WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 87: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (87)

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#87.

Onik could barely breathe.

Extreme stress suppressed the frightened boy's sympathetic nervous system. As a result, his heart rate slowed and his blood pressure plummeted.

“Gasp... Gasp...”

Panicking, Onik opened his mouth and tried to breathe, but air came through only in shallow, irregular bursts.

That was not all.

A violent chill swept through his entire body.

Only moments ago, the air in the house had been heavy but warm. Now, he felt as though he had been cast naked into an Arctic cold wave in the dead of winter.

No, even that could not explain the cold gripping this extraordinary boy.

He was the sort of boy who could face an ordinary cold wave, think, “It’s just a little chilly,” and carry on energetically.

He had never once in his life experienced chills severe enough to make his whole body shake.

Yet despite being so cold, he was sweating.

The more cold sweat he shed, the stronger the chill became.

“Onik? Onik!”

The boy heard Teacher calling him.

It was strange.

Teacher was right in front of him, yet her voice sounded small and muffled.

It felt like a faint cry coming from far away.

Struggling desperately in the savage cold, Onik barely managed to raise his eyes and look at Teacher.

But something was strange again.

‘Blurry.’

His vision was blurry. The edges were dark.

No, they were gradually growing darker.

His vision darkened as though it were slowly closing in from the outside, making the boy feel as if night had come at the wrong time.

And the essence of that untimely night was fear.

“Onik! What’s wrong?! Are you hurt?! Look at Teacher!”

Teacher rushed over and grabbed both his shoulders.

The face Onik looked up at was filled with worry and terror. She looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment.

Even now, Onik focused on Teacher’s fear.

Then he felt a little relieved to realize that, though this emotion had been caused by him, it was not directed at him.

He was even more relieved that Teacher was worried about him.

Even amid terrible dizziness and confusion, Onik thought Teacher really was a good person.

After all, she cared this much even for a bad child.

“Please, Onik! Breathe! No, 119, 119...!”

Teacher hurriedly pulled out her smartphone, only to drop it.

As she let go of his shoulders and frantically picked it up, her student, who had been swaying dangerously, collapsed against her.

“Onik? Onik!!!”

Onik lost consciousness.

#

Onik’s darkened consciousness returned before a minute had passed.

Half out of her mind, Eun-jeong had not even finished her call with the 119 emergency dispatch center.

“Hngh...”

At the sight of her student fluttering his eyes open with a faint groan, Eun-jeong hastily set down the phone, nearly dropping it.

“O, Onik! Are you awake?! Do you recognize Teacher?!”

The dispatcher’s voice came from the phone, asking whether the patient had regained consciousness.

But Eun-jeong had no presence of mind to listen to the dispatcher’s question.

All her tearful eyes could see was her student.

Her heart tightened painfully as she watched him blink. He was so unlike himself, weak and dazed, with an expression that looked terribly pained.

“Onik? Onik, please...”

His face was still pale.

Not only his face, but his whole body was soaked in cold sweat.

Eun-jeong had caught him when he collapsed from the sofa. She had hurriedly laid him on the floor and called for help.

There had not been time for anything else.

“...Tea... cher?”

“Yes! Onik! It’s Teacher!”

“...? Why... am I here...?”

Confusion appeared on Onik’s still bloodless face.

Having only just awakened, he did not even properly understand what was happening.

His consciousness had literally switched off for a moment and then turned back on, and even now, he could not be said to be in a normal state.

It took time for him to recall what had happened before he fainted.

‘This seems like Teacher’s house... Why am I here...? And why does Teacher look like she’s about to cry...? I’m cold... Dizzy... I feel like I’m going to throw up...’

His breathing and pulse had recovered considerably compared to just before he fainted.

But though it had weakened somewhat, the chill still remained. So did the dizziness tormenting him.

Blink.

Then another blink.

The boy stared at Teacher, blinking through a kind of suffering he had never experienced before.

Even while looking directly at Teacher, the curse-like murderous urge did not stir.

It seemed the dim abnormality within him had also been swept up in his condition and was too disoriented to come to its senses.

Having recovered the bare minimum of composure, Eun-jeong resumed speaking with the dispatcher.

She switched her smartphone to speaker mode while watching her student with tear-filled eyes.

“Yes, yes! He woke up! He recognizes me and said a few words! But there’s no color in his face at all! His body is so cold...! Anyway, please come quickly!”

「Caller, we are dispatching as quickly as possible, but it will take approximately thirty more minutes to arrive.」

“What? Thirty minutes?! It’ll take thirty whole minutes?! How can an ambulance be so late...!”

