#13
“Patient?”
“No, not me… huff, huck, he’s the patient.”
The paramedic seemed to have mistaken Bonoh, who was drenched in sweat and panting, for the patient. The paramedics skillfully loaded Taeseong into the vehicle.
“What about the guardian? One guardian needs to ride along.”
“Ah, me…!”
Bonoh readily got into the ambulance. Fortunately, they arrived at the hospital quickly, but they couldn’t see a doctor immediately.
Taeseong’s face, left in a corner of the emergency room, had lost all color and was indistinguishable from the white bed sheets. Even when Bonoh grabbed passing nurses to ask, he only heard to wait a little longer. They see patients in order of urgency, not arrival order. If Joo Taeseong isn’t urgent, then what is? He’s hovering between life and death right now!
“Patient, what are your symptoms?”
After waiting for a long time, a doctor finally came near the bed where Taeseong was lying. Just as Bonoh was about to explain the situation on his behalf, he heard Taeseong’s low voice from behind.
“It feels like my solar plexus is being twisted… It didn’t hurt before, but now my head also hurts a bit…”
Bonoh winced at the mention of headache but pretended not to know. When the nurse put up a screen, the doctor lifted Taeseong’s shirt without hesitation. Taeseong’s upper body was exposed in an instant.
As expected, Taeseong’s body had well-formed muscles positioned attractively. His abs looked like they’d been carefully crafted by a fine arts sculpture student—no, a sculpture professor—and his external obliques were tensed with anger. A white, thick stomach was visible, with the lifted t-shirt precariously covering Taeseong’s chest. As soon as he saw that scene, Bonoh unconsciously turned around.
Why did I turn around? When Bonoh glanced back, the doctor was pressing various parts of Taeseong’s stomach, asking if it hurt.
“It seems like stomach cramps? I’ll put medicine in an IV for you, so get that and go. Call if you feel like vomiting.”
“He was in so much pain though, isn’t it a serious illness? Don’t we need more tests?”
Bonoh grabbed the doctor who was about to leave and asked.
“Well… if you want to get tested…”
The doctor’s face seemed to say ‘do you really want to waste money?’ Bonoh was actually relieved by the lukewarm response.
Once the IV needle went in, Taeseong fell asleep again. Beside him, Bonoh searched for stomach cramps on his phone.
“Stomach cramp symptoms… Squeezing pain in the solar plexus area with facial pallor, cold sweats, and possible dizziness.”
Right, so his head doesn’t hurt because we bumped into each other earlier. Bonoh nodded to himself.
“Diet and stress are the main causes of stomach cramps…?”
From what Bonoh observed as a roommate, Taeseong had a consistent routine. He woke up at the same time regardless of his class schedule and went to sleep at similar times. Even on weekends, he would leave the room like clockwork at 12 PM and 6 PM, so Taeseong’s meal times were definitely regular. On top of that, he didn’t eat late-night snacks or even regular snacks, and once he came back from dinner, he’d stick to the dormitory, so he didn’t seem to enjoy drinking sessions either.
Based on the doctor’s reaction, diet didn’t seem to be the cause. That left only stress. At the mention of stress, Bonoh recalled Taeseong holding his phone and even cursing recently. Group project villain!
“Whoever that bastard is, he almost killed someone…”
But thinking about it carefully… Taeseong’s furious anger wasn’t limited to just that day. Looking back, there was one more source of stress. Taeseong’s roommate, namely himself, Kim Bonoh. The group project villain was limited to that one day, but Bonoh wasn’t. Counting the number of times he got angry, Bonoh’s share in Taeseong’s stress was much larger than the group project villain’s.
“So the one who almost killed Joo Taeseong was… me?”
At that moment, his phone screen went dark. The black screen reflected Bonoh’s stunned expression. Bonoh examined Taeseong’s face. Though asleep, there were still deep furrows in his brow, as if the pain hadn’t subsided. Bonoh’s legs trembled.
Bonoh pondered how he could make amends and decided to take responsibility for Taeseong’s exam period. The group project was probably ruined because of the villain, and with falling sick during exam period like this, Taeseong’s grades were surely in crisis.
[Anyone who knows politicians around here]
[?]
[Ah not politicians, Political Science and International Relations majors]
Bonoh sent a message to the group chat with Hyungwoo and Junghwan, putting out a search for Political Science majors. At the rustling sound, he looked up to see Taeseong tossing and turning. This caused both feet to stick out from under the blanket covering his body. The soles of his feet in white socks were black. Thinking this was unlike the fastidious Joo Taeseong, Bonoh realized those feet had been dragged across the ground because he hadn’t put shoes on him.
