***
“Esper, from here on—”
When I trailed off and read the room, Do Ganghyun stepped back as if he understood.
“Go on in. I’ll wait in the car, so call me when you come out.”
“You don’t have to wait.”
“Call me. You’ll be late, go on in quickly.”
There was no time to argue with Do Ganghyun.
I hurriedly entered the hospital room. The caregiver who had been talking with Grandmother lightly bowed when our eyes met and vacated the space.
“Grandmother…”
About 30 minutes had passed since I heard the news that Grandmother had woken up. Last time, she had been awake for a little less than 2 hours, so if I thought about it being the same as then, I had roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes left.
“Our puppy came~”
However, seeing Grandmother’s appearance as she brightly smiled and welcomed me, I instinctively felt that she wouldn’t even fill that remaining time. Grandmother’s sickly appearance was deep. The excessively cheerful voice trying to muster strength to welcome me was proof of that.
“Was it Seoeun? She said she was my caregiver. The hospital room changed so much that I thought I had slept for 1-2 years.”
“Don’t say such terrible things. The caregiver is just—”
I swallowed hard to suppress the choking sensation that welled up.
Since it had been a little over a month since Grandmother woke up again, it was on the short side in terms of intervals, but as family, it couldn’t help but be a long and vague time.
Moreover, the content of our last conversation weighed on my mind.
“The Esper helped me. So I wouldn’t struggle.”
So I spoke with even more emphasis.
The last thing Grandmother had asked of me was to let her go if it was hard. She spoke in reference to Esper Do Ganghyun, but the intention was clear. If Grandmother’s last memory was stopped at that conversation, she would immediately know what I was talking about.
“……”
As expected, Grandmother was silent. Seeing her give a bitter smile as if there was nothing to be done, it seemed she fully understood the meaning of my words.
“Really, the stubbornness, as if to prove whose family we are.”
“It’s because I resemble you, Grandmother.”
I glanced at her not unpleasantly.
Soon I approached Grandmother closely and sat down in a spot beside the bed. There wasn’t much time to blame the last conversation and have a war of words. Rather than that, I wanted to have a more hopeful talk. That my relationship with Do Ganghyun was improving, and that I was okay. Only then did it seem Grandmother wouldn’t close her eyes holding worries and concerns.
“Grandmother, I imprinted.”
“…Hm?”
“Ah, with Esper Do Ganghyun.”
However, in my haste, I ended up opening the conversation with somewhat shocking news.
‘To Grandmother’s standards, the Esper is practically a scoundrel…’
It was like appearing saying I had already registered the marriage, not even declaring I would marry such a scoundrel.
When I thought that far, my face flushed for a moment. I stuttered and continued speaking, but since I had already said I had imprinted, all the words I added felt like excuses.
“No, how did this happen!”
Grandmother shouted angrily. I wondered where such energy had been hiding all this time. Even “how did this happen”… I wondered if this was really the Grandmother who remained calm in any situation.
‘We’re a pair Esper though.’
Moreover, Do Ganghyun and I were a pair. My case was unusual, but generally for pairs, proceeding to imprinting was a natural course.
If it was imprinting with an SS-rank Esper, there were many things that came along with it, and although Grandmother knew even better what that position was like, she seemed to prioritize worrying about me first.
That made me happy, so I laughed for no reason. Because for Grandmother, it didn’t matter whether the other person was SS-rank or whatever, the only important thing was that he was a scoundrel who had hurt my feelings.
‘If she knew it was a natural imprint, there would be an uproar.’
Perhaps she would be so surprised she’d get up from her seat. Or maybe she would actually be relieved. No matter what anyone said, the conditions for natural imprint were an outstanding matching rate and mutual feelings. If she knew that Do Ganghyun had even a little feeling for her grandson and that her grandson was the only existence with an irreplaceable matching rate for Do Ganghyun, she might relax a little.
“…It just happened?”
For now, it seemed better not to mention the circumstances of how we came to imprint. To say that would require telling her that Do Ganghyun was on the verge of rampage and that I had entered the quarantined area alone.
I rolled my eyes and avoided her gaze.
