Ordinary Person A

#31

At quitting time, restaurants in areas densely populated with companies were all packed, with hardly any seats available.

The moment the long hand pointed to 6 o’clock sharp, Mi-yeon sprang up and, with an attitude of leaving no overtime work behind, dragged Ho-woo and Seong-jo, who had worked intensely for a short time, to the place she had reserved.

It was a place known by word of mouth for its delicious brick oven pizza and beer. When the three arrived, most seats were already filled except for a few reserved ones, and the interior was bustling with people.

The boisterous atmosphere and the excited faces of those who had finished their work day all showed clear signs of elation. Blending seamlessly into the crowd of people with no one paying much attention to him, Ho-woo naturally recalled his time with Oh-yul. No matter how hard he tried to push it completely out of his mind, even such trivial things brought it back quickly.

It’s not easy.

He vividly remembered the times when he received uncomfortable stares even sitting in a corner of a restaurant, and the eyes that wouldn’t leave him despite that. The gentle curve drawn by the eyes of the man who was happy just to spend time like this sitting across from him was soft.

“Whew…”

Another barely audible sigh escaped between his lips. Ho-woo picked up the cold beer glass that had arrived in the meantime to cover his sigh.

“What did you do during your vacation?” Mi-yeon asked.

“I just stayed at home,” Ho-woo replied.

To be precise, he had spent half the time at the Management Complex and half at home, but Ho-woo didn’t elaborate. The remaining vacation spent at home was too short to sort out his cluttered mind.

Oh-yul didn’t forcefully visit Ho-woo who was holed up at home. He just left snacks or sandwiches that Ho-woo liked on his doorknob at times he guessed were Ho-woo’s commute hours. He also received a side dish container with sweet dried squid, which seemed to be made by Oh-yul himself and really suited Ho-woo’s taste.

It was a very affectionate appeal. The items left seemed to whisper, “I think of you this much and like you.” Thanks to that, his heart was even more unsettled and it was miserable.

The two people who had been listening intently to Ho-woo’s words immediately looked disappointed. They seemed to have expected some exciting story.

“Don’t you date, Mr. Lee? I thought you went on vacation with your partner,” Mi-yeon said, gulping her beer and looking at Ho-woo’s left hand. His ring finger was empty. Ho-woo waved his hands at the suspicious gaze directed at him.

“A partner? What partner would I have?”

“Why not? Someone like you would be fine. You’re good-looking, tall, and have a nice personality,” Mi-yeon continued to praise.

Ho-woo didn’t know how to react to Mi-yeon’s repeated compliments. When he mumbled that he was just average, the only response was to have more confidence. Seong-jo, who had been observing Ho-woo and Mi-yeon’s exchange, rolled his eyes around and cautiously began to speak.

“Then was that person from before your friend?”

“Who?”

“That Esper. The S-class Esper. We ran into him in front of the company on a rainy day.”

Should that be called running into? Seong-jo added quietly, but the small sound faded into the beer glass close to his mouth and no one heard it.

“Oh my! Mr. Lee, you know an Esper? Aren’t those people scary?” Mi-yeon exclaimed, startled by Seong-jo’s words, leaning her upper body forward with her hands on the table. Although she reflexively spoke loudly, she lowered her voice to be audible only to the three of them.

“Which S-class Esper is it? Ha Eun-chan? Joo Si-yeon?”

A string of unfamiliar names came out of her mouth. It was Seong-jo sitting next to him who answered, not Ho-woo.

“Oh-yul.”

Right? At Seong-jo’s questioning gaze, Ho-woo nodded slightly. At this confirmation, Mi-yeon’s mouth fell open. Although Espers were quite common around them, S-class was special with only three in the country.

“…Really? That person came to the front of our company?”

Mi-yeon still looked disbelieving.

“It seemed he was patrolling the area. Our place was an A-class monster attack site, after all,” Seong-jo explained.

Since there was no reason a monster couldn’t invade twice if it had done so once, Esper patrols usually continued for at least 5 months at monster appearance sites. Upon this reminder, Mi-yeon shuddered, perhaps remembering that time, as she took a bite of pizza.

“I was late that day because I overslept. When I think about how that saved me, it really feels like you never know what will happen to a person’s life.”

Among the people who disappeared were many who had been quite close to Mi-yeon. Everyone just acquiesced without showing it outwardly. That whenever such incidents occur, powerless ordinary people could be swept away by the great flow at any time.

“…The mood has turned gloomy. Let’s all take a big drink,” Mi-yeon said, smiling cheerfully again and raising her glass to lighten the slightly dampened atmosphere. As they raised their glasses to meet hers, a clear sound rang out.

