episode_0215

The dark consciousness flickered and the time when light took hold within it gradually increased.

When I opened my eyes and finally faced the world, the first thing I saw was a pure white ceiling.

I’ve never seen such a clean ceiling before. What could it be?

As I sat up, my rustling body suddenly became clear that I was in bed.

I tried to look around, but the curtains were drawn around the bed, making it difficult to see beyond them.

But when I heard the sound, I knew that it wasn’t the house I used to live in, and that it wasn’t the world I had been living in for a month.

“… … .”

I turned my head slightly and looked at the needle stuck in my left arm.

It must be shocking to see a large needle stuck in a skinny arm.

Beyond the string connected like that was a pack of sap.

I’m not sure what the ingredients are, but the biggest question is why I’m here.

If I had come back to the original world, I shouldn’t have been here.

If it had been said that the hospitalization fee was due to me, I wouldn’t have been able to bear that.

I was about to leave.

But the price of not moving my body for a month was high.

No matter how skinny a person is, they should have at least some muscle, but how can they not even remove one sticker that holds the injection in place?

“Ugh, haa. Haa… ”

My body, just woken up, is thumping.

I knew that when I woke up from a long sleep, my body would be weak, but I didn’t know that my heart could act this way.

I flinched a few times and tried to remove the sticker, but eventually decided to wait until next time because I didn’t have enough strength to remove the needle from my forearm.

As I laid my exhausted body back on the bed, a hollow laugh came out.

Was it all a dream?

If that’s true, I also thought that maybe I really am a body that lives today and tomorrow, and I dreamed of a body that wouldn’t die no matter what I did because I hated that.

“… Huh, ugh.”

But I hoped it wasn’t a dream.

Even though it was painful, it wasn’t as painful as reality.

But, unlike reality, there was someone who supported me.

If I could come back and meet him again, if I could meet that man named Kylon, I had to go back to the promised place.

But how?

When I left the hospital, I had to pay the hospital bills.

Even if I don’t have any surgery right away, money starts flowing out from the moment I settle down here.

Ultimately, you need a guardian, which means you have to meet your mom and dad.

My body trembled at the thought. I groaned, and then my lips trembled.

As fear seeped in, the curtains swung open and my body froze.

Luckily, there was a nurse on the other side of the curtain, looking around for a moment and then approaching me.

“Are you awake?”

“… to.”

I tried to answer yes, but my throat, which had been resting for a long time, wouldn’t let me pronounce it properly.

I knew my body was dry, but I didn’t know my neck was dry. No, it would be like that since I didn’t drink water.

“… Did you take off the tape? This is fixed, so you can’t take it off. I’ll put another one on for you.”

As she said this, the nurse took the tape out of her pocket and put it back there.

I finally got it off, but tape started sticking back on there to protect the needle.

As the nurse removed the middle tube connector and replaced it with another pack, I carefully opened my mouth, straining my parched throat.

“… I, uh, don’t, don’t have money, so… you don’t have to give me more, more… ”

There was nothing I could do about what I had already written. But it was clearly my responsibility to leave it to be written while I was up.

It was a problem that he had to come to the hospital right away, and I couldn’t just keep spending money here, so I desperately tried to stop him.

But the nurse seemed not to care about what I said and just silently changed the pack.

The skinny pack turned into a fat pack again.

“No, you can’t. You have to get better first. You won’t have any strength because you’re malnourished. Also, since you just woke up, you have to rest.”

I was left speechless by those firm words.

That pack has already been used up, so now I just have to use up all of that and I’ll really stop it next time. I thought to myself as I lowered my gaze.

Her long hair, which had not been cut for a long time, was now in mats and rolling around on the bed.

I didn’t cut it even when I was at home, so it was a natural result since there was no one to cut it for me at the hospital.

I’m going crazy. What should I say to my parents so they don’t hit me so much?

I didn’t expect anyone to take care of me. I just wanted to think about ways to make myself less sick when I was discharged.

There is no other way to do that than to reduce the hospital bills, but in fact, even if we reduce them as much as possible, the money already spent will not be returned, so it seems like no other way to reduce the costs comes to mind.

