Chapter 120: Get Treatment

‘I never thought I’d see hyung again.’

Yi Jun had no memory after falling from the rooftop.

He, the man himself, hadn’t seen the precious scene of Bodam crying and shouting for him to be saved.

He also didn’t know that he had passed on all the memories of his life to Bodam.

It wasn’t a conscious act, but something that had flowed out of his subconscious.

From his desire to be left behind only for his hyung.

“Hyung…”

Yi Jun ran a hand through his disheveled hair and straightened his shabby appearance.

‘I must look hideous.’

Rubbing his rough cheek, Yi Jun, conscious of his dirty, blood-stained patient gown, tried to get up from the sofa.

He wanted to at least change his clothes.

“Stay seated.”

At Bodam’s words, Yi Jun immediately sat back down.

Bodam, who had pushed aside the dangerous ceramic shards on the floor with his foot, walked closer to the sofa.

Seung Ho, having placed only a thin barrier around Bodam, stepped back.

“I broke it by accident.”

Yi Jun lied to Bodam, whose expression had darkened as he looked around the hospital floor.

He said he didn’t do it on purpose, then made up a story about throwing it in his sleep.

His endlessly wavering eyes couldn’t properly meet Bodam’s.

Even though he had wanted to see him so much.

“I see.”

Bodam replied, sitting down next to the mumbling Yi Jun.

He felt like he understood everything now.

He had come to know Yi Jun’s life and the deprived inner self that had been destined to break.

“Get treatment.”

“I’m fine… I… do I look strange?”

“I’m talking about your hands. Your feet are bleeding too.”

“Ah…”

Yi Jun looked down at his hands and feet, which Bodam had pointed out, and swallowed dryly.

How filthy they were.

They were a mess of hardened scabs and new wounds.

He could even see an overlap of his dead skin, which had been covered in dark blue bruises.

“I got better… why is this happening.”

He didn’t want to show his hyung another repulsive side of himself.

He rubbed his arms until they turned red, waiting for them to turn white again.

Remembering the regeneration that had quickened with the stimulation of pain, he tried to press on his wounds.

Forgetting that he was no longer an Esper.

“Stop it.”

Bodam gripped Yi Jun’s convulsing hands.

He held his hands as if guiding and placed them on his thighs, whispering that it was okay.

Yi Jun’s ragged breathing, unable to keep up with his racing pulse, trembled with anxiety.

No matter how much he looked into his hyung’s eyes, he couldn’t read his thoughts.

“Hyung… Dam-i hyung.”

Yi Jun pushed Bodam’s hand away and placed his hand on his round cheek.

The hand, which he had only placed, fearing it would break if he squeezed too hard, trembled uncontrollably.

‘Why can’t I feel anything? Even though I’m touching hyung like this. Why.’

Bodam extended an arm to the approaching Seung Ho, signaling that he was fine.

Yi Jun’s hand touching his face didn’t hurt.

It was a weak force that he could easily push away.

“Kang Yi Jun, you’re hurting, aren’t you?”

Bodam gently placed his small hand over the back of Yi Jun’s and continued the conversation.

Yi Jun looked like he was in pain.

He had been in pain ever since he was forcibly given an ability he didn’t want.

Bodam, who had absorbed all of his memories, could feel Yi Jun’s pain as if it were his own.

He felt sorry for Yi Jun, who had lived his entire life in anxiety, reading the minds of others every moment to quell that anxiety, only to cultivate a deep depression instead.

“If you’re in pain, you get treatment. Understand?”

“If I get treatment… will you not go, hyung?”

A slurred pronunciation escaped from Yi Jun’s lips, which were trembling as much as his hands.

He clung to Bodam with clumsy words, like someone talking in their sleep.

He asked if he could stay with his hyung if he wasn’t in pain, his eyes welling up with tears.

As if begging for permission.

“Get up.”

Seung Ho, unable to watch any longer, separated the two.

Even when he told him it was time to go, Bodam didn’t budge.

Looking at Yi Jun, who looked as if he would burst into tears at any moment, Bodam was the first to shed a tear.

He was consoling Yi Jun, whose eyes were just red, telling him not to cry, while crying harder himself.

He was used to crying, but Kang Yi Jun had never cried before.

He couldn’t let go of his hand because he had come to know the emotions pooled up inside him.

“I said, get up.”

“Ah, let go of me!”

Yi Jun, desperately looking for Bodam right in front of him, looked much younger and more immature than his age.

Even though he was touching Bodam, his body trembled with anxiety.

His gray eyes, which frantically called out only for his hyung, couldn’t focus.

Bodam cried, saying he couldn’t leave Kang Yi Jun like this alone.

In the end, Seung Ho grabbed Bodam’s wrist and forcibly pulled him to his feet.

Uncharacteristically for him, he had acted on a surge of anger.

Bodam, who flailed to shake off Seung Ho’s hand, resisted while panting.

He tried to push away Seung Ho, who remained unmoved even as the kid who never cried was crying like that.

‘If you’re a team leader, you should know how to take care of the youngest. It’s the role of an elder to guide them so they don’t go down the wrong path.’

