I started running a fever.
At first, I did not think much of it. I thought I might be a little dizzy, but it soon passed, and even though my body felt slightly heavy, I assumed it was because I had moved around more than usual. I had not been exposed to cold wind for long, nor had I done anything particularly strenuous.
But strangely, as time passed, it began to feel as though my organs were boiling from the inside. My fingertips were faintly cold, while my forehead was hot, and even the slightest shortness of breath made my chest tighten uncomfortably.
The first person to notice that something was wrong with my body was Baek Hyeonwoo. Unlike me, who had dismissed it as something that would soon pass, he placed a hand on my forehead, let out a long sigh, and said,
“You have a fever.”
“Is it high?”
“Yeah, it’ll probably get worse as time passes. I thought something seemed off about you earlier.”
Baek Hyeonwoo looked down at me worriedly and called out to Moon Seyoung, who had been walking ahead. She did not ask why we had stopped, but nodded as though she understood what had happened and gestured toward us.
“I think there should be somewhere we can rest if we go this way.”
“Come here.”
“It’s not bad enough that I can’t walk.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
Even though I said I was fine, my eldest brother lightly ignored me and picked me up as he pleased. Baek Hyeonwoo usually listened to almost everything I said, but when it came to my health, he did not yield even a little.
Knowing that, instead of resisting or complaining any further, I relaxed the strength that had gone into my body and let myself go limp.
“Why is this happening……. I can’t think of anything that might have caused it.”
“Your body has always been like this. Even if we find the cause, there probably won’t be any way to fix it, so don’t stress yourself out by thinking about it unnecessarily.”
“Mm-hm.”
A large hand brushed back the hair damp with cold sweat and gently rubbed my cheek. Maybe because my body temperature had risen, the cool touch felt incredibly pleasant.
“What a spoiled child.”
When I instinctively rubbed my cheek against his palm, Baek Hyeonwoo smiled faintly, though he still looked down at me with concern, and said,
“Every time this happens, I wish I could be sick in your place.”
“Come on, it’s just a little fever.”
“Don’t say that. Every time you show how accustomed you are to pain, it upsets me.”
When he put it like that, I had nothing to say again, so I merely wrinkled the bridge of my nose once and then relaxed it.
“It looks like it’s going to rain soon…… I think it would be best to rest here.”
Moon Seyoung came out of a private residence and looked up at the sky. Just as she said, the air was damp and the distinctive smell of rain was so strong that it would not have been strange for rain to start falling at any moment.
“All right.”
“Would you like to stay in the living room for a while? It’s dirty, so I think we’ll need to clean a bit.”
As Moon Seyoung had said, the inside was extremely dirty. Starting with footprints stamped haphazardly across the floor, filth and scraps of food were scattered everywhere, producing a powerful rotten stench.
“Hold your nose.”
“Mm-hm.”
Even the faintest whiff made me gag so badly that it felt as though my stomach were turning inside out. I hurriedly covered my nose with my sleeve, and Baek Hyeonwoo roughly wiped down a small side table in the corner of the living room before setting me on top of it and saying,
“Silly, you help too.”
PREEE-EEK.
At those words, the creature that had been sleeping in my pocket made a sound that could have been either displeasure or an answer and slowly jumped down. He was making something the size of my palm clean? I stared at him in bewilderment, but Baek Hyeonwoo gave instructions as though there were nothing unusual about it.
“Find something we can use as a rag and wash it.”
Finding a rag was one thing, but could it even wring the water out?
Unable to suppress my curiosity, I watched Baek Hyeonwoo carefully as he entered a room, then quietly crept after Silly.
PEEP?
Silly gave a short cry as though asking why I was following, but it did not try to stop me. After briefly peeking around the kitchen and bathroom, the creature soon pulled a slightly dusty towel from a cupboard, dropped it into the sink, then broke a bar of soap into pieces with its tentacles and placed them on top.
Then it turned on the water and began washing the towel…… Its hand movements were more skillful than I had expected…… No, were they foot movements? Anyway, it was surprisingly capable. As though thoroughly working up a lather were not enough, it even cut the towel in half with its teeth.
And wringing out the water, which I had been most curious about, turned out to be nothing special. Silly draped the towel over the rack, gripped both ends with its tentacles, twisted them tightly, then hung from it and squeezed the water straight out. Although it ended up soaked all over, the creature shook itself once and left the bathroom.
