Chapter 55: You’re Allowed to Choose

Chaewon looked momentarily startled by Su-ha’s unexpected suggestion, then nodded with a bright, willing smile.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

Seeing Chaewon looking at him with such an utterly harmless expression only made the thoughts that had weighed heavily on Su-ha the night before grow even larger.

He’d thought that pushing aside those unnecessary feelings and focusing solely on his work as Chaewon’s guide would make things easier, but for some reason, the days only seemed to grow more difficult.

Worried that Chaewon might notice his unease, Su-ha simply walked on, smiling back at him.

****

“Earlier, what Jeong-jin said… aren’t you curious what he meant?”

Su-ha brought it up after they’d slowly made a full round of the park inside the center and sat down on a bench tucked away in a quiet corner.

Their walk together had passed in silence. Su-ha had been too busy organizing his thoughts, and Chaewon, sensing that Su-ha was deep in thought, hadn’t tried to interrupt him.

As Chaewon quietly watched the scenery grow greener with the approaching summer, he turned his gaze toward Su-ha’s voice and replied,

“What do you mean?”

“When he talked about you becoming a star overnight.”

“Oh… that. I’m not sure. I did think I might get criticized because of what happened yesterday, though…”

Chaewon’s voice didn’t sound particularly self-deprecating as he said it.

In his own way, Chaewon had thought it through logically. If one wanted to frame it positively, they could say he fought to protect people from someone who meant them harm, but he couldn’t believe what he’d shown yesterday had been enough.

He hadn’t unleashed some overwhelming attack that neutralized the enemy in an instant. He hadn’t properly subdued them either. And in the end, he’d even lost consciousness. It was only by luck that backup arrived in time and prevented more casualties.

If they’d been even a little later, people could have been badly hurt after he collapsed, and Su-ha himself might have been in serious danger.

In that situation, Chaewon felt it was only natural that people would criticize an esper who had done little and then irresponsibly passed out. So why worry about being blamed for something that deserved criticism in the first place?

What mattered was what he learned from that mistake and how he moved forward. That was why Chaewon hadn’t been curious about what people outside were saying about him.

Right now was the time to learn, to grow, to make up for what he lacked, not to waste energy worrying about something as trivial as his reputation.

Seen in that light, Jeong-jin’s words really were puzzling. No matter how he looked at it, Jeong-jin hadn’t sounded like someone who thought Chaewon was being spoken of negatively.

Su-ha, finding Chaewon’s reaction exactly as he’d expected, let out a small laugh before continuing.

“People are curious about the esper who suddenly appeared and protected others with a kind of power they’d never seen before.”

“…”

“No matter how you look at it, Chaewon, you’re different from other espers. Not just the power you use, your appearance, too…”

‘You’re far too pretty.’

Unable to say that out loud, Su-ha let his words trail off. Instead of pressing him, Chaewon lowered his gaze and looked down at himself. His body was still thin to the point of frailty, his skin pale, by any standard, he really did look nothing like the other espers Chaewon knew.

Su-ha continued,

“Chaewon… you need to realize that you inspire far more affection in people than you think you do.”

Chaewon lifted his head and looked at Su-ha again. Su-ha was already watching him with a serious expression.

“Once there’s an official announcement, and the more field missions you go on, the attention and affection directed at you will increase exponentially.”

“Affection…?”

“Yes. You might think you’re more used to being disliked, but no. People are going to love you.”

The moment he said it, people are going to love you, a sudden chill ran down Su-ha’s spine.

It was a strange sensation he’d never felt before, something that made his body stiffen as if some vast force crossing the universe had cast an irresistible spell on him.

But the world in front of him looked exactly the same as before, so Su-ha quickly shook off the feeling and went on. What he truly wanted to say started now.

“But… that won’t always be a good thing.”

Even now, Su-ha’s heart raced when he recalled Chaewon standing in front of the enemy’s attack. Not in a good way.

It was fear, anxiety. He believed what he was about to say was something Chaewon needed to hear, yet at the same time, he couldn’t be sure who he was really saying it for.

“Leaving aside the fact that public interest can flip completely at any moment, and that affectionate words aren’t always helpful…”

“…”

“Chaewon. Once you officially step into this line of work, you’ll truly be setting foot in the middle of the battlefield.”

Real battlefields were nothing like the training room, nothing like fights conducted under guaranteed safety. No matter how stable the world had become, espers still risked their lives on missions.

And the moment Chaewon first unleashed his power into the world yesterday, Su-ha realized that those days were now approaching for him as well.

“You’ll be standing at the very front of places where injury and death are always lurking, bearing not only the risk to your own life, but the responsibility for the lives of your teammates and civilians too.”

“…”

“People will love you easily, and condemn you just as easily. Your every move will be put on the chopping block and dissected. Sometimes, there will be injustices you can’t even properly explain.”

Su-ha had seen espers who were wounded and broken under that weight.

Not because they were weak-minded, or because they hadn’t prepared themselves. No matter how resolved you thought you were, imagining it and actually experiencing it were completely different things.

Chaewon listened silently to everything Su-ha said. After letting out a deep breath, Su-ha spoke again.

“So, Chaewon. I hope you don’t think that just because things have turned out this way, you have to do this.”

What followed was something Chaewon had never expected. When he asked, flustered, “What?” Su-ha continued,

“Not every esper works in the field. Of course, since you awakened as S-class, the higher-ups will want to send you out no matter what, but you also have side effects. If you don’t want to, no one can force you.”

Not all espers were required to be deployed on the front lines. If they wished, they could choose safer roles like rear support. It was only possible because there were enough awakened individuals and the system itself was stable.

Most people who awakened as espers were aggressive by nature. Few wanted to stay behind when they had such power, especially when front-line espers earned more and were showered with public admiration. Who would willingly choose cleanup duty instead?

Even so, there were always people whose goals in life were different, and the number of espers who didn’t enter front-line combat was far from small.

There had never been an S-class esper who made that choice, and the higher-ups undoubtedly had their own plans for Chaewon, but if someone with side effects like him clearly refused, they wouldn’t be able to force him.

Su-ha was fully prepared to support Chaewon in that decision.

Su-ha knew Chaewon carried a strong sense of obligation. He wasn’t saying that was wrong. And despite everything he was saying now, it wasn’t as though Su-ha only wanted Chaewon to quit fieldwork.

He simply wanted Chaewon to know that there were other paths. That awakening didn’t mean he had no choice but to walk this one road. That Chaewon had the right to choose something else.

No one should be expected to endure this kind of pain as a given. No one should be forced to sacrifice themselves for society’s utility.

Even if the same choice was made, choosing it while knowing you had options was fundamentally different from being pushed into it without realizing you did.

Especially for someone like Chaewon, who awakened under harsh circumstances, it was easy to never realize there was a choice at all.

Because he hadn’t had many chances in life to choose for himself to begin with. In that situation, it was a problem that no one ever told him it was okay to stop.

“I awakened as an esper, so that itself means I owe the world something. So I should endure being hurt. This is nothing.”

“…”

“I hope you won’t think like that, Chaewon.”