Bonoh looked up along the IV line connected to Taeseong’s wrist. The IV bag hanging on the pole wasn’t even half empty yet. Bonoh checked his wallet in his pocket and left with a determined expression.
When Bonoh returned with a black plastic bag, the IV bag was almost empty and Taeseong’s face looked much better. Bonoh patted his chest in relief. Before long, Taeseong woke up.
“Are you conscious?”
“Uh…”
“Do you remember taking the ambulance? This is the emergency room and they say it’s stomach cramps.”
Taeseong looked dazed after waking up. Bonoh took out cabbage juice from the plastic bag. After tearing open the opening and even inserting a straw, he held it out to Taeseong.
“Drink this all down. They say it’s good for the stomach. The convenience store even sells stuff like this.”
Taeseong showed signs of hesitation at the foul smell. Still, when Bonoh waved his arm, he took the cabbage juice in a daze. Seeing him bite the straw, Bonoh reached toward Taeseong’s feet. It was to take off his dirty socks.
“What…!”
“Huh? Did you choke?”
Taeseong almost spit out the cabbage juice. Bonoh wiped Taeseong’s mouth with his own sleeve. Even though he didn’t rub hard, Taeseong’s mouth area turned red.
Does he have sensitive skin? Since he was wearing a shirt, there were buttons on the sleeve. Realizing that Taeseong’s skin had been scratched by the hard buttons, Bonoh glanced around nervously. However, that didn’t seem to be what was important to Taeseong.
“What are you doing right now?”
“Ah, your socks got dirty so I was going to take them off.”
Bonoh took off both of Taeseong’s socks. Then, before Taeseong could stop him, he quickly pulled out new socks from the plastic bag and put them on. They were pink sleep socks.
“When we took the ambulance earlier, I couldn’t grab your shoes, so I bought slippers and socks. Sleep socks in case your feet get cold. How’s that, killer sense?”
Taeseong lost his words seeing Bonoh’s proud expression. The face waiting for praise was absurd. Then Bonoh noticed the IV bag had somehow become flat and empty, and went to call a nurse.
When the nurse said they could leave now, Bonoh rummaged through the plastic bag again and placed slippers at Taeseong’s feet. They were pink slippers with cat characters drawn on them. Taeseong looked at Bonoh with a dumbfounded expression. Somehow Bonoh seemed embarrassed, which amazed Taeseong.
“Ah, this was all they had. I bought the biggest size but I’m not sure if it’ll fit.”
“……”
The slippers were a bit small, but Taeseong was overwhelmed by the visual of cat-printed slippers and pink sleep socks and didn’t have time to worry about that.
Actually, while buying the slippers because there weren’t suitable options, Bonoh had briefly worried: Am I doing something too awful? He’d also worried that Taeseong might throw a fit and tell him to get lost.
But surprisingly, not only did Taeseong put them on without complaint, he showed not an ounce of embarrassment. It could be called a true man’s attitude. Bonoh’s eyes sparkled brilliantly as he watched such a Taeseong. Bonoh followed Taeseong to the checkout counter with fervent eyes, trailing behind him.
“Earlier, while you were sleeping, I exhausted all my connections to get Political Science past exams. Just trust me, I’ll take responsibility for your grades!”
In the taxi returning to the dormitory, Bonoh chattered away nonstop. Though Taeseong’s heart softened toward Bonoh who had taken him to the emergency room and tried to take care of him in his own way, he was too tired to endure the chatter. Eventually, Taeseong snapped at Bonoh to shut up.
Bonoh, who had been talking nonstop, immediately became quiet. Though Taeseong could feel the taxi driver checking the back seat through the rearview mirror, he ignored it. Once the taxi interior became quiet, he finally felt like he could live.
With the taxi quiet, Taeseong had room to think. He fell into deep doubt. He had tried to torment Kim Bonoh to make him leave the dormitory, but far from dealing damage, he had only received double the stress in the process.
Taeseong turned his gaze to Kim Bonoh sitting in the next seat. After being told to shut up, he was even biting his lips and reading his mood. At that sight, Taeseong snorted. It was utterly ridiculous.
Right, just as I have no immediate plans to leave the dormitory, you probably feel the same way. If he wasn’t going to leave anyway, tormenting him for the remaining period would be useless. Especially since that tormenting wasn’t even effective.
Taeseong fell into thought about how he could get along with Kim Bonoh without fighting.
Soon familiar buildings began to appear. Bonoh moved closer to Taeseong and asked:
“Can I stop by the convenience store?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
