STABLE BOY ; Trash of the Count's Family

69. UNWIND

One moment South was upright, working by the fields of Harris Village. The next, he was on the couch, inside the two-story house they're using as their vacation home.

Huh?

He wasn't in this position last he remembered— he didn't actually remember what he was doing at all. But now he didn't even know what time it was and where he was— how long has he been asleep? He jerked up, but was stopped.

"Don't get up," Hans' head comes into view from above, his hands on his shoulders. "You hit your head when you fell and bled a lot. You freaked out the kids."

His limbs were so tense they were painful, but he tried to let them ease.

"That's a bad one," Hans observed.

South let himself release a breath.

Sometimes his sleep attacks came halfway and ended halfway. His body struggled between the lapses of sleep paralysis and drowsiness, unable to decide where in the balance of wakenness it's supposed to be. His mind could be wide awake, and yet, his body was only halfway there. Yet, his bones thought they were awake, so his muscles would accidentally tear themselves apart in its confusion.

It only happened every once in a while now. On bad days. Or sometimes, out of nowhere, when nothing in particular was wrong. That's just what it meant to be chronically ill, and South knew that his life would always be like this.

"Since when did you become an expert at my narcoleptic attacks?"

"How long have you been my dongsaeng? Give me some credit," Hans said.

"You don't have to nurse me," South sighed. "Where's Mama?"

"Huhhh," Hans hummed, leaning over the armrest that South laid his head on, "so even you cry for your mom when you're sick, huh?"

South didn't respond to that.

"No more working today," Hans lays his hands over South's eyes, and they were very warm against his clammy cold skin. "You sleep until dinnertime. You disobey me and Vicross is coming next. You better wish it's him, because otherwise it's Mister Ron."

Terrifying, South thought, but he didn't have the energy to disobey anyways, so he closed his eyes and let himself drift back to sleep.

-

"Cold Human!" Raon dropped right in on South's chest, startling him awake. "Something's wrong with the Weak Human, he keeps sleeping. Did you infect him?"

South sucked in his breath sharply. Because ow. He wondered if he would rank this pain above or below the pain he got from Ron back then, but it's been a while since he's been in so much pain he just wanted to scream.

He didn't make a sound, though. The kittens came in after the dragon and he didn't want any of them to be scared. Being ripped awake from a narcolepsy sleep makes him nauseated enough to want to throw up from disorientation.

He jumped by instinct when Raon dropped onto him, so now his muscles are screaming like a terrible electric shock just coursed through. And then it abruptly shrivelled back up, cramping painfully like it was trying to curl itself until it broke.

It hurt. It hurt really fucking bad. 

The door opened quickly. "Wha— Raon-nim! You can't wake him up like that."

"Huh?"

Choi Han picked up the dragon from South, who strained his fingers on the way to calming his body back down.

"Usually when he sleeps bad, it's fine if I lay on him," Raon said, confused.

"This isn't a nightmare, so it's a different matter," Choi Han let go of Raon when the dragon levitated himself beside them. Choi Han then crouched down, taking South's hand which was strained so painfully it was like he cramped his entire arm up until his shoulder and couldn't move it at all— "hey hey, breathe."