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“Mr. Kang Juha!”

I urgently called out his name. It seemed my being off guard because nothing had happened lately was the root of the problem. I thought he had improved a lot mentally as well, seeing how he demonstrated a quick recovery no matter what happened.

“Mr. Kang Juha, wake up.”

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him, but his head only lolled helplessly, and he showed no sign of opening his eyes at all.

Outside, the rain was still falling noisily. For now, I turned on the room lights as a matter of urgency.

Only when the vision became bright did the seriousness of the situation hit home. Kang Juha on the bed looked like a person trapped alone in another world. His lips were deathly pale, contrasting with his face which was flushed red.

Worry surged in for a moment, then my mind went blank with an unknown sense of deja vu.

I knew the symptoms of this feeling and sensation. Perhaps the source of this deja vu is somewhere in my memories that I carved out. As for the current me, there was no way to know what triggered it.

Gritting my lips as if swallowing the unpleasant sensation, I pulled back the blanket Kang Juha was covered with. A heavy heat was felt wafting from inside the covers.

“This won’t do…”

Seeing that even his pajamas were soaked through, I first began to unbutton his pajama shirt. His sturdy chest was visible through the parted front, but since it was something I saw often anyway, I didn’t pay much attention and stripped it off quickly.

His fully revealed upper body was burning hot.

“Excuse me.”

It wasn’t exactly something to say after already stripping off all his clothes, but I belatedly asked for his pardon.

As the burning heat slowly cooled down, Kang Juha’s eyelids, which seemed like they would never open again, opened with difficulty.

“…Tea, cher?”

The voice that broke out weakly seemed to manage to recognize me.

“Yes. Are you alright?”

Kang Juha looked at me with hazy eyes, as if he were still trapped in a dream. Even though we were making eye contact, I didn’t feel like we were facing each other. It was because his mind had not yet emerged from the dreamscape.

“Ah…”

An unknown groan leaked from his slowly parted mouth, and his eyelids fell heavily then opened again; then, Kang Juha harbored a faint smile.

“It’s sunbae…”

The deja vu rose again.

If there was a silver lining, it was that this was definitely something within my memory. Because when Kang Juha fainted from guiding shock last time, he had looked at me and said “sunbae” in the exact same way.

Back then, I just thought some state of mental derangement had occurred because dreams and memories were mixed together. But that accidental derangement has happened twice?

Facing the face that was smiling faintly while looking at me made me feel strangely subtle. Is the reason Kang Juha is making that kind of expression right now because he is projecting a fictional Seong Yihyeon from his derangement onto me, who is standing before his eyes?

“…It’s Teacher, not sunbae.”

I corrected the title in a low voice, but unfortunately, it didn’t seem to reach Kang Juha’s ears. He was still looking at me and smiling.

Hah—exhaling a hot breath toward the empty air, he suddenly muttered in a small voice that was barely audible.

“Ah, sunbae doesn’t remember.”

That monologue was so small, and the sound of the rain outside the window was so loud, that I couldn’t even be sure if I heard it correctly.

Following that, Kang Juha let out a series of dry coughs. Without a moment to think about what he had said, I supported his back to help him sit up.

“…My head hurts.”

“I’ll get you some water.”

At the poorly cracked voice, I moved my body first. When I brought him a cup of lukewarm water, he finished it in one go right there without even taking a breath. It was natural since he had been sweating this much.

Kang Juha stared blankly at his own gaping front for a moment, then looked at me again.

“Did I take them off?”

“I stripped you.”

“Ah, so you stripped me…”

Somehow there was some room for misunderstanding in the content of the conversation, but it was strictly a conversation from the standpoint of a patient and the person tending to him.

“Your body temperature was high, and you were sweating a lot.”

I added an explanation in case he might misunderstand, but for some reason, it sounded more pathetic.

“I have never heard of, seen, or experienced a case of an S-class Esper catching something like a body ache or a cold, so it seems to be the nightmare issue you mentioned before, Mr. Kang Juha.”

Kang Juha nodded his head slowly as if he didn’t even have the strength to answer. Then, he suddenly let out a chuckle as if bursting into a hollow laugh.

“Teacher, I’m truly happy.”

Then he suddenly said something out of the blue. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person who had barely woken up from a nightmare would say.

