The week where people from the main house came every morning to organize the house, prepare meals, and a personal physician visited in the afternoon to check his health condition was like hell for Raon.
He had hoped to escape the main house, and Mom had conceded on that part, so now it was Raon’s turn to concede. In a situation where unwanted people came and went through his house as they pleased, all Raon could do was stare blankly out the window and play with his energy.
The energy he’d been playing with by making it round and rolling it became a cube and then a cylinder. The energy he’d been playing with never whooshed off somewhere as if it had grown wings. Because Bbobbo wasn’t there. Was Bbobbo still at Jaehwi’s house?
There were many cases where the end of his chain of thoughts went off in odd directions, but the conclusion Raon reached at the end of the long time was one thing. Let’s become shameless. Let’s become insanely shameless. Even if he’d returned to square one, he had to brazenly charge forward with a thick face. The end couldn’t be death again.
Whether they looked at him with unknowable expressions, sent him contemptuous glances, or how he and Jaehwi were talked about in people’s mouths—none of those things mattered in the slightest. He couldn’t leave Jaehwi lonely in that pain once again. Even if he couldn’t make him completely escape from the pain, he wanted to be by his side.
And Jaehwi didn’t answer his calls to the very end.
* * *
Going to work with Jay’s help and enduring with the power of painkillers, the first day at work after a week was literally arduousness itself.
“Young Master. Please handle only urgent matters and return home.”
“Not this, bring the documents piled up over there.”
Normally, he would have sent Jay away as soon as he arrived at work and handled work alone, but now he needed Jay’s help even to move a bundle of documents. A week in words, but if you calculate including coming out of the dungeon and staying at Jaehwi’s house, it had already been over ten days since he’d been injured.
“With the tablet…”
“Kang Raon. Don’t act tough and go home. The center won’t collapse without you.”
After moving the document file onto the desk, Jay handed him the one on top and spoke. As Hyukjin appeared, cutting off Jay’s words suggesting it might be better to work with a tablet, Raon clicked his tongue.
How was it that everyone around him was full of nags? Having escaped from home, it seemed Hyukjin had now taken over that baton.
“If you’re going to talk nonsense, get lost. I don’t have time to play with you.”
“Do it with a tablet like Jay said. This is all a waste of resources. Why have all the reports printed on paper and submitted? Just look at them with your eyes and sign.”
When Jay stood close beside him and opened the file in his stead, Raon wrapped his left hand around his side and held a pen with his right hand.
“Stop it and leave.”
“Why did you go into the dungeon?”
“To die.”
Even after being cursed at, he didn’t leave but kept stalling, and at Hyukjin’s action of finally throwing out a question, Raon clicked his tongue and flicked the tip of his pen. Jay, who hadn’t gone anywhere after being kept by his side and used, turned the page on his own.
“You’re not really trying to become Nox’s Guide, are you?”
Thunk.
In the end, Raon put down the pen he was holding as if throwing it on the desk and sent Jay out with a chin gesture. Then he carefully stood up from his seat with his arms wrapped around his upper body and headed toward the window.
“I am going to. Why?”
“Aren’t you both out of your minds?”
“Did Jaehwi ask to put my name on the compatibility test list?”
“How did you know?”
“Because I told him to.”
“You think Nox will accept that? Do you know how picky his conditions for choosing a Guide are? There are only 2 A-grades in this compatibility test. It’s filled entirely with S-grades, and suddenly a C-grade?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Our Hwi strangely gives in to everything if I insist. You think it’s nonsense too, right? With that grade difference, even if we’re compatible, would that cover it? Really.”
Birds flew freely across the clear sky.
“Isn’t that obvious? More than anything, why are you suddenly freaking out about becoming a Guide, freaking out? No one here will be happy when you say you’re becoming a Guide. Starting with your family, even if you get a perfect match with him, you know that if there’s a Guide who’s S-grade and scores above average compatibility, naturally that Guide will become Nox’s partner.”
“Suddenly, what? I hesitated too much and delayed on this matter. Even now I’m hesitating and trying to show consideration that doesn’t suit me, which just made things more tangled. Whether I become a Guide or not, such things can be argued after the results come out… Since you’re saying my name is on the list too, when is the test?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“If you’ve said everything you wanted to say, get out.”
Upon arriving at work, he’d taken off his jacket and put on a cardigan. Whether his condition wasn’t good, the indoor air felt more chilly than usual, so Raon headed toward the wardrobe.
Should I have brought a lap blanket? Even so, bringing a lap blanket to the office is a bit much. In this state, should I really leave early? Remote work maybe? Before that, I haven’t even seen Jaehwi’s face yet.
