The Infirmary Visit (2)
“No news is good news” is a pretty outdated saying by now. That might have been true back in the days when people tied letters to the legs of pigeons and struggled to hear word from one another, but it’s been a long time since mobile phones became a staple of daily life. So, if anyone is still quoting that phrase, they’re just being lazy….
The man who thought this sighed quietly in the backseat of his moving car. He had expected the contact to be infrequent, but wasn’t the silence lasting a bit too long? He stared down at his phone, having just cleared away all his notifications.
“Hoo….”
If there was good news, he wanted to celebrate and encourage her. If there was sad news, he wanted to find some way to help and ease that sorrow. Just as parents with children usually do, Han Beom-hyeon, the eldest son and likely successor of the Hanseol Group chairman, harbored similar feelings. No, if he were to be honest, he felt them even more intensely. There was no way a father would want to live in complete estrangement from his one and only beautiful daughter. If it had been a son, he probably wouldn’t have been this concerned. He might not even have remembered his age correctly, like his father did. After all, they were of the same bloodline, and siblings were often a bit awkward with each other anyway.
“…”
Han Beom-hyeon stared at his phone’s wallpaper—a photo of Han Su-a (age 9) that artistically captured her shy expression as she told him not to take pictures—and turned the screen off before he could start crying for no reason. He hadn’t been like this before, but perhaps it was because he was getting older; he had become quite sentimental. Anyway, the point was this: as a child, was it really that difficult to send a greeting to one’s parents once in a while? If he asked this of his daughter, would that be considered an act of stifling her?
She didn’t seem to like school much, so he focused on private tutoring. Studying didn’t seem to suit her, so he suggested other paths so she wouldn’t struggle more. To find a great mentor, he had even invited a renowned retired foreign Mutant-type Transcendental to teach her. And since she seemed to have a hobby for comic books, he had bought her as many as she wanted so she wouldn’t feel like she was lacking in that department.
Was it really a parent’s greed to want a text message, just 10 seconds of her day, saying something like, “Nothing special happened today,” or “Good night,” or “I was having lunch with a friend”? It was truly a mystery….
“Executive Director. The road conditions are poor, so it looks like we’ll be about 10 minutes late.”
“…”
It had only been about two months since she started living on her own. Even so, he was already struggling, wondering how he would endure until his daughter graduated from the Academy. He sent a message to the person closest to his daughter, as he always did. He knew that if his daughter found out, she would be thoroughly creeped out—and Han Beom-hyeon knew that would indeed be the case—but in the end, it didn’t matter. As long as the person involved didn’t catch him, it was all good.
Since the person closest to her was on his side, there was no way she would confess to Su-a. Having received word of his daughter’s well-being from the housekeeper, Han Beom-hyeon wore a benevolent smile, contrary to his usual stiff expression. Of course, the same went for the follow-up message he received.
The fact that his daughter had finished her lunch in a hurry as soon as she woke up and left the house to go see a friend. At that point, thinking that his daughter’s Academy life was going smoothly, he ended the call after telling her to contact him again if anything similar happened.
“…”
She only said “friend,” but… surely the gender couldn’t be male, right? He imagined as much.
“That’s… I know where Seoyeon-chan lives, but….”
“Then Yozora, you come with us too. I’ll ask Ujin… the Health Committee Member if he can spare a moment.”
“Excuse me. It’s a bit awkward for me to talk to that Health Committee Member….”
“If Seoyeon-chan is sick and told us not to come, wouldn’t it be polite not to go…?”
“But there’s no reason not to go.”
“You never know! She might be acting all clean outside, but her house might be a pigsty, and she’s embarrassed….”
“Th-that’s fine, I don’t clean my room very often either…!”
“It doesn’t really matter if you’re fine, Su-a-chan….”
Of course, it would be one way to just give them the address and send the two of them. Unlike Su-a-chan, who didn’t even know what was around her own house, I knew exactly what was near his place, so I could just search for the address. But even if I sat this one out, the very idea of Seoyeon-chan and Seo Woojin meeting felt… ominous.
Wrapped in my blanket like a kimbap, I frowned. It was just a baseless woman’s intuition, but I felt like if those two met, something would happen 100 percent. It made sense, too—Seoyeon-chan might be hiding it by acting like a fox to others, but she was a full-fledged Gumiho. And Gumiho are… perverts, right? She keeps trying to appeal that she’s not, but every single Gumiho in history was a pervert without exception. If she even touched Seo Woojin, wouldn’t she suddenly get all horny because of her hormones? Pheromones? And just pounce on him? Ah, then would the infirmary where Seo Woojin works be off-limits until graduation?
As I was having these stupid thoughts after waking up, the voice on the other end of the phone broke my train of thought.
- Did you break up with the teacher on bad terms or something…?
“…”
It wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t something she should have said. That is, if I were truly the heroine of such a tragic story where I dated Seo Woojin and got dumped. Hmm, hmm. It’s good that she’s trying to be more proactive in conversation than when I first saw Su-a-chan, but she really lacks manners in the trivial things…. I don’t want her to become an impolite girl who says things that get her hit, just because “it’s the truth”….
I was struggling, having missed the timing to joke around as I usually did, when Su-a-chan continued.
- Then just tell me the senior’s address. Whether I go alone or go with the teacher, I’ll handle it.
