Chapter 132
*
The muscle pain in the shoulder from carrying Jerome was severe. After applying pain relief patches on both sides and changing into the uniform, Hyeon-woo took out the suppressant hidden in the bedside table drawer and took it.
He hadn’t intended to conceal his status, but they didn’t ask during the interview, so he missed the chance to disclose it. As the manager who wrote his recommendation letter said, if he was just careful about his heat cycles, there shouldn’t be any particular problems.
Today was the day for a major cleaning of the mansion’s large chandeliers, which were all lowered. The chandeliers here, which had been maintained solely by hand with feather dusters for over a hundred years without chemical products, were precious items with no existing replacement parts if damaged. As a novice, Hyeon-woo was excluded from this task.
Watching the meticulous cleaning of the intricately woven glass and metal decorations, Hyeon-woo thought it was a thousand blessings that he wasn’t involved in this task.
If he were to make a mistake due to his muscle pain… He didn’t even want to imagine it.
It was late at night when all the work was finally finished. After exchanging greetings with the other employees who were encouraging each other for their hard work, he returned to his room. He thought about calling Jerome but decided against it. It was time for him to be in dreamland.
After washing up in the attached bathroom, he changed into comfortable clothes. He took another suppressant pill before lying down in bed. But sleep wouldn’t come easily. For some reason, his heart was pounding unusually today.
Was it because he had done less work than usual? Come to think of it, the day had ended with him just watching others work. After tossing and turning for a while, Hyeon-woo finally got up, turned on the desk lamp, and sat at the desk.
As he was flipping through a book he had brought from home to read in his spare time, he heard an unfamiliar car exhaust sound.
The sound of a car after 2 AM in this mansion, which was usually as quiet as a mouse at night except for the hooting of owls and cries of wild animals, piqued his curiosity.
After dimming the lamp, he approached the window and slightly lifted the curtain. A car had arrived in front of the mansion. The figure of an outsider greeting the butler manager who had come out to welcome him somehow looked familiar.
Hyeon-woo’s brow furrowed as he moved closer to the window to get a better look. It was too dark outside to identify easily.
As he watched them approach the mansion, something seemed odd about their direction. They were heading towards the East Wing, not the main building where the reception room was located. That very place where entry was forbidden to everyone.
Hyeon-woo’s eyes narrowed as he observed the outsider. Where had he seen that silhouette before? As he searched his memory, his eyes suddenly caught sight of the large bag in the man’s hand. An old, rugged leather bag.
“……!”
Hyeon-woo’s eyes widened as he recognized what it was.
It was a doctor’s house call bag. In his childhood, the attending physician who visited the mansion to treat Tae-geon had carried an identical bag.
Hyeon-woo’s eyes urgently moved to the man’s face. Though obscured by darkness, the familiar build and gait reminded him of a specific person. Although the man’s graying hair differed from his memory, reflecting the years that had passed, he could recognize him instantly.
It was Kwon Hak-gyu, Tae-geon’s attending physician.
*
He couldn’t sleep at all.
The sudden appearance of an unexpected figure made him dizzy, as if a storm had swept through his mind. Why had Kwon Hak-gyu appeared here?
Even knowing that he might no longer be Tae-geon’s attending physician, Hyeon-woo’s heart, once it started racing, wouldn’t calm down easily. Since he was carrying a medical bag, it was clear that someone in the East Wing needed medical attention.
He was curious about the identity of the person in the East Wing.
Kwon Hak-gyu’s car parked in front of the mansion was moved elsewhere by one of the employees. Hyeon-woo stood by the window for a long time, watching the entrance to the East Wing, waiting for Kwon Hak-gyu to reappear. But no one appeared until dawn broke.
After staying up all night, Hyeon-woo headed to the basement where the dining room was located. He received his portion on a tray and deliberately sat at a table where people were gathered, greeting them.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning, have a nice day.”
The employees greeted him warmly. While eating his soup with a spoon and observing carefully, Hyeon-woo casually opened his mouth.
“Around dawn yesterday, I heard a car sound outside, and when I looked, I saw a stranger entering the East Wing. Is there something in the East Wing?”