“I told you to stay still.”
The instant I followed it out of the bathroom, I was picked up by my eldest brother again and returned to my original place. He took the rag from Silly and gave it its next assignment.
“Keep watch so he can’t wander around.”
BWAAK!
……Silly made a strange sound it had never made before, then immediately stretched its legs out and began watching me with fierce eyes. Its vigilance was so strict that even if I shifted my body slightly, it cried loudly as though scolding me and circled the side table over and over.
I’m staying still, I protested in a small voice, but Silly only glared at me with blazing eyes. Fine, do whatever you want, you inflexible little bastard.
“Come here.”
Only after Baek Hyeonwoo spoke did Silly obediently step back. It did not stop there, but climbed onto my brother’s shoulder and proudly stretched out its legs, which was so irritating that I could not help glaring at it.
“There was no way to clean the bed properly. It’ll be uncomfortable, but let’s sleep on the floor just for tonight.”
The room was so clean that it was hard to believe he had cleaned it in such a short time. Perhaps because he had taken every object in the room outside, the empty space looked just like the first day after moving in.
“Would you like to cover yourself with a blanket for now? The boiler isn’t working…… I laid down an electric heating mat for the time being.”
“This is enough.”
“No. I’ll bring bedding soon, so rest properly in the room. Ms. Seyoung will be cleaning in the living room, so call her if anything happens.”
“You’re going out alone?”
It looked like it was going to rain soon…….
I glanced at the bedding that had been taken outside the room. It was a little dusty, but it seemed as though we could shake it out properly and use it, yet Baek Hyeonwoo apparently could not tolerate even that.
“We can’t both leave. But I can’t trust Ms. Seyoung to go, because she seems likely to bring back something completely unrelated.”
“Good grief, she only has to bring clean bedding, doesn’t she?”
“See?”
As though he had known she would say that, Baek Hyeonwoo clicked his tongue and stood up.
……But I don’t really understand either? After glancing around, I asked, “Doesn’t she just have to bring clean bedding?” and he smiled with satisfaction and said, “That’s right, our Sihyeon is so smart.”
“What! I gave the exact same answer, so why are you discriminating?”
“What was the same about it?”
“……D-didn’t I say the same thing? Ah! I said clean bedding too!”
She had spoken so confidently that for a moment, even I thought she might have said something different. When Moon Seyoung raised her voice indignantly, Baek Hyeonwoo answered by arching one eyebrow without showing even the slightest sign of remorse.
“The person who said it is different.”
“…….”
“Are Ms. Moon Seyoung and Sihyeon the same?”
This time, even Moon Seyoung seemed to lose the ability to respond. She moved her lips several times, then simply turned around in silence and resumed cleaning the living room, while Baek Hyeonwoo paid no attention and merely checked the temperature of the heating mat before telling me worriedly to lie down.
Saying he would be back soon, Baek Hyeonwoo left the house. I lay down with another blanket as a pillow, shifted my body, and buried my face in it. Moon Seyoung was in the living room, but perhaps because the door had been closed due to the smell, the atmosphere somehow felt strange.
'Come to think of it, there’s no smell in this room at all.'
Was this room relatively clean? Well, that must have been why the cleaning was finished so quickly, in less than an hour.
I let out a long breath and slowly blinked my heavy eyelids.
Honestly, until just a little while ago, I had thought it was bearable. I had even wondered whether I had been too hasty in deciding to rest when I seemed fine at this level.
But the moment I actually lay down, the fever began boiling all at once, exploding as though it had been hiding somewhere inside me.
Heat crept upward from the place where my back touched the floor, then quickly took over my entire body, making even my breath burn hot.
“Ugh…….”
And soon, it became a familiar pain.
Naturally, my arms and legs sagged heavily as though they were not mine, and even moving a single finger required a considerable amount of strength. Wow, this is driving me insane. I frowned as a light cough escaped me.
PEE-OONG.
Silly, which had been beside me, approached and pressed its body flat against my forehead. I wondered what it was doing, but perhaps because it had been soaked earlier, its body temperature was lower than usual and pleasantly cool.
“I’ll get better quickly thanks to you.”
It was so cute that I giggled and teased it, but after a little more time passed, I no longer had even the strength for that.