“Huff, huk, huk……”
Wonhwa Bank.
Heewoo, who had run here without even properly greeting the rice soup restaurant owner, stood in front of the already-closed bank. He thought if he ran here after getting off work from the rice soup restaurant around 3:48 PM, he’d be able to get in even if just barely, but he was wrong. Though the time was still 3:55 PM, the bank had already closed and was no longer accepting customers.
Looking at the bank employees closing up beyond the glass window with a regretful expression, Heewoo eventually turned around and stood in front of the ATM. With trembling hands, he picked up his bankbook and pushed it into the slot, hearing the sound of paper passing through—drrrrk. How long had he waited after pressing the account update button?
20251231│Compensation│₩287,694,520 won│293,563,610 won
“I-it’s real…… It was real……”
Thud—Heewoo unknowingly sank down backward. One of the customers using another ATM next to him looked at Heewoo strangely, but he had no time to care. Heewoo, who hurriedly stood up again, quickly pulled out his bankbook and carefully put it in his bag, worried someone might steal a look at it.
Having finished checking and leaving the bank, his legs felt like they were trembling. He couldn’t even breathe properly. Heewoo, who pressed his lips tightly, lowered his head and touched his face with both hands. He felt moist wetness on his palms.
“Heewoo-ssi.”
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from behind.
At that moment, Heewoo unknowingly dropped tears pitter-patter. The pouring tears fell plop, plop along his chin, leaving increasingly dark gray marks on the bare asphalt. He wanted to answer somehow, but his voice was choked up and showed no signs of coming out.
“Are you alright?”
A familiar scent wafted intensely from above his head. Heewoo, who didn’t know much about perfumes, didn’t properly know what kind of scent he was smelling at the tip of his nose right now. Since he was an alien, it might be a scent that doesn’t exist on Earth. But Heewoo didn’t even know that.
The only smell Heewoo knew was the terrible smell of poverty. The musty smell from being unable to wash the only cotton blanket he had, the smell of chilling coldness that poured down when entering the bathroom in midwinter, the stale smell of the old refrigerator that had yellowed and stuck with every touch.
He’d lived his whole life like that. Trapped in a semi-basement room where no one would know even if a person died, he’d been pickled in poverty his entire life. So at some point, Heewoo became unable to even smell the scent of poverty that had permeated him.
“Uh, Heichi, uuhh……”
Heewoo was also human, so there were definitely times when things were hard and exhausting. After barely sleeping four hours a day and leaving for work at the crack of dawn, coming home latest and offering all the money he’d earned with difficulty to loan sharks, there was nothing Heewoo could hold in his hands. Each time, even though Heewoo knew he shouldn’t, he hated himself for being born into this world.
It’s not even a life I chose and selected.
“Heichi-ssi, uuhh…… I, I now……”
The tears that started pouring at some point flowed out endlessly without stopping. The gray marks that had been gradually forming on the ground increased. Heewoo, who gripped his trembling knees with both hands, sobbed and said,
“I, now, they said I can breathe a little……”
Even though breathing wasn’t something you got permission for. From the moment Heewoo was born, even breathing, which everyone else did, had been so burdensome every single day. When he was beaten by his father, it was hard to breathe, when his grandmother got cancer, his breath was blocked, and when debts that had piled up to the limit chased him to his chin, it felt like someone was strangling his neck.
He thought he’d live and die like that his whole life.
He thought it was his predetermined future to live and die without even being able to think about tomorrow or a more distant future, living frantically just to feed himself today.
“Heewoo-ssi.”
“Uuhhhh…… Huk, uh, uuhhk……”
He couldn’t control his tears. When Heewoo couldn’t even properly exhale and sobbed while crying, Heichi quickly approached. Standing next to Heewoo, who was gripping his knees and bending his waist, he placed his hand on Heewoo’s lower back with a very awkward touch.
Then, pat, pat.
He tapped Heewoo’s back with a clumsy touch. Receiving that touch, the airways that had been tightly blocked from crying too much seemed to open up somewhat.
“Breathe.”
“……Uh……”
“Who told Heewoo-ssi not to breathe?”
Hearing Heichi’s serious voice, Heewoo suddenly burst out laughing. His grandmother’s voice, who used to scold that if you laugh while crying you’ll grow horns on your butt, passed through his ears. Heewoo, who slightly raised his head, bit his lips tightly and looked at Heichi. Heichi, whose eyes met his, had an extremely serious expression without a hint of jest,
“Who is it?”
He asked.
Hearing that question made it even harder to stop laughing. After laughing heartily for a while, Heewoo finally stopped laughing and wiped the teardrops at the corners of his eyes with his forearm, saying to Heichi,
“Heichi-ssi.”
“Yes.”
“Really…… Thank you……”
Heichi seemed not to understand the reason for the gratitude Heewoo conveyed, but he tactfully sensed the atmosphere and closed his mouth. Heewoo, who had been quietly looking at him, reached out and pulled Heichi’s hand, which had been hanging toward the floor, to his side.
Despite being midwinter, Heichi’s hand, which maintained a lukewarm temperature that was neither too cold nor too hot, was sandwiched between Heewoo’s hands. Due to the size difference as much as their physique difference, he couldn’t fit all of his hand inside his own hands, but nevertheless, he struggled desperately to try to grasp and hold all of his hand.
“I-I thought you might be cold……”
Saying that, he also bashfully blew his breath—hoo, hoo. This was despite remembering that Heichi had said previously that he wasn’t sensitive to cold.
Because this contact, which was nothing special to him, was said to save Heichi.
