Siblings And Colds (4)

My head was throbbing. Not just my head, my neck hurt too.

The crucial thing was that my whole body was feverish. It seemed I had caught a cold.

I couldn’t even taste anything, and I had to rely almost entirely on intuition when cooking.

When I checked my temperature, it was over 39 degrees Celsius.

Catching a cold is the worst.

I was too dizzy. It was impossible to continue working.

I decided I couldn’t go on and closed the restaurant, heading upstairs.

It has been a week since the newly hired brothers started working.

Today was the promised day, so I thought about stopping by the ranch, but it was impossible in this state.

I had already communicated my intentions and the wages to Mr. Ment, so there shouldn’t be any problem.

More than that, how did I catch a cold?

Playing with Rurin in the typhoon was a while ago. It’s unlikely that I caught a cold from that now.

I don’t know the reason, but the symptoms are definitely of a cold.

My body was lethargic and weak. Chills and nausea came and went. It was clearly the rampage of the cold virus.

“Cough, cough, cough.”

I kept coughing. I felt like I had to do something about the dizziness first, so I barely made it upstairs and lay down. As I took deep breaths, a loud noise echoed in my ears.

Bang!

Someone burst through the door roughly. Can’t you enter gently, dragon? Geez.

“You, you, you! Are you here!”

Rurin, who had barged in roughly, immediately spotted me lying on the bed and dashed over to me in no time.

“Huh? You’re sleeping in the daytime? Just like me!”

“Just like you? Don’t make me laugh. By the way, when did you get up from sleeping at the restaurant table?”

“I just woke up! But you were gone! I was so surprised, I searched everywhere!”

At this time, I’m always preparing for business at the restaurant. So even if Rurin slept, she didn’t lose sight of me. She rolled around where she could see me, on a table or the bar table.

She really disliked me being out of her sight. It couldn’t be helped when she slept at night and woke up, but during her naps, she had to be by my side. It seemed to be her iron rule.

So when she woke up and didn’t see me in the kitchen as usual, she must have started searching the house immediately. It was obvious even without seeing it.

“Cough, cough, cough.”

Even though I tried to hold it back, the cough came out from deep in my lungs. Seeing me like this, Rurin’s face turned strange.

“You! What’s wrong? Your face looks strange!”

She crawled onto the bed, placed her hands on either side of my head, and looked down at me. Her black hair dangled down, tickling my face, as she was almost on top of me.

“In my homeland’s terms, it seems like I’ve caught a cold. So…”

“A disease?”

When the word ‘disease’ came out, Rurin’s face turned pale. Her gaze wavered with a serious intensity.

Seeing her reaction was too severe, I quickly corrected myself.

“No, it’s not the kind of disease you’re thinking of. It’s very common. I’ll get better with some rest.”

“Really! Truly really? I hate diseases!”

Rurin, with a tense face, placed her head on my chest and laid her body over mine. Then she wrapped her hands around my waist and held on tight, as if she would never let go.

“Rurin, can you get up for a moment? This is contagious. You shouldn’t be next to me.”

“No!”

Rurin lifted her head from my chest and shook it vigorously. It was a very firm refusal. At the same time, her cheeks puffed out naturally. Both cheeks.

She wanted to be closer because I was sick, but her puffed cheeks showed her displeasure at being told to move away.

At some point, I became scared of how easily I could read a dragon’s thoughts from their facial expressions.

“Then how about taking care of me?”

“What’s taking care?”

“It’s a human practice where you help a sick person get better quickly. I think taking care of me would be better than just lying next to me. If I stay lying like this, I won’t be able to cook for you.”

“That makes me hungry…!”

“Cough, cough, cough!”

I purposely made an even more pained expression and coughed again. Actually, this cough was fake. It was a perfect opportunity to teach Rurin about the concept of taking care of someone, so I couldn’t let it pass.

“Got it! I’ll do it! Whatever it takes, you can’t die!”

Startled by my cough, Rurin quickly got up and answered firmly.

“It’s not a deadly disease. Why do you keep saying I can die? Please, trust me, Dragon.”

“Okay, so tell me! What should I do to take care of you?”

“First, since I’m sick, could you make me some energizing food? Oh, but before that, could you wet a towel with cold water to cool my fever?”

“Am I taking care of you? Me, taking care of you? That’s not bad! It’s always been the other way around!”

I wondered if she realized that I had always been taking care of her.

Since I told her I was sick, Rurin’s smile had disappeared. Normally, she would be giggling and spreading happiness everywhere by now.

She just ran out of the room at incredible speed and went downstairs. A little while later, she came back up, stomping, with a towel.

“Here it is!”

Rurin handed me the wet towel.

“Put it on my forehead, on my forehead. My fever is making me dizzy.”

“What a wretched body. Can’t you use magic?”

“If I use magic to cool it down, my body temperature might drop too much and make things worse.”

