Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: A Sick Day
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For some reason, the memory was slow to surface.
It wasn't that long ago that she was glaring at him like she wanted to kill him, or laughing at him condescendingly. Was it because he was now looking at her dazed face?
He gently pressed Haon's cheek with his fingertip.
It was funny how her brow furrowed and she let out a soft groan.
As he watched her, a thought that always crossed his mind whenever he got involved with Eun Haon surfaced.
‘I have no idea what I'm doing right now.’
Alone with this girl, in Eun Haon's penthouse of all places.
The fact that he was the one nursing her back to health felt surreal.
‘It's not like I'm the weird one here. It would be weirder to just leave someone this frail to collapse.’
Just then, Haon let out a small whimper and started to stir sluggishly.
Juyeol covered her fluttering eyelids with his hand and pressed down gently. Her forehead was hot against his palm.
“Sleep.”
Haon seemed to give up quickly, her body going limp.
“Juyeol… Do you remember?”
He scoffed at her hazy mumble. Her mind seemed to be all but asleep.
“What.”
“When I had the flu… you took care of me.”
“…What?”
Juyeol's expression hardened instantly.
Between the drowsiness and the fever, she seemed to be out of her mind in a different way.
“It was right after I started college….”
Haon's small lips moved deliriously, as if her spirit had floated away.
“Everything was new and I was so lonely… and then getting sick on top of it all just made me miserable.”
“…”
“My fever was so high I was out of it, but you… just like now… you covered my forehead with your hand.”
She rubbed her face slightly against his cool hand and let out a soft, sleepy laugh.
“Do you know how comforting that was? …You looked so cool that day. So dependable, and your shoulders seemed so broad.”
“…”
“You don't know this, but… my heart fluttered a little back then.”
Juyeol let out a disbelieving laugh. The way she was acting shy even in her delirium was just ridiculous.
“It was just a little bit, back then. Just a tiny bit….”
Haon grumbled, squirming slightly, but she couldn't finish her sentence and drifted off again.
Juyeol's face was a mask of displeasure.
He pulled back his now-warm hand and glared at Haon, displeased.
“I'm the one who's been feeding you and letting you sleep for a while now. I picked you up when you collapsed today and even called a doctor, so why are you going on about some other guy?”
Displeasure and irritation slowly began to bubble up inside him.
When he brought Eun Haon the Awakening Sphere, and when he woke her from her nightmares, she treated him like a cherished friend, but wasn't this different?
He was annoyed that she couldn't even recognize him, especially after using his place like her own personal diner and bedroom.
And why were her delusions so damn detailed?
Juyeol found himself thinking this ‘other Woo Juyeol’ she spoke of was a real jerk, before falling into a shallow sense of self-loathing.
‘Is insanity contagious? Getting worked up over some bastard that doesn't even exist….’
He felt a pointless surge of irritation and almost poked her cheek, but then he remembered she was sick and forced himself to stop.
He sat on the sofa opposite her and listened to the sound of her soft, steady breathing.
And he thought back to the day he found the changed Eun Haon.
The day he'd debated over and over whether he should just shoot her.
If she had run into someone else first back then, that person would have been the one to earn her favor.
“…”
Juyeol suddenly felt his stomach churn, and he habitually reached for his holster. The cold metal touched his hand, but the unpleasant feeling didn't subside.
A wave of unease from an unknown source washed over him, making him feel nauseous.
‘It's because she's so infuriating. What other reason could there be?’
He grumbled to himself that he was only annoyed because this infuriating, bothersome girl was right in front of him, but he stayed there until morning.
* * *
The next day, Haon woke up to a throbbing pain in her eyeballs every time she moved them, a sure sign she had a fever.
She must have sweated buckets in her sleep; her whole body felt sticky, so she staggered to the shower first.
After that, the events of the previous day, which she'd forgotten in her drowsy state, slowly came back to her.
“Huh…?”
Including the fact that the last thing she saw was Juyeol's face.
“Blue. Did Juyeol bring me to the penthouse yesterday?”
[That's right! The ever-welcome guest summoned Solmae, so Solmae visited the penthouse as well.]
“The elder? Then how long was Juyeol here?”
[The guest is still in the penthouse.]
“Huh?”
Come to think of it, she'd slept soundly, without any dreams.
She walked out to the living room in a daze and found Juyeol standing there with a sour expression.
“Juyeol. You were here the whole time?”
“Just eat.”
Bewildered, she followed him into the kitchen, where a bowl of porridge was waiting.
Haon's eyes widened as she sat down at the table.
