Chapter 392

Chapter 392

Eat The World Tree.

Episode 392: Sansuyu Tree (9)

She knew.

“Shiheon…?”

That Lee Shiheon’s condition was critical and that there was a significant problem with his ego.

The sight she saw every dawn still lingered in her mind occasionally.

-Ugh, aaaaaah! Ah.

Shiver, shiver.

While trembling his arms and legs, someone kept calling out names.

He would also abruptly hug whatever he could grab.

In the face of his sudden actions, it was always she who ended up in Lee Shiheon’s embrace.

This man might have been afraid of the future that awaited him.

Until the trembling in his hand stopped, she, who was held in his arms, could only think that way.

Even as Lee Shiheon’s mind was being worn away,

Perhaps. Sansuyu, who was dull to emotions, wasn’t thinking about Lee Shiheon’s misfortune.

She was merely recalling the fact that she was useful to this person.

“……”

Blood flowed from Lee Shiheon’s nose as he collapsed.

Spreading along the cotton of the pillow, it reached her hand.

Sansuyu tightly gripped the blanket.

‘…Shiheon.’

His breath grew weaker and weaker.

Could he possibly die like this?

The reality she had worried about was slowly approaching, and she was at a loss due to anxiety.

Anxiety. One of the emotions she couldn’t understand.

Her heart trembled, and there was a sensation of being constricted somewhere.

She couldn’t understand why her throat felt choked.

The sensation she felt when she lost her secretary, Seong Jiho, was similar.

Not an emotion, but a sensation. Not something her head understood, but her body led her that way.

Her tear glands were stimulated and tears flowed, her hands kept shaking, and for some reason, she felt a desire to stay close to this person.

Being insensitive to emotions meant that a screw somewhere was loose.

Even when cherishing something, she wouldn’t realize it.

Even when her body kept sending signals, she only regarded them as abnormal symptoms.

Why was her body like this?

Why did she feel a little relieved only when she was by this person’s side…?

She was curious, but she had no way of knowing.

So she ignored it.

So she lost people.

She missed opportunities every time.

And eventually, she too would fall.

She couldn’t recognize someone’s favor.

She didn’t know her own inclinations.

Others kept getting frustrated with her.

The one most dissatisfied with herself was none other than her.

If they were so dissatisfied with each other… it would be better to part ways.

That was how she had lived.

-Creak.

Sansuyu used her powerless arms to lift Lee Shiheon’s body.

Even though she exerted only a little strength, her bones resonated.

“…Keueut.”

Groaning, she held his body in her arms, tilting his head downwards to prevent blood from flowing into his airway.

Blood trickled down.

“Haa… haa.”

She was out of breath with just a little movement.

Her weakened physical strength devoured her will in an instant.

“Shiheon… I have to save him.”

Nevertheless, she didn’t stop and tried to exert strength somehow.

She hadn’t had many opportunities to repay the kindness she had received.

-Thud.

Not having emotions, but being dull to them, meant that they existed, however faintly.

It meant that if she tried, she could read them.

But every time the moment to understand emotions came, the next experiment immediately followed.

The clues to emotions that she thought she had grasped slipped away from her again.

This had been repeated several times.

When death drew near, she had despaired that she would never understand emotions in her entire life.

As a result, the colors of the world she saw also faded.

And she lost the joy of living.

-Crash!

While trying to pull out the blood-soaked blanket under Lee Shiheon somehow,

Sansuyu fell backward, unable to overcome her own strength.

Sansuyu, who barely caught the falling Lee Shiheon, received the pooling blood on her chest without concern.

His forehead was hot.

Wishing that this person would feel as much relief as possible, she gently stroked his hair.

-Drip.

Nevertheless, the blood kept flowing.

His body grew colder and colder. It felt like he was drifting away from her.

Just a moment ago, he was grinning and joking.

The one who seemed like they would die could now move their body.

Was he going to give his all and leave first?

-Thump.

As her thoughts reached that point, her heart sank.

Again, a strange and distant sensation was felt.

It felt as if a large spoon had deeply scooped out the inside of her right chest.

The fear of falling from an endless, towering cliff.

‘Again…’

She didn’t know why she was like this.

There was no way for her to know.

The breathing of the crouched Sansuyu grew rough. She hugged Lee Shiheon’s body, trying to regain stability somehow.

-Thump, thump, thump, thump!!

The sound of her heart kept growing louder.

