Even though the weekend wasn’t particularly sweet, it passed in an instant.
On Saturday, after parting unpleasantly with Heichi, Heewoo worried as he went to work the next day. He was worried about what he’d do if Heichi followed him again.
But despite his worries, Heichi didn’t appear before Heewoo’s eyes for the rest of the weekend. It seemed his feelings had been properly conveyed. For Heewoo, who hadn’t been able to figure out how to avoid him if Heichi appeared again, it was fortunate.
No, was it really fortunate?
Grrrrowl…
Heewoo grabbed his belly skin that was sunken in deeper than his ribs. He’d managed to get through weekend meals somehow by saving the lunch boxes Heichi had given him before, but from today he was back to an empty stomach. Maybe because it was Monday, there wasn’t even any convenience store disposal.
After work, it seemed he’d have to stop by the mart. If he held out just a little longer, it would be the beginning of the month and the welfare center would give out free rice, so he should buy ramen or something else. Of course, even then, it would only be the cheapest ramen.
After finishing his part-time job at the soup restaurant, Heewoo couldn’t endure the pouring hunger and drowsiness and sat down on a bench for a moment. Monday was Cafe Bonita’s day off, so the usual schedule was to endure at the park for about three hours before heading to the meat restaurant.
“I’m hungry…”
What caught Heewoo’s eye as he sat on the bench was the pork cutlet shop across the street. Every time the door opened, warm steam poured out, and since there were always many customers, delicious smells wafted out of the shop. So on Mondays, Heewoo would sit here and rest, thinking he’d at least fill his stomach with the smell.
Sniffle.
Snot kept running, as if he’d caught a cold. In fact, since he endured every winter with only an old padded coat and long underwear, it would be stranger not to catch a cold in winter. Heewoo, who didn’t even care about this much snot, just blankly stared at the pork cutlet shop.
That’s when it happened.
“Excuse me.”
Startled by the voice that suddenly came from behind, Heewoo turned his head. Then his eyes met with some unfamiliar man who was standing right behind the bench.
Black jumpsuit, red hair, red eyes. With an appearance clearly different from ordinary people, Heewoo immediately became certain the other person was an Esper. Heewoo unknowingly hunched his shoulders and pulled back.
“…Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“What… what do you want?”
When Heewoo asked, the red-haired man grinned. His face had a pretty boy feeling like an idol on television, so it was true that he felt attractive. Of course, to Heewoo, who was also a man, that appearance wasn’t so attractive.
“What are you doing here?”
“What…?”
“Are you alone? Aren’t you bored? It won’t be fun if you just keep doing nothing.”
Since he’d expected him to naturally ask if he was a Guide like many Espers had done, Heewoo was somewhat flustered. The Esper before him was very incoherent in his questions, as if he was young like his boyish face.
“Want to hang out with me?”
Hang out…?
Coming up like this out of the blue and asking to hang out was a story from another world for Heewoo, who was extremely introverted. Except for being dirt poor, he’d lived his whole life as an ordinary human itself, so this was the first time receiving this kind of attention.
But the novelty was brief, and Heewoo now knew that the Esper before him was interested in him entirely because he was a Guide. With that thought, Heewoo’s heart sank again and he answered in a rather calm tone.
“No. I’m busy…”
“You don’t look busy at all. You’ve been staring at that restaurant since earlier.”
“…How long have you been watching?”
“Since you sat down here?”
Then it had been at least thirty minutes. At this point, Heewoo grew tired of this kind of attention from Espers. He just wanted to live without presence, as if he existed yet didn’t.
Sighing inwardly, Heewoo changed his mind and decided to spend some time with this man. There was floating time until the meat restaurant part-time job anyway. Then it seemed good to take this opportunity to get information from the Esper before him.
“Is it… because I’m a Guide…?”
“Yes. And a really awesome Guide at that.”
“Really… awesome?”
“Huh? You don’t know this word? This is used a lot on the internet though?”
So nowadays aliens use the internet too. Heewoo intuited that the alien before him would be more up-to-date with trends than himself.
Though he diligently watched the midnight news as his late grandmother had urged, the news always covered similar stories. The government’s response regarding Espers, or incidents and accidents, or if not that, the international situation surrounding Espers.
No one tells you how to deal with it if you’re a Guide. Having learned that even Heichi, who had approached him, was an Esper, Heewoo finally decided to accept that he was a Guide, and now he was troubled about how to respond.
