Chapter 20 : The Looming Dark Curtain. (2)
Chapter 20: The Looming Dark Curtain. (2)
I opened the hospital room door and stepped inside.
The inside was so noisy it made my ears ring.
The chatter of patients mixed with the sound of the TV.
Amid a shortage of Awakened to respond to monster appearances, the National Assembly passed the <Special Exemption from Military Service for Hunters Bill>. The implementation date is unusually set for this year……
Inside the room, beds were lined up in a single row with only curtains separating them.
It was a 24-person room.
At a glance, it wasn’t a layout meant to house normal patients.
After the world changed, more and more people were getting injured by monsters bursting out from the gates.
With insufficient medical facilities, hospitals overflowed.
Insurance companies seized the moment and aggressively sold products to people.
Hospitals, eager to make money, accepted patients as though running a mass-production factory.
This was the result.
A noisy market where actual patients and nylon patients were mixed together.
I walked down the narrow central aisle toward the corner.
I checked the bed number and pulled back the curtain.
“……Hello.”
A woman who had been sitting in a chair stood up.
She had red hair and piercings in her ears.
Was she barely twenty?
Her baby fat hadn’t completely left yet, giving her a youthful face.
Her eyes were swollen, as if she had been crying all day.
“Are you the one who called me?”
“Yes. I’m Lee Mi-na, Seon-woong oppa’s girlfriend. Thank you for coming.”
“I’m Choi Yong-gi.”
After the formal greetings, my gaze naturally moved toward the bed.
Ma Seon-woong’s condition was truly horrific.
His head was wrapped in bandages, and one eye was covered with an eye patch.
His arms and legs, including his neck, were all in casts.
His entire face was bruised a vivid purple.
“…….”
A heavy silence settled between us.
“What happened?”
“He said he was attacked by an assailant while making a delivery.”
Lee Mi-na gave a brief explanation.
Someone had dragged Ma Seon-woong into an alley and beaten him senseless there.
“Oppa isn’t the type to just get beat up by someone……. I was really shocked too. Ah—me contacting you out of nowhere must’ve surprised you, right? I’m sorry.”
Lee Mi-na bowed her head deeply like a guilty person.
“Seon-woong oppa is an orphan, so he has no family. He’s been trying to straighten his life out these days, so he deleted all his old friends’ contacts. Then I happened to find a message and contacted you…….”
From the look of it, she had nowhere else to ask for help.
How frustrated must she have been to call someone she had never met?
“What did the doctor say?”
Just by looking at him, it felt like Ma Seon-woong might never get up again.
“Th-the thing is……”
She pulled out a tiny pink phone and began reading the notes written there.
“Dislocated left eye lens, retinal detachment and hemorrhage, cervical spine damage, orbital fracture, rib fractures, colon perforation…….”
I didn’t need to hear the rest to understand. Just how seriously Ma Seon-woong had been injured.
“I didn’t know what any of it meant, so I just wrote everything down. After I dropped out of high school, I only worked in restaurants, so there are a lot of things I don’t know.”
Our conversation had been short, but I could tell what kind of person she was.
Despite her flashy appearance, she seemed kind-hearted.
“Ugh……”
At the sound of our voices, Ma Seon-woong woke from sleep and opened his eyes.
He blinked groggily and met my gaze.
“Oh? Look who it is.”
Despite being a wreck, a faint smile formed on his lips.
“Isn’t this the great hero himself. What brings you here?”
“Oppa. I called him.”
“Hey, I told you not to call anyone.”
Lee Mi-na looked back and forth between the two of us.
“But oppa, who is he?”
“Ahh. He’s my friend.”
Then he winked with the eye that wasn’t covered.
What was a friend?
Someone you laughed and talked with, someone you spent your school days with?
If that was the standard, then I had no friends.
Smoking, gambling, billiards, bowling, anything that cost money—I had quit all of it long ago.
Meeting friends was part of that too.
It wasn’t easy maintaining relationships when working in a factory your whole life.
Yet Ma Seon-woong gladly introduced me as a friend after meeting me only once.
“Baby. I’m thirsty. Can you get me some coffee?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Lee Mi-na stood up and gave me a bright smile.
“Yong-gi nim, what would you like?”
She had already memorized my name, it seemed.
“I’m fine.”
“Hey now. You’re still a guest.”
She imitated Ma Seon-woong’s tone in a cute way.
“Mi-na, just get something cool. Friend, you’re okay with that, right?”
I nodded lightly.
Ma Seon-woong wasn’t craving coffee, that much was obvious.
“Okay! I’ll be right back!”
Lee Mi-na walked toward the door, repeatedly glancing back at us as if anxious.
Once she was gone, Ma Seon-woong let out a sigh of relief.
I sat on the chair beside the bed. With no cushion, the seat felt cold and hard against me.
Had Lee Mi-na been staying at his side in this place for days?
“Hey.”
Ma Seon-woong greeted me again.
“How do I look? I haven’t been able to see myself in a mirror.”
“You look great.”
He caught the sarcasm and grinned slyly.
“Well, I am pretty handsome.”
Then his smile faded, and he got to the point.
“Nothing happened to you, right? You didn’t get hurt?”
He was a critical patient and yet he asked about me. What a ridiculous guy.
“I heard you were attacked. Who was it? A villain?”
“I don’t know. I’d never seen him before.”
Ma Seon-woong tried to recall.
“He was wearing a mask, so I couldn’t even see his face properly.”
A mask? In my previous life I had never seen anyone wandering around wearing something like that.
“What other features?”
Ma Seon-woong pressed his lips together and stared at me quietly.
