NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10
“Blood, blood…”
“It’s okay, Choron. Calm down.”
The person covered in blood was trying to calm down the one looking at him.
“Ho-hospital… Ambulance!”
“Everything’s fi-khe… fine.”
Sa Gongwoo tried to stop me when I took out my phone to call an ambulance.
“What do you mean fine?! Blood is gushing from your mouth! Why did you come to eat seolleongtang in this condition, you need to go to the hospital urgently!”
“The external wounds have already healed, this is all just due to internal damage.”
Sa Gongwoo continued coughing, as if trying to spit out blood clots stuck in his throat. With each cough, blood dripped from his hand covering his mouth.
“Then you need to go treat your internal organs! What’s the point of treating only what’s visible?”
“If you wait, it will pass.”
“With such words, you’re just putting soybean paste on a wound. You need to get treatment to recover, not just sit and wait. I can’t believe there are still such ignorant people in our time.”
“I’m an awakener. Do you think this is the first time for me? Really, everything’s fine. It’s just dead blood coming out while the internal organs are recovering.”
For someone to talk about internal restoration, at the very least, his already pale face should stop getting even whiter after each blood-filled cough.
“I should have come tomorrow, not today. Showed Choron such an unsightly spectacle.”
“No, now is not the time for such talk…”
“Trust me. Really, everything’s fine. Even if I go to the hospital, they’ll just tell me to rest. I just need to sleep a little, and…”
Saying this, Sa Gongwoo suddenly spat out a huge blood clot and his head immediately crashed onto the table with a loud thud.
“Hey, hey! Sa Gongwoo! Hey!”
Did he lose consciousness? Or is he already dead?
I carefully patted his back, but there was no reaction, so I tried to lift Sa Gongwoo by the shoulders, but couldn’t hold him and his unconscious body crashed back onto the table with a thud.
“Ah, sorry.”
At least in this state, you don’t feel pain.
“And what should I do? He was coughing up blood and fell unconscious, what should I do with this?”
It’s good that the seolleongtang had already cooled down, otherwise it would have spilled all over Sa Gongwoo when he fainted. His whole face and clothes were in complete chaos due to the broth, partially mixed with blood.
Think. No, calm down.
Need to think and calm down.
“No, damn it.”
I slapped myself on the cheek, trying to put my tangled thoughts in order.
First calm down, then think.
In order, step by step.
First, calm down. And I calmed down.
“Not yet!”
I’m not calm yet, but I’m calming down. I’m calming down. I must calm down.
Phew, okay, fine. Now I need to think.
Sa Gongwoo spat out blood and lost consciousness.
What needs to be done?
Clean up the mess in the restaurant?
Cleaning the restaurant, leaving a person lying down, is too inhumane and immoral.
Wipe Sa Gongwoo’s stained face and clothes?
This is the most meaningless action.
Call an ambulance. Take him to the hospital?
According to Sa Gongwoo, he had problems with internal organs, and it was dead blood coming out while the organs were recovering.
But how could a person know everything about their illness? If everyone knew, why would patients exist at all? Everyone so confidently said “I’m fine,” and then just suddenly died.
“Still, we need to take him to the hospital first.”
See, when you calm down and think slowly, things progress.
There’s no need to panic. Absolutely no need to panic.
Okay. I’m in a completely calm state.
With trembling hands, I took out my phone and called an ambulance.
While waiting, I thought about what to do. Sa Gongwoo looked terrible, so I was wondering if I should wipe off the blood or move him to a more comfortable position, but decided it was better not to touch him thoughtlessly, and stepped away. Instead, I hung the
“Here, here!”
The paramedics, who parked the ambulance right in front of the restaurant, came out with a stretcher.
“Where’s the patient?”
“There, inside. I left him in the same position he fell in.”
“Oh…”
The paramedics sighed briefly, seeing the state of the restaurant inside. They put the unconscious Sa Gongwoo on the stretcher and transferred him to the ambulance.
“Are you coming with us?”
I automatically prepared to go right away, but then thought that a restaurant owner has no reason to accompany a person who lost consciousness in his establishment. But if I just send Sa Gongwoo alone like this, I probably won’t be able to sleep. I nodded, saying I would go, locked the restaurant, and got into the ambulance.
∞ ∞ ∞
“I can’t say he was wrong.”
After Sa Gongwoo was taken to the hospital and his identity was verified, it turned out that he was already a patient who had visited the hospital this morning.
As Sa Gongwoo said, he didn’t have any particular wounds or illnesses, and all he needed was time for his body to recover. Of course, he won’t recover in a day, but after a good sleep, he should come to his senses, and after a week of rest, he’ll be able to get up and walk normally.
It was not only surprising that I unexpectedly received official confirmation that Sa Gongwoo was indeed an awakener working as a hunter, but even more surprising was that an awakener’s body could recover naturally without any consequences after such severe bleeding.
