#12
Thinking about Taeseong again made heat seem to blaze inside him for no reason. Bonoh re-gripped the pen he had been holding messily. At this rate, it would be better to stare at the Japanese text until his eyes hurt, even if he had no idea what any of it meant.
After studying the whole time, his head was throbbing. His body was stiff, so Bonoh headed toward the dormitory while doing various stretches. If he couldn’t drink alcohol anyway, it was much better to eat dinner at the dormitory cafeteria. Recently, he had been eating alone at the dormitory cafeteria and quickly going to his room.
Of course, he had no intention of going straight to the cafeteria. He could put down his bag first, roll around a bit, and go in before it closed. That’s when he opened the door to room 309. He saw a huge silhouette lying still on the bed.
“…Is he sleeping?”
He muttered quietly, but he didn’t actually think he was sleeping. First of all, the lights were brightly on, and Taeseong lived too orderly a life. He had never seen him take a nap even once. It would be more plausible for Bonoh to become the top student in the Japanese Literature Department than for Taeseong to suddenly take a nap during exam period.
But then why is he lying down? Bonoh secretly observed Taeseong, who was just curled up without properly covering himself with a blanket. As expected, his clothes weren’t really suitable for resting comfortably in the dormitory either. His pretty feet were also completely hidden in socks.
Huh, Joo Taeseong isn’t the type of person to get on his bed without taking off his socks.
Then a thought struck Bonoh’s mind like a blow. Taeseong lived an extremely neat life, close to having germophobia. To what extent? He stubbornly wouldn’t get on his bed while wearing socks and outdoor clothes. He had a completely different temperament from Bonoh, who could roll around on his bed even while wearing an outer coat.
“Joo Taeseong.”
Bonoh bent his waist sharply. Even while calling Taeseong’s name, he got goosebumps. This guy seems to have something wrong with him.
Sure enough, Taeseong was frowning deeply. When he lowered his head, Taeseong was gritting his teeth. After hesitating briefly, Bonoh touched Taeseong’s body. His clothes were soaked beyond just being damp, and cold sweat was flowing all over his body. His face was no exception. Even though he was originally pale white, he looked reasonably human, but now he looked sickly, even blue.
“Joo Taeseong!”
Both his parents were healthy, his hyung and noona just needed to calm their hot blood, and Bonoh himself had grown up without any major illnesses until he was twenty-three. This was the first time in his life he had faced someone so pale and obviously sick right in front of him, so his mind went blank. It was clear he couldn’t just leave him alone, but he couldn’t figure out what to do.
Ah shit, if I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have ignored that contact earlier. The content was so simple that he didn’t realize it was Taeseong’s distress call. Normally, he would have been rolling around in the dormitory, but because he went to the library claiming it was exam period, checking on Taeseong’s condition was delayed even more. Even though he knew it wasn’t his fault, self-blame naturally flowed from his mouth.
He called his name loudly and grabbed his body, but only groaning sounds came from Taeseong’s mouth. Bonoh went “uh, uh” and made sounds that even he found stupidly meaningless before gripping his phone properly. Should I call 119?
“I, I’m calling 119?”
“…My head is ringing, so shut up.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll go out and call.”
Bonoh frantically went out to the hallway and made the call. This was his first time actually calling 119. Could 119 even come to the dormitory? Bonoh wandered aimlessly through the hallway, thinking about this and that without knowing what he was thinking.
-Yes, this is 119.
“Right now, a person, my roommate, when I came to the room, he’s sweating cold and groaning in pain. But I don’t know what to do in situations like this. Is it okay to call here? What should I do?”
Even while speaking, he thought this wasn’t right. Sentences that even he couldn’t understand continued incoherently. The firefighter on the other end of the phone asked for the address.
“The address here is, uh, Korea University dormitory… what hall was it, Hope Hall!”
-Yes, could you tell me about the patient’s symptoms once more? Is he conscious?
“He is conscious. He even spoke to me earlier. But there’s no energy in his voice and it sounds like he’s being squeezed. I don’t know exactly where or how it hurts. He keeps sweating cold and curling up his body.”
Bonoh answered frantically to the firefighter’s questions about the situation, contact information, GPS availability, and their dispatch. Then, when he bent his head because his feet were uncomfortable, he finally noticed his completely mismatched shoes. One of them wasn’t even Bonoh’s shoe but Taeseong’s. No wonder it felt subtly loose. Bonoh ruffled his innocent hair.
