It was on the evening of the fourth day, in the room where Andrew was in.
There lay Andrew and a girl had her head laid on the side, her face not seen. She wore a fine gown which gave her a refreshing aura. She had long black silk hair as she lay there. At this time, Andrew's eyes seem to be struggling to open. Seconds trickled by but apart from the struggles of wanting to open up, there was no other reaction. Little by little though, probably after some minutes, the eyes slowly open up and since it was evening and the light from the sky was not too bright, it was easy for the eyes to get accustomed to the surroundings.
It still hurt the eyes a bit though but such stuff was negligible and he was able to notice his surroundings immediately.
On looking around, he notices he was in someplace like a hospital. He sighs on noticing that he didn’t die again and seeing that he was in a hospital, he has already acknowledged that he was in the capital without much thinking into the matter.
After a long sigh was when he notices the girl who rested her head on his bed. He frowns for a while but later smiles apologetically, ‘I must have made her worried for so long’. After which he struggles to raise his body, he feels a sharp pain that almost makes him fall back to bed, but he bears through it all as he starts sweating during the process of him trying to sit upright.
He ignores the pain as he lovingly pats the girl’s head, with a smile on his face. After a while of patting the girl’s head, a jolt runs through the girl whose head was laying on his bed.
Smiling, Andrew says, “You have woken huh. Sorry for keeping you worried about me, nothing can bring me down, that you know. I would always stay by your side even if you decide to push me away”. At which a jolt runs through the girl once again, Andrew says some other sweet words as if consoling her and shocks continue running through her body.
Andrew was starting to get amused by this reaction of hers towards his words and decided to say some more words, “You know, while I was unconscious, you were the reason I kept going and I struggled hard to awaken this quick just for y..”. He was not able to complete his statement before his door was opened and someone enters inside.
A voice soon sounds from the newcomer, “Andy, you are awake already”. The voice couldn’t be more familiar to Andrew and this time around it was him who receives a jolt. “Huh, what are you doing”, the voice sounds out again as if pouting after seeing the way his hand was in close contact with the girl whose head was lying on the bed as if they were intimate friends. It was at this time that Andrew quickly retrieves his hands as if he was a criminal who was caught in the act and was feeling guilty all of a sudden, but there was nothing he could say in his defence since he was caught.
On taking a look at the newcomer, it happens to be Marian who just went out after being called by Olivia to help her with some menial activities. She has stepped out for a long while and had to leave Andrew in the care of Eve who was currently lying her head on the bed and must have dozed off due to being bored or something of that sort.
If Andrew had looked more closely at whom was laying on his bed, he would have noticed the difference even from the hair, since the hair of Eve was longer than that of Marian. But since he didn’t expect anyone other than Marian to be lying next to him on the bed, he just mistook Eve for Marian and thus came to be in such an awkward situation.
Looking back now, Andrew was able to understand the meaning of the shock which went through Eve’s body after each word he said. Eve’s face was currently beet red from all the actions performed by Andrew. Even though she was currently older than Andrew, that didn’t stop her from having romantic interests in Andrew as not every girl/woman was against the idea of falling in love with a guy/man younger than them. Some are even more interested in younger men based on one point or the other.
With the words being said by Andrew, she didn’t know why her heart started racing at a fast pace and also didn’t know how to calm her heart down but she did enjoy all the words being said to her although fully being aware it wasn’t meant for her. On Marian interrupting this little sweet moment of hers, she was down. But she knew she had to clear the room for this pair, it has been a long while since they have spoken after all, and from the way she was formerly, it was easy to tell she was awake, so faking it would be useless at this point.
So, she slowly stands up from her position not turning a bit in the direction of Andrew, but Marian could see her face and the way her face was red as if it has been suntanned. Eve wishes nothing more than to find somewhere to hide her face but struggles mentally against it as she tries to walk normally towards the exit of the room.
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“Erm, sorry. I didn’t mean any of that”, Andrew apologizes at this moment. This would be the first time he was apologizing to a girl other than Marian. And to Eve at that, someone whom he has never put in his eyes, but he was sorry as he didn’t mean to behave that way with a stranger. If he was to be hit at that moment, he wouldn’t even dare to retort as he has touched her in an intimate manner without her permission and our protagonist isn’t that kind of person.
