When Sovey pushed the hospital's glass door open, evening had already dimmed the corridors into a weak violet haze. The same hallway—the one she had stumbled out of earlier, begging under sunlight—now looked colder. She could hear her own footsteps against the linoleum. Every echo sounded like disapproval.
She returned to the ward and sat where her body had once been a weight of fever and privilege. The same bed. The same smell of antiseptic and recycled air. Only this time, no guards waited outside.
The world beyond the window moved slowly. Nurses walked past, avoiding her glance. For a long while she said nothing, her eyes locked on the white sheet over her lap, breathing methodically, an imitation of calm masking emptiness.
Then the door opened.
A man entered, wearing the kind of smile that felt like sunlight controlled by will. His eyes stayed half closed, face gentle. The calm radiance around him seemed at odds with the machinery beeping at her side.
Dr. Marsh.
He carried a light scent of herbs, and something about that smell—unlike sterile medicine—made the corners of memory stir.
Before she could restrain herself, the words escaped her mouth. "What should I do?"
He did not answer immediately. He regarded her quietly, then smiled again—a patient curve of lips practiced through years of empathy. "That," he said, "is up to you."
He paused, as if deciding something. "Perhaps a story might make things clearer."
He drew a chair and sat beside her bed. His tone turned soft, almost conversational.
"It happened twenty years ago," he began, eyes unfixed, chasing the shapes of memory in the sterile air. "I was born to nobles. Real ones—the type that forget walking exists because ground should come to them."
He exhaled once, faint amusement dying before it reached laughter.
"In those circles, poverty was theory. Talk for those needing to feel virtuous across dinner. They preferred giving sermons to giving bread. You must understand, Sovey—more than ninety‑five percent of our island lives below what anyone would call a human threshold."
He leaned his chin on one hand. "Noren Island as a whole covers fifty thousand square kilometers, but the outside world—the mainland beyond our waters—stretches endlessly, millions, perhaps billions of kilometers wider. Some even speak of infinity."
His gaze grew distant. "Long ago our ancestors left. They grew bodies strong enough to survive the outer continents while the weak, or the unlucky, remained here—trapped with infertile soil, scarce food, and myths to fill hunger. They built nothing but endurance."
He looked at her. "The tree I worked for, the reason your father's kind hates me, is the Punchin Tree. It grows in cycles of months. Its fruit doesn't complete nutrition, but anyone who eats only Punchin for life stands an eighty‑percent chance of surviving past fifty. To the poor, that's not luxury— it's divinity. And yet our soil failed to grow it faster. So the rich hoarded, sold, worshipped profit through starvation."
His voice drifted; the air tilted backward in time.
Fifteen years earlier
Night bled across his study in bands of dull blue light from the monitor. Teenage Marsh bent carefully over his notes, tracing each molecular sequence on the screen, whispering formulas to memorize their pulse.
The door creaked open.
His father's footsteps were measured—shoes silent but heavy enough to carry judgment. He stopped beside the desk, studied the pages, then the boy.
"Son," his father said, "you're my only heir. I indulge curiosity, but this?" He gestured at the sketches and lab models. "Studying soil chemistry? Dreaming you'll heal the land?"
Marsh didn't answer. He'd learned silence was less tiring than argument.
His father sighed. "If it were easy, humans would've done it millennia ago. Those who could, left this cursed island. You won't achieve what millions didn't. Be practical. Buy a hospital, hire healers if charity amuses you. But don't waste yourself trying to become one."
Standing, the man's voice hardened. "Being a doctor adds nothing to our table. Remember that."
Then he left him with the weight of the silence he preferred to command.
The next evening found Marsh at the same desk. Then again the next night.
Days folded into weeks, into months, into seasons. Years bent around repetition. Outside, the seasons danced; inside, paper absorbed youth.
On one of those rare afternoons, a knock came.
"Marshy!" It was a friend from school, laughter woven through his voice. "Come play DolBall! Seventeen of us already—need one more. You."
Marsh hesitated, pen trembling between his fingers. "Sorry. Not now. Maybe next time."
His friend smiled, half understanding, half resignation. "Yeah. Your next time never comes."
He waved once and left.
Through the windowlight, Marsh watched them run across the street, dust rising behind their feet. He listened until even their echoes disappeared, then turned back to his notes.
Time continued collapsing.
Present
Marsh exhaled. "That's the history," he said simply. "If I've learned anything, it's this: persistence doesn't live in miracles—it lives in monotony."
He folded his hands. "You won't understand all of it, Sovey, but your being here connects to my failure. I'm… sorry for that."
She blinked, startled by the direct apology. "Your fault? I don't understand. Why devote yourself for people who'll never care back?"
