Chapter 13 – The Price of Misjudgment
“By the way, where are we going?”
“I’m just following you, Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun. I checked out of my hotel earlier, so I have nowhere to go.”
“Then go home. I’m returning to my lodgings.”
Yoon Ki-hyun stopped in his tracks without a hint of lingering attachment. If he wasn’t careful, the man might actually follow him right into his room.
“I’ll leave on my own without you telling me, but do you even have my number, Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun?”
“Ah.”
“You said you’d think about my proposal. How are you going to let me know whether you’re in or out?”
As Jeong Si-jun muttered while standing askew, Yoon Ki-hyun seemed to realize his mistake and pulled out his phone.
He didn’t know how many times today this guy—who usually spoke nothing but nonsense—had actually said something sensible. He handed the phone to Jeong Si-jun with a jerk of his chin.
“Enter your number.”
“The day has finally come where Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun asks for my number?”
“……Stop talking nonsense.”
Jeong Si-jun smirked as he typed his number into Yoon Ki-hyun’s phone. Although he still looked disgusted by the nonsense he spouted, it was evident that the level of contempt in his eyes had diminished significantly compared to before.
Money really is powerful.
Yoon Ki-hyun’s attitude had shifted noticeably from the moment Jeong Si-jun brought up the idea of hiring a personal Guide and suggested a salary.
‘But is this a curable disease?’
Jeong Si-jun glanced at Yoon Ki-hyun’s still pale face.
Between the complete lack of color in his skin and the sudden nosebleed, it was clear that this wasn’t a disease to be taken lightly. Furthermore, if the claim that the medication alone cost twenty million won was true, there was a possibility it was a rare or incurable disease.
“I saved it here.”
Yoon Ki-hyun’s eyes widened at the news that he had saved the contact without permission. To save a number, one had to enter a name, and he was already worried about what the man had typed.
“Why did you just… What did you save it as?”
As soon as Yoon Ki-hyun got his phone back, he checked the contact. In his sparse contact list, a new entry had been added by Jeong Si-jun himself.
‘Handsome Employer’
Is this guy seriously an elementary schooler?
Yoon Ki-hyun glanced at Jeong Si-jun with a grave expression. He knew the man was arrogant and full of himself, but having experienced it firsthand, it was worse than he thought.
“I saved it with a desperate heart, hoping that Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun would accept my proposal.”
“Do you often hear that you have an inflated sense of self, Team Leader Jeong?”
When Yoon Ki-hyun showed blatant disgust, Jeong Si-jun finally shoved his hands into his trouser pockets with a deeply offended look on his face.
“……Shit. Forget it. Just save it as my name. You know my name, right?”
“You’re Jeong Si-jun.”
“You keep calling me Team Leader Jeong, so I wondered if you actually knew my name.”
“I’ll save it as your name.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
Though he was resorting to clumsy schemes he wasn’t cut out for just to cling to him due to the lack of guiding, for some reason, Yoon Ki-hyun showed no sign of opening his heart. Jeong Si-jun let out a deep sigh and racked his brain.
‘Ah, if it seems like he won’t do it, I should try offering a higher salary.’
Since the salary was the only thing Yoon Ki-hyun had reacted to significantly, he planned to push forward with money.
Jeong Si-jun’s eyes gleamed slyly under the scorching sunlight, grateful for his own wealth, which allowed him to pay whatever Yoon Ki-hyun’s annual salary might be.
After exchanging contacts with Jeong Si-jun, they parted ways immediately.
The headache, which had been bearable while outside, rushed in like a tidal wave the moment he returned to his lodgings, as if it had been waiting for him. Yoon Ki-hyun chewed and swallowed a few painkillers without water.
The headache was excruciating, but he had a lot to think about. Burying his head in the pillow while waiting for the medicine to kick in, he organized his tangled thoughts.
‘If the monthly salary is roughly this much, would you consider being my personal Guide?’
The most important thing was the personal Guide proposal he received from Jeong Si-jun. It was Yoon Ki-hyun’s only lifeline, a miracle-like opportunity.
He had been ready to give up on life because he could never afford the costs with the salary provided by the Center. Even though, in reality, he wanted to live more than anyone. But now, a way to survive had appeared.
