Yoon Kihyun knew that the detestable bastards at the Center were very interested in him. Because the gossip circulated around and around until it eventually reached him too.
Yoon Kihyun is a gay slut who’s into men, a bastard crazy for money who does Guiding left and right and is public property……
Most of the vulgar and crude talk was about him.
The more he thought about it, the more insane the workplace was. What was the point of making them attend lectures every month about improving Guide human rights and whatnot, and circulating perfunctory surveys? When behind the scenes they were busy spouting that kind of shit for entertainment.
‘Ah, fuck. Should I just wear a sign around my neck saying “Don’t talk to me”?’
Four days since submitting his resignation.
Yoon Kihyun was tormented by the urge to pretend to be crazy and actually carry out behavior that would be talked about forever on office worker community boards.
That’s how much most of the Center’s members bothered Yoon Kihyun.
Starting with the deputy director, headquarters director, and Center director who kept calling him for meaningless meetings, people he passed in the hallways would approach hesitantly and ask if the rumors were true.
He thought if he responded appropriately they’d spread rumors on their own, but that was a misjudgment. Even today alone, there were plenty of bastards asking if the resignation rumor was really true.
‘Team Leader, are you really quitting? I heard the rumor but couldn’t believe it……’
‘Yes. It somehow turned out that way.’
‘I’m so sorry you’re leaving.’
‘Me too.’
Sorry my ass. He only thought it would be perfect if he could move up the resignation date even a day earlier.
They say habits ingrained in the body are scary—he was still wearing the mask of a proper working adult and repeating the same words like a parrot. But as time passed, it became increasingly burdensome.
‘Haah……’
Yoon Kihyun, who had spit toothpaste foam into the bathroom sink, let out a sigh.
Beyond his blurred vision, the messenger content from the management deputy director he’d read just moments ago flickered.
The person who usually made baseless complaints using Guiding evaluations as an excuse had been sending long messages every day lately, as if there were so many things to be sorry about.
Reading messages apologizing even for mistreatment during his rookie days that he himself didn’t even remember only made Yoon Kihyun’s mood worse day by day.
He felt a vibration and checked his phone to see a message from the Guide Headquarters Director.
Guide Headquarters Director Kihyun~ Can we have a drink after work today? I know a bar with a great night view, I thought it’d be good to have a sincere talk there
The Guide Headquarters Director, who was usually difficult to even talk to face-to-face, went even further—from the day he submitted his resignation, frequently feeding him expensive things and recommending he stay at the Center.
Thanks to that, rumors that Yoon Kihyun and the Guide Headquarters Director were hooking up were snowballing, but the director seemed to be completely oblivious to that fact.
Still, he’d agonized for quite a while over whether he should inform at least his superiors about the rare incurable disease diagnosis. But even if he told them, probably nothing much would change.
They’d obviously recommend sick leave, and even if the higher-ups looked favorably on his situation, the period that would be processed as paid leave would be a few months at most.
The salary he received while overworking his body went straight out each month as loan repayments. Living expenses including food were always tight.
In his current situation with the absurd medication costs added to that lifestyle, paid leave couldn’t be of any real help. It would be nothing more than an obstacle interfering with death.
‘I feel sick…… Should I just go home early today, take medicine and sleep?’
His stomach felt nauseous like severe motion sickness and his head hurt.
Although it was refreshing to finally know the name of the illness behind the big and small pains that had been tormenting him for a long time, his nerves were on edge at the fact that he had no money to treat it.
These past few days, all Yoon Kihyun did was down three or four common painkillers that could be purchased without a prescription and sleep as if passing out.
Why would he buy expensive medicine when he was planning to die anyway? With the money to buy that, there was so much he could do before dying.
‘Why is living so exhausting?’
Around the time Yoon Kihyun, who had been staggering after finishing brushing his teeth, was leaving the bathroom, a shadow fell over his head.
When he glanced up, he saw Team Leader Jung Sijun’s irritating face.
“Team Leader Yoon.”
“……Ah, hello.”
He responded because their eyes met, but he didn’t want to talk long with Jung Sijun. It was just as Yoon Kihyun was slightly twisting his body to pass by.
“Why does your complexion look so shitty?”
A question clearly directed at him flew over.
Even when he does speak.
Yoon Kihyun looked at Jung Sijun with one eyebrow raised. Sure enough, his gaze was fixed on his face. Jung Sijun’s expression, as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, poked at Yoon Kihyun’s nerves.
Whether someone else’s complexion was shitty or not. Yoon Kihyun slightly raised and lowered his shoulders as if to say “so what” and turned his back.
‘Of all the unlucky……’
Honestly, there was no way he could feel anything good toward Jung Sijun.