“What is a really awesome… Guide…?”
“Just, well. At a glance, you’re different from the other Guides scattered around this planet.”
“Me?”
Heewoo asked back with wide eyes. It was amazing enough that he’d noticed he was a Guide, but he was different from other Guides?
“You’re different. Hmm, low-grade Espers lacking ability wouldn’t know such things. Just ignore them. They rush in like bugs without knowing anything.”
“Low-grade Espers? There are low-grade Espers too?”
“You really don’t know anything. This planet has a good information exchange system so everyone already knows?”
The red-haired Esper tilted his head. Then Heewoo’s cheeks flushed faintly. The fact that he was late with information wasn’t something that started yesterday.
Even when he attended school, important notices and announcements flew through apps or messages, or the school homepage, so Heewoo inevitably received news late every time. Because his house had never once had a computer. So each time, embarrassingly, Heewoo had to attend school empty-handed without the supplies everyone else had and stand at the back of the classroom as punishment.
Still, he thought he wouldn’t feel that way again after graduating school, but because of the Esper treating him like someone who didn’t know anything, he was reminded of old times for the first time in a while. When Heewoo became awkward, the Esper spoke up on his own.
“Top-grade, high-grade, mid-grade, low-grade, lowest-grade. Still, those who came to Earth here are at least low-grade Espers.”
“Lowest-grade… can’t come to Earth?”
“Nah, they can’t meet advanced species Guides like this. They’d be lucky to get a Guide plant from some star. Lowest-grade don’t have much ability anyway, so that much is enough for them.”
Advanced species Guides…
Was that how Espers thought of Earth’s humans? Heewoo fell into thought, feeling an emotion difficult to describe.
“What… grade are you?”
“Me? High-grade, ah, Pluto Team 1. Everyone usually understands with this?”
“Pluto?”
“Yes, the teams were divided into 9 when we came out searching to Earth. As a way to respect the planetary system nomenclature used in this galaxy.”
Fortunately, Heewoo at least knew that Pluto was the ninth planet. Though he didn’t completely understand his words, he roughly caught on that the Esper before him was quite an impressive being.
At that point, Heewoo became curious about what level of Esper Heichi was then. He didn’t look weak from the outside. Was he also a high-grade Esper?
“Then you don’t know this either? That Guides are also divided into classifications.”
“Guides too…?”
Curiosity appeared on Heewoo’s complexion. The Esper who had read interest from the appetizing Guide before him also seemed strangely excited. The red-haired Esper nodded and continued his explanation.
“Grade 1 is the highest, and below that there’s up to grade 9. Honestly, a grade 9 Guide’s guiding, to a high-grade Esper like me, doesn’t feel like… no, doesn’t even feel like ant shit.”
“Then, to be felt by a high-grade Esper…”
“At least grade 5. On our planet, we call that a Brown Dwarf.”
Brown Dwarf?
It was an unusual name. Were they divided by color?
“If you’re around Brown, as long as the matching rate is reasonably good, you feel like, ah, I can live. After Brown is Red Dwarf, and then Yellow, White, Black. But honestly, I haven’t met above Yellow either, so I don’t know.”
Then did that mean the Esper before him had only met up to Red? It seemed more difficult than expected to meet high-grade Guides. As if noticing that Heewoo felt puzzled about that, the man said,
“Guides are rare to begin with, so how would I find a Yellow? In the vast universe, you’re lucky if you meet a Brown with a decent matching rate. That’s why we call our destined Guide our ‘pair.'”
Destined Guide…
At that point, Heewoo became curious. Had the man before him found his pair on Earth? When he asked what he’d been thinking, the man laughed softly.
“Me? I want to meet them too. That’s why I’m sitting here. So, want to hold my hand just once?”
Saying that, he held out his palm. Looking down quietly, unlike the Espers he’d met until now, he saw a white and fine hand without a single callus.
“My name is ‘Orin.'”
Orin.
Having learned his name, Heewoo hesitated for a moment, then reached out his hand. Because he wanted to repay the man who had kindly given him information when he was always falling behind. Just as his finger, slowly approaching as if yearning, was finally about to touch—
Grab. There was one hand that dug between them. A hand that couldn’t even be compared to Heewoo’s and Orin’s hands—a hand the size of a pot lid, to use a clichéd expression.
“What are you doing here?”
It was Heichi.
