The Research Director, who had been pressing and smoothing their irritably furrowed brow with their thumb, took several breaths before opening their mouth.
“For today, let’s return for now. As much as possible, live at the guide lodging as before, and you’re prohibited from going to work at the communal guiding room. Naturally, the guide ward is also off-limits.”
It was like a bolt from the blue. My grandmother was the only family I had left, and the pillar that allowed me to silently endure all this humiliation. Even if all that humiliation originated from my grandmother.
“But—!”
“Your grandmother’s care… we’ll attach a caregiver for a while. And let’s test again in a week.”
Perhaps reading my urgency, the Research Director presented a reasonable compromise. Since they’d constantly used my grandmother’s well-being as a weapon, their tone suggested they would provide at least this much of an alternative to prevent my impulsive actions.
So I had to meekly agree at this point. After all, it would only be a week.
“Understood…”
After the retest, if there were no particular abnormalities, I could return to how things were. To that peaceful embrace where I could escape from everything tormenting me.
. . .
However, a week later.
[Matching Rate 77.0%]
I had a hunch that things wouldn’t be resolved as easily as I thought.
***
“…Pardon?”
I must have heard wrong. What did I just hear?
“I said 77%.”
“B-but I lived at the Center as usual just as you said! I didn’t go to work at the communal guiding room either—!”
“I’m aware.”
The Research Director answered stiffly. However, they only said they understood—their face didn’t show they accepted the results. They just forced an affirmative because they couldn’t blame me for having fulfilled all my schedules under the Center’s thorough surveillance.
And my current situation was such that I had to be nervous even at this appearance.
“Since variables have decreased, let’s proceed with additional tests as is.”
As if proving my guess wasn’t wrong, the Research Director immediately mentioned additional tests. Their tone suggested the cause must lie with me.
What the Research Director, so full of confidence, thrust into my hands was—
“A paper cup?”
A paper cup with markings and a sterile tube.
I could tell the moment I saw them. What additional test the Research Director mentioned, what they suspected as the cause of the dropped matching rate.
“Blood collection will be done afterward.”
They suspected I’d taken medication. And potent medication at that, enough to lower the matching rate.
‘The only drug with that kind of effect is imprinting dissolution medication…’
I looked around with a deeply clouded face. All the staff including the Research Director seemed to think similarly. Behind their expressionless faces, I read deep disgust and saw indelible suspicion.
Despite the fact that between Esper Do Ganghyun and me there was only a pair contract bound by paper, not a relationship worth breaking by even using medication.
Moreover, imprinting dissolution medication was extremely dangerous to use just to lower a matching rate by one level. Wasn’t it literally medication that could dissolve imprinting? It was medication that forcibly tore apart the imprinting where different wavelengths interlocked and connected stickily. It was nothing but potent, and was lethal medication for guides whose physical abilities were no different from ordinary people.
And that wasn’t all. Perhaps because it was the only means to dissolve imprinting, it was extremely expensive, and difficult to obtain unless one was a considerable personage.
‘And yet they suspect me.’
That I, who struggled with living expenses due to my grandmother’s hospital bills and clung to the pair contract, would have taken medication even to the point of harming my body. I didn’t understand the circumstances for suspicion, but I didn’t even think to protest.
I responded to the test with a bitter heart. After all, proving my innocence was the priority. I just thought it was fortunate that Esper Do Ganghyun wasn’t present, so I didn’t have to show him even this sight.
“……”
“……”
“……”
However, no peculiarities could be found in the subsequent tests either. Naturally, heavy silence visited the research lab, and the atmosphere was sharply honed. It was the second silence to arrive after the 77% matching rate came out.
“Director, perhaps we should summon Esper Do Ganghyun…”
“That’s right. Wasn’t there a case announced in America before? We need to coordinate with Esper Do Ganghyun as well—”
Then murmuring spread among the staff. Somehow, listening to what they were saying, it seemed they had some idea. The Research Director, who furrowed their brow and revealed their uncomfortable feelings, also seemed to know the content.
“Everyone leave.”
The Research Director spoke heavily. Among the staff who left the room while reading the atmosphere, I also awkwardly rose to my feet.