As far as Yoon Kihyun knew, that bastard was the first one in the Center to attach the modifier “public property” to him while giggling.
He’d made a small mistake during Guiding once, and it spread widely that behind his back Jung Sijun had grumbled that because he squandered Guiding everywhere at the level of public property, he couldn’t receive proper Guiding.
Making a minor mistake was his own fault, but mocking and speaking crudely behind his back was a different matter.
But Yoon Kihyun didn’t care. To be precise, he had no mental leeway to waste on such things, so he had no choice but to let it go.
Bluntly speaking, he couldn’t go find Jung Sijun and interrogate him about whether he was the first one in the Center to call him public property, could he?
Finding the starting point of a nickname that had spread widely in a Center where hundreds of people worked was difficult, and if Jung Sijun made excuses saying it wasn’t him, from that point on it would be him who’d become strange.
Without a recording, there was nothing to gain from getting into a fight with just secondhand stories of who heard what from whom.
Above all, the other side was one of the few S-rank combat Espers in the country that even the Center director had to defer to.
Thinking about it now, he could only regret that it might have been better to just confront him head-on.
“When someone’s worried about you.”
As Yoon Kihyun suddenly turned his back, Jung Sijun grumbled complainingly.
‘Worried my ass. His tone is fucking annoying from the start, and I’m supposed to believe that? Who asked him to worry? Why is that bastard suddenly throwing a fit?’
No matter how he thought about it, the guy was an asshole. Yoon Kihyun didn’t even try to squeeze out his depleted social skills and just roughly shoved his hands in his pockets and walked down the corridor.
‘I should just buy two bottles of soju on the way home today and drink them.’
He’d long since cleanly erased from his mind the message where the headquarters director had tried to entice him to drink together today.
Going there would just be pouring oil on the fire of the rumors that he and the headquarters director were hooking up.
‘Ah, should I just ghost everyone?’
How much longer could his patience, pushed to its limit, hold out?
He considered it briefly, but still reached the conclusion that he wanted to receive a hefty severance pay and salary and blow through it refreshingly.
After awakening as a Guide, he thought he’d live going from success to success, but he had to take care of his sick father who had somehow found out and come looking for him.
What was with a father who abandoned him and ran away? It was a situation where if others heard about it, they’d click their tongues saying he was a fucking idiot and pushover.
Yoon Kihyun hadn’t wanted to take responsibility for a father who felt like a stranger from the start either. He’d desperately wanted to cut ties several times and yell that he should handle hospital bills and such on his own.
However, he kept oddly thinking about that brief embrace when his shabby-looking father with graying hair had hugged him while crying, saying he’d missed him so much all this time.
He could still vividly recall the color of that cheap jumper with frayed cuffs and cigarette burns here and there.
How could he forget that clothing? After his father ran away, there were only a few photos of his parents left at home, so it was the clothing his father was wearing in the amusement park photo he occasionally looked at.
Who knew that even when he appeared before him out of the blue after living without contact for so long, he’d still be wearing that worn-out jumper?
If he was going to abandon his child, he should have at least lived well.
When he examined piece by piece the face of his father who appeared looking like the epitome of wretchedness, amazingly, he saw his own face reflected there.
At those times, he truly thought “so this old, shabby person really is my father,” and his heart weakened every time.
‘The way I see it, Kihyun, you have affection deficiency.’
One of the few friends who knew Kihyun’s situation in detail muttered like that with a troubled face at a drinking session.
Affection deficiency. Even when Yoon Kihyun thought about it himself, he definitely had affection deficiency.
But how do you cure affection deficiency? Can that even be cured in the first place?
As if having affection deficiency wasn’t enough, now he’d even contracted a rare incurable disease with an unfamiliar name.
Anyway, what a state his life was in. Yoon Kihyun, shaking off the lengthening thoughts, crossed the corridor leaving behind Jung Sijun’s muttering bullshit.
‘But that bastard is young yet became a team leader early and is subtly using half-polite speech. So annoying.’
Grumbling inwardly, he casually checked the time.
Normally it would be time when he’d be struggling while doing overtime Guiding, but since throwing in his resignation, there wasn’t much time left until his quitting time.
Three weeks ahead. If he just endured three weeks, everything would end.
Yoon Kihyun sat at his seat prepared in one corner of the office. The remaining team members, excluding those who had left for Guiding, were busy quietly tapping their keyboards while watching his mood.
They were probably chattering in a group message room excluding Yoon Kihyun. Whether the team members did that or not, Yoon Kihyun was inputting trivial keywords into the search bar.
Good areas to live in for one month.
Where would be good? A neighborhood he’d never been to would be best, right?
The face of the man searching for a place to stay until he died while looking at photos caked with filters was dry. He looked exactly like someone who had forgotten how to smile.
