“Abandon… Earth?”
“Kzar!”
Surprised by the words he was hearing for the first time, Heewoo stared at Kzar blankly. Rather, it was AJ who had the intense reaction. He was very flustered by the suddenly changed topic and tried to stop Kzar.
“Kzar, Guide Lee Heewoo isn’t ready yet, so that kind of talk…”
“If he wasn’t ready, why did you already bring him aboard here? Why are you trying to insert the link?”
“That’s, Kzar, haa…”
Kzar’s words, who had maintained a consistently silent demeanor from their first meeting, came out very rapidly. As the atmosphere grew increasingly hostile, Heewoo was surprised and stepped back briefly without being able to say anything. Then Kzar looked down at AJ and asked.
“Are you not going to give him a choice either, AJ, just like you did with me?”
As soon as Kzar’s words ended, AJ’s complexion turned deathly pale. Looking as if facing tremendous fear, even Heewoo was worried about AJ for that moment. But Kzar, who was his partner and lover, cornered AJ to the end.
“I am a Guide.”
“Kzar, wait, what I mean is, it’s not that…”
“I can’t create another victim like me.”
Kzar, who spoke coldly, whirled around. Then he glanced at Heewoo and gestured with his eyes as if to follow.
Receiving that gaze, Heewoo looked once at AJ, who was still deathly pale, but Kzar urged him threateningly so he ultimately had no choice but to follow him. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it wasn’t difficult to understand that this meeting had fallen apart.
Kzar, who had abandoned AJ, strode across the residential area. At the sight of him seeming to know all the geography of this place, which was too complex to take in at a glance, Heewoo followed closely behind him. Kzar, who was still walking while leaving wet footprints, said out of the blue.
“Lee Heewoo. Choosing a top-tier Esper is the same as giving up your home planet.”
“What…?”
“But none of the Espers tell you that fact.”
Kzar’s story, which started quietly, continued at length. Top-tier Espers cannot escape from Epsilon affiliation, and most of them don’t even stay on planets but spend their entire lives here on the battleship. Kzar added the explanation that they were like space refugees, but he couldn’t precisely understand what that meant.
Still, the one thing he properly understood was that if he chose Heichi, he could no longer stay on Earth.
Actually, thinking about it a little, it was an obvious story. Heichi seemed to have a very high position among the Espers here, and such a person couldn’t stay by the side of poor, penniless Heewoo forever. Heewoo’s shoulders drooped dejectedly at suddenly facing reality.
“I also set foot here in that way.”
Kzar, who had been walking for a while, stopped in front of a large fountain. Instead of water shooting upward and falling like a normal fountain, it was a fountain where water flowed completely upward, but even that didn’t enter Heewoo’s eyes. It was because his mind was disturbed.
“My home planet Ekar is a beautiful place. Everyone enjoys freedom, swims through the sky, and there was nature that restrains no one.”
“Ah…”
“That day too, I met AJ while swimming through the sky as usual.”
Heewoo looked at the damp footprints left behind Kzar. Swimming through the sky. It was a statement that completely shattered Heewoo’s notion that swimming was naturally only done in the ocean.
“I grew close to AJ, who shed tears as soon as he saw me, and one day I entered this battleship where he said he stayed.”
Kzar said that at first, he too could certainly enter and leave this battleship without any restraint. Then he grew closer and closer to AJ, and one day when the time he stayed on the battleship grew longer.
“The battleship carrying me moved toward space. It was in an instant.”
Kzar, who ran to the emergency exit, said he despaired while watching his beautiful homeland Ekar gradually moving away into space. Along with that, he also resented AJ who had brought him here. Heewoo fully understood such feelings of Kzar. More than the feeling that he could never return to his home planet, the sense of betrayal toward AJ would have tormented him even more.
“…It must have been painful.”
“Certainly at first.”
Kzar, who recalled old events, smiled bitterly. Time passed quickly and it had already become such an old story that he couldn’t even remember it. Of course, every time he mulled it over, anger still surged up and he got angry at AJ like now, but.
“But not going back was also my choice.”
“Ah…”
“Ekarians can swim through space, and as a brave warrior, I too could swim through space and return to my star.”
At Kzar’s words that he ultimately remained here of his own accord, Heewoo was greatly relieved. Of course, Heewoo didn’t have the same abilities as Kzar, so if he were kidnapped he couldn’t return to Earth, but still, he felt fortunate that Guide Kzar, who was his senior, wasn’t bound here.
“So you should also make a choice you won’t regret.”
“M-me?”
“Yes. If the link is inserted behind your ear, location tracking also becomes possible, so refuse until you’ve made up your mind.”
