Anxious, Doyoung turned his steps back toward Jinha.
He'd gone through all the trouble of treating his wounds, and he'd be incredibly annoyed if Jinha had just fainted because of this damned system. Doyoung's small feet pat-pat-patted quickly back to where Jinha was.
When he arrived, Jinha was just as he'd been when Doyoung left—perfectly fine, looking up at Doyoung with slightly surprised, wide-open eyes.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?"
He even seemed calm as he asked.
'No, the something isn't with me, it's….'
"Are you okay?" Doyoung asked urgently as he sat down opposite him, and Jinha let out a small laugh.
"No, really, what are you so worried about now that you came running back?"
"That's not it… Never mind. As long as you're okay."
Doyoung, somewhat relieved though he didn't know why, dusted himself off and stood up again. This time, Jinha also got to his feet. Just standing up seemed to make his battered body feel like a thousand pounds, as a deep groan, "Keueung," escaped him. Doyoung knew that feeling all too well. Watching him, Doyoung worried if he'd be able to get back okay and was just debating, 'Should I call him a cab?' when Jinha suddenly spoke, as if he'd remembered something.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"But why am I…."
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Yeah. Suddenly… why am I so sleepy?"
"What? Wait…."
In the blink of an eye, Jinha's body tilted forward, toppling toward Doyoung.
"Whoa, hey, wait!"
Ignoring Doyoung's horrified cry, Jinha fell asleep, as if a film had been cut.
Doyoung barely managed to catch him, trying to prevent the body he'd just managed to get upright from crashing to the ground again with a thud. But because of the massive size difference between them, Doyoung truly felt his life was in danger, thinking, 'Am I going to be crushed to death?' His slender arms and legs, which had caught Jinha, trembled like an aspen tree.
No, hey.
No, hey, look.
No, I'm seriously going to die.
"I'm really going to die, you damned system bastard!"
Meanwhile, Dohee, who was at home, was growing anxious. Doyoung was incommunicado, despite having texted her a while ago that he was on his way. Enough time had passed that if he'd caught a cab right then, he should have arrived, but he was nowhere to be seen and wasn't answering. Dohee's heart began to pound in her chest with anxiety.
'What if he got dizzy somewhere, collapsed, and is on his way home hurt?'
It would be a disaster if he hit his head or something. Her vision went dark at the thought.
'Were the bags too heavy? Maybe I should have just gone to pick him up, even if he seemed to dislike it.'
She regretted not just telling him to come straight home so they could go to the nearby mart together.
Unable to wait any longer, Dohee grabbed her phone and dialed, her feet pacing restlessly. That heartless Cha Doyoung needed to pick up his phone, but the ringing just went on and on.
"Oppa. Pick up, please."
As she endured, and endured, and endured the continuous ringing, her mind had already run to the police station and called 911 dozens of times.
After a long, long wait, where one minute felt like an hour, she finally heard the click of the call connecting, and Dohee shrieked.
"Oppa!"
She was letting out a sigh of relief just from the fact that he'd answered.
-Dohee-ya....
Hearing Doyoung's dying groan from over the phone, Dohee felt her vision flash white and then black.
"Oppa. Oppa, why does your voice sound like that? What's wrong!"
-Save me....
'Oh, no.'
Dohee's heart dropped. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she had no time to sit and cry. Grabbing the first outerwear she could find, Dohee ran for the door.
"Where are you? I'll be right there! Tell me where!"
-Here, the alley in front of our house....
"In front of the house?"
So he had made it home, at least. It was a huge relief that she wouldn't have to waste time searching for him. Dohee didn't even lock the door as she scrambled out of the house. Thankfully, she could spot Doyoung's figure at the entrance of the alley.
"O...!"
Dohee, who was about to call his name, stopped short in bewilderment.
To put it in figurative terms: Her slender, fragile branch of an oppa, looking like death warmed over, was crawling along with what looked like a tattered, giant, limp teddy bear on his back. People from the neighborhood were whispering as they passed by.
Even for Dohee, a Doyoung-devotee, it was a difficult sight to approach.
"What on earth... is that?"
Only after getting inside, having a glass of water, and catching his breath did Doyoung come back to life. He was now sitting in front of Dohee, his legs demurely pressed together. He looked up at her, blinking his harmless-looking eyes. It was a level of adorableness not of this world, reminiscent of Puss in Boots from that movie.
