Chapter 291: Tempering (7)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 291: Tempering (7)
The scent of the air filling his nostrils was distinctly different.
Even in his deep sleep, Kim Jeong-hun's nose twitched at the realization. His eyelids trembled, then slowly began to lift.
Bright light filtered through his narrowly opened eyes.
As they gradually adjusted, a stark white ceiling came into view.
‘Where am I…?’
It wasn't the ceiling of his own room, nor was it the familiar ceiling of a motel or hotel he'd see after a one-night stand. This was completely different.
‘Something feels off.’
It was just a plain white ceiling, yet it gave him a strange, unsettling feeling.
Just as he tried to turn his head to figure out where he was,
Screech.
The sound of a sliding door was followed by a high-pitched, yet somehow lifeless, voice.
“Mr. Kim Jeong-hun, time to change your IV drip~”
He struggled to turn his head and saw a nurse.
She was an expressionless woman in a crisp white uniform, hanging a new bag on the IV stand.
It was then that Kim Jeong-hun realized something was wrong with his body.
‘I have no strength.’
His entire body felt powerless.
Even opening his mouth was an effort, and his voice came out as a weak croak.
He forced his lips apart to ask the nurse, “Where… is… this…?”
The look on the nurse's face said it all.
Here we go again.
She quickly erased the fleeting expression, replacing it with a smile completely devoid of life as she answered his question.
“This is Mom's Love Hospital, where we treat our patients with a mother's love~”
“……?”
Mom's Love Hospital.
A strange fear crept in at the sound of a hospital name he'd never heard before.
Who the hell would name a hospital something like that?
‘This nurse is weird, too.’
The nurse changing his IV was just as strange. Her expression, her movements—they all felt distinctly different from any nurse he'd ever seen.
‘Something… something's wrong.’
Something was definitely wrong.
He began to look around in a panic, and his eyes fell on the scene outside the window.
A dense forest and a winding river—a world away from the Seoul cityscape he loved so dearly.
“Ugh… ahh…!”
As he began to struggle in alarm, the nurse firmly pressed his arm down.
“Calm down, now~”
She's terrifying.
Her eyes, like a dead fish's, were utterly terrifying.
It was a gaze that looked upon a patient not as a living being, but as a roadside stone or a weed.
“Wh-where… where is this! This… isn't Seoul, is it?”
“This is Gangwon Province, sir.”
“…Why? Why… am I… why!”
He couldn't understand.
Why in the world was he a patient in some bizarre hospital in Gangwon Province?
Then, the broken pieces of his memory finally started to connect.
“Ah…!”
That's right.
Before waking up here, he'd been in the training room at his house.
He had just swallowed the red pill he'd bought from that strange man at the club.
‘Then Kim Do-jin walked in…?’
They fought.
The thrill of that moment was still seared into his brain.
He remembered the feeling of keeping up with Do-jin's movements—movements he couldn't have possibly followed just a week ago—and pressing the attack.
‘And then… what happened then?’
What happened after that?
He couldn't remember.
Did he manage to land a solid hit on that bastard, or did he lose?
It was as if someone had smeared black ink over that part of his memory. He couldn't recall a thing.
He had to know.
‘Did I win? Or lose?’
Did that bastard end up defiling his sister?
As the questions chased each other through his mind,
“This will sting a little, sir. Just a small prick~”
“Ah!”
A thick needle pierced his arm.
“All done~”
The nurse, whose gaze he couldn't even bear to meet, finally left.
As she walked away with mechanical steps and opened the sliding door, he overheard a shocking statement.
“The patient in 403 seems to be experiencing temporary delirium due to drug side effects. Make sure he doesn't leave his room, watch him closely~”
“……!”
Drug side effects?
The worst possible thought flashed through his mind.
Mom's Love Hospital.
Could this bizarrely named hospital be… a mental hospital?
“N-no…!”
Panicked by the ominous thought, he tried to force his body upright.
Screech!
The door slid open again, and Kim Jeong-hun's head snapped in its direction.
The person who came into view was…
“Oh, Jeong-hun. You're awake?”
“You bastard…!”
It was none other than Kim Do-jin.
* * *
Mom's Love Hospital.
A psychiatric hospital that had been operating for decades in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.
I had strongly recommended admitting Kim Jeong-hun here, and after much deliberation, his parents had agreed.
“Not that they had a choice.”
At first, they had vehemently refused to send their son to a facility tucked away in the remote mountains of Chuncheon.
But the reason they caved was brutally realistic.
“This was the only place that would take him.”
As I'd explained to them, he had taken a dangerous drug, one that specifically affects the body of an Awakened.
Any normal hospital would have detected the narcotics during the admission screening and immediately reported him to the police.
So, what makes this place different?
Simple.
This is the kind of place where, for the right price, they'll invent a disease for you if you need one.
The moment I told them this hospital could keep the police out of it, they reluctantly agreed.
Of course, it helped that Eun-bi was there, encouraging them to trust me.
