“Why? What? What is it? What’s wrong? You’re scaring me!”
Deputy Shin, who had been grinning brightly, startled and jumped in alarm. Deputy Seong looked at Deputy Shin’s tearful face with the expression of someone who had achieved total inner peace.
“Han Shin-yul — that guy’s lost his mind. There’s just no reasoning with him. I told him we should go lodge a complaint with the higher-ups, and he said no. He just went straight into a Dungeon briefing.”
“What? Why? With that schedule, he can’t even get proper Guiding!”
“Exactly. But he says he’ll just manage by taking Guiding Medication.”
“What?”
Deputy Shin’s eyes went wide enough to pop out of his head. Why on earth?
A Guide’s Guiding and the Guiding Medication developed by researchers were as different as heaven and earth. Guiding Medication was something an Esper took only when there was no other choice — when Guiding was simply unavailable. The difference in efficiency and stability wasn’t even comparable, which was why the Center tended to recommend a Guide’s Guiding over Guiding Medication, and Espers themselves were in the first place extremely reluctant to take Guiding Medication.
He himself, being an ordinary person, had no way of knowing exactly what difference an Esper felt — but given that every single Esper was so averse to it, it clearly couldn’t be down to personal preference. And on top of that, Shin-yul had only just, finally, met his own Guide.
Having suffered his entire life, now that he’d finally been able to receive proper Guiding — there was no reason for him to go pushing his Dungeons to the absolute limit while relying on Guiding Medication. On top of that, if this incident were properly explained, it was a penalty he never should have received in the first place — and yet he was giving up Guiding too, just to run Dungeons? Han Shin-yul had to be genuinely out of his mind.
“The psychiatrist here at the hospital is really quite good — maybe Shin-yul should also try—”
“I said that and got exiled here.”
“Oh.”
“We’re screwed…. Between Shin-yul’s condition, the Dungeon coordination, everything else — there’s a mountain of work. Don’t even think about going home. Even as an example being made of him, it’ll probably last a month — which means we’re on emergency overtime for a month too, you might as well accept it.”
Deputy Seong let out a heavy, frustrated sigh and rummaged restlessly through his suit’s inner pocket looking for a cigarette, then suddenly raised his head as if a thought had crossed his mind.
“Oh, come to think of it — what did Hee-young say the issue was? Why did he suddenly call for us? It’s still because of Han Shin-yul, right? He’s not in great health to begin with, and now he’s had a shock on top of that, poor thing. Let me have just one cigarette, then we’ll go back up.”
At Deputy Seong’s words, Deputy Shin’s body went rigid. No, Deputy Seong. It’s not Shin-yul who’s the problem. A nuclear bomb has gone off.
“Um, Deputy Seong…. Hee-young said….”
“What. Is he chirping again? Going on about how he’s young, and this and that? Isn’t it actually kind of cute? Maybe it’s because his face looks angelic. Somehow even when he’s angry, you don’t feel like you’ve been told off.”
“No, he didn’t curse, and… wait, did he? Actually, maybe he did?”
“Right? Oh, I don’t have a lighter. They probably don’t sell them at the hospital convenience store, do they? Deputy Shin, you came out to help calm Hee-young down, didn’t you? Then let’s just make a loop around the block. Air out the cigarette smell too.”
“Um……”
Watching Deputy Seong say let’s go and turn to leave first, Deputy Shin panicked and grabbed his arm and just blurted it out. He must have been so tense that his strained, forceful voice echoed through the hospital lobby.
“Deputy Seong! I need to tell you something! I kept trying to find the right moment but I couldn’t—!”
“W-what? What is it?”
Deputy Shin bowed his head low and gripped Deputy Seong’s arm desperately. Please, save me, Deputy Seong…!
Not confident he could handle the disaster Hee-young had unleashed on his own, Deputy Shin hesitated with his ears flushed red. Blaming himself for being incapable of handling things perfectly without his superior, he seemed to shrink smaller and smaller.
Standing in the middle of the hospital lobby, he didn’t even notice Deputy Seong’s expression gradually twisting — or that the patients in hospital gowns and their guardians who had been watching them for some time were murmuring among themselves as they stared.
“What, what, what is it? What are you trying to say? You’re scaring me?”
“I just don’t know what to do, that’s why, that’s why—!”
Deputy Seong’s expression crumpled miserably. He didn’t want to hear whatever was coming.
What is this? Is he confessing? The murmuring crowd behind them snapped Deputy Shin back to his senses — realizing he couldn’t openly discuss a Guide he was responsible for, he leaned in close to Deputy Seong’s face and whispered.
“Hee-young said… he wants to check his Matching Rate with other Espers…!”
“What?”
Deputy Seong froze — then went pale as a sheet and jumped in alarm.
“What the hell kind of insane thing is that!”
Deputy Seong moved to press Deputy Shin for more details but stopped himself and glanced around at the people nearby. He grabbed Deputy Shin by the tie and dragged him outside. As the man with a guilt-ridden, dejected expression was hauled limply out the door, the eyes of the hospital lobby crowd — which had been gleaming with dopamine-fueled curiosity — softened into sympathy.
Oh no…. Looks like the confession got rejected….