“Just wasted money for nothing.”
As Sa Gongwoo said, we should have just left him alone. I called an ambulance for nothing, went through the emergency department, and even paid for hospitalization.
No. When a person right in front of you was spitting out not a few drops, but several cups of blood, you can’t just leave him untouched, even if he said everything was fine.
Although it was in vain, it wasn’t the wrong thing to do.
When the shock from the fountain of blood that spurted right in front of me, and the worry about what could have happened if something had gone wrong, disappeared, I felt my strength leave me as if after exhausting work. I looked at Sa Gongwoo, who was sleeping peacefully, calming my irritated stomach.
When he was spitting blood, he was as white as flour dough, but it seems the saying “sleep is the best medicine” is true, as color was gradually returning to his face.
“If you were feeling so bad, why did you come to eat seolleongtang…”
If your body needs rest to recover, then rest, why go where you shouldn’t? Why forcibly eat seolleongtang, which you can’t even swallow without difficulty?
“How stupid you are.”
Although he looked normal. No, outwardly he even surpassed many, so why are his actions so short-sighted?
I thought he had no talent for scamming, but judging by how wounded he appeared today, coughing up blood clots, apparently his hunter abilities aren’t much better.
“Hey, Sa Gongwoo.”
I lightly poked the back of Sa Gongwoo’s hand, neatly folded on his stomach. Even his fingers are beautiful.
This person even has beautiful nails, although it seemed unnecessary.
“Match your appearance, match it. With a face like you could get the whole world, but why is your every action so clumsy? With such a face, you could be at the center of the world without doing anything. I really don’t understand.”
“Am I that handsome?”
There was a smile in his hoarse voice.
“What? You weren’t asleep?”
“Uh-huh, I woke up from the sweet whisper.”
Sa Gongwoo blinked his long eyelashes, coughing slightly due to his dry throat.
“Do you want water?”
I brought a glass of warm water and inserted a straw into it. Sa Gongwoo took the straw with his dry lips with difficulty and started drinking water. Then he exhaled: “Ha-ah.”
“If you’re feeling so bad, stay in the hospital or at home. Did you come to someone else’s establishment to cover everything in blood and finally faint? What kind of hooliganism is this?”
“Indeed. I wanted to see Choron so much and came. I should have endured.”
“Someone might think we’re a separated family.”
I didn’t think I was such a desirable person for Sa Gongwoo. What deep and painful relationship could we have? If we had one, he would have come long ago. Moreover, before returning to the past, he didn’t come at all for those ten years.
I didn’t understand why in this life, unlike the previous one, he constantly showed up, but I didn’t feel any excitement, just clicked my tongue at his stupid actions.
“Where am I? In the hospital?”
“Although you said everything would be fine, I just couldn’t leave you in that state when you were coughing up blood so heavily, and then lost consciousness. Although it turned out to be completely useless indeed. An awakener’s body really was a mystery.”
Sa Gongwoo weakly chuckled in response to my grumbling.
“Sorry.”
“Did you really understand?”
“I’ll come early tomorrow morning and clean up.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, just go to sleep. How do you even take care of your health, that a hunter faints like this? Aren’t awakeners superhumans? I’m shocked.”
“Awakeners are people too. We also get injured, fall, and die, that’s how it is.”
“This happens when you fight monsters. But why do you faint exactly in a seolleongtang restaurant?”
“Sorry.”
His dejected voice only made me sigh. I waved my hand, thinking there was no point in talking to a sick person.
“But I’m glad that Choron is taking care of me. I think I’ll get better quickly.”
I lightly slapped Sa Gongwoo on the forehead with my palm in response to these meaningless words.
“That’s just your imagination. If you don’t rest, you won’t recover quickly, so go to sleep.”
“I like talking to Choron like this more.”
“Stop talking nonsense. I’ve already paid for the emergency department expenses and one day of hospitalization, so rest well so the money doesn’t go to waste.”
“Before, when I had a cold and was sick, Choron would say: ‘Brother, get well soon’, and apply a wet towel. Choron was kind then and is kind now.”
“Keep your memories to yourself and close your eyes.”
How would I know if I applied a wet towel or a rag? I don’t even remember that.
I ran my hand over Sa Gongwoo’s eyelids, immersed in his memories, making him finally close his eyes.
“But I don’t want to sleep.”
“No, you clearly want to sleep. Stop talking nonsense and quickly fall asleep.”
There are clearly droplets of sleep on your eyelashes. What “don’t want to sleep”.
I sighed deeply, looking at his smooth face, which seemed to have already improved significantly. Not knowing whether he understood my state or not, Sa Gongwoo, who claimed he didn’t want to sleep, fell asleep in less than five minutes.