#54
The treatment room door suddenly opened and Ha-jun entered carrying a tablet.
“That’s fortunate. The results came out faster than expected……”
Ha-jun was checking various charts on the tablet when he looked ahead and paused. It was because of the two people facing each other and giving off an unusual atmosphere.
“Uh…… should I step out?”
Ha-jun was quick to read the room. Quick enough to immediately sense the seriousness flowing between the two. He pointed to the door somewhat awkwardly.
“……It’s fine.”
When Do-hyeok asked him to explain, Ha-jun approached hesitantly. Maybe he should have knocked before entering. But Ha-seong was feeling great gratitude toward such Ha-jun. What should he say? He couldn’t say “I let my guard down because I thought of you,” so he was getting a headache trying to find a plausible reason, but Ha-jun had cut that short.
“Explain.”
“First, all the important values are normal. Lung function is below average, but that’s because you just woke up, so you don’t need to worry much about it.”
While speaking, Ha-jun couldn’t shake his puzzlement looking at the data of the man named Do Ha-seong on the screen. He was curious enough to wonder what this person did for a living. As a doctor, it was naturally gratifying that the values were normal, but honestly, showing such normal values just one day after waking up was a bit surprising. Moreover, for a gunshot wound patient. This was the first case he’d seen since starting his medical career.
But Ha-jun didn’t voice that curiosity. He was in the position of a doctor, after all.
“However, the gunshot wounds are quite deep. Especially your right arm. Recovery will take some time. During that period, strenuous movement is absolutely forbidden. Especially since it’s your arm, you might easily try to move it, so please be extra careful.”
“Doctor, then I can be discharged now without much problem, right?”
“……Although the test results came out normal, I still recommend that you stay hospitalized. You just woke up, and as I mentioned earlier, not moving will help with wound recovery.”
But Ha-seong didn’t seem to have any intention of listening to those words from the beginning. He got up from his seat, gathering himself.
“I’ll come find you if there are any problems. I don’t think I can stay here for several days.”
Ha-seong’s hospitalization was a secret within Nameless. Even though this was the innermost treatment room used only by critical patients, it wouldn’t be easy for Ha-jun alone to manage Ha-seong while avoiding other colleagues and hunters. He didn’t want to cause such trouble.
Ha-jun glanced at Do-hyeok, but he was just quietly leaning against the wall. It was still impossible to know what he was thinking.
“Yes. If that’s what the patient wants, please do so. Honestly, as a doctor I’d like to recommend staying longer, but you must have your circumstances. Then please wait a moment. I’ll prepare medicine for you.”
Ha-jun went outside and came back in shortly. He gave him medicine to take after meals, and also medical item ointment that would help recovery if applied around the wounds. And he must come for disinfection…… After explaining other precautions until his ears were ringing, he left the treatment room.
“I’m going home.”
Ha-seong took out clothes from the closet beside him. The bloodstained clothes had been cleanly washed. It was probably done by Cha Do-hyeok. More precisely, it would have been done by Han Shin-woo at Do-hyeok’s request.
Ha-seong, who was about to take out clothes, unconsciously tried to use his right hand again and stopped. Perhaps because it hadn’t healed yet, he felt pain with even slight movement. Having no choice, he clumsily took out clothes with his left hand and placed them on the bed.
“What are you going to do alone when you get home?”
“I can use my left hand well once I adapt to it.”
Humans were animals of adaptation, and Ha-seong was quite confident in that adaptation. While saying that confidently and trying to unfold clothes with his left hand and unbutton his patient gown, honestly speaking, it was a bit—no, considerably uncomfortable.
“In that state?”
Do-hyeok watched Ha-seong fumbling around alone. There was no way someone who had been right-handed could suddenly use their left hand well. Adaptation might be possible, but immediate adaptation would definitely be impossible. By the time his wounds healed and he could use his right hand again, he probably wouldn’t be adapted to his left hand. What would be the point then?
“Don’t pick a fight and you go quickly too.”
Ha-seong lives alone. Ah, with the pig…… two of them? But the pig was a pig. It couldn’t help Ha-seong who couldn’t use his right hand.
“Hyung has two choices.”
“What’s this all of a sudden?”
It’s not like we’re filming a variety show. As Ha-seong narrowed his brow, Do-hyeok approached slowly with a face that had finished making a decision and began unbuttoning the upper buttons that Ha-seong couldn’t undo, one by one.
“Hey, I’ll do it……”
“Either be hospitalized again and keep lying in this hospital bed until your wounds heal.”
One by one from the top, the buttons were smoothly undone. As they came undone one by one, the cold air of the treatment room touched his bare skin. Do-hyeok’s persistent gaze swept over Ha-seong’s increasingly exposed flesh, and eventually even the last button came undone.
