Chapter 1: Reunion
He did not know what to do with himself from shame. It was not even a place where he was alone, but a place crowded with many people because of class, where he had slept so peacefully, and on top of that, had bolted upright during class and received all the mortifying attention on his own body.
Eun-chan wanted to crawl into a mouse hole if possible. But no mouse hole had been prepared for Eun-chan. Just quietly slipping out of that place was the only way to escape from the shame.
“Even if your mind is gone, it’s really gone! How do you sleep so peacefully there… Hoo… It’s hopeless, hopeless. It’s all hopeless getting back into class like this, I should just go home. Ugh, but why is it so cold today?”
Coming outside, weather that had dropped below freezing greeted Eun-chan. A cold wind hit him right in the cheek. Having hurried out as if fleeing, he had come out holding his outerwear roughly, not even properly dressed. Eun-chan hurriedly wrapped a scarf around his neck twice over and put on his outerwear.
“Ugh, that’s better.”
With his clothes and scarf on, he was in a much warmer state, freed from the cold. Unlike the interior, which had heating on, the outside boasted perfect winter weather. Eun-chan shivered slightly in the cold, zipped up the not-properly-closed zipper of his bag, and slung the bag roughly over his shoulder. Then he moved his feet, thinking about how to spend the suddenly free time.
Behind Eun-chan’s back, the sign for “XX Civil Service Academy” was particularly noticeable.
“…With this, will I even be able to pass this year’s exam? Hoo…”
A self-deprecating sigh flowed out on its own. Eun-chan, with a heavy heart, adjusted his bag. The things he had packed, saying he would study, only weighed down his shoulders. They just felt cumbersome. Forcibly steadying his bitter mood, he gradually moved away from the academy.
Eun-chan was twenty-seven this year, having begun preparing for the civil-service exam somewhat late. For a long time he had struggled to become a guide. But contrary to his desperation, Eun-chan could not awaken as a guide by any method. In the end, all of it failed, and he barely graduated from university with difficulty and decided to accept reality.
Let’s give up on becoming a guide now.
It was by no means a great age, but it was already an age well past the age at which one could become a guide.
Eun-chan decided to give up becoming a guide and choose another profession.
However, other than being a guide, Eun-chan felt no desire to become anything at all. The only jobs that could be beside a guide or esper, if extremely few, were the civil servants of the national Guide Center.
There was no remaining choice…
He had not sincerely wanted to be a civil servant, but he had to become something that could somehow be beside an esper. That was why Eun-chan chose the civil service with the heart of a final struggle. If even this did not work out, he thought he could then completely let go without any lingering attachment.
Eun-chan had also chosen the civil service exam as a means of letting go of himself, who could not awaken as a guide by any method.
But this, too, did not go smoothly.
[Breaking news. We have reports that S-rank esper Mr. Cha Seol-hyeon will be receiving support from the famous overseas guild “Bloom” in the form of an S-rank guide. Our reporters have traveled to New York to confirm the facts.]
On his way past, the news was playing on a small screen set up outside a convenience store for advertising. Eun-chan stopped walking and listened at the familiar name.
“Bloom is a pretty famous place…”
He took an interest in the breaking news. His aimless steps came to a halt as he focused on it. In the news, Seol-hyeon appeared not as the blood-soaked figure from Eun-chan’s dream just now, but neat and handsome, turning the news itself into something like a pictorial.
“Your face looks good.”
A small laugh slipped out. Unable to look away, he concentrated on Seol-hyeon’s news. As he focused, white breath bloomed at Eun-chan’s lips. Looking at Seol-hyeon in the news, he naturally slipped into old memories. Just seeing Seol-hyeon made him feel the nostalgia of the past deeply.
Eun-chan missed Seol-hyeon terribly. They had been close neighbors since childhood, his one and only precious childhood friend. From elementary school on, they had gone through elementary, middle, and high school together, sharing a large part of their lives. But now the distance between them was such that he could only see Seol-hyeon through the news.
“You seem to be doing well. Like you never think of me at all.”
Just as he had once held Seol-hyeon’s hand as it grew cold in a monster’s grip, he reached out toward Seol-hyeon in the news, but all he touched was cold glass.
“It wouldn’t be warm, of course…”
The news about Seol-hyeon wasn’t over yet, but Eun-chan soon turned away. Even watching Seol-hyeon’s news felt a little too much to bear. He turned his body fully away from the news. To clear his mind for a moment, he closed his eyes. But instead, as if he had yielded his place to his longing, his longing for Seol-hyeon seeped through the gaps in his heart. The longing that seeped in made him recall their memories in an instant.
