Chapter 5
As Raon finished his explanation, there was a knock at the door. Then Jaehwi entered.
The boy who entered silently had long, shaggy black hair that covered his beautiful eyes.
Without realizing it, Raon slightly waved the hand he had been holding down. He was just glad and felt good. It was enough that the child wasn’t crying now. He didn’t look like he was in pain either.
“Min Jaehwi. Did you receive guiding from G0228C Kang Raon?”
Sunwoo asked the same question he had asked Raon. The small head of the boy, who had been looking at the floor, shook sideways. Raon gently bit his lower lip. So was it not guiding after all? Was it all just a one-sided feeling that only he had experienced?
Sunwoo silently observed the two troublemakers standing before him. A Guide who didn’t know how to guide and an Esper who didn’t know how to accept guiding. Raon, who had been prickly, sensitive, and indifferent to everyone, was clearly showing interest in Jaehwi.
According to official records, Min Jaehwi manifested as an Esper around the age of eight. The orphanage child had been showing consistent signs even before that, but the orphanage director had ignored everything. It was common for objects around him to move, and occasionally small, unexplainable fires would occur, according to the records. So he might have manifested even earlier.
The child who always caused incidents was said to have lived alone in an end room on the first floor. One night, a fire broke out in that room. The fire didn’t spread but cleanly burned just the room where he was. Jaehwi, who was in the middle of that fire pit, wasn’t injured at all.
And at the age of ten, Min Jaehwi received his official code.
The child who entered the center suffered endless pain and cried out. The problem was that the child couldn’t accept guiding. Guiding a ten-year-old child was also an issue.
Guides of every rank from S-class to F-class had been attached to him, trying everything from radiative guiding to possible physical contact guiding for a young child. They all embraced the small child and poured out their energy, but it was futile. As if some kind of barrier was in place, almost nothing was absorbed by the child. Even Sunwoo, an S-class Guide who had stayed with him until the end, eventually gave up. And the NCSC administered a stabilizer to the child. The stabilizer only prevented his outburst; it couldn’t alleviate his pain, and eventually Jaehwi ended up confined to a single room.
There was no way to handle a child who maintained a state on the verge of an outburst. The unstable child couldn’t be trained, nor could his abilities be properly measured with precise tests. Jaehwi was being neglected, if not abandoned. Jaehwi was becoming exhausted from continuous testing, but the NCSC couldn’t give up on him. If he grew properly and if they found a suitable Guide for him, this child would become a precious asset to the nation. He would be worth a hundred men, and could even secure a global reputation. The ten-year-old child, always on the boundary between experimentation and outburst, was smaller and more frail than his peers.
The readings of the child, who might go berserk and disappear at any moment, rose dramatically overnight. The stability reading, which had barely maintained at 15%, suddenly reached 50%.
Logically, these were readings that couldn’t appear even if Raon, a C-class Guide, had poured everything into him. After checking the CCTV, they could confirm that Raon had been holding the child while they slept. That was the only difference from usual.
“Kang Raon. I heard you learned radiative guiding.”
Raon, who had been examining Jaehwi, quickly lifted his head at the sound of his name being called. Then he promptly nodded. He had learned it. He had made a huge fuss, saying he would die before doing contact guiding, so radiative guiding was what he had been forced to learn for ability measurement.
But he had actually done it only once. On the day he was forced to learn about radiative guiding for ability measurement.
“Try it now. Think about guiding only me and Jaehwi.”
Raon scratched his eyebrow with a raised hand and then let both arms hang comfortably. He had learned it, but he hadn’t really made it his own. Recalling the memory of doing it reluctantly because he was told to, he closed his eyes. As he had been taught, he tried to draw out what was inside him. Naturally, like breathing, he sent it throughout his body and pushed it outward. He couldn’t control what was inside him at will, but Raon slowly moved what he had.
Sunwoo, with his arms crossed, looked at Jaehwi. To his perception, it was extremely minimal. It was at a level that was difficult to even call radiative guiding. It was like barely squeezing out a single drop of water for someone who was desperately thirsty. Sunwoo could feel it because he knew Raon was performing radiative guiding and was focusing on it. Everyone’s energy was different, so the feeling was also different. The researcher who had tested Raon’s guiding described it as a ticklish feeling. A feeling of being pleasantly stroked with a very soft feather.