***
Deputy Seong stuffed Deputy Shin into the company car almost like he was kidnapping him, then climbed in himself. Already worn down and wilting, Deputy Shin sprawled across the back seat while Deputy Seong clambered hurriedly into the driver’s seat, turned to look at Deputy Shin in the back, and pushed him to talk.
“No, hey! What do you mean? What, Matching Rate? With another Esper? Why?”
“I don’t know either…. I really don’t know, I have no idea what Hee-young is thinking….”
“Are you crazy too? Stop making me lose my mind. Ha…. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave a single thing out!”
Deputy Shin sobbed with a hiccupy, blubbery voice as he explained the whole situation from start to finish. Deputy Seong flung a handkerchief at the messy, tear-streaked face and looked at him with the expression of someone staring at something revolting, then clicked his tongue. When Deputy Shin caught the handkerchief and blew his nose into it with a loud honk, Deputy Seong delivered a look of pure contempt — effectively pronouncing the handkerchief dead.
This whole thing is going so terribly. He knew he didn’t have a lighter, but the frustration was unbearable, so he stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth and let out a heavy sigh.
“For now, give him the data.”
“What? Deputy Seong! Please don’t give up on us like this!”
“It’s a legitimate request — what, just ignore it? And you said Hee-young told you he’s not submitting a pairing change request!”
“And you believe that! You believe that? Deputy Seong, if you believe that, I’m going to ask you to co-sign a loan for me!”
God, should I just hit him….
Deputy Seong stared at Deputy Shin — who was gripping the headrest from behind and thrashing about having a meltdown — with an even more contemptuous expression, clenched his fist tight, then barely managed to let it go.
“…Deputy Shin. Then what do you want to do. Should I go up there with you and beg him not to check the Matching Rate? Like, double the begging means double the effect? Hmm? He just said he wants to look at a Matching Rate analysis chart — and you want to go up there making a scene? I told you we’re already swamped just taking care of Shin-yul, didn’t I, didn’t I! This kid has a deputy title and still can’t read a situation! Get out! You’re fired! It’d be better to take on a new junior and train them from scratch!”
Working himself up as he talked, Deputy Seong finally erupted in a gradient of escalating rage and started hurling everything in his hands — his pack of cigarettes, the ballpoint pen he’d had in his pocket — in Deputy Shin’s direction without discrimination.
When his fairly heavy card wallet flew through the air and landed with a thwack right between Deputy Shin’s eyebrows, Deputy Shin let out a feeble aughh and crumpled. Watching him slump over limply, Deputy Seong caught his breath, then exhaled a long ha and swept his hair back.
In his assessment, Hee-young didn’t seem to genuinely be requesting this in order to change the pairing. His relationship with Shin-yul hadn’t drastically changed. In that case, it was perhaps because he had no common sense about this world and was simply curious about what other Espers were like. Or he might be trying to dig into information about that damned soul-type Esper. If that was the case, proactively offering the data he wanted would be enough to quiet things down.
In the first place, the Center would never approve a pairing change request for a reason as flimsy as whatever Hee-young might give. If they’d been going to offer that kind of choice, they should have done so from the start. Unless a life-threatening situation arose, or Hee-young’s history of mental illness became serious enough to make it impossible to continue as a Guide — the chances were high that Hee-young’s request would be ignored.
As for the mental illness — even that was said to have worsened precisely because Shin-yul wasn’t by his side, which meant that considering how dependent Hee-young was, there was even less reason for him to dissolve the pairing with Shin-yul, and the Center wouldn’t receive it warmly either. Managing Hee-young’s feelings afterward would fall to them — but that was a bridge to cross when they got there.
Watching his junior, who hadn’t even thought through these basic considerations and was just crying and wailing, made the irritation rise in his chest all over again.
“Deputy Seong….”
“What.”
“Then, the thing about Hee-young asking for the Matching Rate chart… can’t we make the team leader tell Shin-yul? He should be free right now. I’m scared of Shin-yul….”
Fck.*
“Get out right now! Out! Out!”
The moment Deputy Seong screamed, Deputy Shin flung the car door open and bolted faster than the speed of light. Deputy Seong watched Deputy Shin’s sprinting figure recede in the rearview mirror and let out a pained groan. This is exactly why I can’t quit smoking. This is why.
About the time Deputy Seong was heading to the convenience store in search of a lighter again, Deputy Shin — who had run as fast as an Esper — made a cooperation request to the hospital, then went into the internal office and printed out Hee-young’s Guiding Matching Rate chart. His expression was, naturally, utterly miserable.
“No, am I really giving this to him? For real? Has Deputy Seong been overworking himself so much that his mind is going? Maybe if we book the whole team an appointment with the psychiatrist here… actually, would this count as a workplace injury?”
Behind Deputy Shin — who was holding in his hands a single densely packed sheet of paper with Espers’ names written all over it — a large figure silently appeared and casually plucked the paper right out of his hands.
“Wha — wait—!”
“Print another copy.”
Shin-yul, scanning Hee-young’s Guiding Matching Rate chart with a perfectly composed expression, looked at Deputy Shin and gave a light smile.
“Come up to the patient room a little later.”
And then, as Deputy Shin stood staring blankly at the back of Shin-yul’s figure slowly making its way out of the office, he picked up his phone with trembling hands and called someone.
“……Yes, team leader. No, it’s not about that — it’s just, um… could you tell me, what exactly does our workplace injury coverage include?”
