Ordinary Person A

#6

Ho-woo, who had left home a little earlier than usual after a quick wash, skipping breakfast and tying his tie, found a small envelope hanging on the doorknob in the corridor and curiously examined its contents.

Inside were some of his favorite chocolates and a few energy bars for a quick breakfast. Ho-woo discovered a small piece of paper among them and pulled it out.

“I apologize for yesterday’s incident.”

Though it was a short sentence, the concise and strong handwriting somehow reminded him of Oh-yul. The content of the note seemed to be an apology for suddenly leaving during dinner time.

Ho-woo briefly examined the still tightly closed door of his neighbor’s apartment. Just looking at the closed door, it was difficult to tell if anyone was inside or not.

Still, the fact that this was hung on the door meant he had been home. Ho-woo went back into his apartment, left a short memo on a post-it note, and carefully stuck it on Oh-yul’s door so it wouldn’t fall off.

“Let’s have the next dinner at my place.”

Although he couldn’t cook for Oh-yul himself, he knew a good delivery restaurant nearby. A meal from there with a few cans of cold beer to match their taste would make for quite a fine dinner. If he set a date and cleaned his house in advance, it would be perfect.

Ho-woo’s mood, which had been somewhat unsettled by Oh-yul’s sudden appearance in the dream he’d been having for twenty years, improved a bit. Dreams are probably influenced by mental aspects, after all.

It wasn’t strange for Oh-yul, the Esper who became his neighbor, and such a famous one at that, to be reflected in his dream. Just because he called him “Ho-woo-ya” in the dream didn’t mean Oh-yul himself was peering into Ho-woo’s dreams, so Ho-woo shook off all his uneasy feelings.

Ho-woo’s mood was on an upward curve even when he arrived at work on a less crowded subway due to the early hour. Today, he successfully let the team leader’s venting pass through one ear and out the other without much trouble, and the lunch menu at the company cafeteria was excellent.

The snacks Oh-yul had given him served as a great afternoon snack for Ho-woo after lunch instead of breakfast. Meanwhile, he thought that Oh-yul and he had quite similar tastes, as the snacks were filled with only things he liked. Finding similarities with someone still a bit unfamiliar was quite enjoyable.

It was when about 3 hours remained until the end of the workday. Ho-woo, who had been fully immersed in his assigned tasks, belatedly stretched his stiff back when Seong-jo, who had been slumped over in the next seat, suddenly let out a small shriek and hit his arm.

“Mr. Lee, you look in a good mood today?”

“Do I?”

“The corners of your mouth have been up since morning and haven’t come down.”

Ho-woo touched his lips. He thought, Was that so? But he could feel his cheeks twitching upwards, so it might have been true.

“Did something good happen?”

At Seong-jo’s question, Ho-woo let out a short laugh. His eyes narrowed into crescents and his slightly reddish lips parted a bit.

“Yes.”

He didn’t go into detail about how he was pleased with his new neighbor, even though they had only met two days ago. Ho-woo, who belatedly checked the time, was deleting some spam messages piled up on his phone when he noticed a monster raid alert and thought of Oh-yul.

Since cities have a kind of defensive wall that blocks the approach of low-grade monsters, most people living in cities rarely see even a tail of a real monster in their lifetime.

The incident two months ago, when an A-grade monster rampaged through the heart of the city, was reported as an exceptional event that would go down in history. But Ho-woo was too busy taking care of himself, relieved that he had survived.

He thought that removing monsters was the job of Espers, and he only needed to take care of his own life, and that was natural. Lee Ho-woo was an ordinary person who couldn’t catch even a D-grade monster no matter how hard he tried, or rather, could die from debris flying during their fights.

He should have been at least a little interested in the Espers who were protecting his life, but Ho-woo had strangely paid no attention to Espers until recently.

However, thanks to Oh-yul entering the category of people he knew, he suddenly became quite interested.

Would Oh-yul have gone there?

Although it wasn’t written that a high-grade monster had appeared, regardless of grade, he was an Esper, so he would probably be guarding around the city.

How would Oh-yul the Esper, not the seemingly ordinary Oh-yul, fight?

After being lost in thought for a while, fiddling with his screen, Ho-woo put down his phone again and focused on his work.

