The Twisted Arm
Jiwoo. Jeong Jiwoo.
She was a woman with truly beautiful long black hair. In my memories she always kept it tied back, but watching her dry it after washing, she looked quite beautiful—no, intersex, actually.
She was intelligent, too. And at the same time, ordinary.
Ordinary was not a compliment. It simply meant she sat somewhere in the middle.
Neither especially kind nor especially cruel.
The sort of person who could use others just enough for her own sake, or occasionally sacrifice herself and take a moderate loss. At least, that was how I saw her.
So perhaps she was the friend of a friend of someone who bullied others. The type who looked at something ugly and judged it in whatever direction moderately benefited herself… that felt like the right description.
It was creepy, but she loved me. The kind of person who could never pass up a perfect chance to touch me, yet still felt guilty about wanting it.
"Ugh…! Mmph…!"
She forced her mouth shut, yet screams kept spilling from her throat without end. It was the sound of someone who had trained for pain up to a certain limit—military training, maybe—but had never been prepared for anything beyond it.
"Ghk…!"
Jeong Jiwoo’s arm was bent the wrong way.
The joint had opened past its limit until even someone without medical knowledge could tell it was beyond ordinary treatment—the arm had rotated completely.
Looking at a joint turned inside out was far more horrific than I expected.
The inner side of her elbow was facing outward. The joint had twisted in the opposite direction. Anatomically speaking, it was a fracture.
"……"
I stood there blankly. The terror that this agony could have been mine felt disgusting. At the same time, the relief that it wasn’t me felt just as disgusting.
"…Ah."
"It’s okay! It’s okay! Stay still! Don’t move your neck…!"
Minseo’s voice. A frantic urgency I had never heard from her before. Was this how she had spoken in those recordings, the ones of her evacuating to the escape ship?
"Nngh. Ngh. Ghk…"
Agony. In pure agony, Jiwoo couldn’t form a single word; she only locked eyes with Minseo.
Then, for a single instant, her pupils flicked toward me.
The briefest contact—so short it barely seemed to mean anything—and my strength simply left me. I could do nothing.
I sank to the ground. A little more loss of reason and I would have wet my pants. I had never seen an accident with my own eyes before.
"Nnngh…!"
"Totally fine…! A couple of bandages and you’ll be good! No! Don’t look! Stay still…!"
Minseo’s voice, strained and pretending everything was normal, was almost unbearable to hear. She moved quickly, pulling several long rods from the small pack strapped above her hip—
then kept pressing them against the completely bent arm and pulling them away again, as if she had no idea how to treat it.
After a long hesitation she finally dropped everything, dug a small packet from her back pocket, tore it open, and took out a tiny syringe.
"…Want the shot? Can you tough it out?"
"It’s not that bad…!"
Thankfully Jiwoo stopped her. The fact that Minseo even asked made it clear the drug had side effects.
"How bad…! Is it…?"
Jiwoo asked. Even with her arm still bent the wrong way, she stayed rational.
"…Hic! Hhuk…!"
Tears spilled from me. Only now did I understand the heart of a villain in a disaster movie.
"Just moderate…! Honestly I want to set it right here, but better safe than sorry…?!"
"…Pfft. Augh. Hey, am I dying?"
"No…?! How would you die from this! You’d need like five arms to die from something like this! Bullshit—"
"That’s not what I mean—how do I put it—augh…! Is this adrenaline? It suddenly hurts a little less, so I get the rough idea. How far did it turn—ugh. Ahh. Still hurts though. Ugh."
Minseo looked ready to slap Jiwoo’s cheek just to drag her eyes away from the injury, but she checked the situation carefully as Jiwoo kept talking.
It was almost absurd. First me, the one they had kindly sent ahead only for me to cause this accident, and then Jiwoo herself—her arm bent so far the outer side was closer than the inner.
"…You okay?"
"Hurts like hell. But my head’s fine. Feel like I’m gonna die, though. Ah—no, joking."
Jiwoo’s mutter. I was still standing in the exact spot she had last ordered me to stay, as if I refused to leave it.
"…It’s bent the other way. Completely. I don’t know much, but I’m not sure blood can even get through."
"……"
After that, Jiwoo gave no answer.