“So are you really friends with Oh-yul?” Mi-yeon asked.

“Maybe?” Ho-woo replied.

The relationship was ambiguous to be called just ordinary friends. It was a relationship where Oh-yul had feelings for him, and he didn’t dislike it, but was scared to jump in. Right now, they were in the midst of an invisible battle of nerves.

Mi-yeon smiled slyly as she ordered more beer in response to Ho-woo’s vague answer.

“If you’re friends, you’re friends. What’s with the ‘maybe’? Is he really as handsome in person? He’s always in the top ranks when they rate popularity based on Management Complex photos. If only there was a smiling photo, he’d be number one.”

“…He is handsome.”

Even looking up from below, even that was beautiful.

How can a person have no unflattering angle from any perspective? The man who would likely live his whole life without knowing he was unattractive was excessively handsome, but when he smiled, he was even more stunningly attractive.

“Mr. Yul is really handsome when he smiles.”

The smile that began to spread across his once cold face was dizzying in its warmth. If his expression alone was enough to make one feel loved, Mi-yeon’s words weren’t wrong.

If the photo of the Management Complex posted on the website had been a smiling face, it would have been a shame that Oh-yul wasn’t a celebrity despite being an Esper.

Seong-jo, who had been quietly listening to Ho-woo and Mi-yeon’s praise of Oh-yul’s appearance, bluntly blurted out a fact everyone had forgotten.

“He may be handsome, but he’s scary. When you face him directly, you can tell what everyone’s talking about.”

“…True, they say high-ranking Espers are really scary when you face them, right? I was a bit scared even of the Esper I saw during the Guide test at fifteen. Are you okay with it, Mr. Lee?”

Everyone says they’re scary, but Ho-woo himself never felt it, so it was hard for him to empathize. What exactly was scary about them? They’re all just the same people.

“I was fine with it.”

“…Maybe it’s not that scary? Well, there are people who date Espers, so maybe it’s exaggerated?”

“It was really scary,” Seong-jo grumbled again. His grumbling didn’t reach the other two. Mi-yeon’s interest was focused not on the scariness, but on the story of the handsome man.

“So how did you get to know him?”

“He saved me during the monster attack. I almost died under the debris, but when I opened my eyes, Mr. Yul was right in front of me. He’s such a kind person that he even asked if I was cold from his ability.”

“Wow… If you were a woman, wouldn’t this be exactly like the beginning of a romance novel?”

Mi-yeon clapped her hands exaggeratedly, delighted at what she called an incredible fate. Ho-woo, slightly tipsy and in high spirits, fiddled with his glass covered in cold water droplets.

It was difficult to completely escape from Oh-yul in any place or time. To the point where he wondered how he had lived without knowing this before, he heard stories and was reminded of Oh-yul everywhere.

“Well, these days even same-sex relationships aren’t a flaw, right? Seeing how you said ‘maybe’ earlier, there must be something going on.”

Ho-woo laughed awkwardly at Mi-yeon’s sharp deduction.

“How could someone like us get along well with an Esper? We’re not even Guides.”

Once again, it was Seong-jo who brought up the negative comment. There was something disrespectful about his gaze. Mi-yeon seemed to sense it too, slightly furrowing her brow.

“Do people consider such things when dating? If you like someone, you just date them.”

Ho-woo, listening from the side, smiled slightly, feeling as if his inner selves had popped out and were fighting.

“Whether it’s an Esper or an ordinary person, it’s natural that you can date and break up.”

Mi-yeon laughed heartily, saying that if she had the chance, she would have no regrets if she could just hold hands once with those beautiful, cool, and sparkling Espers.

“You might think differently if you face them directly. You won’t even have time to be enchanted by that face,” Seong-jo warned, adding to his previous statement. Perhaps recalling when he first met Oh-yul, his face turned pale even though he had been drinking. The trembling of his fingertips holding the heavy beer glass was clearly visible.

At this reaction, Mi-yeon muttered to herself, “Is it that scary?”

Ho-woo quietly drank his alcohol. Complicated thoughts settled in his mind like sediment. He tried hard to push away his thoughts by drinking more, laughing exaggeratedly, and chattering.

After the drinking party ended, Ho-woo saw off the tipsy Mi-yeon until she got into a taxi to go home, then barely caught the last subway. At this late hour, the subway was a mix of heavily drunk passengers and those with tired faces.

Getting off the subway with staggering steps, Ho-woo stopped for a moment as his head was slightly dizzy.