# Chapter 14
## 2. Mandatory Defense Match
Mugyeong woke up from his coma after six days. Haeseung deliberately didn’t visit him right away, trying to compose his feelings of extreme joy and excitement. However, when Haeseung didn’t show up, Mugyeong’s worry spiraled in a strange direction—developing delusions that Haeseung wasn’t safe—which ultimately forced Haeseung to visit earlier than planned.
Mugyeong had been moved from the intensive care unit to a regular ward. When he saw Haeseung appear with crutches, Mugyeong flinched in surprise, his eyes widening before his expression crumpled into a frown.
“What happened to your leg?”
Mugyeong asked in an accusatory tone, as if he had completely forgotten that Haeseung had been in the same vehicle during the accident, as if something that should never have happened had happened to Haeseung.
“They said it’s broken.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
Mugyeong had fractured three ribs and his right leg, and had twenty stitches in his head. If the ambulance had arrived just a few minutes later, he could have lost his life from excessive bleeding. Without even needing to consider it carefully, his injuries were far more serious than Haeseung’s. Moreover, for Mugyeong as an athlete, injuries were a devastating blow. Yet here was Mugyeong, asking with a worried face if Haeseung was in pain, making it difficult for Haeseung to maintain his composure due to embarrassment.
“It doesn’t hurt. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. Come closer. You seem to have lost some weight.”
“The hospital food doesn’t taste good.”
Haeseung, who had been keeping his distance from Mugyeong, awkwardly approached as he replied, like someone who was shy. Mugyeong raised his hand and gently caressed Haeseung’s cheek. Haeseung awkwardly lowered that hand and avoided eye contact. Somehow his legs felt wobbly, so Haeseung pulled up a chair and sat down.
“I missed you. It’s been almost a week since we saw each other, right?”
“…Yeah.”
Haeseung couldn’t gauge whether his response came across as indifferent as he had intended.
“How much longer do you need to stay hospitalized?”
“Who? You? I’m not sure. Should I ask for you?”
“No, not me. You.”
Seeing Haeseung misunderstand, Mugyeong let out a small laugh. Haeseung was acutely aware of Mugyeong’s sparkling smile, recovered after six days.
“About ten days.”
“Do you want to sleep with me?”
“What? Sleep with you how?”
“Why are you so surprised? I mean share a hospital room and sleep together.”
Haeseung was flustered. Mugyeong smiled with mischief hanging in his eyes. Whatever his intention, Mugyeong was deliberately using language that would confuse Haeseung. Haeseung didn’t particularly want to guess that intention.
Mugyeong’s room was a double with one empty bed. Haeseung’s room was also a double, which he was currently sharing with a man in his mid-twenties who had been hospitalized yesterday due to a traffic accident.
Haeseung hesitated to answer. It was only the beginning, and already pushing Mugyeong away seemed overwhelming. He wanted to hug Mugyeong tightly and thank him for finally waking up, but it was frustrating that he couldn’t.
Haeseung left the room without saying goodbye, ignoring Mugyeong even when he called his name loudly. When he returned to his room, his noona looked at him with an expression that asked why he was back so soon. Haeseung had repeatedly told his noona that she didn’t need to come to the hospital anymore, but it was useless. His noona had a different purpose for visiting the hospital—the good-looking man who shared the room with Haeseung.
“Did you meet Mugyeong?” his noona asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you look like that?”
“I want to be alone. Go home.”
“Want to be alone? That doesn’t make any sense. This is a double room.”
“Just go, noona.”
Haeseung climbed onto the bed and curled up facing the window. He could feel his noona’s gaze on the back of his head. Haeseung fell asleep while worrying complicatedly about things that shouldn’t have been complicated.
Haeseung woke from his light sleep to loud, unruly laughter. The chatter between the man in his mid-twenties who shared the room and his noona seemed endless. The two were openly exchanging their attraction for each other and had already started speaking casually. Haeseung had no choice but to lie still and listen to their conversation, finding his noona’s flirtatious voice very unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
The man said he had been in a traffic accident while riding in a taxi. When he bragged that if he had been driving himself, there definitely wouldn’t have been an accident because he was such a good driver, Haeseung couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
The conversation paused briefly at the sound of Haeseung’s laughter. He thought he could feel both of their gazes on the back of his head, but the conversation soon resumed. His noona said she hadn’t gotten her license yet and asked if he could possibly teach her to drive, adding that she would definitely pay for the lessons. The man insisted that payment wasn’t necessary and volunteered to give free driving lessons.
Finally, Haeseung covered his ears with earphones. There were numerous missed calls and messages on his silenced smartphone, and he didn’t need to check each one to know they were from Mugyeong. Reading through the messages, they ranged from questioning why Haeseung had suddenly left without saying anything, to desperately telling him to come back because Mugyeong was bored, to questioning again why Haeseung wasn’t answering calls or checking messages, to worrying if something was wrong. Just as Haeseung was about to reply, unable to avoid it any longer, a nurse came in.
