Gluing Our Relationship Together
Lee Heewoo was horrified when he saw the hand dangling below the sleeve. Setting aside how Heichi had even known to find him here, why hadn’t he gone to the hospital with his hand like that and come to see him instead? Heewoo put down the broom he was holding and approached him.
“Your hand…!”
“Yes?”
“Wh-why is your hand injured?”
Had something happened to him yesterday? Four out of his five fingers were bent backward with the joints broken, and that didn’t seem possible unless they’d been caught in machinery or someone had deliberately broken them.
A car accident, perhaps? Heichi immediately shattered Heewoo’s speculation.
“Ah, weren’t you upset yesterday because of my hand?”
“…And?”
“So I broke it.”
Heewoo was at a loss for words at the simple explanation. It took time just to process Heichi’s explanation in his head. So… right now, he broke his own hand himself?
Interpreting Heichi’s words, that’s ultimately what it meant, but his brain refused to accept it. First of all, he couldn’t understand breaking your own hand because you’d upset someone, and moreover, the idea of breaking your own hand yourself was even more absurd.
Yet Heichi had an utterly indifferent expression despite dropping such an outrageous statement. He didn’t even try to hide his hand.
“Be…because I was upset…?”
“That’s right.”
“I wasn’t upset about that yesterday… No, more importantly, you broke your own hand yourself?”
“Yes.”
When Heewoo couldn’t hide his shocked expression, Heichi even made a gesture as if to demonstrate, raising his injured hand and moving to manipulate it with his uninjured hand. Or rather, he tried to. That is, before a startled Heewoo stretched out both hands to stop him.
Unable to demonstrate due to Heewoo’s intervention, Heichi soon changed his expression and asked with an innocent face.
“Then why were you upset yesterday?”
“Well, it seemed like you couldn’t really eat the tteokbokki and sundae…”
“Ah. That could be the reason.”
Heichi nodded like a scientist who had observed a phenomenon and grasped the cause and effect. He seemed to be muttering something softly to himself as if making a decision, but Heewoo couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“But did you really break it yourself…? It wasn’t an accident?”
“Yes. I did it. Because I don’t need a hand like this.”
At that point, Heewoo began to wonder about Heichi’s mental state. At the same time, he became frightened. A sociopath or psychopath, the kind he’d only heard about in stories? Then was it okay to be next to someone like this…?
Frightened, Heewoo unconsciously stepped back from Heichi. Then Heichi tilted his head and took another large step toward him.
“I… I have to clean here now… Could you please leave?”
As the man, a full head taller than himself, approached him, it was quite frightening, so Heewoo hastily sought a way to drive him away. At first, he’d had a good impression of him because he’d helped, but seeing that broken hand made him a bit scared. Heewoo decided it would be best to distance himself from Heichi at this point.
“Does it make you uncomfortable to look at?”
“What?”
“It will heal soon. Don’t worry.”
Hearing those words, Heewoo looked at Heichi’s bent fingers. The injury was too severe to heal soon. It would heal faster if he at least got a splint or something.
Though he hadn’t withdrawn his decision to distance himself from him, since Heichi said he’d done that to his hand because of him, Heewoo suggested out of a sense of moral responsibility.
“Then how about at least going to the hospital…?”
“The hospital, you say.”
“Yes, um… it looks like you’ll need a splint…”
Though his brow furrowed because Heichi’s bent fingers looked painful, Heewoo couldn’t take his eyes off that hand. It was instinctive. When you see someone in front of you severely injured, humans can’t easily look away.
But however Heichi interpreted that gaze, he suddenly began to fold his fingers and surreptitiously push them inside his sleeve. Heewoo gasped in surprise because the broken fingers folding looked so painful.
“D-don’t move it…!”
“I’ll make it so you can’t see it.”
Saying that, Heichi slipped his hand deep into his coat pocket. Having experienced a broken finger himself, Heewoo completely scrunched up his face as if he could feel that pain in his own hand.
“No, it’s not about making it invisible!”
“It will heal soon.”
“I-if you do that, it won’t heal…”
Heewoo stamped his feet while looking at Heichi’s bulging pocket. He wanted to take this man to the hospital, but even if he did, he couldn’t pay the hospital bill for him, and besides, it was impossible since he was working. Unable to take his eyes off the pocket, Heewoo shuddered as if he could feel phantom pain in his own hand.
At that point, Heichi had no choice but to realize his mistake. He’d wanted to talk a bit more since they hadn’t been able to converse last night either, but his face was scrunched up painfully, so it seemed right to back off at this point.