“…”
…It was too late to give her a “vaccination.” What should I do? I switched to speakerphone with my fingers and rolled around on the bed, thinking. First of all, it would be best not to go out. Even if Seoyeon was sick, it was obvious that the atmosphere would get weird if I inserted myself between the two of them. That Seo Woojin guy, he even deleted the photos he took for blackmail just to dump me…, so he’d clearly show his dislike the moment he saw my face, wouldn’t he? Regardless of whether he’s handsome, has a black heart, or has a big dick, he’s just a 20-year-old guy, two years younger than me. He’s still young, basically a high school senior, too young to act like an adult. It was right for me, who had eaten at least 700 more meals than him, to give in. Especially if I didn’t want to see Su-a-chan, caught between me and Seo Woojin, flustered and forgetting the purpose of the visit.
“Hmm.”
Thinking rationally, that was the correct answer. But on the other hand, a mischievous thought—should I just pop in for a second?—also poked its head out. Su-a-chan being flustered by the hostile atmosphere, well, that’s not really my business. Regardless, it was certain that Seo Woojin would be pissed off when he saw my face. Of course, he wouldn’t just rape me repeatedly because he was a little pissed off, but I could definitely build up some ill will, right? Like, making him think, Why is that fucking slut showing up next to Su-a again?
Of course, I had every intention of meeting a guy who was more handsome, had a bigger dick, and was even more of a sadistic piece of shit than Seo Woojin…. But it’s good to have a spare in case the plan goes wrong. Yeah. It’s definitely not because the extra-thick dildo I bought a few days ago, which looks like Seo Woojin’s, wasn’t as good as having sex with him directly, so I threw it in a trash bag. Really, seriously, I swear on everything I have, it’s not that.
Having finished my thoughts, I reached toward my phone while still wrapped in my blanket like a kimbap and let out an “Ah-ah” sound.
“…Seoyeon-chan’s house is near mine, so just head this way. I’ll call you back after I wash up and get dressed. 30 minutes…. No, just 20 minutes.”
The state of one’s body when caught with a cold is like the shape of a pebble. It has a minimum level of consistency, but in the end, it varies wildly.
“…I slept for nearly two hours, so why…”
Did it get worse than before? And I even took medicine and fell asleep. Why?
“Hoo….”
Baek Seoyeon stared at the clock on her phone—the top of the screen where the phone call had ended, now indicating it was the afternoon—and let the phone drop listlessly. It was because she had been exhausted from trying to calm down Han Su-a, who had made such a fuss over a single cough that had slipped out.
She heard that Su-a had asked Yozora for her number because she felt bad about not being able to thank her last night. Either way, it was a good thing. She hadn’t even known she hadn’t received a thank you in the first place.
“Ugh….”
Baek Seoyeon tentatively placed her hand on her forehead. Fortunately, her throat didn’t feel any different than it did before she fell asleep, but her fever was raging. It felt as if her body were cooking. She searched her memory to see if she had ever had a fever this high in her life, but nothing came to mind. Her body was damp with sweat. Yet, she felt strange because she was cold due to the chills….
Anyway, she had told student Su-a firmly that she wasn’t sick enough to warrant a visit, so it should be fine. She would feel bad if she passed her illness on to a stranger she wasn’t even close to…. She should check her condition tomorrow and see if she should take a break from the Academy….
Staring blankly at the ceiling, trying to focus, she pulled back the nine snow-white tails that had been wrapping around her body and the blanket to drink one more bottle of the medicine she had bought at the convenience store. Leaving the warm blanket, her body felt quite chilly, more than she had expected. She wondered if there was something wrong with the boiler, but seeing the warmth radiating toward her soles, that didn’t seem to be the case.
Then why was her condition worse than when she woke up this morning? Her thoughts, which had been repeatedly cut off, only stopped after the face of the Vice Student Council President she had met at the convenience store came to mind. Stress. It was the root of all diseases, after all.
“Perverted bastard…. You think I don’t know you’re using the convenience store near my house on purpose….”
Yoo Siwoo’s house was a bit of a distance from here. It wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t narrowly pass it off as “living nearby,” but they weren’t close enough to share a convenience store. Yet, she had just met him there for a very obvious reason.
“Damn it….”
Feeling the heat on her forehead with the back of her hand, Baek Seoyeon walked out of the bedroom, muttering all sorts of low-class profanities she didn’t usually use. She completely ignored the text on the cheap, over-the-counter medicine that said, 〈3 bottles a day. Take immediately after meals.〉, and returned to the bedroom.
Clack.
Using her tail, which followed her body a beat late, she pulled the doorknob and dove straight onto the bed. She shoved her head under the blanket and then tucked in her snow-white tails one by one.
“…….”
…How much time had passed like that? Just about the time it took to blink a few times, as far as she could tell. A loud doorbell sound pierced the ears of Baek Seoyeon, who had been curled up, hugging her pillow like a doll.
“……Who….”
There was no need to even think about who it was. Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-ding-dong—she could have waited a moment even if there was no response, but the way she kept pressing it so frantically made it certain that it was that bitch. She had hoped it was just a delivery driver or a courier who had mistaken the apartment number. Why did she have to show up and act like this exactly when she was sick….
Baek Seoyeon, whose ears had folded slightly due to the noisy doorbell, just hid both her ears and tails entirely and headed to the entrance.
“…Yozora, you damn… I told you not to ring the doorbell like that….”
“Hi.”
“…”
The entrance where Yozora was standing, making her head ache the moment she saw her.
“Ah, hello….”
“…”
“…”
And the entrance where Seo Woojin and Han Su-a were standing with Yozora. Perhaps that was why her head was aching even more than she had thought.