“Patient Lee Haeseung, we’ve completed the paperwork, so you can move to your new room right away.”
“What?”
Haeseung stared blankly at the nurse, not understanding what was happening. His noona answered for him, saying she understood, and the nurse disappeared with a slightly dubious expression.
“While you were sleeping, I talked with Mugyeong on the phone, and he asked to have your room changed. You go ahead first. I’ll take care of moving your things.”
Since when had his noona become so kind? He wanted to ask why she had done such an unnecessary thing, but her attention quickly returned to the man. Haeseung quietly left the room with his crutches. Even after leaving the room far behind, the voices of his noona and the man seemed to linger like auditory hallucinations, perhaps because his ears had been subjected to them for so long.
Haeseung moved slowly with his crutches, lost in thought. Could he skillfully reject Mugyeong? If he cut him off coldly, wouldn’t that just stimulate Mugyeong’s competitive spirit?
Haeseung wandered the hospital corridors like someone who had lost his way, then stopped in front of a beverage vending machine. When he inserted a 1,000 won bill into the bill slot, all the buttons lit up red.
As he hesitated over which drink to select, a hand suddenly appeared from behind and pressed a button. Turning around more in bewilderment than surprise, he saw Mugyeong in a wheelchair, smiling.
“What are you doing? Not getting your drink?”
Haeseung bent down to retrieve the can. It was, amazingly, his favorite drink. Haeseung hesitantly handed the can to Mugyeong.
“Want to drink it?”
“No, you drink it.”
“By the way, are you allowed to be moving around like this?”
“You’re moving around too.”
“Your situation and mine are different.”
Mugyeong grinned and rolled his wheelchair.
“They’re the same. Whether one bone is broken or ten, the healing speed is similar anyway.”
At this nonsensical logic, Haeseung silently drank his beverage.
Entering the hospital room with Mugyeong, Haeseung looked around unnecessarily and asked:
“Where’s your mother?”
“She went back to work. She said there was no need for her to stay here since you’re here.”
Haeseung climbed onto the empty bed. His noona, who arrived later, brought his bag, helped Mugyeong back onto his bed, and then disappeared abruptly without even a chance to say anything.
While Haeseung was fiddling with the TV remote to break the silence, a bag of snacks flew into his lap. When he turned his head, Mugyeong was looking at him with a mischievous smile.
“Ah, what the hell! You startled me.”
“What should we do for fun now?”
Haeseung threw the snack bag back at Mugyeong. Mugyeong caught the snacks with the hand that wasn’t connected to an IV.
“Play by yourself. Eat those.”
“Let’s play together.”
“I’m going to take a nap.”
“How about this? You throw the snacks, and I’ll catch them with my mouth.”
“That’s childish. Is that playing?”
“I’m trying to entertain you.”
Mugyeong laughed cheerfully and threw the snack bag. Haeseung reluctantly opened the bag and picked up a piece of snack.
“If I succeed in one try, will you grant me a wish?”
Mugyeong proposed the condition with eyes full of confidence. Haeseung hesitated briefly, but after calculating that the condition was favorable to him, he nodded.
“Okay. But what if you can’t catch it in one try?”
“Then I’ll grant your wish instead.”
Mugyeong opened his mouth wide, preparing to catch it. Haeseung deliberately threw the snack in a direction that Mugyeong could never catch. Mugyeong could only follow with his eyes as the snack flew in a completely unexpected direction.
“What are you doing? That’s cheating.”
As expected, Mugyeong strongly objected, his eyes wide. His pride seemed quite hurt by the absurd failure.
“How is that cheating? It’s up to the thrower. We didn’t even set rules.”
“Even if you don’t follow the rules, you should at least maintain minimum manners. That was completely out of the valid range.”
“You’re being so petty. Fine. I’ll throw again.”
Haeseung threw the snack in a way that barely maintained the valid range and manners. Mugyeong displayed his fighting spirit despite his injury but failed.
“Ugh!”
Mugyeong clutched his chest, which was wrapped in compression bandages, and let out a small groan.
Watching this, Haeseung’s heart sank, and he shouted:
“Hey, are you okay? How can you move so violently!”
Haeseung had deliberately thrown the snack so that Mugyeong would give up. But he hadn’t anticipated that Mugyeong would push himself regardless of his physical condition. He had underestimated Mugyeong’s competitive spirit, which exceeded common sense.
Mugyeong leaned back against the bed slowly, as if slightly dizzy, and tried to regulate his breathing. Seeing him like this, Haeseung’s feelings were indescribably complex and troubled. If his leg had been uninjured, he would have immediately gone to check on Mugyeong’s condition, but there were many obstacles preventing him from immediately translating his thoughts into action.
As if the pain had subsided, Mugyeong raised his head. As soon as he saw Haeseung, he spoke in a very apologetic manner:
“I momentarily forgot about my broken ribs. I’m fine now, so don’t make that expression.”
What expression? Haeseung had no way of knowing what expression he was making.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
