Park Taehan stared blankly at Cha Inhu coughing up blood.
His mind went completely white. Before he could even process what he was seeing, the image in front of him lodged itself there whole. Shoulders rising and falling with each shallow breath. Trembling hands. And the vivid streak of red at the corner of his mouth.
Eight years. A full eight years of being by his side.
When a parentless orphan had suddenly awakened as an S-rank, the first person to reach out had been Cha Inhu. Without hesitation, without suspicion. As if he’d always belonged there. How to handle mana, how to apply skills. Not just the tricks for surviving in combat, but how to live as a person.
Most of what had made Park Taehan who he was today had come from the man standing in front of him.
So when he’d heard about his condition first — from a healer whose name he barely knew — it had been nothing short of absurd.
At first, he’d thought it was nonsense.
Hunter-onset multiple organ failure syndrome. An incurable disease in which the body cannot withstand mana, causing the organs throughout the body to deteriorate. There was no way Cha Inhu had contracted a disease that only afflicted lower-ranked Hunters — that was what he’d told himself.
“Cough, cough—!”
Truthfully, Park Taehan had, for a while, simply forgotten about Cha Inhu’s rank.
The man who had always remained standing through any pain. The man who had always stood at the front and led them through any danger. Cha Inhu’s rank had been nothing more than a meaningless letter to Park Taehan. Which was exactly why what he was witnessing now hit so much harder.
The tissue held over his mouth was stained red in an instant. With every cough that tore through him, Park Taehan felt his own heart drop. Upper body hunched as if he might collapse at any moment, Cha Inhu could barely keep himself upright.
“Seo Yungyeom…”
The name barely made it past Park Taehan’s lips. Another S-rank who had fought alongside them. And the only healer he trusted.
“I’ll go get Seo Yungyeom—!”
Park Taehan shot to his feet. There was no reason to hesitate any longer. He had to move, right now.
That was the moment. Cha Inhu’s hand caught his collar.
“……!”
The grip was weaker than expected. His fingertips were cold, and the pull was barely there. Even so, Park Taehan couldn’t move a single step.
“Wait, cough—!”
Cha Inhu opened his mouth as if to say something, but a cough broke through before the words could form. The sentence never took shape. The blood-tinged cough soaked through the tissue again.
Park Taehan froze. If he shook off this hand — if he let go of this moment — he felt certain he would never see Cha Inhu again.
He looked down at the hand holding him. A trembling hand. Fingers that hung on with no real strength left in them. He couldn’t believe that any of this was real.
“……”
Park Taehan stood there without a word. Used tissues piled up one by one, and the only sounds filling the room were ragged breathing and the rain outside. The seconds stretched long enough to blur his sense of time entirely.
Only after a long while did Cha Inhu’s coughing finally begin to ease.
“It won’t do any good.”
“……”
He hadn’t expected those to be the first words out of his mouth.
Cha Inhu sat with his head bowed for a moment, drawing in a long breath and releasing it. The inhale was short; the exhale dragged on longer than necessary. Even the brief pause to catch his breath looked like a struggle.
“Don’t tell me… Seo Yungyeom already knows?”
Cha Inhu shook his head. A swift, unambiguous denial.
“Yungyeom is a healer, not a doctor.”
The moment those words landed, Park Taehan’s legs gave out beneath him. He dropped back to the floor with a dull thud. The cold of the floor pressed up through him, but he had no room to notice.
The fact that he’d learned Cha Inhu was sick before Seo Yungyeom. Standing before that reality, Park Taehan couldn’t begin to sort out what he was supposed to feel. Whether to be glad, or whether to be furious. Most likely, neither was the right answer.
“You said it yourself. That you were going to tell us after getting a proper diagnosis.”
“That’s not the—!”
The sound of teeth grinding rang out sharp and clear in the quiet room. Park Taehan pressed his face into his hands and dragged them down. His breath shook roughly beneath his palms.
He looked up at the ceiling, but his gaze couldn’t settle anywhere. He had no confidence in himself to leave Cha Inhu’s side right now. And yet he had no confidence to face him with a composed expression either.
“So… did you ask another healer for treatment? Were you just going to tell us — tell me — later?”
“…It was a coincidence. I just happened to cough up blood in front of one.”
Park Taehan’s shoulders went imperceptibly rigid. Not an excuse, not an explanation. The tone of someone treating it as if it were nothing — that was the part that cut deepest.
“Haha…”
A hollow laugh slipped out. Park Taehan’s head dropped forward. The last thread of hope he’d been holding onto shattered with that one sentence. Nothing else he could hear would change anything.
“Get out of this place.”
“What?”
At Cha Inhu’s reaction, Park Taehan slowly lifted his head. The eyes visible between his fingers had gone cold and hollow. The chaos from moments ago was gone, replaced by a decision that had hardened into something solid. It was the face of someone who had found a direction for the anger he’d been containing.
“Starting today, you’re living with me.”
“Why would I ever—”
“Then you’re planning to stay here alone in that condition?”
Dark eyes swept quickly over the blood-soaked tissues. Suppressed mana spread out cold and deliberate, pressing down on the air in the room.
