“Teacher, something’s wrong. I can’t hear other people’s hearts anymore.”
At the child’s calm voice, Professor Park, who’d been practicing his golf swing under the table, lifted his gaze. Across from him, a boy sat with perfect posture, facing another test the way he always did.
“You can’t hear their inner thoughts?”
“No.”
“Oho. Has our Eunhu finally found a way to control the ability?”
“No. It’s not like that. Even when I look right into their eyes like this, I don’t feel anything. I’ve tried and tried, but it won’t work.”
“...”
“It’s true!”
Professor Park stared at Seon Eunhu as the boy pleaded his innocence. At nine years old, the child was a poor liar. He’d barely gotten a few words out and was already biting down on his lower lip.
Professor Park blinked slowly, once, twice, then took off his glasses and set them down. “Eunhu.” Just calling his name once made the small shoulders flinch.
Our sweet little runt. Why would he suddenly start lying? He knows full well that a policeman comes and hauls you away if you lie to a grown-up. Don’t tell me he wants to get locked up in a scary jail and get an awful scolding?
He tried speaking into the boy’s mind while holding his gaze, but Seon Eunhu only stared back blankly, pretending he really couldn’t hear a thing. On any other day the kid would’ve grinned and chattered away.
Three years spent proving his mind reading, and now he wanted to deny all of it? Had some other research center made him a decent offer? He didn’t seem like the type to fall for that.
Professor Park looked at the woman seated beside Seon Eunhu. Unlike her burly husband, she was slight, and the moment the professor’s wrinkled eyes turned to her, she opened her mouth as if she’d been waiting.
“Eunhu just suddenly started this last night. He says even when he looks into my eyes now, he feels nothing. That he can’t hear people’s hearts, so the world’s gone quiet. That this must be what the world feels like for ordinary people... hic...! Oh, Lord...”
“Aigoo, why are you crying again? The child will see.”
Professor Park pulled out a few tissues and handed them to the woman as she abruptly began to weep. He mimicked a gentle tone, but the murky eyes he turned on her were colder than ever.
So it’s because of this woman.
Professor Park knew it on instinct.
She was a woman who wasn’t even pleased that Seon Eunhu was an alpha. Something about wanting her child to live as an ordinary beta. In an age when trait-holders were so rare, this woman didn’t even realize what a blessing it was to be born an alpha. When the special ability had been discovered in Seon Eunhu, she’d violently denied reality. Professor Park vividly remembered the cluster of crucifix necklaces that used to dangle from Seon Eunhu whenever he came and went from the lab. The couple who prayed with clasped hands in the waiting room were convinced an evil spirit had taken root in the boy.
Mind reading.
The ability to see straight through another person’s thoughts had, until now, existed only in theory as an alpha power. Which was why Seon Eunhu, brought in at seven years old by parents insisting something was wrong with their child, had caused a sensation in the World Trait Medicine Council.
Council executives had visited Professor Park’s lab several times just to see Seon Eunhu with their own eyes, and once they’d confirmed the ability, they’d promised generous funding and placed the responsibility in Professor Park’s hands.
The child was too young to be taken on by the overseas headquarters, and the parents were uncooperative.
Fearing the very existence of mind reading would send shockwaves through society, the research had begun in secret in Korea, and for three years now it had been progressing smoothly.
But while Professor Park grew happier by the day, lost in the expectation of the enormous wealth he’d accumulate, the faces of the Seon family only darkened. Seon Eunhu was no different. Like a child with some grief hanging over his household, his young eyes always bore the tracks of tears instead of any spark of life.
And now, at last, here he was spinning lies. Not knowing how famous his ability could make him, throwing out this clumsy little scheme just to squeeze a bit more love out of his parents. So very childlike.
Professor Park, a specialist in trait medicine, gazed at the small alpha sitting across the desk. A precious boy who would set him on a cushion of money.
“Eunhu.”
“Yes.”
At Professor Park’s low call, Seon Eunhu looked at him a moment before answering. The corners of his eyes drooped softly, but there was spirit in those light-brown irises. There was no telling how many victims there’d be down the line, charmed by those innocent-seeming eyes, never realizing their minds were being read.
Professor Park went on inside his head.
You must’ve had a hard time all this while, worrying about how your parents would react. I understand completely. You’ll grow up to be a hero and do great things, and it must hurt so much that the grown-ups don’t recognize it. Teacher understands and sympathizes with everything about our Eunhu. That’s the trouble with grown-ups, you see. Humanity only advances when there’s change, but they’d rather stagnate than let anyone stand out from the herd. Even when a splendid piece of timber is growing up right here.
“...”
That’s right. I understand what you’re after now. We’ll keep it our little secret that you’re lying, and I’ll play along in front of your mother too, so when you go in for the test, do a good job following along. This is hard on Teacher too. All right? If you understand, just nod your head a little.
“...”
Or you could give me a secret wink.
But Seon Eunhu showed no particular reaction.
“Hooo...”
Professor Park let out a long sigh and pulled his chair in closer. Irritation surged up in him at this normally obedient child acting this way.
Eunhu. Teacher’s a busy man, I don’t have time to play games with you. Just do it the way you always have, and after the test I’ll sneak you some chocolate behind your mother’s back.
“Professor, are you doing something to my child right now?”
When Seon Eunhu’s mother eyed the silent Professor Park suspiciously and asked, the professor raised a hand. A gesture telling her not to cut in between them.
“Eunhu. Seon Eunhu. Look Teacher in the eyes.”
Professor Park spoke with a warm smile. As the child answered with a small “Yes,” he looked straight into his eyes and finished the rest inside his head.
