Becoming the Terminally-Ill Villain Who Torments His Disciples - Chapter 105.1
Ji Taehyuk suffered from terrible insomnia every night. Whenever he closed his eyes, someone would scream into his ear, and at other times he would be plagued by absurd nightmares.
But strangely enough, on the night he saved that pale little runt, he didn’t have a single nightmare. For the first time since the nightmares had begun.
It was short-lived, however.
By the next day, as if nothing had changed, the insomnia returned with a vengeance.
“What was different from usual?”
The only unusual thing he could recall was dropping off that grimy, abandoned pup at the hospital. After some brief contemplation, Taehyuk got behind the wheel for the first time in a while and headed to the hospital.
Lee Eunwoo, who was on oxygen support, looked so frail that it wouldn’t have been surprising if he died at any moment.
“There seems to have been domestic violence.”
Upon hearing that Ji Taehyuk had come to the hospital, the doctor in charge of Eunwoo hurried in and spoke.
“Violence?”
“Yes. Aside from the signs of being hit by a car, bruises were found all over his body.”
With his hands stuffed into his pockets, Taehyuk silently stared at Eunwoo, who was barely breathing.
“Did you contact the guardian?”
“I-I did, but…”
“But?”
“…They said to only contact them if he dies.”
Clicking his tongue at the doctor’s follow-up, Taehyuk let out a sigh. The person responsible for the accident had tried to brush it off, and now even the kid’s family had abandoned him.
Staring at that face for a while, Taehyuk reached out and poked Eunwoo’s cheek.
His skin was dry and rough, clearly not taken care of. Heavy dark circles hung under his eyes, suggesting he hadn’t been sleeping even before the accident. His hands were also covered in wounds, as if he’d lived a harsh life.
“Pitiful.”
That was the only thought Taehyuk had upon seeing Eunwoo.
But his body seemed to think something entirely different—strangely, on the days he saw that kid, he didn’t have nightmares.
In fact, after sitting by his side for over an hour, Taehyuk could fall asleep without tossing and turning. As if Eunwoo were swallowing up everything bad inside him.
So Taehyuk began visiting Eunwoo every day out of habit. To see someone who might never wake up—or might soon die.
Three weeks passed like that.
And then, the boy who seemed as though he’d never open his eyes again… finally woke up.
Lee Eunwoo was—well, to put it simply, a fool. For someone living in 21st-century South Korea, he didn’t know how to use a lot of electronic devices and was clueless about many things.
“I mean, it’s not that weird not to know this stuff… They act like everyone’s as tech-savvy as them…”
His pouting muttering was kind of cute, but at the same time, he had an air of someone who’d made peace with life.
Even when told he’d been fired from everything due to the accident, or that his family hadn’t come to get him, he accepted it all with surprising calm.
So Taehyuk decided to push a little further. Just to see how deep he had to dig before Eunwoo showed his vulnerable side. He was just… curious.
So he did things he normally wouldn’t—brought him gifts, taught him how to use gadgets.
“Wow… this actually works?”
Eunwoo found everything in the world fascinating.
That the hospital systems were all computerized, that you could communicate with someone far away through a phone—it was all amazing to him.
He acted like someone who had dropped in from another world.
Even—
“Sanjin Group? What’s that? And what’s a CEO? Oh, wait. I’ll look it up. I know how now.”
—even when hearing the name of South Korea’s top conglomerate, he asked what it was. Taehyuk couldn’t tell if he was just stupid, or acting clueless to get his attention.
Whatever the reason, Taehyuk was certain. The person who kept frequenting this hospital room just for a decent night’s sleep… was starting to take interest in this unimpressive, foolish kid.
But then—
“You dared to run away?”
Crack.
Grinding his teeth, Ji Taehyuk left the hospital without hesitation and got into his car.
Just let him get caught.
His bared teeth glinted, and his black eyes gleamed coldly.
***
“I told you to die, so why’d you crawl back in here?!”
Opening the door to his home, Eunwoo gasped.
He’d thought his life had been awful, but he never expected to hear something like that from his mother after returning home from over two months in the hospital.
“So this is why they say we’re alike.”
Standing at the front door, Eunwoo blinked slowly.
From inside, the woman who was drinking straight from the bottle shouted,
“Get in here and clean this place up! Filthy brat, letting it sit for months.”
But Eunwoo didn’t go inside. He just crossed his arms and let out a quiet sigh.
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