Ten Weeks of Care

Nursing care, of all things.

Of course she hated the idea. He’d thrown a fit over a single drink can earlier. Agreeing right away to play nurse for that demon of a patient? Impossible. And yet…

“Hey!”

If Kwon Beom-ju hadn’t shoved her aside in that split second and taken the kickboard hit himself…?

“The patient’s built tough, so it stopped at this. Anyone else would’ve been shattered and under the knife right now.”

Guilt, gratitude, and a flicker of pity all tangled together. Fine. Ten weeks. A little over two months. He was her savior, more or less—could she really refuse to help for just that long?

“Okay. So how exactly am I supposed to help?”

“You’re doing it?”

At Ji-eum’s acceptance, Kwon Beom-ju’s face cleared and he broke into a bright grin. She could almost see the “lolol” floating above his head again. Had he been exorcised or something…? A moment ago he’d been a demon; now he was shining like the sun, and she couldn’t adjust at all.

“What you have to do is simple. Completely like swimming with your feet on the ground.”

“Uh-huh. But isn’t swimming with your feet on the ground actually hard?”

“…….”

Ji-eum was puzzled, but she decided to hear him out to the end.

If it was nursing care, what exactly did he want her to do, and how?

Inside the elevator, the space filled with the sound of her soft, rapid breathing. Kwon Beom-ju glanced down at the tiny frame standing beside him—shoulders far below his own—and chuckled under his breath.

“Quit sighing like that. You’ll scare the luck away.”

“Ha… I thought you lived in Incheon…”

“This place is the studio I got when I came back to school. Why would I leave Incheon?”

“Haaaaah, same officetel, same floor…. Does this even make sense…?”

Muttering to herself, Lee Ji-eum suddenly looked as if something had struck her. She swallowed hard and lifted her chin.

“Don’t tell me you moved here because you were interested in me…”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He shot her a crooked, fierce look, and Ji-eum’s brows drooped. She seemed to be turning something over carefully in her mind. He could practically hear that little head of hers rolling around.

From the moment he’d said they were in the same officetel, her face had grown more and more suspicious. Like hell he’d packed up and followed her. He wasn’t that crazy.

Even so, he didn’t bother explaining himself. Watching Ji-eum’s expression shift second by second was too entertaining.

Ding…! Unfortunately the elevator reached the twelfth floor in no time. The doors slid open. Ji-eum hurried out, then paused in front of 1211 and slowly turned around.

The soft black hair covering her chest shifted slightly, revealing the pale nape of her neck. Kwon Beom-ju swallowed without meaning to.

…This kid, even her neck looks that soft? He frowned, and the faint scent that had brushed past him earlier teased his nose again.

Did she wear perfume? Something like cucumber. He drew a deep breath through his nose, trying to place it, when Ji-eum opened her lips with an awkward look.

“Um.”

“What.”

“You’re going into your place, so why am I following you?”

“……?”

Beom-ju blanked for a second before the meaning clicked. Ah, she thought he was following her all the way to her door?

“I’m going in. To my place.”

He tipped his chin toward the door directly across from 1211—unit 1212. Ji-eum’s already large eyes grew even wider.

“F-for real? This isn’t some hidden-camera prank? We’re neighbors? Actually?”

Her peach-toned face flooded with shock. Tsk tsk. She clearly hated the idea that much, but he had zero intention of canceling the nursing deal. Beom-ju firmed his mouth and spoke as if gently admonishing her.

“Don’t be late tomorrow. I hate waiting more than anything.”

“I’m not the type to be late, so don’t worry about that.”

“Good enough.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then spun around at the exact same time. The beeps of door-lock codes overlapped in the hallway, and almost simultaneously both doors thudded shut.

“She’s exactly the same as she was on Thumping Planet.”

The second things didn’t go her way she started yapping. Well… that had always been Pebble’s trademark.

He flicked on the lights inside, pulled his car key from his pocket, and set it on the table. They’d taken him to the hospital in an ambulance, so the car was still in the school parking lot. The car itself was fine—he could grab it later—but could he even drive with a cast?

Curious, Beom-ju gripped his phone in his left hand and searched. He’d lived his whole life as a thorough right-hander, so handling the phone left-handed was unbearably awkward. It was already a piece-of-shit phone that loved typos; now it was just one disaster after another.

