SOG Ch 79

A dark shadow loomed in Goo Woo-jin’s eyes.

He knew the guy had done a good thing, and somehow, a stroke of luck had led to the best possible outcome. 

However, there was a fervent hope that he would never make such a choice again. The memory of when he lost sight of him during the teleportation and the pitiful state when he recovered came back vividly, and once again, his complexion hardened. He thought it would have been better if he had just stayed in the background like before.

He couldn’t understand why this guy was so extreme. He used to be fiercely selfish, and now he seemed incredibly selfless.

Woo-jin placed his fingertips on the finger he was just looking at. Even with just a slight touch on the area smaller than his fingernail, the guy’s unique light energy subtly melted in. It was like guiding during sleep.

Without removing his fingertips, Woo-jin rubbed the area around his chest with the thick part of his opposite palm. I thought it was this guy’s fault that my stomach was churning, but he didn’t bite my hand.

There was a time when he hoped that the guy’s emotions wouldn’t be transmitted during guiding. Since the affection Sun Jae-chan had for him seemed like an expanded form of selfishness.

However, at some point, he began to think that he wanted to know more about his emotions, which were expressed intermittently.

Many questions were floating through Woo-jin’s mind. The Universal Park pamphlet he had seen in the guy’s room earlier this year. The sight of him willingly accepting cooperation in guiding that he would not normally have even scoffed at. The location tracker of this guy that Gyeong Chang-hyun had as if he had it prepared. Unexplainable actions such as mentioning his stepmother while handing over documents related to the sampler acquired at the scene.

Thoughts about Seon Jae-chan were always persistent and uncomfortable. Even more than before.

Woo-jin, who had been playing with his small fingernail, sighed after a while. But now, he felt indifferent about whatever he should do. It was all pointless when he couldn’t even open his eyes.

All he could do was hope that the guy would wake up safely.

***

Seon Jae-chan suddenly came to consciousness in the middle of the night and wondered if he was dreaming. This was because an unrealistic face suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision where he recognized the hospital ceiling, the dark outside the window, the patient’s clothes, and the IV line attached to the back of his hand.

“It seems I’m really out of my mind.”

The aunt he hadn’t seen since his regression was right in front of him.

“You’ve been sleeping for seventeen hours. You can’t be in your right mind.”

Jae-chan couldn’t believe it and closed his eyes. His aunt Gu Ji-eun’s voice continued.

“And you, have you gone crazy?”

“…”

“Are you a hero? An Esper? Jumping into that kind of situation.”

Seon Jae-chan slowly relaxed his wide-open eyes. He forced his sore head to turn after smelling the faint scent of antiseptic. He vaguely remembered registering his aunt as his guardian.

He could understand his aunt’s blunt response. Suddenly being summoned as a guardian for her nephew who is more spoiled and rude than the pretentious Seon Eun-soo, would not be pleasant.

“…Hello.”

Seon Jae-chan barely managed to greet his aunt. Then his voice sounded so raspy that he wrinkled his forehead.

At the sudden greeting from her nephew, Gu Ji-eun wondered if he had a fever. The door burst open and the doctor on duty entered with a happy expression.

“I’ll take a look for a moment.”

Jae-chan was indifferent to the doctor checking his body and consciousness. He continued to stare with wonder at his aunt, whom he could see properly for the first time since regressing.

“Body temperature and biological reactions are all normal.”

The doctor, who had finished checking everything on the chart, smiled lightly. She told the patient that he could be discharged in a day or two and left.

Gu Ji-eun also started to get up slowly. Her nephew was awake, and the doctor said he was fine. She felt that the responsibility between distant relatives was over, and she wanted to go home and rest.

“Now that you’re awake, I’ll go. Take care of yourself—”

Before she could finish her sentence, her clothes were pulled. When she looked down, her nephew was holding the hem of her jacket. Gu Ji-eun was perplexed.

What he said next was even more bizarre.

“Did you get a health checkup this year?”

What is he talking about?

“The one I get every two years?”

“Not just a basic health check. I’m talking about a precise examination ofEsper waveforms.”

A detailed waveform examination. Isn’t that something that only Espers in their 40s get?

“Your aunt is still young.”

Gu Ji-eun, who disliked health checkups even under normal circumstances and had only had an endoscopy in her late thirties, flatly refused.

“But still…”

Seon Jae-chan licked his dry lips as if he wanted to say something, but was unable to complete the sentence. It was tasteless. Gu Ji-eun shrugged off the jacket, shaking off the hand that held onto it.

