The Espers Who Regretted Losing Me – Chapter 60

Author: Asternkm

“There’s a lot I want to say to you, but I’ll hold it in for now. Thank you for coming back safely, Hyeya.”

“……”

“Then, Esper Cha Eunhwi. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

The gentle smile on his face hardened in an instant.

Back to his usual self, the Director left the operations room.

The three of them stayed quiet, watching my reaction. I stood there holding my can of cola, then suddenly asked,

“He said he’s my guardian, right? Then why does everything feel so awkward and distant?”

“That man was never the warm type to begin with,” Yeon Dogyeong said, frowning as he awkwardly held out his arm.
“I’ve never seen him talk so kindly before today. Look—I’ve got goosebumps.”

So that was why he’d been so quiet.
For some reason, I felt chills too and shrugged my shoulders.

“If he’s not warm and we weren’t close, isn’t it even stranger that he’s suddenly so kind? Can we really trust him? Earlier, he said I was a ‘precious asset,’ and I honestly don’t get it.”

A guide who was thought to be dead had come back alive.

That alone didn’t feel like enough reason. The Director also had seven years’ worth of buried feelings.

Cha Eunhwi, sitting across from me, nodded seriously.

“I agree. The Director does feel suspicious—like there’s pressure behind him. When I first met him, he told me, ‘Your ability is very precious.’ At the time, I thought he was a scammer, not a high-ranking Association official.”

“……”

He’d been trying hard to support them, yet here he was being called a scammer.

Then Lee Shinra muttered quietly,

“…He said that to me too.”

“What? He never said it to me. Isn’t my ignition ability valuable too?”

“Dogyeong… you caused way too many accidents. Even after joining the headquarters, you burned a lot of things…”

At Cha Eunhwi’s nostalgic tone, old memories flashed through my mind.

Yeah. Yeon Dogyeong really was like a walking disaster.

Back then, his bad personality hadn’t seemed like a big issue.

Like Eunhwi and Shinra, Dogyeong was extremely shy, so he rarely caused direct trouble with others.

The real difference was that his ability damaged everything around him.

Eunhwi’s and Shinra’s abilities could cause harm depending on the situation, but if no one was around, nothing happened.

The problem was that they had to isolate themselves for that.

But Dogyeong’s ignition ability burned everything—people or not. Literally everything.

Thinking back, I must have frowned without realizing it.

Dogyeong glanced at me and asked,

“Yoon Hyeya. Are you remembering something?”

“Why?”

“You look scary. Whenever you talked about the past, you always had that ‘just ate crap’ face.”

So all my effort at controlling my expression had been useless.

I answered coldly,

“I don’t know about that. But something did come to mind. A boy screaming—and suddenly his whole body caught on fire.”

“Oh? If it was fire, that was probably me. No—definitely me.”

“Ah. So you don’t get hurt by your own ability.”

I already knew the reason, but I set him up anyway.

As expected, Cha Eunhwi explained right away.

“Basically, espers don’t get hurt by their own abilities. But they can be hurt by the phenomena those abilities create.”

“Phenomena?”

“Yeah. If Dogyeong sets his own body on fire using ignition, he won’t be affected. But if that fire spreads to something else and then comes back at him, he can get hurt. That applies to all abilities, not just ignition.”

“Isn’t that really dangerous? Even if you’re immune to your own ability, accidents can still happen.”

“Yeah, that’s why—”

“That’s why we train to build resistance. I’m fine even inside flames now.”

Dogyeong cut in before Eunhwi could finish. Eunhwi let out a small sigh.

I already knew all of this.

Still, I acted clueless and continued,

“So you weren’t like that before, right? You burned a lot of stuff back then.”

“Well… back then, I couldn’t help it. I was mentally unstable and had terrible control. If I had nightmares or got nervous, fire would start without me realizing.”

“So when they say you caused a lot of accidents… were you isolated?”

“Huh? Isolated?”

“You said even you get hurt when the fire spreads. That means other people could get hurt too. If you couldn’t control it, shouldn’t you have been locked somewhere?”

In truth, Dogyeong had burned many things and nearly injured people—I’d seen it myself.

The headquarters even had special heat-resistant training rooms.

Someone like Dogyeong should have been isolated there.

But the Director hadn’t done that.

Because to him, Dogyeong—and all the children brought to headquarters against their will—weren’t dangerous assets.

They were just special, pitiful kids.

I looked straight at Dogyeong as he let out a confused “Uh…” and continued,

“Judging by your reaction, that didn’t happen. Guess the Director really adored you guys. There are normal people here too, right? But he didn’t take any real measures.”

I wasn’t saying this to praise him.

Thinking about the past made my irritation boil up.

He kept coddling you, saying you were pitiful—no wonder you all turned out like that.

Even if they acted obedient now, the past didn’t disappear.

And since the Director himself was an esper, it was true that he sympathized more with other espers.

The three of them seemed to realize that only now.

“Uh… um…”

Dogyeong, who usually talked fine, stumbled awkwardly and looked at Eunhwi.

Eunhwi flinched, lips moving without sound.
Shinra lowered his head completely.

After several minutes of silence, Eunhwi finally spoke.

“I’ve never thought about it that way. That’s… honestly embarrassing.”

All day, I’d felt like they were different people.