Heichi sometimes worried whether there might be a problem with the limbic system in his brain that was in charge of emotions. It was because he had never felt any particularly prominent waves of emotion throughout his life.
If you asked whether Heichi had lived smoothly only stepping on the footholds of an elite, no one who knew him would agree. Above all, before coming to Earth, Heichi was the ruler of the entire universe who had conquered hundreds of planets. Of course, there were still planets he hadn’t reached yet, so calling it the entire universe might be premature.
In any case, he was also a higher intelligent life form before being an Esper, and therefore the organ that felt emotions was properly alive. The examiners in charge of examining his physical abilities also said that it wasn’t that his limbic system’s emotional reception ability was lacking, but simply that his self-control was remarkably great.
So Heichi had considered his emotional regulation ability to be very great. Until he met Heewoo, that is.
“Your mom, your mom gave birth to you with a bellyache! You ungrateful son of a bitch!”
It was when he was secretly loitering near Heewoo, pondering when would be a good time to appear before him. Heichi, who had intended to naturally appear just before he entered his house and show him his healed arm, completely withdrew that plan.
And the moment the woman who appeared to be Heewoo’s biological mother grabbed his hair and pulled it down toward the floor, Heichi’s body moved before his brain. He used his ability to subdue the woman in the blink of an eye.
In truth, if a fragmentary memory somewhere in his head that the woman was Heewoo’s biological mother hadn’t remained, it wouldn’t have ended with just subduing. He should have grabbed her head and pulled it down to the floor the same way, then burst her brain so she could never get up again. In reality, what made Heichi hesitate was only very brief—he, whose instinct awakened before reason, raised his hand to directly burst the woman’s brain.
The reason he couldn’t do so was all Heewoo’s fault.
“D-don’t do that… She’s, she’s my mom.”
The gesture of him embracing his thick forearm was so fragile and weak that Heichi couldn’t bring himself to move. Far from roughly shaking him off and dropping him, Heichi froze solid in that position, afraid that if he moved like this, even a scratch might appear on his Guide’s body.
Ah, why is my Guide’s skin even this soft?
Though there were various scars remaining on the back of his hand, befitting his young age of twenty, his palm was somewhat soft. Perhaps because of that, it was fundamentally different from Heichi’s dry skin that had been eroded by light and heat while flying around all kinds of planets.
It wasn’t a fleeting moment passing in less than 0.1 seconds like before. Because Heewoo was almost embracing his forearm, which was thicker than his thighs, as if trying to stop him, their bodies were touching without gaps for a long time. At that moment, Heichi realized that the corpus cavernosum in his lower body was reacting to this tremendous stimulation.
Just because the dermal ridges spreading from the center of his palm toward the thenar eminence¹ and fingers had touched his forearm.
He, who bit down hard enough to draw blood in his mouth, had to tell Heewoo to let go with the heart of severing his own limbs. In fact, the moment a flustered Heewoo let go, Heichi immediately wanted to throw the woman aside and shamelessly beg Heewoo to touch him again.
“Will you go to the hospital?”
“Hos…hospital?”
When Heichi wasn’t satisfied with the punishment for the woman, Heewoo’s biological mother eventually ran away. But from that moment, Heewoo’s reaction was strange.
The slower Heewoo’s answer became, the more Heichi felt his mouth drying up. Though he couldn’t examine closely, there was a hole in the knee of his pants with faint scrapes, and his elbow was the same.
To think his skin would be scraped from just falling, just how weak and soft was Earthling flesh?
Though Heichi, as a soldier, often saw blood, his Guide’s blood felt strange. Watching him in pain felt like someone was firmly grasping and crushing his heart, and his hands and feet moved of their own accord wanting to somehow heal his wounds.
“Are you an Esper?”
“Yes.”
An unexpected question came while he was anxiously waiting for an answer like that. Heichi, who answered reflexively, paused for a moment, but thinking it was nothing special, demanded what he wanted. It was taking him to the hospital.
If he said he didn’t like Earth’s hospital, he was willing to take him to his battleship and have the medical officer who came with him from Epsilon treat him urgently. It seemed like if he could just eliminate that wound on his Guide, he could resolve this anxious and frustrated heart.
“Um.”
But his Guide was already focused on something other than the wound.