The savory smell of the porridge made her suddenly ravenous. After all, she had only had orange juice yesterday before collapsing, so she was starving.
“Did you make this here? There shouldn't have been any ingredients.”
“I bought some nearby and made it.”
Looking at him with sparkling eyes, Haon quickly spooned some porridge into her mouth.
The warm, smooth porridge filled her empty stomach, and she finally felt alive again.
“Ith tho delishuth!”
“What are you saying?”
“It's so delicious! How are you so good at making porridge, too?”
“You can find most recipes with a quick search.”
After devouring the porridge, Haon slumped back in her chair with a blissful expression.
Then, a glass of water and some medicine were placed firmly in front of her.
“About the safe house all this time….”
Juyeol trailed off, then frowned and asked again.
“What have you been doing to overwork yourself and lose so much sleep?”
“I thought of a way to nullify awakening potions, so I was trying to build it.”
“Is something like that even possible? Is that the prototype Hunter told me to get from you?”
Haon looked up with a surprised expression.
“Really? The Heroes are willing to try the prototype I made?”
“They'll try it if they get it.”
“Wait here a second.”
Excited, Haon dragged her still-weary body to get the three prototypes of the potion nullification patch.
Juyeol examined the devices, which looked like portable card readers, then pressed a button as Haon instructed.
With a *thwip!*, the launched patch stuck fast to the wall.
A blue light flashed, and fine blue particles formed an atom-like shape, spinning in place.
The engineer beside him was explaining the patch's operating principles, but more than half of it was jargon he couldn't understand.
Juyeol peeled off the patch after the blue light faded, checked it, and then turned to look at an expectant Haon.
“Did you really make the potions?”
Haon's shoulders flinched at the sudden question.
Yesterday, in front of the other Heroes, she hadn't explicitly denied it while explaining her investment from Halo, but she couldn't bring herself to do the same with Juyeol.
After a moment of hesitation, Haon finally shook her head.
“I didn't make them.”
“Is that so.”
“…?”
Haon blinked at his unexpectedly simple reaction. Then, her expression gradually brightened.
“You believe me?”
“Ugh, now I have to go all the way to Headquarters. What a pain.”
He subtly changed the subject as he gathered the patch launchers.
Then he cleared his throat a few times—*k-hem*—and asked nonchalantly.
“Why didn't you call? I went to the trouble of giving you my number.”
“I thought you seemed a little annoyed when I came to the safe house, so I didn't… Were you waiting for me?”
“Waiting? Who said anything about waiting? It's just a waste if the ingredients I bought go bad.”
“Oh, right. From now on, I'll be sure to call if I know I won't be able to come for a few days.”
Haon, accepting his explanation, tilted her head at a belated question.
“What brought you here yesterday, anyway?”
“…It broke.”
He gestured vaguely to a corner of the kitchen, where a toaster sat in a miserable state.
“Gasp. What happened to it? Did you throw it on the floor or something?”
“W-what nonsense is that? Why would I throw it on the floor? Anyway, fix it.”
Even after Juyeol's hasty departure, Haon examined the smashed toaster with fascination.
How does something even break like this?
It didn't look like it had been shot or run over by a motorcycle.
‘But don't people usually send things like this for repairs? Do they not fix them when they're this badly damaged?’
As she fiddled with a dented part of the toaster, a chill ran through her.
It hadn't been long since she'd taken the medicine; there was no way her body aches would have subsided already.
‘I feel like I'm dying.’
Haon lay down, wrapped tightly in her blanket, alternately closing her eyes, staring at the ceiling, and wiggling her fingers and toes.
The silence in the penthouse grew heavier.
‘…It feels weird, doing nothing.’
Lying in bed in the middle of the day when there was work to be done was something she could never have imagined before.
She knew in her head that she should rest when she was sick, but it still felt awkward.
Ever since the war began and she'd fallen into this dimension, she had always been busy right up until the moment she fell asleep.
The only time she'd had what could be called a rest was when she went to Juyeol's safe house.
That was the only place she could sleep peacefully.
‘I'm alone today, so I probably won't be able to sleep, right? Still, a full day of rest should keep me going for a while.’
Turning onto her side, Haon was struck by a sudden wave of loneliness and hugged her blanket tight.
It felt as if the warmth of the person who had been beside her had been abruptly cut away, leaving her drifting alone in space.
Her small feet brushed against the blanket.
Even though her feet were firmly planted here, the ground beneath them felt empty.
‘…It must be because I'm not working.’
Haon resolved to go down to her lab once her fever subsided a little.
Muttering that she had to do something when her mind was troubled.
But as soon as the sun set, Juyeol returned to the penthouse.