged him outside. As the man, now wearing a gloomy expression like a sinner, was dragged off limply, the eyes of the people in the hospital lobby, sparkling with dopamine, were overtaken by pity.
Oh no... looks like his confession got rejected...
Assistant Manager Seong crammed Supervisor Shin into the company car as if kidnapping him and climbed in after. Already worn out and wilted, Supervisor Shin sprawled across the back seat while Assistant Manager Seong hurriedly got into the driver's seat and turned to the back, pressing him:
“No, hey! What's this about? What, matching rates? With another esper? Why?”
“I don't know either... I really don't know, Heeyoung's heart...”
“Have you lost it too? Don't piss me off. Haa... Start from the beginning and tell me everything, don't leave a thing out!”
Supervisor Shin sobbed wahh and explained the whole situation in mushed-up pronunciation. Assistant Manager Seong flung a handkerchief at Supervisor Shin's tear-soaked, grimy face, looked at him like she was looking at something filthy, and clicked her tongue. When Supervisor Shin blew his nose, honk, into the handkerchief he'd received, Assistant Manager Seong, with a look of contempt, pronounced the handkerchief's death sentence.
Work's going to absolute shit. She knew there was no lighter, but unable to bear the frustration, she clamped an unlit cigarette between her lips and sighed hard.
“For now, give him the data.”
“Huh? Assistant Manager! Don't give up on us just like that!”
“It's a legitimate request, so what, ignore it? Huh? And you said Heeyoung said he wouldn't file for a pair change!”
“You believe that! That?! Assistant Manager, if you believe that, I'm going to ask you to cosign a loan for me!”
Ah, should I just deck him...
Looking at Supervisor Shin with an even more contemptuous expression as he grabbed the driver's-seat headrest from behind and shook it, throwing a fit, Assistant Manager Seong clenched her fist, then barely managed to unclench it.
“...Supervisor Shin. So what, what do you want to do. Should I go up with you and beg him not to look at the matching rates too? Is there a double-the-effect event if two of us beg? Huh? He just said he wants to see the matching-rate analysis sheet, and you want to go make a fuss? I told you I'm already swamped just taking care of Shinyul, didn't I, didn't I! This brat's got a supervisor title and still can't read the situation! Out! You're fired! Seems like it'd be better to get a new junior and re-teach them from scratch!”
As she talked, the anger surged up, and Assistant Manager Seong finally unleashed a gradient of fury, hurling everything at Supervisor Shin without discrimination, the cigarette pack in her hand, the ballpoint pen she'd stashed in her pocket.
When even the fairly heavy card wallet flew and struck Supervisor Shin right between the eyebrows with a thunk, he let out a feeble “Aghk!” and collapsed. Watching Supervisor Shin crumple weakly, Assistant Manager Seong, breathing hard, let out a haa and swept her hair back.
The way she saw it, Heeyoung really didn't seem to have requested it for an actual pair change. His relationship with Shinyul hadn't abruptly changed. In that case, maybe, since he had no common sense about this world, he was just curious what other espers were like? Or he might want to dig into espers connected to that damned soul business. If so, it was a matter that would quiet down if their side just handed over the data he wanted first.
To begin with, there was no way the center would accept a pair-change request made for some run-of-the-mill reason. If they'd meant to give that kind of option, they should've given it from the start. Unless a problem directly affecting survival arose, or Heeyoung's psychiatric history became an issue to the point where he could no longer continue life as a guide, the odds were high his request would be ignored.
And as for that psychiatric matter, since it had reportedly grown more serious precisely because Shinyul wasn't around, given that dependency it seemed all the more like Heeyoung had no reason to terminate the pairing, and the center wouldn't take it kindly either. Soothing Heeyoung afterward would become their job, though.
Watching her junior, who couldn't even think of these basic things and just bawled, the anger surged up once more.
“Assistant Manager...”
“What.”
“Then telling Shinyul that Heeyoung requested the matching-rate sheet... can't we make the Team Leader do it? He should be free right now. I'm scared of Shinyul...”
Fuck.
“Get going right now! Out! Out!”
The instant Assistant Manager Seong screamed, Supervisor Shin threw open the car door faster than light and bolted out. Watching the back of Supervisor Shin scurrying off in the rearview mirror, Assistant Manager Seong let out a groan. This is why I can't quit smoking, this.
Around the time Assistant Manager Seong went looking for a lighter again, heading for the convenience store, Supervisor Shin, having run as fast as an esper, made a cooperation request to the hospital, went into an internal office, and printed Heeyoung's guiding matching-rate sheet. His face, naturally, was a picture of despair.
“No, am I really giving him this? Really? Has the Assistant Manager's mind gone too, from working too much? If our whole team books the psychiatrist here... but is this covered by workers' comp?”
Behind Supervisor Shin, holding the single sheet of paper densely packed with espers' names, a huge figure slid into view and naturally snatched the paper away.
“Wh-wai...!”
“Print one more.”
Shinyul, who'd been skimming Heeyoung's guiding matching-rate sheet with a casual expression, looked at Supervisor Shin and smiled brightly.
“Come up to the room a little later.”
Then, blankly watching the back of Shinyul as he strolled out of the office at a slow pace, Supervisor Shin raised his phone with trembling hands and called somewhere.
“...Yes, Team Leader. No, it's nothing, just, um... how far does our workers' comp coverage extend?”
