NTH 31

“Were you a culinary arts professor, not an English professor?”

“Just hurry up and eat. Eat and then take the fever reducer too.”

“Did you cook porridge like this for your ex-girlfriends when they were sick? How many people have laid in this bed?”

“If you’re just going to say things like that, you can feed yourself from now on.”

“No, I don’t even have the strength to hold a spoon. I’m telling you, I can barely move my mouth.”

Jeha chuckled and blew on the porridge before feeding it to Nana. As Nana, who was taking the food as it was given, suddenly looked down at the clothes he was wearing.

“Are these your clothes?”

“Yes.”

“When did you change me?”

“As soon as I brought you here. I couldn’t have you lie down with wet clothes on, could I?”

“That’s true. The sheets would get wet.”

“It’s not that, it’s because wet clothes can lower your body temperature and make your cold worse.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Jeha fed Nana another spoonful of porridge. While the atmosphere was good like this, there was something he had to tell him in advance.

“I put you in new underwear.”

“Huh? You changed my underwear too?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must have seen everything. How was it? Wasn’t my thing a bit bigger than you expected? The shape is pretty too, right?”

Even after confessing that he had stripped him completely, what a nonchalant attitude without even blinking an eye. Jeha was so dumbfounded that he let out a hollow laugh.

“Do you think I would be looking at something like that in that situation?”

“Of course. If I were the one changing your underwear, I would have taken the opportunity to measure its length with a ruler. Since for men, the length when it’s erect is important, I might have touched it a bit too.”

“Make some sense.”

“What’s there to be shy about between men. Just like a Confucian man. Just give me the rest of the porridge.”

Looking at Nana’s lips smacking as he ate the porridge, Jeha asked with a shadow-like black anxiety.

“But you, by any chance, have you ever had something like that happen to you with CEO Cheon?”

“CEO Cheon doesn’t change my clothes or anything. He would just strip them all off, if anything. When he threatens delinquent debtors, the first thing he takes away is their clothes.”

Nana spoke in a joking tone, strangely avoiding Jeha’s gaze. Jeha felt something was off, but he kept his mouth shut for now. There was something else he needed to say right now.

“You said your house was flooded.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a place to stay right now?”

“No. I have to look for one now.”

At Jeha’s words, Nana’s head drooped sullenly. Jeha spoke casually, hoping it would sound as light as asking for a cup of coffee.

“Then just, live here, I guess.”

“What? Live here? In your house?”

“Yeah.”

“With you?”

“Yes. You know, there are people like live-in housekeepers. I’m telling you to do that.”

As Jeha made something up on the spot, Nana’s eyes sparkled. He grabbed Jeha’s hand, which was holding the spoon, with both of his hands.

“Wow! A live-in housekeeper! Can I really? I can do a good job! If you’re writing your thesis until dawn, I’ll even make you coffee!”

As expected, he showed no signs of refusal whatsoever. Jeha smiled faintly and patted Nana’s head.

“Alright. Pick any room you want. I’ll decorate it so you can stay there.”

“No, you don’t have to. I can sleep anywhere. I don’t need a pillow or a blanket either. I’ve slept in parks or subway stations covered in newspapers many times before, so what’s the big deal.”

“Don’t do that anymore. I’ll of course put in a bed and a blanket. If there’s anything else you need, just tell me.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best to be a housekeeper you really need.”

Nana smiled brightly with the fever-reducing patch on his forehead.

Looking at that smile, Jeha still couldn’t find the reason why he felt a heart-wrenching pain, as if his chest was collapsing.

After finishing the porridge, Nana fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until nightfall. Except for a brief trip to the kitchen for a simple dinner of a sandwich and coffee, Jeha stayed by Nana’s side the whole time, reading a book or browsing the internet news on his phone.

Manager Jeong arrived when it was almost ten o’clock that night. When Jeha went to the entrance and unlocked the door, Manager Jeong, holding large shopping bags in both hands, and a middle-aged man with a tense expression, clutching a doctor’s bag, were standing there.

“Thank you for coming. Please come in.”

At Jeha’s words, the doctor bowed his head in greeting. Manager Jeong, who was as tall as Jeha and had a friendly appearance, put the shopping bags down on the living room sofa.

“So where is that Martian now?”

“In the master bedroom.”

“What? In your bedroom, Young Master? What is he doing there?”

“Sleeping.”

“You don’t mean in your bed, Young Master?”

“Yes.”

Manager Jeong made a horrified face as if he couldn’t believe it.

He had been hired as a secretary and bodyguard for Chairman Kwon’s family when Jeha was a high school student and had been assisting Jeha in England. After Jeha became an adult, he insisted on going alone, saying he didn’t need a separate secretary, so Manager Jeong had been working at Jeha’s family home.

Still, he had a lot of affection and interest in Jeha, and was in charge of taking care of all matters, big and small, related to Jeha. As far as Manager Jeong knew, Kwon Jeha had never let anyone, whether a friend or a lover, sleep in his room, let alone his bed.

“He has a fever and is sick from being in the rain, and there’s no bed in the other rooms.”

As Jeha said this defensively, Manager Jeong grinned.

“I didn’t say anything. I was just thinking about whether that Martian could also do something like mind control on earthlings.”

“I told you he’s not a Martian…”

“Then why didn’t you go to the hospital and asked me to bring a doctor? Is he a criminal? Or a gangster? Did he get shot in a fight between gangs over drugs?”

“We’ll talk about that later. Sir, please come this way. Manager Jeong, please organize these clothes in the built-in closet in that empty room over there.”

Jeha took the doctor, who was frozen and just looking around after hearing words like Martian, criminal, and gangster, to his room.

As if he had brought a person who couldn’t speak at all when asked to bring someone with heavy lips, the doctor opened his bag without a word and took out a few instruments. He listened to the breathing sounds by placing the stethoscope on various parts of Nana’s chest and measured his blood pressure with a manual sphygmomanometer.

Because of that, Nana slowly opened his eyes. As soon as his eyes met the doctor’s, Nana asked.

“Mister, who are you?”

“…I am a doctor.”

“A doctor? Why is a doctor here?”

Fortunately, he seemed to be able to speak. To the bewildered Nana, Jeha, who was standing by the bed and watching, answered instead of the doctor.

“I brought him here. To ask him to check if your body is okay.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. So just be still for a moment.”

“Alright.”

Nana watched the doctor with an interested expression, as if he found the examination he was receiving for the first time in his life fascinating.

After measuring his blood pressure, shining a light into his eyes, making him open his mouth to look at his throat, and even checking the pulse on his wrist, the doctor took out a huge syringe from his bag. When a thick needle came out from a separately packaged plastic bag, Nana let out a gasp and was horrified.

“Do I have to get a shot?”

“Not right now.”

“Then why did you take that out?”

“To do a detailed examination, I need to collect a blood sample.”

“You’re drawing my blood?”

“That’s right.”

“No! I don’t want to! It’s scary!”

“You have to do it to get the examination…”

“The needle is too thick! If you poke me with something like that, my arm might get pierced! Look, can’t you see how thin it is? How do I know if you’re a quack or not, ouch!”

Unable to watch any longer, Jeha grabbed Nana’s left arm and held it out in front of the doctor. The doctor, unconcerned, tied a thick rubber band tightly around Nana’s upper arm and tapped the part where the arm bends. While he was doing that, Nana was screaming his head off.

“No way! Sticking such a barbaric needle into a human body! Are you a gangster? Are you a loan shark! Huh?”

“This will sting a bit.”