Her nephew’s occasional glance at her from the corner of his eye made her feel quite uncomfortable. It felt like a stray animal that had found its owner and couldn’t help glancing. She couldn’t figure out why he was acting this way when he hadn’t even acknowledged her before.

She pretended she didn’t notice the fidgeting fingers. “I’m leaving.” She left the room with that brief statement.

Gu Ji-eun was hurrying out of the hospital room when she ran into Go Woo-jin, who had been waiting outside. He had gone to call the doctor as soon as he saw signs of Jae-chan waking up.

Gu Ji-eun felt a friendly sentiment toward this young man who silently watching over her nephew.

“Thank you.”

In fact, she had exchanged more words with this young man than with her nephew, who had just greeted her about three minutes ago. She nodded and left after briefly shaking hands with Go Woo-jin.

“…”

Meanwhile, Seon Jae-chan, who was alone in the hospital, recalled the last time he saw his aunt before the regression. He visited her in the Ross Clinic, where she was hospitalized, the day before he was heading to the Black Swan’s underground base.

‘Stop talking about ghosts and take your multivitamins.’

He couldn’t even talk about Black Swan because it was a top-secret mission, and he only said he had bad dreams. His aunt, who had electrodes all over her body, told him that and gave him a lot of nutritional supplements. At that time, his aunt, who was still bedridden due to the Esper waveform disease, made an effort to feed him various nutritional supplements whenever he visited.

‘Oh, that’s useless.’

‘You have to prepare everything in advance. Being sick when you’re young is scarier, my boy.’

His aunt was right. He should have taken better care in advance. Who would have known that the conversation with her would be the last?

If only he had known.

He should have said I love you at least once.

The somewhat familial relationship he had developed with his aunt was the result of a series of small incidents. While major events usually attract numerous variables like a cascading waterfall, rebuilding the relationship with his aunt to what it was before regression might not be as easy.

Emotional issues were always a challenge for him. It was past 9 PM. Staring at the dimly lit ceiling of the hospital room, where only the stand light was on, Jae-chan sighed awkwardly.

Suddenly, he noticed a shadow on the ceiling. Following the elongated shadow, his gaze shifted to Go Woo-jin, who had stopped outside the open door.

“…”

Go Woo-jin hesitated and couldn’t approach easily after seeing Jae-chan’s expression. His lowered eyes seemed to be contemplating something unknown. The unfamiliar expression he saw for the first time strangely caught his attention. Then, Go Woo-jin’s gaze, which had been wandering absentmindedly, returned and met Jae-chan’s.

A subtle silence lingered between them.

Although he had never found silence awkward, Go Woo-jin felt a sudden urge to break it. There was an overwhelming compulsion to say something. If possible, he wanted to say something interesting that would make the swollen spot on Jae-chan’s cheek twitch

“You should take a shower.”

At that moment, words spilled out before he could even think. After spitting out the kind of words that Kim Geun-won would use to crack jokes, Go Woo-jin almost bit his tongue. However, the result was what he had hoped for.

“Yeah.”

Seon Jae-chan chuckled in agreement as he acknowledged he was in an uncomfortable state here and there.

The dim light from the stand shone on the bruised cheek that Go Woo-jin had wiped clean. Due to the slanting light, the pupil illuminated by it felt particularly transparent. It was like that even though he definitely had a scruffy appearance.

“Thank you for coming to visit me.”

Jae-chan, unaware that Go Woo-jin had been staying at the hospital, assumed he had come for a brief visit and expressed his gratitude.

However, the peaceful atmosphere lasted only for a moment. Jae-chan suddenly opened his eyes wide. With a serious look on his face, he fumbled around in his hospital gown and suddenly tried to get up.

“What’s wrong?”

Go Woo-jin reflexively approached. As he put his arm under his back and helped him sit up, Seon Jae-chan asked urgently.

“What about my clothes? Where is it?”

Go Woo-jin blinked his eyes several times. Despite the fact that his clothes were now stained with blood and dirt in the cabinet over there, he realized that this guy wasn’t just looking for his clothes.

“Are you looking for this?”

Woo-jin pulled out a document folded twice from his pocket. He had brought it along, just in case, even after changing into clean clothes.

Seon Jae-chan didn’t know why that thing was on Go Woo-jin, paused in his movements as a vague memory surfaced in his mind.