IMPRINT 59

“Yes, National Security Agency, Information Security Division, Intelligence Team Leader…”

—Team Leader Seong.

The voice coming through was, naturally, Director Shin’s. Seeing as she addressed me with my professional title in a businesslike tone, it seemed she had a matter related to work. I cleared my throat with a dry cough and answered.

“Yes, Director.”

—A mission has been set for Esper Kang Juha. It’s about two weeks away, which is a bit tight, isn’t it?

“Excuse me? No, the Center assigned a mission?”

—No. Not the Center, but a mission from the National Defense Committee. Apparently, they were putting together a gate suppression squad scheduled for deployment and asked for a list of names. It seems the Center decided the existing Alpha Team personnel wouldn’t make the cut, so they submitted Kang Juha’s name on the list.

A headache began to rush in again.

“I’m truly going to lose my mind…”

—It looks like the higher-ups are putting on some serious pressure. They said if things keep going like this, people will start saying we’re just wasting tax money without doing anything properly.

“Still, shouldn’t they at least have consulted me before putting him in?”

How can they handle work in such a mess?

—They did consult. With the Field Operations Department.

“…”

For a moment, a curse almost flew straight out of my mouth. I barely managed to exercise patience, keeping my mouth shut and exhaling a deep breath through my nose.

—Seriously, I can’t even smuggle Kang Juha over to the National Security Agency.

“Despite having no authority or anything, I really am just ‘the person in charge’ by name only.”

—It’s a convenient position to dump things on.

I already knew this to some extent and had braced myself, but I didn’t realize things would truly turn out this way. I must have been overestimating the Field Operations Department. They had been thoroughly making a fool out of me behind my back.

“…I understand for now.”

—The formal schedule will come down separately as an official document. Actually, they said they’d circulate it around four o’clock, but I thought it’d be better to tell you directly rather than you finding out through that.

“Thank you. I’ll check it.”

The call ended, but the more I chewed over what I had heard, the angrier I became. It wasn’t even like they were openly making fun of a person; it was so blatant I wondered what kind of scheme this was.

But I was even angrier at the fact that even though I knew all of this, there was nothing I could do.

Right, well… It’s not like I thought this job would go perfectly smoothly. I figured a garbage situation like this would happen once or twice, didn’t I?

I took two deep breaths, smoothed over my hardened expression, and returned to the training center.

When I entered the waiting room, it seemed the training was already over as Kang Juha was left alone. Ko Sunghyun and Kim Minjae had apparently fled as soon as Kang Juha’s training ended.

“Where were you?”

As soon as he saw me, Kang Juha approached as if lunging at me, his eyes full of anxiety. I had only stepped away for a moment, yet he acted as if I were someone who had been away for a long time.

“I stepped out to take a brief business call.”

“You should have told me before you left…”

“How was I supposed to tell you when you were in the middle of training, Mr. Kang Juha?”

“You know you can speak into the training grounds by pressing that button over there.”

“That’s… for when giving a training briefing or feedback, not for telling you that I’m stepping out to take a phone call.”

The button Kang Juha mentioned was for when Espers are training and their superiors or team leaders watch and deliver briefings or feedback. It means the moment you speak into the microphone, the voice echoes boom-boom loudly throughout the training grounds.

Of course, Kang Juha was training alone, but while he was running around until his body felt like breaking to face monsters, it wasn’t right to loudly announce into his ears that I was going to take a phone call, was it?

“It doesn’t matter. If anything happens, I want you to tell me right away. No, even if nothing is happening, I want you to tell me.”

“Pardon? Tell you what?”

“Just. Anything. I like anything Teacher says.”

“No, even so, I can’t just say whatever while you’re training, Mr. Kang Juha.”

“Why?”

At Kang Juha’s innocent question, I was momentarily rendered speechless. No. Common sense says that’s obvious, right?

“I might interfere with the training…”

“There’s no way Teacher could be an interference to me.”

“It’s not that I’m an interference to you, Mr. Kang Juha… Come to think of it, that’s true too, but…! Fundamentally, it’s because it’s an interference to the act of training. If I have something to say, I can just do it when you come out like this.”

“Then I can’t know what Teacher is doing while I’m training. Even though Teacher watches everything while I’m training. It’s unfair.”

What on earth does that mean? Even though we were clearly having a conversation, it felt like there was absolutely no communication happening. No matter what I said, the point of the argument kept coming back like a repeat sign on a musical score. Was this right?