“Are you kidding me…?”

He scrolled furiously, but all he got was a flood of emoticons and no clear answer. Fed up, Beom-ju dug through the portal’s knowledge encyclopedia and finally found what he needed.

“Thanks for stating the obvious.”

Anyway, that meant it was fine. The school wasn’t far; he could walk if he wanted, but starting tomorrow he’d be going with Lee Ji-eum, so giving her a ride would be more convenient. She’d been hauling that mountain of a bag around—he couldn’t make her walk with that thing.

Beom-ju stretched luxuriously and decided to wash up first, peeling his clothes off in one go. Even undressing was a chore because of the cast.

With his T-shirt off, Beom-ju’s body was thick without looking bulky. The tightly packed muscles had a clean shape, and above all his long-legged build made him look lean. Bare-chested, he finished stripping off his pants. The loose sweatpants dropped to the living-room floor like shed skin, revealing the heavy muscles of his thighs.

Just like that, Beom-ju walked into the bathroom.

“This is inconvenient as hell.”

He braced his casted arm against the bathroom wall and turned on the cold water. His whole body still felt feverish from the injury, so he’d deliberately chosen cold. The stream pouring from overhead was cold enough to raise goosebumps, but he cranked the pressure higher. Water cascaded down his abdomen and soaked the thick thatch of pubic hair.

“Haa…. What the hell did I even do to get hard?”

For reasons he couldn’t name, his erect cock stood out clearly under the spray. No particular cause came to mind. He stayed under the water for a long while, forcing himself to relax, until the swollen, rigid length gradually subsided.

After the shower Beom-ju changed into a loose T-shirt and shorts. The moment he sprawled into the recliner by the window, the casted arm throbbed.

“Ugh…”

Just a little movement and the pain flared. Of all places, a full cast on his right hand. He’d always been unusually sturdy since childhood; an accident like today’s was a first. With the bone smashed, it hurt more than he’d expected.

Still, it was lucky. Because he’d been the one hit, it had ended here.

His body was tough as iron, so this was as far as it went. If it had been Lee Ji-eum who’d been struck? That soft-looking girl colliding with a kickboard would’ve been a full-blown disaster.

“I go and save her and the little thing… starts talking about paying me off with money.”

She’d clearly planned to throw some cash at it and pretend nothing happened—until she found out they lived in the same officetel. No wonder she’d been so shocked. He’d been surprised himself.

Anyway…

Strange coincidences kept stacking up. He hadn’t planned any of it, yet their paths kept overlapping. It was true he’d returned to school because Pebble had pissed him off, but even he hadn’t expected to get tangled up this far.

He’d impulsively demanded nursing care, yet even he didn’t know what he actually wanted to do with Lee Ji-eum beside him. One thing, though, was clear.

“If I hadn’t come back, things would’ve been boring as hell.”

Thanks to Pebble, waves were finally rippling through his dull daily life.

“…Ha.”

Ji-eum checked Kwon Beom-ju’s message and let out a sigh that could have swallowed the earth. She hadn’t even finished drying her hair and already this chaos…. She’d gotten up early on purpose, yet the nagging never stopped.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Ji-eum carefully checked the stuffed bag, tucked in the pen-shaped mini recorder she’d boldly bought as a freshman, and stuffed in the straw that had come with a delivery drink.

As she shut off the gas valve and closed the windows, yesterday’s events suddenly surfaced.

“Pay with your body.”

The words Kwon Beom-ju had tossed out so casually meant exactly that—paying with her body.

Taking lecture notes, eating meals, every other important task had become difficult, so until the cast came off she was to stay by his side and assist him with utmost sincerity.

Ji-eum had agreed so readily partly out of guilt, but also because she’d calculated that they’d only see each other at school on weekdays, so it would be manageable. Back then she hadn’t known they lived in the same officetel…

“I got the place because going back and forth was a pain. Happy now?”

That lunatic who’d piled a mountain of moving boxes right in front of someone else’s door had been Kwon Beom-ju. It was absurd, yet somehow it made perfect sense. Right…. Of course it was you, Kwon Beom-ju….