Ordinary Person A

#22

At Ho-woo’s call, Moon Jin-hyuk’s eyebrows twitched, and a sharp wind whirled around his body with a hiss. The threatening wind, which could instantly slice Ho-woo’s entire body if it touched him, writhed menacingly.

“I don’t know what misconception you have, but I have no such feelings for Yul-i-ssi, nor any intention to.”

Of course, he did have some fondness for him and felt pity for him. However, Lee Ho-woo was such a terrible coward that he couldn’t even dare to start anything with someone like that. Ho-woo laughed hollowly. It was a bit ridiculous that he had to make such excuses to someone he was meeting for the first time.

Ho-woo looked down as he felt his leg getting warm and wet, then clicked his tongue. He thought he’d only get bruised on the smooth marble floor, but quite a lot of blood was flowing down his calf.

Moreover, he was wearing white pants, so the bloodstains were very noticeable.

Moon Jin-hyuk mocked Ho-woo’s injury. He sneered, saying how could he bleed so much just from falling like that, and with such a weak body, how could he possibly handle the captain.

To this Moon Jin-hyuk, Ho-woo calmly said:

“Then Mr. Moon Whatever, have a nice love. Fighting!”

Ho-woo’s face was indifferent, without any hint of mockery. Instead, he sincerely cheered him on, encouraging him to capture Oh-yul’s heart, and then left the guiding room.

Fortunately, the stunned Moon Jin-hyuk didn’t stop Ho-woo any further. Ho-woo dragged his leg towards Oh-yul’s room due to his aching knee.

Moon Jin-hyuk’s words weren’t that hurtful since he was already aware of his place.

He limped back to the room and examined his knee. Thankfully, since the second floor was exclusive to Team 1, only the noise from downstairs could be heard, and there was no one in the corridor.

When he slightly rolled up his white pants, now quite soaked in red, the first thing he saw was his bruised blue knee and the torn wound. It was the biggest bruise he’d gotten since being punched in the face at 25.

He thought he should wash the wound and apply some medicine, but since this wasn’t his room, he felt uncomfortable rummaging around for medicine, so he just took off the cumbersome pants for now.

“These white pants, the bloodstains probably won’t come out easily.”

He had planned to return at least the pants and shirt to Yu Hee-eun, even though Oh-yul had torn up the jacket she had given him. But he couldn’t return them like this, covered in blood, so he thought he should try hard to remove the bloodstains.

Ho-woo limped into the bathroom to wash the wound and wait for the bleeding to stop. Fortunately, although there was a lot of blood because the torn area was large, the wound itself wasn’t deep, so the bleeding stopped quickly. He would probably limp for a while, but thankfully, thanks to Oh-yul’s consideration, he had gotten a week off from work.

I should get some medicine when Yul-i-ssi returns.

After roughly wiping off the remaining moisture on the wound with crumpled tissue, Ho-woo now tackled the biggest problem: washing the pants in the sink, scrubbing them vigorously by hand.

Since clothes with blood should be washed in cold water rather than warm, Ho-woo’s fingertips turned red from the cold. Even though it was late spring and quite warm, he soaked the pants in cold water and scrubbed them with soap until his hands ached, but faint red marks still remained on the white pants.

“I can’t return them like this. I wonder how much they cost.”

If he couldn’t return them, he’d have to pay for them. The clothes looked expensive at a glance, and as Ho-woo tried to estimate how much they might cost, counting the money left in his bank account, he fiddled with the pants a few more times. However, the red traces still remained on the white fabric.

After wrestling with this for a long time in front of the sink, he finally raised the white flag. Belatedly feeling the pain in his badly bruised leg, he sat on the edge of the bathtub and let out a long sigh.

It was common sense that not everyone would be friendly to him, but when the other person became an Esper, it became a matter of life and death. What might be a light threat to them was a life-threatening situation for Ho-woo, which was troublesome.

What to do.

Should I tell Yul-i-ssi about this?

Ho-woo furrowed his brow, feeling quite uneasy. Somehow, it felt like tattling behind someone’s back, which didn’t feel good. Wasn’t it like telling his direct superior, “He did something bad, please scold him”?

In the end, Ho-woo decided not to say anything. This was Ho-woo’s problem, not Oh-yul’s. Well, if you think about it, it was kind of like a crime of passion caused by a subordinate who liked Oh-yul too much, but Oh-yul hadn’t ordered him to do this.

Slowly putting on Oh-yul’s pajama top, Ho-woo lay down on the sofa and picked up his phone that had been left unattended in the room. He hadn’t paid any attention to this small device today, and quite a few messages and several missed calls had accumulated in the meantime.