The province where Onik lived had the second-lowest access to emergency medical care of all the country’s major local governments.

One in every three residents could not receive emergency medical services within thirty minutes, and one in ten could not reach a medical institution even an hour after making their initial report.

The residents of this town were on the threshold of that latter group.

Its poor circumstances were not much different from Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, considered the worst place in the country for emergency medical care.

Considering that Jeju had eight inhabited islands, it would not be wrong to say that the province where Onik lived was simply the worst.

There was little hope things would improve. This country was aging at an extraordinarily rapid rate.

Perhaps things would change greatly if AI technology made a breakthrough.

But in a world this cold, it was doubtful whether AI could truly become humanity’s spring.

The dispatcher on the other end tried to reassure the teacher.

「Please calm down, caller. Since he regained consciousness quickly and his breathing is normal, it is likely not a serious situation.

Please follow the first-aid instructions I am about to give you.」

Eun-jeong clenched her teeth.

But pleading with the dispatcher would not make the ambulance arrive any faster.

Trying to regain her composure, the teacher listened to the dispatcher’s instructions.

「First, lay the patient flat on an even surface and raise his legs above the level of his heart.」

「If he is wearing anything tight, remove it or loosen it.」

「Next, check whether he suffered any injuries when he fainted and fell. In particular, please make sure he did not strike his head...」

Meanwhile, Onik’s consciousness steadily returned.

As the thick fog in his mind gradually cleared, Onik finally remembered the frightening thing.

How he had ended up here.

Why he had been so frightened that he fainted.

Onik’s expression changed dramatically.

As his eyes, fixed on Teacher, shook violently, his black pupils suddenly contracted.

At the same time, he began struggling to breathe again.

The terrifying situation that had always made him shudder merely to imagine was still ongoing.

“Ghk... Hngh...”

“O, Onik?!”

Just when she thought he was getting better, her student’s condition worsened again. Eun-jeong felt as though her heart had dropped straight down.

This was the second time she had felt this way, and it seemed as though her soul might truly leave her body. It felt as if coldness flowed through her veins instead of blood.

“Why, why, Onik, why...?”

Eun-jeong was so distressed that she could barely form proper words.

The sight of her student struggling and choking for breath was too terrifying.

Teacher could see extreme fear in the eyes looking at her.

She thought instinctively.

‘I need to reassure him. I need to tell him it’s all right, that it’s all right... Ah?’

A sudden realization struck her.

Her student, who never looked directly at anyone for long under any circumstances, was now unable to take his eyes off Teacher.

He was staring at her, unable even to breathe properly, terrified.

‘Me? Me? Are you afraid of me, Onik? Because you’re suspected of being a murderer?

Because you’re afraid you’ll be punished because of me? Is that why you’re afraid of me?’

...No. That was not it.

Though Eun-jeong’s reason had nearly been paralyzed by fear, instinctive judgment followed precisely because of that.

The student she cherished most, who cherished her most in return, would not be afraid of Teacher in that way.

It was more likely...

‘Are you afraid that I might hate you or push you away?’

Reaching the answer by instinct, Eun-jeong pulled her student upright.

Onik’s legs, which she had managed to place up on the sofa, slipped down, but she did not care.

This was not the right way to handle someone who had fainted and was close to fainting again.

If his heart was suddenly raised while his blood pressure was low, his condition could rapidly worsen.

But Eun-jeong knew what her student truly needed in that moment. She knew what she had to do to drive away his fear.

Teacher pulled her student, drenched in cold sweat, tightly into her arms. Then she whispered into his ear.

“Onik. You can hear Teacher’s voice, right?”

“Gasp... Gasp...”

“Listen. Teacher treasures Onik. So, so much. You’re the most precious student in the world.

“No matter what Onik has done, Teacher’s heart, which treasures Onik, won’t change.”

“Sniff... Hic...”

“Do you understand? Teacher will stay with Onik from now on too. Always, always, always...

“It doesn’t matter what Onik has done... So don’t be afraid... Please...”

The whispers were rambling and disordered.

But what mattered was getting her feelings across to her student.

Eun-jeong continued whispering desperately, tightening her arms around him.

「Caller? Caller? Can you hear me? Has there been any change in the patient’s condition?」

Had the dispatcher seen this scene while trying to reach the silent caller, they would probably have been horrified.

You are doing exactly the things that must not be done to a patient who has fainted.

She had raised the heart above the lower body. And she was tightly constricting the patient’s body.

