Dogs Among Withered Roses - Chapter 23

【 Crazy Mole 】

Michele, clutching his head with a face that looked ready to collapse from distress, stared at Berenice lying on the hospital bed. No matter how generously one looked at it, Berenice’s condition could not be called fine.

A head wrapped thickly in bandages, a long, shallow cut crossing her neck, her right arm and left leg firmly fixed in casts, abrasions and red bruises scattered across her face….

Any one of those would be enough to make someone uneasy, yet seeing all of them on Berenice left him with a complicated expression as he swallowed a deep sigh. The doctor, who had been glancing between Michele and Berenice lying relatively neatly, moved his pen and spoke.

“Considering she fell down the stairs, these are minor injuries.”

“…You’re calling that minor after looking at her like this?”

Michele released the hand gripping his head as if he might tear his hair out and pointed at Berenice. His sharp tone, as if telling him to look properly if he had eyes, was unlike Michele’s usual self.

“Yes. ‘Considering she fell down the stairs,’ they are minor injuries.”

The doctor repeated the assessment, saying that another guardian who witnessed the scene explained that the patient had fallen very violently, and that Michele’s reaction was understandable, before calmly reporting the treatment results.

“Her right arm has a sprained ligament, and her left leg has a crack but not a full fracture. Her ribs are completely fine without even a hairline crack. A concussion is unavoidable. At this level, any hospital or doctor would call it a miracle, so please calm down. The patient herself is this composed.”

Berenice, who had been quietly listening to the doctor’s dry explanation that delivered only facts, carefully added, “That’s right, Michele. I think I’m okay with this.”

“Don’t open your mouth and just shut up, Berenice.”

“My, look at the way you talk to a patient….”

Berenice, her voice low and slightly hoarse, sighed calmly. The doctor, who looked at her as if even that reaction from someone who had only regained consciousness after being out for nearly an hour following emergency treatment was not entirely normal, continued the rest of the report.

“We’ll need to observe the progress to be certain, but for now, you’ll need to be hospitalized for at least two weeks, possibly close to a month. Your mobility is limited, so it would be best to have a caregiver with you at all times.”

“A month?”

Michele flinched in shock and repeated the question, then clicked his tongue as if he could understand well enough after seeing Berenice’s state.

“Um, doctor—”

“Berenice, I told you to shut your mouth.”

“You shut yours. Doctor, my family will be here soon, so please tell them I need to be hospitalized for two months.”

Michele quietly barked at her with a face that looked like he was about to punch her at any moment, but Berenice didn’t back down and delivered her demand.

Two months?

The doctor asked, looking puzzled, “May I ask the reason?”

“…I, uh, don’t want to work.”

Worried her voice might carry outside the hospital room, her already hoarse voice dropped even lower. As soon as she finished speaking, Berenice avoided the doctor’s strange gaze, glanced briefly at Michele’s expression as well, then dropped her eyes to the blanket.

“Michele, you can just curse me like before.”

Hesitating, Michele, whose face looked like he’d lost all fighting spirit at the words ‘don’t want to work,’ seemed to regret it somehow. As if he’d lashed out at someone already in a complicated state for no reason.

“It’s not difficult to grant a patient’s request—”

That was when it happened. Heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway.

It was the moment the people inside the hospital room sensed something unusual. Along with the commotion of something being struck violently and fists pounding down, the urgent screams of a nurse trying to stop the merciless violence rang out.

No way.

The moment Berenice and Michele, their bodies stiffened, met each other’s eyes widened as if they would tear apart, the hospital room door burst open without a knock, as if it would break.

At the same time, Ricardo stormed in and threw Erkin and Andre, who had been standing guard in the hallway, onto the hospital room floor.

“Ricardo! What are you doing!”

Berenice shouted in horror, forgetting even her pain, but Ricardo paid no attention.

He kicked Erkin’s abdomen viciously as he lay fallen, then crushed Andre’s shoulder under his foot as he struggled to get up. Ricardo drew in a rough breath.

As soon as he steadied his breathing, he approached Michele, who stood frozen in the corner without moving, like a beast.

“Ricardo, stop, ah!”

Berenice, who had tried to jerk her body upright without thinking, cried out in terrible pain. Only after a shrill scream that felt like her limbs were being torn apart filled the hospital room did Ricardo slowly release the hand gripping Michele’s collar.

While the doctor and nurse, as startled as Berenice, stood frozen like their souls had left them, unable to react at all, only Erkin quickly pushed himself up as if nothing had happened, responding to Berenice’s scream.

