A Method as Simple as Hypnosis
Batori's problem was self-worth and confidence. Saran's was loneliness.
Those two had felt, in their own ways, relatively straightforward to solve. Baek Eun-hwa was another matter entirely. Hers ran deeper, and the pieces did not fit together nearly so cleanly.
On the surface it looked like burnout, but the root of that burnout was far more tangled than I had expected, and I had spent a long time turning over how I was even supposed to help her. I had been given a flexible schedule, which only meant I sat at home and kept thinking about it.
"...Should I use hypnosis? Dull her expectations—take the edge off her reverence for that ideal?"
No.
That would be... the wrong way to do it.
The kidnapping itself was something closer to a scar than a memory. But it was also the reason she had become a hero—the reason she had become the Baek Eun-hwa she was now. Set aside the excessive sense of duty she carried, the way she lived a life that ground her body down far worse than anyone else's. In the end, it was an event that had left an enormous mark on a twenty-two-year-old woman as she grew into herself.
Erasing that from her memory, or painting over it with something else, did not feel like anything close to the right thing to do.
"If not that, then what...?"
The thoughts kept piling up. Should I at least try the simple approach of making her rest? It was the same method I had used with Saran. It would not be a fundamental cure, but it would still help Baek Eun-hwa. That much, at least, had not changed.
"This is hard."
That was always where I landed. It was simply a problem that was genuinely, stubbornly difficult to think through—harder, maybe, than any of the other heroes I had met so far. Of course, part of that was the fact that she was an A-Class hero, and one the Association had gone out of its way to look after. In that sense, it was only natural.
"...I'll just have to see her more."
When no answer presented itself, what mattered was talking to the other person.
"Eun-hwa, I hope you don't mind my asking, but... is your house usually like this?"
"...Weren't you the one who showed up completely out of the blue, Handler?"
"Ah."
She had a point. I had not called ahead. I had arrived in her expensive neighborhood first and only then thought to let her know I was there. When I went out on field visits I almost never called before leaving, and I had simply... forgotten.
"So. What brings you here? After our conversation the other day, you said you would think about a method. That's what you told me. Have you already found one?"
"Ah... not exactly. I just thought it would be good to talk with you a little more."
She looked at me with open suspicion. There was nothing I could do about that. I had told her I would help, and I still had nothing resembling an actual plan. That was why I had come.
Even so, she let me in without any real fuss. Unlike my first visit, the apartment was barely tidied. I suspected she had cleaned quite thoroughly that first time on purpose, and that the late notice this time around was most of the reason for the difference.
"So this is how you usually live, then?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Hmm... I mean it looks ordinary?"
I glanced around as I said it. There was no insult in it. It really did look ordinary.
"The place is spacious, sure, but—clothes tossed over the chairs and the sofa when you come in, dishes left on the table. It's all very... normal."
"Is being ordinary a problem?"
"Not at all. It's more that it reminded me all over again that even an A-Class hero is just a regular person."
"I have always been a regular person."
"Haha. That's true."
She was right. Even with a hero's career, she was still just a person. I had thought so before, but seeing an A-Class hero's home as it actually was made the fact settle in all over again. And knowing that, it was almost absurd that she herself had no idea she was perfectly, thoroughly overworked—that she needed to rest.
"What do you usually do with your time?"
"Just this. I stay home. I sit still."
"Hmm..."
"I don't come home much to begin with. Right now the Association President is doing me a certain kindness and keeping dispatch requests from coming in. But ordinarily I am far busier than this."
"Ah. I see."
So that was why she had been home today. I had started to notice, over the course of my visits, that she seemed to be around quite a lot. I had been able to drop by today, after all. Saran and Batori both had regular schedules, and I often had to move counseling appointments around their work. With Baek Eun-hwa, I had not had to reschedule once.
"If the Association President is making you rest, I suppose there isn't much you can do about it."
"That's about the size of it."
We sat comfortably at the table and talked, the way we had before. I asked about her daily life. I asked, now and then, about the hours when she was not working.
"Ah—this. You did a coffee commercial a while back, didn't you?"
"I did. I don't drink coffee, but... coffee, alcohol, that sort of grown-up product. Those offers come in quite often."
"Oho. There aren't that many heroes who do commercials. That's interesting. What else have you shot? I've heard plenty about you, but advertising isn't really... I don't keep up. Once you cancel the streaming subscription, you stop seeing the ads, you know?"
"Hmm... ah. There was a dessert one as well. Chocolate, I think. I don't remember it clearly, but it was something sweet."
"Oho..."
"And the strangest one was probably the underwear ad. I am not a fashion model, and they still sent a request for that."
An underwear ad.
Well.
That tracked.
She did not seem to understand why they would ask. I could see more than enough reason. She was wearing a sweater. Just a sweater—thick, a little baggy. And even so, those two generous curves announced themselves loud and clear. That alone would have been reason enough. On top of that, her hero costume, as far as I knew, had a strongly traditional design—and even that left her waist, and the rest of her figure, completely on display.
Yeah.
"So did you take it?"
"Do you think I am insane? Even if it is just a commercial—I am a hero. An underwear ad is a bit much."
"That's fair, I suppose."
"...Personally, I would rather do something more comfortable. The concepts they bring me are always so heavy. So adult."
"Ah..."
I did not know much about modeling or publicity, but it seemed obvious enough. If I had been the one hiring, I would have given her the grown-up concept too. Baek Eun-hwa had the face and the presence for nothing else. White brows, white hair, and those eyes full of pale sky-blue gave her an otherworldly air—sharp, and a little heavy, all at once.
"I turned them all down at first. They were a nuisance. But the Association President and the others said it would help the rest of the heroes, and a portion of the revenue goes toward welfare for the lower ranks."
"Oh..."
I had not known that. I had thought I understood heroes reasonably well, but the structure of their pay, things like that—I had never really looked into it. Most people probably had no idea that a cut of an A-Class hero's commercial work was funneled back to the Association at all.
"That's fascinating."
"Isn't it."
We talked like that for a while, the conversation wandering through the ordinary texture of her days, and then, almost without noticing, it drifted toward her work as a hero.
"There's something I have been curious about. When you are not shooting commercials, what else do you do?"
"Besides the commercials, I get invited to give talks for young hero hopefuls now and then. And sometimes I get pulled into meetings with the politician types to offer advice."
"...And you do actual hero work on top of all that?"
"I do."
"Ah..."
Yeah. There was no version of this schedule that did not end in overwork. Personally, I was more and more convinced that the only real answer was to cut her workload down. "Daily life" was the wrong phrase for it. "Labor" fit better. And she had no intention of stopping any of it.
It was a genuinely difficult situation. Anyone could see she was someone who needed to rest. You could tell that much just from hearing her calendar out loud.
"Listening to all this, though—I am a little curious. Even an A-Class hero... you still end up a bit outranked by people like the Association President, don't you? Not office politics, exactly. Just authority. In various ways."
The thought had come to me while I was turning over the rest the President had imposed on her—the reason she could sit here wasting time with me at all. The Association President had all but forced the rest on her, two days a week. And if persuasion did not work...
"Hmm. In a sense, yes. Salary and so on. The President has control over a number of things. We do belong to the Hero Association, after all."
"Ah. I see."
...Then I just have to make her rest, don't I?
It was not tedious. It was not academic. A method every bit as simple as hypnosis: power.