“I’ll leave breakfast. Please eat it when you have time.”
Only then did Heewoo notice the paper bag that had been hidden behind Heichi’s feet. Heichi held out the paper bag with his uninjured hand, and as soon as Heewoo took it, he turned and left the building. It looked exactly like he was running away.
Only after he left could Heewoo unfold his scrunched-up face and peek inside the paper bag he’d received.
<Bingeure Dosirak: Breakfast Specialist>
Inside were three lunch boxes with different menus from yesterday, though from the place he’d said was delicious yesterday.
* * *
“AJ. Are you listening?”
-Yees. Yes. Terra Team 1 AJ 986. What is it?
Heichi exited the building with quick steps and pressed firmly behind his ear as he spoke. The communication device “Link” inserted and used behind the ear was something every Esper had. Once Heichi connected via Link with his adjutant AJ, he quickly inquired.
“Unlike yesterday, the reaction to the lunch box today wasn’t good, but I don’t understand why.”
-What? Why? Ah, did he not like the menu?
“His mood soured before he even checked what the menu was.”
Heichi mulled over the situation from a moment ago. Unlike yesterday, as soon as Heewoo saw him, his facial muscle tissue contracted irregularly. Furthermore, his irises dilated rapidly, and his heart’s pumping cycle accelerated to about 1.5 times faster than normal.
That was a reaction frequently seen not only in Earth’s humans but also in Epsilon’s Espers. It was a phenomenon that occurred when angry or surprised by a sudden event.
And the reason Heewoo had been so surprised was probably…
“He was shocked to see my broken fingers.”
-Eek, you really did that? I told you not to do that.
Heichi quietly looked down at his own broken fingers that he’d crumpled into his pocket. AJ’s voice still came through the Link.
-Guides absolutely hate that kind of thing. Who expresses remorse by harming their body like that? They’re not Espers.
On Epsilon, Heichi’s homeland and the mother planet of Espers, if you committed a wrong, people weren’t all that surprised even if you damaged the body part that caused the action. That’s because most Espers heal completely by the next day even if their body is damaged.
Of course, it would be different if it was completely severed and you lost that part, but since everyone didn’t get injured easily in the first place and healed quickly even when injured, they brushed off this much lightly.
Moreover, for a top-grade Esper like Heichi, it was even more so. Heichi, who had been looking down at his bent fingers, began to snap his fingers straight with his opposite hand. It looked extremely painful, but frighteningly, no emotion could be felt in Heichi’s expression.
-Captain, please study more about Guides. I told you that you might meet your pair someday, so you should prepare in advance, didn’t I?
When Heichi straightened his fingers, surprisingly, the fingers that had been swollen blue began to regain their color. Once they’d mostly returned to flesh tone, Heichi flexed his fingers a few times and spoke through the Link.
“Then that reaction just now was really because of my fingers.”
-That’s what I’m saying. Do you know how delicate Guides are? Especially Earth’s humans have such weak constitutions that they’d break with a tap, so they’re even less immune to that kind of bodily harm.
“I understand. I should be careful.”
-You’re following the precautions I gave you before, right?
Unlike when he was in front of Heewoo, Heichi lowered his eyes with an utterly emotionless, expressionless face. Normally he wouldn’t have tolerated AJ’s attitude of seeming to disregard his superior, but given the situation, he couldn’t say anything.
“Always smile because my impression isn’t good if I don’t smile.”
-Yes.
“Observe behavioral patterns and learn them quickly.”
-Yes. And also.
“…Keep my mouth shut as much as possible.”
Heichi carefully reflected on his past actions. It seemed like he was following them well.
-Please be careful. So that Guide doesn’t get scared and run away.
“He could run away?”
-Guides are generally timid, so probably.”
“…Couldn’t I just go catch him?”
Heichi suddenly imagined Heewoo disappearing from before his eyes. Crack. Heichi, who had unconsciously clenched his fist, looked down at his hand.
The fingers that had just been healing had broken again.
-If it’s just any Guide, you could catch them and restrain and tie up their limbs, well, it wouldn’t matter. But he’s your pair.
“…”
-Once you start being hated by your pair, there’s no answer to that.
AJ, who had met his own pair long ago and had been cherishing them ever since, spoke as if giving advice.
-I’d really just want to burn to death.
AJ was a flame-type Esper with fire-manipulating abilities. For someone like him to say he wanted to burn to death was no different from saying he wanted to commit suicide. And in an extremely miserable way at that.