“Let go! I’m not going! You can go alone!”

Kang Yi Jun needed an adult like Senior Gu, who had given him life tips, and Team Leader Kim, who had protected him genuinely, not just as a job.

Along with a friend like Jo Yeon, who had made him smile even with a tired body and mind.

“Hyung…”

Yi Jun just watched helplessly as Bodam was lifted into the air by Seung Ho’s hand and dragged away.

Only after the door closed did he move as if to follow, belatedly, and fell off the sofa.

He must have hit his nose on the floor, as blood pooled at the tip of his chin.

“Hyung, me too, I want to go. Dam-i hyung…”

Unaware that he was crying, he shed tears like blood and looked for his hyung.

Left alone, Yi Jun cried for a long time, begging for someone to stay by his side.

He only shed tears, without even a sob, to the point where one would wonder if he was really crying.

Along with sleep-talk-like muttering.

‘I want to start over. From the beginning. Then I could pretend to be nice forever. Even if hyung doesn’t only look at me. I could just smile like an idiot.’

***

Returning to the waiting room, Bodam led Seung Ho up to the second floor.

The atmosphere between them was sharp.

Bodam was angry with Seung Ho, and Seung Ho couldn’t understand Bodam.

“Sit and wait.”

Bodam, who had pushed Seung Ho into the room designated as the guiding room, chugged a glass of cold water in his bedroom.

He had lost the fight after repeatedly trying to shake off Seung Ho’s hand, only for him to lift Bodam’s body into the air.

‘How dare he use force against me. Today, I’m going to teach him a lesson with guiding….’

Just as he was about to punish Han Seung Ho with the guiding he hated, he suddenly realized that he no longer had an aversion to guiding.

He didn’t show any signs of wanting to receive it first like Min Ji Oh, but he didn’t seem to hate it like before either.

‘Has he started to like guiding? Or is it because he’s still in pain?’

“Yoon Bodam, are you back?”

“He’s back? Where?”

The noisy duo, who had appeared on the first floor at the sound of Bodam coming out of his bedroom while lost in thought, climbed the stairs.

Unlike Ji Oh, who was happy to see him and asked where he had been, Tae Hwan approached without erasing the stiff expression on his face.

“Did you cry?”

Bodam, who had become accustomed to Tae Hwan’s touch of naturally touching his cheek and lifting his head, stepped back a beat too late.

He swatted his hand away as if shooing a fly and put some distance between himself and Tae Hwan.

“I asked if you cried. What did that bastard do?”

Ji Oh, who was asking who “that bastard” was, was sent flying by Tae Hwan’s psychokinesis.

Bodam let out a deep sigh as he watched Ji Oh tumble down the high stairs.

‘What if he gets hurt doing that?’

“Hey, he behaved more tamely than you.”

“Then why did you cry? What did he do?”

“I didn’t cry!”

“You did.”

Tae Hwan, who lightly grabbed the hand of Bodam who had hit him in the chest, took a step closer.

He closed the distance Bodam had created and lowered his voice.

“I’m worried about you.”

Even though it was a much smaller voice than when he had raised his voice, it was much clearer to Bodam’s ears.

Bodam, who found this strange, mumbled a reply.

His heart opened up at the words “I’m worried.”

“Because I feel sorry for Kang Yi Jun.”

“…You cried because you feel sorry for him?”

“Yeah.”

Tae Hwan tilted his head as if he had heard something bizarre.

He asked again, wondering if he had misheard, but was met with a kick to the shin and told not to make him repeat himself.

Thanks to Yoon Bodam’s improving hitting skills, this one felt like a light tap.

No, more importantly, he feels sorry for Kang Yi Jun?

“You’re really… wow.”

“What. If you swear, you’ll get hit.”

“No, I mean… ha.”

Tae Hwan, who was dumbfounded by how nice Bodam was, stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling.

‘Could he survive in the harsh outside world with such a kind and gentle nature?’

There were so many trashy people with rotten personalities.

He could easily picture Yoon Bodam getting hurt among bad people and crying every day.

Then, a sharp pang of guilt struck his conscience, and he clutched his aching chest.

Ji Oh, who had gotten up limping from the first floor, and Seung Ho, who had been listening to the conversation from inside the room, were feeling something similar.

“What’s wrong? Is your heart hurting again?”

Bodam, who immediately released his guiding to Tae Hwan who often clutched his chest, asked.

Ever since he saw him standing in a pool of blood during the Crow sweep operation, Bodam had been particularly sensitive to Tae Hwan’s condition.

Lee Tae Hwan, who treated his body recklessly, was the type who wouldn’t be strange to suddenly die anywhere, anytime.

“Yeah. I was shocked by how nice you are.”

“What are you talking about.”

“Your personality doesn’t make sense. How can you be so nice?”

Bodam, who had lightly retorted that his personality didn’t make sense either, escaped to his room to avoid Tae Hwan, who was showering him with embarrassing compliments.

He had forgotten about Seung Ho’s existence because Tae Hwan had been so annoying.