“Look. I’m in Teacher’s house right now, in the same bed, and when I’m foolishly having a nightmare, Teacher is by my side waking me up tenderly.”

“…”

I don’t think… I woke him up all that tenderly, really. Kang Juha’s bare chest caught my eye even more for no reason.

“But why am I so anxious?”

Humans always live with a little bit of anxiety. It’s not that strange. I kept my mouth shut because it felt too indifferent to soothe Kang Juha with such words.

“There were days when the sun rising was hell. Back then, I was afraid of the day beginning.”

“…”

“I feel like that keeps repeating. Where on earth am I right now?”

Perhaps announcing Kang Juha’s return was too hasty.

What he is asking now probably isn’t about his physical location. It was natural to experience confusion since time is still fixed in the present while past memories are in a state of being mixed together.

Since he hadn’t shown it much in the meantime, I thought he was adapting well, but that might not have been the case.

I couldn’t give the correct answer that Kang Juha wanted. Because artificially solving it by tampering with his brain right now is a decision that would never be good for Kang Juha in the long run.

Rather, it was possible that the traumas he had buried or the horrific memories he had naturally forgotten might float to the surface. Then I wouldn’t know how long of a time would be needed for Kang Juha’s recovery. No, I don’t even know if he can recover in the first place.

In the end, there is no choice but to manipulate or carve out his memories again. It was a repetition of a vicious cycle.

There was no way Kang Juha’s already tattered brain could endure such a thing. Even if he could endure it, I didn’t want to do such a thing.

“At least for now, you are with me.”

Complicated information and truths were not needed. Only enough information for Kang Juha to see with his own two eyes right now and make an intuitive judgment was necessary.

“I see.”

As expected, Kang Juha’s expression relaxed. Has his mind returned a bit now?

“As I thought, I must like you, Teacher.”

…Sssip, it feels like it hasn’t returned yet.

“Even though Teacher gives me chocolate instead of candy now…”

“Candy? What candy?”

Why candy all of a sudden?

“Green grape flavored candy.”

It was shocking enough to hear exactly what flavor of candy was mentioned from the mouth of Kang Juha, who used to just eat silently without any reaction no matter what I gave him as a meal. To talk about green grape flavored candy with that face and a physique revealing his abs and chest muscles so openly. My temples ached from the cognitive dissonance.

“Are you sleepy now?”

“I’m not sure. I guess so…”

Seeing how the end of his words trailed off, he was clearly in a half-sleep-drunk state.

Looking at it now, the candy talk also seemed to be like a memory situated somewhere in Kang Juha’s past. Since it was obvious he wouldn’t understand even if I pressed for details, I decided to just let it be. I didn’t have the luxury of digging through someone else’s memories in the midst of this chaotic situation.

“Get some sleep.”

“Is Teacher… going to leave?”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

I had been standing by the bed to wake him up, but he seemed to have mistaken it as me trying to go out. In fact, strictly speaking, it was true that I intended to sleep in another room…

“I didn’t know, but the bed is narrower than I thought.”

“…”

Kang Juha avoided my gaze like a person who had been caught with a hidden secret. As I thought, it was true that he had been sleeping barely clinging to the edge of the bed so that I wouldn’t feel discomfort.

“Haven’t you been uncomfortable all this time?”

“I originally sleep curled up.”

“…I don’t think that’s the case.”

Just a moment ago, he was sleeping lying straight in a proper posture. And whether it’s because his shoulders are broad or not, he was taking up a lot of surface area. It looked like his head wouldn’t even touch the pillow because of his shoulders if he lay on his side.

“It wasn’t uncomfortable at all. For me, Teacher not being here is more uncomfortable.”

I don’t know how it could be more uncomfortable when one person has left, but considering Kang Juha’s current state is not good, I decided to think that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word “uncomfortable” very well.

“Well, since I have to monitor Mr. Kang Juha’s condition, I won’t move to another room.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But since I think sleeping together in one bed is pushing it…”

“Then I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Before I could even say that I would sleep on the floor first, Kang Juha snatched the words away.

“How can I let a patient sleep on the floor?”

“I want to be together. Can’t you hold my hand?”

“…Then today, I will be the one sleeping curled up.”

Since there had been Kang Juha’s efforts in the meantime, I decided to back down once for the sake of the sick man today. It seemed I would have to request to change the bed to a larger size or something.