Chapter 11
“Why can you not open your eyes like this, huh?”
“Sleepy…”
At the sight of him trying forcibly to open his eyes, Seo Young-woo raised his watch and checked his wavelength first. Fortunately confirming that the numbers were within the stable range, he whispered quietly.
“Then sleep for a little and wake up.”
Watching Baek Jin nod his head, Seo Young-woo swallowed his breath several times over in order not to lose his reason. Because crimes committed against the awakened were markedly rare, in a situation like this, securing on-site evidence and witnesses came first. If he guided him, the wounds would disappear, so for now he had no choice but to watch over Baek Jin, who was in pain.
Before long, soldiers who burst in, opening the half-closed door as if to break it, pointed their gun muzzles at the two of them, but Seo Young-woo acted calmly.
“I am Team AXIS Leader Seo Young-woo. I request protection for an awakened.” They were people who had surely run in assuming it was, of course, an incident caused by an awakened. But the civilian was not hurt at all, and at the words requesting protection for an awakened instead, the soldiers clearly looked flustered.
“Put your guns away and arrest the criminal on the spot, you bastards!”
At Seo Young-woo’s shout, the soldiers, who belatedly grasped the situation, subdued Kim Hyeong-seop, who was trying to slip out secretly.
“Ah, no! Those two people threatened me, me! It is unfair, unfair!”
Watching Kim Hyeong-seop appeal his unfairness, Seo Young-woo ground his teeth. But he could not beat him to death.
He must absolutely not let him die easily. In the meantime, additional personnel who had come after receiving the radio call took photographs of the scene, and a soldier who had brought an emergency kit came and sat beside Seo Young-woo.
“Guide Seo Young-woo, do you need treatment?”
“I am fine. However, there is an esper injury. I would like you to please leave photographic evidence of the damage quickly, so that I can guide him.”
“Please explain the situation first.”
Inside the Bureau, they had to act according to the manual. He knew that if the situation became tangled here, the later punishment or the outcome of the case could change, but he could not help finding this situation frustrating.
“He is the esper I am in charge of. I came here to check on him and…” Seo Young-woo stopped what he was saying, pulled Baek Jin in, held him in his arms, and covered his ears. Even though he knew he was already asleep, so that he would not hear.
“I witnessed circumstances of an esper assault and sexual molestation.” At those words, the soldiers’ gun muzzles all turned at once toward the man who had been shouting alone.
“As of this time, all personnel who were at the scene are isolated as subjects of investigation. If you resist, we will use force.”
***
Seo Young-woo, who came out after finishing the investigation, headed straight to the director’s office. Being S-rank, he interacted with others more often than the other awakened did, but a conversation with Director Gwak Heon-jae could not be called entirely comfortable.
“I heard you urgently requested a meeting.”
Director Gwak, holding a teacup, opened the conversation first. Unless it was an emergency, he, too, did not bare his edges at the awakened.
“I have something to propose regarding the illegally dumped esper.”
“Ah, that friend. I heard he is adapting quite well.”
Adapting, indeed. With so many eyes still watching, even a report about a single esper would be going up to Director Gwak, yet there was a bastard who dared touch that? Then he had to hold someone clearly responsible for this matter.
“The esper in question was assaulted and sexually molested by a security bureau staffer. I personally witnessed the scene, and it is currently under investigation.”
Seo Young-woo opened his mouth calmly, maintaining as much as possible the same expression as at first.
“Judging that the security bureau cannot be trusted, from now on I will take full charge of Baek Jin.”
“That cannot be done.”
At the neat answer, Director Gwak, who took a sip of his well-brewed tea, answered firmly.
“If it is under investigation, the charges have not been fully recognized yet either, so why are you rushing so much.”
“Director.”
“For now, let us leave it at replacing the staffer in charge.”
Seo Young-woo set down his teacup and quietly looked at him as he leaned his back completely against the plush leather chair. He knew the director did not want noise to arise, but he could not let this matter pass lightly.
“I request it again. I will take full charge of Baek Jin.” Director Gwak Heon-jae’s gaze turned ferocious.
“I cannot send Esper Baek Jin back to the place where the incident happened.”
“Are you not considering Team Leader Seo Young-woo’s safety? This is not a problem to be solved emotionally!”
“Today it ended at this level because Esper Baek Jin did not resist.” Seo Young-woo began without acting impatiently.