Normally, she would have been ecstatic, but looking at Doyoung now, Dohee just sighed, "Haa," and pressed a hand to her forehead.
"So, who is that, exactly?"
"...Lee Jinha."
"And who is Lee Jinha?"
"Uh? H-he's a, a friend?"
"Since when?"
'...Today?'
Doyoung felt guilty even calling him a friend, so he had nothing to say. His head drooped, as if he wanted to drill into the floor.
"Fine. Then why is he like that? He looks hurt, too. Did he collapse?"
"I think he's just... sleeping."
"Isn't 'just sleeping' even weirder? He didn't wake up even after you went through all that trouble to get him here?"
As she was speaking, Dohee suddenly gasped. 'Could it be narcolepsy or something? Shouldn't we take him to a hospital?'
"No, he'll be fine. H-he, he said he hasn't slept in a few days. He must have been really tired, he was snoring like crazy earlier."
'Jinha, I'm sorry…'
If he had fallen asleep because of the system, he should be fine when he woke up, just like him. Taking him to a hospital might make things more complicated. But he couldn't just leave him on the street, saying he'd wake up soon, so he'd barely managed to lug him here.
Thanks to Dohee joining him part-way, they had combined their strength to drag him inside and lay him down in Doyoung's room, but….
Dohee was furious, probably because the call had come when he was at his wit's end, and his "I'm dying" groan had been completely unfiltered. Doyoung found this very awkward, because this was definitely not the atmosphere he had imagined.
After Lee Jinha had fallen asleep so helplessly, Doyoung had been exploding with frustration and anger at the system, wondering what he was supposed to do. But at some point, he'd had a change of perspective: this crisis could be an opportunity.
Among the many romance comics Doyoung had read, there were definitely stories like that.
'The ones where you pick up the wounded protagonist, nurse them, raise them, make eye contact, fall in love, and then ahem hem!'
Doyoung's eyes gleamed with excitement.
Was there any reason to wait until they met again? The story was already plenty twisted, starting with Doyoung meeting Jinha here today.
Of course, the story would be perfect if Dohee had been the one to pick him up, but the circumstances didn't allow for it, so he'd had to quickly change the plan to "Operation: (Doyoung) picks him up so (Dohee) can raise him." The scenario rapidly unfolding in Doyoung's head was, in a word, perfect.
[He ends up staying at the house of Cha Doyoung, who treated his wounds and helped him when he collapsed. And goodness, his benefactor's little sister is pretty, and nice, and sweet!]
If he just intervened at the right moments, urging Dohee to help "nurse" him (even if it wasn't necessary) and getting them to stick together, it was surely just a matter of time before they opened their hearts, grew fond of each other, and love blossomed. After all, they were both protagonists.
'This is huge. What do I do?'
The fluttering heart he used to get from his days of avidly reading romance comics had reawakened, and he was eagerly anticipating "Operation: Romance with Oppa's Friend."
That was the only thing he'd been focused on. He had braced himself for the muscle aches that would have him bedridden the next day and had stubbornly brought him here.
But somehow, Cha Dohee was in no mood for even the "Ro-" of romance, and Doyoung was dejected.
Dohee, having concluded that Doyoung had brought home a complete stranger in an unknown condition, was busy scolding him. She scolded him for every single thing.
"Ever since you were little, you were crazy for puppies and kittens, so I knew you'd pick something up one day, but even if you pick something up, it has to be a reasonable size. That's just too big!"
Was his size the problem?
"Oppa, how can you have no sense of caution! You're so frail yourself! What if he was a dangerous person!"
He's not a dangerous person... He's a candidate for your future boyfriend....
"And you're completely lacking in awareness that there's a girl in this house! You should have at least discussed it with me!"
That was so true that Doyoung could only hang his head in front of Dohee once more.
It was a miscalculation. Cha Dohee was far too sharp to dream of such an unrealistic genre. He'd be lucky if she didn't make him throw Jinha out right now.
'Hah, who raised her to be so smart?'
"And Oppa. Where are the groceries?"
"That, of course, is…."
"Of course?"
Huk.
"...Where are they?"
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