Chapter 7: That Pervert

At first, I simply thought my unusual sleepwalking had acted up again.

I figured I’d finally been hit by a car while wandering onto the road in my sleep again.

That’s why I thought I had no memory of the accident.

Besides a car accident, I couldn’t think of any other reason why my body would be this wrecked.

“So…”

They said that I, having become an Esper, tried to destroy a Gate and got destroyed myself in the process.

No matter how I thought about it, it sounded like someone else’s story.

Aran-noona’s words that I had jumped into the Gate alone to prevent the danger from spreading further were even harder to believe.

I was definitely not the type of person with a strong spirit of self-sacrifice.

Because I was a guy busy trying to survive on my own.

“My subordinate, uh… he’s younger than me, right?”

The words wouldn’t come out easily, and the warm-faced man who resembled my world geography teacher nodded his head excessively at my hesitant question.

“Yes! That’s right! It’s Esper Hwang Gyu-tae!”

I couldn’t quite grasp how old thirty-three was.

But hearing that I was older than that man, it hit me so deeply that a desperate breath escaped me.

After sleeping for over a full day and waking up hungry, unfamiliar men who had visited the hospital room called me Team Leader.

Next to the loud, chubby man stood a man who looked like a model.

Tae Seung-jun, was it?

Anyway, they were both tall and well-built, as expected of Espers.

“Don’t worry! Your memories will come back! Just like your freaking fast recovery speed, Team Leader, your memories will come back quickly too!”

“…Thank you.”

Just as the tearful man said, my body was getting better by the day.

My arm, which had been in pain when I first opened my eyes yesterday, no longer throbbed even when pouring water.

It was strange how my body was healing even though I had only slept.

…Is it because I’m an Esper?

“Are you hungry?”

The model-like man, who had been having a staring contest with the foot of my bed, asked.

His tone was annoyed, as if someone had made him ask.

“Yes.”

“I’ll go get it right away!”

As soon as my answer left my lips, Mr. Hwang wiped his tears and ran out.

And so, I was left alone with a stranger in the stuffy hospital room.

It wasn’t that uncomfortable when I was with Aran-noona, but perhaps because of that man’s foul expression, even the air became awkward.

“You’re seventeen?”

To the man who asked with his head tilted askew, I threw back a short answer, not wanting a long conversation.

“They said I’m thirty-three.”

The conversation with the man ended there.

I leaned my heavy head against the pillow and closed my eyes, and the man just stood in the same spot.

Hoping the loud Mr. Hwang would come back soon, I rubbed my sore eyes.

I had cried so much in my sleep that my eyelids were swollen.

It was embarrassing that it was so obvious I’d been crying.

“Do you remember everyone who was here when you first woke up? Besides the doctors.”

The pervert immediately came to mind, but I made an effort not to answer.

I didn’t know what his circumstances were for acting like that, but I just wanted to erase that pervert from my mind.

Every time his white body and pale face came to mind, my chest throbbed.

I didn’t want to shove new information into my already overloaded head, so I just blindly covered it up.

“You don’t remember? A boy with black, roundish hair.”

“A boy?”

“He’s older than you are now.”

I was trying to pretend I didn’t remember, but my mouth moved on its own.

I frowned, confused about which ‘me’ he meant by ‘older than you’, and asked again.

“Aren’t you younger than me?”

He’d clearly said that the older me was the team leader and both of them were younger than me.

The way he was speaking to me informally just because I’d lost my memory was rubbing me the wrong way.

“I’m thirty-two.”

The man, who had his hands stuck in his pockets, took out his vibrating phone and offered me two choices.

“Should I treat you as a thirty-three-year-old? Or as a seventeen-year-old? You decide.”

He was a real pain in the a**, but his attitude, which couldn’t really be faulted, was even more displeasing.

I pressed down on my puffy eyelids and chose the latter.

“…Seventeen.”

It was also awkward to be called ‘Team Leader’ by men in their thirties.

To be honest, I just felt uncomfortable with this space and these people, and all I wanted to do was run away.

But they said the Center was my home now.

I had settled down here and lived for a whole 16 years.

“Hey, are you deaf?”

“What.”

It seemed the man had spoken to me while I was briefly lost in thought.

The man waited until I made proper eye contact before continuing.

“That boy is twenty-eight, and he’s not a weirdo.”

“He was naked.”

My retort left the man speechless for a moment, and he rubbed his forehead and changed the subject.

“Did you get an explanation about guiding?”

“Roughly.”

“How roughly?”

“About how more contact is better.”

“That’s all there is to it. It’s nothing special. You don’t have to worry about matching rates.”

The man’s gaze, which had been alternating between his phone and me, dropped to the floor before returning to me.

“It’s more effective when bare skin touches. A kiss or s*x,”

The man stopped mid-sentence, bent one leg, and took a step back.

“If proper contact isn’t possible.”

