# Chapter 20
It had already been a week since we started staying at the hospital. I helped take care of Woosang by his side.
Since water couldn’t touch his hand that had surgery, I washed his body for him, and whenever he needed to use his hands, I took care of everything.
Having injured his right hand, Woosang faced quite a lot of restrictions. But more than that, the most difficult thing was keeping blood flowing to Woosang’s finger.
After suturing a severed finger, they said that to make blood flow to that area, they needed to either attach leeches or prick the sutured area with a needle to artificially make it bleed.
What’s more, since they needed to check whether there was pain in the severed part or not, they couldn’t administer anesthesia, and he had to feel the pain while continuously bleeding through the gap. The wound had to be disturbed every 3 minutes.
Because blood had to flow at 3-minute intervals for 24 hours straight, someone had to constantly be by his side, and it wasn’t right to leave a stranger beside him when he was already tired.
Therefore, I had to stay by Woosang’s side all night, pricking his wound with a needle.
Fortunately, I didn’t have a weak stomach, so stabbing his finger with a needle wasn’t distressing. But more than that, seeing him in pain was harder.
It was as painful as if all the joints of my own fingers had been cut off. Even during my sleeping hours, another caretaker would come and continuously prick his finger with a needle.
So he had already spent several days in pain without proper sleep. Woosang had to endure this painful time for 2 more weeks.
At first, Woosang endured well, but after about 3 days, he would sometimes moan and sob.
“……ugh……”
“…Do you want another painkiller?”
“…It’s okay. I’m fine….”
After suffering greatly, Woosang, perhaps not in his right mind, asked if it wouldn’t be better to just cut off the finger.
Seeing him like that, my self-hatred grew more and more. Whether Woosang knew about my feelings or not, he usually never tried to show me that he was in pain.
‘There’s no way it’s not painful. Just watching alone makes me feel suffocated, so in what state of mind is he enduring….’
I brushed his hair with my hand and carefully checked if he was uncomfortable anywhere. Woosang stared at me blankly and moved his lips.
When I asked if we should contact his parents, Woosang earnestly insisted that we absolutely should not contact them. Instead, I asked if we could contact Bel from my side, but each time, Woosang repeatedly refused.
It seemed like he didn’t want to show this appearance to anyone.
I didn’t want to cause stress to him, who was already suffering. That was also the best I could do. So, except for bathroom breaks, I stayed by his side continuously.
I wiped his forehead again, where sweat had seeped out.
“Do you want to eat something?”
“…I don’t have an appetite.”
“Still, you should eat something. Or at least drink some water.”
As Woosang frowned slightly, I deliberately brought a water bottle to his mouth and forced him to drink. His face, which had lost weight in just a week, looked so pitiful.
In a situation like this, he might have spoken words of resentment to me, but Woosang didn’t say a single harsh word. He just shed tears and endlessly mumbled for me to stay by his side.
Seeing him like that was so painful. When I looked at Woosang with a deeply furrowed face, Woosang mumbled softly.
“Teo, tell me you won’t leave.”
“…I won’t leave. I’ll stay with you.”
“You really mustn’t leave. We haven’t properly started anything yet….”
“That’s right. When you’re discharged, let’s travel together, and let’s go live somewhere better.”
At my words, Woosang seemed relieved and nodded. Not just me, but Woosang also seemed to be becoming more emotional.
Woosang, mumbling under the influence of pain and medicine, appeared filled with resignation. Listening to his unconscious talk, he was a lonelier person than anyone else.
‘Since when has he been living with such a sense of loss?’
If that’s the case, it’s natural that he desperately wants me now.
He was pitiful. And I couldn’t help but love such a Woosang.
When I gently kissed his forehead, he smiled slightly and said thank you.
I couldn’t understand those words.
***
Two weeks had passed living in pain.
Woosang seemed to have gotten more accustomed than before.
When I told him I’d prick his finger and did so, he definitely appeared more composed than at first. And recently, he even smiled at me, saying I could take a short break.
“Teo, go home and rest a bit. You’ve been here for over a week now.”
“It’s okay. We only have a few days left. Let’s go home together.”
“…Alright.”
Satisfied with my answer, Woosang smiled slightly and looked out the window. The sun, which had noticeably shortened since we first met, seemed to indicate the time we had spent together.
When we first met, it wasn’t until after 10 o’clock that we could see a proper sunset. But seeing the shortening sun now, I had a peculiar thought.