“He was looking for you.”
The assailant had attacked Ma Seon-woong with a clear purpose.
The circle was tightening.
Most likely, Ma Seon-woong had been beaten because of me.
“Sorry.”
The apology didn’t come from me—it came from Ma Seon-woong.
“I told him where I dropped you off. I had a picture of Mi-na in my wallet, and the bastard used it to threaten me……”
I understood.
Ma Seon-woong must have tried to keep his mouth shut until the end.
And then he ended up like this.
Rage surged at the thought of that man trying to use his girlfriend as a hostage.
“……All because of me.”
“It’s fine. Now I feel relieved.”
Staring up at the hospital ceiling, Ma Seon-woong continued.
“I always felt guilty toward my friend. You know, that guy who tried to hunt monsters and ended up ruined for life. I worried I’d die pathetically after riding a motorcycle all my life.”
He let out a small laugh.
“At least I helped you, right?”
He said,
“That bald bastard who beat me up—he’s a real piece of shit.”
The moment he said “bald,” my grip tightened.
My suspicion solidified.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but don’t ever lose to trash like him. Got it?”
Ma Seon-woong lifted his casted arm and groaned.
“You should get going. He’s probably looking for you.”
My location had been exposed.
The Dio Guild had realized the Purple Devil was in the Ilsan Hunter Industrial District.
‘I need to prepare.’
Ma Seon-woong held out a fist poking out between the plaster.
“Hey. My righteous Hunter. Thanks for coming.”
He still mistakenly believed I was a Hunter.
I lightly bumped my fist against his.
“Seon-woong. Talk casually between friends.”
Ma Seon-woong blinked as sleepiness washed over him.
“Yeah. I’ll sleep now. Go, before Mi-na comes back.”
I pulled the blanket up over his chest and turned away.
The noisy multi-patient room buzzed around me.
Trash that patients had tossed aside rolled messily across the floor.
“Friend!”
Ma Seon-woong’s shout echoed behind me.
When I turned, his shoulders were trembling as he panted.
Saying he would sleep had only been an excuse.
He burst into tears from his one uncovered eye, grief overflowing.
“……That son of a bitch! Make sure you hit him back properly. Please!”
How humiliating and infuriating must it have been for him— to be beaten by someone, then return in front of the woman he loved.
I nodded at him.
Only after hearing my answer did he finally close his eyes.
I left the hospital room and headed straight for the reception desk.
A memory from my past life came back.
In sweltering heat, my younger sibling had eaten something bad and gotten enteritis.
Whatever Grandmother cooked, they threw it up immediately, and their fever rose to 39 degrees.
In the end, we rushed to the emergency room.
It was past 3 a.m.
Taxi fare, hospital fees—several hundred thousand won disappeared.
That’s right.
Even while my sibling was sick, I had been worrying about money.
Blood ties are like that.
My sibling could read my thoughts just by looking at my face.
“Sorry, hyung. I won’t get sick again.”
That was poverty.
You couldn’t even afford to get sick. And you couldn’t dare burden others with worry.
‘But not anymore.’
In this life, I vowed never to tremble before money again.
“Here’s your receipt.”
I took what the nurse handed me.
When I turned around after thanking her, I ran into Lee Mi-na, holding coffees in both hands.
“Oh? You’re already leaving?”
“I came during work hours, so I need to get back.”
“I see. Please have some coffee!”
“I’m fine.”
“Then at least take this!”
Not just drinks—she had bought bread and all sorts of snacks.
It felt rude to refuse everything, so I accepted the plastic bag.
“Thank you for coming even though you’re busy. Oppa had no energy for days, but seeing you made him smile a little. Must be because you’re friends?”
When she smiled, her red hair shimmered.
“I’ll visit again. And also—”
I pointed toward the room.
“I don’t think that room is good for Seon-woong. He should be moved to a single room.”
“Right…….”
Everyone already knew that.
Of course a one-person room was better than a 24-person one.
But I already knew what someone working in a restaurant could afford.
“Tomorrow’s payday. I was thinking of at least getting him into a 12-person room.”
“No need. I already paid. Move him immediately.”
“Sorry?”
I extended the receipt I was holding. She accepted it without thinking.
When she saw the number written there, her pupils widened.
Just then, a nurse joined our conversation.
“You’re Ma Seon-woong’s guardian, right? He already completed the payment. We’ll move him today. A VIP room just became available.”
Lee Mi-na stood frozen for a moment, then burst into tears.
Big, heavy tears dropped onto the receipt and blurred the ink.
“I didn’t contact you because I wanted something like this……. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
She bowed her head to me again and again.
Ma Seon-woong had been hurt because of me. I had simply done what I needed to do.
“Well then.”
As I walked down the hallway, I could feel eyes on my back.
When I turned, I found Lee Mi-na staring at me with a wistful expression.
As if she would stand there like a stone statue until I disappeared.
Stepping outside the hospital, I finally felt I could breathe.
There was definitely something stale mixed in the hospital air.
I got on my motorcycle and made a call through Bluetooth.
A voice came through the receiver.
— Dejang! When you coming? Cweam bun?
I checked the plastic bag and saw a soft white cream bun inside.
“I bought it.”
— Yay! You’re the best! Hurry up, Dejang!
“Did anyone come looking for me?”
— Someone looking for you? Hmm. No one!
The Dio Guild hadn’t arrived yet.
But they would soon.
Maybe immediately. Maybe when I least expected it.
— Who’s coming?
“Yeah.”
I fixed my helmet and started the engine.
“Let’s get ready to welcome our guest.”