“Or follow me.”
“……Are you a pervert?”
Look at him just stripping someone’s clothes off like that. If only his right hand were fine, he would have hit him. Ha-seong couldn’t have been more resentful of his injured hand.
“Choose.”
“What does that even mean in the first place?”
“I can’t agree to hyung going home alone in that state.”
“Hey, stop messing around. Do you think I want to be discharged? What if someone finds out I’m here? What will you make up then? Wouldn’t it be strange if rumors spread that a purifier is going around getting shot?”
Being hospitalized again was ridiculous. He couldn’t cause trouble for Ha-jun, and above all, Ha-seong was someone who hated—no, couldn’t stand—that kind of boredom of just lying still and staring at the ceiling.
“Then there’s only one choice left.”
What did he say earlier? He seemed to have said to follow him. It was before he could ask where he was supposed to follow. Do-hyeok moved his steps toward the door.
“Change your clothes and come out.”
“Hey, if you leave like that……”
“Why? Should I help you take off your pants too?”
Ha-seong’s mouth fell open in disbelief and amazement. Then he elegantly gave him the middle finger. Then Do-hyeok chuckled and went outside.
“That unpredictable bastard.”
Ha-seong grumbled as he finished changing clothes. Normally it wouldn’t have taken even a minute to change clothes, but since he couldn’t use his dominant hand, it took quite a while.
After confirming that the bandages Ha-jun had re-wrapped hadn’t come loose, Ha-seong came outside.
“Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll know if you follow.”
“Come to think of it, there’s no reason I have to follow you, is there?”
Couldn’t he just go his own way like this?
“Hyung, do you have bus fare to get home?”
While thinking that, Do-hyeok suddenly asked. Come to think of it, he seemed to have lost his wallet in all that chaos. Of course, fortunately there was no cash due to habits carried over from the previous world, but if Do-hyeok was right, it meant he currently had nothing on him. No wallet. No means of communication. All he had was one broken phone with a completely shattered screen that wouldn’t work.
“Then stop talking nonsense and follow me.”
Ha-seong barely held back from pouring out a bucket of curses and followed behind Do-hyeok.
Perhaps because it was late at night, Nameless was quiet. Probably only hunters on duty would be there at this time. Still, since they might encounter someone, Ha-seong got on the elevator following Do-hyeok while being as alert as possible.
Basement level 1. That was Do-hyeok’s destination. There was only the fitness room where Ha-seong had magnificently destroyed the measuring device, and the door leading to the parking garage.
Sure enough, Do-hyeok walked straight to the parking garage as soon as he got off. Even though he said all that, maybe he was going to take him home after all? With such wishful thinking, Ha-seong got into the passenger seat.
But Ha-seong’s wishful thinking was cut off when Cha Do-hyeok drove in the direction completely opposite to Ha-seong’s house. Of course. Ha-seong was too tired to ask where they were going and just turned his gaze to the window.
Even though it was late, the lights were brilliant. Buildings with lights on. The twinkling green lights of traffic signals. People waiting to board buses. Cars densely filling the adjacent lanes. Only then did Ha-seong truly realize that he had safely opened his eyes.
He had talked big to Cha Do-hyeok, but the two gunshots had been dangerous. If he hadn’t urgently used his shield skill when hit by the second shot, the wounds would probably have been deeper and the bleeding much more severe. If he had properly deployed his shield, honestly those bullets would have been nothing, but right now he should be grateful for this much.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not really.”
That conversation was the end. While Do-hyeok drove, there were no more words exchanged between them. Ha-seong just leaned against the car seat, ignoring the pain he felt from time to time.
How long had they driven like that? Do-hyeok kept turning the steering wheel and slowly drove into a complex of luxury residential areas. How much would a house like that cost? It was when Ha-seong was trying to make such trivial estimates. Do-hyeok entered the house at the very end of the complex and familiarly parked the car in the garage.
“Get out.”
Only then did Ha-seong suddenly come to his senses. Come to think of it, now wasn’t the time for comfortable thoughts like how much houses cost. In a way, he had been practically kidnapped by Cha Do-hyeok, so he needed to get his head straight.
Getting out of the car, Do-hyeok familiarly closed the garage door and went to another door connected to the inside of the house, pressing the password.
Very familiar hand movements. As if this place were his own home…….
Wait. Only then did a rational thought begin to enter Ha-seong’s mind.
“Cha Do-hyeok.”
Do-hyeok stopped pressing the password and turned around.
“This isn’t your house, is it?”
“……”
Do-hyeok was silent. Instead, only the cheerful sound of the door lock opening could be heard.
“You don’t think I’d break into someone else’s house, do you?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
