Thirty Minutes and a Fistful of Hair
"N-no. I-I'm fine!"
Han Yi-hyeon snatched up his smartwatch in a fluster and sprang from his seat.
BAM!
And then he slammed his forehead straight into the wall. The crack of it was so crisp and cheerful that Baek Yeo-eul's own forehead began to ache in sympathy.
It didn't stop there. On his way into his room, he barked his knee on the sofa, stubbed his little toe on the doorframe, and cracked his forehead against the wall one more time for good measure.
...What was that about?
She had never seen Han Yi-hyeon so hopelessly ungraceful. But even monkeys fall out of trees sometimes, and S-rank Espers were human too — surely even they tumbled down the occasional flight of stairs. Deciding it wasn't worth a second thought, Baek Yeo-eul returned to her room, lay down on the bed, and let sleep claim her.
And so the first night of their strange cohabitation — a night brimming with worries — quietly drew its curtain.
"Insane."
Someone muttered under their breath.
Right on schedule, a Grade 3 monster had appeared. Monsters were classified from Grade 1 through Grade 6, and from Grade 2 upward, the deployment of at least one S-rank Esper was mandatory.
The higher the grade, the more humanlike the creature's form — and Grade 1 monsters even had a documented history of killing humans, wearing their skins, and infiltrating society itself. In all the years since, a Grade 1 had been confirmed only three times, the last being fifty years ago, when thirty S-rank Espers swarmed and put one down. None had shown themselves since.
People believed the Grade 1s were extinct, yet the question never quite left them. The only information the world possessed was this: the creature wielded strength and speed beyond any comparison to an S-rank Esper, along with a degree of intelligence no human could ever hope to outrun.
They might have dismissed it all as embellishment — had it not come from the mouth of Na Gi-ho, the living legend who had fought in that final battle. From him, it had to be believed.
And so, in the public imagination, the Grade 1 monster became a being even S-rank Espers could never hope to catch — and every time a formidable new S-rank emerged, the debates would flare anew: which was stronger, the Esper or the monster?
"...He'd chew a Grade 1 monster up and swallow it whole."
Among the four A-rank Esper teams just back from roughly two months of overseas deployment, someone had tossed a stone into a placid lake.
Every gaze swung, inevitably, to Han Yi-hyeon — who was, quite literally, flying. Each time he leaped, a Grade 3 monster was cleaved in two, and only a long while later did he come down to earth.
Everyone here knew his skill well past the point of familiarity. And yet, astonishing as it was even on an ordinary day, seeing it again after two months made it feel new all over. The Grade 3 monsters, snared motionless in his illusions and squirming like insects caught in a spider's web, drove the point home.
"His power's grown since two months ago, hasn't it? Guess the rumor about him getting a Guide is true after all."
Those who'd been overseas, following the news only through the internet, hadn't been able to quite believe it — not even after the government made an official statement. Worse, with Han Yi-hyeon absent from the field for a full two weeks, rumors had even begun circulating that the whole thing was a staged cover-up for a rampage.
They had waited desperately for word that Han Yi-hyeon would be deployed for today's mission. And the man they met after two months was exactly the same as ever.
There was no Guide at his side — so was the rumor real or not? But such trifling doubts were soon swept from their minds.
Before the rest of the preparations were even complete, he had impatiently thrown himself into the field and begun, quite simply, a massacre. People said the gap between Grade 3 and Grade 1 was vast — but watching him, Han Yi-hyeon genuinely seemed capable of holding his own against a Grade 1 single-handed.
"That's already his third."
"How long did that take?"
"Exactly thirty minutes."
More staggering than the fact that they'd stood there transfixed for a full thirty minutes was the tally itself: three of five monsters, dead in barely half an hour. From Grade 3 upward, a monster's self-healing grew strong enough that most battles dragged into long wars of attrition.
It was hardly rare for a single kill to take more than an hour — and this man had taken three in thirty minutes.
And that wasn't simply a gift of his ability. Illusion-type powers like Han Yi-hyeon's were reasonably common. What was vanishingly rare was a born monster like him.
In truth, very little about Esper abilities had ever been pinned down. With no way to prove them scientifically, the research simply ground on, endless and inconclusive.
Illusion. Exactly as the word promised: the power to show someone a vision. Show them happiness, and they might never claw their way free of the dream. Show them something horrific enough, and you could leave them a raving lunatic.
What made Han Yi-hyeon singular was this: within the illusions he wove, every ounce of pain his victims suffered followed them back into reality.
KREEEEE!
Watching the fourth monster shriek in agony, the onlookers shook their heads. Ill-omened and ill-mannered as he was, his ability, at least, they couldn't help but acknowledge.
Then, in the thick of battle, Han Yi-hyeon abruptly went still, staring hard at something in the distance. Just as the crowd moved to follow his gaze, he was moving again.
Even as he kept sneaking glances at whatever it was, he moved faster than before. A-rank pride being what it was, the few who'd lost sight of him pressed their lips shut and rolled their eyes frantically, straining to pick up his trail.
BAM!
"The last one and the Gate."
KWA-BOOM!