“Goodness. They say a quiet cat climbs the stove first, but how could you, Eunha, cause such an accident! Before this grandmother closes her eyes—!”
“It was a natural imprint. No one knew it would turn out like this.”
When I retorted grumpily, Grandmother groaned.
“And the Esper is good to me now too. He said with his own mouth that he wants to improve our relationship, and he takes care of my meals while even cooking directly every day.”
‘At first his cooking skills were terrible, but now he’s improved a lot.’ I added proudly.
Grandmother, who had been about to scold me greatly as if she had heard words like a bolt from the blue, lost her words at my continuously following words and just quietly looked at me.
Belatedly, I noticed that the reason Grandmother was silent was because of my smile.
“Grandmother?”
“Our puppy seems to have won that guy over completely.”
“Won him over? That’s not it, it’s just that the Esper—”
“You look good.”
‘You look happy.’ Grandmother added.
Only then did I realize that I had only brought up Do Ganghyun throughout the conversation with Grandmother. And all while wearing a smile.
Silence instantly came to the hospital room. It wasn’t an uncomfortable or awkward silence. It was a comfortable silence, the kind of calm that came after having an enjoyable conversation for a while and then settling down.
When the silence had become familiar, I suddenly opened my mouth.
“…There’s no need to necessarily sever it.”
It was something I definitely wanted to say if Grandmother opened her eyes again. That Grandfather who couldn’t abandon his righteous beliefs and my parents, and Grandmother who couldn’t forget such family, were all not wrong. So there was no need to sever it, and I wanted to definitely say that it could be resolved in this unexpectedly different direction.
“So I can’t grant your last request, Grandmother.”
I didn’t like the expression “last” either.
I deliberately smiled mischievously and faced head-on Grandmother’s request to abandon and sever and forget herself. Last time, I had just held back tears and said nothing, waiting for time to pass, but the situation was different now. Rather than trying to give up on everything, I wanted to change myself like my relationship with Do Ganghyun had improved.
“……”
Grandmother was silent for a long while. Somehow, at that reaction, it felt like I might cry, or like I was overwhelmed.
When I held firm and looked at Grandmother, a laugh like a faint sigh flowed from her mouth.
“…Yes. I made too difficult a request.”
“It was an absurd request.”
“Well, whose grandson are you.”
In the end, I, stubborn like Grandmother, remained the victor.
“Now, just in case, I’ll give you this, Eunha.”
Grandmother took out a necklace and handed it to me. Since Grandmother never took it off her body no matter what, it was a familiar object.
Grandfather’s keepsake.
It was a necklace given together with a ring when he proposed to Grandmother, but the party who had promised eternity had disappeared. At the time, whether Grandfather had prepared for such a day, when giving the necklace he confessed that although he couldn’t guarantee they could be together for a lifetime, he could protect her for a lifetime.
I thought it wasn’t a very good line, but it was an object that remained in my memory because Grandmother looked so happy when recalling the memory while conveying those words.
“Why are you giving this to me—”
“It’s an artifact. It contains his ability.”
I was startled and pulled back the hand that had been reaching for the necklace.
Artifacts were byproducts discovered very rarely in gates. At first, not knowing their use, they were just treated as stones from gates, but thanks to people who doggedly found their value, they had now become precious objects not easily seen on the market. They were also objects difficult to possess carelessly because the Center directly managed them and there was even registration by artifact.
‘I didn’t know all this time!’
Especially Grandmother’s necklace—more precisely, the artifact resembling the jewel embedded in it—had no registration. It was my first time seeing an artifact in the form of an accessory, and I hadn’t known at all because I didn’t feel the unique energy like an Esper’s waves either.
“The Center…”
“Doesn’t know. This was given to me by him when gates first appeared in the world, long before the Center was established.”
Then it seemed I knew how the artifact had come to be in Grandmother’s hands. Considering that he had embedded Grandfather’s ability and given it to Grandmother even before the Center was established, Grandfather must have known the purpose of artifacts from the beginning.
There was no need to ask how he came to know. The answer came easily when I thought of Grandmother’s mischievous smile that made me forget her age and Grandfather’s ability.
