The Boy Who Stopped Being a Hero

Nam Taejae had been able to feel it from the very first moment—the heart of the man sprawled across the floor was pounding far too fast.

"……"

I have to heal him!

Bleeding was bad. Wounds hurt. The enormous wound—the first he had ever seen in his life—looked so, so painful.

As if spellbound, Nam Taejae laid his small hands over the man's injury and used his ability. Then, little by little, the gaping wound across the man's stomach began to knit itself closed, and the face of the man lying there gradually smoothed into comfort.

Is anyone else hurt?

His little feet and hands carried him around in a daze, moving from person to person. The more he moved, the rougher his breathing grew and the more his vision swayed without anywhere to settle. Swallowing down the churning in his stomach, he kept using his ability.

"I have to heal them!"

He tugged down the clothing of a woman with a head injury and pressed his hands against her hair.

I'm scared.

I don't want to.

But he held it in.

In the space of moments, he healed three people perfectly. All the while, the adults could only watch what Nam Taejae was doing as if they were witnessing a ghost.

A seven-year-old child, tears streaming down his face, desperate to heal wounded adults…. It was a scene that went beyond pity and heartbreak, stirring guilt and a powerful shock in everyone who saw it.

Nam Taejae finished healing the woman with the head injury, then moved on to a middle-aged man with a broken arm and used his ability just as he had all the others.

However.

……Huh?

Why?

"My ability…. isn't coming out."

The wound wouldn't close. That warm sensation that had always spread from his fingertips and toes had vanished at some point. It felt as though something had jammed shut somewhere deep in his body, stopped up around his heart.

His whole body began to tremble.

He used his ability again. But nothing changed.

I'm scared.

The blood welling out of the wound scared him, and so did this adult wearing a face twisted up in pain. But there was nowhere for him to retreat.

—If only you'd been born an ordinary person.

Because I'm not an ordinary person.

—You're different from us. We have to save people with blood, sweat, and tears, but you don't.

Because they'd told him he could save people easily, just by deciding to.

—Taejae, spend your whole life living for the sick and the wounded. You have that power, so that's how you have to live.

Because he had to spend ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his whole life living for the sick and the wounded.

But then…. but then…. if my power disappears?

Am I not supposed to live?

Or is that how I get to be loved by Mom and Dad again?

His stomach churned. It felt the same as when he'd eaten too much.

Gasping through his ceaseless tears, Nam Taejae covered both eyes with his palms. When he did, the darkness swallowed everything—a pitch-black void where nothing could be seen.

And within that space, tiny fluorescent dots flickered and swayed. Staying like this felt like being the lone astronaut adrift in a vast universe.

I miss Noah and Gudari.

Kim Noah did this sometimes, covering his eyes with his hands like this.

—The universe has a super-duper huge number of planets and stars. But if you're out there, you feel alone at the same time!

—When I want to hide, I run away into my universe like this. And then, weirdly, I don't feel lonely at all. It's great.

Nam Taejae had never understood what Kim Noah meant. Because he never, ever wanted to be an astronaut drifting alone through the universe.

Even inside my universe, I'm still lonely and scared.

Kim Noah was a liar.

The tears wouldn't stop. His ability still wouldn't work, and his body felt as heavy as the moment right before falling asleep.

Tap.

I'm scared. I want to run away.

Tap.

Hurt people are gross. I hate them.

Tap.

"……?"

When he lifted his tear-streaked head, a familiar face was there. His teacher was gently patting him on the back.

"……Teacher."

"Taejae, do you not want to do this?"

"……I, sniff, I don't really know."

"If you don't want to, then you don't have to. Even if you stop healing people right here, no one will say a single word to you about it."

"Even though it's my job?"

It was what he'd have to do his whole life. Using his healing power for the hurt and the sick.

"This isn't your job. You can do it if you want to, Taejae, but this was always the job of the adults here. Children only have to do the things children are supposed to do. Eating well, playing well, sleeping well—things like that."

His teacher's voice was quiet, but firm.

Nam Taejae stared blankly for a moment, then slowly nodded. A question he had never once possessed lodged itself in his mind, hammered in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by his teacher's resolute words.

