5
My whole body ached as if I’d been beaten up the night before.
It felt exactly like the mornings after being beaten to a pulp for not meeting begging quotas, or falling behind while learning skills, or being caught slacking off when I got a bit cocky during pickpocketing.
The sensation felt nostalgic, as it had been quite a while since I’d felt this way, having been behaving myself to spare my body as my death approached.
Ungh, ugh. I groaned as I tossed and turned. The sunlight filtering through my half-open eyelids was so intense that I tried to shield my vision with my hand, but my arm felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, making me cry out in pain.
“Young man, are you feeling a bit more alert now?”
Someone rustling beside me came closer and asked. I frowned slightly at my blurry vision, focusing until the hazy figure gradually became clearer.
“Just wait a moment. I’ll call the nurse.”
“Where… is this…?”
The voice that came from my deeply sunken throat was murky.
“Where else would it be but the hospital? Is your consciousness fluctuating? That’s concerning. Are you experiencing any severe pain anywhere?”
The middle-aged woman speaking next to me was making it harder to focus. I closed my eyes briefly and breathed, trying to recall why I was in the hospital.
So, before I woke up here… what was the last thing I remember?
As I closed my eyes, darkness came and tried to pull down my heavy body. Feeling like I might fall back asleep rather than think, I opened my eyes.
“Has the patient woken up?”
A question flew in with the sound of the door opening. When I turned my head, a nurse in white approached carrying something like a tray.
“Are you feeling any pain anywhere?”
“I’m a bit dizzy… and my arms and legs—actually, my entire body hurts.”
Did someone stomp all over me while I was sleeping? I haven’t been skimming money for the past few days, so why would I get beaten? Did they decide collections were short, or did they just have a bad day and take it out on me? Those bastards might have been looking for any excuse to squeeze more out of me without giving anything in return.
But how did I really end up in the hospital? Those guys wouldn’t have hospitalized me—they wouldn’t even give medicine when someone was dying, let alone admit them to a hospital.
“Patient, do you remember anything? What’s your name? Do you know where you are?”
I don’t remember anything, my name is Min Jaehee, and a woman just told me this is a hospital. As I was moving my lips to answer, questions kept coming without pause, causing me to miss the timing to respond.
“Why… am I here?”
I interrupted the nurse’s continuing stream of words with the question I wanted to ask. The nurse asking me questions wasn’t actually curious about my answers, but just checking if my consciousness was clear. The nurse would surely know the exact answer to my question.
“Hmm, you don’t remember? You were brought to the hospital after a fall accident. Fortunately, there’s no major damage to your bones or organs, but your head needs further examination. The attending professor will be here soon, so please lie down and monitor your condition—let us know if you feel any discomfort then. For now, I’ll check your temperature and blood pressure. Breathe comfortably without straining.”
The arm being used to measure my blood pressure felt stiff. It was like my blood vessels were being clamped shut. I limply accepted the strange pressure, letting my limbs hang like a corpse.
“You might feel dizzy, so please stay in bed and avoid getting up as much as possible. Don’t worry about your guardian; the hospital will contact them. I’ll let you know when the professor arrives.”
After the nurse left, the room became quiet. I lay on the soft bed looking up at the ceiling.
Fall accident, transported to hospital, contacting guardian.
So I fell before waking up here. Falling means dropping from a high place. Where and why did I fall?
As I rubbed my eyebrow with my finger and tried to pull out the thoughts, memories began to surface hazily in my mind one by one.
Right. I went to the photo exhibition as usual, met that guy, he found out I was dying soon, and then he started acting even stranger than his normally strange self, rambling like a complete lunatic, and then he climbed up an overpass feeling suicidal or something… and as I tried to grab him, we both fell.
“Who is it? Who’s the culprit!”
“…I’m sorry.”
That guy, he spoke as if he knew who was responsible for my parents’ accident. Yet he didn’t tell me who the culprit was. I desperately tried to hear what he knew, but he chose to die with that secret.
It’s about my parents, but why was he so desperate? What, or who, did he want to hide?
“Do you know where the person who was brought to the hospital with me is? There should be someone who fell with me.”
“Well, I’m not sure. Should I go to the desk and ask?”
“…But… who are you?”
Everything is fine, but I don’t know who this woman is. Judging by her casual clothes, she’s not a nurse, and we don’t know each other. Why is she firmly planted beside me?
