Chapter 8
“It’s not too late even now, so how about turning back? If you are bored, it would also be good to find someone and ask them to guide you through the region.”
Standing in front of the hospital for disabled soldiers, Ibella asked Tei, who stood facing her, once again. Although she rejected his question asking if he could follow along because he was bored, he persistently tagged along right behind her.
“If I were going to turn back, I wouldn’t have even come this far. And the pleasure of travel is not watching, but experiencing.”
“I won’t care even if you regret it.”
Ibella let out a short sigh and glared at him in a way that wasn’t hateful. This was a specialized hospital for soldiers who had disabilities due to the aftereffects of war or whose injuries had not yet healed.
Even if they were smiling, there was a lump of resentment inside, and many were rough in their speech even if they weren’t bad people. Since she was used to it, there was almost nothing to get her feelings hurt over, but Tei, who looked as if he had lived hearing only good words, might be shocked.
“Lead the way.”
Tei pointed down the path with his palm and smiled leisurely.
She thought there was nothing bad about it, but Ibella regretted bringing Tei from the moment she entered the hospital. Between the female nurses, who were rougher and hotter than the soldiers, and the patients, he stood out too much.
Tei received intensive attention, and because such a man was only following right behind Ibella like a chick, even her own cheeks felt hot under the arrows of their eyes.
“Who is it? A lover?”
Tasha, who had the highest seniority among the nurses, asked Ibella with a sly smile. Naturally, her gaze was not directed toward Ibella.
“It’s nothing like that. This person is……”
“A friend.”
In place of Ibella who was hesitating because she didn’t know how to introduce him, Tei manufactured a relationship between the two.
It wasn’t a relationship to be called friends, but Ibella pretended not to notice. Because besides that, there were no words that could particularly explain it.
“He came to help with the hospital work today. He won’t cause any trouble.”
Feeling embarrassed for no reason, Ibella said with an awkward smile.
“Hmm……. Then we are grateful. Our eyes are pleased too.”
Tasha, who usually had no shyness, burst into laughter while scanning Tei up and down. Becoming bashful at her behavior, Ibella subtly checked Tei’s face. Fortunately, he was only smiling faintly, as if his feelings weren’t hurt.
That’s a relief. Ibella swept her hand over her heart, breathing a sigh of relief without realizing it. Then, she realized that she had been reading his countenance, and her mood became strange.
“Where is the Doctor?”
“He’ll come out a bit late today. He’s playing lazy because today is the day Bel comes, you know. Ah, this is the list of hospitalized patients. As usual, please check whether they took the medicine written there, note the cautions, and disinfect the affected areas.”
“I understand.”
Ibella took the file from Tasha and moved her steps. Tei, who had been listening quietly by her side, followed right behind her like a chick behind a hen. Naturally, the gaze of the people pouring down like a rainstorm showed no sign of clearing.
Mindful of the gaze which was more heated than expected, she subtly turned her eyes to look at Tei. Even though he ended up doing hospital work that wasn’t in his plans, he showed no sign of reluctance at all.
Thrusting his two hands into his trousers and walking with a regular stride, he was even wearing a joyful expression. The leisure Tei generated rather made it impossible for others to approach him carelessly.
For this kind of confidence to be ingrained in his body, the likelihood was high that the environment he grew up in was affluent.
Does this person know what deprivation is? Has he ever been shocked or flustered in his life?
Just because one’s family is good and wealthy doesn’t mean there are no curves in life. However, it felt like this man would be an exception to such exceptions.
“Bel. It’s been a while since I saw you, and you’ve become pretty?”
At a voice suddenly pretending to know her, Ibella woke up from her thoughts.
In the hallway on the second floor where the inpatient rooms were attached, patients who couldn’t bear the stuffiness had come out and were sharing conversations.
Most of them were people with whom she had developed an acquaintance through their traveling back and forth to the hospital for a long time or repeating admission and discharge.
“Is that handsome man next to you your lover? You won’t be lonely at night.”
“You pretended not to be interested in men, but you stab us in the back like this?”
“I heard Berne prays every night, so when he hears this news, it looks like he’ll end up blubbering.”
Turning around, they each threw a joke toward Ibella. The sound of chuckling laughter spread through the entire hallway. Since it wasn’t something she had experienced only once or twice, Ibella placed her two hands on her waist and approached one man.
“I was going to just go because it wasn’t fun, but a strange smell is coming out, Dwayne?”
Ibella sniffed, poking her head toward Dwayne. He changed his expression and took a step backward, but he couldn’t erase the distinct smell of alcohol that wafted out. Dwayne had internal bleeding and alcohol was strictly forbidden, but it seemed he had slipped out secretly and eaten some.
“W-What are you talking about, Bel. I told you I left alcohol behind?”
“Then did the alcohol follow you because it couldn’t forget you?”
“No, well, I just tasted it, just tasted it.”
“If you want to die, what is it that you wouldn’t eat? You know that if you don’t listen here, it’s discharge, right? Shall I try telling Tasha right now?”
Ibella drove Dwayne into a corner with a stronger and faster tone than usual. Although she usually had a calm personality, when dealing with stubborn men, it automatically became like this. Still, among them, there weren’t many whose nature was bad. Dwayne was also the same; only his mouth was rough, but his inner thoughts were tender. Ibella was truly worried about him.
