It has been a terribly long time the last time I updated this story. No, it's not abandoned yet! Admittedly, I just found this chapter in my folder by coincidence, but I'll try to catch up on translating the other chapters eventually. Thanks for reading.

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Oliver scanned the wall for the light switch as soon as he entered the bathroom. Only reluctantly, the fluorescent lamps flickered and lit up the small room. Oliver reached for the doctor's kit in the cabinet, searching desperately for pain killers. The previous pain from some time ago might have slightly vanished already, but he wanted to make sure to not experience it to such impact ever again, and so, he quickly gulped down a few pills. The effect of them would kick in only in a few minutes. The blond decided to spend that time by taking a look at himself in the mirror.

Oliver faltered once he saw his mirror image. His entire face and torso were tainted with his own blood and dirt, threatening close to infect the open wounds. There were mostly a few bigger scratches gracing his body, but Oliver didn't care too much for them once he noticed the deformity on the left side of his face. The shocking view left him speechless for a moment and captivated his eyes.

Next to the dark and viscous blood continuously dripping down his cheek, there was nothing left to identify as an eye. Only on some parts, the white eyeball sparked out of the bloody mess. Oliver took notice of a slit in his eyeball, out of which some transparent liquid oozed out. He wiped the peculiar liquid off his cheek and frowned once he gathered the distinct smell of it. Oliver was no one to know much about the human body, but he got a feeling this was nothing coming from his attacker, but his own.

Slowly, Oliver couldn't bear his own hideous appearance anymore and turned away from the mirror. By then, he noticed how the throbbing in his head slowly disappeared – a relieving sign the pain killers slowly kicked in. Therefore, he reached for the kit and placed all the necessities to treat his wounds on the sink.
Shortly afterwards, he started by wiping off the mix of blood and dirt on his face with a wet cloth. However, he sensed a stinging pain around his eye and started to shake slightly. If that hurt him badly already, Oliver didn't want to imagine how the further progress will go. Albeit grudgingly, Oliver continued and flushed the rest of the dirt out of his eye with the shower head. Every time he touched his eyelids, an excruciating pain crawled along his spine and made him whimper. Nevertheless, he knew he couldn't stop his doing and quickly rubbed off the rest of the dirt.

Panting heavily and with a dizzy mind, Oliver leaned against the edge of the bathtub, giving himself some time to regain control over his senses. Only after a few minutes, he managed to stand up again with shaky limbs and dared another glance in the mirror. He smiled faintly to see he managed to free his left eye from most of the dirt. Unfortunately, this enabled him to notice that with his left eye, he could only see his surroundings intensely blurred out. Oliver was pretty sure this wouldn't change to the better anymore but pushed that thought aside. There was no time to grief over such things.

The gaping cuts below his eye were that torn apart that Oliver should have been sewing them together, but he decided not to. The blond didn't have any pain killers strong enough for that – Yohio hid them out of safety reasons from Oliver. As a poor alternative, Oliver covered the cuts with band-aid to press the scraps of skin together. Shortly beforehand, he disinfected them with alcohol to avoid any further infections though. He knew there wasn't much else to do about his eye and decided to only put a pad on it for protection. Afterwards, he quickly wrapped half his face in a bandage to fixate everything.

Oliver sighed in relief once he was finished and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. He remained in his position with his head hanging, however, it didn't last for long as the coldness of the tub crept through his clothes up his skin and made him shiver uncomfortably. Furthermore, he wasn't quite finished yet and decided to clean the rest of his torso with a wet towel. Luckily, the cuts outside his face weren't as severe. Oliver made sure to throw his blood-stained clothes on the small pile of dirty clothes and hoped for the stains to wash out again. He didn't own many shirts and pants; every piece was important to use for as long as possible.

After he changed into a fresh set of clothes, Oliver crawled in his bed. Deep in thoughts, he turned on his back and glanced up the ceiling. He still couldn't fully understand what has happened nor how he managed to escape one of these infected monsters. He himself would have never managed to get out of the situation; the black-haired boy's grip was too strong for that. Without the help of that unknown person, Oliver would be dead now for sure, or even worse – he would have also become infected.

During the process of treating his wounds, he didn't find any anomalies on his body. His eye might be hurt, but not covered with a faint red layer. Every infected person carried that mark somewhere on their body. It was the center of infection, there where the infection managed to get into the blood cycle. Oliver didn't know why that was, but he assumed such was simply a poor seal created by the body. Only now, the blond noticed he hadn't found such mark on the black-haired boy. His right eyelid was indeed scratched open, but other than that, in a moderate condition. However, Oliver decided to not ponder over it for too long and assumed the central spot was just somewhere else on his body.

Oliver's thoughts trailed back to the redhead who had saved him. He even knew about the blond's name and Oliver couldn't tell why that was. There were rarely any other humans anywhere near to talk about him and he also didn't meet that person before. It amazed Oliver how a person would sacrifice their life for someone they didn't even know. All of them were stuck in the epidemic, everyone wanted to survive.

And yet, this person saved him, and Oliver wouldn't even be able anymore to thank him for that. Oliver had noticed how the infected one held the redhead in his grip. There was no chance for a human to escape out of it on their own. Even though there was nothing Oliver could do, he still felt guilty for it. He has been saved and was truly grateful for it, however, it very much likely cost a life.

Oliver gasped startled as he heard someone call for him. With a heavy sigh, Oliver closed his eye. He didn't notice until now that he had fallen asleep. He didn't remain like this much longer though once he noticed it was Yohio who has come back home. His body tensed up instantly by the thought of how the older one would react to Oliver's current appearance. Oliver frowned in discomfort and rolled on his side. However, that caused the yet numbed out throbbing in his head to worsen and Oliver sat up with a shaky breathing. He had to tell Yohio about it, there was no way to hide it. It would only make matters worse anyway.

Oliver was scared to tell Yohio about it though. He couldn't tell how his housemate would react to it. Since it was common sense, Yohio would assume Oliver was infected right away. Would he chase Oliver away without any second thought? Yohio barely had any other choice than doing so in order to not risk his own life.

Oliver headed downstairs with a hesitant pace. The thoughts haunting him in the meantime made him feel like he was about to choke on them. He didn't want to leave Yohio nor did he want to be looked down as an enemy, but he had no other choice than to expect that to happen once he'd tell Yohio the truth.

As always, the stairs creaked by Oliver's weight pressing against them und Oliver felt his heartbeat quickening. He got even more nervous as he spotted Yohio's back. He gulped hard.

"Ah, Oliver. Were you sleeping? You're usually always running downstairs right away once there's food." Oliver heard Yohio snicker but didn't turn around to the stairs. Oliver froze and only muttered an answer reluctantly. The blond felt like he was about to pass out any second out of nervousness. Even though he usually knew what kind of person Yohio was, he couldn't tell this time how the older one would react. This frustrated Oliver the most. Yet, Oliver knew he had to take action now and tried to croak out some words. The blond took a deep breath and closed the eye, though it led to him being even more nervous.

"Yohio, there's something I need to tell you."