Among them, Do-hyun’s messages were the most numerous, so Ho-woo carefully read through them one by one.

[Hey, suddenly all the news about you is disappearing from the internet.]

[Wow, correction articles suddenly appeared.]

[Why aren’t you checking your messages? Did something happen? Lee Ho-woo!]

[I’m calling you.]

“5 Missed Calls from Kim Do-hyun”

[You’re not answering calls either? Let me know when you check this, I’m worried.]

[I’ll drop by briefly after work.]

After checking the last message, Ho-woo called Do-hyun. The call barely rang a few times before Do-hyun’s voice came through from the other end. His voice was a bit subdued, suggesting his claim of being worried wasn’t a lie.

“Lee Ho-woo! I was about to go to your house. What have you been doing all day without responding to any contact?”

“Oh, sorry. I left my phone in the room, so I couldn’t see it.”

“Keep it with you. But wait, you left it in the room? Aren’t you at work?”

At Do-hyun’s question, Ho-woo briefly explained that he had been sort of kidnapped for protection by an Esper on his way home from work yesterday and was now inside the Management Corporation building.

After hearing this, Do-hyun kept a brief silence before speaking with a quite surprised tone.

“They brought you there because of the article? That Esper must really like you. That place is off-limits to ordinary people who aren’t related to the organization, right?”

“Is it certain that he likes me?”

Oh-yul’s kindness and consideration were certainly difficult to see as coming from pure goodwill. Even though Ho-woo had a more innocent side compared to other men his age, he hadn’t lived his years in vain.

He wasn’t too young to not understand the gazes directed at him or the subtle touches. The touch that had trailed from his nape to his chest earlier clearly included other intentions.

“Well, why would someone take such good care of someone they don’t like?”

“Based on what? We’ve only known each other for about a week.”

“Maybe it was love at first sight? They say love is an emotion that ignites without you even knowing. He likes you, so give it a try.”

Ho-woo once again briefly took the phone away from his ear to check if the person he was talking to was indeed his long-time friend Kim Do-hyun. It was definitely Kim Do-hyun.

“You’ve seen all my relationships so far, and you’re saying this?”

“Those were with ordinary people. This person is an Esper.”

“…That’s more of a problem. Like you said, I can’t handle that kind of relationship.”

“As long as the Esper doesn’t do close contact guiding, it should be fine, right? Holding hands is something you can endure.”

At Do-hyun’s words, Ho-woo swallowed hard with an “Ugh…” That level Do-hyun mentioned was something he could endure. But could that man, who already seemed to struggle with low matching rates with Guides, manage without the guiding that could give him higher efficiency?

“But, there’s a problem with Yul-i-ssi.”

“Yul-i-ssi? You were calling him with his surname before, when did that disappear?”

“…That’s not important right now.”

Instead of explaining the long story about how he was previously asked to call him ‘hyung’ and this was a compromise, Ho-woo carefully gathered his thoughts.

“What’s important then?”

At Do-hyun’s question, Ho-woo hesitated to speak, wondering if it was okay to talk about an Esper’s personal matters. It seemed like the most difficult part for Oh-yul, who would live as an Esper for his entire life, and it didn’t seem right to easily talk about it even to a close friend like Do-hyun.

“Anyway, there’s something like that.”

“A problem you can’t talk about with a physically fit man…”

However, it seemed Do-hyun understood Oh-yul’s personal matter that Ho-woo couldn’t bring himself to say in a different way. His voice gradually became lower and softer until it was barely audible as he whispered:

“Is there some kind of problem? Or is it a problem because it’s too fast, or because it’s not happening at all?”

“……”

First that Moon Whatever Esper, and now Kim Do-hyun too, why is everyone so interested in other people’s physical matters today?

Ho-woo briefly answered “No,” then added:

“How would I know that?”

“Well, okay. Anyway, I’ve confirmed that you’re fine, so I’ll finish up my work today. Think positively about the relationship. It’s not like adding one more failed relationship to your list of failed relationships will make a difference.”

“Are you really my friend?”

“Do you have any friends other than me?”

“I have many.”

Do-hyun laughed at Ho-woo over the phone. Although Ho-woo was cheerful, bright, and hardly shy with anyone, Do-hyun was the only friend he could open up to and talk honestly. Given this, even Ho-woo would have laughed if he were in Do-hyun’s position at the mention of other friends.

Moreover, while same-sex partners weren’t taboo among Espers and Guides, same-sex relationships were still somewhat uncomfortable for ordinary people. Do-hyun was the only person Ho-woo had confided in about potentially liking the same sex, for the first and last time.

“Lee Ho-woo, your jokes have improved.”

“Shut up, Mr. Kim Do-hyun.”