“Ah, I’m the caregiver, the caregiver. Were you confused because you didn’t recognize me? I should have told you earlier, but I forgot. The hospital will contact your family, so they’ll be here soon. This is your family’s hospital, right? The doctors have been coming in and out constantly, mentioning the hospital director. I’ve never seen doctors being so diligent with a patient who wasn’t even conscious.”
I half-listened to the woman laughing as if impressed.
I was puzzled when they said they’d contact my non-existent guardian, but it seems this is the hospital that guy’s family runs. They probably put me in this private room with a caregiver as a way of thanking me for saving their suicidal son. The caregiver seems to be mistaking them for my parents.
Well, it’s not bad. This much is deserved. If I had ignored him, they would have been holding a funeral for a perfectly healthy son.
When I fell while grabbing him, I thought I would certainly die, but heaven must have been unusually kind for my good deed—I woke up perfectly fine without any serious injuries. My body aches as if I have the flu, but this level of discomfort will pass after a good day’s sleep.
They said my head needs a detailed examination, but whether there’s a problem or not, I don’t care about such tests. Even if something’s wrong with my head, there’s a hundred percent chance I’ll die first from the cancer in my chest.
I thought lightly about this as I rolled around leisurely on the private room bed.
Once, when I was very sick, I secretly went to a local clinic for an IV drip. The chilly air, hard bed, cold bed sheets. Wrapped in a blanket-like cover while receiving the IV, I felt like I was lying in a morgue rather than a hospital.
Compared to that, the private room in this large hospital is different in every way. The air is warm to begin with. So this is the power of private room heating.
“This is a private room, right? Wow, there’s a TV and a sofa… it’s really amazing.”
It was larger, cleaner, and even had a better view than the goshiwon where I live. There were no noises like snoring or talking from the next room through the walls, and no bad smells or bugs. That’s probably why a day in this hospital room costs more than a month’s rent at my goshiwon.
I thought I’d never be hospitalized in a room like this, even while dying in pain, but after saving a rich kid’s life, I was immediately moved to a grand private room despite having no injuries.
The difference between those who have and those who don’t shows in aspects like this.
“Why would the hospital director’s son be amazed by something like this?”
“It’s my first time being admitted to a private room. Ma’am, when is the food served? I wonder if there are special meals for private rooms.”
“A private room is expensive because you have it to yourself, but there’s no difference otherwise. If it were a VIP room, maybe, but here the food is the same. Why, are you hungry? Should I go ask if you can eat something? It would have been better if you’d woken up earlier—dinner time was just an hour ago. Wait here, I’ll go ask quickly and come back.”
I can’t believe it. There’s an even better room than a private room. A VIP room—the name itself exudes exclusivity.
So the value of saving the hospital director’s son’s life was only worth a private room. I couldn’t even imagine what a VIP room, something I didn’t know existed, would look like, but somehow I felt a little bitter.
No, it’s fine. What’s wrong with a private room? This is a special room that costs hundreds of thousands of won per day. This is luxurious enough. Besides, the room isn’t what matters. What matters is the envelope they’ll press into my hand later as a thank you. Surely they won’t just have me checked for physical issues and end it with a simple word of thanks.
In that sense, I was eagerly waiting for the guy’s guardian to visit soon. It would be nice to see that guy together. There’s no scene more dramatic and touching than the person himself thanking someone for saving his life.
If I receive a hefty reward, maybe I’ll travel somewhere before I die. It doesn’t have to be overseas. A hotel by the beach with an ocean view would be nice.
I want to see the sun rising over the ocean from a dizzying height. It would be nice to open a window and smell the salty sea breeze. Walking barefoot on the beach, enjoying the tickling sensation of seawater and sand covering my feet, watching couples walking side by side with shoulders dyed red by the sunset—that wouldn’t be bad either.
Realistically, entering a hospice would be the best option, but even so, I dreamed of the ocean I had never seen.
The ocean. Even the pronunciation, rolled on the tongue, is free and unobstructed.
“Young man, are you sleeping? They say you might have to go in for tests, so you should wait until the attending professor comes. But you’re hungry, what to do.”
Should I just tell them I don’t need tests and ask for food? Thinking about not being able to eat suddenly made me hungry. I don’t know what expression she saw on my face, but the woman clicked her tongue, “tsk, tsk.”
“Since you’re on an IV, you won’t die from missing one meal, but still, a person needs to eat.”
Whether this was consolation, scolding, teasing, or encouragement, only she would know. I hid my disgruntled expression and raised my upper body to sit up.
“I want to go to the bathroom.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
