Ordinary Person A

#43

“Wow, it’s hailing!”

Ho-woo reflexively looked out the window at someone’s mumbling. The heavy raindrops had turned into white hailstones, making a loud noise as they hit the glass. The stones were quite large, big enough to hurt if they hit your head without an umbrella.

Ho-woo’s phone, quietly resting on the desk, vibrated gently, indicating whether this hail was falling over the entire city.

[Wow, this is crazy.]

A message arrived from Do-hyun, in a tone that could be either amazement or disgust. Ho-woo could easily guess that he had been hit by the falling hail.

[You didn’t get a black eye, did you?]

[I used an umbrella. But it got holes in it.]

[(Photo)]

As Do-hyun said, there were quite large holes in the umbrella. The photo also showed a hailstone as big as a fist, apparently the culprit that damaged the umbrella. It was truly an overwhelming size that could send someone to the hospital if it hit their body or head without an umbrella.

[Is that what’s falling now?]

Ho-woo looked out the window again. Though not as large as what Do-hyun photographed, ice pellets the size of thumbnails were continuously hitting the glass. The pellets that were small as rice grains earlier had swollen in size in that short time.

Getting hit by those would definitely leave bruises.

Ho-woo checked his constantly buzzing phone, hoping the hail would stop by quitting time.

[In my opinion, this is that bastard’s doing.]

[Otherwise, there’s no reason for it to hail like this when it’s not even the rainy season.]

[By the way, did you hear from him?]

Ho-woo slightly wrinkled his nose and smiled, feeling like he knew too well who Do-hyun was referring to as ‘that bastard’. Surely, even an S-class Esper couldn’t pour rain and hail on this large city for over a week. It was too much of an exaggeration.

[We did make contact.]

[He called?]

[I called him, actually.]

Ho-woo answered casually, considering that Oh-yul might have had difficulty contacting him if he was being monitored, and postponed a proper conversation for later. Then he realized his mistake.

Do-hyun didn’t know about Oh-yul’s circumstances, so this would only make Ho-woo look like a fool.

[Hey, no, that’s not it, there are circumstances here…]

Ho-woo, the fool… no, Ho-woo hastily typed a message in the chat. However, before the sentence was even completed, the screen changed to display three stored name characters.

“Kim Do-hyun”

If he answered, he’d get an earful, and if he didn’t, he’d still end up getting an earful. Ho-woo checked the remaining lunch time, got up from his office, and quickly positioned himself in a corner of the corridor where hardly anyone passed.

“Uh…”

“Hey! You crazy bastard! What are you so desperate for that you contacted him first?! Huh?! Don’t you have any pride?!”

At the voice so loud it hurt his ears, Ho-woo briefly moved the phone away. Meanwhile, Do-hyun, still not calming down, was pouring out all sorts of varied curses.

“So you called, and what, did that bastard say he has circumstances and asked you to wait? Huh?”

Did Kim Do-hyun receive some divine revelation or something?

Ho-woo inadvertently let out a short “Oh…” of admiration at the sharp guess that hit the mark. Though it was a small sound, Do-hyun seemed to have heard it and started raging again.

“Don’t tell me he said some bullshit like ‘let’s talk later’ or something?”

“You… should open a fortune-telling shop.”

“Is this the time for jokes?”

Do-hyun’s voice became seriously low. Seeing his truly angry demeanor, Ho-woo rolled his eyes in perplexity. It seemed difficult to persuade Do-hyun without telling the truth, no matter how he explained. Probably because if Do-hyun were in the same situation, he would have reacted the same way.

“Do-hyun.”

“……”

“Thanks for worrying about me. And I’m sorry about last time too.”

Just thinking about the day he had dinner with Oh-yul, Ho-woo felt he couldn’t apologize enough to Do-hyun. He was grateful that Do-hyun hadn’t suggested ending their friendship, and Ho-woo knew how precious this friend was.

“But this time, there really are circumstances.”

Do-hyun’s parents are researchers studying Espers, so he might vaguely know. That they’re not living in such a good environment. No matter how you looked at it, the ‘monitoring’ that the Management Corporation was doing was hard to think of in a positive light. So he was giving another chance.

An opportunity for Oh-yul to tell him directly, whether it was an excuse or the truth.

“I bet I know what happened. Did he beg or something?”

“No. He just asked me to wait.”