Although it was Raon who was doing the guiding, Sunwoo’s gaze was fixed on Jaehwi. A wrinkle formed between Sunwoo’s brows as he watched. The boy was expressionless. Yet the corner of his mouth slightly turned up. Jaehwi was clearly feeling Raon’s guiding. Given that he had never responded to any guiding before, even such a slight movement was a significant reaction. But still, it was not being absorbed at all. Raon’s energy hovered around Jaehwi, but nothing was flowing in.
Like all the Guides of every rank, Raon’s guiding was also just circling around the child, and that was it.
The guiding, which seemed barely connected, was suddenly cut off. Beads of sweat had formed on Raon’s forehead. Simultaneously, the smile that had been on Jaehwi’s face disappeared.
Sunwoo couldn’t easily speak up. Jaehwi was responding to Raon. It felt like they could put a noose around a legendary animal that couldn’t be tamed. A thought suddenly crossed Sunwoo’s mind, and he flicked his fingertip. He had never thought of it this way, but perhaps the young child was deliberately rejecting guiding.
“Both of you, go out now. Raon, follow your scheduled activities, and Jaehwi, we’ll measure everything again.”
At Sunwoo’s command, Raon left the center director’s office. At that time, he didn’t know better. Maybe it was because he lacked understanding about Guides and Espers. Sunwoo sent them both away, and Raon spent the day as usual. During his free time between activities, he would peek around the ability measurement center, but he couldn’t see Jaehwi.
After having dinner in the cafeteria and washing up, Raon blankly looked around his room. With nothing to do, he turned off the lights early and lay in bed. He had never completed his scheduled activities so diligently as today. His body relaxed into the soft bed, and his eyes closed naturally.
He must have dozed off briefly. It wasn’t a thumping or loud sound. He seemed to have woken up hearing some kind of sound, but the surroundings were too quiet. He pulled the blanket, which had slipped down to his waist, up to his neck. He tried to fall asleep again, turning to his side, but sleep had fled and wouldn’t return.
After hesitating for a while, Raon got out of bed. And headed to the next room. It was just curiosity. Wondering if the pretty child was doing well, if he had fallen asleep. Moreover, because there was no sound, he was even more curious. Maybe he wasn’t in the room.
Without knocking, Raon lowered the doorknob, and the door opened too easily. Unlike yesterday, there were no objects floating in the air. It seemed like no one was there, but Raon walked in a bit further. The bed was neatly empty, with no sign that anyone had lain on it.
Before turning to leave, Raon’s gaze moved toward the space between the wall and the bed.
“Why are you there.”
Raon stroked his face with one hand. Why are you like that there, when there’s a comfortable bed? A small sigh escaped him. Before the child could move, Raon sat down in front of him, lowering his body.
“Do you want to sleep with hyung?”
He extended his hand. In the darkness, a small white hand emerged. And that hand gently rested on Raon’s palm.
Raon lay with Jaehwi on the narrow bed. Raon wasn’t large in build, and the child was much smaller than his peers, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
Lying on his side, with the child’s head resting on his arm, Raon pulled the head a bit closer to himself and covered the child’s ear with his hand, just like yesterday.
“Was the ability measurement difficult?”
Because he was covering the ear with his hand, an ordinary person wouldn’t have heard, but the child seemed to hear properly and nodded slightly.
“You don’t need to try hard. If you can do 100, always show only 60. There’s no reason to live for those people.”
Raon couldn’t help but smile slightly when he felt the child’s body stiffen at his words.
People always say it. Work hard. Do your best. Be diligent in your efforts.
Born as the youngest son of a wealthy family, Raon had lived under people’s gazes from a very young age.
He never learned things like humility or consideration from the beginning.
Anyway, everyone’s starting line was different, and Raon always started ahead of others. Whether he did well or not, people’s responses to him were always the same.
If he did well, it was perceived not as his ability or effort but because he had a lot of advantages.
If he did poorly, the answer was that it’s okay not to be good at everything.