“Guide Myeong Eunha, please remain.”
“Yes?”
“Stay right where you are.”
For a moment, I recalled the time I made a pair contract with Do Ganghyun. That contract made in a place without the esper, one of the actual parties involved.
Back then too, only the Research Director and I remained in the empty research lab like this. Afterward, they made a secret proposal to me while mentioning my grandmother…
‘The pair contract was concluded semi-coercively.’
I couldn’t forget how they reported to Esper Do Ganghyun with an undeniable document order.
Then and now were too similar. The situation, the place, the people—all of it.
“Actually, it’s not that I have no idea at all.”
The Research Director lightly passed by me and rummaged through documents.
“I hoped against hope. It’s not even officially announced yet, and it was just proven by gathering and gathering cases that were just discovered.”
“……”
“If my guess is correct, the solution is also ambiguous, so to be honest… yes, honestly, I wished it was because Guide Myeong Eunha’s personal deviation caused the matching rate to drop.”
The voice filling the research lab was somehow creepy. It felt suffocating, and also like my entire body was being constricted. It was a kind of intuition. One I’d learned from facing the Research Director, from receiving countless glares at the Center.
When they explained things gently unlike usual, the content that followed was mostly not very good for me. They made sweet proposals by putting my grandmother forward, but in the end, they were no different from a poisoned chalice.
With such complicated feelings behind me, I cautiously watched the Research Director’s actions, when—
[Correlation Between Manifesters’ Emotional Changes and Matching Rate]
A thick document with the above title was thrust before my eyes.
Instantly, strength entered my hands and my fists clenched. Naturally, I recalled my resolution to give up my feelings for Do Ganghyun.
The Research Director glanced at my fist and shrugged nonchalantly.
“You’re getting a rough feeling, aren’t you?”
“……”
“The claim that espers’ and guides’ emotions might affect the matching rate has existed for quite a long time. In fact, there were occasionally cases where the matching rate increased slightly, though minutely, after the relationship progressed.”
‘Though it doesn’t surpass the absolute condition of wavelength compatibility.’ The Research Director added.
“However, the claim being accepted was a separate matter. There was a lack of absolute samples that could become cases, and crucially—”
I roughly guessed what words would come next.
What the Research Director was talking about wasn’t in the regular education for manifesters, but was content that instructors always mentioned in face-to-face classes. Don’t be disappointed because there are cases where matching rates increase, and strengthen your relationship with your pair esper. Having manifested at a late age, I clearly remembered this content from relatively recent times.
So what the Research Director would say was obvious.
The reason it couldn’t be included in regular education and was conveyed orally through instructors. The fatal flaw that existed in the above claim.
“There are no negative cases.”
“Yes, that’s correct. As expected, perhaps because you just manifested a little over a year ago, you remember the face-to-face class content well.”
There were no opposite cases. No cases of matching rates dropping in response to negative emotions.
So unless the above error was resolved, that theory was nothing but something like a superstition that could only be conveyed to people as hopeful advice and encouragement.
“If matching rates are affected by emotions, there should naturally be opposite cases as well, but until now there have been no such cases.”
So why mention this now?
My body tensed sharply and I swallowed.
There wasn’t enough evidence to claim I was that opposite case right away. But to completely deny it, the talk the staff members had mentioned just before bothered me. The Research Director’s attitude also had something suspicious about it.
“But recently, it was revealed that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t that there were no cases, but that they couldn’t be found.”
Sure enough, shocking words followed.
“Usually when the relationship between an esper and guide deteriorates, various accidents occur. Generally unsavory incidents where one side is destroyed.”
It was a statement as if thinking of manifesters as toys or tools. I felt discomfort at this, but the Research Director continued the explanation as if mocking my appearance.
“In the case of imprinting, it’s even worse. Because they take medication to dissolve the imprinting. The matching rate dropping is natural, and in the worst case, both the esper and guide can’t function properly.”
A lightning-like realization struck me. If emotions were hurt enough to lower the matching rate, they already wouldn’t have been in a normal state. So that’s why opposite cases couldn’t be found.
