By Zephyria 
Kang Hee-shin let out a deep sigh. He had been in the emergency room until a spot opened up in a two-person ward, but the problem was Im Gyeong. He had intended to head back to Seoul first, but they told him a guardian had to be present today. Meanwhile, that guy—Tatsuki or whatever his name was—had been completely MIA since entering the operating room.
Just in case, he tried calling several times, but he only received messages saying the call couldn’t be connected.
Damn it… All that talk about some precious young master, and he doesn’t even show his face.
“Just give me someone else’s contact information. I’m sure there are plenty of people who could come.”
“Even for an employer, calling someone at this hour of the dawn is a huge discourtesy.”
“Ha, so doing this to me is fine?”
Im Gyeong pointed to the area where he’d been stabbed and looked at him pitifully.
“Did you forget why I got stabbed?”
In other words, this was Im Gyeong’s claim: he was so preoccupied with saving Kang Hee-shin that a knife managed to pierce his flank in the process. Therefore, Hee-shin should take some responsibility. It wasn’t a convincing argument, but he couldn’t just ignore him and leave for Seoul alone.
Resigned, he had no choice but to go into the bathroom, take a shower, and change into the patient clothes provided by the hospital. In the chaos, he hadn’t noticed, but his entire body was covered in bruises. When he stepped out, Im Gyeong was watching a drama and peeling tangerines. The tangerines had been given to him by a grandmother who was acting as a guardian for another patient in the ER, asking the handsome young man how he had gotten hurt.
When the elderly woman spoke to him, Im Gyeong had chatted with her without hesitation. He seemed prickly, but this was an unexpected side of him. He wondered if it was because he grew up under his maternal grandfather, or if it was just his nature.
As he sat on the edge of the bed drying his hair with a towel, his phone rang.
After a moment of hesitation, he answered, and Yoon Se-na’s voice came through.
Because the voice was loud, he quietly pressed a button to lower the volume.
“…Yeah. Still working.”
Perhaps because they hadn’t met for a few days, Yoon Se-na’s dissatisfaction was subtly building up. Since he planned to leave in the morning, he figured he’d have plenty of time.
“Alright. I’ll buy you something good. What do you want to eat?”
In the midst of this, Im Gyeong turned up the TV volume. A scene played where the female lead of a daily drama was screaming shrilly. How could you do this to me! How could you cheat on me with another woman! You piece of trash! You absolute scumbag!
Flustered, he gestured toward Im Gyeong.
He warned him with his eyes to turn the volume down, but the guy acted like he didn’t hear and actually turned it up further. Dammit.
“…I was watching a drama.”
“I just turned it on for a second. I’m going to sleep now.”
As soon as he hung up, Im Gyeong’s voice cut in.
“Hyung, Gyeong-ie wants to eat something delicious too.”
When he looked over, the guy was acting spoiled with a brazen face. Crazy bastard. Not wanting to argue further, he climbed into bed and turned his back toward the wall. He heard a brief snicker, and then it went quiet. As he closed his eyes, he saw a knife flashing before him. For a moment, a chill ran down his spine. While he was tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep, the light clicked off. The sound of the TV vanished as well.
“Ugh…”
Suddenly, Im Gyeong let out a low groan.
Turning around, he saw Im Gyeong clutching his abdomen, so he rushed over to check on him.
“What is it? Does it hurt?”
“I think the anesthesia wore off.”
He was about to call a nurse, but Im Gyeong grabbed his hand. Then, he gently placed it on his own stomach.
“Just keep it like this. I feel like I’ll heal better if you do.”
“Am I some kind of cult leader? That I can heal you just by touching you?”
“Why? You’re a great person. You even got it cheap just with your face, didn’t you?”
At that smirking face, he finally snapped and threw a pillow at him. Im Gyeong let out an “Ah” and frowned, then clutched his stomach again, likely because it hurt from laughing. Should I just pierce this bastard’s stomach? Kill him here so no one ever knows? For a moment, he had such a terrifying thought. As he huffed and tried to return to his spot, Im Gyeong grabbed his arm.
“Stay by my side until I fall asleep.”
At those words, he frowned and protested.
“You seem to have forgotten, but I’m hurt too. Look, right here.”
In a fit of irritation, he rolled up his sleeves and pant legs and pulled up his shirt to show him. See? Here, and here. In terms of bruising, his injuries were just as severe. Im Gyeong had been stabbed, but he was the one who had been beaten more. As time passed, deep purple bruises were appearing around his eyes.
“Kang Hee-shin, you have a scar on your side?”
“……”
Realizing his mistake, he quickly pulled his patient clothes back down.
“It looks old. Who did that to you?”
