Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Doyeon nodded. If he didn’t hang the laundry up right then, it would stink. If it started to stink, he would have to run the laundry again, which was a waste of water. The earth was going to cry in pain.

Hyunoh handed Doyeon a glass of water and popped a pill out of its case to drop into Doyeon’s open hand.

“Take your medicine first.”

Where did this come from? Did he buy it?

When Doyeon stared at Hyunoh with those questions in mind, Hyunoh gave him an answer.

“I bought it when I bought the soup. All the medicine here was past its expiration date. I’m good at thinking ahead, aren’t I?”

Doyeon recalled the medicine box in their home they never opened. His mother and Aeyoung never fell sick this bad, so they never stocked up on medicine either. He didn’t know it had all expired.

“Go on, take it,” Hyunoh said, pushing Doyeon’s hand up to his mouth.

Doyeon plopped it in and downed the water. His throat was swollen to the point the water didn’t pass easily, and when it dribbled down a corner of his mouth, Hyunoh wiped the droplets with the back of his hand.

“Aw, Doyeon, do you have a hole in your jaw?”

Doyeon stared at him as if to question why Hyunoh was so weird and tried to swallow again, but he had to give up and spit out the medicine on a tissue. It really wasn’t going down his throat.

He laid down, thinking of eating it later, because at that point, he was tired of everything and doing anything.

“Aren’t you going to take it?”

“Yeah...”

“You can’t swallow water either?”

“Yeah...”

“Later…” Doyeon managed to whisper, to which Hyunoh didn’t answer.

Hyunoh soon tapped his forehead and stood up. When he stepped out of the room, Aeyoung’s sobbing voice could be heard from the door.

“Oppa, are you really, really sick? Hyunoh-Oppa said I can’t come in because I’ll catch a cold too.”

“I’m... okay,” Doyeon managed to rasp out with a smile.

Aeyoung was clinging to the door and rolling her feet around anxiously because Hyunoh had told her not to enter. She was adorable. Doyeon waved her away, telling her to work on her homework.

“Okay. Don’t be sick Oppaaa…” Aeyoung closed the door with a tearful pout.

Everything fell silent. Doyeon thought of Hyunoh as his memories went hazy.

Did he leave? He didn’t see him off. He was grateful for the medicine he brought…

His head spun and his body felt weak, but he couldn’t sleep. He quietly killed time by closing and opening his eyes, except at some point, the door opened again with a few rustles and scuffling. He knew it was Hyunoh. He seemed to have seated himself by his bed because his sheets were tugged to one side.

A soft voice rang above his head.

“Doyeon. I hung the laundry up, so you just sleep.”

“Huh…? Why…?”

Why would you hang my laundry…?

Had Hyunoh ever hung laundry in his life…? Was today his first time…?

When he opened his eyes with so many questions, a hand covered his sight. It pressed down gently as if it was urging him back to sleep, then landed on his forehead.

“You’re still warm. It’s probably because you didn’t take your meds. You need a thermometer by the way—wait, don’t answer me. Just go to sleep.”

Hyunoh was talking like he was mumbling to himself. He placed the back of his hand on Doyeon’s forehead again. Doyeon squirmed. When Hyunoh’s cold hand swept past his skin, goose bumps rose on the back of his neck.

No, those goose bumps had been there for a while, since Hyunoh’s large hands pressed down on his eyes and covered his forehead.

Was it because of his cold? He felt like his heart was beating faster, too.

“I’m going now. Rest up, and don’t bother talking. Definitely don’t open your eyes.”

With that, Hyunoh’s hands fell away. Hyunoh seemed to have moved because the springs of his mattress creaked and sprung back up.

Doyeon listened to Hyunoh’s footsteps moving farther and farther toward the door, then the sound of the door sliding closed. Hyunoh and Aeyoung were talking outside of his door.

“Oppa, are you leaving?”

“Yup. Aeyoung, focus on your homework and don’t go in Doyeon’s room, okay? You’ll catch a cold too.”

“Okay!”

Thud. The sound of the front door closing rang out.

