Staring at Cha Gweonwoo’s empty bed, I had a lot I wanted to ask.
Where did my esper go? Why is the bed this clean? Don’t tell me he died while I was asleep. Was my guiding completely useless? What on earth happened? Why did I sleep for two whole days? Well?
But what came out of my mouth was nothing like the thoughts drifting around my head.
“Food…”
Yep. I was starving. My stomach felt glued to my spine.
The moment they cranked the bed up and slid a tray in front of me, I buried my face in it like a man possessed and shoveled the food down. After two days without eating, nothing had ever tasted better.
I even finished clean with a cup of Yoplait—and only then did Cha Gweonwoo cross my mind again.
I grabbed the arm of the person who came in every hour to check my blood pressure and asked what had happened to him, but the answer never changed.
“The doctor will explain in a bit.”
I’m not the type to borrow trouble, but it was a maddeningly noncommittal answer to try and shrug off.
On top of that, Dr. Park Soyoung had called me at exactly 4:44 p.m. I’m not superstitious, but it was still a number that stuck in my craw when I tried to think nothing of it.
As if that weren’t enough, when I changed clothes, the very bottom button of my shirt popped off and hit the floor.
Something feels off…
I went to the bathroom and came out feeling weirdly clammy, like someone whose socks had gotten soaked. I kept thinking all of this had better be a false alarm, but…
“To start with the conclusion,”
None of it was a false alarm.
I stared, blank, at the sheets the doctor handed me. Two pages, both showing Cha Gweonwoo’s abnormal graphs.
“Esper Cha Gweonwoo has lost his ability.”
…What? I jerked my head up at the doctor.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.
An esper had lost his ability?
What news could hit harder than that? It’s like someone who does music losing their hearing, or a painter losing their sight.
“To be precise, Esper Cha Gweonwoo has lost all memories from after his ability manifested. Which is to say, everything from age twenty, when he entered the Center, up to now.”
…What?
I just opened and closed my mouth like a fish out of water. My head went blank. She was speaking clear Korean, but not a single word lodged in my ears. I felt like a tourist at a foreign restaurant getting the server’s recommendation.
“I—I’m sorry, what does that even… I’m not really processing this…”
I know esper abilities naturally fade with age. But that’s something that happens after your forties. Cha Gweonwoo is only twenty-eight. And one of just two S-class espers in the country.
“It’s something espers experience from time to time.”
“…”
“A kind of overload. He couldn’t handle the energy wavelengths anymore, so for survival, his brain temporarily deleted the ability.”
Deleted…
It’s not even my problem. It’s not like he and I are particularly close. And still, my vision went gray.
How could this even happen?
“Is it… gone for good?”
My voice cracked to hell at the end. I hurried to clear my throat.
“It won’t… ever come back?”
“That’s not the case.”
“…”
“Esper Cha Gweonwoo’s memories and ability remain somewhere in the body. If we use a computer analogy, the files are sitting in the recycle bin. The problem is, they don’t sit there long. Reports say at most a month.”
A month?
“If we don’t restore them within a month, Esper Cha Gweonwoo’s ability will be erased permanently.”
I had never known the word permanent could be so terrifying.
I couldn’t tell if the month we had was a short time or a long time.
“That’s why we need Guide Kim Doweon.”
Eyes wide, I pointed at my own chest with both hands.
“Me?”
Me? Seriously me? I’m a fucking nobody. You’ve seen my guiding, right? Even when I guide him, Cha Gweonwoo’s levels barely twitch.
Being handed a mission that heavy, my tongue hardly worked. The doctor didn’t waver an inch.
“As you can see from the graphs, Esper Cha Gweonwoo right now is basically a walking time bomb. He could rampage again at any moment.”
She pointed once more at his graphs. If that was his brain, then he was exactly the bomb she said he was.
“You need to stay by him and guide continuously to stabilize these wavelength levels first. Once the levels are somewhat stable, the Center can try a variety of methods.”
“…”
“Even if Esper Cha Gweonwoo refuses, guide him actively.”
I couldn’t meet her steady gaze.
Knowing his levels were unstable, and still not guiding actively just because he refused—it was practically dereliction of duty. A stone-heavy guilt pressed down on my chest.
