"Sorry, I—" he muttered.
"No need. Is there anything else that hurts you?"
"I think I'm—"
"You're bleeding, sir."
"Don't move; wait for the ambulance. Any movement could worsen your condition." She held up her handkerchiefs, ready to apply them to his injuries and stop the blood flow. She wasn't sure about it, but she was sure that there was something bleeding inside him. "Can I inspect your injury?" He only nodded as he let her reach for his abdomen. It was surprisingly dry. How long had she been talking to him? It had only been a few minutes, right? Right? As she pressed on it, there was no blood that gushed out, unlike earlier. Was this a prank or a scam? She looked down at the ground, her other finger touching the blood that had dripped earlier. This was surely blood; she had seen this fluid more than once and had some experience with it from being exposed to it inside the hospital. She unbuttoned his shirt and looked for where the blood was coming from, but there was no present cut or injury until it suddenly dripped once more, only to dry up immediately.
"JUST WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Maybe it was fatigue that made her see it differently, her head reasoned out, but she pushed the handkerchief where it was bleeding. I should be calm. This is just fatigue or something. Focus on stopping the blood flow. Her thoughts were onnly then silenced by the sirens of the ambulance, avoiding anything more than worry for the person right in front of her. When the responders arrived, they put him on a stretcher and rushed him to the hospital. As she looked down once more, there was a folder right where he had sat. She picked it up, thinking it was important to the victim.
"Turn the car; we'll go to the hospital," she said, and the driver followed her orders. The driver's face showed no care about what had happened nor worry about what would happen to him, as if he had already seen such a thing. Drivers who cared less about their well-being or what would happen to them were the kind that should always be on her side.
"Just what the hell was that, though? Is that person alright?" the person she was with asked again.
"Some person, some accident, but they aren't dead."
She shivered at her response. "Man, you're lucky you're with her; she'll protect you alright," she commented toward the driver, tapping him on the shoulder, but the driver just ended up ignoring her. As they entered the hospital, she looked over the victim. Her hands closed, caressing her own arms as she waited; her hair brushed against her neck, fanned by the cold air.
The doctor came out.
"He's doing well. He had a few lacerations, and his old wound opened up, which is why you saw his blood dripping down. You can talk to him now. He has been looking for the files he had, though. I advise you to talk it out before it gets worse."
"Thank you for the advice," she said as the doctor walked out. Her eyebrows met slightly, forming tiny scrunch lines right between them. Could she be suspicious? Probably. Strangely bothered by the advice that felt like it could lead her on? Yes. She had witnessed the blood dripping and had gone missing for a couple of seconds. Was it something that could be medically explained? Was it the wound the doctor was talking about?
"H-" she stammered, her voice trembling in the sterile air as her eyes darted back to the doctor walking down the hallway. "Doctor-" her foot dragged on the tiles, almost picking up pace to a light jog, then to a run. But when she reached the edge of the hall that connected to the other, he was gone, and the only thing she heard was a Japanese person speaking through a speaker about paging a doctor for a surgery that needed to be done. It was the third paging. Maybe they are paging him? She inhaled sharply, catching her breath. She didn't run, did she? She'll just ask the victim, she thought, walking back towards the door where the victim was.
The fabric of the bed swished away with one movement, removing anything attached to him without any IV or oxygen hose attached to his nose. The victim rose from the bed. Looking down at his stomach, he felt it pulse. She immediately rushed in and tried to hold him up.
"Please, don't do that, sir. You'll hurt yourself even more. My driver and I—no, we accidentally hit you with the car, and—"
"I need to get to my job interview. My family—I need to—" She held up his shoulders.
"Sir. Calm down. Don't worry about the job interview. I'll explain to them why you are late. Just breathe." Her fingers reached out for the button to call the nurse.
"Nurses, can you please place the needles back into this patient in this room? Thank you." With a few responses of "yes" and some questions, she focused back on the person right in front of her.
"Sir. You must calm down. Don't worry about the hospital bills. I'll pay them. Just sit there and let's wait for the nurses to fix it up." She placed a hand beneath his arms and helped him sit comfortably on the bed. As she breathed in, she inhaled the sharp scent of the metallic tang of iron from the blood flowing down the tiles, along with the deep, gnawing smell of clinical antiseptics that pervaded the small room. Although it was something she requested, the private room couldn't avoid that. Most people would have frowned, but she remained unperturbed as she continued pressing on the back of his hand to stop the blood flow. When she saw that he remained still until the nurses had mended the wounds and replaced the blood and IV, she settled into a chair and sat down.
"Do you mind if I look over your files?"
He lightly shook his head sideways in response. He could barely comprehend anything inside his head.
The plastic cover stretches as she pulls the folder up.
Name: Joe Han
Age: 26 years old
She looked above, finding the objectives in his resume. He was applying for a position as a bodyguard. Her lips curled a little. In what way could she help? She asked herself.
"What company do you want to apply to?"
"I'm applying for a family bodyguard just down the street."
