* * *
It was when the body-shattering pain returned like a seizure that Suhyeon opened his eyes.
“Ah, ugh…”
It seemed to be night; the surroundings were completely dark.
A stifled groan escaped him at the pain that came like a sudden attack.
Something warm touched Suhyeon’s pale arm, which was reflexively flailing to find something to grab onto—it was someone’s and.
The touched hand flinched, but it did not pull away from Suhyeon.
Suhyeon’s light-colored eyes widened abruptly, startled by the sudden human warmth.
However, the pain, which made his mind flash white, soon rendered him unable to think of anything else.
Tears, which he didn’t know how many times they had seeped out, wet his dry cheeks.
He felt the drops falling starkly.
Suhyeon clutched the arm of the person he held, as if it were a pillar of support.
“…It’s alright.”
The owner of the arm’s voice seemed to hesitate for a moment but was then gentle, like someone soothing a crying baby.
As if reacting to the low voice, the pain that had assaulted him, funny enough, gradually subsided.
Suhyeon drifted back to sleep.
He opened his eyes again when a small creaking sound was heard.
He had no strength left in his body.
“Ah,”
The one who met Suhyeon’s eyes when he woke up was a nurse, who was carefully adjusting the controller on the IV line already attached to his arm.
“Patient Chae Suhyeon has regained consciousness! Please wait a moment.”
The nurse adjusted the tilt of the bed so Suhyeon could lean back and sit up, then hurried off somewhere.
Suhyeon, suddenly alone, looked around.
Someone must have moved him; the place he was in was a private hospital room.
It was spacious like a party room, complete with small flower vases, luxury items not usually found in a single-person hospital room, and even a TV.
‘I’ve never been hospitalized in a place like this, even when I was sick before.’
Fragmented memories of before he lost consciousness slowly began to surface in his blank mind: the doctor’s words that this was Korea University Hospital, starting to cry after confirming he was no longer inside the Gate, and the terrifying pain that struck him then.
The pain, which had felt like crushing and tearing his heart all night long, was now gone.
Still, it felt stiff, so Suhyeon looked down at his chest for a moment.
‘Was it an aftereffect of coming out of the Gate?’
Since the Gate was an unknown disaster space where space and time were completely twisted, that seemed plausible.
Suhyeon pushed past the terrible memories trying to surface and thought so.
He had panicked when fear had consumed him, but he was normally the type of person who was calm, accepted situations well, was dull, and was indifferent.
“You’re awake.”
Suhyeon turned his head at the voice that reached his ear.
There, a tall, handsome man stood leaning against the wall, looking down at him. His light-brown eyes blinked.
‘Is this what it’s like if a celebrity is right in front of you?’
The man, wearing a turtleneck and a black suit so no skin was visible, and thin, black gloves on his hands, was momentarily stunningly handsome.
Deep blue eyes.
Beautiful blue eyes, which couldn’t possibly come from an ordinary human’s pupils, but which contained the vast, sunlit ocean, swept over him thoroughly.
He felt a sense of familiarity.
Suhyeon’s mind brought up the memory from when he exited the Gate, when he plunged into that white light.
The sensation of being tightly hugged by someone.
When he opened his eyes wide, he had met the man’s blue eyes directly.
This was the man who had saved him.
“Are you awake, Patient Chae Suhyeon?”
A voice separated the two of them who were face-to-face.
Suhyeon’s head turned.
The hospital room door opened gently, and the middle-aged doctor he had seen before he lost consciousness entered.
The doctor, who wore a friendly smile, flinched when he saw the man standing behind Suhyeon, then quickly fixed his gaze on Suhyeon.
It was a swift change of focus.
“How is the chest pain?”
Suhyeon blinked, then replied that it was fine.
“Good. You can see well, hear well, and there’s no particular abnormality in your body? Could you rotate your arm once?”
Suhyeon moved his body slowly in response to the rapid-fire words from the doctor.
Everything moved fine except for the severe chest pain that had struck him before he lost consciousness.
The doctor nodded with a satisfied expression.