“Could you please leave for today…”
At the clearly felt rejection, Heichi’s body instantly stiffened. On the other hand, his head spun so rapidly that time felt like it was measured in seconds. Where was the problem from? Did he rush too much about going to the hospital? Or, because he carelessly treated his biological mother? If not that…
Focused on exploring his problem and its solution, Heichi couldn’t even hold onto Heewoo. In the meantime, Heewoo closed the gate and slipped inside. Heichi, left alone in front of the gate, stood still there like someone who didn’t know how to leave.
He pushed me away.
My Guide, me.
Only that simple and clear fact spun round and round in his head. Then what should I do? What would be good to do? To solve this problem…
Can it even be solved?
In Heichi’s head, Heewoo’s expression when he pushed him away just moments ago, the movement of his skin, wrinkles, the light reflection in his iris, even the number of eyelid blinks—everything was vividly rising up. And mulling over, mulling over, and mulling over again and thinking about all those things, his brain could only conclude with one single thought.
He didn’t want to exist.
Heichi, rejected by his Guide for the first time, felt his value of existence rapidly declining. At the same time, he wanted to crumble and disappear like dust from this world.
Though Heichi had long suffered from lethargy, his self-control ability was superior to anyone else’s, so he had never considered his own death. Such Heichi realized that the self-control he’d been so confident in couldn’t be regulated. Just once, from being pushed away by him just once.
‘Once you start being hated by your pair, there’s no answer, that.’
‘Really, I just want to burn to death.’
Only then did Heichi properly, perfectly understand AJ’s words. Because when rejected by his pair, Heichi too wanted to sever his own neck and die right here.
Heichi couldn’t leave from in front of the gate for a long time, waiting for Heewoo. He did so even knowing that once he went into the house, he wouldn’t come out even one step until going to work the next day. On the cold night, Heichi guarded that spot in the same position like a lowly life form that had forgotten the method of operating its own body.
* * *
AJ, who heard the entire situation, was urged by Heichi to give time and approach before becoming more distant from the Guide. He cautioned Heichi, who wanted to go see him right away, several times that if things continued like this, he might have to live following his traces for life without seeing his face again.
So Heichi too firmly etched AJ’s urging into his head. From now on, unless Heewoo sought him out, he intended to be as careful as possible about appearing before him.
…He had definitely resolved to do that.
Heichi’s resolution broke before what’s commonly called in Korea “a three-day resolution,” which is to say, before even three days passed.
Heichi, who just followed and watched Heewoo’s figure from behind, suddenly thought from the aura of hunger he felt from him whether he wasn’t eating properly. Then when he sat on a bench during a break from his part-time job and was just smelling the food smell from the shop across the street, he became certain.
So this time Heichi planned to secretly buy food and, taking advantage of a moment when Heewoo couldn’t see him, just leave the food and disappear. He really intended to do that if he hadn’t seen some Esper bastard sitting side by side with Heewoo when Heichi came out after packaging the best menu from a pork cutlet shop.
Though he’d left his spot for just a very brief moment, he didn’t know how much conversation they’d had—the two were just before clasping hands. Heichi’s eyes were also just before turning. Heichi, who immediately threw the lunchbox he was holding straight to the ground, inserted himself between them with good timing.
“Ca, Ca, Cap…”
“Pluto Team 1 Member Orin.”
Heichi, who had memorized the faces and names of all members belonging to him, briefly called him to stop the address. As any ordinary member would, Orin tried to call Heichi ‘Captain,’ and Heichi stopped it. It was because he was anxious that Heewoo, who had kept distance after asking if he was an Esper, might feel even more distance.
Heichi silently looked down at Orin, who had dared to presumptuously try to make contact with his Guide. He could feel Orin visibly shrinking from receiving his gaze. If this had been inside the battleship, he would have cut off one of Orin’s fingers without hesitation.
“Um, Orin-ssi said that Guides are also divided into grades…”
Every time even a sliver of Heewoo’s gaze touched Orin, Heichi felt like his brain was being cut away by jealousy with a scraping sound. He wanted to immediately grab Heewoo’s chin and snap at him to look only at himself, not turning his eyes elsewhere.
But even at such murderous intent from Heichi, whether Orin was crazy or felt something after seeing his Guide who was clearly not ordinary at first glance, he didn’t try to back down. Heichi was ready to engage in an awakened ability battle right then. He intended to cut Orin standing before his eyes into 299,792,458 molecular units from the top of his head to his toes.
Footnote:
1) Thenar eminence (무지구/拇指球): The thick protruding part on the palm side toward the thumb. Deep inside there are muscles that move the thumb.