Teacher told you before, didn’t he? That you’ll become world-famous. Your name will be etched into every alpha paper, and foreign reporters will race across the seas just to see you. You’re in elementary school now, right? Is there someone you like? Before long, not just that child but every friend you have will be dying to get close to you. Isn’t that wonderful? Being able to hear what’s in other people’s hearts.
Just as Professor Park was calmly coaxing him at the child’s eye level, the boy, who’d been blinking slowly, opened his mouth.
“Teacher. But really, I can’t hear anything. It’s the truth.”
“Ah, damn it, you little- ...My apologies.”
Professor Park, who’d flared up before he could stop himself, barely managed to cut himself off and apologized to Seon Eunhu’s mother. Leaving her brow to crumple, he turned back to the child. Watching that brazen little face pretending it hadn’t heard a thing, his insides churned and boiled.
Can’t hear, my foot! What, did a little runt like you go off and imprint? The only way to snuff out the ability is to do that deed, but how in the world would a snot-nosed kid who’s still wet behind the ears bring an omega down? Huh? Do you even know what imprinting is?
Unable to master his temper, Professor Park worked himself up, going so far as to bring up imprinting to a little child. Rationalizing it pettily, telling himself that if the boy’s claim was true, then he couldn’t hear anyway, so what did it matter.
But when Seon Eunhu still showed no reaction whatsoever, Professor Park was seized by the urge to do the child some harm. Only a little while ago he’d found the boy so adorable he’d wanted to smother him with kisses, and now all he wanted was to make him cry and teach him a lesson. A child daring to make a fool of an adult needed his manners corrected before it was too late.
“Hmm...”
With a low groan, Professor Park dropped his head toward the desk. Among the documents on Seon Eunhu, the business card of a pro golfer caught his eye. He’d been thinking lately of cutting back his hospital hours and taking one-on-one lessons anyway, what with his golf game finally coming into its own.
The thought that this tiny little runt held the money and honor he’d been promised in his hands, waving it around, made the anger flare up all over again.
Professor Park forced his temper back down.
“All right, Eunhu. How’ve you been feeling lately? I think today we’ll have to test whether your ability changes with your physical condition. Let’s figure out the cause of this temporary hormonal disruption together. First, go on to the exam room and have your blood drawn. In the meantime, Mother, if you’d wait outside.”
He guided them warmly, forcing it, to keep up the usual mood. The kind expression froze cold the instant the two of them left the office.
“Honestly, the gifted ones are always born into ignorant families like that. If your kid’s special you ought to think about pushing them forward, but no, they’ve gone and crushed the spirit right out of him.”
The thought of wasting the next several days on Seon Eunhu’s lie was suffocating, but it wasn’t a major worry. A child’s whims never lasted long anyway.
Contrary to Professor Park’s expectations, however, Seon Eunhu insisted at their next meeting, and the research day after that, that his ability had vanished.
Professor Park, who at first didn’t believe it and only meant to humor him, grew more and more anxious as time went on that the child’s words might be true. So at some point he began straining to prove that Seon Eunhu could still read minds. He’d dreamed grand dreams through this child, so he had to get Seon Eunhu back to how he was, no matter what.
The method of proving it was simple and straightforward.
He started with childish curses that might work on a little kid, then hurled threats and insults without hesitation that would’ve wounded even a grown adult. Of course, he never let the sound out of his mouth. Determined to see tears well up in those young eyes, he’d lock gazes at every opportunity and spew violent words inside his head.
But Seon Eunhu only gazed placidly back at Professor Park. He’d stare quietly without blinking an eye, and when the test was over he’d smile and give a polite goodbye. His face made it impossible to believe he was a child who’d just spent hours listening to venom, so in the end Professor Park had no choice but to accept the boy’s claim.
The tests, once held every week, stretched further and further apart.
Once every ten days, once every two weeks. Then once a month.
By the time Seon Eunhu entered middle school he went to the lab once every six months, and once he became a high schooler it changed to a single visit each spring.
The researcher dispatched from overseas returned to his own country, the World Trait Medicine Council’s supposedly generous funding all but dried up, and Professor Park, who never managed to cut back his hospital hours, never did improve at golf.
In the end, the year Seon Eunhu turned twenty, the follow-up study was terminated and the paper came to its final period.
It was around then that Seon Eunhu’s report, with all identifying details erased, was leaked online.
For a while the internet buzzed over a story straight out of a movie, but only briefly. The claim that verification must have been lax, given it happened over a decade ago, and the fact that the subject had been a young child, became grounds to distrust it. Before long, public opinion concluded that a bunch of grown-ups had been played by a precocious kid’s lie.
The title “the mind-reading alpha boy” was forgotten just that easily. The boy had, at some point, become a young man, erasing his past and living an ordinary life.
‹Mind Reading Observation Report›
[Subject]
Name: Seon Eunhu
Sex: Male
Observation Period: Age 7 – 20
Trait: Alpha
[Summary of Findings]
Presumed to have had the mind-reading ability manifested from birth.
Able to accurately grasp others’ emotions and intentions. (Accuracy 98.1%)
Can read the other party’s thoughts upon making eye contact within a distance where the pupils are visible.
No issue using the ability even while wearing clear glasses or lenses, so long as the pupils are visible, but impossible when the eyes are covered, as by dark sunglasses.
No constraint on use even across different languages, and use is impossible through camera footage.
Demonstrated excellent results across academics and social life overall.
.
.
.
[Change in Results]
The mind-reading ability naturally vanished over time.
As the ability did not manifest after the age of eight, the follow-up study was terminated upon his reaching adulthood.
[Notable Points and Theoretical Implications]
Whereas mind reading was previously believed to disappear only through imprinting with an omega, this observed case suggests that natural disappearance is possible even without the imprinting process.