“The ability-restriction bracelet is a device that works only on abilities. Do you think a B-rank esper close to A-rank would lose in strength to a single civilian?”
“That is exactly why it cannot be done! If Baek Jin uses his strength, a problem could arise for you, Young-woo.” But pressing down with strength had its limits. To lead a person, things besides strength were needed.
“For the sake of rapid rehabilitation and social adaptation education, I propose again whether the surveillance on Esper Baek Jin can be withdrawn and I alone can take charge of him.”
Thinking of the unfair treatment Baek Jin had received, anger boiled up. He had agreed to isolating him for surveillance and protection. However, the bolts installed so he could not go out and the padlock fastened so he could not even open the window were cruel treatment for a mercenary who had helped another country and been abandoned. Was it not no different from a criminal held in prison?
Director Gwak Heon-jae’s eyes pierced through Seo Young-woo. Anyone else would have bowed his head, unable to even meet his eyes, but Seo Young-woo met his gaze without shrinking in the slightest.
“He is our power now, is he not.”
“…”
“Director.”
“Stop calling me already!”
When he called Director Gwak in a slightly softened voice, the director shouted in a burst, as if he did not want to hear it, and rose from the sofa.
“I will have it withdrawn, so Team Leader Seo, manage him as you see fit. Without making the matter noisy.”
“Thank you, Director. I, too, do not want to make the Bureau noisy with a matter like this. However…” When Seo Young-woo trailed off, as if he still had something to say, Director Gwak, who was returning to his seat, shouted in a burst, what else.
“I think it will only be resolved quietly if the Bureau holds responsibility clearly. I will take my leave now.” When he bowed deeply at the waist, a tongue-clicking sound was heard from in front of him.
Only after he heard the voice connecting by internal telephone to the security bureau inside the director’s office was Seo Young-woo able to move his steps.
***
“…is all you need to do.”
As faint voices and the surrounding noise brushed at his ears, soon the sensation of his body being pressed down, as if a lump of lead were crushing it, followed. His consciousness slowly rose from the deep darkness, sank, and repeated this several times, and between his hazy mind, the memories that had been cut off came back one by one.
The assault that had continued for three days, the time he had spent worrying whether to eat the lunch box that had grown mold because he was hungry. And the penis that had poked at the corner of his mouth.
Ah, that man had come to find him. Why had he come again? Had he not been abandoned? Even while he could not move a single finger, Baek Jin’s insides filled with heat once again.
“Your wavelength is unstable.”
The voice heard at the head of his bed dug ticklingly into his ears. A low and affectionate voice. The voice he heard every time he lost consciousness woke his mind again. When he barely pushed up his heavy eyelids, the face he had last taken into his eyes gradually became clear within his blurred vision.
“Did you sleep well?”
At the smile he showed every time they met, the heat that had been digging into his insides rose up to his face in a rush. His strangely hot face and stinging nose were somehow hard to control.
“Everything is all right now. The treatment is finished too.”
“Were you scared?”
Baek Jin bit his trembling lips shut. His vision, which had definitely been clear, blurred before his eyes again as if fog had settled. In the end, the tears that had pooled flowed down along the corners of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears that had once burst out did not stop and pushed their way out through his eyelids.
After arriving in Korea, amid the battles that took place day and night, he had suffered under the mental pressure that this time he would not be able to avoid a rampage. The relief of having survived was also brief; after being abandoned in Korea, where he did not know a single person, the false charge of being a spy and torture had awaited him.
The violence he had suffered from the staffer was very weak in intensity compared to the battles and torture he had gone through until now. However, here there were no rampage sedatives, given like a reward when one crossed a threshold of death, and no high-dose sleeping pills close to a lethal amount.
Unlike before, when he could escape from emotion and pain by losing his memories, here he had to see, hear, and remember everything. The comfort he felt here rather made his mind grow withered.
“Heuh…”
Baek Jin sobbed quietly, so that the sound of his crying would not leak out. He, who in battle stood at the very front before anyone else and sometimes even brutally killed someone, collapsed at the single question of whether he had been scared. It was fear. The new environment, the unfamiliar people, and the days when he had had to survive because he did not know how to die had been a struggle to turn away from his fear.
“Heup, heuk…”
In the breaths that kept bursting out, the sound of sobbing mixed in. The more it did, the more he put strength into his closed eyes and bit his lips with his teeth.
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