My hands were shaking.

I felt like I would die if I got hit in this condition.

It’s like, if someone wanted to, they could break my bones right now.

“… … .”

I’m going crazy.

Nothing was going right.

It wasn’t that I thought I should take care of my health in advance. How could I take care of my health in that room? I knew I would just live like that, but I didn’t know I would end up paying hospital bills like this.

How nice it would be if Kylon… no, Minhee were a real person.

How nice it would be if this weren’t all a dream.

I don’t know anymore.

If all that liquid evaporates, wouldn’t it be easier to die?

My eyes were tightly shut.

*

Should I run away? Two days had passed, but I hadn’t seen my mom or dad’s faces even once, and my discharge from the hospital felt difficult without a guardian.

Meanwhile, I was spending more and more money on sap, and I was worried that I would end up becoming a debtor who just took up space on the bed.

Of course, I knew that running away was a more heinous act than eating without permission.

But now that my parents had abandoned me and seemed to have lost interest in me, I had no more strength left to endure on my own.

Finally, even though I knew it was a bad thing to do, I took the tape off my left hand and pulled out the needle.

Blood gushed out for a moment, but I blocked it with the tape I had just removed and held it in my hand.

Shoes didn’t exist for me.

Since I had nothing left anyway, I ran outside with the intention of grabbing something.

And what unfolded before them was winter.

Cold, winter.

I don’t really know where this is.

But I walked hard with the determination to give it a try.

I walked without stopping even though I felt like I was going to collapse from exhaustion.

I walked along the road like that, and asked people passing by for directions.

Sometimes, I would get so tired that I would sit down on the cold floor and sigh.

Some people looked at me strangely and whispered as I walked around barefoot wearing a hospital gown.

Still, I thought I had somewhere to go and went forward.

It was cold and my skin felt tight. Fortunately, it stopped the blood from flowing.

So I could walk around comfortably.

When I was tired and exhausted, I arrived at one place.

My heart was pounding loudly. My lungs felt like they were growing and shrinking more than I could handle.

My muscles were aching, and my heart felt like it was being eaten away at me.

“… Huh, gasp. Huh… ”

I looked around with a blank expression.

To be honest, even with normal physical strength, I get tired after walking a lot, so how much more so for me.

I felt like my vision was overlapping with two other visions. I felt like I was losing consciousness beyond my pounding heart.

It was unclear whether it was due to lack of oxygen or whether his heart was working too hard.

In fact, it may be too late.

Because Kylon might not have been aware that I existed.

But maybe I came for nothing.

Because it was possible that Kylon, or Yu Min-hee, might not exist in this world.

Thinking like that made me feel miserable.

I thought that since there were Earths in other worlds, they might not be harboring vain thoughts.

Or maybe it wasn’t all just my dream. I felt a little bitter.

My hands and feet are cold.

To begin with, the clothes are patient gowns, so they are a bit shaky.

are you okay.

If it’s my fate to disappear without ever seeing your face anyway.

This is okay too.

Because I had nothing left anyway.

As I huddled in the cold, with nowhere else to go, as I huddled in the promised place and swallowed my tears, I heard a small voice.

People. This is not going to work. If I go to the hospital again like this, I won’t be able to handle it.

I realized painfully that I couldn’t do anything alone.

It was always like this. I tried to think that I had accomplished something on my own, even if it was just in my dreams, but then I woke up and couldn’t do anything.

Leave me alone. Just let me die like this.

Even though it’s cold, it feels like it’ll get warm soon.

It was a cold chill. But there was a trembling hand approaching it.

“… Over there.”

The padding sank down over the body.

I felt like the wind blowing towards my body was blocked a little.

I opened my eyes slightly and raised my head, and there was a woman there.

A woman with tears in her eyes was looking at me quietly.

“By any chance, Han Ji-min. Is that right?”

Well then, you… .

Where did that voluptuous body go, where did that sharp voice go?

Still, I thought I knew he was a cool guy.

“Yeah… ”