Unhealthy - Chapter 5

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 5. Please Don’t Die

Taejun looked down at his bandaged abdomen once, then lowered his head and let out a long breath.

“To live here without trouble.”

He stopped speaking. For a moment, Hae-yeong felt that he was about to bring up something important.

Eventually, Hae-yeong began to sob.

Tears born from fear flowed down her cheeks.

Taejun looked straight at her. In his gaze flowed complex emotions that Hae-yeong couldn’t understand.

“Listen to me.”

Even after hearing his words, Hae-yeong couldn’t understand. What secret was Gi Tae-jun hiding?

Taejun, who swallowed the words he couldn’t fully express, struggled as he breathed in broken gasps.

Even so, he forced himself up and grabbed Hae-yeong’s arm, pushing her out of the basement.

“You didn’t see anything today.”

The last words Taejun left as he closed the door were clearly etched in Hae-yeong’s mind. In his eyes lurked an inexplicable darkness.

Hae-yeong pushed the door with both hands, but not even the slightest gap was allowed.

Hae-yeong sat down on the cold floor, mixed with fear and frustration.

Even in her fear, she realized that Taejun was hiding not just a simple secret, but something he would have to stake his life on.

Taejun didn’t return to his room all night.

Hae-yeong spent the night wide awake with fear and worry. She went to the basement door several times, but couldn’t bring herself to open it, afraid Taejun would scold her severely.

When morning came and the helper arrived for work, she immediately received the basement key.

“Why do you need the basement key? That’s just where we keep odds and ends.”

At the helper’s suspicious gaze, Hae-yeong gripped her bag strap and hurriedly answered.

“My liberal arts class told us to bring tools as supplies. I’ll just grab one thing.”

The helper tilted her head at Hae-yeong’s trembling voice, but didn’t ask further.

Avoiding people’s eyes, Hae-yeong came down to the basement, opened the door, and went inside.

“Oppa…”

Along with the trembling voice that escaped her lips, she froze at the scene unfolding before her eyes.

Taejun was lying on the floor, slumped over with a face even paler than yesterday.

“…I knew this would happen.”

Tears quickly filled Hae-yeong’s eyes.

“Really, I shouldn’t have just left you alone.”

You wouldn’t listen…

Hae-yeong took out the medicine and wet cloth she had brought in her bag just in case, and began carefully cleaning his wound.

“You’re really going to die at this rate.”

She examined Taejun’s wound. The wound seemed to have opened wider than yesterday, and the blood had hardened and turned stiff.

“What should I do.”

It’s not really going to get worse, is it?

No matter how harshly Taejun treated her, she should have come in at dawn instead of turning away to check on his condition.

If she had known his condition would worsen like this, she really would have done so.

“Open your eyes. Oppa.”

But Taejun didn’t budge at all.

To somehow raise his cooling body temperature, Hae-yeong did everything she could, massaging and rubbing his body with all her strength.

As time passed like this, the sun set and night deepened.

The family members seemed busy with work and came home late, so no one looked for her even though she was away for a long time.

Hae-yeong couldn’t leave Taejun’s side. She couldn’t shake off the fear that if she left him like this, something might really happen to him.

What on earth had happened?

Hae-yeong desperately massaged Taejun’s hands, but his cold body temperature seemed to be getting even colder.

“Ah, what should I do.”

Thinking of Taejun who had threatened her not to tell anyone else, she couldn’t readily ask someone for help, but his condition wasn’t very good to just leave him like this either.

At the fear that Taejun might really be in danger at this rate, Hae-yeong roughly wiped away her freely flowing tears and shook her head.

His breathing seemed to be getting fainter, and his body was becoming cold as ice, but there was nothing she could do.

“Like this, it’s like I killed you…”

Hae-yeong held his hand tightly.

There wasn’t a trace of warmth in their clasped hands, so she deliberately trapped them in her own hands, rubbing them to try to revive his body temperature.

“Really, no. Please don’t die.”

Taejun’s breathing could still be felt, but even that was weak and irregular. She felt despair and hope alternating as she looked at his face.

“Wouldn’t it be okay to go out and call a doctor even now? If I ask the adults to help?”

Hae-yeong murmured as she placed her hand on his forehead. The cold body temperature transmitted through her fingertips made her even more afraid.

‘You didn’t see anything today.’

Hae-yeong recalled the weight of the words he had asked of her.

But the more she thought about it, the deeper into confusion she fell.

All night, Hae-yeong didn’t know how many clothes and blankets she had brought down.

Even though it was early spring, the days were still chilly, and the basement was particularly colder. So her choice to somehow raise Taejun’s dropping body temperature was to keep his body as warm as possible.

Perhaps thanks to the pile of clothes covering his body heavily enough to feel weighty, she could feel Taejun’s cold body temperature returning, even if faintly.

Hae-yeong put her hand into the pile of clothes and hugged Taejun tightly.

***

Taejun opened his eyes, writhing in agony that felt like his flesh was being carved out. And as soon as he woke up, he had to frown at the weight pressing down on his body.

When he turned his head, he saw An Hae-yeong sleeping while tightly holding his hand and clinging close to him.

“Hah.”

How did she crawl in here?

When he lifted the clothes cumbersomely covering his body and pushed them toward Hae-yeong, she curled up and pressed her body even closer.

Her full chest touched his forearm. Taejun closed and opened his eyes, trying to pull his arm out.

Belatedly, Hae-yeong’s pleading voice echoed in his head.

‘Really, no. Please don’t die.’

‘If you die like this, it’s like I killed you…’

Taejun let out a hollow laugh without realizing it.

“This is really ridiculous.”

But something subtle was mixed in that laughter.

The worry and fear she harbored faintly touched somewhere in his chest.

He tried to pull out Hae-yeong’s arm again, but her hand was holding onto him surprisingly firmly.

Taejun looked down at her for a moment. Her appearance, curled up and trembling, looked like the most fragile life in the world.

Around her eyes, dried tear stains were messy.

Cold air flowed into the basement, making the air even more damp.

The smell of the basement, where dust and old moisture were tangled together, was cold and unpleasant, but even in such an environment, Hae-yeong was staying by Taejun’s side.

“Hah…”

He let out a long sigh.

Her warm touch, the pile of blankets, and the body temperature touching his body were melting his coldly frozen body, even if just a little.

On the basement wall, old mold stains were revealed in the dim light, and in one corner, old tools and odds and ends were piled up. The only lighting was a single flickering incandescent bulb, and that light irregularly illuminated Hae-yeong and Taejun’s faces.

“Is it necessary to go this far?”

Taejun murmured as he looked carefully at her face.

He moved his arm slightly to brush Hae-yeong’s hair away from her forehead.

“An Hae-yeong.”

His low voice broke the silence in the room.

Hae-yeong flinched slightly and woke up from sleep. She looked at him with wide eyes.

The distance was too close. The space had narrowed enough for her breathing to tickle Taejun’s ear.

The shadow created by the incandescent bulb covered the distance between them even more hazily.

The moment their gazes intertwined, the silence of the basement became even heavier.

“Are you awake?”

Hae-yeong asked in a trembling voice. In her eyes that shone transparently like the sea, guilt and relief alternated.

“What are you doing here?”

Taejun replied briefly. His voice was still dry, but it wavered subtly as he read Hae-yeong’s expression.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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