The man who had never imagined he would ever need medical insurance woke up in a regular hospital ward.
Feeling uncomfortable, he roughly pulled out the nasogastric tube.
At his bedside were Gilgamesh, Thena, and Cassandra. It looked like they had brought a fruit basket and a bouquet of flowers.
Except they were currently peeling the fruit from the basket and eating it themselves. It was hard to tell whether the basket was a get-well gift or simply their lunch.
"Oh, you're awake." Gilgamesh spoke with concern while munching on an apple.
Seeing the hungry look in Henry's eyes, he casually held out the half-eaten apple.
"Want some?"
Cassandra immediately slapped his arm.
"At least give him one you haven't eaten yet."
She took a fresh apple, wiped it against her clothes, and then stuffed it toward Henry's mouth. She looked as though she were preparing a pig's head as an offering to the Heavenly God.
Thena finally stepped in to say something reasonable.
"You should cut food into smaller pieces for a patient."
As she spoke, her Eternal weapon suddenly flashed into existence. Pressing it against the Kryptonian's lips, she smoothly sliced the apple in half.
The move was so seamless that it might not have been enough to faze a Kryptonian, but Henry's heart still went cold.
He had no choice but to reach out and remove the apple from his mouth himself.
"Please, help me out here. At least treat me like a human being."
Henry's complaint had barely subsided when another person came rushing into the ward and tossed a backpack beside his bed.
It nearly landed on the patient himself.
"Hi, Thena, Cassandra, Gilgamesh."
After greeting everyone, Skye spotted the fruit basket on the cabinet. Her eyes immediately lit up, and she happily reached out to grab an apple. After wiping it against her clothes, she was just about to eat it.
Then the open-mouthed girl suddenly found herself staring directly into Henry's eyes.
Realizing that she had been acting far too cheerful, she hurriedly walked back out.
This time, Skye returned to the ward with a dejected expression. Seeing Henry staring intently at her, she abruptly transformed from gloomy despair to delighted surprise.
"Henry, you're awake! That's wonderful!"
The Kryptonian gave her a very serious assessment.
"If we were giving scores out of ten, your shamelessness gets a ten. Your acting gets a three. Watching you is painfully awkward."
"Whatever you do, don't tell me you're planning to pursue Broadway or Hollywood in the future. With acting this terrible, even if you wanted to sleep your way onto a director's casting couch, they'd still have to wonder what purpose there was in putting a cardboard cutout on stage or on the big screen."
The girl, who had just been mocked for her shamelessness, immediately flushed with embarrassment and shouted angrily.
"Ah! You're such a horrible person! Why did you have to wake up so quickly? I wasn't mentally prepared yet!"
"What were you preparing for?"
"For when you were still unconscious... Ah! Why should I tell you?!"
Not wanting to deal with the way the crazy girl was flailing around, Henry turned to the others.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Hmm, you were brought to the hospital yesterday." Gilgamesh answered simply. Then he asked, "What happened to you? How did you end up collapsing?"
Henry had only just woken up, and his mind was still a complete mess. He hadn't managed to sort out what had happened.
Just as he was considering how to answer, another voice sounded.
"Henry, why are you in the hospital?"
The man who walked into the ward was John Wick.
He was holding a bouquet of flowers and looked somewhat awkwardly at the man lying in the hospital bed, seemingly unsure whether he should hand the flowers over.
Henry, who considered himself perceptive enough, immediately understood the situation.
"John, you aren't here to see me today, are you? After all, you didn't even know I was in the hospital. Those flowers should go to the person they're actually meant for."
Henry took the opportunity to smooth things over, and some of John's embarrassment faded.
"Sorry. I didn't know beforehand that you were in the hospital. Are you all right?"
As the man approached, he glanced at the people who had come to visit Henry.
Just one look was enough to make him freeze.
"Um... Madam, good day. I never expected to meet you in a place like this."
The person John Wick was addressing was Cassandra, who had previously appeared at the Continental Hotel in the capacity of an Elder.
The Spartan tough girl being addressed, however, had very little awareness of what was happening. She looked around before realizing that the man was speaking to her.
She then took a closer look at him.
"Ah! Aren't you that... Hmm."
"John Wick, Madam. It's an honor to meet you."
The Slavic, melancholically handsome man shifted his confused gaze between Henry and the Elder of the High Table.
Cassandra might ordinarily have been rather carefree, but after living for more than two thousand years, she had acquired a level of worldly insight that few ordinary people could match.
She naturally noticed the question in the man's eyes and explained:
"I live in this man's house now."
John Wick's eyes widened.
What had initially been a suspicion now turned into uncertainty and alarm. His brain had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to process this situation.
The Kryptonian, having been thrown under the bus, covered his face with one hand.
"I own a house in New York. Cassandra is my tenant."
"Why are you explaining? Did I say anything wrong?"
"Sis, you didn't say anything wrong. You're just so economical with your words that it's really easy to misunderstand you. Didn't you see? Skye is practically stunned."
The girl who had been called out by name looked utterly shocked. She had no idea when another tenant had appeared in Katherine Hepburn's home.
As a result, she seemed not to hear any of the explanation that followed.
It was less that Cassandra was flirting and more that she was playing a prank. So once she'd been exposed, she simply smiled happily and stopped twisting the knife.
"Anyway, things are exactly as he said."
That counted as an explanation.
"I understand."
John Wick didn't know whether he genuinely understood or was merely pretending to, but either way, he had no desire to investigate the matter any further.
Henry likewise didn't want to let him continue imagining things, so he asked the man another question.
"John, I'd like to ask you something. What is the attitude of hotels in New York toward the military? Are there any taboos or rules I should know about?"
Since the matter involved the hotel's business dealings, John Wick put aside his unnecessary emotions and answered seriously.
"The military as an institution and individual people within the military are treated differently. Regardless of who they are, no one would dare provoke an organization like the military lightly."
John Wick's answer was extremely cautious.
Even though Henry was involved in the matter and Cassandra, an Elder, was present, the hospital was still a public space, and there were outsiders around. So he didn't say much that was unnecessary.
His answer came as no surprise to Henry.
If there was any organization in this world that dared to directly stand against the U.S. military, it would necessarily be the military of another country—or the U.S. military itself.
"Do you need me to contact Winston?" John Wick asked.
In reality, this question was also a subtle way of asking: Who is the target? Do you want me to deal with them?
If Henry specifically brought up the military at a time like this, didn't that mean the people responsible for putting him in the hospital were the U.S. military, those self-proclaimed "world police"?
Although John didn't know the details, he had never been particularly concerned with overly complicated relationships.
If necessary, he would act.
Henry, however, had thought a little further ahead. He pointed at the bouquet in John's hands.
"Don't worry about my business. I was just asking. You should go take care of the person those flowers are meant for."
Looking at the bouquet in his hands, John Wick gave a bashful smile.
"How many days do you think you'll be in the hospital?"
"I should be fine. After I see the doctor later, I hope they'll let me leave. I didn't buy medical insurance for myself. If I stay here a few more days, I'll be bankrupt."
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