“The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.” 

The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaarder

 ♦ Jinki ♦

Jinki stared at the white ceiling of the hospital bedroom he was in. He could hear the faint sound of someone crying in pain in the bed next to his but he couldn’t control his body to move his head and look at that person.

He barely could think or speak and he knew why. It was the painkillers and drugs they gave him so he would stay still and stop trying to leave the bed and hurt himself.

Because that’s what people normally do when they wake up. They open their eyes and try to stand up. However his legs didn’t obey to him when he tried to stand up confused with the reason why he was at the hospital, the memories of the car accident coming to him slowly. They weren’t many anyway but he remembered seeing the car just before it crashed against his and what he felt. That dreadful last thought before everything went black.

I’m going to die! This is it!

He didn’t have time to think about his parents that were at the moment talking with his doctor arranging to transfer Jinki to a, expensive private room; he couldn’t think about his friends or his girlfriend or Ha Yun. It was too quick!

Once he remembered what happened, Jinki sighed of relief because he didn’t die.

He was alive.

However his relief soon became panic when he barely could move, when his legs didn’t obey him.

Jinki tried to move on the bed and used his arms to pull his body up, screaming with the pain it was giving to him. He didn’t manage to do much before he fell from the bed, his body hurting all over, his head burning.

He couldn’t walk! He couldn’t walk! He couldn’t walk!

That was the only thing on his mind when the nurses picked him from the floor and laid him back on the bed.

He heard the doctor explain him about his condition, about how he was lucky and didn’t suffer major wounds. How they would take the bandages off from his head soon and how lucky he was that he had 60% of chances of fully recover the sensibility of his legs and restart walking. He was going to be fine if he worked hard during his recovery. It was 60% and that was a lot.

However for Jinki it wasn’t 60% of chances of becoming healthy again, it was 40% of being disabled all his life, dependent of others, incomplete.

With that realization, came the wish that he should have died at the accident. That death would have been better.

For Jinki, making his parents and the ones he loved going through that was worse than death.

That’s when he tried to leave the bed again, fighting with his doctor and one nurse that came to help. He was sure that if he placed his feet on the floor he would be able to do it again. His body would remember something that was so easy to do and now seemed impossible. He would walk again!

Let me go. I can walk! I know I can! This is a mistake!

He screamed over and over again, tears of indignation falling from his eyes.

His parents entered the room then and he could see his mother crying against his father both already knowing about how he couldn’t walk now. Not that different from the baby who couldn’t walk and they raised.

He couldn’t be a burden for them, he didn’t want to.

“I should have died...” Jinki said to himself, repeating it over and over again, to his mother’s desperation.

That’s when the nurse sedated him and made him lie back on the bed, leaving him looking at the ceiling alone, what he screamed replaying on his head because he wasn’t able to say it anymore, tears drying on the skin of his cheeks.

It was better if he had died.

♦ Ha Yun ♦

Ha Yun hesitantly entered the bedroom, still holding the used paper tissue she used to clean her tears while she was speaking with Jinki parents.

The driver of the car that crashed against his was drunk and unfairly he managed to escape the accident with minor injuries. 

And Jinki...It was true. He couldn’t walk right now and he only had 60% of chance of doing it again.

The world was so unfair!

Right now he was sleeping, heavily sedated because he didn’t react well to the news.

Of course he didn’t react well. Ever since he was young Jinki was used to be very independent, he would help out his grandfather at the book store, he liked to go out alone to drink, and he loved to try new things was it sport related or simply the new restaurant down the street from where he lived.

He moved out of his parents’ house once he had money to do so and now, now he probably felt like he lost all of his freedom.

And all was taken from him just because someone was stupid and selfish enough to drive under alcohol influence.

Ha Yun slowly approached the bed and admired his sleeping profile. He cried because she could still see how wet his cheeks were and Ha Yun caressed his cheek softly, tracing where the tears slide down his skin before.

Whatever happened to him it wouldn’t change what she felt. Not in a million years! He was still the same Jinki, with his easy smile and stupid puns, the one that worried about her and asked her if she ate well, her best friend. Yes, he couldn’t walk but she was sure he was strong enough to make table turns and get back on his feet. No pun intended.

Maybe she wasn’t that different from him, or maybe the fact that she admired him so much made her similar to who he was. Whichever the case, Ha Yun knew that she needed to stay by his side more than ever.

There was no mistake that she was the closest to him or his parents wouldn’t have called her first, even before his girlfriend. Ha Yun knew that this was her time to help him as he helped her in the past, was it during the hard high school years when she barely had time to study helping her parents at the store and Jinki would take notes for her, was it when she had to give up going to college because her parents divorced, was it every day just by making her smile and think that there was always a better tomorrow waiting for her.

It was her chance to hold his hand and actually pay him back for those years of friendship he gave to her.

That’s what she did, Ha Yun grabbed his hand gently and warmed his cold fingers rubbing them with hers. If she could warm him up a little bit everyday she would be satisfied.

“I’m going to take care of you Jinki.” She didn’t know how but she would do it. “I’ll make you smile again.”

The door of Jinki’s private bedroom was open again and the blonde woman entered it. She was Jinki’s girlfriend and Ha Yun greeted her. The woman approached both slowly, her eyes looking horrified at Jinki.

Ha Yun didn’t even move, her hand still holding his.

“Is it true that he can’t walk?” Jung asked not even touching him as if whatever sickness he had could pass to her if she did.

That confused Ha Yun since it was the first thing she did. She needed to touch him to see that he was still there alive, that somehow a miracle happened and he still had a second chance to live. That she still had a second chance to love him.

“For now! He will recover, I’m sure!”

The blonde woman stepped back horrified and Ha Yun held into Jinki’s hand firmly her eyes getting teary.

She wasn’t going to let go of him. Even if everyone stepped out of his life she wouldn’t.

If he couldn’t walk away from her then she wouldn’t walk away from him either.