Lee Wooyeon, pretending to be shocked, opened the curtains and shouted.
“Mr. Inseop. Are you awake?”
“… Ah!”
Choi Inseop, who was lying flat on the floor, raised his head in surprise. It looked as if he had just heard all of the conversation, he was bright red from the nape of his neck to his earlobe. Lee Wooyeon went down to the floor with an unfamiliar face and made Inseop stand up.
“Did you roll off the bed?”
“… Yes.”
While answering, Inseop’s big eyes looked up and down and he didn’t know what to do.
“Are your injuries okay? I was very worried.”
Lee Wooyeon raised him up, laid him on the bed, and asked tenderly. His personality transformed so much that it was hard to believe that he was the same person as the man who had made such rude statements just a while back, saying that he would bury those Chinese-Koreans in the mountains, and that Korea has a lot of mountains.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”
Inseop, lying on the bed, covered his body with the sheet and answered. Seeing that even the hand holding the end of the sheet was red, Lee Wooyeon swallowed a laugh.
“You’re fine except for a broken finger. If you wish, you can stay at the hospital for a day or leave the hospital.”
Inseop, who hid himself, replied with a small voice that he wanted to be discharged from the hospital.
“As long as you get all the IVs, you can go. Manager, please go pay the bills.”
Manager Cha glanced at Inseop once and stood up. He couldn’t ask Inseop, who came to his senses while having such a conversation, if he was okay.
Lee Wooyeon stood next to Inseop’s bed and asked kindly.
“Mr. Inseop. Are there any uncomfortable places other than your fingers?”
“No…I’m okay.”
Hearing his crying voice, Lee Wooyeon pointed his finger at the sheet and frowned at CEO Kim.
“Mr. Inseop. You’re okay? You aren’t sick?”
“I am… okay.”
It was hard to see how much he was trembling inside the sheet. Lee Wooyeon grabbed the sheet with his hands and opened it.
“Are you really okay?”
When the protective sheet was removed, Inseop’s eyes widened in surprised. Lee Wooyeon reached out and touched Inseop’s forehead.
“You have a fever. How many days will you be hospitalized? They said there will be a hospital room tomorrow morning.”
“No, no. I will be discharged.”
Inseop looked anxiously at the small amount of IV liquid and swallowed. He just wanted to get rid of the IV and run away.
“The payment is finished. If you finish the IV, you can go.”
Manager Cha returned waving his receipt. The four men all looked at the IV bottle at once. Lee Wooyeon waited happily with his arms crossed at the sight of the IV’s liquid dripping down, Manager Cha and CEO Kim looked apologetic, and Inseop bit his lip looking like a death row prisoner waiting to be sentenced to death.
Finally, the last drop of the IV dripped onto the hose. Lee Wooyeon raised his hand to the nurse and asked her to come over.
“Then let’s go now.”
He didn’t know why those words made his heart sink, Choi Inseop closed his eyes.
“We will get off here.”
Lee Wooyeon said so while holding Inseop’s shoulder. Throughout the ride, Inseop eagerly expressed his wish that he would return home, but Lee Wooyeon shook his head saying that he could not leave a patient alone and that he had something to ask.
“I’ll just go to my house…”
Even when he saw Lee Wooyeon getting off, Inseop grabbed the seat belt of the car and closed his eyes. However, without waiting, Lee Wooyeon grabbed Inseop and pulled him out of the car.
“Manager Cha. Please postpone all my schedules for tomorrow.”
“What? Your whole schedule for tomorrow?”
What new bullshit was that, asked manager Cha, making a face.
“I fell off that horse. They will understand everything.”
“Hey, hey. Lee Wooyeon, doe that makes sense… ! Hey!”
Lee Wooyeon closed the car door before the manager started nagging.
“Let’s go.”
Inseop, who was still thinking about getting away, was caught by Lee Wooyeon and dragged away. Even in the elevator, Choi Inseop said in an earnest tone that he wished he could go home, but Lee Wooyeon did not listen. No, to be precise, he listened, but gave the same answer.
‘How do I leave the patient alone? I can’t do that to my lifesaver.’ It was an infinite repetition of ‘I have something I want to ask you, so I’ll talk slowly.’
Lee Wooyeon recklessly dragged Inseop out of the elevator.
Choi Inseop wanted to cry. When he woke up in the emergency room of the hospital, drowsy on medicine, he was relieved to hear voices. Familiar voices were heard. Hearing the soft and familiar voices, his heart pounded, and he thought that he would like to hear that voice forever.
