This is a dream. I was certain of it. Because I was looking at myself. I was lying in some shabby hospital room. Had I only been in rooms that were too nice? In the dream, I was in the complete opposite kind of space.
The sponge of the bed I was lying on was bursting at the sides, spilling out. The bedspread that should have been white and clean was caked thick with dirty dust.
The window was broken, and syringes, blood, and pills were rolling around on the hospital room floor. I could hear someone screaming. Someone was running down the corridor. Their face was wrapped round and round with bandages.
“Save me! Save me! Aaaaah!”
He ran and then just burst into flames and died. It wasn’t that someone set him on fire—he spontaneously combusted and died. An old fire extinguisher put him out. Like a bird being roasted alive, he flailed his limbs and died. It seemed like he died.
I was still lying in the hospital room. My face looked healthy. There wasn’t a single injury anywhere. My clothes weren’t a hospital gown either. I was wearing the training clothes I’d wear when sleeping at home. Not the dirty hospital gowns or protective suits everyone else was wearing.
I was different from this space, from these people. It felt so alien, as if I belonged to a completely different dimension. To the point where I couldn’t understand why I was here. I looked down at myself sleeping peacefully, then looked around again.
The smell of the burned man’s flesh rose up, making me nauseous. The people were slow, didn’t look busy. They seemed to lack vitality somehow. Like zombies. As if they were neither alive nor dead.
Where is this place, why am I here, and why did I have this dream? Rattle, rattle—I could see someone dragging a medical cart. They didn’t seem to be a nurse or a doctor. On the back of the man in the gray protective suit, an X was written in black.
“X?”
The moment I pronounced it like that, Park Garam lying down in the dream sat up and covered my mouth. His eyes were wide open. He gripped so hard that my cheeks were being crushed. His pupils had grown about twice their size and turned pitch black as if dyed with ink. He wasn’t looking at me. He just pressed down on my mouth as if to break it. It was a warning, as if telling me to never speak.
* * *
I opened my eyes wide with the pain I felt in my jaw. It was that white ceiling I always saw. The surroundings weren’t messy like in the dream. The window wasn’t broken either, and it was hard to find even a speck of dust on the floor. I exhaled in gasps. I was short of breath as if someone had strangled me.
Before my eyes, the letter X engraved on the protective suit was vivid. What is X? Is it just a simple nonsense dream? As I was thinking this, I suddenly looked at the clock.
“Dinner!”
The clock was cruelly pointing at 9 o’clock. I missed it! Thinking that, when I hurriedly got up, I saw two meal trays placed on the sofa table. Inside them, covered with transparent plastic, was the dinner menu.
“Ahjussi!”
The face that immediately came to mind was the cafeteria ahjussi who was pleased that I ate well. You didn’t pass me by just because I was asleep! And as always, knowing I’d eat two trays, you prepared them for me! This is why people need to build up good karma. I cheered with joy and picked up my spoon.
Next to the meal trays, two bottles of artificial tears were placed. These seemed to have been left by Kim Haewon. My eyes had been feeling dry anyway, so I dropped a few drops of artificial tears into my eyes.
My eyes felt much softer and my vision was clearer. Just as I was about to start my meal combatively, the hospital room door opened.
“Huh? I haven’t eaten either.”
It was Nam Ihyeon. He came in with candy in his mouth, and seeing the two meal trays, he naturally took a seat in front of me.
“Ah, what is this? Why are you stealing someone else’s food?”
“There are two anyway. Live a little more generously.”
“What’s going on? We agreed to meet tomorrow.”
“I just came by. Something unexpected could happen, you know.”
I was grateful for that sentiment, but I wasn’t pleased that the portion I had thought was mine was shrinking. Still, food was something that tasted better when eaten together. I took out disposable spoons and chopsticks from the drawer and gave them to him.
“You even keep these stocked?”
“There are times when you want to eat cup rice or cup noodles, you know.”
“I thought you said the food here was good?”
“That’s different from meals. Like for a late-night snack or a snack.”
“For how much you eat, you don’t seem to gain much weight?”
“I’m on that side, I guess?”
I said that and reached my spoon toward the mushroom rice bowl with its glossy sheen. It had cooled down, but it was tearfully delicious.
“It’s not that delicious though?”
“What are you talking about? The mushroom rice bowl here is the best. The mushroom rice bowl always comes out with this eggplant sweet and sour pork, right? This day is an absolute must-not-miss day. What if they schedule a test and tell you to fast? Then you have to avoid this day.”
Nam Ihyeon looked at my praise dubiously and chewed the eggplant sweet and sour pork without much enthusiasm.
“It’s edible.”
