Daldal: Main story

Chapter 24

It's painful.

As consciousness returned, that was the first thought that crossed Eun-oh's mind.

Dizziness gripped him, as though an invisible hand seized his hair, shaking him vigorously.
Each cough brought forth a pain that scraped against him like relentless grains of sand.

Above all, what he despised was the fluctuation between heat and cold.
His skin felt like it was on fire, while within him, a chilling sensation circulated like thorns.

This kind of agony was not unfamiliar.

Cough, Cough, Cough!

Eun-oh kept coughing. Then a blunt voice reprimanded him.

"It's a plague, it's a plague. Gosh, so noisy that I can't sleep."

It was snorer.

The usual disrupter of his sleep, with his irritating coughs, now conveyed discontent. The guy who habitually rubbed his unpleasantly odorous body against him, invading every inch of personal space. But today was different.

The snorer seemed to deliberately keep his distance from Eun-oh, sticking to the wall as if trying to create as much space as possible.

Eun-oh realized where he is. It's not the spacious room with the young master but a room filled with the stench of snorer.

The blurry figure he faintly saw when he opened his eyes at the pavilion in the back garden was not the young master after all. 

It was expected, of course, but Eun-oh couldn't help feeling disappointed. He found it strange that he himself felt sadness.

"Has this room been cursed? That damn guy died, and now even this one... Ugh, it's unsettling!"

The snorer treated Eun-oh as if he were a dying man. However, Eun-oh knew the name of the illness afflicting his body. It was a cold. Like an unwelcome guest that occasionally visits when it gets chilly.

So, although it hurt, he wasn't particularly afraid. Because he knew he wouldn't die.

Of course, he felt that the symptoms were not light, but he had survived worse. After a few days of intense suffering, he would shake it off and get up again.

Despite the ongoing grumbling of the snorer, a sudden thunderous snore overtook.

Eun-oh cast a glance into the darkness, then closed his eyes once again.

He didn't want to express his pain in a weak manner, but during such intense suffering, the unavoidable loneliness settled in. No one was there to care for him in his agony, to share in the understanding of his pain, or to mourn if he were to pass away. The stark reality of being alone weighed heavily on him.

His mother told him to live as long as he could. So Eun-oh lived diligently. However, in moments of intense pain, he couldn't help but wish to die. If the pain led to his death, his mother wouldn't hold it against him. So, he faced it with a somewhat morbid sense of acceptance. These thoughts hadn't crossed his mind for a long time. The idea of not being able to open his eyes didn't seem regrettable.

It was a bitterly lonely winter night.

"Cough! Cough!"

The night was undeniably noisy. Eun-oh murmured with a sense of melancholy

"Getting sicker..."

The relentless cough seemed to be a battle against the unpleasant snoring.