A sob. The inside of her diaphragm pulled, and something burst out.

She felt worse than when she felt nauseous.

At least that could be relieved by vomiting it out. But this lack had no way to be expressed.

She could only curl up and wish for it to go away.

But the abnormal reaction didn’t seem to stop there.

Her temples throbbed, and the fine hairs on the back of her cold neck stood on end.

The broken fingernail from falling while trying to move felt more feverish than usual.

Her whole body was desperately trying to tell her something.

Thump, thump. Her heart strongly slammed against her ribs.

The feeling of being left alone in the world.

That feeling.

‘Stop.’

Sansuyu blankly buried her face in Lee Shiheon’s shoulder.

Even though he was dying, the scent of his skin remained the same.

Holding this person made her body feel a little calmer.

Still, she didn’t know.

She still couldn’t understand what other people called a heart.

Sansuyu’s emotions had not been felt even once since her childhood state.

A faded and cooled heart.

However, even though she had lived giving up on emotions, there was no deviation in her choices.

Her actions were always for the sake of others.

-Thud!

She fell again today.

Sansuyu’s body, which had been precariously kneeling by a stack of chairs, rolled dynamically across the floor.

The porridge she had barely managed to make spilled onto the floor.

“……”

Sansuyu was not skilled in housework.

Her family’s servants and her secretary had always taken care of things, so how could she be good at it?

She had painstakingly searched the internet, but even that was for how to use a rice cooker.

Sansuyu hadn’t found the pressure cooker in the cupboard.

All she had was a pot, rice, and water.

She probably couldn’t even make rice properly.

“Shiheon is going to die…”

The rice was undercooked and hard, a porridge that made her wonder if she was chewing raw rice or drinking water.

Even making this was a struggle.

Since she couldn’t use her legs properly, she had to move chairs with difficulty, turn on the gas stove, and put the pot with the porridge on it.

Every time she went to the refrigerator, she had to lean against something and struggle to get up.

Even if she wanted to ask someone, she could only search the internet. Lee Shiheon hadn’t woken up for a week already.

They said there was a war going on outside.

But for Sansuyu, this everyday life was war itself.

Still, a bright yellow hope was budding.

Compared to when she almost burned down the house at first, this was a great improvement.

While cleaning the floor, Sansuyu constantly peeked at Lee Shiheon’s complexion.

“Are you… okay?”

Brightly.

“You’re okay.”

Now she could do things well on her own.

The bathroom and shower, which she couldn’t go to without Lee Shiheon’s help.

She managed them all.

-…Shiheon, why are you turning your head?

-Then should I watch you pee?

-…Wipe me.

-……Hoo, just wait a moment.

Lee Shiheon used to gaze at the moon every time he went to the bathroom.

Now she didn’t need to borrow his hand.

It was thanks to the treatment that had continued for over a month.

-Clatter.

Sansuyu cleaned up the spilled porridge and tidied the dishes.

The black stains remaining in the pot wouldn’t come off no matter what she did.

Biting her lip, Sansuyu scrubbed the bottom of the pot and patted her aching shoulder several times.

Cooking. It was definitely hard.

Actually, even if she made porridge, Lee Shiheon was in a state where he couldn’t eat.

Feeding him porridge in that unconscious state would only cause problems.

The reason she made porridge every day was because she didn’t know when Lee Shiheon would wake up.

Preparing something he could eat whenever he woke up was the best she could do.

‘…How did Shiheon do it?’

Sansuyu thought about when she had fainted.

She must have had her eyes closed for over a week at least. She had survived perfectly fine without eating or drinking anything.

She knew that an ordinary person would die in three days without water.

No matter how superhuman Lee Shiheon was, he would quickly weaken if he couldn’t eat anything.

Nutritional supplements…

Sansuyu had no way to obtain them.

She was doing her best to at least feed him water. But that wasn’t easy at all.

“Shiheon! Water!”

Calling his name, she crawled to the bed and sat down.

Opening the cap of a 500ml bottle of water, she placed Lee Shiheon’s head on her lap. Then, she very gently let the water flow into his mouth.

“Cough, cough!”

“…Are you okay?”

Of course, feeding him water wasn’t easy.

However, if she repeated this, he would still swallow a little bit of water.

It was definitely not water torture.

After replenishing his fluids even a little, she did the laundry and wiped Lee Shiheon’s body.

She did for him what he had done for her.

There were times when her eyes widened at the sight of a woman’s and a different man’s body parts. But she wasn’t very interested.