“Right? If you eat the mushroom rice bowl with the eggplant sweet and sour pork on top, it’s paradise. Seriously the best.”
Nam Ihyeon chuckled while watching me eat. My appearance, being serious about food, must have been funny. But I didn’t yield to that laughter and combatively devoured my meal.
Nam Ihyeon barely touched his food—unclear whether he was going to eat it or not. Only after I finished eating all the food he left did I lean back comfortably on the sofa.
“It’s amazing that all that went into there.”
“I was happy.”
“You did seem like it.”
Even though I was always getting recovery shots after guiding, there was an emptiness that couldn’t be filled with that alone. It had always been that way. After guiding ended, I chose to eat a lot, exercise, and rest well. Then I would gain the strength to move the next day. It was nice because I could sleep soundly without even dreaming.
Ah, dream.
While eating, I tried to piece together the fragments of the dream that had almost evaporated and remained only as images. It was unsettling enough to make me want to call it a nonsense dream. It seemed like my unconscious had created such a world because I’d been digging into Jeong Sanghyeop’s case. But what bothered me was that ‘X’. What on earth could it be? The existence of that ‘X’ that shouldn’t even be spoken aloud.
“I wondered who took it, and you already received it?”
Nam Ihyeon said while shaking the lens case on the hospital nightstand. It was the case that had contained the lenses Kim Haewon brought.
“Esper Kim Haewon brought it.”
“Does he feel sorry for not being able to come?”
“It’s not that he’s sorry about that, he said he felt sorry that only he was attending that place.”
“That’s true too. If we’re talking about achievements, it’s half and half.”
Nam Ihyeon said as if it were obvious. S-class and above espers seemed to have strangely twisted personalities. In some aspects, they were absurdly immoral or severely ill-mannered.
But then in aspects like this, unlike other espers, they seemed to seriously consider the guide’s domain.
Of course, even then, when things didn’t go their way, they’d immediately throw all kinds of fits, from “that’s yours, this is mine” to spouting about ethics.
“Did he at least bring you photos?”
“No need. Just go on the internet and it pops up. And what’s the point of seeing the Association and government people all gathered together?”
“There are lots of beauties there though.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Why? Do you have a lover?”
“No, I’m just not interested.”
Well, they say you only see what you want to see—at Nam Ihyeon’s words, I made an appalled expression. Then he seemed to find my reaction even more interesting. Nam Ihyeon persistently grilled me, asking why I didn’t like beauties when I was single.
“Ah, I can just not be interested. And besides, if I’m interested, would those beauties be interested in me?”
“They could be. Is it unlikely?”
“Excuse me.”
“You’re quite charming though. Guide Park Garam.”
Nam Ihyeon said while looking at me, leaning against the window frame. He had the window wide open, so the breeze rushed in refreshingly. I took out a jacket to put on and continued speaking.
“When the time comes, I’ll naturally meet a partner. And I don’t like Association or government people. I’m definitely going to meet someone who has nothing to do with this work.”
“Sounds like the statement of someone who’s done some office dating in the past?”
“Don’t introduce yourself. I’ve never done that.”
Nam Ihyeon giggled, finding my comment about “introducing yourself” funny. I took out a plastic bottle of barley tea from the refrigerator and tossed one to Nam Ihyeon. And I took one out for myself to drink. Cold barley tea beverage was one of my favorite things.
“It’s just a bit much if both of you do dangerous work, you know? What if you even have a kid?”
“Then just don’t have kids.”
“That’s true. It’s fine if you both agree not to have kids, but there are unavoidable aspects even if you’re careful.”
“No, I don’t mean that—I mean the kind where they don’t happen at all. You could date a man, couldn’t you?”
“I haven’t thought about that though?”
“Why?”
“Do I have to? I just might not do it.”
“Try thinking about it now. It’s interesting.”
“It’s not interesting though.”
“I think it would be fun. Even more so depending on Guide Park Garam’s answer.”
It was the tone of a pathetic playboy. The thing about rotten dicks that I’d briefly forgotten came to mind. I looked at him with a firm expression that said it shouldn’t be that way.
“It’s better to avoid promiscuous sex life.”
“Puhaha! What did you say?”
“Honestly, you know Esper Nam Ihyeon’s reputation among guides isn’t good, right? Well, it doesn’t matter if you date freely, but wouldn’t it be better to settle down with one person? Really, if you keep doing that—”
“If I keep doing that?”
Nam Ihyeon looked at me with an expression full of interest. I debated whether to say this or not. It could be a very sensitive area for him, but it also seemed like there was no better shock therapy than this.
“Your dick will rot.”
At my words, Nam Ihyeon’s eyes widened and he couldn’t move for several seconds.