Without answering, he turned away with an indifferent face. “Go to sleep now. Stop bothering people. I’m exhausted too,” he complained before lying back down on the bed. The room became deathly silent. He almost wished the TV were on. The silence made it impossible to sleep. Being stuck with that man might be making it worse.
After tossing and turning for a while, he drifted off and had a dream. The same place, the same scene. His younger self pressing a pillow down on his sleeping father, his mother trying to stop him, Min-hye crying, his brother’s eyes visible through a crack in the door, and his father charging at him with a paring knife.
He woke up with a gasp, clutching his stomach. Then, meeting two pairs of eyes in the darkness, he bolted upright. Click. When he turned on the light, Im Gyeong, who should have been in bed, had brought over a chair and was sitting beside him.
…Since when had he been there?
“Wh-what are you doing here? You scared me.”
“Did you have a nightmare? You kept moaning in your sleep, so I watched over you because I was worried.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand. He had struggled so much that his back was soaked. Perhaps because of what had happened earlier, the dream felt more vivid and horrific than before. It had been over ten years, yet it felt as if the wound were still aching.
“Shall I get you some water?”
“Don’t worry about it and just sleep. Sorry for waking you. I’m going to go get some fresh air.”
He got out of bed, and as he left, he could feel Im Gyeong’s gaze following him. A delayed sense of embarrassment washed over him, and he rubbed his face vigorously. Suddenly craving a cigarette, he went downstairs, but he couldn’t find a suitable spot.
Eventually, he went outside and sat on a bench in the hospital parking lot, waiting for his agitated emotions to settle. He should have brought his coat. Since it had rained, the temperature had dropped sharply, and goosebumps broke out across his skin.
– Did you have a nightmare? You kept moaning in your sleep, so I watched over you because I was worried.
Im Gyeong was a guy who was curious about everything. He was curious about his family history, curious about the knife scar on his side, and even curious about the dreams he had. It felt strange. Others—even Yoon Se-na—had never pried into the details. They didn’t ask about his biological parents or what his home environment was like; even when he woke up from nightmares while they slept together, they just assumed it was because he had too much work.
As he tried to compose his heavy heart, a man leaning on crutches came out of the hospital alone. At a glance, the crutches were just for show. The man even seemed confused about which foot he had supposedly injured. After muttering something like “fuck,” the man took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. When Hee-shin stared, the man held the cigarette out toward him.
“What. Want one?”
“I would appreciate that.”
He stood up and took the cigarette, and the man lent him a light.
“You a fake too?”
The man scanned him from head to toe and nodded.
“Well, the doctors here are trash at their jobs, but they’re great at writing medical certificates. They’re fucking terrible at surgery, too. My friend had a rupture on the left, and they stitched up the right. I don’t know where the fuck they keep their eyes.”
Good grief, mister. Do you know who I am to just say things like that? On the other hand, he became worried. Will Im Gyeong’s surgical site be okay? I should move him to a larger hospital tomorrow. The man explained how he had ended up there and bragged that he planned to get a hefty payout this time to add to his child’s wedding fund.
At least he’s thinking of earning money for his kid. Though it wasn’t money earned honestly… He smiled bitterly, finished his cigarette, and parted ways with the man. Afterward, he sat in the emergency stairwell for a long time before finally returning to the ward.
Fortunately, Im Gyeong didn’t move an inch, seemingly asleep. As he sat on the bed, Im Gyeong’s face was visible in the dim light. He looks like an angel when he’s sleeping… He found himself chuckling softly. Should he tell the guy to keep his eyes closed whenever they meet?
“Is my sleeping face that funny?”
After idling for a moment, he looked up to find Im Gyeong staring at him from the darkness.
He wasn’t sleeping… A brief silence fell between the two.
It was Kang Hee-shin who broke it first.
“You asked me earlier. About how I got my scar.”
“……”
“My father did it. When I was in middle school.”
“I see.”
Then, Im Gyeong whispered softly, “That must have hurt a lot.”
Hearing those words, the emotions he had kept suppressed surged up.
“This is the first time I’ve told anyone. I hid it because it was embarrassing.”
“So we have a secret that only we know now?”
He frowned and smiled at that. In truth, he didn’t want to create a secret that only he and this guy shared. Besides, getting stabbed by his father wasn’t exactly something to brag about.
After thinking for a moment, he delivered a piece of bad news to the guy.
“Oh, and I heard the doctor here is a quack.”
“……Huh?”
“They say he’s fucking terrible at surgery.”
Fuck. No wonder. The way he muttered it caused them both to burst into laughter. Then, he quietly lay down and turned toward the window. “Good night.” Im Gyeong’s voice, which followed shortly after, was very tender. “You too.” Even as sleep took over, he thought that it might have felt that way simply because it was night.