Do-hyun made a displeased sound over the phone. It seemed he wasn’t happy about it, but since Ho-woo, the person involved, said so, he seemed to find it difficult to add anything and swallowed a small curse.

“Think in the most negative way possible, not the positive.”

“Huh?”

“No matter what he says, think in the way that’s most advantageous to you. Not in his favor.”

“Okay.”

Ho-woo checked the time on the pager on his wrist and gently tried to soothe Do-hyun, who was still not calmed down.

“Lunch is about to end, so let’s talk more later. Come over to my place next time and we’ll watch a movie together.”

“…Hey.”

“Just the two of us this time.”

At Ho-woo’s words, adding that neither Oh-yul nor anyone else would be there, Do-hyun replied in a somewhat more subdued voice.

“I’ll bring groceries when I come. Put that pathetic 3-minute instant stuff in the cupboard.”

He must have really disliked the jajangmyeon from last time.

“Alright. Make something delicious for me.”

At Ho-woo’s compliant answer, Do-hyun left a short farewell telling him to take care and ended the call. Ho-woo, standing in the corner of the corridor for a moment with the phone that had just disconnected, checked the pager again before entering the office.

The round small screen lit up at a light touch. If it had a messaging function, he could talk to him more comfortably, but this small device only had two stark functions: paging and calling.

When would Oh-yul contact him? How long was he supposed to wait?

With a complicated expression at the indefinite promise, Ho-woo fiddled with the pager for a long time before moving with heavy steps.

When he returned to the office, most of the people who had gone out for lunch had already come back. Among them, Ho-woo responded with a politely appropriate smile to the welcoming smile from Seong-jo in the next seat, then sat down.

“Deputy, what did you have for lunch?”

“I skipped it because I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Oh no, I have some digestive medicine, let me give you some.”

Seong-jo took out a small medicine box from his drawer and pushed it onto Ho-woo’s desk. It was unnecessary kindness, but feeling that refusing would lead to more persistent conversation, Ho-woo responded with a short thank you.

“I think one pill will be enough, so I’ll return this.”

Ho-woo, who had only had water and Americano today, swallowed the digestive medicine and returned the remaining pills to Seong-jo. Seong-jo mumbled, “You can keep it if you want,” but Ho-woo pretended not to hear.

To avoid giving Seong-jo any opportunity to strike up a conversation, Ho-woo turned his gaze to the monitor. Plop-plop, as the sound of hail hitting the window grew stronger and more ominous, the pager that had been quiet until now rang with a monotonous sound, causing Ho-woo’s eyes to widen.

The sharp alarm with almost no pitch variation drew the attention of Seong-jo and others to Ho-woo. However, Ho-woo stared at the red light flashing on the round screen for a while, as if he couldn’t believe it, then sprang up from his seat.

Was the ominous feeling he had earlier a premonition of this moment? Ho-woo’s eyes shook violently.

If he could call Oh-yul, it meant the reverse was also possible.

His legs moved before his reason. Hurriedly grabbing his jacket and running out of the office, Ho-woo tapped the small screen of the pager to connect the call.

Instead of the sharp alarm, now faint labored breathing could be heard from the pager where the red light had been blinking. Occasionally, a light groan of someone in great pain, suppressing everything, flowed through.

“Oh-yul…?”

“…Ho-woo…”

“Are you alright?”

Although he asked if he was alright, Ho-woo instinctively felt that he was not in a good state. He had told him to call anytime he was in pain, but he didn’t expect to be called at this moment, right now. It must be that urgent of a situation.

Ho-woo hurriedly checked the location displayed on the pager and hailed a taxi. Even though he was soaked to the skin from the hail and rain while catching the taxi, he didn’t care much about it now.

Ho-woo anxiously gave the address he confirmed on the pager to the taxi driver, and seeing that the call with Oh-yul was still not disconnected, he recited as calmly as possible.

“I’ll be there soon.”

The panting breath sounded so painful that Ho-woo tried hard to suppress his rising anxiety. Stay calm, stay calm, Lee Ho-woo. Repeating this to himself, he hoped it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

In the taxi driving through the hail and heavy rain pouring down as if a hole had opened in the sky, Ho-woo held onto the still-connected pager and whispered that everything would be okay.

However, before reaching the destination, Ho-woo encountered another obstacle.

“We can’t go any further. The road is flooded.”

The taxi driver looked at the water-filled road with a disappointed face. It seemed impossible to enter the lane even if they wanted to go further. The good news was that the destination wasn’t far from where the car had stopped.