A Sprained Ankle and Sweet Praise
Eunbyul felt terrible. “He’ll need to be hospitalized for about a week.” The doctor’s words sounded utterly clinical. It seemed Jinwoo had sprained his ankle from the sudden movement. It wasn’t a break, but he was told the injury would need monitoring at the hospital for some time. By the time he regained his senses, he was lying in bed with a light bandage wrapped around his foot. The silver lining was that it didn’t hurt much. And that Eunbyul herself hadn’t been hurt.
It was worth sneaking in those workouts whenever I could. To think that in that brief instant he had both the thought to save her and the ability to follow through. He wanted to give his past self a pat on the back. No, this was truly something worthy of praise. He believed it would easily crack his personal top three best moments in life.
“Lying here like this, I feel exactly like the protagonist at the end of a light novel.” He joked while looking at the bandage wound tightly around his ankle. It was a lighthearted remark tossed out because Eunbyul looked so serious. In response, a teardrop slid down her cheek.
“Whoa.”
Jinwoo realized that when people are truly shocked, this was the kind of sound they made. While having that ridiculous thought, he flailed internally.
“W-wait, Sunbae?”
“I’m sorry. It’s all because of me.”
Eunbyul’s voice was thick and hoarse. In truth, her expression had been clouded since earlier and refused to clear. The knowledge that Jinwoo had been hurt because of her had transformed into a weight of guilt that pressed heavily on her chest.
If only I had been more careful…
Honestly, she was aware she had been far more excited than usual simply because she was with him. Even so, she hadn’t reined it in, because that moment had been too joyful. The time spent with Jinwoo, the place, everything happening around them felt like a dream. She wanted to surrender herself completely to this happiness. The urge to forget daily life and bask in this feeling forever had filled her heart.
Still, she should have been careful.
I’m such an idiot.
After all, she had been the one to ask for help with the research. She suggested going to the zoo. She was the one who dragged him around deciding what to do there. And yet all she did was enjoy herself.
As the older one, shouldn’t she have been looking after him? Instead she had put him in danger, received his help, and caused him to get hurt in the process.
Eunbyul bit down hard on her pink lips. She felt pathetic and contemptible for having lost herself in enjoyment without a single thought. She had deluded herself into thinking she was someone special just because her writing drew popularity. In reality she hadn’t grown at all from several years ago. She remained the same person who only caused trouble for others and possessed no real talent.
If I’m only going to cause this much harm, it would have been better if I had never met Jinwoo…
“Sunbae!”
The sharp call snapped Eunbyul back to reality. No, it wasn’t only the sound. Her cheek felt faintly warm. Only then did she realize Jinwoo was cupping her face with both hands. The heat rising from his palms and the intensity of his gaze made her face flush crimson despite the situation.
“J-Jinwoo? Ow, ow…”
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“It hurts… but if this helps ease your mind, then…”
“What are you even saying?”
Jinwoo gently kneaded the cheeks he had been pulling. They stretched softly like mochi, making them fun to play with. Of course he carefully controlled his strength so it wouldn’t actually hurt.
“You’re not thinking that you’re the reason I got hurt… are you?”
“B-but it is true.”
“No. It was an accident.”
Jinwoo spoke with a serious expression. Or rather, beneath the seriousness there seemed to be a hint of playfulness. He kept squishing her cheeks as if kneading dough. The careful touch carried clear affection.
“Still, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
“That’s just hindsight. In novel terms, it’s like the Demon King’s revival. The hero’s party tries everything to stop it, but according to the story it has to happen anyway.”
“T-that seems different, though?”
Eunbyul tilted her head slightly. Truthfully, Jinwoo himself felt the analogy had gone off the rails midway but decided to gloss over it. That wasn’t what mattered right now.
“If you start making assumptions like that, there’s no end. If the zoo hadn’t been selling balloons, if the horseback riding event hadn’t existed, if we simply hadn’t been there at that exact moment. Accidents can be rationalized into happening any number of times if you think that way.”