Rurin nodded and placed the towel she brought on my forehead.

It’s cold.

Not a single drop of water fell from the towel.

Actually, I imagined that since it was Rurin, the towel would be dripping wet because she hadn’t wrung it out properly, but in reality, it was the complete opposite. It was perfectly wrung out.

She may find things bothersome, but as a dragon, she’s able to do things properly if she wants to. It’s only natural for a dragon.

Moreover, the towel didn’t warm up quickly on my forehead. It stayed cold.

“You, did you do something to this?”

“Isn’t it good to be cold? I cast a preservation spell. It’s not frozen with magic, so it shouldn’t be ice-cold. Can’t you even use preservation magic?”

Thinking she might have done something wrong, Rurin explained and kept watching my reaction. Far from being a problem, it was an excellent choice.

This perfect chill cooled my head. I grabbed Rurin’s hand and shook it.

“No, no, you did great. Amazing.”

“Really? That’s a relief! Then I’ll cook next!”

Once again, before I could stop her, Rurin rushed downstairs. She usually hated doing this, but not when I was sick.

But cooking is a completely different task from wetting a towel.

In the past, I had made a bet with her to make tomato egg stir-fry, and she did it fairly well, but it’s a huge difference from cooking alone without any guidance.

As expected, after a short while.

Crash!

Something flipped over with a loud noise.

Clang!

The sound of dishes breaking could be heard.

Oh dear.

My head was pounding, making me feel even worse. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay still. But I couldn’t do that. It was my fault for bringing up cooking in the first place.

I forced my body up and went downstairs.

In the kitchen, Rurin was boiling everything she could see in a pot.

A terrible stench filled my nose. My goodness. This was the worst food disaster ever.

“Rurin…”

“Why did you come down! Leave it to me!”

“No, I appreciate your effort, but will that really taste good?”

Rurin shook her head vigorously.

“I tasted it. It’s bad. You eat it. I won’t.”

“What do you mean? You said you’d cook for me because I’m sick.”

“So you eat it. Ugh.”

Rurin frowned and shook her head. I was at a loss for words.

“Wait a minute, ugh…”

I was so dizzy that I had to sit at the bar table. The situation was reversed from usual. Normally, Rurin would be sitting here, and I’d be standing in the kitchen.

“I’ll teach you. Just do as I say. There’s an energizing dish.”

Rurin nodded vigorously. Showing unusual enthusiasm, she threw out the ruined food.

It’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. Eating that would be almost suicidal.

“Okay, listen. In the pantry, you’ll find Palenque and a long vegetable.”

“Palenque? I know that! But what’s the long vegetable?”

“The long, green one.”

I roughly indicated the length with my hands. The vegetable I was talking about was green onions.

What I needed immediately were Palenque and green onions.

“Oh, that one! Got it!”

Rurin stomped off to the pantry.

The dish I was going to have her make was chicken soup.

I had no appetite, but to recover quickly, I needed to eat something good for colds.

Chicken is rich in protein, and unlike other meats, it’s easily digestible when you have a cold. Additionally, the threonine and niacin in it help with blood circulation, so eating it even if you have to force yourself can boost your immune system.

The components in chicken also help reduce phlegm. So if you simmer it thoroughly and make a soup, it can greatly help with a sore throat.

Adding green onions to the soup would be even better. The white part of the green onion purifies the lungs and helps relieve coughs. It also contains many substances beneficial for colds. The folk remedy of using green onions for colds didn’t come about for no reason.

But rather than just relying on folk remedies, eating it directly is best. Especially when simmered with chicken for maximum synergy.

It’s the best, but my head was spinning.

“Here it is. You!”

Rurin came up with Palenque and green onion roots in her arms. My dizziness worsened.

“Wash them, put them in the pot, and simmer thoroughly. Just simmer it well. Then… once it’s cooked, separate the bones and meat, put them back in, and eat it. Simple, right?”

“You?”

I left those words and lost consciousness.

“She’s the daughter of a traitor who betrayed the clan!”

“That’s filthy!”

“Filthy, filthy!”

In places where young dragons gathered, Rurin was always bullied unilaterally. Young dragon Rurin would avoid such bullying by curling up and sleeping in her inherited lair. That was her entire life.

It was truly a fleeting time.

Anger towards her kind.

Hatred towards the world.

A firmly closed heart.

One human forcibly opened Rurin’s heart.

The process was, of course, not smooth. After overcoming numerous obstacles, Rurin opened her heart to someone other than her mother for the first time.

And that human gradually became her reason for living.

She needed nothing else in the world.

Rurin only needed to be by El’s side.

That alone made her happy.

She could smile sincerely, complain sincerely, and get angry sincerely. The only being she could show her true self to.

Such a person had collapsed in front of her. Since it was the first time something like this had happened since meeting El, Rurin fell into a panic.