“Captain, then I’ll ask you a question. If the Guide asks you ‘Who are you?’, how should you answer?”
Heichi returned to his quarters and, for the first time in a while, didn’t go straight to bed but sat in a chair and called his vice captain, AJ. And surprisingly, he informed him that he had met a person presumed to be his Guide here.
Though he added the caveat that it wasn’t certain since they hadn’t properly made contact yet, neither Heichi who said it nor AJ who heard it cared about that. That’s because even though the planets the two had visited now exceeded 493, none of them had produced even a Guide of a level that could handle Heichi.
It was the same even when they brought back a White-grade Guide they’d found with difficulty and barely made contact. As soon as Heichi’s fingertips touched, he grimaced as if it felt unpleasant. AJ said that even so, this was something, and told him to frequently contact the White-grade Guide at least to survive, but Heichi didn’t even pretend to listen.
Heichi had no choice. The sensation felt whether contacting an Esper or contacting a Guide was similar, so why should he endure unpleasantness and contact a Guide?
After contacting the White-grade Guide that one time, Heichi completely gave up his expectations toward Guides. It wasn’t meaningful guiding, and even if he felt meaningful guiding someday, if it was similar to this, he particularly… didn’t look forward to it.
“Space Alliance Commander of the 13th Stellar System Epsilon in the Super Galactic Cluster, Heichi.”
“…Captain, you know that really has no feeling, right?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Heichi tilted his head as if he really didn’t know. AJ, who let out a long sigh, shook his head and corrected Heichi’s answer.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Heichi. This is the basic greeting of Earthlings!”
“There are… separate honorifics.”
“Of course. Especially Korea is called the ‘Eastern Country of Courtesy’ and is a nation of Confucian thought. I know the Captain has no interest in the region we’re in charge of, but it’s different now, isn’t it? It’s the country where the Captain’s Guide lives!”
AJ pounded his chest as if frustrated. But Heichi was just as frustrated.
After all, who would have known that ‘finding my Guide,’ which he naturally thought would be a waste of effort this planet too, would succeed so suddenly like this, and even like a miraculous fate, finding them directly?
Heichi still remembered like eternity that moment of contact with his Guide met like fate, with several layers of outerwear between them. He wanted to rush out to meet him right now, but Heichi was enduring with formidable patience befitting his position as Space Alliance Commander.
To borrow AJ’s expression, the reason was that if he went to meet the Guide like this, he’d get slapped and be treated like a crazy person.
“So, how was it?”
“What.”
“When you met ‘your Guide.'”
AJ’s voice subtly lowered. He too was very interested in his superior and his Guide who met in a romantic situation. Of course, AJ had a match who wouldn’t hurt even if put in his eyes, so it wasn’t greed or anything, just simple curiosity from finding the Guide of a superior who had so desperately longed for one.
“Did you like it? You’ve been searching for so long.”
Heichi, sitting in the chair, mulled over meeting the man again once more. Recently, while suffering from severe lethargy, he had felt like his memory was regressing compared to before, but strangely only his memory of his Guide was clear. Probably even if a lifetime passed, he wouldn’t be able to forget this.
“I’m not sure.”
“What? What does that mean? Weren’t you over the moon?”
“My Guide has very scrawny legs. He was running toward me wearing lower garments with frayed ends from age, and strangely my gaze was drawn to him. At that time, we hadn’t made contact yet, so I wouldn’t have known he was my Guide, yet still.”
AJ closed his mouth for a moment. Heichi didn’t even notice that his expression had changed strangely and continued chattering on.
“A black outerwear… Do they call it ‘padding’ here? The filling of the black padding seemed all dead and unable to help maintain proper body temperature, but anyway, I grabbed his forearm through that padding. Just from that, I could feel that his arms were as thin as his legs.”
“Ah, yes…”
“But thanks to the black padding also being old, the gaps in the fibers that would normally be less than 1 micron had widened to about 10 microns. Even setting that aside, it must be that my Guide’s guiding ability is very excellent, so I could feel it even through the outerwear.”
AJ realized for the first time, even after knowing him for decades, that Heichi was a man who could speak this lengthily. Because he was a man who only gave precise instructions or just answered when giving orders, never expressing personal feelings or opinions, the sense of disconnect felt even greater.
“Then why do you say you’re not sure? You clearly seem to have liked it.”
“Well…”
At the question thrown again, this time even Heichi hesitated. He was troubled whether he should confide his inner feelings to his vice captain AJ.
“Beyond simply the emotion of liking, the moment I made contact and felt guiding, it was because destructive and extreme emotions were recognized first.”
Heichi still remembers the sensation of when he tried to kidnap his Guide by breaking his limbs. It wasn’t a simple emotion of ‘wanting to do that.’ The instinctive thought that he ‘must do that’ filled his head at least in that moment, and his body almost moved before his brain.
Seeing Heichi honestly confiding his inner feelings, AJ chuckled. When his eyes looking at his superior were quite insolent, Heichi looked down at him expressionlessly.
“At times like this, I really feel that the Captain is only twenty-nine.”
“What does that mean?”