“Still, the fact that you got hurt is true.”
“So it was fate from the beginning. All the conditions aligned perfectly so I would get hurt there.”
Having said that much, Jinwoo continued as if a new realization had struck him.
“No. On the contrary, it was my fate to save you right there, Sunbae. That’s why the world moved the way it did.”
“……What are you talking about.”
It was an absurd excuse, a patched-together justification. It wasn’t as if Eunbyul were the heroine of this world. To claim Jinwoo had been placed there specifically to catch her when she fell from the horse—where could you find a more forced, cobbled-together rationale?
Still…
He was only saying it because she had looked so downcast. He wanted to comfort her by deliberately exaggerating. Jinwoo wasn’t usually this talkative. Yet here he was, mixing in jokes, doing everything he could to give her strength.
Sometimes he seems more like the adult than I do.
In the end, the fact that he had been hurt while saving her remained unchanged. Naturally he could boast about it or complain. Yet his first concern was for her. As expected, she couldn’t help thinking Jinwoo was remarkable.
Since he was going this far, staying gloomy would be rude. Feeling guilty or self-blaming was something she should do when he wasn’t around. Now was the time to focus on helping him recover even a little faster.
Eunbyul pulled herself together once more.
“All right. For now, let’s focus on getting you healthy.”
“You really don’t have to worry so much. I’ve gotten hurt plenty since I was a kid.”
“No! The doctor specifically emphasized that because it’s a sprain it needs close monitoring!”
Honestly, the doctor hadn’t seemed that serious. The atmosphere had been closer to Hmm? You’re injured. Why like that? Oh my, youth. He had only checked just in case. Jinwoo himself didn’t think it was anything serious.
But Eunbyul refused to yield an inch on the matter. In the end Jinwoo nodded obediently. After all, there was no harm in being careful.
Only then did a satisfied expression appear on Eunbyul’s face.
“You’ll need to rest properly. Is there anything you need?”
“No, it really isn’t that bad. Back in high school I would’ve been playing soccer on crutches.”
If the doctor heard, he would have shouted “This kid!” but in his prime Jinwoo really had been that sturdy. Even now, after training hard, he was confident his body was tougher than it had been then. It would truly heal in a few days.
Of course, from the perspective of a worried Eunbyul, it wasn’t something she could simply brush off.
“Still, it must be inconvenient in all sorts of ways if your foot hurts.”
“I’m really fine. Oh, in that case.”
Jinwoo spoke as if something had just occurred to him.
“Please praise me a bit.”
“Praise?”
As Eunbyul blinked in confusion, Jinwoo nodded with a slightly mischievous smile.
“I saved a star writer who has moved millions, after all. I think I deserve at least some praise for that.”
“No, I’m not that amazing of a writer.”
Of course The Princess’s Temptation had racked up millions of total views and was popular. But that didn’t mean millions of individual people had read it. The number of readers who finished it was probably in the tens of thousands. Still, that was impressive enough.
“Anyway, you’re going to write even better works in the future, right? Think of it as saving your future masterpieces and give me some praise.”
“……You don’t need to attach such conditions. I can give you praise anytime.”
Watching Jinwoo speak with a smile, Eunbyul felt her heart flutter anew. His uncharacteristic pout seemed incredibly cute. Giving praise was nothing compared to the pranks he had pulled before. Yet for some reason her hands trembled and she hesitated right in front of him.
“Hurry.”
Jinwoo kept urging her. Suddenly the serious face he had worn while saving her flashed through her mind. Her heart began to pound wildly. Doing her best to calm the frantic beating, Eunbyul reached out with a trembling hand. She stroked his head. The slightly coarse yet soft texture flowed across her fingertips. The sensation kept sending heat rushing into her palm. Her heart raced even more fiercely.
While she was praising him that way—
“Ah.”
“Uh.”
Their eyes met with Jinwoo’s family, who were peeking their faces through the door. Eunbyul’s face rapidly turned bright red.