His mind was spinning, and his tongue kept tripping over itself. Hayeop felt as though his vision were turning yellow. I have to keep it together right now. His resolve kept threatening to crumble, so he steeled himself and stammered on.
“I think she fainted. She won’t open her eyes, sob… and she threw up. She threw up everything she ate.”
Now that he thought about it, his own stomach seemed to be churning too. They had eaten cold soybean noodles, then even made fruit punch for dessert. He had been so happy to see his mother eating well for the first time in ages.
Then they had fallen asleep before they had any time to digest it. Their full stomachs had made them overwhelmingly drowsy.
“We’re going to the emergency room. Now.”
Young Master sprang into action. He snatched up the car keys from the living room and raced toward the room where Hayeop’s mother lay. Hayeop raised her body and helped get her onto Young Master’s back. It was a silent war waged in the hours before dawn.
“What did she eat?”
“Cold soybean noodles.”
Then she had taken her medicine and gone straight to sleep, Hayeop mumbled. His tears left a salty taste in his mouth.
“So she fell asleep right afterward.”
Yoonwon swept his mother up into his arms. Strong as he was, he had still lifted an entire person, yet he showed no sign of strain. He hurried into the garage and gave Hayeop an order.
“Door.”
Hayeop quickly opened the back door. After they laid his mother lengthwise across the seat, Hayeop rested her head on his lap. Yoonwon started the car and practically flew to the hospital.
Hayeop sat in the back, silently shedding tears. What if something is terribly wrong with Mom? He wanted to believe that she had merely gotten indigestion, that that was why she had vomited, but she had barely had any appetite these past few days.
She had always been frail, and lately she kept dozing off like a sick chicken. She had done nothing but suffer her entire life. If something happened to her now, her life would have been so unbearably unfair.
“……”
And would that leave him all alone again? With worry gnawing at him, every minute passed like an eternity.
“Get out.”
Yoonwon brought the car to a smooth stop. He came around to the back seat and lifted Hayeop’s mother into his arms. They raced into the hospital like mad. Even at dawn, the hospital was crowded with patients, when Hayeop felt as though every second mattered.
“Excuse me.”
Yoonwon caught hold of a passing nurse.
“You’ll need to register and wait your turn…!”
“Our family doctor works here. Please call Dr. Kim Chulsoon.”
The nurse promptly nodded and hurried away. Yoonwon carefully laid Hayeop’s mother on an empty bed. Her head lolled limply along with her emaciated body. Hayeop clutched her hand tightly.
“Yoonwon.”
A doctor arrived shortly afterward. He was a pleasant-looking, bespectacled man of middle age. He came over and asked what had happened.
“How did this happen?”
“Doctor, apparently she ate cold soybean noodles before bed. I think she regurgitated because she couldn’t digest them, and some of it entered her airway.”
“Is that so? Let me take a look.”
The doctor opened Hayeop’s mother’s eyelids and shone a light into her eyes.
Unable even to interject, Hayeop broke out in a cold sweat. He felt like a criminal. I made Mom sick by cooking those noodles for her.
“We’ll cut open her top.”
A nurse brought scissors and cut through his mother’s clothes. The shabby garment split in two, and everyone drew a sharp breath.
“Her back…”
Fever blisters had erupted across her pale, wasted body. Reddish blisters covered her back.
“This…”
When Yoonwon looked gravely at the doctor, the man nodded and said, “It appears to be shingles.”
“Sh-Shingles?”
Hayeop asked Yoonwon what that was. The doctor continued examining his mother, his expression solemn.
“It emerges when the immune system has become severely weakened. It causes tremendous pain. It seems your mother endured it until she went into shock.”
Most of the explanation was too difficult for Hayeop to understand, but he grasped the gist of it. In other words, it was an illness born from hardship. She had endured the sickness and the pain until she could not even digest the cold soybean noodles and had finally lost consciousness.
“Then what will happen to her?”
He nearly bit his tongue trying to force the question out. It isn’t something that could kill her, is it…?
“It’s nothing like that.”
