Chapter 197

Today was a holiday celebrating the founding of the school, it was also a Saturday. Even though she made plans to go hang out with her friends a week ago, she ended up staying inside today.“My head hurts.”She was sick to the point of sweating like a waterfall yesterday. Today was a lot better thankfully, probably because of the medicine and the sleep from yesterday. She wished she could jump out of bed for some fresh air. Alas, her body didn’t want to take a single step out of the bed.“How’s your temperature?”Her mom stepped inside and put a hand over her forehead, she said she was fine to put her mom at ease.“You should stay as warm as possible. Do you have anything in particular that you want to eat?”“No, I don’t. You should rest, mom. This isn’t anything serious.”“You should’ve taken care of yourself, to begin with. You took your medicine?”“I did.”After her dad passed away, she did her best to never show pain in front of mom. Because once she did, her mom would lose all rationality and start worrying. Looking at that made her feel more pain than anything else, she didn’t want to give her mom reminders of her dad again. “Want some porridge?”“Mom.”“Yeah?”“Go to work. I thought today was your deadline. Worry more about our budget, not me.”She pushed her mom away lightly, her mom smiled as she finally walked out. The room was finally quiet again, she got rid of her smile as she lay back down on the bed. She was still feeling incredibly dizzy, she should just lie down all day. She heard an alarm as she desperately tried to fall asleep, she grabbed her phone nearby and opened it. [Are you feeling alright?]It was a message from her friends at Namsan. She typed up a response, feeling sad at the fact she couldn’t be with them. Well, at least they remembered her.[I want to die. You better not have fun while I’m suffering!]She grinned as she sent the message. Immediately, she started receiving multiple messages from her friends, all along the lines of ‘just try to curse us, woman’. Though she only received words, it felt like she could hear their voice from the letters. She closed her phone and stared dumbly at the ceiling, the little glow-in-the-dark stickers she put up there as a child with her dad were glowing. ‘I’m lonely.’She could smile when she was texting with friends, but the immediate feeling of loneliness that came afterwards dampened her mood. She tried smiling, telling herself that this was only a symptom of her sickness, but that didn’t stop her from sighing at all. She felt sicker, actually. She tried to go to sleep as best she could but it only made her feel more awake. She tried counting sheep in her head, but eventually, they started performing acrobatics and even sang together in harmony.‘Who the hell came up with the idea of counting sheep?’She put a hand over her hurting head and turned over in her bed, nothing changed. The clock on her desk was pointing to 11:14am, even though it felt 11:14am passed hours ago. She sighed and sat up, unable to sleep. Her headache wasn’t terrible at the moment, she might as well watch some TV. Just as she took a step outside her room, she heard a noise come from her bed. It was a call. Was it her friends? She smiled at her mom working in the living room before stepping back inside.“Hello?”- Why do you sound so tired? Did you just wake up?“Ah, it’s you, Maru.”She sat back down on her bed. She thought she could walk, but she was dead wrong. Her entire world was spinning from those few steps.- You’re sick, aren’t you?“No, I’m not.”- I can tell from your voice.“I’m not sick at all. Really.”- Well, same habits as ever.“What? What habit?”- Don’t worry about it. Where are you hurting? Is your mom there at home? Did you take your medicine?“Why don’t you believe me? I’m not sick.”She felt annoyed all of the sudden, she remembered how they were supposed to go on a date last weekend and he just cancelled it out of nowhere. She was fine with it last week, so why was she feeling so annoyed about it now? How could a person who likes her just cancel something out of nowhere like that? She felt annoyance creep up all the way to the back of her throat, it felt like she would just spill out all of her frustrations if she opened her mouth now.“...I’m fine.”But all she ended up saying were words to calm the other side down. It has become a habit of hers to avoid worrying others, she didn’t like it when other people worried about her. She let out some awkward laughter through the phone.“I’m going to sleep, so call me later. Got it?”- Wait.“Bye.”Her headache worsened after she hung up, she had no reason to be annoyed at Maru. She just couldn’t help it. Was it because she was still young? Why couldn’t today just be over already? Along with her sickness? She lay down and put her blanket over her head, it smelled good, since they washed it just a few days ago. She called this smell the ‘smell of the sun’, that was what dad called it. Wait, was it mom who called it that? In any case, smelling it made her feel a lot better. All of her annoyance and sadness disappeared from her head, she should’ve done this way earlier.And just like that, she went to sleep.