He gently supported Berenice’s body so she could lean comfortably against the bed.

At the gesture telling her not to get agitated and to calm down, Berenice’s gaze lifted blankly. Noticing Erkin’s cheek already beginning to swell and his reddened eye area, Berenice’s breath trembled like that of a frightened animal.

“Erkin, you, your face, your cheek, your eye….”

“Who do you think you’re worrying about right now, Berenice?”

Ricardo, having straightened his disheveled clothes, spoke in a low, incredulous tone.

Berenice glanced in turn at Andre, who hadn’t gotten up and looked as if he were waiting for another kick that might come flying, and at Michele, frozen as if he’d seen the devil, then burst out angrily.

“You crazy bastard… are you insane? Have you lost your mind!”

“Don’t shout. The insane one is your bodyguard. Three grown men couldn’t protect you alone, so they should consider it lucky they’re not dead here.”

“…Shut up. Don’t pretend you care about me!”

The anger surging explosively burned away the pain that even painkillers couldn’t suppress for a moment. Veins standing out on her neck, Berenice began screaming like a madwoman.

“The crazy one is that bastard Russo who chased me all the way into the women’s locker room! You’re getting angry right now because of me? No, you’re not! You’re pissed because it feels like you got played by Russo. Don’t give me that hypocrisy, don’t take it out on the wrong person! And you dare do it in front of me!”

“Watch your mouth—”

“What makes you any different from Father if you act like this!”

“….”

“Don’t pretend you’re not the same! You’re exactly the same! Disgustingly the same! Like father, like son, right!”

“Miss, you mustn’t get agitated!”

Ricardo, who had stiffened at Berenice’s string of harsh abuse, lost the words he was about to say. The doctor, who came to his senses late, hurriedly tried to stop Berenice, who looked like she might scream herself to death in a frenzy.

“If you want me to calm down, get that man out first!”

“…Berenice, do I need to sedate you and knock you out for you to shut up?”

“Ah, then I’ll shut up even less. Absolutely not.”

Berenice’s eyes, gritting her teeth as if that suited her just fine, burned as if she might grab a stiletto and lunge at him at any moment.

Startled by the harsh shouting he’d never heard from her before, Erkin wrapped an arm around her trembling shoulders as if to steady them. Michele, who had been frozen stiff in the corner, quickly came to his senses following Erkin and tried to calm her down.

“Berenice, enough. That’s enough. We’re fine.”

Amid the hands reaching out to stop her, Berenice slowly repeated ragged breaths, then bit down on her lip.

Only after screaming herself hoarse did her face twist mercilessly as she looked at Ricardo, whose expression had turned oddly rigid. Berenice chewed back the curse and lowered her head, tucking in her chin.

Erkin looked down at Berenice’s lowered face with his eyes cast down, as he often did.

Like multiple wavelengths of light mixing into transparency, all kinds of emotions blended together, leaving her face pale and drained as if she might collapse at any moment.

Her trembling eyelashes, her wandering eyes that couldn’t settle, her lips that kept parting without closing… her slender shoulders drooped like a drenched mouse, and her gaze, lowered as if she didn’t know what to do, showed no sign of lifting no matter how long one waited.

He didn’t like how pitiful she looked, as if she would crumble at a touch. He restrained the urge to forcibly lift her bowed head, and Berenice, after steadying her uneven breathing, asked slowly.

“What about Russo?”

“Russo? Looks like you really want to stir up more trouble.”

“Who do you think I’m worrying about? I’m asking because I’ll only feel satisfied if I grind that bastard down as much as I got hurt! If I ask a question, just answer it. Why are you talking back!”

As Berenice raised her head and shouted again, even the doctor began to glance at Ricardo with subtle irritation. It looked like he found Ricardo aggravating for provoking the patient just when she seemed to be calming down.

With her pupils widened as if they might tear, Berenice ground her teeth as if Russo were standing right in front of her.

“I’m going to collect everything with interest, doubled over. So don’t touch him until I’m discharged and my limbs are back to normal. Whether I kill him or let him live, I’ll handle all of it myself.”

“Focus on recovering your body.”

“Mind your own business. Get out. Before I kill you.”

Ricardo, wearing a face as if he hadn’t heard a single word of his sister’s earlier abuse, looked silently at Berenice, who was still snarling without any sign of exhaustion. Erkin’s gaze, following Berenice’s, also settled halfway on Ricardo.

He stood there for a moment looking like he had a lot to say. Then, perhaps realizing that nothing he said here would get through, he turned and left the hospital room without another word.