***

Ice that had grown from under Oh-yul’s feet, bristling with sharp spikes, instantly covered the ground and pierced through the body of the dog-like monster that was rushing at him. Sticky blood, a mix of green and blue, slowly flowed down the bluish ice.

Unlike the expression he had shown Ho-woo, Oh-yul looked down at the oncoming creatures with an indifferent and cold face. The monster’s body crushed under his feet made a chilling sound.

“Captain, there are too many of them.”

Even for Team 1, composed of A-grade and higher Espers, there was nothing they could do against the overwhelming numbers.

Monsters searching for prey flocked to the cities where humans lived. Even though they built defensive walls and Espers cleaned around the city every day, low-grade small fry reproduced quickly with cockroach-like fertility.

Oh-yul called in the team members rampaging among the monsters with a light gesture.

“Gather them.”

Without long, wordy explanations, they diligently moved as Oh-yul wanted at his short and concise command. Sharp wind and hot flames drove the monsters trying to escape into one place.

As they prevented the monsters from escaping towards the city as much as possible, clouds quickly gathered above their heads, and heavy rain that even engulfed the city poured down.

Swoosh-

Oh-yul’s expression, who had to leave in the middle of dinner with Ho-woo yesterday, was as furrowed as his low mood.

He came when called by an emergency alarm, but it wasn’t such an urgent matter.

The underlying intention of calling him in to introduce newly manifested Guides was obvious. It was extremely unpleasant.

There was something called a matching rate between Espers and Guides, and Oh-yul particularly didn’t get along well with Guides.

Guides with low matching rates found it difficult to handle his power that grew every year, and even incidents of Guides foaming at the mouth and fainting during Guiding were common.

Of course, it was equally painful for Oh-yul himself, with Guiding that only turned his insides out and had almost no effect. Yet, the corporation kept assigning Guides to Oh-yul.

Although there was a purpose to prevent rampages, Oh-yul clearly read other intentions in this act.

It was an act so blatant and disgusting it made him sigh, but the Esper endured everything. Rather, he took full advantage of the corporation’s eagerness to assign him a Guide, and in the past two days, he voluntarily entered the Guiding room. And he received Guiding until his eyes turned completely black, making over twenty Guides faint.

Although using more power than usual meant he had to receive painful Guiding that turned his insides out, Oh-yul didn’t hesitate.

It was almost time for Lee Ho-woo to get off work.

The cool sound of rain hitting the ground soon turned into cool and sharp needles pouring down from the sky to the ground. Ice, made harder and sharper by the Esper’s power, mercilessly pierced through the flesh of the monsters gathered in one place.

The Esper’s eyes glowed blue as he stood on the pooling, sticky blood.

***

Time to go home!

It’s time to go home!

Ho-woo inwardly cheered and stretched big. Outside, thick clouds had gathered and it was raining. Ho-woo tidied up his desk and, finally turning off his computer, rummaged through his drawer.

“Ah, did they say it would rain today?”

“Oh no, I don’t have an umbrella!”

Hearing people grumbling as they left the office, it seemed that unexpected rain had suddenly started falling. Ho-woo searched his drawer, hoping he might have put an umbrella in there before, but it was completely empty.

I wonder if there are any umbrellas left at the convenience store downstairs?

Thinking that if it was sudden rain, even the last stock, even the expensive umbrellas, might all be sold out, Ho-woo let out a small sigh.

“Mr. Lee, don’t you have an umbrella?”

Meanwhile, Seong-jo was holding an umbrella and smiling triumphantly. It was quite a mischievous expression, but Ho-woo waved his hand as if to say go ahead.

However, the new employee who had been smiling impishly suddenly took a step closer to Ho-woo, bent down, and made a somewhat unexpected proposal: “It’s raining, how about some makgeolli and pajeon?”

“Alcohol?”

“How about sharing an umbrella and having just one drink? Rain is the best time for makgeolli and pajeon, you know.”

It wasn’t a bad proposal, so Ho-woo, after thinking for a moment, nodded slightly. He could borrow Seong-jo’s umbrella on the way, and by the time they had a drink, this heavy rain might lighten a bit.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Yes! I found a good place nearby. You know how much Manager Park complained about choosing the wrong place for the last company dinner… Oops.”