Yoonwon wrapped an arm around Hayeop’s trembling shoulders and added quietly, “It can be treated perfectly well with medication. Don’t worry too much.”
Even after hearing that, Hayeop could not help worrying. Before long, a needle was inserted into his mother’s gaunt forearm.
Cold sweat ran down Hayeop’s back. His heart felt as though it were being torn apart. If he had known this would happen, he should have dragged his mother to the hospital even if she refused. He had been far too complacent.
“Mom…”
His mother was eventually moved to a hospital room. The needle lodged in her slender forearm looked unbearably crude and violent.
Hayeop sat on the attendant’s chair, holding his breath as huge tears rolled down his cheeks. The shock had not yet worn off.
His cheeks had flushed scarlet, as though they might burst at the slightest touch. Others might have scolded him for making such an excessive fuss, but Hayeop felt as though he had caught a glimpse of hell.
“Come here.”
After watching him quietly for a while, Yoonwon finally called him over. At this rate, Hayeop looked liable to faint from crying.
“Hayeop.”
As though he could not hear him, Hayeop kept his eyes fixed solely on his mother. The fright seemed to have sent him into a panic.
In the end, Yoonwon lifted Hayeop bodily. He was astonishingly light. With only a slight exaggeration, Yoonwon himself might have been bigger and heavier in middle school. He had already stood nearly six feet tall then, and since he had been swimming regularly at the time, he had weighed as much as eighty-five kilograms.
“Don’t cry. There, there.”
A gentle light softened Yoonwon’s languid face as he slowly patted Hayeop’s back. The patient in the next bed seemed to lift their head to look, so Yoonwon reached out one long arm and drew the curtain.
Hayeop’s small head sank deep against Yoonwon’s broad chest. As though sharing his body heat, Yoonwon tightened his arms around the young man.
“I thought Mom was going to die.”
The small body in his arms was like a newborn animal, tiny and warm. Yoonwon held Hayeop enclosed against his chest and gently stroked him. He was crying so hard that he seemed on the verge of fainting, his entire body trembling in tiny spasms.
“My g-grandmother, the one who raised me, died suddenly in her sleep too.”
They had fallen asleep beside each other, but she had died from the heat on a blisteringly hot day. When he woke in the morning, his grandmother’s body had already gone cold. His own body had been warm, but her hand had hung limp and would not move. He had been terrified that his mother might die the same way.
“You must have been frightened.”
“Yes.”
Huge tears rolled down Hayeop’s cheeks. He had been only thirteen then, utterly lost and unable to imagine how he was supposed to go on living.
The father whose face he did not even know had come to collect him from the funeral hall, but Hayeop had always missed his grandmother.
“They said your mother will be all right. After she gets a good, long sleep, she’ll feel better.”
The warm body in his arms continued to tremble faintly, like a fragile little bird drenched in seawater.
“I really thought she was dying.”
What if the mosquito had not bitten him and woken him in time…? Even that horrifying possibility crossed his mind.
“People don’t die that easily.”
“My grandmother… died overnight.”
“Shh.”
Yoonwon whispered into his small, burning ear. Count sheep from one to ten, he told him. Hayeop looked up at Yoonwon, his enormous eyes glistening with tears. Yoonwon’s gaze was firm and unwavering.
“One.”
When Yoonwon started for him, Hayeop finally followed along. One. Two. Three. Four. Only then did his breathing gradually settle. His ragged breaths grew calm, and the small hand clutching Yoonwon’s nape slowly relaxed.
“They gave her painkillers and antiviral medication, so she should wake up soon.”
“…Okay.”
Hayeop slipped out of Yoonwon’s arms and went to his mother. Sitting beside her, he held her hand tightly.
Her hand, callused at every joint, had grown so thin it was heartbreaking. Hayeop pressed his cheek to the cold back of her hand and quietly steadied his breathing.
She’s only sleeping for a little while.
She had spent all her time working in the kitchen and had never even had the chance to properly see Seoul. Once she recovered and got back on her feet, Hayeop silently promised, he would take her somewhere wonderful.
His mother slept for a full half day.
And Young Master remained seated to one side, keeping vigil with him. The night was terribly long.