Chapter 53 – The Price of Misjudgment
His phone was filled with practical messages—prayers for his mother’s recovery or offers to help whenever needed—but to his surprise, he found solace in this desolate message, the only one that didn’t even mention his mother.
“…….”
Jeong Si-jun stared at Yoon Ki-hyun’s text for a long time, as if tracing the words with his eyes.
In truth, he often thought to himself that it would have been better if his mother hadn’t fallen ill.
Jeong Si-jun wanted to deny his mother’s illness so badly that he would have believed it if someone told him she wasn’t sick at all.
Sometimes, even seeing cliché messages wishing for a “speedy recovery” made him feel nauseous; he wanted to run away from everything related to his mother’s condition.
Even today was like that. Despite being consumed by the thought that he had to rush to the hospital after hearing news of her worsening condition from the Center, he wanted to escape the moment he arrived.
Nevertheless, he endured it out of habit every time. He had to, because there was no other choice.
“Haa….”
The topic of a parent’s failing health easily earns people’s tolerance.
The Center Director and the Esper Headquarters Chief, who were constantly striving to tame him, and [unauthorized copy]Deputy Team Leader Kim Cha-min, who didn’t hesitate to call him a “lunatic” behind his back—in stolen contentmoments like this, they seemed to see him not as Esper Jeong Si-jun, but as Jeong Si-jun, the youngest son of Ms. Kang Ji-yeon.
The anxiety that a family member might leave his side forever was already overwhelming; he absolutely hated the pitying looks people gave him.
Yet, Yoon Ki-hyun had sent a message so dry that it could have passed for one of his usual texts, without a single mention of his mother.
Naturally, he didn’t believe that Yoon Ki-hyun had seen through his troubled heart and sent this on purpose. It was more that he simply liked it, attributing it to various reasons just because he liked him.
But what did that matter? He liked it too much, so what?
“Ah, Yoon Ki-hyun.”
The anxiety that hadn’t subsided even after the medical staff’s explanation vanished the moment he saw Yoon Ki-hyun’s text. It was as if he had provided remote guiding through a message.
‘What on earth have you done to me, seriously.’
Jeong Si-jun’s gaze returned to Yoon Ki-hyun’s text.
[I’m leaving work now. Contact me if anything happens.]
He could almost hear a hallucination of Yoon Ki-hyun reciting the message in a soft voice.
‘Contact him if something happens? What is he going to do if I actually contact him?’
Jeong Si-jun sat up abruptly in bed, his eyes wide.
Living in a shabby goshiwon, with a body that didn’t seem to gain weight no matter how well he was fed—what could he possibly do? Based on guesses, he seemed to have loans, and with that frail body suffering from a disease with expensive medication, what could he possibly…
He listed the fragmented information he knew about Yoon Ki-hyun, trying to find fault. However, the problem was that he felt that if something really did happen, Yoon Ki-hyun would be the one to provide a solution.
Just as Yoon Ki-hyun always returned his chaotic wavelength to a marvelous state, and how he comforted him when he was flustered and distracted, taking care of unexpected things like the half-day leave.
‘Come to think of it, he was fucking amazing today too.’
Staring blankly at the text, his thoughts naturally jumped back to the time they spent together in the guiding room today.
Most of his memories had evaporated because he was in such a panic after receiving the call from his brother telling him to rush to the hospital. But there were parts he remembered vividly.
Recalling Yoon Ki-hyun’s calm face as he offered to check his wavelength one more time and take care of the Center’s procedural aftermath made him feel a tingling sensation all the way to his toes.
In fact, hadn’t a message arrived saying that he had conveyed everything well to Kim Cha-min and processed the half-day leave approval?
‘Is this that “seasoned maturity” of being older? Damn, he’s so cool.’
His fingers, covered in scars, hovered around the call button. If he contacted him now, Yoon Ki-hyun might even answer in his sleep. Hadn’t he sent him to the hospital with a look of genuine concern?
However, he didn’t want to use his mother’s health as an excuse to push himself onto Yoon Ki-hyun.
No matter how many times he had inflicted self-harm-like wounds just to get more of Yoon Ki-hyun’s attention and gaze, he knew where to draw the line. That would be disrespectful to his mother, who was fighting a desperate battle against her illness.
