IMPRINT 16

“…When Esper Kang Juha first returned, I heard the recovery period the Center Director estimated was one year.”

“It was. It was. But you know what his condition was like back then. He was brought in looking like something that wasn’t even human… But now his physical condition is almost entirely recovered, and the problem is his mind…”

The Center Director glanced at me, gauging my reaction. However, I had already given up on hiding my sour expression.

“We didn’t ask Team Leader Seong instead of handing him over to the Medical Bureau for nothing… Team Leader Seong, you’re that capable. Right?”

“Even if one is capable, there are limits. The human brain is more fragile than you think, so if you mess with it recklessly, things go very wrong.”

I spoke in a roundabout way, but he surely understood the implication that I couldn’t make the treatment speed any faster than this.

The Center Director let out a deep sigh and finally brought up the main point.

“For nearly half a year, the Center’s performance has been poor.”

“…”

“It’s not like Kang Juha is the only S-Class Esper in our country, but it’s to the point where I wonder if it’s okay for things to be like this just because we lost one person; they aren’t performing at all at the Gates.”

It wasn’t a topic I was particularly interested in, but I nodded slowly and took a sip of water.

“That doesn’t seem to be within my jurisdiction.”

Even if he came to me to complain about our country’s combat Espers being incompetent, the only thing I could do was tighten the loose screws in their heads. Naturally, that was something the National Esper Human Rights Commission wouldn’t just sit by and watch.

The Center Director likely didn’t bring this up to ask me to do something like that, either.

“And it seems the Medical Bureau isn’t very pleased that Team Leader Seong became Kang Juha’s primary physician.”

The Medical Bureau was a neutral institution, so despite being part of the Center, it possessed its own independent decision-making authority. This meant that within the Medical Bureau, the Director of the Medical Bureau held much more power than the Center Director.

Just as a nation has a system of separation of powers, a similar rule existed within the Center. One was the entire organization led by the Center Director, another was the Medical Bureau, and the last was the Center Court.

The Center Director had pushed me in as Kang Juha’s primary physician, but it was a situation the Medical Bureau could easily find distasteful. Moreover, since I was originally from the Medical Bureau before moving to the National Security Bureau, they must have found it even more offensive.

This meant they could interfere as much as they wanted regarding the fact that Kang Juha’s treatment was being conducted as a classified matter solely under my responsibility.

“And? What did the Medical Bureau say they wanted to do?”

I felt like I finally understood the reason this meal was arranged. I thought it was just a meeting to urge me to fix Kang Juha quickly, but to think there was a reason even greater than that.

“Since you’re using the Special Treatment Room in the Medical Wing, they asked for authority, saying they should be able to involve themselves in this matter.”

It was a predictable story. If Kang Juha succeeded in making a successful return, they wanted to jump in and claim their share of the credit.

“I heard that when Esper Kang Juha was first brought in, the Medical Bureau refused to treat him. But now they’re saying they’ll involve themselves?”

I had once asked Director Shin why the call had come to the National Security Bureau Director’s office instead of the Medical Bureau. It was called an emergency support request, but in reality, when I went in, the people from the Medical Bureau had only performed minimal measures before running away.

Even after that, until Kang Juha reached his current state, they were reluctant to even enter the Special Treatment Room. They only barely checked his condition when I had completely knocked him out or subdued him.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand. Most people in the Medical Bureau had defense or healing-type supernatural powers. They must have judged that there was almost no chance of them surviving if Kang Juha, an S-Class combat Esper, went on a rampage.

Director Shin said this as well:

‘You know. Those Medical Bureau bastards are always talking about staff shortages and being extremely protective of themselves. They say if even one of their personnel is lost, dozens of Espers could die; I get it, but from my position, it’s absurd. Then what, if we lose you, we’re all screwed, but do we send you out because we like it? The Medical Bureau is a real piece of work, a real piece of work.’

Unlike the Medical Bureau, Director Shin of the National Security Bureau, who had no authority to refuse the Center Director’s orders, eventually took over the mission under the condition that he would kill Kang Juha without hesitation if my safety was at risk.

As a result, both Kang Juha and I are perfectly alive.

“…I know, I know. But this is… you know you’re the only person I can ask for this favor, Team Leader Seong. Please understand my position a little.”

The bottom line was that. There was nothing he, as the Center Director, could do.

For a long time, I stared wordlessly at the food plate in front of me. Looking at the meat of an unnamed fish I hadn’t even touched, I took a deep breath.

“That’s good. Actually, my own original duties are suffering a lot because of Esper Kang Juha. It’s not like the Information Team is a department that just plays around.”

