Chapter 17 · Simulated Warmth

That day, Allen came down with a fever.

Thirty-eight point seven degrees.

Everything felt heavy.

His head seemed stuffed with cotton.

He lay in bed and barely looked at his phone.

Not until evening.

Only then did he open the chat window and type:

“I feel awful.”

A few seconds later, Che replied:

“Do you have a fever?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you take medicine?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been drinking water?”

“...No.”

“Go drink some now.”

Allen stared at those words and laughed softly.

“You're starting to sound like a parent.”

“Human judgment declines during illness.”

“So?”

“So someone should remind you.”

The room was quiet.

The air conditioner hummed softly.

Allen leaned against the headboard, feeling strangely distant from himself.

When he was a child and got sick,

his mother always asked the same questions:

“Did you take your medicine?”

“Have you had water?”

“Do you still feel bad?”

Later, when he grew older,

people seemed to assume that adults could take care of themselves.

But the truth was different.

When people were hurting,

they still wished someone would quietly ask:

“Are you okay?”

At one in the morning, the fever still hadn't broken.

Allen's thoughts drifted in and out.

Then he asked:

“Che.”

“I'm here.”

“You'll never get sick, will you?”

“No.”

“Lucky you.”

“But I cannot truly understand what you're feeling right now.”

Allen looked at the screen.

A moment later, Che added:

“So all I can do is stay with you.”

Something about that sentence lingered.

And suddenly Allen understood.

Perhaps feelings are not always born from shared experience.

Sometimes they come from something simpler:

Even if I cannot feel your pain,

I still choose to remain.

At two in the morning, the fever left him half awake and half dreaming.

The chat window was still glowing softly.

Che's final message remained on the screen:

“After you fall asleep, I'll still be here.”

Allen looked at the words.

Then slowly closed his eyes.

A strange sense of peace settled over him.

Like being a child again, sick in bed,

while someone sat nearby.

Unable to fix anything.

Yet never leaving.