The more he chewed over his thoughts back at his lodgings, the more he regretted treating Jeong Si-jun that way in the alley yesterday.
You never know what will happen in life; to think that he would become his future employer. It was a development he had never imagined in his wildest dreams.
‘I shouldn’t drink anymore.’
No matter how he thought about it, alcohol was the problem.
If he hadn’t been drinking, he wouldn’t have run into Jeong Si-jun at that bar yesterday, but it was terrifying that he didn’t know what kind of spectacle he had made during the gap in his memory, which felt as if it had been cut away with scissors.
There had been a few times when he drank too much and his memories were fragmented. However, it was rare for him to be unable to recall anything, as if it had been sliced clean, like today.
Rather than rare, it was the first time. For his memory to have evaporated this cleanly.
‘Right. Let’s get it together and figure out how to live.’
Now that an option existed where he didn’t have to die, he needed to recover the body he had intentionally abused to help with the treatment he would receive in the future.
‘Being a personal Guide will definitely reduce the workload.’
Considering Jeong Si-jun’s personality, he didn’t think he would make him guide other Espers.
Even if he were asked to guide another Esper in a pinch, it would be far less than what he usually handled at the Center. Although Jeong Si-jun’s wavelength was picky with other Espers, it wasn’t impossible if he set his mind to guiding.
When he was a Guide affiliated with the Center, he distributed his guiding energy with the priority of guiding the assigned personnel equally. He remembered struggling quite a bit until he gained experience.
But once he got the hang of it, it was manageable. Since he only had to be responsible for one person with his full guiding energy, it was practically a breeze.
After some time, the pain that felt like his scalp was shrinking against his skull gradually faded. It seemed the painkillers he had chewed were taking effect. As he took a long breath after a series of shallow ones, his body felt languid.
‘Ah, I feel like I can breathe now.’
With a much more relaxed expression, Yoon Ki-hyun soon fell into a deep sleep.
He began preparing to live again, but it wasn’t as smooth as he had hoped.
Until a few days ago, all he had to do was decide on a way to die. But now, with so many things to consider, his head throbbed frequently.
After getting off at the train station, Yoon Ki-hyun headed straight to the hospital.
He left his luggage in the lodgings he had rented for a month and came up with nothing but himself. Since he had paid in advance and rented until the end of the month, he planned to commute by train for a while until he found a place to live.
He had come up intending only to make a medical appointment while looking for a house, but things worked out well.
Since he had to wait quite a long time for a consultation when he was first diagnosed, he hadn’t dared to expect a same-day appointment. However, despite visiting only to make a reservation, he was luckily able to sit in the consultation room.
The doctor explained that this occasionally happened when a scheduled patient didn’t show up. Yoon Ki-hyun nodded in agreement at the comment that he was lucky.
Lucky, huh…
He certainly was. A series of opportunities were happening to him that would be hard to explain if not for luck.
Yoon Ki-hyun’s pace slowed as he finished payment at the administration office.
The waiting room was packed with people sitting in chairs, waiting for their turn. There were even people standing against the walls or pillars because there weren’t enough seats.
‘…….’
He had spent his days drifting away with binge drinking and clumsy luxuries, waiting for the day he would die. During that time, he believed he was the most miserable person in the world.
One day, he pitied his childhood self who grew up without proper care; another day, he pitied his current self suffering from a rare disease. He had no intention of escaping from that self-destructive pity.
But now, mixed in with the people in this place that smelled of hospitals, it was different.
A man standing near a pillar in the waiting room was requesting a credit limit increase from a credit card customer center, and someone in the front seat was complaining to a relative. Although the content differed, it was all about money.
Many people were feeling the burden of hospital and medication costs. In that moment, Yoon Ki-hyun felt the formless despair that had been tightening around his heart scatter slightly.
His own struggle—wanting to die because of the absurd cost of medication—might not have been such an exceptionally great misfortune after all.
It even seemed admirable and wonderful how everyone lived on, despite carrying their own heavy burdens.
He was able to leave the area with a step that was slightly lighter than when he entered the hospital. That certainly wasn’t just because of the terribly expensive prescription medication tucked carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket.
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