“That thing, that destructive and extreme emotion the Captain felt. That’s generally the emotion that newly awakened Espers feel when they first meet their Guide.”
“…Is that true?”
At Heichi’s surprised face, AJ nodded good-naturedly. Heichi was a man who had only received elite education even on his home planet Epsilon, and before receiving that education, had already awakened Prime-grade abilities and never experienced the lives of ordinary Espers. So naturally it was understandable not to know.
“An Esper who has obtained their own Guide inevitably lives fighting fiercely with themselves. Because they have thoughts of wanting to make them completely their own. For example, wanting to restrain and confine them in their room.”
“…”
It was similar, but for Heichi who had even thought of breaking limbs, he had nothing to say and closed his mouth. AJ, interpreting that silence somehow, added successively.
“But if I did that, I’d be hated by my Guide and then some. Look at Kzar, what would happen if I confined him in a room?”
Kzar was AJ’s one and only Guide. Heichi, who had been recalling Guide Kzar with his large, solid build unlike the thin, lean AJ, nodded as if convinced. Even if Kzar caused trouble, in truth no problem would arise for AJ who was an Esper. But if Kzar hated AJ because of that, or got angry…
Probably AJ wouldn’t last even ten minutes and would give him freedom. Not just AJ, but most Espers Heichi knew were like that.
“Now. Then let’s continue the lesson. Don’t you need to go meet that Guide soon? Time is very tight.”
“One day. I’ll finish everything within just one day. Let’s begin.”
“Good. Then Captain, if the Guide says ‘I don’t have time, let’s talk again next time,’ what should you do?”
“…Wouldn’t it be fine to eliminate the reason they don’t have time?”
Unlike what Heichi had assured, the ‘naturally getting close to the Guide’ education easily exceeded one day and took three days. It was also three days when a national emergency was declared in Korea.
* * *
“It’s fine. Since you paid for the bus fare.”
When Heichi met his Guide again, he judged that he was acting quite naturally. It was worth having hastily received instruction from AJ on how to quickly adapt to this planet and how to become close with the Guide.
When his Guide seemed hungry, Heichi chose ‘meals’ from the 31 methods of getting close that AJ had suggested. Fortunately, that choice seemed quite right, as his Guide followed without much suspicion.
“…Are you a foreigner?”
“Yes, I came from a distant land.”
Seeing him ask if he was a foreigner, not an alien, it seemed he hadn’t noticed the fact that he was an Esper yet. Heichi naturally hid the fact that he was an Esper. AJ had said there was no need to reveal his identity first.
Heichi, who had coordinated with Earth’s suit evaluated as the cleanest and most standard fashion after exploring this place’s information, was satisfied with his insight. But before that satisfaction could last long, Heewoo asked.
“I see. …Are, are you in the military?”
“How did you know?”
At the same time, he was caught being military. For Heichi, who had walked the path of a soldier as if determined to be the Space Alliance Commander from almost the moment he was born awakening as a Prime-grade Esper, it was quite a flustering story. Could he possibly smell like military?
“Just… You’re a bit stiff…”
“I’m stiff?”
“Yes. Somewhat.”
“In what way?”
“Your way of speaking and… your sitting posture too.”
Heichi tried to loosen his back that he’d been keeping straight while pretending not to, wriggling it. However, a posture made into habit for a long time couldn’t suddenly become lax now. Fortunately, Heewoo, who noticed his signs, spoke first.
“Ah, ah. I don’t mean you should fix it… You look cool…”
“I see.”
Cool?
This was one of the ’58 expressions of favorable feelings from Guides’ that AJ had mentioned. Heichi felt his heartbeats per minute increasing rapidly. A good atmosphere. Perhaps today he could confirm him as his Guide?
The meal time, which Heichi judged to be a continuously good flow, passed quickly. Though he’d traveled all around space, this was the first planet where he felt the flow of time so acutely.
“Then Hei, Heichi-ssi, will you give me your phone? I’ll, I’ll save my number for you…”
As expected, it was very good that he’d prepared this planet’s machine called a ‘smartphone’ in advance with AJ’s brilliant idea. Thanks to that, he obtained Heewoo’s contact information. Looking at the contact list with only the name ‘Lee Heewoo’ saved on the new device smartphone with nothing else set, Heichi returned to the battleship.
And as soon as he returned, he held out his phone to his vice captain AJ and commanded.
“Store it in a vacuum storage.”
“…Captain, this is a smartphone. In our terms, it’s a ‘link.’ You need to contact the Guide with this.”
Heichi knew that too. However, this time even Heichi responded firmly.
“It’s precious.”
The first trace his Guide had left for him, Heichi wanted to remember even if hundreds of years passed in this universe’s time if he could. Just as he remembered like eternity that moment when he first met Heewoo.
When Heewoo returned the smartphone to him, Heichi, in an uncharacteristic mistake, bumped skin with him. Because of that, didn’t he, who had never dropped an object even by mistake in his life, drop the smartphone?
But that contact that passed like an instant left a long afterimage on Heichi. In that moment, less than even 0.1 seconds, then. Heichi became certain as if struck by lightning.
He is my Guide.
Heewoo is my Guide that I won’t find again even if I search the entire universe.