“You dying.”
Park Taehan said it low.
“I will never allow it.”
Well, since when does dying need someone’s permission.
I looked at Park Taehan with an expression of pure disbelief. My attention right now was on neither his mana nor his anger. All I could think about was how desperately I wanted to rinse out the lingering, sticky taste of blood from my mouth.
I just wish he’d leave already.
I thought that to myself, but contrary to what I wanted, Park Taehan didn’t budge an inch. His gaze didn’t waver. Which only made him more of a nuisance.
The next moment, his hand grabbed my arm. A rougher and more decisive grip than I’d anticipated.
“Hey, hey. Just wait—!”
My body was lurched upright by force. Before I could even find my balance, the air caught in my throat. The taste of blood spread across my tongue again. I gritted my teeth and looked down at the hand clamped around my arm.
I had a feeling this situation was going to get a great deal more troublesome than I’d anticipated.
I tried to wrench free of his hand, but the strength wasn’t there. He was gripping my elbow rather than my wrist, and every time I twisted at an angle, my breathing gave out before anything else did.
“I said just wait.”
I said it quietly. I didn’t have the energy to raise my voice.
“This is uncomfortable.”
Park Taehan didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled me toward him once more. My feet dragged along the floor as I was hauled forward. A brief wave of dizziness passed through me, and my vision swayed faintly.
“……”
He said nothing. He simply kept pulling me until we reached the front door.
“Hey, Park Taehan.”
“What.”
“…This is my situation. It’s not something you get to force.”
“It’s your situation, so I should just stay quiet and disappear?”
The words landed like something sharp.
“That’s not what I—”
I opened my mouth to argue back, but a cough clawed its way up my throat first. I turned my head quickly and pressed the back of my hand over my mouth. Heat surged up again, and a metallic taste settled on my tongue.
A moment of silence.
“See.”
He swallowed his anger and spoke.
“You’re not in a state to be left alone right now.”
I didn’t look up. If I met his eyes, I had a feeling things would spiral even further out of control.
Instead, I waited for my breathing to settle. The tangle in my chest loosened bit by bit. A few seconds passed before my breath finally found its rhythm again. In that short stretch of time, I was searching for some way to brush off the situation lightly.
“…So what, you’re going to kidnap me?”
I let the end of my sentence rise just slightly. More like a joke than a serious accusation. Normally, Park Taehan would have clicked his tongue and let it go.
But he didn’t laugh.
“If I have to.”
Something about that short answer sent a quiet chill down my back.
I slowly raised my head. His face was set hard, and he held my gaze without giving an inch. Eyes that left no room to look away.
Ah. That was the moment the feeling shifted from a premonition to a certainty — this had gotten far more troublesome than I’d thought.
I carefully opened my mouth to try and ease the mood.
“No, I’ll go, but… I at least need to grab my things.”
Even as I said it, I knew it was unconvincing. Even so, I kept talking, hoping to buy myself even a little time.
But of course, it was useless.
Instead of answering, Park Taehan swept his gaze slowly around the room. Worn wallpaper. An old lamp. A folded blanket in the corner and a small table. His eyes lingered briefly on each thing they landed on, then he let out a humorless laugh as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Is there anything worth grabbing here?”
I thought for a moment, then forced something out.
“…Clothes, for one.”
Even I found it a little ridiculous. No one knew better than me that there was nothing in this room that could properly be called something worth taking. The mug that had just been smashed — I’d only said I was fond of it. It wasn’t as if I’d had enough attachment to bother packing it. Truthfully, I had no attachment to anything in this place.
Park Taehan let out yet another hollow laugh. It sounded less like a laugh and more like resignation. He tilted his head slightly and looked down at me.
“Clothes?”
The short echo came out strangely low. And the next moment, my vision shifted without warning.
“…Huh?”
No warning. No time to prepare. Park Taehan simply lifted me up. One arm braced beneath my waist and the other wrapped under my knees, and my body was hoisted into the air with far less effort than it should have taken.
“Hey, hold on—!”
I flailed and reached out, but his hold didn’t shift even slightly. This was not how I’d wanted to feel the gap between an S-rank and a C-rank, but the situation moved forward with no regard for my preferences.
Park Taehan looked down at me and said,
“Head to toe… I’ll buy you everything new, shoes included. Just come with me.”
His tone was that of someone stating something already decided — one that didn’t even bother to offer a choice. I pressed my hand against his shoulder and tried to twist away one more time, then gave up almost immediately. The pointless effort had only made my breathing shorter.
“…You seriously never listen.”
I muttered it quietly, but Park Taehan didn’t respond. He only tightened the arms holding me, just slightly. A wordless declaration that he wasn’t giving me any room to escape.
Once I stopped struggling, I felt strange — almost at ease. No, not at ease exactly. It was more accurate to say the will to resist had simply drained out of me.
I turned my head to the side and took one last look at the room. A worn-down single room. A broken mug.
All of it receded from my view with surprising ease.
Yeah, well.
I thought to myself.
It’s only one year, anyway.
The sound of the door clicking shut echoed faintly behind me. And just like that, I left the room — cradled in Park Taehan’s arms.
