Chapter 182: Venereal Diseases Never Come One at a Time [2]
Chapter 182: Venereal Diseases Never Come One at a Time [2]
“Huh?”
At Kang Hyeok’s words, Dolseok raised a hand to his head.
He had probably only meant to sweep his hair back.
But even that simple motion was more than his hair could withstand.
“Mm.”
Dolseok groaned as he looked at the hair caught in his palm.
His hair had not just started falling out yesterday or today.
It had already been more than five days since it began coming out at an alarming rate.
Naturally, it had long since become thin and patchy.
To be honest, even Kang Hyeok had reached the point where, from behind, he could barely tell whether this was Dolseok or some other old man.
“See? Your hair’s falling out like crazy.”
“I... it really is.”
“Stay right there.”
“Yes?”
“You look like you’ve lost some weight too... Mm.”
Stroking his chin, Kang Hyeok stared at Dolseok.
It was enough to make his head tilt on its own.
I didn’t see whether the bastard actually took his medicine properly, but...
In any case, the wound at the base had healed cleanly, had it not?
He had even removed all the stitches a while ago.
He had checked it a few more times after that as well.
If it got infected again there, it really would have to be chopped clean off.
The gonorrhea’s gone. It’s all gone... so why’s he like this?
He had already expected infertility, that Dolseok would become a seedless watermelon.
That was a pretty serious complication too, but it was not something that caused an immediate crisis.
If Kang Hyeok did not tell him, Dolseok would probably go his whole life never knowing whether he was infertile or not.
That gisaeng waiting in his hometown did not seem likely to marry Dolseok anyway.
And there was no way his master, Seungmun, would permit it.
“Uh, it really is falling out like crazy...”
Dolseok stood there blankly, continuing to scratch at his head.
Each time, countless strands of hair came away in his hand.
Other people might have found the sight unfamiliar, but not Kang Hyeok.
That kind of hair loss sometimes happened to patients who received strong chemotherapy, especially blood cancer patients.
“Young Master, why is this happening?”
Dolseok asked as he watched the hair scatter away in the wind.
His eyes brimmed with tears.
It was an entirely understandable reaction.
Until recently, his most precious possession had been in trouble, and now a man’s life itself—his hair—was acting up.
“Well. Mm.”
The problem was that even Kang Hyeok did not really know what on earth this was.
“You know, don’t you, Young Master?”
Dolseok asked again, thinking he must have heard wrong.
After all, Kang Hyeok had never once said anything so uncertain before.
He was always clear and decisive. He had even treated those Japanese bastards without any trouble.
Yet now he was saying that he could not treat Dolseok, the one closest to him, at least in Dolseok’s own mind.
It was absurd.
But Kang Hyeok crushed Dolseok’s expectations without mercy.
“No, I have absolutely no idea.”
“There’s really something even you don’t know?”
“Yeah. I just learned that myself. I have no clue at all.”
It was true.
He had imagined the gonorrhea worsening and having to cut the thing off.
Because of that, there had even been days when he felt awkward looking at Dolseok’s face.
But as for any symptoms beyond that, he had never once thought about them.
“Come on. Don’t be like that. Please take a look. You have to treat me... aren’t you a heaven-sent doctor?”
“I thought so too, but I’m telling you, I really don’t know.”
“Huh...”
“Come inside for now. Let me have a proper look.”
Kang Hyeok hurried into the room the local magistrate had provided nearby.
Then he let out a sigh.
It was a deep, heavy sigh, the kind he could not bring himself to release in front of Dolseok.
Mm. I really don’t know...
There was no question that Kang Hyeok was an exceptionally brilliant doctor.
Naturally, he was a master of surgical technique.
On top of that, his knowledge of internal medicine was also outstanding.
Better, in fact, than that of most doctors in twenty-first-century South Korea or even the United States.
And that was precisely the problem.
Kang Hyeok was a doctor from twenty-first-century South Korea.
Mm... it still feels like some kind of venereal disease...
Sitting down, Kang Hyeok looked at Dolseok, who had only just started taking off his shoes.
Since Dolseok was looking downward, the crown of his head was fully exposed.
Over the past few days, he had almost begun to resemble a prematurely aged old man.
Just from his hair alone, he looked older than Seungmun.
A venereal disease. Ah... why did it have to be a venereal disease?
One could practically say that twenty-first-century South Korea was barren ground for venereal disease, so drastically had the prevalence declined.
Gonorrhea, which had spread almost like a plague nationwide barely half a century ago, had become nearly impossible to find.
It was quite a difficult disease to catch domestically.
Only the sort of people who went on bad trips to Southeast Asia might experience it.
And even then, with the miracle item known as a condom, one could almost say there was no chance of catching it.
“Young Master. Should I lie down here?”
In contrast to Kang Hyeok’s uncertainty, Dolseok’s face was full of desperation.
Because of that, Kang Hyeok found himself nodding almost as if bewitched.
It was the first time in his not-so-long life that he had laid a patient down without even the slightest plan in mind.
That was why he kept sighing.
“Whew.”
“Please stop that. You’re making me nervous.”
“I told you before, I really don’t know.”
“Can a doctor even say that to a patient?”
Dolseok stuck out his lips and complained sulkily.
But there was no use pouting.
That was not going to magically produce knowledge that did not exist.
Kang Hyeok merely shook his head and began examining Dolseok’s scalp.
“Just hold on. I might notice something if I keep looking.”
“Yes...”
Dolseok nodded, his face utterly dejected.
Then suddenly, as if he had remembered something, he turned toward Kang Hyeok.
“But where did Makbong, Miss Yeoju, and Yeoni all go?”
“Oh, them? Apparently some sandaenori troupe came by nearby. They went there.”