“Kang Raon.”
Raon, who had opened the wardrobe and was blankly thinking about this and that by himself, turned his head at Hyukjin’s call. The quite heavy voice, different from before, bothered him.
“You’re not Nox’s Guide.”
“I am. It’s me. It was before, and it is now. Even if it comes around again, it’ll be me. If you have time to waste with me like this, organize the bonding-related materials nicely and bring them to me.”
With those words, Raon pointed at the door with his fingertips.
“Hey. You’re doing something Nox doesn’t even want…”
“How do you know?”
“What?”
“Whether Jaehwi wants it or doesn’t want it. How do you know that!”
“How do I know? These days even contact guiding…”
Knock knock.
At the sound of knocking, Hyukjin stopped what he was saying. But having understood the meaning of those words well enough, Raon bit down hard on his left index finger without realizing it.
“Young Master. Park Hajun-nim is here.”
The visitor opened the door and entered even before Jay’s words finished.
“Kang Raon. So stubborn. I told you to rest enough, but you came to work after exactly one week? How’s your body?”
Does one leave and another appear? With Hajun’s appearance, Hyukjin conveyed his intention to leave and went out, but Raon, who was once again with someone other than himself in his office, swallowed a sigh inwardly. I came to see our Jaehwi, but I haven’t even met the Jaehwi I want to see yet, and only odd people keep appearing. Thanks to that, work is piling up, and the time to tactfully go out to meet Jaehwi is being delayed.
“What brings a doctor from a large hospital where it’s hard to get appointments all the way here?”
Raon, who couldn’t find anything more to put on, closed the wardrobe and headed toward his chair instead of the sofa.
“Would you believe me if I said I came representing everyone who worries about you?”
He’d clearly gestured for him to go to the sofa, but when Hajun approached his side without paying attention, Raon stopped his steps.
“Hyung.”
“Actually, I wanted to see you. To see your condition with my own eyes directly.”
At the sight of him putting the bag he’d brought on the desk and taking out bandages from it, Raon bit down hard on his lower lip. It was because the content of the last conversation he’d had with him was only now coming to mind. He’d been completely forgetting about that matter while worrying about the unfamiliar pain in his body and Jaehwi, whom he couldn’t contact.
“Take it off.”
“Hajun hyung.”
“I came as a doctor, as a doctor. Your mother is curious too. They say a personal physician stopped by your house every day after you left the main house. Each time, the personal physician would have wrapped fresh bandages for you, but who wrapped them today? Jay?”
The bandages he’d unwrapped when showering ended up not being wrapped again. It would have been fine to ask Jay, but he didn’t like someone’s hands touching his body. Even if it was for treatment. Although he was feeling that there was a big difference between having and not having the bandages that firmly supported his upper body, Raon couldn’t readily move.
“I’m busy as you said. Anyway, time is the medicine in this state, so even if I examine you, there’s nothing particular I can do for you, but I can definitely wrap the bandages well.”
At Hajun’s words as he sat on the edge of the desk and touched the bandages with his hands, Raon touched the collar of his cardigan with his fingertips. If he had the bandages on when he finished urgent work and went to see Jaehwi directly, his movements would be more comfortable than now and the pain would definitely be less. So the probability of showing a painful or uncomfortable appearance in front of him would also be lower…
After hesitating for just a moment, when Raon raised his hands to take off the cardigan, Hajun approached and helped him take off his clothes. Raon, who couldn’t refuse his touch, had to swallow another sigh inwardly. It would be better to have one arm or leg broken. Injuring his ribs made every action uncomfortable.
Even putting on and taking off a single piece of clothing. Looking at Hajun arranging his cardigan and hanging it on the chair, Raon put his hand on his shirt. With the movement of his fingertips, the buttons came undone one by one.
Other than the rustling sound of clothes, no other sound could be heard. It was a patient showing their wound to a doctor and receiving treatment. If he hadn’t heard strange words from Hajun, Raon would have had no reason to feel embarrassed or awkward at all.
Of all times, to have heard such words from him, and for their first meeting situation to be like this.
“I knew this would happen. They say there’s no special treatment for cracked and broken ribs, but you still should have wrapped the bandages. How did you endure like this? With painkillers?”
Having only unbuttoned a couple of buttons from the bottom, at Hajun’s touch as he came close and grabbed his shirt, Raon flinched and tried to step back.
“Forget those words for now. I know I was hasty too. Right now it’s doctor and patient. Got it?”
At Hajun’s tone, no different from usual, and his neat fingertips unbuttoning cleanly, Raon only bit down on his lower lip.
