Bring It On! - Chapter 39

Chapter 39.

The sweet slumber of morning didn’t last long. Maybe an hour had passed. Suho was the first to stir, and his fidgeting made me move as well. That chain reaction ended up waking Jay too.

My body felt damp, as if soaked in water. I stretched, raising my heavy arms, and began preparing breakfast.

“Why are you up?”

Even when I told him to rest more, Jay stubbornly refused. Like before, the three of us prepared breakfast together, then started the final touches on the shelter. We stacked the trimmed wooden planks Jay had prepared onto the roof frame we’d already set up. 

Morning and afternoon were both sacrificed to the work, but at last, the shelter was finished.

“Wow…”

I climbed down from the wooden ladder and looked up at it. Just then, the sun was slowly sinking toward the ridge, catching on the roof. Everything from the clouds, the sea and the land was dyed in the glow of the sunset. But the sight that captivated me most was the new shelter itself.

The trials and mistakes we had gone through flashed before my eyes like a panorama, and a wave of emotion greater than all of that washed over me.

“What are you just standing there for?”

Jay took my hand and led me inside. With a creak, the sound of wood fitting together, the door opened to reveal a space that was clearly wider and neater than the previous shelter. 

At that moment, I felt like I wouldn’t trade it for a penthouse apartment overlooking the Han River. Standing in the middle of the shelter, I savored the incomparable sense of achievement and pride.

“Do you like it?”

“What do you think?”

When I asked with a smile, Jay poked the tip of my nose with his finger and smiled back. Without exchanging another word, we giggled together like a pair of lunatics for quite a while.

But we couldn’t stay giddy forever. It was only a five-minute walk away, but we still had to move in. Many of the parts we’d used to build the old shelter could be reused here.

Like the tarp we could lay over the roof, Jay’s makeshift bed, and materials to partition the space according to use. 

At the moment, the new shelter was nothing more than a place where we had shoved all our miscellaneous belongings. I wanted to be done with that messy way of living.

As I mentally ran through the moving process, it felt like my brain might overload.

“Wait here. I’ll grab some things we’ll need.”

I hurried outside to get the wooden boards.

Suddenly, thud. A heavy boom shook the ground.

What was that?

I immediately turned my head toward the source of the sound. At first, I thought maybe one of the logs we’d wedged into the roof had fallen out. But the carefully fitted beams were all still in place. Then, belatedly, Jay crossed my mind. I retraced my steps at a run and burst into the shelter.

“Jay!”

He was lying on his side, collapsed. Just days ago, his face had radiated so much life it felt like the sun itself. But now it was pale and cold, and his slightly parted lips let out ragged, intermittent breaths.

***

“He’s not going to die, is he?”

Sitting next to Jay’s face, Suho gingerly touched his sweat-damp hair. Even though the two of them usually growled at each other and never passed up a chance to tease, it seemed he was worried.

“I’ve been sick before, and after a few days’ rest I was fine. Don’t worry too much.”

Suho still looked uneasy but nodded. He tugged the blanket, slipped down below Jay’s chest, up to his neck with small, determined hands.

Jay was lying not in the old shelter but in the brand-new one we’d just finished today. Moving his huge frame had been no easy feat for just Suho and me, and there was no reason to carry him back to the smaller, more cramped old shelter anyway.

Some of the things we’d planned to move all at once later had already been relocated out of necessity. Things like blankets, pillows, wet cloths, a water jug, and the other things needed for nursing someone.

Outside, the sun had set, and it was so dark it was hard to tell whether my eyes were open or closed. Thick clouds made the night feel even heavier than usual.

I placed my hand on Jay’s forehead, where beads of cold sweat clung. The heat clung instantly to my palm, and his brows knitted in pain.

Is he in a lot of pain?

It was an obvious question. The sudden spike in his fever was surely from the snake venom. Even while poisoned, he’d put his own condition aside to look after me and keep working on the shelter. And “working” wasn’t just a figure of speech. 