“Right? Isn’t it? If the Medical Bureau marks him together, Team Leader Seong’s workload will decrease… Anyway, I’ll take it that Team Leader Seong has agreed, and I’ll speak well to the Medical Bureau.”

“…”

“At first, I contacted Director Shin, but Director Shin said he didn’t know and would follow Team Leader Seong’s opinion. So I was worried about what to do if Team Leader Seong disliked it, but I’m so grateful you accepted it so readily…”

The Center Director’s long, drawn-out words didn’t actually register in my ears at all.

Clearly, when I first took charge of Kang Juha, I intended to just recover him enough to look like a person and then dump him back on the Medical Bureau.

Now that it was actually happening… why did it feel so dirty?

Whether they fought over their livelihoods, flipped the table, or tried to grab a spoon, it didn’t matter to me at all. Rather, it was something I could have washed my hands of and ignored, saying I’d offloaded a tedious task. I didn’t know why, at a time like this, the face of Kang Juha asking if he was the problem kept coming to mind.

In the end, the meal concluded like that. There wasn’t a single dish I touched, making the digestive medicine I took pointless. Juyoung, who seemed to be eating a little, also didn’t eat anything after the Center Director started speaking in earnest; his front plate was clean.

“If you’re going to bring up a topic that makes it impossible to eat while sitting in front of a person, you shouldn’t have asked for a meal in the first place.”

I empathized with the grumbling words and let out a smirk.

“Tell me about it.”

“I’m hungry because I couldn’t eat a single thing; should we order some jjamppong?”

Jjamppong sounds good. I nodded slowly at Juyoung’s words and said:

“Let’s go to the Director’s office.”

༘⋆

Director Shin seemed bewildered that we, who had burst into his office out of nowhere, were having a jjamppong party, but he didn’t kick us out. Instead, he placed a cup of cold green tea for each of us.

“So it turned out like that in the end?”

“Yes.”

“I just can’t grow fond of those Medical Bureau bastards. Although I’m grateful they threw Team Leader Seong away.”

“I wasn’t thrown away; I came out on my own two feet.”

“Ah, right. Anyway.”

Since it was the first time in a while I’d eaten something spicy, my mouth was stinging and numb. As I wiped my sweating forehead, Juyoung, who was gulping down the jjamppong broth next to me without even blinking an eye, held out a handkerchief.

Juyoung, who says he eats spicy things when he’s stressed, committed the bizarre act of pouring red pepper powder into the already spicy jjamppong. And yet, he ate it as if it were nothing. Isn’t something like that a subject for research?

“They didn’t know either. That Kang Juha, who was as good as dead, would actually come back to life. I heard that over there, they estimated two weeks.”

“…What for?”

“They saw Kang Juha just after he was brought to the Center and estimated he would die within two weeks.”

“…”

“He refuses guiding, and self-healing isn’t working. On top of that, he’s no different from a wild beast, so they can’t treat him… And since he’s an S-Class Esper, things like anesthetics don’t work. What are you going to do about that? There’s no answer.”

Hearing it like this, I realized anew how serious Kang Juha’s condition had been. Perhaps because I’d only seen his healthy and innocent appearance lately, that time already felt distant. Right now, he was overflowing with nothing but muscles without a single wound.

“If it were me, I would have flipped out and left, telling them not to think about joining in now. Seeing you like this, Team Leader Seong is quite gentle? But why don’t you ever go easy on me even once when we play board games?”

“That’s that and this is this. I also thought about flipping the whole table at first…”

But the tableware looked too expensive for that, and the faces of the staff who had worked hard to prepare the food were so vivid that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“Fighting over a meal using Kang Juha as the subject is just laughable. If Esper Kang Juha knew we were doing that, I think he’d flip the table himself.”

Originally, my mission was only that far. To get Kang Juha to a state where he could receive guiding medication.

Then, I ended up making his seven-year-old ego pop out, and after doing all sorts of things, it reached the current state.

“That’s true. What a mess this is…”

“He’s someone I’ll never have to meet again anyway once he’s fully recovered, so what does it matter who takes charge and who doesn’t.”

A line in my record saying I saved Esper Kang Juha didn’t need to be added under my name. If I had wanted something like that in the first place, I wouldn’t have set foot in the National Security Bureau. All sorts of miscellaneous information gathers here, but as for our achievements, not even a single letter is recorded—they all vanish entirely.

“And besides, my memory will be bleached anyway once this task is over.”

That is the price for looking into the mind of an S-Class combat Esper. Once this task is over, I will forget all memories regarding Esper Kang Juha.

At my skeptical words, Director Shin opened his mouth as if he had something to say, but in the end, he said nothing.

Instead, when I had finished the entire meal, he said one thing.

“Living as a mental-type Esper really seems like the worst.”

I was of the same opinion.