Chapter 32: Wounds, Seen and Unseen

The moment I entered the house, a delicious smell wafted from the entrance.

As I transferred to my indoor wheelchair, I marveled each time Yeong-u-hyung described the dinner menu.

When I said I wanted to eat quickly, Hyung smiled happily.

“Was the rehabilitation therapist an Esper?”

Yeong-u-hyung, who was reheating the stew he had made in advance, asked suddenly.

I was having a staring contest with Shiru, who had leaped onto my lap.

“How did you know?”

“Your wavelength is different.”

Hyung, who placed the stew on the table pot and all, said that each Esper has a unique wavelength.

I had sensed it intuitively, but it was amazing that Hyung, a Guide, could also distinguish wavelengths.

“You’re not using your ability during rehab, are you?”

Hyung tilted his head, as if he had detected something else from the wavelength clinging to me.

I answered honestly that I didn’t know how to use it even if I wanted to.

“Then that’s fine.”

“Hurry and eat.”

I was glad Hyung didn’t press the issue.

Yeong-u-hyung, who wouldn’t let me lay a finger on housework, treated me excessively like a patient.

He tried to take care of everything from one to ten and worried greatly about the small wound on my forehead.

He was just as unenthusiastic about my return to the field.

It seemed like he just wanted me to stay at home with him, so I couldn’t bring myself to talk about ability training.

I didn’t have the confidence to go out to a Gate site, but I wanted to become proficient with my ability as soon as possible.

Even one day sooner.

“What did you do today, Hyung?”

“I cleaned and played with the kids.”

“Kids?”

“Ah, the cats.”

I smiled, stroking Shiru, who had completely settled down on my lap.

Hyung treated the cats like his own children.

To my eyes, who had never had a pet and had no interest in animals, Hyung himself seemed rather cute.

“And I went grocery shopping.”

“The fridge is full right now.”

“Take a look later.”

Hyung seemed a little excited as he told me about the new groceries he had bought.

He tended to become talkative like that when he spoke about topics he was interested in.

He seemed like a quiet person, but at times like these, he was surprisingly chatty.

“Tell me if there’s anything you want to eat.”

“Were you always good at cooking, Hyung?”

Contrary to his appearance, which suggested he would only eat food made by others, Hyung was surprisingly good at cooking and even perfect at cleaning and organizing the house.

“No, I learned from you.”

Yeong-u-hyung, who was picking at his food as if counting the grains of rice, gave a faint smile and put some rice in his mouth.

He was eating particularly slowly today.

Watching his thin lips chew slowly, I mulled over his words and scraped the remaining rice grains with my spoon.

‘He learned from me?’

‘But I don’t know how to do anything.’

Our conversation was cut off as we were both chewing our food, when suddenly a loud noise rang out from behind Hyung.

It was the sound of a cup shattering.

Nyaaaoow!!

Baekseol, who had accidentally knocked over a water glass placed next to the water purifier, scurried into the room.

Shiru, who had been dozing on my lap, also cried out sharply and chased after Baekseol.

Yeong-u-hyung, who was twice as startled as the cats, dropped his spoon and even his hands trembled.

I was even more surprised by Hyung’s reaction.

“Ch-check on the kids.”

“There are glass shards on the floor…”

Hyung mumbled that they might have stepped on them and got up, pushing his chair back.

“Yeong-u-hyung.”

“It’s dangerous if you step on this.”

“Don’t come over.”

Hyung, who waved his arm at me as I approached the water purifier, kept talking only about Baekseol and Shiru.

I was about to say I understood, but my hand moved first.

“Be careful!”

I grabbed the arm of Hyung, who was about to touch the broken cup shards with his bare hands.

Hyung was wearing slippers, but just in case, I pulled him toward me and checked the floor where the fragments were scattered.

Small pieces had flown quite far.

“Ah, pa.”

Hyung mumbled faintly and gently patted the back of my hand.

Only then did I realize I was gripping his arm tightly.

“I’m sorry…”

The moment our eyes met over Hyung’s slightly creased expression, I quickly let go of his arm and stepped back.

“It’s okay.”

“Just check the kids’ paws.”

Yeong-u-hyung, who frantically went to find rubber gloves, couldn’t take his eyes off the hallway to the rooms.

“The kids must have been really scared.”

“Please.”

“Are you okay, Hyung?”

“I’m completely startled.”

Yeong-u-hyung waved his hand, the trembling now gone, saying he was just very surprised by the sudden loud noise.

Thanks to Hyung, who even gave an embarrassed smile, I felt relieved.

Hyung really seemed okay.

“Gotcha, you little rascal.”

After a struggle with the two cats as if playing tag, I finally managed to catch Baekseol first.

I gently held the main culprit of the accident and turned over its paws one by one.

Thankfully, the chubby pink paw pads were completely unharmed.

“You, come here too.”

Shiru, who had been letting out a moaning cry, jumped onto my lap again.

He must have been quite startled, as he buried his face in my stomach in a huddled position.

“It’s okay.”

“Your dad is cleaning it all up.”

After confirming Shiru’s paws were clean, I left the cats in the room and came out.

Yeong-u-hyung had already cleaned up all the broken pieces and was even wiping the floor with a wet mop.

“Is there anything I can help with?”

“All done.”

“The kids aren’t hurt, are they?”

“No, they’re fine.”

Hyung let out a long sigh of relief and finished wiping the floor.

His expression brightened considerably upon hearing that the cats were not hurt.

“They break a cup like this every now and then.”