Neither was something she should do.

But sometimes, there were answers outside the answer sheet.

Teacher’s instinctive emergency treatment was working properly on her student.

“Gasp, gasp, gasp...”

Onik’s broken, intermittent breathing gradually became closer together and steadier.

Warmth slowly returned to his cold body, hands, and feet.

Over several minutes, his heart rate, which had fallen into bradycardia, returned to the normal range.

Teacher’s whispers, flowing continuously into his ears, were like a warm healing spell for the terribly frightened boy...

When the frightening choking sounds disappeared from her student’s breathing, Eun-jeong’s strength drained away with profound relief.

This time, Onik supported her.

With the little strength that had returned to his arms, he embraced Teacher in return.

“Teacher...”

Calling for Teacher, Onik sniffled. At some point, his eyes had grown red.

Eun-jeong shed tears of relief as well.

One last time, she whispered to her student.

“Onik. You mustn’t die...”

It was a plea that resembled, as though copied exactly, the words her student had once spoken to his teacher with an anxious heart.

Until the ambulance arrived and the emergency responders knocked at the door, the two held one another silently.

#

By the time the emergency responders arrived, Onik had recovered almost all his usual energy.

After carefully examining Onik and listening to his symptoms, the responders determined that there did not appear to be an immediate serious problem.

One responder spoke to the teacher.

“From what you described, this sounds like vasovagal syncope. It seems the student experienced severe stress.”

“Yes, that’s right...”

“We see cases like this from time to time. For children, the major causes are usually family conflict, bullying at school, or academic stress...”

The responder trailed off while looking over Onik, then tilted their head.

“The student seems to be doing well now, but it would still be better to go to the hospital for tests, just in case.

“There is still a possibility that he fainted because of another medical condition.”

“We’ll do that. Please help us. May I accompany him as his guardian? I’m not family, but I’m his teacher.”

“Of course. If the hospital needs to contact his family, they’ll ask...

“Hey, student, don’t stand up. Someone who fainted shouldn’t just get up carelessly.”

The responders placed Onik on a stretcher and carried him to the ambulance.

Throughout the trip, Eun-jeong held her student’s hand tightly.

The time it took to reach the hospital was only a little shorter than the time it had taken the ambulance to reach the town.

That meant nearly an hour had passed since the initial report before they arrived at the emergency room.

Even after they arrived, Onik could not be examined immediately.

In principle, genuinely critical patients had to be treated first regardless of arrival order. Also, the medical staff assigned to the emergency room were desperately few compared to the number of patients and the facility’s size.

The province where Onik lived was the only major local government in the country without a tertiary general hospital.

Many hospitals that operated emergency rooms could not even employ emergency medicine specialists.

Within the province, more and more emergency rooms were giving up twenty-four-hour operation or deciding to close altogether.

Emergency rooms capable of responding to pediatric emergencies had nearly vanished entirely.

If Onik’s condition had looked worse, the hospital would surely have refused to take him in at all.

They would have told them they could not treat the student here and that they should try a large city or another province...

Under these circumstances, the teacher and student faced a long wait with no end in sight.

Even as they waited, Teacher held her student’s hand for most of the time.

Holding his hand, she frequently checked on his condition.

Whenever medical staff passed by, she anxiously asked when it would be his turn.

The student tried to reassure Teacher.

“Teacher. I really am all right now. Please don’t worry so much.”

“...Yes, Onik. But you still need to be examined. That’s the only way Teacher can feel reassured.”

Teacher did not mean to, but her constant anxiety continued easing the unease remaining in her student’s heart.

Having gained some room to breathe, Onik looked at his hand.

His hand, which Teacher had held all the way to the hospital and continued to hold after they arrived.

‘Why am I completely fine? I’m not even distracting myself right now.’

It was strange.

Long physical contact with someone he could kill was something the frightening boy, who feared himself, always avoided.

Even for light contact like holding hands, he had to distract himself with something else to keep from slipping into thoughts of killing someone.

Otherwise, he had to keep his nerves razor-sharp and mentally harm himself with the blade of self-hatred.

Physical exercise was usually effective for distracting himself.

But he was doing none of those things now.

He was simply sitting comfortably, letting Teacher hold his hand.

Yet the frightening impulses born from his innate curse were not rising at all.

How could he describe it?

It felt as though some solid wall had formed between the impulses that should have risen and Onik’s mind.

Onik thought about that vague feeling.

Since his turn for treatment showed no sign of coming, he had more than enough time to think.

Footnotes:

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