# Chapter 22
“Puhuk!”
As the guiding was forcibly disconnected, I immediately spat out blood. It was energy that had backflowed from inside coming out. The impact was significant since I had been handling such strong energy. Kim Haewon stood up abruptly from his seat and was breathing roughly.
“What the hell are you doing to me?”
Kim Haewon’s face was completely colored with bewilderment. As if he had never experienced anything like this before. I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and got up.
“What are YOU doing? Don’t you know the guiding regulations? You received it last time too!”
I pulled out a tissue and spat out the rest of the blood pooled in my mouth. Kim Haewon was still breathing roughly while looking down at his palm. I was so dumbfounded that I threw the tissue in the trash and continued.
“Even if you haven’t had a guide until now, come on. Isn’t this too lacking in basic manners? What were you thinking, forcibly breaking the connection during guiding?”
Kim Haewon’s gaze slowly moved to me. He saw the remaining blood at the corner of my mouth and pointed at it with his finger.
“Why are you bleeding?”
“Because you pushed me away!”
“I didn’t even use force.”
“Hey, you idiot. I was in the middle of guiding you, and you forcibly broke the connection, so I got hurt. This bastard, you need to go back and take basic guiding education again.”
Kim Haewon finally seemed to understand the situation and grabbed my hand. Then he immediately opened the door of the guiding room. Hwang Changho, who had been waiting outside, looked at Kim Haewon with wide eyes.
“Are you finished already? Ah, Guide-nim! Are you, are you alright…?”
“Hospitalize him.”
“What?”
“What?”
Kim Haewon spat out those words and then roughly shook off my hand. Then he left first with large strides. I watched in disbelief before shouting.
“Hey! You’re just leaving like this? Hey! Kim Haewon!”
Kim Haewon didn’t even look back. I just watched him until he became a small dot and disappeared. Hwang Changho, who was beside me, awkwardly supported me while fidgeting nervously.
“L-let’s go to the hospital first!”
Following Hwang Changho’s words, the emergency medical team came to get me, and I was immediately placed on a transport bed and headed back to the VIP center. To that hospital room where my things were still left.
* * *
“As Guide Park Garam would know, these are side effects from the forced termination of guiding. The symptoms are similar to the typical ones. Because the esper’s energy was so powerful, it reacted in unusual ways like hemoptysis, but still.”
Hwang Changho diligently took notes as the older doctor explained. This was content written in the basic manual that you learn first when entering the center. A feast of fools. While thinking this and looking at the white ceiling, the doctor continued his explanation.
“As requested, we performed a comprehensive examination just in case, but there are no major abnormalities.”
“Couldn’t there be aftereffects later? You know, even with traffic accidents, aftereffects can appear after time passes.”
“We’ll need to monitor the prognosis, but there shouldn’t be such problems.”
“I see. So the current prescription is sedatives, IV fluids, and vitamins, and observing for about a day, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Understood. Thank you, doctor.”
After the doctor finished explaining and left, Hwang Changho wiped his sweat as if he had just breathed a sigh of relief. I looked at the IV in my hand, sighed, and then looked at Hwang Changho.
“I told you it’s nothing serious.”
“But you had to return to the hospital anyway…”
“I was planning to be discharged tomorrow or the day after. I might have even packed all my things today! But now! It’s been postponed again!”
“But the Esper-nim strongly insisted that you be hospitalized. He must have been very shocked since it was a phenomenon he’d never seen before.”
“Ah, this is ridiculous. He pushes me away and then!”
“…”
“Last time he even choked me, but now he’s making a fuss over spitting a little blood! And why isn’t he apologizing? Would Kim Haewon’s mouth tear if he said sorry or admitted his mistake?”
I was boiling with anger inside. No matter how well I tried to do, it was useless. Even if Director Cha from the Esper Department came to ask, even if Director Ham from the Guide Department gave strict instructions, there was no way to get along well when he treated me like this.
I stopped my temper tantrum and flopped down on the bed. This hospital room was now becoming my room. On one side, the gifts from the illegal Santa were piled up, and as my hospitalization period extended, the empty hospital room was filled with signs of daily life here and there.
The cup noodles I often ate, the guiding encyclopedias that Secretary Hwang Changho had borrowed from the library for me, and even my work materials brought from the office while I was being examined, just in case.
At first, it was nice because the food was delicious, they cleaned on time, and I could rest comfortably. But that had its limits too. I wanted to go home. However, Kim Haewon was trying to hospitalize me for weeks again, using this injury as an excuse.
“Isn’t my own will the most important thing? I’m really fine, I tell you? I can be discharged, I tell you?”