It meant heavy manual labor under the blazing sun, with no shade. Even a well-rested adult who’d had a hearty breakfast of meat stew would be exhausted by nightfall after that.

How much worse for Jay, who’d spent the whole night watching over me while I groaned in pain, without getting any real sleep? It was a miracle he hadn’t collapsed sooner. Thinking of the effort he must have put in while I was unconscious filled me with a mix of pity, guilt, and gratitude.

His clothes were quickly soaked through with sweat, and wiping him down with a damp cloth was doing little to help.

I tapped Suho, who was crouched by Jay’s side.

“What?”

“It looks like you’ll have to sleep alone for a while, Suho. You can manage that, right?”

“…”

Suho’s face clearly showed his displeasure. But there was no helping it. Jay would be groaning in pain all night, and I’d be moving around tending to him without even turning off the light. 

Suho, who was already a worrywart, wouldn’t be able to sleep properly in that kind of environment. We had to break the cycle before it started. If one person falls ill, then another soon after.

Besides, Jay and I were fully grown adults with all our limbs intact, so we might make it through this crisis fine, but if Suho got sick, that would be a real emergency. Suho seemed to understand the situation, so he couldn’t bring himself to say he didn’t want to.

“…Alright.”

“Good. It’s dark, so let’s go together.”

I took a torch from the wall mount. With one arm, I gently wrapped it around Suho’s shoulders and pushed open the shelter door. Even with the torch, it only lit up the immediate surroundings. Seeing any farther was impossible. It was a good thing the shelters weren’t far apart and the path was familiar. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even have tried making the trip.

I laid out Suho’s bedding and grabbed a change of clothes for Jay. Though he grumbled that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, Suho fell into a deep slumber the moment he lay down. He usually didn’t even snore, but now he was snoring loudly enough to prove he was in deep sleep.

This shelter didn’t have a place to mount the torch, so I set a flashlight beside Suho’s head. I watched him for a while, then stood up.

Would Jay be alright? What if something happened while I was gone? My steps back quickened with worry.

When I opened the door, Jay was lying exactly as I’d left him. His face was tense, his breathing rough. It was painful to watch. Knowing he was going through something he wouldn’t have had to endure if not for me made guilt and regret weigh heavily on my chest.

I ran my tongue over my bitter mouth and picked up a wet cloth. Well, “cloth” was generous. It was really just strips torn from old clothes, thin and poor at absorbing moisture.

After wiping his face, I pulled back the blanket. I unbuttoned the sweat-soaked shirt, revealing a torso of taut, well-defined muscles. 

Even a body strong enough to make you think a blade wouldn’t sink in wasn’t immune to venom. I was about to lower my hand to his waistband when….

“…What’s that?”

On Jay’s right thigh, something round and blunt had swelled strangely. It was too large and distinct to dismiss as a trick of the light.

“A lump?”

Had the snake venom caused some abnormal reaction in his body? What if I couldn’t treat it? Would Jay have to live with this mass forever? The worry over this unknown lump was no small thing. With no proper medical equipment here, I couldn’t just recklessly cut it out either. I decided I should at least check what it was and began to pull at his waistband.

“What are you doing?”

A fever-hot hand gripped my wrist firmly. Jay’s reddened eyes were narrowed at me.

“You’re awake? Are you feeling a bit better?”

“I’m fine, so… let go.”

Jay pushed me away with a sharp tone, his breathing still rough. But instead of backing off, I held onto his waistband even tighter.

“No. You’re drenched in sweat. You need to change.”

“I’ll do it myself. Just… haah… move away.”

Even in pain, he still had his pride. His irritable tone was pure instinctive self-defense. When I was the one who collapsed, he had no problem changing all my clothes for me, but now that the situation was reversed, he was embarrassed?

If he were healthy, I’d have just tossed him some clothes and told him to handle it himself. But not now.

I had to check that lump on his thigh.