A new life for a new problem

Chapter 25**

They talked for a while about what the crown prince planned to do in addition to their role in helping Henituse County could provide. Contrary to what he thought, the prince's request was not unreasonable. The crown prince explained to him that the atmosphere was strange at the moment. Deruth of course agreed with that he noticed it too. The crown prince only asked to help him when he asked, it was more financial than public support. Deruth agreed right away.

Cale was unconscious for three days. His friends in addition to his family had not left the capital to wait for him to wake up in addition to paying attention to him. He had fever several times, his body being much weakened by his poor general condition.

The king had organized a medal ceremony to thank the people who helped during the incident and Cale was the main person concerned. So he scheduled it a week later, hoping that the savior of the place would be present.

Cale woke up in an unknown place, he was lying on a bed. That's all he could say, his mind too fuzzy to think straight. His body was heavy and he was hot. His gaze turned to the left of his bed, he could see that his father was next to him on a chair and sleeping.

"Young Master Cale!" He could hear a voice not far from him but he didn't really know who it belonged to; the person was too far away.

The unknown voice woke everyone in the room his father and brother woke up quickly in addition to the presence of Gilbert, Amiru and Eric in the room.

« Why, is everyone here?» Cale was confused about the situation.

Basen could see that Cale was a little lost, his gaze wandering to everyone in the room besides those unfocused eyes. He still had a fairly high fever, which must have made him disoriented.

"Hyung, do you remember what happened?" Basen asked cautiously. Everyone in the room was now paying attention to their conversation.

They could see Cale thinking while looking at the ceiling.

It took him a few minutes to remember the incident in the square, the pain and the blood, he must have passed out.

He looked at his brother again.

"Yes, has anything happened since then?" How long was I unconscious?"

"Not much..." Basen wasn't going to tell him right away about the conversation their father had with the crown prince in addition to the upcoming ceremony. He's going to wait until Cale recovers a little to tell him everything.

"You were passed out for 3 whole days."

He could hear his brother sigh but he didn't say anything more.

"I'm going to call a doctor so they can check you out." He didn't ask Cale how he was, he'll tell him he's fine anyway.

Hearing their conversation, Eric went out to get an attendant to ask him to call a doctor.

A few minutes later they could hear a knock on the bedroom door, the doctor had arrived.

He quickly did a check on Cale. He simply said that he still needed rest and not moving for the moment besides giving him other medicine for his fever, he couldn't do much for him. During the three days he was unconscious, several doctors and caregivers came in succession but none had found why he was like that besides helping to treat him.

After that he left, leaving the room silent.

Basen helped him take his medication and placed a new cool water towel on his forehead. Then he simply returned to his place where he was before. He told him to rest they'll wake him up later, Cale nodded and went back to sleep.

The silence was then cut by Eric.

"Has Cale ever been like this?" He asked, he could finally ask about Cale's condition. The last three days were too stressful for him to even ask for anything, everyone was on edge.

"*sigh* Yes, it's happened a few times." Basen responded reluctantly.

"Do you know why he's like that?" 

"Partly, he is ill, he has severe ANEMIA (The capitalization was done deliberately to emphasize the word and not to accentuate it in the conversation of the story. Thank you for your understanding.) but we think he there is something more. We just don't know what, and we also don't know if Cale knows anything." Basen finally explained it for everyone.

" What ? But how long have you known, why didn't you warn us? We are those friends!" Eric asked, he was worried about his friend and was a little upset that no one had thought to warn him.

"As if that was going to change anything..." Basen said it a little lower but quite loudly so they can hear it.

" What do you mean ?"  Amiru asked this time with a frown.

"It's been years since no one cared about him. This is also my case but I didn't know him as much as you, who were already friends with him at the time. You turned away from him like cowards, as soon as he started to misbehave. Without asking you the reason for his change. How can you still consider yourself those friends?!"

Eric, Amiru and Gilbert would have liked to contradict him but they couldn't, Basen was right.

Deruth who was on the side also felt bad at his son's words, he was also responsible after all.

"*sigh* You're right... I'd like to make it up to him..." Eric resumed the conversation. Of course, Basen's words were right. They distanced themselves from Cale because they were afraid he would tarnish their reputation so they left him alone.

"You just have to talk to him about it yourself later..."

"Yes, but can you tell us everything about his condition, please?"

Basen agreed to do so. The rest of the day they spent talking about Cale and what they learned was really worrying especially since it seemed to be getting worse without them being able to do anything about it.

The evening had arrived, they woke Cale up to take care of him as they had promised.

Cale was too dissipated to even think about it, he let it happen without complaint. Seeing such a docile Cale was very strange and worrying for everyone.