Deal Breaker - Chapter 5
Hyeji felt relief at those words, and the urge to ask if she could just go home melted away at the tip of her tongue.
“Today, we’ll do a simple test to determine your Guide grade. The grades are classified from A to F— Oh, there’s also an S-Class above A, but that’s extremely rare. Of course, you might turn out to be a hidden guiding master, Hyeji-ssi.”
When Iyeon opened the file labeled with Noh Hyeji’s name, a questionnaire filled with blank spaces appeared.
“Let’s start with the survey.”
Hyeji answered the researcher’s questions without hesitation, but there were a few she didn’t know the answer to.
“Do you have any Espers or Guides among your family?”
“Uh… as far as I know, no.”
Her vague answer was a mistake. Iyeon began to dig deeper.
“Well, most people don’t go around declaring they’re an Esper or a Guide, but even rumors you’ve heard through your parents…”
“As far as I know, there’s absolutely no one on my mother’s side.”
“What about your father’s side?”
“I don’t know any of my father’s family at all.”
Iyeon flipped through the questionnaire and murmured quietly, “Ah, of course.” Though Hyeji couldn’t see it, it was clear the researcher was looking at her family registry, the section for ‘father’ all left blank.
“Let’s skip this one, then.”
Returning to the questionnaire, Iyeon moved her pen to the next question, but her face turned awkward.
“Oh, I can’t skip this one.”
“What is it?”
“Do you have any family members working in domestic or overseas government agencies? This one we have to confirm, due to potential conflicts of interest.”
At barely twenty years old, Hyeji didn’t know what a conflict of interest was, but whatever the reason, she had no reason to be uncomfortable with the question. She just didn’t know the answer.
“You might think it doesn’t matter if you’re totally out of touch with them, but that’s not the case. Once word gets out that someone’s become an Esper or a Guide, estranged relatives or even cousins you’ve never met suddenly show up trying to get close. It happens all the time…”
“I can imagine.”
“Have you really never met your father? Please answer honestly. This is important.”
“I saw him a few years ago, but we haven’t been in contact since. I know nothing about his family.”
“But you know his name, right?”
“Yes.”
Hyeji told her the name—something she’d never said aloud before—and even looked up and showed a phone number that might have already changed.
“I’ll check on this myself, then. Of course, I’ll do it so that side never hears a thing.”
“Okay.”
After that, Iyeon moved on to the next question, keeping up a constant smile and light jokes, her attitude much more exaggerated than before. Her efforts to change the mood almost seemed pitiable. People always seemed to feel awkward about Hyeji being an out-of-wedlock child of a single mother, but Hyeji herself was never uncomfortable about it.
Society might treat her with pity or contempt, but at home, she was a princess. She still didn’t understand why not having a father was supposed to be a flaw.
I have a dad, too. I just don’t live with him. It’s not like anyone’s born without a father.
Whenever she said that, people thought she was the weird one. But to Hyeji, the world seemed strange.
The more she encountered the world outside as she grew, the more things there were that she couldn’t understand. Why do people categorize others and discriminate? As if children born in wedlock are first-class citizens and those born out of wedlock are second-class.
If you want to get married, get married. If you don’t, then don’t. If you want to have a child, have one. If you don’t, then don’t. Why are marriage and children always considered a package deal? Why do people see those who step outside the set mold as a threat to society?
Sometimes she even met people who saw it as a threat not to step outside the mold. That kind of thinking was just as hard to understand.
Either way, it’s a personal choice.
It’s not as if her being an out-of-wedlock child caused anyone any harm, yet there were always people who meddled in others’ private lives as if it were their own—especially her part-time bosses.
She remembered a manager at a supermarket where she used to work telling her she was poor because her single mother had raised her without a dad. When Hyeji asked if that meant all the kids whose parents were married were rich, the manager just changed the subject without answering, and the cashiers who had overheard the exchange gave her a thumbs-up and doted on her until the day she quit. The memory made Hyeji smile with satisfaction.
Whatever the reason, when Hyeji smiled, Iyeon finally relaxed, dropping the forced friendliness.
“Now, let’s do the brainwave test.”
Iyeon stood and approached Hyeji. She pressed a button on the side of the chair, and a machine that had been hanging from the ceiling lowered around Hyeji’s head. Iyeon tried to fit the device—which looked like a lampshade—onto her head.
“Is this how you determine the grade?”
“Yes, for radiative guiding only.”
“So what do I need to do?”
