My Leg Hurts
"Ow, ow..."
The moment I woke up, my leg hurt so badly I could hardly stand it. I must have sprained it yesterday when I fell off the step. It throbbed so fiercely I could barely walk. Yesterday it had been perfectly fine...
Did the muscle just take a shock?
I couldn't move, so I had no choice but to call for Bora. She came into the room.
"Bora..."
"What's wrong, Hana?"
Seeing me lying in bed, Bora sat down beside me. With her hand smoothing my hair, I said,
"My leg hurts so much."
My right leg refused to obey me. Even lying still, pain crackled up it like a current of electricity. The sight of me like that startled Bora.
"You were perfectly fine until yesterday, weren't you?"
"Yeah... but when I woke up, it hurt so bad."
Bora drew the blanket back and looked over my right leg. The dinosaur pajamas were in the wash, so I was in ordinary, light sleepwear. She took in how swollen my leg was, and her face turned grave.
"This is really swollen. We ought to get you to a hospital right now..."
"Okay..."
I got ready to go, just as she said. Because my leg hurt, I stayed where I was and surrendered myself to her hands. It was, secretly, rather comfortable. Like the perfect secretary she was, Bora took care of everything so I could go outside.
She carried me in her arms. I couldn't walk; there was no helping it. Maybe because it was morning, the office was full of people arriving for work. Haru took one look at my leg and her face went shocked. Yesterday it had been perfectly fine.
After trading bye-byes with the office staff, I went out of the building. The weather was cold enough that I became a snowman in a puffer coat. Bora settled me into the passenger seat. I buckled my seatbelt and sat very still.
The car was already warm, as if the heater had been running. Hot air drifted softly out, and sleep came over me. I was sure I had slept plenty the night before, and yet drowsiness poured down on me all the same.
Getting sleepy even with my leg in pain... I really was a little sleep bug. Nodding along, half in a dream and unable to pull myself together, I found we had already arrived at the hospital.
At the orthopedic clinic I looked all around. There were so many patients. Every one of them sat in a wheelchair with a cast wrapped around a leg. Would I end up in a cast like them?
Bora set me in an empty seat and went to check us in. I sat quietly, watching her back. It was a hospital, and the smell of disinfectant hung thick in the air.
I couldn't help scowling on instinct. Hospitals, to me, meant memories that weren't very good.
Cradled in Bora's arms, I was ferried from place to place — an X-ray, then into some strange machine. Once every picture was taken, I went quietly into the exam room.
The doctor who reviewed the X-rays spoke in an easy tone.
"It seems the muscle took a shock. Aside from the swelling, there's no crack in the bone."
"What a relief. I thought the bone might be cracked."
"It's not that serious. You'll still need a cast, of course, but with proper rest and medicine you'll be better in no time. Children recover quickly."
"Thank you, Doctor."
At the news that I needed a cast, the color drained from my face. Somehow I had a feeling this wouldn't be the end of it. The kind doctor gave my leg a quick look, then set about putting the cast on.
He measured my leg this way and that with something like plaster, then pressed the set plaster to my ankle and began winding bandages around it. Please let it end with just this, I thought. Come to a hospital, and there was almost always one thing you were guaranteed to receive.
My gloomy hunch was not wrong. Once the cast on my leg was finished, a nurse with a gentle voice said,
"Let's head over to the injection room~"
To me, it was a bolt from the blue. I was an adult, of course, so a needle itself didn't frighten me. The problem was this young body I couldn't keep under control. I caught Bora's sleeve and looked up at her with the brightest, roundest eyes I could muster.
"Bora, I don't have to get a shot. Let's go home!"
But Bora scooped me up and headed for the injection room. I thrashed and refused with everything I had, but there was nothing to be done.
"Hana. If you want to get better quickly, you have to get the shot. Just hold on a little?"
"I... I have a disease that means I can't get shots, Bora!"
"Don't say strange things. Your body can handle a shot just fine. The research on that finished last time."
"Waaah!"
Betrayed by the Bora I had trusted, I was carried into the injection room. Lying face-down on the bed, I felt a crushing sense of defeat. A shot, of all things... Even so, Bora stepped out, and quiet settled over the room.
I wished she would burst back in crying surprise, tell me the shot had been a lie, and that would be the end of it.
But I heard the door open, and the one who came in was not Bora. It was the nurse who had spoken so sweetly a moment ago.
"Hhhk..."
She held a syringe in one hand. The needle caught the fluorescent light and glittered. She meant to stick something that sharp and pointed into my bottom?
Absolutely not — but I had a cast on my leg now. I couldn't run.
"Pants down~ It'll sting just a tiny bit."
Before I knew it, just as she had said, my pants were lowered a little and my bottom was bare to the air. The nurse drew the medicine into the syringe, then patted my bottom with her hand.
I shuddered at the dread closing in. The moment the syringe sank into my bottom, I couldn't endure the pain.
"Waaah!"
After a span of time that was short if you called it short, and long if you called it long, the nurse patted my bottom and said,
"All done~"
With that, she made a neat exit. I had lost the battle. My mind went blank, and I couldn't even think of pulling my pants back up. Where the shot had gone in, a stinging, aching pain spread across my bottom.
Someday I would have my revenge on the doctor who permitted the shot and the nurse who gave it! Bora had been in on it too, but in light of all the affection until now, I decided to let her off.
When I came to and pulled my pants up, Bora came into the injection room. I saw her and turned my head away. She only came closer and stroked my hair.
"You did so well, Hana. Shall we go home now?"
Hearing that gentle voice, the sulk from the shot I had just endured came undone. Of course she had me get the shot so I would heal faster. It wasn't as if she disliked me and did it out of spite. Cradled in her arms, I went home.
The doctor and the nurse, of course, were still marked for bloody revenge.
"Hyah! Hyah!"
Back from the hospital, I changed into pajamas and lay on the bed, hard at work on a phone game.
Now that I was injured, lounging around in bed was entirely innocent. Walking, though, was another matter. I hopped on one foot to the bathroom, and sometimes when I went after snacks as well.
Still, I hadn't hurt both legs, so a wheelchair wasn't necessary. I did kind of want to try tearing down the hallway once in a wheelchair, but I wasn't a little kid, so I could hold back an impulse of that size.
I was lying there wasting time like a perfectly useless human being when someone came into my room. The person carrying a basket of snacks instead of a fruit basket was Kim Sehee.
I threw both hands up to welcome the chairman who had brought snacks.
"Whoa, Chairman!"
"Hello~"
Kim Sehee knew my tastes exactly. Fruit was nice enough, but snacks were the best thing of all. I didn't need anything else.
"Is your leg all right, Hana?"
"Yes! Look at this!"
I rolled up my pant leg and proudly presented my badge of honor. At the sight of my cast, the chairman looked at me with pity in her eyes.
"Oh my... they put a cast on you, all the way like this?"
"I got a shot earlier, so it doesn't hurt!"
The shot in my bottom had been worth something after all. When I had woken that morning, a crackling pain had climbed my leg as if electricity were running through it, but after the injection nearly all of that was gone. Not entirely gone, but still.
"Is that so...?"
She set the snack basket on the drawer beside my bed. I couldn't stop my eyes from drifting there of their own accord. If snacks existed, eating them was only human nature. I tried to get the basket into my hands, but my arms were too short to reach.
Seeing me, the chairman took a snack from the basket.
Om-nom-nom.
The moment I ate the chocolate Pepero stick, it felt as if my leg had healed completely. Sweetness spread through my mouth, and my mood lifted. Smiling, I began inhaling the snacks the chairman had given me.
Snacks really were the best.