Episode 23
He could not believe Rose’s words at all. What if she was blind and kept making excuses with lies? This itching could only be explained by bugs, yet Rose adamantly insisted there were no bugs anywhere and tried to persuade him.
It was the moment he hurriedly pushed Rose away due to the maddening onslaught of itchiness. Suddenly, the sensation at his fingertips was strange. The blunt fingernails that had failed to leave much of an impact on his tough hide had, perhaps due to excessive force, dug cleanly into Rose’s tender skin.
“I’ll wipe your body down. Then you’ll feel better soon.”
He definitely felt the sensation of something slicing smoothly into flesh, but since Rose showed no reaction, he had no way of knowing. And it wasn’t just once or twice.
To stop him from scratching his body recklessly, she wrapped each of his fingers one by one in cloth. The whole process was exceedingly calm. She had developed her own knack for it.
“If there really were maggots, how could I bring myself to touch the Major’s body? I’d be too scared.”
Rose, having soaked a towel in cold water, began wiping his body. This too was a routine repeated daily—at least several times, at most more than ten. Her soft, gentle touch caressed him with familiarity. The pruritus that had provoked an impulse to tear his skin to shreds gradually began to subside.
Even with the naked man’s body right before her eyes, Rose was no longer flustered in the slightest. At first, she had shown signs of embarrassment, even covering between his legs with a towel, but this too lasted only a moment. While hastily dealing with all sorts of withdrawal symptoms that burst forth, starting with hypothermia, she came to accept it before long.
That in this situation, shame was nothing but a luxury.
Ezekiel was much the same. While struggling, accidents occurred where he unintentionally groped this or that part of Rose. Moreover, more often than not, either he or she was completely naked.
Because the withdrawal symptoms disrupted his sensory system, making the rough texture of fabric register as pain, Ezekiel lived practically naked. Rose, who frequently had skin-to-skin contact with him, also couldn’t manage to keep her clothes on. To those who didn’t know the circumstances, it would look like a primitive spectacle between a man and a woman.
Moreover, there had been many nights when, due to his fluctuating fever, he fell asleep embracing the naked Rose.
Rose’s warmth, pleasantly cool and appropriately soft, kept him comfortably warm on nights when he suffered from hypothermia, and now, when his fever frequently rose, it served as a fever reducer that cooled his body. After she calmed the flames that had soared like a wildfire, he could finally breathe a little easier. It was a semblance of peace brought by her gentleness.
“Are you alright now?”
The bugs disappeared like magic.
Even so, Rose moved busily. Without even a moment to catch her breath, her hands continued applying cold ointment over torn wounds. Ezekiel caught her hand as it gently rubbed the ointment smooth.
“That’s enough. Put this stuff on your own body.”
His body was already covered in scars from countless wounds received during service. A few more measly lacerations wouldn’t be particularly noticeable. But Rose was different. Even by touch, her skin was delicate and soft. It was Rose, rather, who should be worried about scars.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt.”
As always, Rose brushed it off with the same words.
Ezekiel was silent for a moment, then suddenly seized her arm.
“Major?”
Paying no heed to Rose’s startled reaction, he continued squeezing up her arm in several places. Upon reaching a certain point, Rose finally drew a short breath. It was a different reaction from when he pressed uninjured skin.
Here. Found it.
Ezekiel pulled on the upper part of Rose’s arm where she had reacted. Rose collapsed limply and was drawn into his embrace. He immediately pressed his lips to her arm.
He couldn’t accurately distinguish it by smell alone, because the scent of blood he had shed while harming himself lingered in the air. But taste was different. The flustered Rose tried to pull her body back, but he held her arm tightly, sliding his lips along her skin, slowly exploring her body.
Rose’s captured arm trembled lightly. Though she tried not to think improper thoughts, she couldn’t help flinching at the stimulus of the man’s narrowly lowered gaze and the red tongue flickering slightly between his lips. It was hot, soft, and ticklish. This sensation was entirely new to her. Unfamiliar and strange.
“Stay still.”