‘You look taller, and your body looks a lot better than it did in high school… Do you still work out hard?’
Seol-hyeon had a particular natural talent for sports. On top of that, when he exercised, his physical senses and muscle development were superior to other people’s. Because of that he was good at anything physical, and he always got good grades in gym class. And every time, people around him would frequently suggest he try one sport or another.
But Seol-hyeon never chose any of those sports, and every time he politely declined with consistent behavior. He could easily have become an athlete boasting outstanding skill, so why did he always refuse so firmly?
It was all because of Seol-hyeon’s dream.
“Huh? That scar on your shoulder… it’s still there. It looks even bigger, actually?”
“Ah… I thought it was just my imagination, but you think so too? I guess it’s because my body is still growing. This seems to have gotten a bit bigger too.”
Seol-hyeon rubbed his shoulder and quietly closed his mouth. On his shoulder was a reddish burn scar, slightly darker than the surrounding skin, a little bumpy and sunken in. It was a wound and a pain left by a fire that had suddenly broken out when Seol-hyeon was seven.
Seol-hyeon’s parents both worked and always came home late, and Seol-hyeon always spent his after-school hours with the sitter his parents had hired. On the day of the fire, too, he should of course have been with the sitter, but the trouble began when she left the sleeping Seol-hyeon alone at home for a moment to go grocery shopping for dinner.
“Back then, when your house caught fire, I was so shocked. Smoke was pouring all the way to our house, remember I called the adults and reported it?”
“Of course I remember. If it weren’t for you back then, I really could have been in big trouble. The fact that I’m here like this now is all thanks to you, Eun-chan.”
In the fire caused by an electrical short and the sitter’s carelessness, Seol-hyeon had nearly died. Fortunately, Eun-chan, who had been watching TV next door, smelled the smoke and the odor and immediately reported it to 119. Thanks to that, Seol-hyeon was safely rescued by firefighters and his life was preserved.
At the time, Seol-hyeon had inhaled a little smoke and his face was blackened with soot. Seeing this, Eun-chan, young as he was, ran to Seol-hyeon in a panic and clung to him. And with a face smeared with tears and snot, he cried his eyes out, saying Seol-hyeon must not die, and stayed by his side.
“That must have been around when… After that incident, you always went around saying you’d become a firefighter, right?”
“That’s right. Seo Eun-chan, you remembered well?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Of course I know it well.”
“Well, I guess so… I survived back then thanks to you, but I also got my dream thanks to you. I wanted to become a wonderful person who saves people, like you who saved me back then, or like a firefighter.”
As Seol-hyeon recalled that time, he wore a genuinely bright expression. Eun-chan, meeting that expression unguarded, felt something strangely ticklish in his chest. The strange, odd flutter he had very occasionally felt from Seol-hyeon began to rise more thickly, and his face felt hotter. Eun-chan quickly turned his reddening face away and awkwardly tried to change the subject.
“Aren’t you having ice cream today?”
“Hmm… This month is a bit tight, so I was going to hold off.”
“What? Hold off? Is that really Cha Seol-hyeon? Not looking for ice cream after a meal isn’t Cha Seol-hyeon. Is it that tight? Want me to lend you some allowance?”
“What are you making such a fuss about? It’s fine. It’s not that bad. And did I eat it every day or something?”
Seol-hyeon draped an arm over Eun-chan’s shoulder and teased him. Eun-chan’s heart tightened further and the ticklish feeling grew. Trying to hide such feelings, Eun-chan grabbed Seol-hyeon, who was hanging on his shoulder, and headed for the school store.
“No way. Let’s go, this hyung will buy it for you. I’ll even let you eat two, specially.”
“What? Hyuuung? Hey, Seo Eun-chan. Your birthday is later than mine.”
“Hey, does that matter right now? Right now, the person with cash in his pocket is the hyung. Agree?”
“Ah… Right, that’s a fair point in its own way. Then, agreed. Let’s go. You definitely said I could eat two, right?”
“Yes, eat two. If you eat only one, you’ll get scolded by me, all right? You have to eat two.”
“You said that? Good, hurry to the school store, Eun-chan!”
“Yeah, let’s hurry!”
Eun-chan headed to the school store bickering naturally with Seol-hyeon. After the fire, Seol-hyeon showed signs of suffering aftereffects, as if he greatly avoided anything hot. Whether he was instinctively trying to avoid the danger of that time, even in winter he enjoyed drinking cold things, and though he seemed like someone who wouldn’t even look at sweets, he could not resist ice cream. Knowing this well, Eun-chan used that point to lure Seol-hyeon to the school store.
“You’re stopping by my house today too, right?”
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