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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 88: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (88)

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#88.

After the teacher and student were admitted, a nurse conducted an initial consultation. Only after waiting more than three hours were they finally able to undergo proper examinations.

Blood tests, blood-pressure measurements, X-rays, and an electrocardiogram followed in turn.

After waiting another two hours or so, a doctor came over carrying the results.

Having listened to Onik's medical history, the circumstances of his fainting spell, and the symptoms he had felt while passing out, the doctor concluded that it was indeed vasovagal syncope.

"...But you don't want to say what caused you so much stress?

"You have no medical history, you clearly have a great deal of skeletal muscle mass, you're not obese, and your electrocardiogram is normal. If a student like you fainted, it must have been more than ordinary stress."

Anyone could see that Onik was exceptionally healthy.

The nurse had even been startled by his muscles during the electrocardiogram.

It was very rare for a first-year middle-school student to have a firm six-pack across his stomach.

The doctor paid particular attention to Onik's calf muscles.

People with highly developed calf muscles tended to be more resistant to fainting, and Onik was exactly such a child.

With an awkward smile, Onik cautiously made an excuse.

"I'm sorry. It's something I'm embarrassed to tell other people about."

"If the issue isn't resolved, you could faint again."

"Uh, well, I think it'll probably be resolved..."

"You think it'll be resolved?"

"...I think so?"

Onik answered in the affirmative, though without much confidence.

At that, Eun-jeong unconsciously tightened her grip on his hand.

Onik turned to look at her.

When their eyes met, he saw her small nod and kind smile. Then he looked past the doctor's shoulder and answered once more.

This time, with more confidence than before.

"Don't worry. It'll be resolved."

"Hmm..."

The doctor looked over teacher and student with obvious suspicion, but did not press the matter further.

He was tired. Since the patient said he would be fine, there was no reason to dig deeper and make more trouble for himself.

Instead, he turned to Eun-jeong and spoke in a businesslike tone.

"If it seems he may faint again, have him squat down immediately.

"At the same time, he should interlace his fingers and pull his arms hard in opposite directions, like this... like this, to tense his arm muscles.

"If he does that properly, there's a good chance it will prevent fainting. It raises his blood pressure."

"Yes..."

"Even if his symptoms appear to improve, he must rise slowly and check his condition. If he rushes, he could collapse and injure himself."

"Yes. But is there any other treatment...?"

"None is necessary."

The doctor was firm. It was the firmness of exhaustion.

"If the fainting recurred repeatedly, we would use medication. But you said this was his first episode.

"As long as the source of his stress is resolved, I don't believe there's any concern about recurrence."

"Ah..."

"If you want a more definitive examination, contact a larger hospital in a major city.

"There's a test called a tilt-table test, but we don't have the equipment for it. If you have a medical certificate issued here and inquire with them, you should be able to make an appointment. Don't just go without one."

"I see. Understood."

"Then you're free to leave. Pay at the counter.

"Since this is a mild case treated through the emergency room, the cost will be rather high. Keep that in mind."

"Yes. Thank you."

After receiving Eun-jeong's thanks, the doctor turned away brusquely to see his next patient.

For mild patients using the emergency room, the personal copayment was as high as ninety percent.

When Onik heard the amount, he quickly reached into his pants pocket for his smartphone, but Eun-jeong stopped him.

Then she lowered her voice so no one else could hear.

"Don't do that, Onik. Of course I should pay for this. Are you trying to embarrass me here?"

"But it's really expensive... And this happened because I did something wrong..."

"Why would fainting be your fault?

"If we absolutely must assign fault, then I'm the one at fault for making you anxious. I should have been more thoughtful."

"What? What do you mean...?"

Onik looked at her as though he had heard something absurd, but she paid him no mind. She inserted her card and finished paying.

By the time they left the hospital, it was already nearly evening.

Considering the time it would take to return to town, it was no exaggeration to say that almost the entire day had disappeared.

