Chapter 34
I’ll visit in an hour
When I said I had something to discuss regarding the guiding kidnapping incident, Kim Haewon didn’t grumble. He simply replied by message that he could come in an hour.
I looked into hypnotic abilities a bit more through internet literature. The literature also told me methods to make hypnosis ineffective.
The problem was whether those methods would actually work. The materials were quite old, and with only a few cases, it was uncertain. But I didn’t want to run away without solving it, or blame it on Jeong Sanghyeop.
If someone was going to harm me, I had to face them head-on and fight back. That’s how I could feel satisfied. And I also wanted to clear Nam Ihyeon’s false accusation that way.
He had only fulfilled the mission given to him. If what happened in between wasn’t Nam Ihyeon’s will, I was willing to apologize.
But I would think about that after the problem was solved. I checked my laptop to see if there was anything more I needed to do before Kim Haewon arrived. I was skipping meals and scrolling through my laptop earnestly when the hospital room door opened. It was Kim Haewon.
“What’s the matter?”
“I visited Guide Han Miyeon. Guide Han Miyeon was insisting on Esper Nam Ihyeon’s innocence.”
“Evidence has already been submitted. Traces of guiding kidnapping were found on Esper Nam Ihyeon’s body. If the victim doesn’t want punishment, it might be considered as mitigation, but it doesn’t make the existing crime disappear.”
Kim Haewon looked at me as if asking whether I had called him to talk about such things. Then he glanced at his watch once and looked at me as if asking if there was more to say.
“What if there’s someone behind it?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I want to talk about the possibility of Esper Nam Ihyeon’s innocence.”
“Why does Park Garam-ssi want to talk about that? Wasn’t it Park Garam-ssi who reported him in the first place?”
Kim Haewon said the same thing as Nam Ihyeon. I sighed and continued.
“That’s exactly why I want to correct it more. If it’s not true, then I would have framed an innocent person.”
“Is that really the only reason?”
“What are you trying to say?”
It sounded like he was picking a fight for no reason. I immediately asked why he was acting like that. Kim Haewon clamped his mouth shut.
“No, say something. Is it because you don’t get along with Esper Nam Ihyeon?”
“We’re not even close enough to get along or not.”
Kim Haewon turned his body away from me. I persistently followed him and tried to face Kim Haewon.
“But why do you get all worked up whenever Esper Nam Ihyeon’s name comes up?”
“That’s because you…!”
Just as Kim Haewon was about to say something, the hospital room door burst open.
“Hey! Why did you hang up the phone like that?”
It was Nam Ihyeon. He looked at me and Kim Haewon, then raised his eyebrows as if incredulous.
“You hang up on my call like that, but you’re here having a romance? Are you in your right mind?”
“Phone call?”
At Nam Ihyeon’s shout, Kim Haewon looked at me. At his look that said an explanation was needed, I waved my hand as if it was nothing.
“No, that’s not the important thing. We were in the middle of talking about something.”
“My phone call!”
Nam Ihyeon was getting worked up. I sighed and continued.
“I hung up because I said everything I had to say.”
“How is that saying everything you had to say? You threw every kind of tantrum by yourself and just hung up!”
Nam Ihyeon came over and grabbed my wrist. Then Kim Haewon grabbed his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“You stay out of it. I have something to talk about with him.”
“He’s my guide.”
“You talk about the pair like it’s something special. If it’s broken, that’s it. It’s not like he’s your guide for life.”
Listening to them argue made me sigh deeply. I thought even kindergarten kids fighting over a toy wouldn’t be this childish. I smacked the back of both their hands once.
“Ah! Why are you hitting us!”
Nam Ihyeon whined even though it didn’t hurt. Kim Haewon looked a bit surprised. When both of them withdrew their hands in surprise, I continued firmly.
“Even kindergarteners don’t fight like this these days!”
“I’m not a kindergartener.”
“Want to get hit in the mouth too?”
“Tch.”
When Nam Ihyeon stepped back, Kim Haewon turned his head away as if his pride was hurt. I sighed once and sat on the bed. Then I spoke to both of them.
“Since both of you need to hear this anyway, I’ll say it now. Guide Han Miyeon regained consciousness and said she wanted to meet me, so I went. She asked me to prevent Esper Nam Ihyeon’s guiding kidnapping discipline.”
“…”
“As a fellow guide, I was pissed off as soon as I heard it and was about to leave, but she said it seemed like Esper Nam Ihyeon didn’t recognize her at the time.”