"See you later. Night watch is me and Yeoreum. Ten kilometers and we’re in radio range anyway. Let’s rest one day."
"What are you talking about. It’s just the arm. I’m fine."
A non-expert correcting a joint that had rotated backward was nearly impossible. The grotesque outer shape might be fixed, but every tendon and vessel inside would likely snap.
So they left it as it was—secured in that bizarre angle—and Minseo spoke to Jiwoo, who sat leaning against a folding chair.
They were exhausted beyond measure. And looking at Han Yeoreum huddled in the corner, guilt streaming down her face in tears, any further march seemed psychologically impossible as well.
"No. It’s too much. Would be nice if they came to us from the other side, but… ha. This really wasn’t supposed to happen."
"Should’ve brought one more person. If Hyejin had come too, we could’ve dragged her along or at least split the packs."
"…Yeah. Nothing we can do. And ten kilometers? We eat the second we wake up and head out."
Even so, the mood between the two of them wasn’t that bad. Even allowing for the elevation and calling it a generous fifteen kilometers left, it was still a distance they could cover.
If they abandoned every pack and moved with only one limping person and one who couldn’t use an arm at all, they would have managed it for sure.
Their eyes met. They seemed to be thinking the exact same thing.
"…Hmm."
Of course the problem was Han Yeoreum. The amnesiac administrator—and a woman who, even if she had never lost her memories, would never have needed to experience physical limits like this.
"Well. We’ll figure it out. It’s only ten kilometers. If we can’t, we split it over two days."
"…Sorry. If I’d known it would end like this, I shouldn’t have caught her."
Jiwoo’s voice. She didn’t dislike Yeoreum, but if she had known no one would die, it would have been better for the least “efficient” person to take the injury. Honestly, aside from being able to carry a little weight, wasn’t she basically dead weight?
In truth both of them had only ever wanted to get closer to Yeoreum—more precisely, physically closer—without a single thought of that kind.
"Nah. The break-fall and all that is why it only got this bad. Could’ve been way worse if you hadn’t grabbed her. Packs were heavy too."
"…Haa. True."
Neither of them deliberately considered the possibility that Yeoreum might have died.
"Anyway. If you can move, go calm Yeoreum down a bit. Leaving her alone right now is scary."
"……Yeah. I should. Ugh."
Jiwoo let out a short groan as she rose, then walked toward Yeoreum, who sat far off in the corner, shoulders trembling…
while Minseo gave her uninjured shoulder an encouraging pat, as if telling her to handle the talk well.
"Um, Admin—no, Yeoreum-nim! What are you doing?"
She wasn’t good with words. So Jiwoo spoke like that—clearly just saying something for the sake of saying something.
Unlike usual, Yeoreum gave no answer at all.
Considering the Han Yeoreum who always stood awkwardly reading the room and hunting for something useful to do—who kept that small-animal tension—this was quite unusual.
So.
"…Administrator?"
Maybe the title was wrong. She changed it and asked again, and the already trembling shoulders shook a little harder.
"Hic, ghk. Hhuk…"
Only after she placed a hand on that shoulder did the sobs grow loud enough to hear.
"Hic, s-sorr—ah, uh…"
Her face was a complete mess. Tears and snot alone couldn’t do that; it was the heart on the verge of shattering that was the real problem.
Yeoreum looked at Jeong Jiwoo’s face, then stood without even trying to hide her expression.
"Ah, you can sit—"
Jiwoo was thoroughly flustered by the sight, but it didn’t matter. Very slowly, the way one reaches toward a wounded stray dog, Yeoreum stretched out her hand, took Jiwoo’s uninjured arm, and pressed it against her own chest.
"Eut…!"
That sound escaped Jiwoo. She was so startled she moved the broken arm a little and winced—
but she did not pull away.
Because it was exactly what she had wanted for so long.
Her hand was touching Safety Administrator Han Yeoreum’s chest.
Not grandly large, yet that unique soft springiness was completely different from her own.
"…"
For a moment Jiwoo forgot everything. Her vision narrowed to nothing but her own hand.
This was absolutely not the situation for it, and she knew that accepting it now could never lead to a healthy relationship—
yet she curled her fingers slightly.
More adrenaline poured out than when her arm had twisted the wrong way.