Even amid her exhaustion, Eun-jeong wore a smile as she made a suggestion in a gentler tone than usual.

"Our Onik, aren't you hungry? Now that I've relaxed, I'm hungry.

"How about we eat dinner here before heading back? We came all the way into the city, after all."

"Uh..."

"I know a good place nearby that makes braised chicken. It may not be as good as the food you make, but it's distinctive and delicious.

"It'll be a good experience for you too, Onik. So let's go, all right?"

The teacher and student, who had met that morning, had made it this far without even eating lunch.

There was a convenience store and a small food court inside the hospital.

But Onik had needed to remain fasting because he did not know what further tests he might receive. Unable to eat by herself while her student sat beside her, Eun-jeong had gone hungry with him.

She had been so worried for him that she had completely forgotten her own hunger.

Onik pointed at himself with a slightly troubled expression.

"I sweated too much earlier... Don't I smell a little?

"If we go into a restaurant like this, I can put up with it, but you'll be embarrassed..."

"You hardly smell at all. And when I went there before, there were people who had come straight from construction sites.

"Braised chicken has a strong smell anyway, so it'll probably cover it. You don't need to worry."

Unable to overcome his teacher's endless kindness and gentle insistence, Onik was led to the restaurant.

First, he sent his grandfather a message saying that he would be late because he had something to do with Teacher.

There were still things they needed to discuss, but neither brought them up during the meal.

Eun-jeong treated him kindly as usual and watched him eat with pleased eyes.

At that moment, she was simply deeply grateful that Onik was alive and safe.

Had someone else seen her, they might have said that her manner was closer to that of an elder sister much older than him, or a mother, than a teacher.

Eun-jeong paid again this time.

As an extra, she stopped by a nearby clothing shop and bought him clothes.

She told him to shower and change at her house after they returned to town, so his grandfather would not worry when he eventually went home.

Onik looked truly distressed.

"Please at least let me pay the taxi fare. Jo Onik, Strongest in Town, earns good money..."

Eun-jeong gave a small laugh.

She was glad that he had recovered enough to make a light joke.

#

The two, who had met in the morning, did not return to the multi-unit house in town until night had fallen.

After showering thoroughly, Onik sat across from Eun-jeong again, clean and fresh.

Tea cups sat between them once more, but the suffocating atmosphere of that morning was nowhere to be found.

Of course, that did not mean Onik was not nervous.

He had thought endlessly while showering, and now that he sat across from her again, every nerve in his body was drawn tight from head to toe.

Because of what they had to discuss now.

"It's all right, Onik."

Eun-jeong reassured him with a gentle expression and voice.

"As I already told you, no matter what you've done, I won't come to dislike you.

"As long as you want it, I'll stay with you from now on too. This is a promise I'm making seriously. You believe me, don't you?"

"Yes..."

"And, you know, the reason I couldn't treat you comfortably at first was... because I felt so sorry toward you."

"Sorry? You're sorry? Why?"

"Of course I'm sorry. The very thought that our kind Onik might have, um, hurt... someone... was something I should never have entertained as your teacher."

Eun-jeong carefully watched her student's expression.

This was the first time she had directly mentioned Onik's killings.

That morning, she had only asked indirectly whether he knew anything about the deaths of the fifty-six-year-old Village Youth Association President and the bad police officer.

With a cowed silence, Onik tacitly admitted it.

Eun-jeong apologized again to her deeply anxious student.

"That's not all. If it really is true that you hurt people, I thought there might be some responsibility on my side as well. That's why I felt even more sorry."

Onik, who had been looking down, sprang up from his seat.

"Your responsibility? There's no such thing!"

Eun-jeong tilted her head in a deliberately playful manner.

"Really? If you're the Onik I know, I think you must have thought this.

"That you wanted to protect me. That you didn't want to lose me."

"Uh..."

"Honestly, it was a very embarrassing guess to make about myself. It would be like taking pride and saying, My student treasures me this much!