“I wasn’t going to eat it, but Ray tempted me. Really!”
“When did I? I told you it would absolutely never be found out, so to trust only you!”
“When I call you two later, come to the treatment room.”
After glaring at the two men alternately, Ibella delivered a chilly threat. While these people wished to cure the aftereffects of their injuries, they could not overcome their old habits and ended up taking harmful things. Today, she intended to nag until they squeezed out tears.
Sending a eye-signal to Tei to go, she began to walk to the treatment room again. However, before she could even take a few steps, another person caught her.
“Hey Bel, it’s been a while?”
Of all things, it was the voice of the person she disliked the most. She tried to just pass by, but an unforgivable remark caught her ankles.
“Your buttocks are pretty? It seems your lover touched them often?”
Along with a harassing remark that made her ears feel as if they were rotting, the sound of a whistle flew in.
Ibella turned around, blowing air up over her forehead. Rusty, who had just come out from another hospital room, was sitting in a wheelchair and smirking while looking at her. He frequently caused trouble inside and outside the hospital, drifted in and out of the police station as if it were a restaurant, and used to teach bad things to other patients. Since he habitually used violence at the slightest provocation, others also tended to avoid Rusty when he appeared. Originally, he wasn’t an inpatient, but it seemed he had caused trouble again and entered.
“Shut, your mouth. Rusty.”
Ibella stared at Rusty and clenched her fists.
Whether her words sounded funny, he made an erotic shape with his two fingers and moved them to show her. It was a gesture meaning sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.
“By any chance, if that fellow can’t use his strength, come to me. I’ll make it absolutely killer all night lo—ugh.”
Rusty, who was uttering low-class words without hesitation, froze like a person who had been hit. His eyes were directed toward Tei, not Ibella. Pupils unstable as if he had seen a ghost, hands holding the wheelchair tightly and trembling. It was a face that looked abject enough to make the appearance of him bragging a moment ago fade.
Instinctively, Ibella’s gaze directed toward Tei. He was looking down at Rusty with an indifferent face. There were no words, no movement, but the pouring gaze was like a frozen iron spear. The anger buried within that sharp, cold, and well-honed gaze was extremely overbearing not only to Rusty but also to her.
“H-Hey. It’s a joke, a joke.”
Turning pale, Rusty even stammered his words and read Tei’s countenance.
“You should be careful. Because there is nothing as unfair as dying while making a joke, is there?”
Tei’s voice was steady yet serene. That appearance rather made the opponent’s knees shake more than cursing in a raised voice.
“I, I will leave now.”
Rolling his eyes, Rusty hurriedly rolled his wheelchair backward. Soon he disappeared, and only a bizarre silence hung in the hallway.
“Let’s go.”
In the frozen atmosphere, Ibella pulled Tei’s arm. Seeing him being pulled along obediently, she put on a bright expression on purpose.
“Are you in a bad mood?”
“Isn’t it strange to be okay even after hearing that kind of talk?”
“The others don’t mean it with bad intentions. As for Rusty, you can just ignore him.”
In the beginning, she too did not know how to respond properly to sudden situations and went through many trials and errors.
She cried, she got angry, and she reported to the upper management to make them receive punishment.
The fact she came to know later was that among the people with foul mouths, there weren’t many truly bad people.
It was just that their method of expression was different due to the poor environment they lived in, the absence of education, and the like. Of course, humans whose nature itself was low-class, she also did not sit by and watch.
After giving a warning a few times, if an incident occurred even after being ignored, it was unconditionally expulsion. Although she was known to the patients as a person like an angel, once she turned around, she was colder than anyone.
“And please bear with them a little.”
These people lost the most precious things while fighting for the country. Their future became uncomfortable, but the compensation was absurdly small, so sadness and anger were piled inside. Expressing that in a different method, can we not understand it a little.
Hearing Ibella’s words, he turned his body and stood looking straight at her. Stopped by his gaze, she looked up at him with innocent eyes.
“Why, do you do this kind of work?”
“Pardon?”
“I am asking why you are going down such a difficult path, instead of marrying like other women, bearing children, and forming a happy family.”
Tei’s gaze demanding an answer was serious like never before. Today, this man was showing her many sides. Feeling a sense of wonder at the appearance of the man who seemed as if he would never change like a rock, she answered.
“I am only going down the path my heart tells me to go.”
There was no grand reason like a mission or destiny. Nor was there a big turning point enough to change her life.
She just saw the burden that the people at the bottom of life were bearing, and just wanted to walk together by their side.
Since the one driving her life was herself, she was only doing as she wished.
***
The helping hands at the hospital were always insufficient, so Ibella continued her work without rest.
Sharing conversations with several patients, giving medicine to the patients as written in the records, or changing the bandages on the affected areas, she spent a busy time. Tei helped with her work by her side and then went outside upon receiving Tasha’s call.
“Bel! Bel!”
There came a sound of calling in a short whisper, as if fearful that someone might hear. As Ibella turned around with a puzzled face, Rusty’s face sitting in a wheelchair popped out at the doorway.
