← The Guide Who Hides Their Power is an Otter
“Thank you.”
Park Gang-u’s ears slowly flushed red.
“A habit.”
Hearing it repeated twice, he didn’t know whether the man was embarrassed or truly meant it. Heisha unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car first.
“Hmm.”
Park Gang-u cleared his throat for no reason and got out after him. Heisha looked around the city beneath the red sky. Between collapsed, abandoned buildings stood a perfectly intact single-story structure. Seeing it maintaining an overly clean exterior all alone was rather eerie.
“Come this way.”
Park Gang-u gestured with his chin and walked ahead. It was a slightly affectionate tone, like how he’d called him when he was Hei, so Heisha followed in a good mood. At the somewhat eerie air around them, he instinctively stuck close behind him. It was a place with no windows except the entrance into the building.
“It looks like some warehouse.”
“Similar.”
Correct answer?
“You said it was a restaurant.”
“Well. It serves both purposes.”
After the fishy answer, the door opened first.
“Who is it?”
“Me.”
“Park Gang-u!”
A man built like a mountain suddenly hugged Park Gang-u and burst into hearty laughter.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet.”
“Your answers are the same as ever. But… who’s that beside you?”
“Hello. I’m Heisha.”
“Heisha? Are you a foreigner? Fascinating. It’s my first time seeing a foreigner. Ah. My introduction is late. I’m Park Yo-han.”
He bared his teeth and grinned playfully.
“I’m Park Gang-u’s relative. A relative. You know Captain Park Gap-cheol, right?”
“Ah, I know him!”
“I’m his son. His son.”
Now that he said it, they did look a little alike. Pahaha. Park Yo-han, who had been laughing loudly, led them inside.
“What did you come to eat?”
“Everything that comes from the sea.”
“You only look for the expensive stuff. You asked me not long ago too. I went and called in all of that, and how much did I— ack!”
Park Gang-u suddenly slung an arm around Park Yo-han’s neck and walked with him toward the kitchen just like that.
“Sit anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
“Ah. Yes!”
Heisha answered with a bright smile. So that seafood had been requested from this person. Seafood really was hard to come by. The fact that he’d gone so far as to ask a favor to get it for him made Heisha a little embarrassed.
‘Does he like sea otters?’
‘Maybe he just likes animals in general.’ Thinking it over and concluding on his own, Heisha looked around the restaurant’s interior. The hardened cement was both the walls and the floor. Even so, the whole place was neat.
Photos hung on the wall caught his eye, and he walked toward them as if drawn.
‘Wow.’
On a photo hung with Park Gang-u’s name, there was a young face. Maybe it was taken when he was a child: two kids had their arms around each other’s shoulders. One child laughed mischievously, and the other stood crookedly with a scowl.
“No matter how I look, this is Park Gang-u’s place.”
The scowling one must have had something he didn’t like. Judging by the sea in the background, things must have been fine back then. What could have happened in just a few years? And why was that man, the son, living alone here when he was an ability user too?
The scowling Park Gang-u in the faded photo kept overlapping with the real one, and it was cute. Heisha was looking at the photo with the corners of his mouth raised without realizing it when a clattering sound came from the kitchen.
“Heisha! Is there anything you want to eat?”
Park Yo-han poked only his face out and asked.
“I eat everything well.”
“They said you like seafood?”
“Ah. That’s right.”
‘Had he told him already?’
“Park Gang-u will cook, so enjoy it— eek!”
Park Yo-han, who had poked only his neck out, was sucked back into the kitchen before he could finish speaking.
‘Those two seem close.’
‘But Park Gang-u is cooking?’
“Um.. you don’t have to do anything. I can just eat it as is.”
At that, Park Gang-u poked his head out of the kitchen just like Park Yo-han had.
“Heisha. The photo. Did you see it?”
“Yes. I saw it.”
“…Don’t look at it, and sit down now.”
He could tell the man was plenty embarrassed even if it wasn’t fully on display. As Park Gang-u went back into the kitchen, Heisha suddenly recalled something he’d said.
“My name….”
Not Hei, but Heisha. He’d called him properly, without even ‘Guide’ attached.
‘Huh?’
His chest felt strange. It pounded, then tickled, then he felt so good his body swayed. It felt like floating on the water with a chest full of clams.
‘What’s wrong with me?’
Clutching his chest, Heisha stared intently at the photo of Park Gang-u smiling as his childhood self.
The food Park Gang-u made came out. My word, who knew someone that rough could make something like this. Heisha looked at Park Gang-u with a pleased face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason.”
‘Really, I picked the right person to pair with!’
For the first time in a while, he opened his diary. Since coming to Korea, his diary entries had been nothing but meeting the Director, apart from deployments, home, and the cafeteria, so he’d skipped writing a few times and eventually stopped taking it out at all.
Name: Park Gang-u Age: ? Height: Tall. Personality: Don’t know yet. (Recently he’s gotten kinder.) Traits: Korean, S-rank esper, telekinetic ability user, has lots of money (rich)
He looked at the diary entry he’d written recently, bit the back of his pen with his lips, and let go.
Traits: Korean, S-rank esper, telekinetic ability user, has lots of money (rich), good at cooking, ☆buys me lots of seafood.
You might wonder why a diary had turned into an observation log, but his interests had tilted this way, so there wasn’t much else to write.
Guided him when he was about to rampage. (Hei) Went to the sea. (Heisha->Hei) After the sea trip, slept at Park Gang-u’s house. (Hei) Deployed and guided him. (Hei) Visited him sick and guided him. (Heisha->Hei) Wore a plastic bag and guided him. (Hei)
He’d gone around countless times in his sea otter body. At this rate, it was a wonder the Director hadn’t caught him. He was picking out only the things he’d been told not to do, if his parents back home saw this, they’d faint.
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