"But after seeing you today, Onik, I became certain. Ah, my guess was right after all. Wasn't it?"

"Th-that might be so, but..."

Shrinking into himself, Onik fidgeted with his fingers as he protested.

"But why would that be your responsibility? I decided on my own that I wanted to protect you, and I decided on my own that I didn't want to lose you, so I did something bad.

"So please don't say things like that. I'm entirely the bad one! Not you!"

"No."

Eun-jeong shook her head.

"If I had handled things a little better. If I had protected myself a little better.

"If I, an adult, hadn't made you, who's still only a student, so anxious...

"Then our kind Onik wouldn't have needed to do something frightening and dangerous."

Onik defended Eun-jeong again.

"That's strange! Both times, you were only the victim!

"To criticize how you handled things is bad logic that looks for the cause of a crime in its victim!

"The ones who made me angry and anxious weren't you. It was Village Youth Association President Jo In-cheol and Lieutenant Seo Mun-seok!"

Onik had studied this kind of harmful logic a great deal.

It was something he had come to study about society as a result of paying so much attention to people who took their own lives.

Elementary and middle-school social studies textbooks did not contain such dark subjects.

To Onik, the words of his precious teacher sounded like victim blaming directed at the victim herself.

It was an extremely bad sign when a crime victim began looking for the cause within themselves.

It was no exaggeration to call it the most dangerous form of victim blaming.

Not the worst form, but the most dangerous form. Those were very different things.

But Eun-jeong shook her head again.

"I'm talking about something a little different, Onik."

To the student asking with his eyes what was different, Eun-jeong replied warmly.

"I'm not saying I bear responsibility for what bad people did to me.

"What happened before was the fault of a person named Jo In-cheol, and the fault of the police officer Seo Mun-seok and his colleagues.

"I was completely a victim."

"..."

"But I... want to say that, as your teacher and as an adult, I didn't do my best for you, Onik."

"What do you mean...? You've always been the best teacher to me."

"Thank you for saying that. It makes me happy too. Truly happy. I mean it."

Eun-jeong wore a sorrowful smile.

"But Onik. Not as the victim, but as your teacher, I should have been wiser, more considerate, and stronger.

"I bear no responsibility for what happened to me as a victim, but I do bear some responsibility for how worried you were about me."

"I don't really understand..."

"I already told you. I should have tried harder, so that our Onik wouldn't need to do something frightening and dangerous.

"I'm an adult, and you're a student."

Eun-jeong reached across the table and stroked his hair.

"No matter how smart and strong you are, Onik, I can't evade an adult's responsibility.

"That's why I'm sorry to you. Very sorry."

Onik still looked unconvinced, but he did not add anything else.

After she finished stroking his hair and drew back, Eun-jeong folded her hands on her lap.

Then she looked straight into his eyes.

"So, Onik, I'd like you to tell me without feeling burdened.

"About the dangerous and frightening things you had to do because bad adults kept doing awful things, and because I failed to fulfill an adult's responsibility."

A sudden thought made Onik hesitate.

'Could this be a dream?'

Teacher had found out that he had killed people twice, yet she was still treating him kindly, as though he remained a good child.

Perhaps he had suffered through so much anxiety that he had developed delusions.

Perhaps Onik himself... was dreaming while locked behind the bars of a police station.

Perhaps while the delusional Onik slept on a cold floor, bad police officers outside the bars were looking at him and having this conversation.

「Lieutenant. This bastard's smiling.」

「Leave him alone. He must be having a pleasant dream.」

But no matter how much he reviewed the situation and his memories, no matter how carefully he examined each sensation he felt... this moment did not seem like a dream.

Watching Eun-jeong carefully, Onik opened his mouth.

"Um, then I think I should tell you about this first. How the Village Youth Association President killed Yohan hyung..."

She had braced herself, but this was intense right from the start.

Eun-jeong unconsciously clenched her fists.

Footnotes:

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