My mind kept sliding into dark places. What if we can’t find it? For a whole month?
“And if we still can’t find it—what then?”
“We’ll find it one way or another.”
Her eyes shone; her voice was sure.
“He’s an S-class esper. The Center will never give up.”
***
Even after I left the Center, I was still in a daze.
For the next month, I’d be living with Cha Gweonwoo in lodging provided by the Center. With that Cha Gweonwoo I’d never even had a real conversation with. And with that Cha Gweonwoo whose memories stop at age twenty.
There’s no me in his head. He and I only met two years ago.
All this, in a single day. I kept letting out hollow laughs.
Just last week, when I fell asleep clutching his foot, I didn’t have the slightest inkling anything like this would happen. How could this be happening?
Like a machine that’s just been fed a command, I packed in my studio apartment while my head stayed a messy landfill of unfiled thoughts.
The doctor hammered it in up to the moment I stepped out the door: guide as much as possible. She must have told me half a dozen times that I couldn’t keep guiding the way I had been. In other words, she elegantly emphasized it again and again:
Do whatever it takes to do the very mucosal guiding Cha Gweonwoo fought tooth and nail not to do!
Yeah, and like that happens just because I will it!
Pity for a guy who’s lost his ability is one thing, but it’s only natural to feel anxious and vaguely afraid about something you’ve never done before.
The last time I’d lunged at him all cocky like, let’s strip and do something, anything, that was pure bravado. I only pulled that shit because I knew he’d throw me off.
Fine. I’ll do it. Screw it, I’ll do it. If it takes my body to get our Cha Gweonwoo back to being an S-class esper, then that’s what I’ll do.
Haah. A deep sigh leaked out. It felt like I was being punished.
Maybe I badmouthed him too much. Or maybe the problem was asking the goblin every day when it was going to come take Cha Gweonwoo away. Who knew an actual goblin would show up and make off with his esper ability.
They said the Center’s place came with most of the furniture and appliances, so I only needed to bring the basics. I packed just the clothes I needed, and after dithering over appliances, I decided to bring only the air fryer.
The lodging the Center set us up in was jaw-droppingly grand on the outside. A two-story house you’d only see in dramas when they pan over a rich family’s home.
Is it not just the two of us? Are other espers and guides staying here too?
My head went a hundred directions, but the free-standing house with a ceiling so high it felt like a sky was, surprisingly, just for the two of us.
“Fully furnished” wasn’t a lie.
Sofas, an air purifier, air-conditioning, a massive wall-mounted TV, a clothing care system, even a water purifier. It was like another family had been living here until yesterday and just moved out; everything was complete.
I wandered around, then eased myself, awkward, onto a plush sofa.
I had no idea what to do with myself.
Me, in a house like this. Me, in a situation like this. How much more absurd must it be for Cha Gweonwoo?
He apparently thinks he’s twenty. From his perspective, he went to sleep one day and woke up eight years later. Not even a top-tier esper anymore—an esper who’s lost his ability. How the hell do you swallow that overnight?
They said he’d be along after finishing some separate tests.
Humans are so damned feeble. Left alone in a strange space, I actually found myself wishing even for the barely-familiar face I knew—Cha Gweonwoo—to show up quickly.
“Weir—”
The way it echoed up to the ceiling startled me; I clapped my mouth shut with a little “ah!”
I don’t know how long I sat like that.
“I’m hungry…”
Humans.
Forget Cha Gweonwoo and everything else—where had all that breakfast gone? I was hungry again.
I opened the fridge to see it stuffed with ingredients. I stood there thinking a moment, then plucked out what I needed. I scanned the cupboard where frying pans were lined up by size and took out a medium one.
In a blink I had the chopped ingredients dumped into the pan, then I tore open the instant rice I’d microwaved on the side and tossed it in to fry. Cooking’s all feel, anyway. I grabbed whatever seasonings were at hand and went generous; in no time the fluffy scent of kimchi fried rice was curling into my nose.
I plopped down, a little breathless, at the marble dining table big enough for eight, just about to take my first bite.
Beep— Beep— Beep.
Of all moments, that’s when I heard the front door keypad being pressed.