Heeyoung was wrestling with a book for the first time in ages, and his head was about to explode. The body was dewy young, so his brain shouldn't have gone stiff, but maybe the reason his head wouldn't turn was that the soul inside it was old. He held the book upside down, even gave his head a punch, but nothing went in. Was the original owner of this body a blockhead too, by any chance?
“Fuuuck, what the hell is coital guiding now? What's 'coital.' How do you even do that. What do you want from me!”
Bellowing, Heeyoung hoisted the thick book up to hurl it, then, thrown off by the weight of the book lifted in one hand, wobbled and finally succeeded only in dropping the book onto the floor beside the bed.
“Damn it, the nerve of a book to be so heavy as hell...!”
Tired of cursing his weak-as-hell body every single time, Heeyoung had moved on to blaming everything around him, then let out a deep sigh. He was throwing a fit every five minutes, but he'd promised to read this entire section before Haram got back, so there was no time.
The lesson would go ahead whether he read it or not, but if he went in without reading it like this, Haram's relentless, dogged teaching would go on and on. Heeyoung had no way to endure it.
“The first line mentions the basics of guiding again. What are the basics of guiding? Can't you remember? Shall we go back to page sixteen? It's okay. We can just learn it again.”
The rote, drilling education that Haram repeated over and over with a gentle smile drove Heeyoung insane. When he cursed and raged, Haram gave him time for the anger to subside and started the lesson again with an unbothered expression. In Haram, who kept the stance of asking placidly, Done being angry? Then let's open the book, something resembling a kind of madness was visible.
At the end of an hour-or-so of insane lessons, Heeyoung said he'd rather read it himself in advance and ask about the parts he didn't understand or was curious about. That seemed more beneficial to mind and body. The problem was that most of it went over his head and he didn't know any of it, though.
Heeyoung stared blankly at the book lying miserably on the hospital room floor. Back when the boss he'd followed declared he was folding the gangster business and starting a legitimate construction business, the guys who fancied themselves clever started studying, and people of Heeyoung's stripe, who threw up everything they were taught no matter how much you drilled it in, only pretended to read.
Now that we've got the wrapping paper of a corporation, read something, anything, the boss had ordered, so Heeyoung had even picked up the most impressive-looking philosophy book, but he'd never once gotten the contents into his head. He couldn't beat the drowsiness that poured over him the moment he opened a book, and besides, it just wouldn't read. His faithful underling, Joonsik, had finally succeeded in reading an entire philosophy book cover to cover, but the only thing he'd parroted was God is dead! Nietzsche said it! God is dead! Just those two lines, so whether even he had read it properly was an unknown.
“Didn't do it even back then, ugh... At my age, what am I doing right now... Aigoo, my rotten luck.”
As Heeyoung made groaning, straining noises and picked up the book, the rattle of the hospital room door sounded behind him. Heeyoung scrambled to grab the book and shouted:
“What? You're back already? No, wait! I was reading! Teacher! Just a sec!”
“Mm, you were studying? Our princess is such a good boy.”
When it was Shinyul's voice, not Haram's, Heeyoung snapped his head up mid-grab for the book.
“What, it was you...? Augh, you scared me. Thought the teacher was here. But didn't you go off to work?”
“I went and came back for a bit. Gotta go again.”
“Busy life you live.”
“Yeah, I'm busy. Looks like I'm going to be really, really busy from now on.”
Leaning against the hospital room door, gazing quietly at Heeyoung as he spoke, Shinyul's gold eyes glinted coldly. After crumpling and folding the paper he'd been holding and tucking it into his inner pocket, Shinyul just wore a lopsided smile. When the kid who'd usually cling to him like a big dog the second he saw his face instead stood off at a distance, unlike the norm, Heeyoung, who'd reflexively frowned, made a puzzled expression.
“What, real busy? What's up with you?”
“With what?”
“No, I mean...”
Anyone can see something's off, what's he asking... Heeyoung grumbled only inwardly. He'd rather die than ask out loud why Shinyul wasn't coming right over to fawn like usual. But to just let it slide, the kid's state was a bit...
It was almost funny that he'd pick up on such a subtle mood when they'd known each other so short a time, and it was absurd of him to care about it, but Heeyoung couldn't let his own state show. Come to think of it, it was only a few hours ago that, furious at this bastard to the bitter end, he'd stayed up the whole night and demanded the matching-rate sheets of other espers in order to handle Shinyul properly, and here he was, unable to say a word just because the kid looked a little down. It was a flabbergasting, ridiculous situation, but Heeyoung, being the adult, decided to put up with it for just a moment.
With both of them silent, an awkward air flowed. Heeyoung grunted, set the book he'd been holding in one hand onto the bed, and flipped through it idly, feigning distraction. Watching him quietly, Shinyul slowly approached Heeyoung's bed.
“Princess.”
“What.”
“I'm going to be busy, but I figured even if I'm busy, I'd be able to see you for a bit here and there, you know?”
“What's the reason you're being a pain when you're busy. Don't.”