“Do you remember where this place is?”
Suhyeon hesitated, then answered what came to mind.
“Korea University Hospital, I think…”
“That’s right. To be precise, it’s the Special Department affiliated with Korea University Hospital. It’s a place that supports treatment for Espers and Guides. I am Hospital Director Lee Jaehyeon.”
At the mention of Espers and Guides, Do Yejun and Lee Jaeram suddenly came to Suhyeon’s mind.
His expression momentarily hardened.
Suhyeon suppressed the memories he didn’t want to recall and nodded again.
“Do you remember what you were told before you lost consciousness?”
He frowned for a moment, then shook his head.
He thought he had heard something, but after that, everything was blurred and mixed with tears and the pain that squeezed his heart.
The pain had struck too suddenly for him to remember anything.
“Suhyeon was sucked into a Gate in Seoul three years ago, and you exited a Gate that opened in Germany. Although this is normally done with consent, since the matter is what it is, and given the time spent inside the Gate, you underwent a simple examination.”
Three years.
‘Three years?’
The time from when he was sucked into that Gate until he came out was not that long.
He had been in darkness, so his concept of time was somewhat lost, but he thought it was at most one or two days.
He knew that the Gate was a disaster where space and time were twisted, but it didn’t feel very real.
‘So I’m twenty-six now. I aged instantly. What about my job? I wonder if I’ve already been processed as retired.’
“And Suhyeon.”
The doctor, who had been listing off names of tests Suhyeon didn’t understand, called him.
Suhyeon was a little slow to emerge from his brief contemplation for someone who had three years deleted from his life.
He couldn’t help it.
The fact that he had exited the Gate was more important than the fact that three years had passed.
“You have awakened as a Special Guide.”
However, this was something even the indifferent Suhyeon couldn’t easily accept.
“…Pardon?”
“You have awakened as a Special Guide.”
Thinking Suhyeon hadn’t heard him, the doctor kindly repeated it one more time.
“…Special, Guide?”
It was natural that Suhyeon’s voice trembled as he asked again.
However, as if it were reality, the doctor nodded calmly.
“Yes. Since you cannot use your ability yet, the word ‘Special’ is attached, and we cannot determine a rank immediately, but cross-examinations have confirmed that you have indeed awakened as a Guide.”
His breath hitched instantly.
The only Guide Suhyeon knew was Lee Jaeram, who was always attached to Do Yejun’s side.
Suhyeon was silent for a long time, then asked hesitantly.
“…Does it normally happen that someone awakens so late?”
Espers and Guides, the Awakened, usually awaken between the ages of five and ten.
That was common knowledge, and Suhyeon had lived as an ordinary person for twenty-three years.
“No. It almost never happens. Even if it does, they awaken in their teens. In Suhyeon’s case, well, it’s a guess, but it seems to be because you went into and came out of the Gate.”
‘Ah, the Gate.’
Right.
He had been sucked into and came out of the Gate.
The fact that he had pushed aside came to the forefront with the doctor’s explosive statement that he had become a Guide.
Along with it, common sense surfaced again.
‘Nothing is strange inside the Gate.’
And that ‘nothing strange’ included an ordinary person awakening as a Guide or Esper.
The doctor was giving that as the reason.
Finally, Suhyeon slowly nodded.
‘Since three years of time flew by, perhaps becoming a Guide is not such a big deal, either.’
‘Coming out of the Gate and finding that time has passed is already something out of a fantasy movie.’
Whatever the case, the doctor had no reason to lie to Suhyeon, who was merely an ordinary person, and if this was reality, accepting it quickly would be easier.
The doctor, who had been waiting silently, as if to give him time to accept the situation, seemed slightly surprised that Suhyeon hadn’t made a fuss, then added, “Good,” a word that had now become a habitual interjection.
Suhyeon thought blankly.
‘So what happens to me now?’
“You must be hospitalized.”
“…Excuse me?”
Suhyeon blinked again at the doctor’s resolute words, which were spoken like a bomb exploding again, right after he had that thought, as if the doctor had read his mind.
* * *