The man, with a displeased frown, omitted the rest of his sentence, saying I should know since I’ve seen it a lot on TV.

As he said, I knew about guiding through contact between Espers and Guides.

Ah, in that case, don’t tell me.

“Is he a Guide? That pervert?”

“Not a pervert, Seo Yeong-u.”

The man’s firm voice was sharp.

“He clung to you without sleeping to save you. For a whole week, alone in this hospital room.”

“Why?”

I asked because I was genuinely curious.

Do all Guides normally commit to guiding to that extent?

It didn’t make sense for someone to run around naked in a hospital room where people were coming and going, just to save one Esper who wasn’t even family.

Then you should report it to the labor board.

This isn’t some kind of home, and he’s not my family, so why.

“Hear it from him yourself.”

The man ended with those last words, let out a sharp sigh, and left the hospital room.

I heard him scolding Mr. Hwang, who ran into him in the hallway.

“Can’t you move a little faster?”

“I’m sorry!”

“This crazy bastard brought back a whole feast again.”

The man left first, seemingly having another appointment, and Mr. Hwang shouted that he would follow after taking care of my meal.

I didn’t have to strain my ears; his voice was so loud that I heard everything.

“You’ve waited a long time! It’s dinner time, so there was a wait for everything. I’ll set it up for you right away!”

I gave a small nod of thanks and spaced out.

Seo Yeong-u….

As if forcing food down an already upset stomach, I mulled over the Guide’s name and tapped my stuffy chest.

For some reason, I felt uncomfortable when I thought of that pale face.

So I wanted to keep my distance even more.

“Are you in pain?!”

“No. It’s just stuffy.”

Mr. Hwang reacted strongly to my vague excuse and looked at me with a pitiful expression, then quickly filled the table, saying that eating would clear up my stuffy feeling.

I just blinked, surprised by the endless stream of take-out containers, and was shocked to find only one set of utensils.

“Eat this, and this too, oh, and that too, and eat this after you’ve finished everything!”

Mr. Hwang, who had even brought sikhye full of rice grains for dessert, smiled with a very proud face.

It made sense that it took so long, since he had bought food from all different restaurants.

“Eat a lot! Let me know if it’s not enough!”

“Wait, am I supposed to eat all of this?”

I ate it all.

I scraped it clean, not leaving a single side dish.

Was I always such a big eater?

I was flustered by my hand that was moving the chopsticks nonstop, but I couldn’t stop.

The deliciousness of the food was one thing, but the moment I took the first bite, an immense hunger awoke, and I started shoveling food into my mouth.

I think I was much hungrier than I thought.

I don’t even know my own body well.

“Rest well. And don’t worry about anything! Your job right now, Team Leader, is to eat well and sleep well!”

Mr. Hwang encouraged me with his booming voice until the moment he left the hospital room.

My worries only grew at his bright, smiling face as he said my memories would come back soon, so not to worry.

Is it a good thing if my memories come back?

They said the memories lost due to the shock of the accident would naturally return over time.

For the me of now, they were memories I had never lost.

I hated the feeling of being forced to pull forward 16 years of time I hadn’t yet experienced.

It was awkward, uncomfortable, burdensome, and also scary.

The very fact that I was an Esper.

“Ah….”

To cut off my deepening depression, I hit my head out of habit and staggered.

I only tapped it lightly, but it felt like I’d been hit with a baseball bat.

I was annoyed by the feeling of my vision spinning just from hitting my head a little.

And on top of that, even after stuffing my face with so much food, I still felt empty inside.

Even though I had filled my stomach with all kinds of food, the hunger wouldn’t go away.

Scratching the bandages that covered my entire body, I vented my anger, which had no clear target, into the air.

I seethed, spat out curses, and released my anger by hitting my numb legs.

“Are you crazy for real….”

I just wanted to be angry, but tears kept welling up.

I wasn’t always this much of a crybaby.

Since waking up in the hospital room, I’d been bursting into tears at any given moment.

I’d cry until I fell asleep, cry in my sleep, and cry even more after waking up.

The emotions that were seething on their own, as if they weren’t part of my body, also felt like they weren’t mine.

Click. The sound of a button unfastening brushed past.

Click again. The hand that had carefully unbuttoned the second button touched my chest.

The finely trembling fingertips patted my chest before parting my patient gown shirt.

The third button came undone on its own without being touched.

The lips that approached with a moist breath kissed my left chest.

At that, the knot that had been tightly bound in my chest began to loosen a little.

Is this guiding?

The body that had slipped under the covers, rubbing its lips on my left chest as if to soothe my heartbeat, pressed tightly against me.

It slipped its calf between my unmoving legs and wrapped its slender arms wide to embrace my waist.

Its chapped lips restlessly pecked at my chest, then my neck, and then under my chin.

Naked, as expected.

“Excuse me.”