Lee Shiheon’s life was the priority.

Sansuyu closed her eyes every dawn with that thought.

She didn’t sleep much.

-Click.

She turned off the light so that Lee Shiheon could sleep soundly.

Sansuyu sat beside him and quietly watched Lee Shiheon on the pillow.

If he woke up while she was sleeping, there would be many things she could do for him.

While doing housework for a week with two arms and legs that wouldn’t listen to her, Sansuyu realized two things.

One was that the work she was doing now was more difficult, annoying, and tiring than she had thought.

The other was that she understood Lee Shiheon’s kindness, as he had taken on all that work without a word and had even given her only smiles.

Still, the question remained unanswered.

While Lee Shiheon was asleep, Sansuyu decided to voice the question she had been holding onto.

“I… don’t understand anything.”

She couldn’t understand this situation.

He had saved her when she was trying to die, and he had risked his own life to save someone like her.

“Still, I… because Shiheon told me to live… I somehow endured. I’m so curious.”

Not understanding… it must be about emotions.

Just like her secretary had faced death in front of her.

Lee Shiheon must have had a reason like that too.

“Why… did you… do something so difficult?”

Putting strength into each word, she gently parted his bangs with her fingers.

His cold face was stiff, as if he would leave her side any moment.

“Even though you could have lived better than me.”

She could see clearly even in the dark space.

The contours and expression of this person’s face had a soft color in her eyes.

The warmth that enveloped her hand, the voice that lingered in her ear.

When Sansuyu first overcame her near-death experience and opened her eyes, she could only act like a child throwing a tantrum.

Her mind was truly overwhelmed, and her head was a mess.

Now she could see how much he had cared for her.

The problem was, ‘Why?’

It was too complicated.

Everything was tangled up, and it was an understanding she had given up on once before.

The part of Sansuyu’s brain that handled emotions had actually shrunk.

She didn’t know if it was the effect of the drug, but besides that, many parts weren’t functioning properly.

Disability…

That was actually the right word.

-Sigh.

The hot breath that escaped her lips touched Lee Shiheon’s forehead.

Come to think of it, little by little, this man had approached her.

When he first showed interest in her sword and imitated her, she was only surprised.

He had given her unique experiences and readily became her friend.

He had accepted the physical abnormalities that had happened to her as if they were inevitable.

Even when she asked for the reason, a proper answer never came back.

That she was his friend, that she was precious.

There was no way that was the only reason.

In the first place, she didn’t really understand what precious meant.

It was a word she used often, and even though she could confidently say that this person, her secretary… her family were precious,

She didn’t truly understand the meaning of that word.

‘This itself is wrong.’

Receiving favor and not knowing gratitude.

Not being able to understand someone’s desperation.

It was unforgivable, and she had to struggle.

To grasp the faintly emitted colors, Sansuyu reached out her hand to Lee Shiheon several times.

She hugged his neck and lowered her head.

Lee Shiheon’s lips touched Sansuyu’s cheek. Her long hair completely covered his face.

Still only breathing, the words didn’t return.

Was this person precious to her?

Was there someone she had shown such favor to?

If so, what was the emotion she felt then?

She posed the question and tried to derive an answer.

In fact, she felt like she was dying from anxiety even now.

‘Please.’

For the first time, Sansuyu slowly peeled away her shell.

She clasped her hands together and tried to pray earnestly.

The scenery still didn’t change color.

The colorless world coldly tapped her back.

-Our Sansuyu did a good job.

-But I always got scolded. I made so many mistakes last time too.

Even so.

-Mom thinks our Sansuyu is doing well.

-Am I doing well?

-Of course~ Sansuyu is much better than Dad.

She shuddered from a severe headache. The sensation that had hardened from her fingertips felt numb, just like a dead person.

-Everything will come back someday.

Too many voices flashed through her mind. There were cold words and warm words.

Sansuyu unearthed all the words she had longed for from among them.

The memories of her mother, which she had forgotten, gradually returned.

-It’s okay. Slowly. Take a deep breath.

“Sigh… haaa…”

She inhaled and exhaled.

The familiar scent from the man in her arms grew stronger and stronger.

She missed it desperately. Something she had felt so intensely pierced through her hazy memories and flashed through her mind.

A single tear welled up in the corner of her eye and flowed down.

The first moisture she had ever felt in her eye.

-Thud.

It was then that the breath of the man in her arms ceased.