Courage

It's been a week since Park Eun-jae found out about the truth and he was still devastated about the fact that he became an ordinary person overnight.

As he needed some time to clear his mind, he took a medical leave from school for a few days after discussing it with his mother and during that period of time, Eun-jae read several books and even skimmed through the internet in search of any related topics to his problem.

Has anyone ever regained abilities at a later stage despite having a similar condition like him? Are there any ways to obtain abilities externally?

Such questions kept ringing in his head as he swept through all the books that he brought from the nearby library and any internet forums he could find.

At the end of the week, he had almost read 70+ books and was on his laptop for hours. But, nothing related to his condition was mentioned anywhere.

Eun-jae knew that the outcome won't be good from the beginning. But from the bottom of his heart, he hoped that he could find some leads that might help regain his ability. He was no doctor nor he was an ability specialist. But a young kid whose only dream was to become a supernatural one day. And that burning desire of his made him to go to such lengths on finding a cure to his problem.

Alas, all of his efforts were in vain.

"At this rate, I won't be able to become a supernatural..." He sighed.

Knock! Knock!

It was past mid-night time when someone came by his room.

"Eun-jae, are you awake?" A sweet female voice resounded behind the door.

Eun-jae, who was lying down on the bed with books scattered all around, got up and made a room for that person to sit on.

"Eun-jae??" the voice called out to him again.

"Wait a second, I'm coming." He replied.

As soon as he finished tidying up the room more or less, he immediately rushed towards the door.

"Come in."

As he opened the door, a beautiful lady walked inside the room and sat beside Eun-jae on the bed right afterwards.

Upon entering, she saw the state of his room and sighed deeply. Even though it looked clean on the surface, it was still unorganized and messy in a way.

"Sweetie, are you alright now?" she asked him in a worrisome tone.

"Yes, mom. I feel much better now." He answered calmly.

"What about dinner? Did you have some?"

"Yeah." He slightly smiled. "Please be at ease, mom. I'm eating my meals on time. So, you don't need to worry about me so much."

"Okay, if you say so."

Afterwards, an awkward silence enveloped the room as no one uttered a word to each other for a while.

Sometime later, Eun-jae's mother strike a conversation with him to break the silence. "Eun-jae, I know it's hard for you right now. But you have to stay strong no matter what. Do you understand?"

"Of course." He nodded with a smile.

'The boy who was always talkative unusually became so quiet and one wordy all of a sudden. He even lost his appetite for the past few days and only ate a spoonful of food during breakfast, lunch and dinner.' His mother shook her head inwardly.

'If this goes on, I fear that my child might not recover from the trauma at all…'

She knew that Eun-jae was just acting tough in front of her and he's not fine at all. Just by taking a glance at his room, she realized instantly. As his mother, she couldn't let him suffer any more like that as she decided to do something about it.

"Okay, sleep now. It's too late already." She kissed his forehead and was ready to leave when Eun-jae called out to her.

"Wait a minute, mom!"

"What's the matter?" She asked with a concerned look on her face.

"Actually, I'm thinking of going back to school from tomorrow." he said

"So sudden! Don't you want more time to think? Will you be alright?"

"It isn't a sudden decision. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. It's not right for me to sulk over such trivial things for a long time. One way or another, people are going to find out about my truth and I have to face the outside world anyway. So, I have decided to tell everyone that I am ability less through my own mouth."

"What!?" Eun-jae's mother widened her eyes in shock. "Eunjae-ya, we still have time. You don't need to rush things up and make impulsive decisions like this. How about we delay it for a while, hah? What do you say?" [1]

She feared that her child might face problems in the school if he tells them now, and she didn't think he was ready to deal with the outside world which was cruel to anyone who are weak and powerless.

"Mom, I'm not behaving on impulse. I'm aware of what I'm doing right now. So please rest assured."

Eun-jae was well aware about the consequences of his actions. However, if he keeps running away from his problems, he'll eventually become a weak and cowardly person from inside. And he didn't want that to happen to him. Therefore, he mustered up the courage to speak for himself and face the problems head on like a warrior.

"But still-" Before she could say anything else, he interrupted.

"Mom, it's fine. I have already made my decision. No matter what you say, I'm gonna go to school tomorrow." He said with a serious gaze.

Since her child was adamant about it, she gave in and dropped the matter at that.

"Fine. You can go."

"Thank you, mom. I love you." He hugged her tightly out of joy.

"But!" Upon hearing her remarks, he darted back and listened to what she had to say.

"But, there are conditions you have to comply with."

He twitched his eyebrows and asked. "What conditions??"

Although she respected his decision, she couldn't help but worried about her only son who was precious to her.

"Firstly, you have to inform me immediately, if anything happens to you in school. Got it!?"

"Mmh!" He nodded.

She then continued. "Secondly, I'll drive you to school for a few days and then pick you up afterwards. Okay?"

"Mom, there's no need to go that far. I'll be fine in school. Nothing will happen. Don't worry."

"If nothing will happen, let me tag along. After all, it's not weird for a parent to drop off their children to school, right?"

"But, what about your work? How will you manage?"

"You don't need to worry about that. I will take care of it." She said calmly.

Eun-jae knew that after knowing the truth, his classmates won't leave him alone and therefore, he wanted to deal with the mess by himself leaving his mother out of this.

However, since she refused to let him go just like that, he had no choice but to accept her terms unwillingly.

"Okay…Fine."

"And lastly, keep this with you at all times." She took out an old looking phone from her pocket and gave it to Eun-jae.

"This…"

"I already have another phone with me. So, take this with you and call me in case of emergencies, okay?"

"Alright."

"Okay then. I'll take my leave. You should hurry up and go to bed as well."

"Yeah, mom. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight."

After she left the room, Eun-jae sighed deeply.

"What should I do now?" He mumbled to himself in a depressed tone. "Should I delay a bit and wait for the right time to tell everyone. Yeah, that would be more reasonable. But…. what if mom catches on to my act? If I tell her that nothing happened to me, even after I shared the truth. That would be more weird. Ugh! This is so frustrating. I can't come up with anything."

He racked his brains for a while and after realizing he can't do anything about it, he lied down on his bed before falling asleep.

*****

The next day, Eun-jae's mother dropped him off at the gate of the school and went on her way to work.

Eun-jae quickly took the stairs and went straight to the second floor where his classroom was. As soon as he entered, the atmosphere in the class suddenly changed and everyone began staring at him intently. They even started murmuring to themselves as they looked at him weirdly.

As for Eun-jae, he was clueless at what was going on.

He shook his head while ignoring the stares and straight headed towards the desk where he usually sits. However, before he could sit down, he saw scribblings on it and the words written there shook him to the core.

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Like a chill spread through his veins, he was stunned at that moment and finally understood the situation.

'They already know about my secret! I'm done for. F**K'

[1] -a or -ya is a casual title used at the end of names. It is not gender exclusive. If a name ends in a consonant -a is used (e.g. Jinyoung-a) while -ya is used if the name ends in a vowel.

The term is used when people are talking informally to each other and when they are friends or junior to them. Mostly, family elders like to use this term to their children or grandchildren.