Moreover, he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say to Yoon Ki-hyun right now. So, to avoid making a mistake, Jeong Si-jun decided to turn off his phone.
‘It would be nice if we were the kind of relationship where we contacted each other even without things like this.’
Jeong Si-jun continued to agonize alone in the bedroom, which contained nothing but a bed and a nightstand.
He knew he would be rejected, but he wanted to try confessing properly. However, it might be right to fold a confession that had a high probability of being disliked. That felt like the polite thing to do.
‘But I like him too much, so what am I supposed to do? He shouldn’t have shaken my heart like that in the first place.’
He tried blaming the innocent Yoon Ki-hyun.
‘Still, confessing isn’t a crime.’
Then he tried to force a justification for his thoughts.
Until the sun rose to announce the morning, Jeong Si-jun couldn’t sleep at all, tossing and turning while thinking only of Yoon Ki-hyun. It was a complicated and dizzying night.
Yoon Ki-hyun walked across the hallway at a leisurely pace. He arrived twenty minutes before his start time, so the Center was quiet.
The massive building, with only the minimum number of staff on duty, emitted a strange yet peaceful noise. He liked the atmosphere that could only be felt at this hour.
That was why, when he worked at the Center, he sometimes intentionally came in early. Lookiaria-label="visit our site">visit our siteng back, it was madness.
[Authenticated.]
As he tapped his ID card on the terminal installed next to the guiding room door, the door opened. The chill characteristic of a space that had been empty overnight rushed in.
He habitually turned on the lights and opened the small window. While waiting for the air to clear, he checked his phone, but there was no message from Jeong Si-jun.
‘Is he even coming to work today?’
He was concerned about the guy, who hadn’t sent a single message after leaving for the hospital yesterday. While no news can be good news, it was too early to be optimistic.
Back when his father was alive, the hospital didn’t contact the guardian very often.
Generally, the calls were only to notify that the condition had worsened and surgery was needed, or that the end was near.
‘I hope it’s nothing serious, but….’
Nothing in the world ever went as planned. In fact, he felt like nothing had ever gone according to his will.
Just as he was trying to shake off these idle thoughts by boiling water and struggling to open a jar of citron tea, a small alarm sounded and the guiding room door swung open.
It was Jeong Si-jun, bringing a full gust of cold air with him.
“Oh, why are you here so early?”
“I woke up early.”
Jeong Si-jun took off his coat and hung it on the rack. Seeing him look no different than usual, Yoon Ki-hyun asked cautiously.
“Are you okay?”
Despite the ambiguous question without a subject, Jeong Si-jun didn’t ask for clarification. He knew what Yoon Ki-hyun was concerned and worried about.
“I’m okay. My mother passed the biggest crisis.”
“I see.”
Yoon Ki-hyun responded briefly and nodded with a look of relief.
He didn’t want to use expressions like “that’s a relief” or “that’s good.” He believed such expressions were only appropriate for news of a full recovery.
While caring for his father for over a year, he had received a lot of comfort from friends and Center colleagues. Whenever he returned after being called away because his father’s health had worsened and shared that he had passed a crisis, everyone would worry as if it were their own business, saying it was a relief.
It was a relief in the sense that he hadn’t passed away immediately. However, sometimes even those optimistic and one-dimensional comforts sounded irritating.
‘What do you mean “a relief”? Thanks to that, only the treatment costs and ICU hospitalization fees will increase.’
There was no way the past version of himself, who had accepted other people’s kindness [visit our site]style="font-size:0;color:transparent;display:inline;">stolen contentsharply while being crushed by realistic worries, was the same as Jeong Si-jun.
He had been in a position where he barely paid hospital bills by borrowing money from the bank, but the other person was from a wealthy family with money to burn.
However, seeing the pale face he had when he heard the news about his mother, his own past self suddenly flashed through his mind, making him cautious with his words. Even if his face looked fine now, the inside must be a mess.
As he stared at the other’s face a bit too long, caught in these thoughts, Jeong Si-jun’s face gradually turned red.
“Why are you… staring at me like that?”
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