At those words, Heewoo drew in a breath with a gasp. Kzar even showed the inserted part by raising the back of his ear, and truly behind his ear, traces of something inserted remained above his fluttering gills.
“Location tracking… That’s a very troublesome thing.”
Kzar suddenly muttered. Annoyance appeared on Kzar’s features, who had maintained a taciturn expression until now. Then he pointed to one side and said.
“He keeps following me around like that.”
When he turned his head, AJ, who they’d left behind a moment ago, was approaching toward them. Though his face looked hurt, his appearance was much better than before. Since Kzar also didn’t look as angry as before, Heewoo was somewhat relieved.
However, relief made Heewoo let his guard down.
“As a warrior of Ekar who protects freedom, it’s something I can’t tolerate.”
As soon as he finished those words, Kzar wrapped his arms around Heewoo’s waist and lifted him up. When Kzar placed the light-as-paper body on his shoulder, Heewoo, who was subdued in an instant, widened his eyes greatly. His vision flipped upside down and AJ’s horrified face also clearly entered his eyes.
And Kzar threw himself right into the middle of the fountain.
Following the fountain’s water path that shot up endlessly, Kzar and Heewoo began to rise toward the sky. Kzar, who entrusted his body to the water path, was very free despite having the burden called Heewoo on his shoulder. AJ, who arrived in front of the fountain belatedly, screamed shrilly at that sight.
“Kzar! Please…!”
“I’ll return before the sun sets.”
“What are you talking about! It’s already past sunset outside!”
“I’m saying I’ll return right away.”
That was the entire conversation. Heewoo, who rode the water path all the way to the end, trembled at the temperature that had become cold at some point. On top of that, it even became hard to breathe.
Kzar, who was carrying him on his shoulder, spoke as if he’d forgotten.
“Ah. Humans from Earth are weak to cold, right?”
“Wh-what…?”
“This is Earth’s troposphere. I’ll descend at a fast speed and reach the ground so you don’t freeze to death, so hold on tight.”
Only then did Heewoo precisely realize what it meant for Ekarians to swim through the sky and space. He approached the ground freely and quickly as if the sky really were an ocean. When Kzar arrived at the ground in an instant and landed soundlessly, Heewoo squeezed his eyes shut.
“Bleeegh…”
Heewoo, who got to indirectly taste the feeling of bungee jumping from the Himalayas, barely spat out gastric acid and kept dry heaving. Kzar glanced at such a Heewoo and muttered that he was weak.
“Is this your hometown, Lee Heewoo?”
“Urgh, ah, haa… Yes…”
Even while his mind was dizzy, Heewoo barely answered. Looking around, it was an alleyway not far from the neighborhood where Heewoo lived. Fortunately, there were no people passing by around them, so it seemed no one had seen them drop from the sky.
“Then I’ll be going back now.”
“A-already?”
“Do I need to take you all the way home?”
“No, it’s not that but…”
Not knowing they would just drop him off like this and part ways, Heewoo fiddled with his sleeve. Then Kzar shrugged his shoulders and said.
“I want to try swimming through Earth’s sky.”
With those final words, Kzar jumped lightly. Then as if only his body had escaped gravity, he floated up with a whoosh and began to rise toward the sky. The battleship was still floating above their heads.
Heewoo bid farewell alone to the departing Kzar and turned around. He carefully clutched his still-nauseous chest.
When Heewoo arrived in front of his house, the sun had already completely set and the streetlights had turned on. Trudging along, Heewoo, who was walking the path back without Heichi for the first time in a while, felt a strange loneliness. Then he flinched and stepped back upon seeing a certain group gathered in front of his house.
“Oh, Hiu’s here.”
Just as Heewoo discovered them, they also discovered Heewoo. Those who approached closer, leaving behind Heewoo who tried to step back instinctively, surrounded the area with no place to escape. Heewoo, who became frightened by learned fear, barely mustered courage and asked.
“Wh-what brings you here?”
“Oh. You gotta pay back the money.”
“I-I paid it all back though?”
At the words to pay back money, Heewoo jumped. He’d just paid back the money today, yet now they were telling him to pay it back again. Heewoo firmly clutched his crossbody bag, thinking to pull out the promissory note he’d received if necessary.
“No. Not that money.”
“…What?”
“The money your mom borrowed.”
Swoosh.
The man held out a piece of paper in front of Heewoo. Unfamiliar handwriting was written on the paper that seemed recently printed.
Borrower Kim Heejeong borrows one billion won (₩1,000,000,000) from creditor Lee Pilsu. For this loan, the name of the borrower’s son Lee Heewoo is provided as collateral.
Creditor Lee Pilsu
Borrower Kim Heejeong
Kim Heejeong. It was the name of Heewoo’s one and only mother.