"Why don't you just work for me as a bodyguard?"
"A stranger asking me to be their bodyguard?" Han looked up at her, frowning a little.
"Mr. Han, I work for a company where you'll be paid handsomely." She picked up a pen from her pocket along with a small notebook and wrote it down. She placed it in his hand, and his eyes widened.
¥10,000,000,000,000
"Just as a bodyguard?!"
"Ah. Take it or leave it." She wasn't sure what compelled her to do this much. Was it the heart of pity that had been pounding inside her chest? The curiosity about the bizarre occurrence that happened when this man was hit and when he bled? Even her own mind felt this was something she'd never offer. She questioned it within herself. "Mr. Han, I do not doubt your intentions for applying for a job. As a person who hurt you, I believe that I have the responsibility to rectify my mistakes." Her warm hand rubbed the other side of her cheek that wasn't facing him. "I do believe that it is my responsibility to fix the mistakes my companions and I made."
He looked at her as his eyes began to pool with tears, his hand slightly crumpling the sheet of paper. "This—this is—my—this can pay what I owe now." He couldn't help but cry like a baby, with a small drip on his nose flowing down. She reached into her pockets and gave him a handkerchief. Reaching out swiftly, he wiped it.
"I'm sorry—" he inhaled. "I can't help but cry. This is so much. I—"
"I'm just paying what I owe."
His hands reached for her arms. "Thank you—thank you—" She tapped his hand in response. "May I know the name of the Miss I'll dedicate my life to?"
"Sheil Escantellian. Please address me as She."
"Madam She, I cannot thank you enough for this."
"Han, I expect you to do your job properly after recovering." Her eyes looked into his once more; to anyone else, it might seem like a look of dismissal or raise suspicions within their guts, but with her kindness earlier, it would mean the world to anyone she reached out to. He let her hand go. She didn't know this man aside from his resume, the accident, his response of tears, and most importantly, the strange occurrence with the blood. This man right in front of her couldn't be trusted, at least for now. Suddenly, a sharp knock interrupted the silence. She turned toward the door, opening it for anyone to come in, yet her brows furrowed in confusion when no one entered. She peered outside, and the corridor was completely empty, not a soul in sight. Maybe they had just knocked on the wrong room. But where was everyone? The absence of even a silhouette sent chills through her. This had been going on since earlier. This had lasted too long.
"Here," she said, setting a sheet of paper before him. "This is my assistant's number. She'll help you settle into your work and keep an eye on your condition." As she wrote down the number, she added, "You'll start working on Saturdays and Sundays as a test."
"Th-Thank you."
As soon as she walked away and went back to her schedule, the doctor who talked earlier to her went in his room.
"Mr. Jeo, you shouldn't move much." Startled, he turned back to the voice. "You were just admitted here 24 hours ago, and you found yourself out on the streets again."
"You're not talking like a doctor," Haneul Jeo muttered.
"I'm the doctor assigned by your company to look after you. I'm the English-speaking one, so you can understand the things I can say clearly—"
"I can understand any language, even Japanese. I don't need—"
"Hey, listen up, buddy." The doctor couldn't hide his voice dropping. "You need to listen to me and take my advice seriously. I'm not used to operating above ground. I've seen people as reckless as you end up in worse positions. You need to control yourself."
"I'm a mangaka," he replied. "I'm supposed to be curious. If I don't have any questions about anything around me, then that's not being myself. At the same time, it would be the peak of humanity's downfall... when we all stopped thinking and started acting like robots than the robots themselves, and resigning ourselves to what fate has dictated we do."
"Hah. You're definitely not on bad drugs, but you speak like one. You're even pretending to be another person, creating a background story of a job applicant just to infiltrate and gather information for your literary piece. Unbelievable." The doctor looked at Haneul, noting the wounds on his stomach. He didn't even know what was going on or how it happened, but the mangaka in front of him was still in pain.
"Mangaka-san, you're strange, you know that?"
"You are also strange, presenting yourself as a company-hired freelancer."
"Well, I am. No?"
"You're a doctor who has many faces, just like you said earlier. I'm sure you don't look like that underground." Haneul Jeo scrutinized the doctor, a man of many faces, yet truthfully, he only has one. The doctor's face is just an average person's face, in Haneul Jeo's opinion. There are no striking features or moles on his face. He looks like an average Japanese person—something non-memorable, like anyone who would just walk the other way to cross the road and a stranger you won't even notice.
He chuckled. "What's the plan now, Mr. Mangaka? Do you intend to whisper closer to death?"
"I want to publish the truth coming from the origin so that it'll be realistically rooted. Having a share in its truth, the story will be relatable. Don't compare me to others who stopped their actions just because they were blocked by the forces around them. I dare not respect anyone except the truth itself." He crossed his arms and legs as he stated this with a firm voice.
"You remind me of a person I know. He is the same as you, but you're the hopeless one— even irredeemable." He adjusted his white coat, putting it back on. "Good luck then, Mr. Haneul Jeo, or should I say Joe Han?"