Looking at the bruise spread blue across his cheek, Heichi simultaneously felt like a blue-black flame was spreading through his heart.
Craaaack.
The fingers inside his clenched fist were compressed almost to the point of fracture as excessive force was applied. But even when a cracking sound occurred, he couldn’t release the strength. Because if he didn’t do at least this, he felt like he’d unleash this rage with nowhere to go somewhere else.
“Oh, Heichi…!”
Unaware of Heichi’s inner feelings, the moment their eyes met, Heewoo greeted him with a purely delighted face. Upon confirming his face, the last trace of wariness disappeared and he opened wide the door crack he’d only opened very slightly.
A faint smile bloomed like color spreading over Heewoo’s bruised face. Yet as if moving facial muscles brought pain, he would stop mid-smile and lightly convulse, slightly crumpling his left orbicularis oculi muscle.
Watching him, Heichi felt an indescribably hot emotion boiling up. The feeling of someone who must have been huddled in this old one-room with no security whatsoever dropping all guard and approaching the moment they saw him. That sight of smiling with dimpled cheeks the moment he saw him, so happy about something…
Heichi asked as if chewing and spitting.
“Were you hit?”
“Ah, that, well, um, I look a bit… hideous… right…?”
Heewoo belatedly raised his hand to cover his cheek, touching it. However, Heichi wasn’t trying to rebuke hideousness because his entire face was dyed blue-black. Even if his orbital area fractured and his facial structure completely collapsed, Heichi would have whispered that he was pretty.
What Heichi was furious about now was that Heewoo’s cheek was dyed blue, that he hurt every time he smiled, and the sadness still remaining in his clear eyes.
“Who?”
He could go back to the battleship, or even connect Link right now to find with his own hands those who had poured violence on Heewoo. However, Heichi chose not to do so and instead ask Heewoo directly.
“Well…”
Heewoo hesitated before speaking. For several minutes, unable to bring it out of his mouth, he let out agonized breaths, and Heichi wanted to absorb even that and swallow the pain instead. Even though he himself had just endured 36 hours trapped in a pod receiving punishment too difficult to bear alone.
“Um, Heichi, I’m sorry…”
Along with the sudden apology, tears spread over Heewoo’s bruised cheek, then dripped down, plop, plop, along his chin. Heewoo, who had lowered his head, spoke while suppressing his sobs.
“The, the money, you paid it all back, but, hic, the debt… hiiiic…”
Unable to hold back his sobs after all while speaking, Heewoo lowered his head and cried until he ran out of breath. Breaking down the voice drawn out from crying, it sounded like Heewoo’s mother had secretly increased his debt while he was away.
Heichi had asked Heewoo who hit him, and Heewoo answered that his debt had increased again. In that disconnected exchange, there was only one thing that could be inferred. Those who forcibly put debt on Heewoo had assaulted him when he resisted.
Having roughly inferred the causal relationship, Heichi stopped asking Heewoo more questions from that point and took a step closer. Then he buried Heewoo against his chest and soothed him. Heewoo, who had been crying while desperately holding back sounds until now, finally sobbed aloud only after burying his face in Heichi’s chest.
“I’m, sorry, I’m… stupid, uh, because I’m stupid, dumb, the money…”
Hearing those words, Heichi belatedly faced the room visible beyond Heewoo’s back. The room was a mess as if someone had been cleaning up traces of being ransacked. Footprints dirtying the floor, a blanket torn with stuffing poking out, a broken and ruined television, a dented refrigerator… What had Heewoo been thinking alone in this room like a cold tomb with no warmth whatsoever?
“Heewoo.”
The crying Heewoo raised his head and looked up at Heichi with a thoroughly wet face. Even that sight looked dazzlingly pretty in Heichi’s eyes, so he rubbed beneath the reddened eyes with his thumb and said,
“Will you come with me?”
“…Together…?”
The moment he heard the word ‘together,’ puzzlement and slight hesitation showed on Heewoo’s face. Heichi, guessing the reason, recalled that not long ago he had stopped by the battleship to guide him.