Healing hurt, sick people… isn't my job?

He didn't know how far "a whole life" extended, the way his father had said it, but Nam Taejae had always lived with the unthinking sense that he would live that "whole life" in loneliness.

Because the people I love never get sick or hurt.

But if what his teacher said was true…. could he stay friends with healthy Noah, too?

Maybe even for a whole lifetime?

……But more than any of those thoughts, there was something that mattered to Nam Taejae right now.

"My ability…. won't come out."

Even saying it, he felt like he might cry. Healing hurt people was far scarier and lonelier than he had imagined. Staring at the sticky blood on his hands made his stomach lurch until he felt dizzy.

……But in a deeper corner of Nam Taejae's heart, another thought lived too.

I wish people didn't have to hurt anymore.

Meanwhile, Na Hwiyeon had already guessed exactly what was happening to Taejae.

Figured he wouldn't be able to use his ability.

And this was a problem he was more than capable of solving.

Slipping a hand into his bag, he pulled out the hunk of scrap metal he'd left draped over the entrance earlier. Then he quietly brought it around behind Nam Taejae's back and said:

"Hang in there just a little longer. It'll be all right soon."

And then, without mercy, he pulled the trigger attached to it.

I didn't stop Taejae as he shook off my hand and ran toward the injured.

Maybe this, too, is Taejae's choice.

Even if it was compulsive behavior born of a status condition.

I stood quietly with the others, watching what Taejae was doing—and never once took my eyes off his status window.

A new effect had sprouted from the status condition.

Temporary suppression of awakened ability.

A sigh escaped me of its own accord. In the middle of this disaster, the one consolation had been that Taejae was holding up okay—and now this.

……Which meant it was all the more important that I keep my head together.

I cut off the dreadful imagery creeping in unbidden and turned my thoughts to the items ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠packed away in the bag I'd brought along.

The assorted "discarded prototypes" Manager Lee Wonwoo had handed me.

Good call bringing all of it.

They'd come in handy more than a few times before, so I'd grabbed the lot on the off chance….

Besides, I don't have Nabi with me either.

Just thinking about having no Nabi—the emergency, last-resort option—sent my guard reflexes into overdrive.

And thanks to that thorough preparation, Taejae's status condition was something I could resolve on the spot.

"My ability…. won't come out."

Temporary suppression of awakened ability.

I'd been thinking about it from the moment I first saw the newly appeared effect. This kind of situation could happen.

And I had already wracked my brain and prepared a solution in advance.

If Taejae's status condition triggered from seeing the wounded….

Then he just needed to not see them, right?

And even if that wasn't possible, wouldn't it be enough to change just one of the two propositions—"wounded" or "person"?

I pulled an item out of my bag.

A gun that fired six plastic cherry tomatoes as bullets.

These disposal tags are genuinely unhelpful—they never properly spell out what the product actually does.

Which meant every single time, I had to pick the tag's information apart down to the nano-level and infer the effects myself. A real hassle.

But the effects are reliable, so I guess that's why I keep using it anyway.

I took a long, deep breath and let it out. Then I drew the gun and fired it straight down at the ground.

Pew-pyo-rong!

……Why does the firing sound sound like that?

The round shot out accompanied by a childish melody that brought a toy magic wand to mind.

With roughly the power of a water pistol, the cherry-tomato bullet struck the floor, the plastic capsule cracking open as red liquid spilled out.

Panic could wait—I quickly checked what I'd wanted to confirm.

At this level, even if he gets hit, it shouldn't hurt.

Then, now….

"Hang in there just a little longer. It'll be all right soon."

Pew-pyo-rong!

The moment the spilled red liquid seeped beneath the surface of the child's outer jacket—both of Taejae's eyes lit up with wonder.

As if his emotions had been swapped out entirely. No—as if he were gazing at a different world.

And then.

"……Gu…. dari? Gudari! You've gotten so big!"

Gudari?

Taejae's imaginary friend?

Out of nowhere, he was shouting the name of the friend who lived inside his own imagination.