“We should rest here this week to prepare for any possible side effects. Guide-nim, if you need anything, I’ll arrange it all for you!”
Hwang Changho tried to stop me while sweating profusely. If I forcibly discharged myself, he couldn’t stop me, but it seemed he would get quite a beating from Kim Haewon.
“Fine. Fine. It’s not like you can do anything about it, Secretary Hwang, so go back. I won’t run away and will stay put.”
“I’m truly sorry in many ways and…”
I waved my hand at Hwang Changho who was trying to continue with a lengthy speech. It meant stop talking and leave. Hwang Changho left the room saying he would come again.
I flopped down on the bed. Having an IV attached had become my daily routine. The bitter taste of blood still remained in my mouth.
“A man should know how to apologize. Does he have honey on his lips or what?”
Haewon’s bewildered expression was vivid. It felt as if he had experienced normal guiding for the first time. I recalled the composition of his energy. It felt incomprehensibly complex. It was like standing at the entrance of some messy forest where rain was falling. A place where branches needed pruning, and some trees were so rotten they needed to be uprooted completely. But it was a forest that had been neglected and left to rot.
It was disastrous, in a word. It would make a guide powerless even if they gave everything they had and more. It was dark, sticky, and arduous to the point where one wouldn’t know where to start.
Using even a little of this energy would emit sharp energy that would become those thorns I felt in Chicago.
A time bomb.
Kim Haewon was truly a time bomb. And one that didn’t have much time left until explosion.
“What should I do with you?”
Thinking about it made me feel stifled and frustrated. It would be difficult even with someone obedient, but thinking about Kim Haewon made my head shake back and forth involuntarily. Still, if guiding was done steadily, his condition would improve. Unlike in that novel from before, I was S-class, and the total amount of guiding I could do was substantial.
“How long will this continue?”
I yawned big once. It was true that I was drained after receiving various examinations, and no amount of further worry would make the problematic Kim Haewon reform.
Just as I was thinking I should sleep, the phone I had placed next to my arm rang.
[Notification] <I’ve Been Possessed by a Real-Time Serial Novel> Chapter 9 has been uploaded.
I was just about to click on the notification, thinking I’d read only this and then sleep, when the hospital room door opened.
“Kim Haewon?”
“How are you?”
“You ran away and now you ask how I am?”
“…”
“I have no issues. They say it’s a common symptom that can occur when guiding is improperly terminated.”
“Any aftereffects?”
“Would there be?”
At my words, Kim Haewon turned his gaze sideways. It seemed like he knew he should apologize but the words just wouldn’t come out. I was inwardly clicking my tongue when I suddenly remembered that I was about to read the novel.
“Hey!”
“What.”
“Hey, take a look at this. First, don’t be surprised, when I first discovered this, I thought it was just a bit strange? But no. I’m telling you, it has everything from the association’s confidential information to all other information.”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“I’m telling you, our story appears in the novel I’m reading, with real names and all!”
I emphasized this by hitting the bedside table. Kim Haewon still furrowed his brows as if he didn’t understand. Then immediately, he made an expression that said it made no sense.
“It’s hard to believe. I must seem crazy to you. But look. I’m telling you I have real evidence?”
It was frustrating, but I also wouldn’t have understood if someone had suddenly said such things to me. I quickly opened the novel application.
“Huh?”
But the app wouldn’t open and immediately closed. I tried several times, but I couldn’t access it at all. I was flustered and tried shaking the phone, and even turning it off and on. But the result was the same.
“Why is it suddenly like this?”
It was bewildering. I eventually threw my phone down and picked up Kim Haewon’s phone. Then I immediately accessed the novel site I was reading. Since the application wasn’t working, there was no choice but to access it through the internet. But as soon as I typed the address, the page turned white. The black letters floating there were simple.
Error. 404 not found.
The page you requested cannot be found.
I couldn’t believe it. The upload notification had appeared just moments ago. It was a real site. But when I tried to show it to Kim Haewon, it disappeared as if it never existed from the beginning. Everything did. The application wouldn’t connect, and the site seemed to have disappeared altogether.
“How can this be?”
I looked at Kim Haewon as if dumbfounded. Kim Haewon looked at me as if I was pathetic and said.
“Ha, no aftereffects?”
“I’m telling you there aren’t!”
“I understand clearly.”
“No! I’m telling you I’m perfectly fine!”
Kim Haewon turned around and left the hospital room as if he could no longer talk to me. I was still shaking the screen that wouldn’t turn on. Even after continuously refreshing, the screen remained frozen.