It felt so good. It hurt and throbbed in some places, but the good-sounding velvet-overlaid voice rang in his ears, and it just made him feel better. However, when his mind became clearer and he was able to grasp the meaning of the conversation, Inseop’s smile, which was on his lips, began to harden. He vividly felt the blood pumping from his heart and rushing over his face.
He moved his body with the thought that he had to get out of the place somehow. However, the bed on which he was lying was higher than he thought, and his body, drunk with medicine, did not move as he expected. Eventually, as he fell, he accidentally pulled the sheet with his hand and made a loud noise. Since then, it was a series of memories which made him want to die. Lee Wooyeon couldn’t have known that he had heard the conversation. But he didn’t say a word about it.
He was just saying that there was something he wanted to ask.
Ah, he wanted to cry. Wouldn’t it be great if he could cry out loud right here right now? He wanted the right to cry
Choi Inseop stood behind Lee Wooyeon’s back as he opened the door and lowered his head, holding in the words he couldn’t say in his chest.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Lee Wooyeon said. Inseop hesitated for a while with a puzzled face in front of the front door.
“Come in. Hurry.”
“…”
The moment Inseop stepped inside, Lee Wooyeon immediately closed the door. Inseop’s tears welled up at the sound of the automatic door locking from behind.
He wanted to go home. His fingers hurt too much, he was ashamed, he was tired… Above all, Lee Wooyeon was scary.
“What are you doing? Take your shoes off.”
“… Yes.”
Inseop took off his shoes and found that his socks were dirty and dared not cross the door.
“What?”
“Socks… It’s dirty.”
“What if your socks are dirty?”
“You can’t go into someone else’s house wearing dirty socks…”
It was Inseop who recalled the contents of the book that he should pay attention to his socks, especially when visiting someone else’s house, because the oriental residential culture was sedentary.
Lee Wooyeon also didn’t want other people to come into his house wearing dirty socks and walk around. However, Inseop’s attitude was as if it was a huge crime, and he was stood like a person standing on a fire.
“Who said that?”
“…In the book…”
While thinking that the answer about the dirty sock from the book was useless, Lee Wooyeon walked to Inseop’s side.
“That’s right. Entering someone else’s house with dirty socks is absolutely rude.”
Having said that, Lee Wooyeon put his arm inside Inseop’s knee and picked him up.
“――! what are you doing… !”
“I’ll take you to the bathroom.”
“I, I will go… no, barefoot, no, so if I run on one foot … I am!”
Inseop floundered like a drowning man, uttering words that didn’t even have a proper meaning. Lee Wooyeon grabbed his shoulder tightly with his hand.
The smile in his eyes disappeared.
“Don’t struggle too much. My shoulder hurts.”
“…!”
“Be quiet, please.”
His voice was sweet, but his eyes were so frightening that Inseop couldn’t speak any more. Lee Wooyeon, who took Inseop to the bathroom in that state, leaned against the door and spoke skillfully.
“Are you going to take a shower?”
“… yes, maybe… ”
“You hurt your hand, can you do it? Can I help?”
Choi Inseop shook his head to the side like crazy. He was so worried that his neck would fall out because of how strongly he shook his head.
Lee Wooyeon didn’t have a hobby of looking at a man’s naked body. Also, he didn’t have a hobby of helping a man take a shower.
However, when such a reaction came back to a joke he said, the desire to win was strangely stimulated. Can he really not help? Lee Wooyeon stood with his arms crossed and brushed up on Inseop again.
“Water must not get into the cast. What if the wound rots?”
“… I will do my best.”
In response, Choi Inseop quickly burst into tears at the words that his wounds would rot. Hee felt like standing like this, and wanted to explain how maggots infest the wound after it heals for 10 minutes and how terrible the smell of a rotten wound is, but for today, he wanted to stop at this point.
Lee Wooyeon smiled and said, “Hang on then,” and brought something from the kitchen and handed it to Inseop.
“Cover around the cast with this. Don’t let it get wet.”
It was a wrap. Inseop nodded eagerly, thinking that he would be able to wear a cast in one hand by himself.
When the wrap was handed over and the door closed, Inseop opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief for the first time. However, Lee Wooyeon said something again, his voice was muffled,and attacked him from outside the door.
“Call me if you think you won’t be able to shower. I will help you.”
Choi Inseop said in a trembling voice, “Thank you for your words, but it’s really fine,” and then locked the bathroom door.
After confirming that Lee Wooyeon’s laughter was getting farther away, he just sat down on the bathroom floor.