‘When the sun disappears and it becomes a season full of darkness, what streets will we stand on? Will we still be able to be in Paris?’
Woosang, who had become impossibly thin in just 2 weeks, silently watched the sunset with me. I reached out to rub his cheek and lightly patted his shoulder.
“I’ll stay here continuously. As long as Woosang wants, so let’s go back quickly.”
I said that, wanting to give comfort to his heart that refused farewell.
Woosang looked at me and gave me a smile more beautiful than usual.
Since Woosang gained some composure, I tried to come up with a new plan. It was because there was no guarantee that going back outside would be safe.
Spending every day on topics I had never thought about before, it was actually me who was getting more tired than Woosang.
Fortunately, Woosang’s recovery speed was exceptional, and I heard that he could be discharged soon. Therefore, I could only engrave relief and anxiety deep in my heart.
“When we get home, Teo will have to do the cooking.”
“Me?”
“Since my hand is like this, I can’t do it.”
“…I’ll try my best.”
Woosang seemed pleased with that answer.
Just then, there was a knock on the hospital room door.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Mr. Yun. How are you today?”
“I’m fine.”
“I see. Then it seems you can be discharged the day after tomorrow.”
“Really?”
The doctor, checking Woosang’s hand, told him to be discharged the day after tomorrow. I conveyed words of gratitude on behalf of Woosang from his side.
Afterward, Woosang talked with the doctor about precautions for a while, and then they exchanged farewells with a relieved expression.
Finally, it was a farewell to this tiresome hospital life.
We would still need to check the wound at home, but it wouldn’t be as much as at the hospital.
I no longer wanted to look at the wound created because of me. I wanted to see the person named Woosang, not the wound.
After spending about 2 more days in the hospital taking care of the remaining procedures and observing the progress of the wound, Woosang was finally discharged.
“It’s really hot.”
“It is. Since we’ve been in the hospital the whole time, I didn’t realize it, but I guess it’s still summer.”
I mumbled with Woosang’s luggage tucked under my arm. As we left the hospital, the bustling streets naturally poured towards us.
Beyond the weather, the heat emanating from people was beyond imagination.
I took Woosang’s uninjured hand and hailed a taxi. Before being discharged, Woosang and I had already discussed and decided to stay at my place together for the time being.
The biggest reason was that we didn’t know when my colleague might pounce on Woosang, and the second reason was that he couldn’t bear the time without me.
In the taxi, we overlapped our hands so they wouldn’t be seen, then silently looked at the outside scenery.
It seemed like an anxious happiness was chasing after us.
***
“Teo, you should slice that thinly.”
“Like this?”
“Yes.”
On behalf of Woosang who had difficulty using his hands, I sliced the ingredients as instructed. Initially anxious about my knife skills, he now seemed satisfied with my familiar slicing.
Since we couldn’t simply have simple meals every day, I ended up cooking something I had never tried before according to his instructions.
As I cooked, I became accustomed to it, and now I could fully act as Woosang’s avatar.
Several changes had occurred in our lives besides this. One of them was language.
While we originally conversed only in French, recently we used English quite a lot.
According to Woosang, no foreign language was as familiar as English, no matter how much he practiced French, so when using French, he actually thought in English first and then spoke in French.
He said that’s why he could only use English when he was flustered.
I told him it was okay to speak only in English from now on, but he said that would make him quickly forget French, which would be troublesome, so he wanted to use English only when he was tired.
“But Teo, your English pronunciation is really good. Where did you learn it?”
“Well, there were many people around me who spoke English. I think I got used to it from hearing it often.”
I awkwardly made up an answer.
In my hometown, only the area where I lived had French-speaking residents, while other regions had English as their mother tongue. So, if I had to choose, my mother tongues were French and English.
Thinking about my hometown, which I had forgotten for a long time, gave me an odd feeling.
Woosang looked at me with a curious gaze. I wondered if Woosang had noticed that I wasn’t originally from France.
If it hadn’t been for the incident with my colleague, I could have kept it hidden, but after that event, I couldn’t perfectly hide myself anymore. However, I didn’t voluntarily share my story.
Even though I had shown Woosang my dirty appearance, I couldn’t deliberately dig up the past and cower in front of him.
It might be okay to tell Woosang about my hometown, but somehow it felt difficult to talk to him about that place.
It was because in my childhood, I was truly a nobody.
He would certainly sympathize with my past and embrace me, but I didn’t want to gain his pity.
I wished that only the current ‘me’ would remain in Woosang’s heart.
