Chapter 43: We Are All Together [Bonus - ]
Theo was silent for a moment, then he folded his hands and leaned forward.
"I sold my kidney, it wasn’t that important, and I value my wives more than some kidney."
Estea glared.
’This retard. Is he serious right now?’
Theo stood up.
"It’s past bedtime, honey, let’s go to sleep."
Estea raised her head.
"You’re not going to stop that?"
Theo grinned, raising a brow.
"Stop what? Stop calling my wife my wife?"
She sighed.
"You don’t want to start a fight with me, you prick."
Theo smiled warmly.
"Please honey, let’s not fight at the hospital, there’s no pillow here, haha."
He said it so loud that the patients and families sitting around the lounge glanced over and whispered their gossip. A woman lowered the magazine she had been pretending to read. An old man on a drip stand leaned sideways towards his daughter without taking his eyes off the couple.
"Aww, they look like such a happy couple."
"The wife is so beautiful even though she’s crippled."
"The husband looks strong too."
"They’re a cute couple no doubt."
Estea silently pierced a glare into Theo.
She rolled her wheelchair away, and Theo joined her, pushing her from behind, his palms settling on the handles like they belonged there. He leaned towards her ear, acting like he was kissing her cheek while he whispered into her ear.
"Let’s not destroy the public’s fantasy about us, we will be staying here for a while after all."
Estea glared forward, piercing the two guards with a vicious stare as they got closer to the door. Both men shivered and fumbled at the handle, startled, hauling the door open before the wheels reached it.
They entered, and Theo pushed her past the low table to the couch opposite the one where Sesan was sleeping. He lifted her off the wheelchair, one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her knees, and placed her gently down, then shook out the blanket and covered her to the chin. She folded her arms and turned away from him, her face to the cushions.
After a second of hesitation, Theo heard the words.
"Goodnight."
He smiled as he stepped back.
"Goodnight."
Then he went and watched Thall for a moment, smiling at her blank and peaceful face. The monitor beside her bed kept its slow green rhythm, the only thing in the room that moved.
"We are all here..."
He held her cold hands gently, rubbing his thumb along her knuckles as though he could warm the bones under them.
"I’m not sure you’d be proud of the kind of work I’m doing. It seems like it has been one danger after the other since you guys got married to me. I don’t know if that marriage was the correct thing to do."
He let a moment of breath pass before continuing.
"But I do know that I will stake my life to protect them. Not that I intend to die anyways."
He smiled, leaned in and kissed her forehead before going to sit with Uthed, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the window with his eyes closed and his back very straight.
When Theo sat beside him, he opened one eye and looked at him.
Then he sighed and opened the second one and turned to Theo.
"Please don’t mind me. But how did you do it?"
Theo tilted his head.
"Do what?"
"How did you get married to such gorgeous ladies? Are they even from this world? They look like celestial beauties, even these Celebrities Heroine don’t hold a candle to them. Gosh, Mr Theo, this is unfair, are you picking brides from heaven now?"
Theo glanced at where his wives were sleeping and looked at Uthed.
Then he nodded with pride climbing his face.
"Yes, but it was not as easy as you think. I had to die once to get married to the three of them. Most people wouldn’t even make it out of dying, but I fought death for a week, and came back and got married."
Uthed froze with his mouth open, and it seemed like his response ran away.
After a moment, he gave Theo a confused frown.
"You’re joking right?"
Theo looked at him blankly, and shook his head slightly.
"No, I’m not."
Uthed blinked, then suddenly started laughing.
"Hahaha... haa, Mr Theo, you do have a good sense of humor, I even almost believed you now."
Theo meanwhile just stared at him blankly, even making the laugh die in his throat.
Then Theo shrugged it off and said something else instead.
"How about we train... Mr Uthed?"
Uthed belatedly remembered.
"Yes! That’s right! We did agree that I’ll teach you. And so fortunately, I found a place in the floor, it’s a training hall and a gymnasium."
Uthed stood and carried his sword that was placed beside him, tucking it under his arm. Theo followed, and the two stepped out.
They walked down the passageway and turned to their left, descended a short staircase and turned left again, after which they entered a double door.
Behind the door was a large space with different sounds breaking through its air. The sound of painful grunts as people lifted heavy weights, punches flew against each other, and somewhere at the far wall a chain rattled through a pulley with every pull.
The place was not overrun with people, there were very few people, but the people there ranged from patients who had to go through intense training to gain their footing, and their guards, family, and extremely high profile Heroes that work with the hospital. One of them, a broad man with a bandaged shoulder, was walking the length of the mats with a rail under each hand.
There was a large ring in the center of the large space and no one was there, so Theo and Uthed naturally picked that side.
Theo climbed on first, while Uthed came on with two wooden swords. These swords were made of a far stronger wood compared to the cheap wooden sword he had gotten for $15 from a farmer. They were heavier than they looked, dark at the grip where years of hands had polished them.
He threw one at Theo and watched the boy raise his hand to exactly catch it at the hilt and smoothly bring the hilt down, already placing the sword in a ready stance.
Uthed froze. Literally froze, his eyes stayed on Theo for a moment.
Then a small frown pulled his brows together.
’What in the heavens? That was smooth.’
But that wasn’t the main thing that impressed him. It was that he had intentionally thrown the sword towards Theo with an off balance, expecting Theo to catch it at the blade and then adjust it.
He just simply wanted to check if the first time was luck. He did not expect that he would be shocked by an even finer skill of control.
He then observed Theo again from up to down, the set of his shoulders, the loose hang of his free hand, the way his weight had already settled onto the back foot without him seeming to decide it.
’Ah? What the hell? Did he undergo an evolution, everything about him has changed just from a day ago? It’s just been a day, has it not?’
The two poised to fight, and Uthed suddenly felt a slick sweat behind his neck and a subtly shaking hand, as he stared at the man standing opposite him. He shifted his grip twice and it did not help.
A very ominous and uncomfortable feeling kept bugging him.
But the two moved against each other anyway.