At the sound of Han Yi-hyeon's voice coming from directly beside them, the Esper who'd been tracking his trail jolted backward in alarm.
"Handle it yourselves."
With that, Han Yi-hyeon hurried off.
"Wh-what the..."
Though he hid it well, the A-rank Esper was every bit as shaken, staring after the wake Han Yi-hyeon had left behind.
Five A-rank Espers had assembled in total. With only a single monster left, their numbers were more than enough to enter the Gate and destroy its core. Subjugating the monster had always been the hardest part; destroying the core was easy, if time-consuming.
Not that they were complaining.
The A-rank Espers rose one after another and headed in, toward the monster and the Gate.
"It's clearly having an effect."
From a vantage point far removed from the fighting, Se Yeon-ah murmured in quiet admiration. The results of the guiding had outstripped every expectation.
"See? I told you so. He was sitting on his strength all along."
Hwang Tae-seon narrowed his eyes and muttered.
"To put it precisely, he couldn't use his strength because of the rampage risk. Not that he was hiding it on purpose."
"Same thing either way. Wouldn't you agree, Director?"
Hwang Tae-seon turned toward Do Geon.
"Focus."
Do Geon said it without taking his eyes off Han Yi-hyeon for even an instant. Grumbling under his breath, Hwang Tae-seon nonetheless followed the order to the letter.
Se Yeon-ah, Hwang Tae-seon, and Do Geon had come to the site in secret to observe Han Yi-hyeon's condition after some two weeks of proper guiding. They had received reports analyzing the data, but with a case this far from ordinary, every possible variable demanded consideration — and extra vigilance besides.
The place Han Yi-hyeon was making for was sealed off behind restricted-access tape — in a word, the farthest point on the entire site from the battle. A woman stood there.
"Why is a Guide way out there?"
Hwang Tae-seon murmured, puzzled.
It was Baek Yeo-eul.
Han Yi-hyeon walked straight up to her and bent at the waist. At the sight, Se Yeon-ah's and Hwang Tae-seon's eyes went round as saucers.
For the infamously ill-mannered Han Yi-hyeon, people who received a polite word or a courteous bow were exceedingly few. This was a man who used informal speech without hesitation even with Na Gi-ho — and he was bowing to Baek Yeo-eul.
More staggering still, Baek Yeo-eul wound her fingers into his hair as though she'd been waiting for exactly this. Hard. Taut.
"...Am I getting presbyopia like you now, nu-nim?"
That was how little Hwang Tae-seon could believe his eyes — he was invoking a form of address he would never, under any circumstances, use in front of a superior. Se Yeon-ah, who under ordinary circumstances would have snapped at him over the presbyopia crack, was equally dumbfounded. She had assumed Baek Yeo-eul grabbed his hair only because, mid-rampage, no one could bear to touch his bare skin. Yet here she was, gripping his hair in exactly the same way.
Which meant Baek Yeo-eul was guiding Han Yi-hyeon — by the hair.
Han Yi-hyeon stayed meekly bowed, letting his hair be wrenched out without a word of protest. The only thing he held onto was his blindfold.
"Nu-nim, is this maybe a drea— AAAGH!"
Before the words were out, Se Yeon-ah had a fistful of his beard, and Hwang Tae-seon shed a few involuntary tears. The sheer volume of his scream settled the question: this was no dream.
Do Geon — who until then had stood with his arms crossed, calmly monitoring the situation no matter what the other two got up to — flinched from the chest up.
"..."
Baek Yeo-eul's body swayed once, then crumpled.
Baek Yeo-eul knew this sensation well by now. The feeling, just before surfacing from a faint, of someone shaking her head back and forth with everything they had.
Uuugh. With a low groan, she forced her heavy eyelids open. She knew from experience that staying down wouldn't make the headache go anywhere.
Her eyes opened onto the familiar ceiling, the familiar wallpaper, and...
"You're awake?"
Baek Yeo-eul let go of the hair she'd been clutching with all her strength. In the same instant, a whole tuft of white hair drifted down onto the mattress.
"...I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Your head hurts, doesn't it? I'll go call your attending physician. Wait just a moment."
As though he'd been waiting all along for her to wake, Han Yi-hyeon hurried out of the room. Baek Yeo-eul buried her face in her hands and groaned in misery.
Two weeks.
It had been two weeks since she'd become Han Yi-hyeon's partner. Two weeks since they'd begun living under one roof. In that time she'd been deployed to the field four times — five in all, counting today.
For the freedom and the money that would come later, Baek Yeo-eul had resolved to grit her teeth and endure until Han Yi-hyeon's stabilization period was over. And all five deployments had ended the same way: with her unconscious.
The routine never varied. Until Han Yi-hyeon finished his work and came to find her, she kept herself at the farthest possible distance, dry-heaving into the void. The moment he arrived, she would seize his hair and guide him. Once she'd guided him enough, she would faint — and she would not let go of his hair until she came to, apparently out of some instinctive thirst for revenge. Which left Han Yi-hyeon standing frozen in whatever awkward position he'd been caught in until she woke. And it didn't end there. Held that hard for that long, his hair kept coming away in drifting handfuls.
At this rate, Han Yi-hyeon would be bald in no time.