“That’s why I have to put cups or anything breakable further in.”

I watched Hyung, who was sighing heavily and mopping on his knees, and then frowned.

“Hyung, your hand.”

“My hand?”

“Why?”

“I’m not hurt.”

Yeong-u-hyung, who opened and closed his hand, stood up with the mop.

Droplets of water formed and fell from the white hand holding the damp mop.

“It’s your injured hand.”

I gestured only with my eyes toward Hyung’s right hand.

It was the hand that had a thick bandage wrapped around the middle finger.

Now, instead of a bandage, there was a wide band-aid, but it had loosened from being wet.

He had said that finger was cut while cleaning up a broken cup, too.

“Ah, I just need to put a new one on.”

My eyes squeezed shut at the sight of him casually taking off the band-aid.

A long wound, stitched up, remained on his pale white finger.

The stitches were still there.

“Are you sure it’s okay for it to get wet?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s been a while, so it doesn’t hurt.”

“…How long has it been?”

“About two weeks, I think.”

“I forgot it was even there.”

‘Two weeks?’

‘Is this guy kidding me right now?’

“Yeong-u-hyung.”

“It doesn’t hurt even when I touch it like this…”

“When did the hospital say to get the stitches out?”

“Uh….”

Yeong-u-hyung trailed off vaguely and looked closely at his own hand.

As expected, it seemed he had forgotten the day to get his stitches removed.

Even at a glance, the condition of the finger that had been covered by the band-aid looked bad.

“Did you finish your antibiotics?”

“I finished the prescription.”

“Didn’t leave a single one.”

“Disinfection, you didn’t do it, did you?”

Seeing Hyung hesitate, I didn’t even need to hear his answer.

I snatched the mop from Hyung’s hand and threw it into the sink.

“Let’s go to the hospital together tomorrow.”

Yeong-u-hyung didn’t answer right away.

Just as Seung-jun had said, he seemed to dislike hospitals.

When I waited for his answer, staring straight into his eyes, he reluctantly nodded.

“Sit down.”

“I’ll disinfect it for you, just in case.”

“Okay.”

He had only managed a forced nod at the suggestion of going to the hospital.

But this time, he spoke as if he had been waiting for it.

“The first-aid kit is in the bedroom, right?”

“I’ll get it.”

“I’ll get angry if you stand up.”

He must have thought it was a joke.

I stopped Hyung, who was about to run to the bedroom, and pulled up a chair to make him sit.

Only after I dropped my smile did Hyung sit down completely.

‘This person is really…’

I clicked my tongue inwardly as I went to the bedroom to find the first-aid kit.

‘How can he be like that?’

He checks my forehead whenever he has a chance and disinfects it every morning.

Yet he neglects his own torn hand.

My chest felt tight looking at him.

‘Putting Hyung aside, why didn’t I think to check on his hand?’

‘He took off the bandage, so it must be getting better.’

That’s all I had thought.

Because on the outside, it looked fine.

“Give me your hand.”

Hyung, who was sitting quietly in the dining chair, stretched his arm out to me.

I took out only the disinfecting supplies from the first-aid kit on my lap and placed them on the floor.

“Did you get this from a cat breaking a cup too?”

I placed the hand Hyung offered on the edge of my knee and leaned forward.

The flesh around the stitches was a little swollen; it looked like it was festering.

It must have hurt, so how could he not have known?

“No, I broke this one.”

“Does this house have a cup-breaking competition or something?”

A small laugh, “Heh,” escaped Hyung, and he pursed his lips.

‘If you’re going to laugh, laugh out loud.’

“Change all the cups in your house to plastic, Hyung.”

“I was planning to.”

Yeong-u-hyung smiled faintly and fidgeted with his injured hand.

“But why aren’t you doing it?”

Yeong-u-hyung, with me just holding the disposable disinfecting swab, folded his fingers and offered only his injured middle finger.

When I remained still, he even waved his middle finger in front of my face.

“You said you’d do it.”

The playfulness in his voice was so absurd that all my tension melted away.

I wondered where the person who was trembling and startled just a moment ago had gone.

“Stay still.”

It wasn’t easy to touch Hyung’s injured hand.

Even though I was just wiping it with a swab, I hesitated.

“…You do it, Hyung.”

In the end, I handed the swab to Hyung.

Hyung’s slender arm and the twenty-one pens that had been broken in half in my hand today kept overlapping in my mind.

“You do it for me.”

Hyung, who took my hand instead of the swab, bent his head to look closely at the wound, just like me.

“It doesn’t hurt at all.”

Yeong-u-hyung held my completely relaxed hand and gently tapped the swab over the stitches.

He even pressed the swollen flesh with the swab and rubbed along the long stitch line.

“It doesn’t hurt even like this.”

“If you do it for me.”

Hyung’s gentle, echoing voice gradually erased the remaining tension within me.

Even though I was disinfecting Hyung’s wound, I felt like I was the one being treated.

The soft voice, whispering calmly, seemed to be comforting me.

‘Don’t be anxious.’

‘Whatever it is, it’s all okay.’

Yeong-u-hyung, who took the swab from my hand, slightly raised his head and looked up at me.

The moment our eyes met his shining black ones, a strange impulse arose.

His pale skin, a stark contrast to his black eyes, filled my vision.

The more I looked at him, the stranger a person he seemed.

“Since we finished eating.”

Seo Yeong-u, Yeong-u-hyung.

“Do you want to receive Guiding now?”

He never let me lower my guard for a moment.