Doyeon placed his hand on his forehead, in the place Hyunoh touched, and found it to be burning hot. He moved his hand down to his cheek and found his ears burning too.

I must be really sick.

His heart was thumping hard. He had to be super sick.

From that point onward, Doyeon kept sleeping. By the time it became early evening and the sunset was lighting up his room, more sounds came from outside of his room. He could faintly recall Sunwoo and Kangbin, but he wasn’t sure.

By the time he could actually recognize his surroundings, it was the middle of the night. He wasn’t certain, but he assumed it was the middle of the night because there wasn’t a single sound or a single source of light.

There was a small whisper outside of his door. They were the voices of his mom and someone else. A man’s quiet voice.

“Don’t worry. Please go to sleep... I’ll take care... Aeyoung’s sleeping...”

The voice ebbed away, but that low sound was nice to listen to.

Was that his father...?

Nearly unconscious, Doyeon thought of his father, who passed away a few years ago, and closed his eyes.

Something foreign touched his ear as he slept, which made him frown. Beep. That wasn’t a sound he’d heard before, but a whisper soon followed.

“38.3 degrees Celsius...”

A cold hand came down on his forehead, then dragged down the blanket tugged up to his neck and rolled up his shirt. Doyeon turtled into himself. The sudden air on his belly was cold.

“Sorry, but I need to get your fever down.”

Doyeon tried to get his blanket back up. His body was on fire, but the air on his skin was cold, breaking him out into shivers. He wanted the blanket, but the hand kept dragging the blanket further away from him.

A slightly warm towel pressed on his forehead, then his temples, then his cheeks, then his neck.

Doyeon slipped in and out of consciousness as his body fell limp. It was hard to stay conscious. All he could see was the faint glow of the streetlight outside his window.

The hand on Doyeon’s neck and collarbone began to move slower, and soon, it stopped moving.

Doyeon heard something rustling in the midst of his sleep. Something opening, some water being poured, someone sitting him up.

“Take your medicine.”

Doyeon leaned on the person’s arm, his neck rolling to the side as he struggled to wake at all. The stranger grabbed the back of his neck and tilted his head up, pressing a cup to his lips.

He managed to sip on some, but Doyeon wasn’t able to swallow what he sipped. Water dripped down the side of his mouth, down his neck, and disappeared beneath his collar. He felt someone’s hands wiping his mouth.

“Come on, you need to drink some water.”

The cup was pressed against his mouth again to no avail. A small sigh rang above his head, and soon, something cold and soft pressed against Doyeon’s open mouth. Before he could guess what it was, the flesh slipped in between his teeth and pressed down on his tongue.

Mm... Doyeon frowned. His mouth grew damp with water, and soon the water passed his tongue and went down his dry throat.

When the lips fell away, Doyeon coughed with his eyes closed. Still, he felt a little better with water in his body.

The stranger’s fingers pressed down on Doyeon’s lower lip. A small pill was popped in, but Doyeon frowned at its bitter taste. The cup was pressed against his mouth again, and again Doyeon failed to swallow anything.

He pushed out the pill with the tip of his tongue.

“No, you can’t.”

A cold hand closed his mouth. When he shook his head because he couldn’t breathe, the hand fell away, but lips sealed his mouth instead.

The tongue that carried water roamed inside his mouth again. The warmth in his mouth felt so foreign, he began to press against it. When he did, a large hand came up to the back of his head and secured Doyeon, the tongue slipping further inside.

Doyeon felt something warm spread in his body. The water and heat that slipped warmly down his throat and the strange tingle that fell across his stomach made Doyeon frown.

In that moment, the pill that had been rolling between their tongues slipped down his throat. Doyeon swallowed it, but the tongue continued to roam Doyeon’s mouth afterward.

It kept lingering in him until Doyeon pressed his tongue out to catch his breath. Only then did it fall away.

“Mmh...”

Doyeon groaned, lying down again. The stranger who adjusted his position wiped Doyeon’s mouth with the wet towel and sat still for a long time.

After a long while in silence, the person measured his temperature again and left the room.

Doyeon fell unconscious then and there. He felt someone disappearing, but the medicine that couldn’t have melted yet was making him feel lax and limp.