The apology causes Eve to pause in place, and Andrew noticing this tries apologizing some more in an effort to seek her forgiveness. Andrew is a dunce when it came to matters of the heart no matter how well he acts it out, so he hasn’t even noticed any such clues that Eve was interested in him but Marian has noticed one or two.
The apology does not good as Eve turns towards Andrew with eyes red as if she could start crying anytime, then walks up to Andrew, slapping him across the face forgetting that he was still hospitalized and in great pain then ran out of the room. Women can never be understood after all, both on earth and in this new world he has been reincarnated to. Instead of being straightforward about their feelings, they usually tend to do things in a roundabout way, always putting men in the passive situation, fully indecisive about the fact if they want us around them or not.
The slap shocks both Andrew and Marian, and if this was a movie, the camera would be switching between their faces with the scene of the slap being repeated and birds flying from the rooftop from the echo of the slap for maximum impact on the audience. But with a great apology, it isn’t anything of that sort, so we have to go on with the story.
Struggling with the pain, Andrew raises his hands to rub the cheek on which he has been slapped, he could have dodged it after all but insisted against it, since it would be more painful on his body.
While rubbing his cheek, he couldn’t help but grumble, “But I thought I was doing a good job with my apology. Why did she just flare up like that”. Marian on seeing this couldn’t help to let out a light laughter which sounds pleasing to the heart. Andrew looks towards Marian's direction before asking, “Would she be okay though?”. Marian just shakes her head before saying, “You would have to ask her yourself”.
Meanwhile, Eve has currently run a great distance in the hospital before entering one of the rooms which she found open. Seeing no one inside, she couldn’t help sitting down while tears fell down her face. “Why are boys so dumb? Why did he have to apologize? How could he hurt my feelings so much?”, she posed different questions as if waiting for a reply from somewhere.
“Would he be okay though? He is currently hurt and I hit him that hard? Won’t that worsen his injuries?”, seems like she was still worried about Andrew as she asks more questions but this time all in concern for Andrew while staring at the hands she had used to hit Andrew.
She felt pain all of a sudden but she was thinking too hard about it all, as although Andrew was still hospitalized and in pain, it wasn’t to the point that her slap would inflict more pain on him. Her slap could be taken as a mosquito sting at most to him with no other effect. It was at this moment though that someone enters the office, who happens to be Sophia. She has been listening to every word being posed by Eve to herself and although she didn’t actually like this girl as she has always continued blaming her for the punishment rendered to Olivia and also learning about the dangerous situation in which she got landed up when she encountered the joker, she still sympathizes with her.
She looks at Eve who was currently being torn apart by her own emotions before smiling and saying, “In case you need a listening ear, I am here. Am not that busy right now after all”.
Seeing Sophia being this way shocks Eve as she has always noticed her behaviour towards herself. But that didn’t stop her from pouring out her heart worries to her though.
Marian explains all that has happened to Andrew while he was unconscious. How Olivia has taken care of her, sheltered her and how her sister has performed the surgery. She also talked about how she has gotten close to Eve. He was overall updated on the recent happenings during his coma. He smiles all through the little storytelling while Marian lies on his legs. He has a doting expression on his face as his hands weaves through her hair and he would occasionally add some comments of his own during this time but overall, he listened attentively to all that was being said.
“Seems like she is a good woman after all”, says Andrew, at which Marian raises her head a bit to nod it like the way a lizard would. Andrew still hasn’t gotten over his woman phobia though, he still had this fear of women in general and someone would ask what about Marian who was with him. He was actually taking care of Marian to fulfil his promise and he has always doted on her since he got to know her till now and he essentially took her as the younger sister which he has never had.
A while passed during their discussion and a newcomer enters the hospital room, it was the doctor who treated him, Sophia. While listening to Eve cry out her heart to herself, she gradually got to know that Andrew was conscious and hence rushed down here. Since none of the girls had come to alert her about Andrew being conscious, she just got to know about it all. So she anxiously cut their conversation and rushed down to his room to check if really what Eve has said about him being awakened was true and to her shock, Eve wasn’t hallucinating as she had initially thought. There the boy was, sitting upright even with such injuries, obviously fully conscious about his surroundings as he has turns in her direction after she barged into the room.