Even if I tell him not to, he'll come scampering over the second he gets a chance, whining for guiding. Heeyoung answered offhandedly. Watching Heeyoung speak curtly, scrunching his pretty brow without even meeting his eyes, Shinyul smiled. His long fingers lightly pressed and rubbed the deeply wrinkled brow.
“Yeah, looks like I won't be able to.”
“...No, are you going off to war or something?”
When Heeyoung lifted his head with an incredulous expression, Shinyul seized the chance and gave his soft lips a quick peck. The guiding that flowed across in that instant was electric.
“Ah, fuck, seriously...”
I had no one else to worry about, so I worried about that bastard... Heeyoung scrunched his face and scrubbed his lips hard with the sleeve of his hospital gown.
“Don't cry from loneliness 'cause I'm gone.”
“The hell's he on about.”
“Eat well.”
“Are you my mom?”
Even at the way Heeyoung talked back to every single line without missing a beat, Shinyul smiled and patted his cheek.
“Study hard, princess. The only one who can save me is you.”
“...”
“And the only one who can kill me is you, too. My life belongs to our Heeyoung.”
“What, what nonsense are you suddenly...”
“Study well, princess. See you later.”
Having rattled off only the things he wanted to say, things Heeyoung couldn't even make sense of, Shinyul turned without lingering and left the room. For someone who said he wouldn't be able to visit for a long while, it was a fairly plain goodbye. Heeyoung shuddered with an indefinable unease.
...That crazy bastard, what's gotten into him all of a sudden?
Supervisor Shin stood in front of the hospital room door, face gone blue, hands trembling violently. No, in fact, not just his hands, his whole body was shaking. And beside him, Assistant Manager Seong was trembling in the exact same state. It was because Supervisor Shin had asked about workers' comp coverage and then called bawling. Assistant Manager Seong, who'd been buying a lighter at the convenience store, had come running without even getting to smoke, but in a hopeless situation she just quaked along with Supervisor Shin like a person possessed.
Supervisor Shin stared at the paper trembling in his hands with light-gone eyes. On the paper, the names of espers were densely packed in order, starting from the highest matching rate.
Led by [1. 95% Han Shinyul], with other names listed below, the paper was no longer Heeyoung's guiding matching-rate analysis sheet but had simply become someone's death list.
“I'd... like to file... my resignation...”
Supervisor Shin lacked the confidence to face the espers who'd meet untimely accidents one by one, like a murder case in a mystery novel.
“Even cold water has its order of seniors and juniors, Supervisor Shin. I quit first...”
Of course, Assistant Manager Seong didn't have that confidence either. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined the matching-rate sheet itself would end up in Han Shinyul's hands. How on earth was she supposed to stop that lunatic? A way to stop an S-class esper blinded and driven out of his mind by jealousy? As if. Why ask a civil servant to stop a natural disaster? What did this nation expect from a person who'd studied Korean, English, and Korean history and passed an exam?
Wearing a forlorn expression, Assistant Manager Seong soon snapped to her senses and let out a spirited yell, “Hyah!” This was no time to be standing around. If a tornado was coming, evacuating the residents was at least a civil servant's job.
Rattle. Bang!
“Heeyoung!”
“What! You scared me... No, why's everybody popping up out of nowhere today? Startling people!”
Heeyoung, who'd been flipping his middle finger at the book, jumped in shock at their thunderous entrance. Assistant Manager Seong approached him with a resolute expression, snatched the paper from the still-trembling Supervisor Shin's hand, and held it out to him.
“Heeyoung. Your pair esper, you said you wouldn't switch. You promised us. You promised, that you wouldn't switch. Forever.”
“...I don't think it was quite 'forever'?”
“Either way.”
“...”
There was a kind of unspeakable force radiating from Assistant Manager Seong, and Heeyoung, pressed down by that intensity, couldn't say a word, just blinking his big eyes.
“Ah, and Heeyoung. We're going to be pretty busy for a while, so we probably can't come by often. Still, if anything happens, be sure to contact us.”
To the back of the grimly determined Assistant Manager Seong, who bowed ninety degrees and left dragging the still-hollow-eyed, trembling Supervisor Shin by the collar, Heeyoung shouted, “Did a war really break out?” but no answer came back.
What's with all of them. It's not like the craziness is new, but isn't today a bit much?
Muttering, Heeyoung still looked at his own guiding matching-rate analysis sheet, now in his hands, with a pleased expression, then put it in the drawer. Since he had no real intention of changing pairs, he didn't even read the names written on the paper.
Completely oblivious to the storm that one sheet of paper had set off.
“Heeyoung, have you finished reading?”
“Huh? Uh, no! Just a little, a little more! Take one more lap and come back!”
“...I've done fifteen laps of the hospital...”
Haram said it with a sigh, but Heeyoung just sank deep into the fantasy of, if Han Shinyul dared climb all over him one more time, shoving the paper in his face and chewing him out until he cried.
And so, without catching even the shadow of Han Shinyul, a month passed.
