It started with a headache. Hers. Hara's. She'd been talking something about the slingshot again, or maybe the tin of crackers she'd stolen, but mid-sentence, her hand went to her temple and then her eyes widened. She felt something strange surging from within.
"It's loud" she whispered. "It's… in my head..."
Saejin turned suddenly. She was still under the bed, but now her fingers trembled against the mattress. He moved instantly, crossed the room in seconds and crouched beside her.
"It's buzzing..." she gasped. "Like the lights... are screaming..."
There were no lights on of course, and the air felt off, its temperature seemed to fluctuate, sometimes dropping, other times rising, until it was impossible to tell. Dust began to swirl upward in circular patterns, as if caught in an unseen breath. The boy reached out toward her, and her shoulders tensed, reacting to a pressure that came from within. Behind them, the wall cracked, a single line splitting the peeling paint and snaking downward like a vein, before the door slammed shut on its own.
Eventually, Hara couldn't contain herself any longer and screamed, short, sharp, and cut off mid-breath. Her back arched from the floor, eyes wide and limbs locked as if she were wrestling with something invisible, as though her mind had turned against itself.
Saejin didn't think. He grabbed her and pulled her close, locking his arms around her, forehead pressed to hers.
"It's okay" he said. Or thought. He wasn't sure which.
And then something opened: a field... it was a resonance field. It surged from inside, like falling into water that was already shaped like her. And the noise... the screeching, buzzing, splitting noise...
As soon as it ended she collapsed. Her body went limp in his arms breathing ragged and slow. The dust around them stilled and the crack in the wall sealed itself halfway before stopping. They remained like that for a while, although it didn't last very long. Because what came next was inevitable:
Footsteps. Voices. Metal latches breaking open. A flashlight beam cutting through the dark. Two men in Axiom black uniforms stepped inside: one looked at the ruined walls while the other at the children.
"They're alive" he said. "But unstable."
"The girl's an Esper" the first one replied. "Mid-level, at least."
After a pause:
"And the boy?"
A longer pause followed.
"Guide."
As if that explained everything. As if that would fix anything.
Saejin didn't ask what that meant, he didn't ask anything at all. He just held her tighter, pressing his face into her hair as if trying to disappear there. She didn't wake up for three more hours.
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White light pulsed through Saejin's closed eyelids like it didn't belong to any time of day, not morning or night.
He slowly opened his eyes. The ceiling... that was the first thing he saw. It was smooth: no cracks, no rust, no slow peel of damp paint. He recognized the Axiom hospital bay. Little by little the other senses came back as well and the room regained all its details: the monitors hummed softly around him, blinking green, yellow, and one soft red. His arm was bandaged from wrist to shoulder and he felt his chest stiff. The world moved too slowly it seemed.
He blinked once. Twice.
"You always wake up like you're analyzing a crime scene."
The voice came from his left. It sounded familiar, but a little too loud for a hospital. He turned his head in that direction and saw Hara sitting cross-legged in the visitor chair, eating a peach. It was barely a peach, half-bruised, probably from a vending machine, but she looked determined to enjoy it. Her jacket was wrinkled and she had tied back her hair with a red band that didn't match anything she wore. There was a rip in her sleeve near the elbow, like she'd caught it on a doorframe running after him.
"You're not funny" he murmured.
"You're not dead" she replied, mouth full. "So we're both disappointing each other."
Saejin sighed and leaned back into the pillow. For a moment, they just… existed. The only hum was the machine beside him and the slow slurp of Hara finishing the last of the peach. She tossed the pit toward the waste unit, missed, got up and dropped it in by hand. Then came back and sat, elbows on her knees looking at him.
"Don't do that again."
"I didn't plan on..."
"No" she cut in. "Don't talk around it. Don't disappear into someone else's breakdown and bleed out just to make it look manageable."
He didn't respond, he knew she was right. Hara sighed, pressing the heel of her hand against her eyes. When she pulled away, her fingers came back smudged: makeup, maybe, or sleep deprivation. Probably both.
"You're not the only one who remembers cold rooms, you know."
He turned to face her more fully as she shrugged, eyes still on the floor.
"You took it all for me, I know. But sometimes I wonder if I was supposed to stop you."
A pause followed, then quieter:
"You gave me peace, and I became noise. And now I don't know how to quiet you back."
Saejin stared at her.
"You don't have to."
Hara blinked and looked up at him.
"Why not?"
"Because even when I bleed, your voice still sounds like home."
She didn't answer. For a brief moment she didn't move at all, just swallowed loud once then pulled the red band from her hair and threw it onto the side table.
"You're not allowed to say things like that without warning."
Saejin closed his eyes again just to rest a little, just to feel the air settle around them. And for the first time since Yuwon, the silence didn't hurt.