He smiled faintly, not offended. "Because I decided long before I saw corruption up close. My principles weren't inherited; they were accidents of conscience. There have been years I wanted to quit, believe me. But I had a friend—he built a whole village, a safe one where thousands live free. I admired that, but my goal was larger. I wanted not villages, but entire survival—food across every mouth on this island. One problem solved properly before I die: hunger."
For the first time in days, Sovey felt something unfamiliar inside her chest—not guilt exactly, but weight. She understood pieces of what he said. Nobility. Isolation. Pride disguised as principle. A mirror she almost recognized.
Meanwhile, in another district, Mr. Jerry sat buried beneath thoughts that refused order.
He sat hunched at a private office desk, his fingers pressed against his temples as though keeping the skull from splitting. The room's lights blurred, yellow and shapeless. Everything felt either too near or too far.
Then the phone rang.
"Hello?" His voice scraped.
"Mr. Jerry—Adric speaking." The voice on the line carried practiced smoothness. "We've never met, but I had business with your father long ago. You might recall the Odd Jobs association. I own that organisation ."
Jerry tried to focus. "Odd… jobs?"
"Yes. Your father ranked A Grade before his death. As protocol stands, you inherit B Grade status."
Jerry frowned. "And what Job is it this time"
"Isolated projects. Controlled environments built entirely of actors—about a hundred individuals performing continuous societal roles for sixteen years straight.We're currently recruiting, though we only take C Grade and above. The pay is 2 million Franz for full duration, housing and food covered."
Something flickered through Jerry's fractured thoughts—a glimmer of hopeless practicality.
"I…" His breath hitched. "I'll take it."
A long pause. "You," Adric repeated, almost amused. "Mr. Jerry himself wants isolation duty? For that salary? That's barely ten percent of your mansion's worth."
Jerry's voice trembled. "Doesn't matter. My mansion—burned. Everything's gone. Please. I can't explain. Just accept."
Adric's tone softened slightly. "Well, a B Grade is gold for us. I won't refuse. Consider yourself hired."
Fifteen minutes later, Jerry stood again inside the same hospital wing, feeling lighter only because numbness replaced panic. He entered Sovey's room quietly.
She was awake, weak but strangely composed.
Before he could speak, she said, "Father… when I die—donate my organs to the poor. All of them."
Something in him clenched painfully. "I will," he said, barely audible.
Then, silently, he added inside his skull, even if death waits sixteen years, I'll stay. I'll wait. I'll find the money somehow. I'll bring you back.
Marsh approached them both, his face stripped of earlier serenity. "Mr. Jerry," he began, "I'm sorry."
Jerry shook his head immediately. "Doctor, it isn't your fault."
Marsh's eyes drifted toward the floor. "It's partly mine. You should… say goodbye soon. She'll fall unconscious again within minutes."
He turned and left the room.
Jerry reached the bedside. Sovey's pupils darted sluggishly, her breathing shallow but steady. He leaned down until his forehead touched her shoulder. For once in years, his arms moved uncertainly as he held her.
Her hand lifted weakly, touched his hair, patted it once—the small gesture children use when pretending to comfort adults.
Then she exhaled slightly louder. Her body slackened.
Jerry's tears spilled freely. "Even if it takes sixteen years," he whispered into the still air, "I'll bring you back."
Elsewhere that evening, the city glittered with indifference.
Inside one of the lounges, Frostveil's father leaned across a table toward a man cloaked in gray. "So you're saying," he murmured, "Marsh engineered this sickness deliberately?"
The man shrugged. "Rumors. Nothing proven."
Frostveil's father pressed. "Think about it. Our incomes depend on selling Punchin fruit. When Marsh discovered his soil‑fertilizing method, he knew it would destroy the trade—who will pay for what grows free? We would have killed him for it. He isn't stupid. So he infects the daughters of our class—the millionaire's children—with some disease only he can treat. Protective insurance. The rich won't touch the man keeping their blood alive."
The other sighed. "The story's perfect, but proof? None. Rumors die when daylight comes."
Frostveil's father laughed hollowly. "Then daylight's the end of me too." He leaned back, eyes tracing the glass ceiling. "I suppose it's over. Not a question anymore."
Both sat a while longer, listening to the hum of the city that fed them once and would forget them soon enough.
Back in the hospital room, machines hummed in detached rhythm. Dr. Marsh wrote new notes quietly. His face carried the same calm smile as always, though now there was weight beneath it—something unreadable, neither guilt nor triumph, only tired conviction.
He thought "Usually the children i deliberately makes sick gets recovered immediately because those children are millionaires . But this time due to some unexpected events the child can't be recovered for 16 years . What have I done !?."
Outside, the sky over Noren Island clouded darker—neither storm nor night, just the color of uncertainty.