In truth, there was a bigger reason I had him sent to this remote place, one beyond what I told his parents.
“I put him in here so I could be the one to decide when he gets out….”
And after seeing his test results, I knew I'd made the right call.
“…To think he'd test clean.”
The hospital's report on him stated that everything was normal.
In other words, he showed none of the typical signs of drug use.
But if what he said was true, he had definitely taken that red pill….
“Does this mean some incredible new drug is on the market?”
A new narcotic that can't be detected by conventional tests.
There was no other way to explain these results.
Riiip.
Fwoosh!
I tore the report—which no one could ever see—into pieces and burned it.
“Well… nothing to be done about it.”
It was a shame the tests came back clean, but it didn't change the overall situation.
Whether he was technically normal or not, he wasn't getting out of this hospital until I said so.
“He should be waking up around now.”
I got up from a bench on a path winding through the dense forest and headed for the hospital building.
When I opened the door to his room, I saw him struggling on the bed.
It seemed he'd figured out something was wrong and was trying to make a run for it.
Just as his gaze landed on me, I gave him a bright smile and a wave.
“Oh, Jeong-hun. You're awake?”
“You bastard…!”
“Hey now, 'bastard'? Such harsh language.”
Looks like he still hadn't fully grasped the situation.
“Wh-where did you lock me up, you son of a bitch…!”
“Where do you think?” I replied with a smirk to his terrified question. “A mental hospital. It's called Mom's Love Hospital, located in Chuncheon.”
His face went white as his worst fears were confirmed.
“A-a mental hospital…? But why… why am I…”
“Why? Because you took drugs. Some very powerful ones, too.”
“……!”
His eyes widened as if they would pop out of his head.
His expression screamed, How could you possibly know that?
I could tell right away. The bastard didn't have a clear memory of our fight.
Trembling, he finally played his trump card.
“G-get my mom and dad. There's no way they would have agreed to put me in a place like this…!”
Too bad for him.
The two powerful weapons he was counting on were already in my hands.
“Oh, but they did.”
“What…?”
He stared back at me, his face a mask of devastation, as if his world had just ended. I repeated myself, enunciating each word.
“Your parents gave their permission.”
“N-no. That's… that's impossible…!”
“Haha, you still don't believe me.”
Well, then. I had no choice.
I pulled out my phone and called his father, Kim Yong-un.
“Sir, it's Do-jin.”
- Ah… Mr. Do-jin. What can I do for you?
“Jeong-hun refuses to believe me. I was hoping you could talk to him.”
With that, I switched to speakerphone and held the phone out in front of him.
He immediately started shouting desperately.
“D-Dad! Get me out of here! This bastard locked me up in some weird hospital…!”
- Jeong-hun.
“Yes, yes….”
- Listen to Mr. Do-jin and stay put for a while. If you need anything, tell me through him.
“D-Dad…?”
- I'm hanging up now.
“D-Dad…? Dad? Dad!”
He screamed his lungs out, but it was too late.
“He's gone, Jeong-hun.”
“You… you son of a bitch…!”
Wow, look at this guy.
He still hasn't figured it out, just glaring at me with pure hatred.
“What did you do to my parents?”
“What do you mean?”
“There's no way my parents would lock me up in a shithole like this unless you did something to them!”
“Oh, but there is a way.”
If it were a normal illness, they'd never have sent you here.
“You took drugs.”
I laid it all out for him as he stood there, speechless.
“You know what happens when a drug user goes to a hospital, right? They get reported to the police immediately.”
“……”
“This is the only place that can keep that from happening. It costs a pretty penny, of course, but your parents are rich, so what's the problem?”
His anger gradually subsided.
He was probably starting to think, Ah, so my parents put me here to get treatment without anyone finding out about the drugs.
Time to shatter that little illusion.
“But that's just the reason on the surface.”
“What…?”
The relief that had briefly appeared on his face was replaced by a fresh wave of anxiety.
“You're not leaving here without my permission.”
“Wh-what are you talking about…!”
“Didn't you hear your father? He said if you need anything, you have to go through me.”
And what does that mean?
It means I have your parents wrapped around my little finger.
“Let me summarize it for you. The drug-addict son lost all his parents' trust, while the tutor who worked so hard to help him—who also happens to be their daughter's boyfriend—has become a very reliable future son-in-law. Get it?”
“Ah… uh… ugh…!”
He gaped like a man struck with aphasia, unable to form a single word.
The shock must have been immense. The family he'd always believed would be on his side had completely turned against him, siding with his enemy.
I slowly walked over and patted his frozen cheek.
“Jeong-hun, it's time to get with the program, don't you think?”
His dull, lifeless eyes turned to me.
“Wh-what… do you want from me….”
“Hmm, let's see.”
Is there anything I could possibly want from you?
Well, except for one thing.
“Let's start with this.”
“W-with what….”
“That drug you took.”
The color drained from his face.
“Where did you get it? How? Tell me everything you remember.”