He asked nonchalantly. But there was no answer. Feeling the suddenly tense atmosphere, Hyeon-woo looked up with a puzzled face and met eyes with a young employee sitting across from him. He was the one who had moved Kwon Hak-gyu’s car at dawn.
“I wonder? I fell asleep early yesterday, so I didn’t hear anything.”
Other employees chimed in one after another, agreeing with him.
“Me too.”
“I was too tired yesterday…”
Of course, it was a late hour when everyone should have been asleep, but knowing for certain that the words of the person who had driven Kwon Hak-gyu’s car were false, it was hard to accept the current situation where everyone unanimously claimed ignorance. It was extremely suspicious.
Feeling that asking again wouldn’t yield any clues, Hyeon-woo kept his mouth shut. It would be the same if he asked the manager or the butler manager. This attitude of the employees must be due to their influence.
He became convinced that some secret was hidden in the off-limits East Wing.
After finishing cleaning the corridor, he entered the library on the upper floor. As he approached the window for ventilation before cleaning, Hyeon-woo’s eyes widened. He discovered the white car of the attending physician he had seen at dawn yesterday, hidden among the bushes at the back of the mansion. As if trying to conceal the visit of an outsider.
What on earth was going on?
During cleaning, he frequently went back and forth to the library window, watching for any sign of Kwon Hak-gyu who might appear at any time. However, he couldn’t see him until the end of his work day. Given that he hadn’t appeared even by this time, it seemed the medical examination was taking quite long, leading Hyeon-woo to speculate that there might be more than one patient.
After dinner, Hyeon-woo returned to his room and started reading any book he could grab, focusing all his attention on any engine sound from outside. But perhaps due to consuming too much concentration, coupled with accumulated fatigue from not sleeping well the previous night, Hyeon-woo found himself nodding off like a sick chicken while sitting at his desk.
Around dawn, a heavy car exhaust sound poured from outside the window, but Hyeon-woo, who had fallen completely asleep, couldn’t hear any sound.
How much time had passed? A look of dismay crossed Hyeon-woo’s face as he woke up to a noisy morning call. Bright sunlight was pouring in. He couldn’t even remember when he had fallen asleep. Rushing out of the room and running to the library in the main building, Hyeon-woo checked outside the window and let out a dejected sigh.
The car was gone.
He had missed it.
He wanted to know why they had come here at that dawn. He felt like he couldn’t do anything in this state. Having discovered Kwon Hak-gyu, he sensed the presence of someone who would persistently haunt him like a ghost, messing with his mind all day, and he desperately needed Kwon Hak-gyu’s answer to escape from it.
He knew it in his head. He knew better than anyone that unlike himself, who was living day by day as if being chased, that person with a secure future ahead wouldn’t be in this mansion. Yet Hyeon-woo wanted to confirm this fact through Hak-gyu’s own words.
The image of him escorting someone politely, dressed in a bright cream-colored tailcoat, flickered before his eyes. The scene he had tried so hard to ignore and forget had finally popped up like this.
A bitter self-mockery spread across Hyeon-woo’s face. It had been 4 years since then. It was enough time for him to have already had a wedding, built a happy family, and even had several children. There was no way Tae-geon, who would be living more abundantly than anyone, would be trapped in this isolated mansion.
As he left the library with dejected steps, the desolate air lingering in the corridor enveloped him. The familiar smell in the air hooked onto the stale emotions buried in a corner of his heart and pulled them out.
The late spring of his seventh year, when he had reached a turning point in his life.
Holding his father’s hand, waiting for the driver to come pick him up, he had seen yellow flower buds on tree branches and heat haze shimmering on the ground. Perhaps because he had fully enjoyed the spring that was beginning to stir, thawing the frozen earth, before arriving at the mansion? The mansion, as large as a palace, felt particularly cold and chilly.
While outside, spring was in full bloom with forsythias bursting into yellow flowers, that place alone was in the midst of a cold winter. That’s how he first met Tae-geon, who was left alone in the middle of a frozen ice castle.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