Heewoo wanted to do anything for Heichi, who had opened up his airways. Whether he was an esper, whether he approached because Heewoo was a guide, such trivial things didn’t really matter anymore. Heewoo simply wanted to return what he’d received.
“Ah, if this is a bit too much, I’m sor—”
“Yes. I’m cold.”
Still thinking that blowing breath was too much of an overreaction, he was about to hold with just one hand like before, but before Heewoo’s words could even finish, Heichi nodded, saying he was cold. Heewoo blankly captured that sight in his eyes.
“Please hold it, Heewoo-ssi. I am an individual who is very sensitive to cold.”
Even though you said before you weren’t sensitive to cold or anything.
Heewoo knew that fact and Heichi naturally must remember what he’d said, but neither of them spoke of it. Instead, Heichi’s hand clasped together with Heewoo’s simply slipped together into Heichi’s coat pocket as they took steps.
“……Um, Heichi-ssi.”
“Yes. Please speak.”
“This weekend, wh-what are you doing?”
Tomorrow would already bring the weekend. Normally, Heewoo wouldn’t have asked Heichi what he was doing on the weekend either. That’s because the original Heewoo would have had to wake up again at dawn and go out for weekend part-time work.
“I have no scheduled plans.”
“Then…… Tomorrow with me……”
Before finishing his words, Heewoo took a big breath in once and then exhaled again. Having firmly made up his mind, only then did his voice properly flow out.
“Tomorrow, will you spend it with me……?”
Weekdays: waking up at 4 AM, getting off work at midnight. And when the weekend came, waking up again like dawn and doing different odd-job part-time work every weekend. Heewoo decided for the first time today to break the daily routine he’d never violated since becoming old enough to earn his own living.
He still couldn’t quit the part-time jobs he did on weekdays, but still, thanks to not needing to go out and work without rest even on weekends. Heewoo wanted to spend the free time created thanks to Heichi together with him.
“That’s good. Is there something you want to do or somewhere you want to go?”
“Yes, there’s something I really want to do……”
Heewoo’s cheeks, which had already turned red from the cold wind, this time deepened in color all the way to his nape. Watching this, Heichi unwrapped the scarf he was wearing and wrapped it around Heewoo’s neck.
“What is it?”
“Ah……”
Heewoo buried his nose in the scarf overflowing with Heichi’s scent. Then he smiled bashfully and said,
“I want to sleep.”
Without even daring to predict how those words would sound to an alien who could only interpret Earth language in a very literal form.
—
[Online Community Post 1]
You know, I’m a guide, what do I do
I’m writing here because this seems to be the most reliable place for esper-guide talk, yeah.
Since the day the battleship arrived on Earth, every time I go outside, espers keep appearing from somewhere asking to hold hands.
So now I’ve accepted that I’m a guide, but…
So many of them cling to me that now I’m starting to get confused about my sexual values;
But they’re just doing this because they want to receive guiding, right?
Not because they’re interested in me…
‣Rec(47)│Comments(8)
Anon1: Of course, they say guides have to make contact for guiding to work and that’s how they can live
Anon2: Lots of kids get confused about that~ Let’s not get confused, guiding = CPR, just think you’re saving one alien~
⤷Anon6: guiding = CPR, this is really true
Anon3: But why are your sexual values confused?
⤷Anon(OP): Just… they keep asking to hold hands, asking to hug, asking to kiss, so wouldn’t you be confused?
⤷Anon4: lol then just kiss them, what’s the problem lol Holding hands and kissing with handsome espers? Jackpot~
⤷Anon(OP): I’m also a guy and the other party is also a guy, that’s why, fuck
⤷Anon5: lol hyung-nim, I’m sorry..
—
[Online Community Post 2]
Ugh, guide bastards just eat up money from winning the lottery, it’s fucking annoying
Someone I know through connections is a guide and espers just offer him money?
That bastard’s personality is shit and his face is fucking ugly too, it’s so fucking infuriating
Anyway, that guide thing, if the esper bastards hadn’t come to Earth, they wouldn’t have known, right?
‣Rec(2)│Comments(7)
Anon1: lol what is this bastard?
Anon2: Just seems steeped in inferiority complex, downvote
⤷Anon3: Downvote lol
⤷Anon4: 333333333333
Anon5: If you don’t have money, just go earnestly earn money, that’s it~ That’s their money, not yours, right? Why are you butthurt lol
⤷Anon(OP): My annual salary is in the hundred millions though?
⤷Anon6: Yes~ Go earn your hundred-million annual salary~
—
[Online Community Post 3]
Crazy, a Brown guide finally appeared in Korea
Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fuck, one appeared in Korea too!!!!!!!!
‣Rec(101)│Comments(12)
Anon1: ? Where
Anon2: Crazy, even a celebrity? Kim Sowoon, isn’t that the kid who’s hot with ads these days?
⤷Anon5: That’s her, the kid who shot the hot chocolate ad, yeah
Anon3: She’s already rich but looks like she’ll get richer..
Anon4: Wow, one finally came out of Korea, really how many talented people are in this tiny country;
⤷Anon6: Isn’t calling them talented going overboard? lol
⤷Anon9: Fucking hell, talented is right, fuck, they earn 100 million dollars in foreign currency;
Anon7: Hey but that South Sudan Red too, aren’t the espers’ reactions kinda lukewarm? Brown aside, they said Red is hard to find even on a national level, so shouldn’t they go crazy when one appears?
⤷Anon8: I thought this too
⤷Anon10: Maybe an even more amazing guide appeared but they’re only keeping it among themselves and not revealing it lol
⤷Anon11: Baseless talk, no no
⤷Anon12: Fucking hell, give some spacing, ugh