“Why… should you be watching me, Mr. Kang Juha?”

I am his person in charge, and I have the duty and responsibility to see if there are any problems while he trains and how he compares to his past training. It is clearly one of my tasks.

But Kang Juha…

“Because I’m curious.”

Ah, not out of duty or responsibility, but out of curiosity?

“…”

“Is that not allowed?”

“I really don’t do anything special. I watch you train, and I also analyze by re-watching old training videos… Since it’s what you did yourself anyway, it’s not very useful for me to tell you things you already know.”

“I see.”

Kang Juha gave a big nod. Fortunately, he seemed convinced, so I tried to wrap up this agenda and move on.

“But Teacher.”

He called me again. In a voice noticeably deeper than before. The gaze meeting mine was frozen coldly.

“Yes?”

Just looking into those eyes made my spine feel stiff and rigid. An indescribable energy felt by a fellow Esper. I didn’t know the reason, but right now, Kang Juha looked to be in a very bad mood.

“Shouldn’t you not say things like that while coming back with the scent of some other Esper bastard on you?”

“…”

Ah, it was because of that.

Now I knew the reason. Very clearly. But that didn’t mean I knew the solution to this situation as well.

“It’s the Alpha Team, right? It’s a wavelength I’m not familiar with, so I figure it’s one of the recruits.”

“…”

“Why? Is it because they’re younger than me?”

“How could that be the case? And to me, you are also young, Mr. Kang Juha.”

“Teacher, you like twenty-one-year-olds, don’t you?”

“I do?”

He said it so confidently that I almost believed I truly liked twenty-one-year-olds.

“Isn’t that right?”

“No. It is not. Why would I like twenty-one-year-olds? There’s nearly a twelve-year age gap between us… Why on earth would you think that?”

“Just… because I was twenty-one back then.”

No matter how much I chewed over Kang Juha’s words, I couldn’t find a connection between him being twenty-one then and me preferring that age.

If he was twenty-one, I would have been twenty-five, and at that time, I was suffering through all sorts of exam schedules ahead of graduating from the military academy. It was a time when I lived as if a day were 48 hours long, so I had no leisure to idly like anyone.

Furthermore, around that time was when the clinical trials for the GDX drug were finished and I was waiting for regulatory approval. It was a period when even meeting someone privately was strictly controlled.

…Huh, what was I thinking about?

A blank space opened up in my head as if I had momentarily fallen asleep. It felt like opening an internet window to search for something and then forgetting what I was going to search for.

And I knew what this feeling meant. It seemed my subconscious had tried to pull out a forcibly removed memory.

I was a mental-type Esper myself, but it was a truly unpleasant and nasty ability. To move away from this horrible sensation as quickly as possible, I emptied my thoughts.

“I suppose so. You must have been twenty-one once, Mr. Kang Juha. I was twenty-one too. But we should bury the past in the past and live in the present. I am thirty-two, and I am not interested in people in their early twenties.”

“Bury the past in the past…”

Kang Juha repeated my words like a monologue. Then, he let out a faint, hollow laugh and looked at me again.

“Then please explain why you’re carrying the scent of another Esper. I have a rather good imagination. I think you’ll have to explain as detailed as possible so I don’t misunderstand.”

“We just talked for a bit. It was nothing much.”

“That’s not a detailed explanation. What was the conversation about?”

What useless conversation did I have today? As I chewed it over, I remembered talking about an embarrassing topic like a group for “ex-wives,” and heat suddenly rushed to my face involuntarily.

I didn’t know how my reddened cheeks were read by Kang Juha’s gaze, but his expression became even more lethal.

“Teacher, are you really a playboy? Do you flirt with just anyone? Why? Is one of me not enough? Is that why you said no when I said I wanted to be your lover last time?”

Just how far is this imagination going? Kang Juha was kindly proving his own words about having a good imagination in person.

“Calm down. It’s not like that. Please stop with those misunderstandings. I’m afraid others will hear.”

Just how far must my social reputation fall? It was a stroke of luck that there was no one but Kang Juha and me in this waiting room right now.

“Then tell me.”

Sigh, do I really have to say this with my own mouth? Just kill me.

“…I can’t say it.”

“Where is that Esper bastard now? If Teacher can’t tell me, I think I’ll have to talk to that bastard myself. It’s not the first time today, is it?”

I could clearly see the anger in Kang Juha’s eyes turning into anxiety and sorrow.