“Even if just for tonight would be fine.”
“…”
“Isn’t this place too cold and lonely?”
At those words, Heewoo turned his head to look at his ruined nest. The room that had been without anyone to share it with for a long time since grandmother passed away had lost warmth in addition to being destroyed. Except for blocking some wind, it was no different from the street.
A long moment of contemplation passed like an instant, and Heewoo, who had been lowering his head, slowly looked up at Heichi. His glass-bead-like pupils that met his eyes completely captured Heichi.
“If I go with Heichi… will I be less cold?”
Heichi now knew that his coldness didn’t only mean coldness from external factors. Because it was Heewoo who had taught warmth to an Esper who had lived without knowing cold. Paradoxically, thanks to that warmth, Heichi had also come to know cold.
“Yes. I will warm you.”
He knew Heewoo, who lived unable to forget the embrace of his grandmother who had hugged him just once when he was young, just once. Heichi hugged Heewoo in his arms once more tightly and whispered.
“Even if an ice age comes to this Earth, I will hold you.”
Whoooosh… Click.
At that moment, a blade-like cold wind swept in and the yellow light in the room clicked off. The one-room in the corner of an old house where not even common streetlight reached was now dyed in darkness without a single point of light. More strength entered the hands of Heewoo embracing Heichi’s back, crumpling his clothes.
“…Yes.”
In darkness where even moonlight couldn’t reach, Heewoo clung to Heichi that desperately.
***
“You’ve come earlier than expected, Captain. I naturally thought you’d come in the morning… What? Guide?”
Heichi returned to the battleship using his ability without even using a simple wormhole. Heewoo, who was seeing the process of moving by ‘cutting space’ for the first time, widened his eyes in shock at seeing the crack in space.
Since bringing Heewoo straight to his quarters would face the battleship’s too-powerful security, he’d entered the strategic bridge. AJ, who had sensed his superior’s return, opened the door and entered the bridge without even knocking.
“Aide, AJ986. Do you enter your superior’s bridge without knocking?”
“No… After all, Captain, you can hear everything anyway…”
“Are you now refusing to obey a superior’s order?”
“No, sir!”
For AJ, who knew how excellent and sensitive Heichi’s five senses were, it was inevitable to feel wronged, but seeing Heewoo standing there blinking before his eyes made the reason understandable.
“Um… But what brings the Guide here again?”
“His residence became so damaged he could no longer stay there, so I decided to provide temporary housing.”
“Residence? Is that so? Then one of the shelters currently remaining in the residential area…”
Heichi cut three strands of AJ’s hair in midair. He looked at the three strands of hair falling to the floor and said,
“You should take care of your head, AJ.”
AJ, who realized that ‘head’ didn’t mean hair, turned his head creakily to look at Heichi. Then he gathered his saliva, swallowed, and slowly nodded.
“Yes, Captain. …It’s late, so I’ll be leaving now.”
“Right. I’ll handle my Guide’s residence.”
“Yes…”
AJ looked at Heewoo once and left. That gaze meant ‘sorry I can’t help,’ but Heewoo, who had no mind-reading ability, only bowed his head saying goodbye. Heichi looked at Heewoo and said,
“Since there’s nowhere to go immediately today, how about going to my quarters?”
Knowing that with just one order from him, a well-organized shelter would appear within about ten minutes, Heichi didn’t change his expression even once. Fortunately, Heewoo accepted even Heichi’s worthless excuse and nodded.
“Um, I can sleep anywhere, uh… The floor is fine too.”
Of course, Heichi didn’t even pretend to listen to such words from Heewoo. The destination was his quarters, and the arrival point was his bed. Heichi felt tremendous gratitude for having long ago chosen a bed in the normal form like Earth’s.
“No. My bed is wide, so it’s fine to sleep together.”
This was no longer a ridiculous misunderstanding like last time with “I want to sleep.” Unlike his calm exterior, Heichi’s heart began to run wild, unable to find its way.