Kim Haewon listened to my words seriously. Nam Ihyeon was looking elsewhere as if frustrated.
“If someone was controlling him, and if he couldn’t recognize the existence of Han Miyeon… Then I thought there might be a bigger problem. So I called Esper Nam Ihyeon.”
“What did Esper Nam Ihyeon say?”
“He said he doesn’t remember. But since the evidence is clear, he just admitted to it. He said it would just be a matter of getting a few shots.”
Kim Haewon’s cold eyes turned toward Nam Ihyeon. Nam Ihyeon was still standing with his gaze averted. He must have felt wronged. But knowing that neither Kim Haewon nor I would take his side, he had given up. Kim Haewon withdrew his gaze from Nam Ihyeon and continued.
“There aren’t many people who can control an S-class esper.”
“What if he was hypnotized or had his mind dominated?”
“That’s impossible. It’s a forbidden ability.”
Kim Haewon drew a line. His tone was close to saying he didn’t want to believe such a thing.
“Esper Nam Ihyeon, tell us. Could you recognize Guide Han Miyeon at that time? Do you remember anything about what you did to Guide Han Miyeon?”
“…”
“When I entered the gate, Esper Nam Ihyeon only brought out Jeong Sanghyeop-ssi, who’s a D-class esper. If you were trying to rescue them, you would have brought both out. If you think about it purely selfishly, rescuing an A-class guide rather than a D-class esper would have been more beneficial for Esper Nam Ihyeon. It would be the guide who could help him.”
“…”
“But he didn’t do that. He wasn’t close to going berserk either, so there was no need to force a guiding kidnapping. Am I wrong?”
“If you knew all that so well, why did you try to beat me to death?”
Nam Ihyeon spoke as if aggrieved. There seemed to be no wrong points in my explanation. Then it was very likely that the story in the novel about Jeong Sanghyeop being able to use hypnotic abilities would proceed as it was.
“You’d only know if I explained it to you. Someone who cast the hypnosis ran away, but Esper Nam Ihyeon did the same. That avoidant tendency was taken advantage of.”
“Who does Park Garam-ssi think did such a thing?”
Kim Haewon asked as if he was somewhat interested in the developing story. His expression was serious. Given how strongly he had opposed hypnosis, he seemed to think there shouldn’t be even the slightest suspicion. I shrugged and said.
“I don’t know. However, it’s someone who knows that when such a situation comes, Esper Nam Ihyeon is the type to just give up rather than persistently dig into it.”
“You mean it could be someone inside the Esper Department?”
“It can’t be limited to just the Esper Department. It could be forces hiding throughout the association and center.”
The association had been relatively quiet for the past 10 years, but it hadn’t always been that way. There were always forces that opposed the association’s choices or guidelines.
Furthermore, there were quite a few forces that believed espers shouldn’t belong to the state, but rather each should be able to sell their abilities as individual brands and businesses.
That was like a declaration that even if esper abilities manifested, they wouldn’t move for the public good. Since there were virtually no laws that could perfectly regulate that, it was a very troublesome problem.
The reason treatment for espers kept rising sky-high was partly because of that. But they couldn’t treat all espers equally, and there was a deep-seated consciousness in the association that they just needed to catch the upper-class espers.
“I suspect Esper Jeong Sanghyeop.”
“That guy’s not it. When I found him, he was completely exhausted.”
“You remember the western gate’s rating, right? Since both of you measured the rating. Do you think a D-class esper could catch even one monster in that gate?”
“That’s why he was exhausted…”
“Rather than being exhausted, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to be dead?”
The two couldn’t answer my question. In that gate, there were already four A-class espers who had returned in combat-incapable states. But could a D-class esper have handled even one small fry? It would be impossible. I showed them data on my laptop that I had set aside.
“I looked up some books on hypnotic abilities. They say that unless you’re a high-class esper, using this ability puts excessive strain on the body.”
“That’s impossible.”
Kim Haewon strongly denied it once again. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t want to believe the fact that a D-class esper had used hypnosis, or if he didn’t want to believe that a force using such abilities had emerged.
In any case, Kim Haewon seemed like he didn’t want to raise questions about this mysterious guiding kidnapping. I scratched at his feelings while pretending to be cool.
“But it’s already happened, and we need to find the truth. If you want to run away, run away now. I can solve it alone with Esper Nam Ihyeon.”
Kim Haewon’s eyes instantly became fierce. I didn’t avoid his sharp, water-colored pupils.