While carefully feeling his way along Rose as she squirmed trying to escape, Ezekiel discovered a slightly swollen spot. He flicked his tongue against the skin. As expected, the taste of salty blood met his tongue.
“As if you weren’t hurt.”
“…….”
“You get treated first.”
He remembered where he had left it and groped along the floor, finding the external ointment and pressing it into Rose’s hand. Rose stared blankly down at the ointment. For some reason, a corner of her heart seemed to throb.
❖ ❖ ❖
Opium was cunning. The moment he let his guard down, the fever surged back up.
It would seem to improve slightly for a few days, then abruptly worsen—there was simply no discerning the pattern.
What was once an angel’s blessing was now a demon’s curse. Rose clicked her tongue. Even she, watching from the side, was astonished time and again; how much more extreme must this transformation be for Ezekiel, who was experiencing the drug’s withdrawal symptoms firsthand?
Headaches that wrung his bones, stomach pains that clawed at his insides. On top of it all, his body heat rose defenselessly.
“It was definitely calming down well…… I think we should call a doctor from outside even now.”
“And if you do?”
Strangely, the worse his symptoms grew, the more Ezekiel’s fighting spirit ignited. His will to never kneel—if only because the patience he had endured until now would be wasted—was ferociously sharp.
At the strong refusal embedded in Ezekiel’s counterquestion, Rose pressed her lips together. After all, it was a situation where he couldn’t use painkillers. Even calling a doctor wouldn’t provide much treatment.
“Then shall we bring in Madam Serva?”
She suggested again, thinking that if the nanny who had raised him in childhood came to look after him, it might be more comforting than her own presence, but Ezekiel refused this as well.
“What good would it do to have Serva come when she can barely take care of her own body?”
“But…….”
“Forget it. Just stay by my side.”
Ezekiel cut her off decisively and closed his eyes.
In the end, folk remedies were all they had to rely on. Rose fed him water brewed with willow bark that had fever-reducing effects and made lukewarm wet towels to wipe his body frequently.
Ezekiel placed his own hand over Rose’s as she tested his temperature against his forehead. His roughly heaving breaths subsided. Without a word, she cooled his fever with her hand.
He sank into silence. Darkness surged. It was as if he were falling into deep water.
Blink.
His consciousness flickered.
Blink.
He was exhausted.
Blink.
The world of dreams came upon him in an instant.
Ezekiel blinked. His vision blurred into brightness. He intuited it immediately.
It was a dream.
Even so, the liberating feeling of his lost senses blooming was welcome. Though it was a futile lie that would vanish upon waking, as long as he was free from the dark prison, the suffocating, wearisome constriction of reality disappeared.
However, his vision shimmered like a heat haze from time to time, making it impossible to properly discern shapes.
Since it was a dream anyway, he wished he could see clearly, if only for this moment.
Even so, the habits ingrained in his body diligently assessed his surroundings. He was lying with his head in someone’s lap. It felt exactly as though he had returned to childhood. A distant past came to mind, when he used to lie in his nanny’s lap and act spoiled.
But it wasn’t Serva.
Then who was this woman?
He tried to lift his head, but his entire body felt as heavy as if pressed by scissors, not moving easily as he willed.
As he tried to straighten his head, which was tilted to the side, at a very slow speed, the woman’s hair cascading down heavily tickled the bridge of his nose.
It was beautiful red hair, resembling the color of the sunset.
It was strange. Despite his foggy, mist-veiled vision, the woman’s hair alone carried a vivid red hue. It alone was vibrant, captivating his gaze.
It had a splendor much like that of a rose.
He persistently turned his head, following the luxuriant locks flowing down. His field of vision gradually widened. Passing through the swaying, fluttering hair, the woman’s upper body came into view. Her plump chest rose and fell shallowly with her breaths.
He was momentarily captivated by those soft curves. But Ezekiel soon urged himself on.
What he was curious about right now was this woman’s face.
He advanced, taking in one by one the prominent collarbones and slender shoulders.
Finally, the woman’s face was right before his nose. It was the very moment he had barely reached the edge of a chin that seemed about to reveal itself yet did not.
His vision flickered out.