“Oh.”
Dolseok liked entertainment as much as anyone.
But neither sandaenori nor anything else could lift his spirits now.
His face quickly went dull again as he lowered his head.
Another handful of hair came out in the process, but Kang Hyeok decided to pretend not to notice.
“Hmm.”
“Do you see anything?”
“For now, it doesn’t look like there’s an infection here.”
There was no heat, no swelling, just hair loss.
“Umm...”
“Don’t look so disappointed. I’ll check everything from top to bottom.”
Kang Hyeok shifted his gaze to Dolseok’s face.
When one did not know what was going on, the best thing was to inspect everything thoroughly.
“Your eyes... no anemia.”
Kang Hyeok pulled down Dolseok’s eyelids and nodded.
Dolseok was desperate enough to grasp at straws by now, so he stayed completely still no matter what Kang Hyeok did.
Kang Hyeok slowly examined his nose, then spoke.
“Oh, right. Don’t you have any symptoms around your head? Other than the hair falling out.”
“Other than the hair?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm... Ah, I think my head hurts a little...”
“You have a headache?”
“Yes. But it’s not terribly bad. Just kind of dull, you know?”
Dull or splitting, it was still a new symptom.
Kang Hyeok filed away the headache together with the hair loss.
Of course, that did not mean any new diagnosis immediately came to mind.
“Say ah.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah. Hold it. Hm?”
Kang Hyeok was shining the penlight inside when he suddenly tilted his head.
Unable to let even the slightest reaction from him pass unnoticed, Dolseok asked anxiously, “Why?”
“Your throat’s a little swollen. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Uh... it hurt until a few days ago, but now it’s fine.”
“Hmm... so that’s how it is?”
Hair loss, headache, and now inflammation in the throat as well.
It was beginning to look like some kind of systemic infection.
He still did not know what it was, though.
“The lymph nodes here are pretty swollen.”
“Ah, that’s right. I noticed something there a few days ago.”
“If you had something like that, it never occurred to you to tell me?”
“Well... I was only looking at my lower half these days.”
“Wonderful. Truly admirable.”
Kang Hyeok smacked the back of Dolseok’s head so hard it made a sharp sound.
A little more hair fell out in the process, but Kang Hyeok continued pretending not to notice.
“You’re a little... swollen here too.”
Kang Hyeok pressed hard on Dolseok’s knee.
“Argh!”
He had truly only pressed lightly, but Dolseok let out a cry and rolled about on the bedding.
“Does it hurt?”
“Of course it hurts! If you press like that, anything hurts!”
Dolseok began protesting tearfully.
As he did, he pressed hard on Kang Hyeok’s knee in return, but of course it was pointless.
Kang Hyeok had no inflammatory response at all.
“No. You’re the one who’s weird here.”
“Ugh... Why are your knees like iron lumps?”
“Ah. Shut up and be quiet.”
“Why? It hurts.”
“Because I think I might know what this is.”
“Oh.”
Dolseok immediately closed his mouth and looked only at Kang Hyeok.
His master was unreasonable and sometimes even rough.
But still, as far as Dolseok knew, he was the best doctor there was.
Meanwhile, Kang Hyeok slowly began gathering together everything he had learned so far along with what he already knew.
It’s actually unclear when exactly the bastard caught the venereal disease.
Had he not been constantly wandering in and out of the red-light district from the very first day they entered Tsushima?
Kang Hyeok had not followed him around every day recording how many times he slept with whom.
But a rough inference was still possible.
Still, I know when the first symptoms appeared. Then roughly... it would’ve been around the last day in Kyoto.
That was more than a month and a half ago now.
What venereal disease could produce the symptoms Kang Hyeok was now seeing within about six weeks of sexual contact?
Slowly, Kang Hyeok began crossing diagnoses off one by one in his mental medical dictionary.
The gonorrhea is already taken care of.
Had he not even gone at it with a knife on the boat?
So that one was out.
Not chlamydia either. His eyes are clear, and more importantly, there weren’t those kinds of signs down there either.
It was a fairly common disease, but this was not it.
Not herpes either.
If it were herpes, there should have been those characteristic blisters.
Dolseok did not have anything even resembling blisters.
So there was no need to suspect it.
Then it really must be...
Kang Hyeok thought of the disease that had long been called the very emblem of venereal disease, threatening countless people across history.
He cursed himself for only thinking of this famous disease now.
At the same time, he felt a thrill at finally seeing a disease that was famous but almost impossible to encounter in the twenty-first century.
It pained him a little that the subject was Dolseok.
But considering it was not Kang Hyeok himself, it was still one hell of a lucky break.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Stick out your palms.”
“My palms?”
“Yeah. Hurry up. Stop wasting time.”
“H-here.”
Even at Kang Hyeok’s completely abrupt demand, Dolseok complied obediently.
Looking at his hands, Kang Hyeok nodded repeatedly.
“Good. Now your feet too.”
“My feet?”
“Yeah, idiot.”
He had already found what was almost certainly solid evidence, but he needed something even more definitive.
He had only ever seen it in pictures before. This was his first time seeing it in real life.
“Here.”
“As I thought.”
“What is it?”
“Look at it yourself. Does this look normal?”
Kang Hyeok showed Dolseok his hands and feet.
More precisely, the spots on his palms and soles.
“Good heavens.”
“Hideous, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Why is this...”
“You bastard. You didn’t take the medicine I gave you properly, did you?”
“Huh? Uh...”
Was Dolseok not the very man who had been throwing antibiotics away somewhere every single day?
It was hard to deny it now.
If he did, it felt like the Kang Hyeok standing before him might kill him.
“Yes.”
“You have syphilis. Syphilis. Do you know what kind of disease that is?”