Bonoh went back into the room with his phone clutched tightly in his hand. Taeseong was still lying in a curled-up position. Even though he was clearly in pain, the fact that he wasn’t even groaning loudly made him worry even more.
While Bonoh was restless, groaning sounds leaked through Taeseong’s teeth. Isn’t this going to be a big problem? He checked the time on his phone. More than 5 minutes had passed since he called, but the Hope Hall main entrance visible through the window was quiet. Suddenly, the overly calm voice of the paramedic who had answered the phone replayed in Bonoh’s mind. He hadn’t been conscious of it earlier because he was frantic, but thinking back, it had felt leisurely. A person is dying here!
“Shit…”
Bonoh became impatient. This wasn’t the time to be doing this. First, Bonoh gathered his wallet and phone and put them in his pocket, then looked back at Taeseong. Even though he was curled up, his large build left no space on the bed.
“Hey, Joo Taeseong. Can you get up?”
“……”
Taeseong only frowned with his closed eyes without saying anything. This is serious! It seems like he can’t even speak now. Rather than quietly waiting for the ambulance, it seemed better to carry Taeseong on his back and go down to at least the first floor. Having made his decision, Bonoh hastily lifted Taeseong’s two arms. Maybe because he was limp, even just lifting his arms felt heavy. Bonoh crouched with his back to the bed, put Taeseong’s arms over his shoulders, and stood up from his position with all his strength.
“Ngh… Heavy.”
Groaning sounds naturally popped out. Bonoh slightly bent his upper body so Taeseong could lean on him. Bonoh momentarily staggered from the weight he felt as their bodies overlapped. He thought he would just be big-boned and thin because of his prickly and sensitive personality, but that whole build must have been muscle.
Bonoh barely managed to carry Taeseong on his back. It was called carrying, but Taeseong was exceptionally tall, so Bonoh couldn’t properly support Taeseong’s butt. Taeseong kept slipping down Bonoh’s back and his feet dragged on the ground.
Wait, this isn’t right. When someone asked his height, Bonoh would invariably answer 180cm, but he was actually 178cm. About 2cm wasn’t that big a difference, so he had never been suspected of roughly rounding up when he said it. If he stretched in the morning and measured, he’d probably be 180cm. With that mindset, he had never thought of it as lying about his height. Anyway, his height wasn’t small anywhere. That’s why he readily carried Taeseong on his back.
However, he seemed to have underestimated Taeseong too much. But it would be awkward to put Taeseong back down after struggling to carry him. Bonoh decided to go down to the first floor as planned, now that he had him on his back.
Taeseong’s white sock-covered toes dragged along the hallway floor. Bonoh didn’t even think to put shoes on Taeseong. He walked in an awkward posture, hoisting Taeseong up once in a while. Each time he did that, he could hear Taeseong’s groaning, but Bonoh pretended not to hear.
He barely reached the elevator. Looking up at the floor indicator, unfortunately the elevator was stopped on the 15th floor. When Bonoh reached out his right arm to press the button, Taeseong tilted to one side. He quickly hoisted Taeseong back up.
“Urgh…”
“Just bear with it a little…”
Bonoh said in response to Taeseong’s groan. Maybe because it was heavy, the elevator seemed to come down slower than usual. He could almost hear the voice of the trainer who used to count slowly during the PT sessions he impulsively took after the college entrance exam. Three, four… Sir, you can’t let your arms go weak. Five… Why is it five right after, when you don’t count the time you’re talking in between? Just as he had never said that to the trainer, he couldn’t complain to the elevator either.
When he barely got on the arriving elevator, Bonoh’s reflection in the mirror was drenched in sweat. It seemed like he was even more soaked than the cold sweat Taeseong had shed.
When getting off the elevator, there was a thud sound from behind Bonoh’s back. When he turned around, it seemed Taeseong’s head had hit the elevator door that hadn’t fully opened because they were getting off hastily.
“……”
“Oh…”
Bonoh had been worriedly flustered the whole time, but at that moment he thought it was fortunate that Taeseong couldn’t get his bearings. Not long after Bonoh put Taeseong down on a lobby chair on the first floor and sat down on the floor next to him, the Hope Hall entrance became noisy. Soon after, paramedics came in.
“Huff, huff, over here…!”
Bonoh waved his hand while breathing heavily.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
