My Girlfriend Is Very Good To Me [EN]: Chapter 3

Ep. 2

“Yes. The leg’s rehabilitation—recovery… the absence of—”

The doctor’s words to my parents weren’t registering properly. Whether it was the anesthesia or the painkillers, I wasn’t feeling any immediate pain. Still, I couldn’t even lift myself up on my own.

The hand mirror, which I had to pester my usually playful brother several times to get, reflected my face wrapped in yellowish bandages, as if pus had seeped through.

“……”

It was a foolish thought, but I wondered if I was being punished for living such a comfortable life.

The reason I felt my life was so easy and comfortable was thanks to my harmonious family and my appearance. But now, the smiles had vanished from my family’s faces, and my face, once praised for being so pretty, was half-crushed. I couldn’t even walk on my own.

Everything was ruined.

I dropped the mirror from my weakened hand and stared blankly out the window. In the meantime, the doctor, my parents, and my brother all said things to me, but nothing registered.

How much time had passed?

Just as the sunlight became too intense to look outside.

“…Heena.”

Yeon-hoo had come to see me.

My brother probably contacted him. I had met him a few times and exchanged numbers.

But, even though I had wanted to see him so badly right after I opened my eyes.

I couldn’t bring myself to turn my head now.

After we started dating, he said he liked other parts of me besides my face, like my easygoing personality and playfulness. But the fundamental reason he liked me was because I was pretty.

That’s why I was scared.

I was afraid of Yeon-hoo seeing me in my current state, even more than I was of seeing myself.

I couldn’t bear to let him see me crying silently, unable to face him with such feelings.

“It must… hurt a lot, right?”

I couldn’t hold back any longer at his voice, as he carefully hugged me and asked that.

“Sob… it hurts… my… leg… won’t… sob… move… and my face…”

At that voice.

At that warmth.

My heart welled up, and even as I sobbed, I couldn’t turn my head. Yeon-hoo didn’t try to force me to show my face either.

He just hugged me.

“It’s okay. You can get better. I heard them talking a bit earlier, and they said you can move your leg enough if you do rehab.

So don’t worry. I’ll be by your side.”

Those words…

My boyfriend, who made me feel more comfortable than excited, more fondness than love.

Yeon-hoo, who was just quietly hugging me instead of saying anything more than that.

I was so grateful.

—-

The rehabilitation that started after that lasted for several months and was not easy.

My body, my leg, didn’t move as much as I had expected, and the mental pain was greater than the physical pain.

Friends I had been close to, university seniors and juniors, etc. Once they came to visit, worried about me, smiled, and left the hospital room.

I could count on one hand the number of people I saw again after that.

The phone, which was always full of new messages whether I had something going on or not, was surprisingly quiet. Except for a few really close friends and Yeon-hoo, contact disappeared in an instant.

I didn’t think that was wrong.

It would be more amazing if they kept in touch even though we weren’t deeply involved.

However.

The fact that most of the contact stopped right after they came to visit.

That was enough to shake my heart.

I know.

That the reason they became friends with me was usually because of my pretty face. It’s not like I took advantage of that, and it’s not wrong that they approached me that way.

I just used that to my advantage to make friends easily. It’s just that those who became friends easily left easily.

After seeing my, distorted half-face.

Even though I acknowledge that.

Even though I know it in my head, it was sad.

To the point where I wanted to die right away.

The reason I couldn’t die, even so, was because my family was by my side, always smiling for me.

And.

“Yo! Heena! Oppa’s [Older brother/term of endearment from a male] here!”

“What do you mean, ‘Oppa’? Did you listen to your classes properly?”

“Yeah. It was so boring. The assignments are crazy…”

It was thanks to Yeon-hoo, who came to see me here every single day, without fail, even for just a minute.

It had already been several months since the accident and since I was allowed visitors. During those months, Yeon-hoo came to see me every day.

He was a sophomore, and he was already having a hard time with classes after getting into a better university than his skills deserved, and he must have been busy in many ways.

Still, he kept coming.

Always facing my hideously distorted half-face, which I had tried to hide at first but now had resigned myself to revealing.

“Oh, right. Do you remember Jung Yoon-sung? He came with me too. We’re going to have dinner later.”

“Your high school classmate?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I left him waiting outside because he gets shy around people he doesn’t see often… he was uncomfortable when he first met you too.”

“Ah… right? I remember he ran away when I asked him to hang out.”

I opened my mouth eagerly, not wanting to miss a single word of the trivial conversations we had every day.

I wanted to remember my grateful boyfriend’s voice a little bit more, even if he only came to visit at the very end of visiting hours like now.

All the rehabilitation exercises I had been doing all day without any progress.

All the mental breakdowns caused by the people who had disappeared in an instant.

I could forget everything, at least for the moment Yeon-hoo came.

“Ah, I’m too late today.”

“It’s okay. Thank you for coming… Go quickly. Your friend is waiting.”

“Alright. You said you have rehab tomorrow morning, right? I’ll come a little earlier tomorrow.”

I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to come every day, that he could skip a day, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

Because he was my salvation.

Yeon-hoo’s bright smile, which had stood out even before we started dating, unchanged.

It was now my treasure that I couldn’t live without.

I might cry if I didn’t see him for even a day.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

“Bye~”

The sound of footsteps fading away.

I stared at the hospital room door Yeon-hoo had left through for a moment before slowly turning the wheels of my wheelchair.

It would be better to go to the bathroom while I was in the wheelchair. Getting on and off the bed was a great exercise in my current condition.

-Squeak

As I slowly moved the wheels, savoring the conversation with Yeon-hoo, towards the bathroom, I heard a voice just before the corner.

I hadn’t heard any visitors coming to nearby rooms today, and it was very late. So I thought Yeon-hoo had probably stopped by the bathroom and hadn’t left yet, so I quietly approached.

“Hey, are you still going to date her?”

I stopped moving when I realized that the voice I was hearing was the voice of Yeon-hoo’s friend, which I vaguely remembered.

“What, Heena?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course, you idiot.”

“I don’t care if you like her… but they said she’s pretty much hopeless. Her leg.”

“…Sigh. She does seem to be having a hard time.”

-Flinch

I knew.

How could I not know when it had been months since I started rehab?

I wasn’t really believing that I would get better when there was still no improvement.

I was just doing it mechanically because I had to show my family and Yeon-hoo that I wasn’t giving up hope.

But that was a minor detail. The question Yeon-hoo’s friend asked was the topic that had been tormenting me the whole time I wasn’t seeing Yeon-hoo.

I was so curious and scared about what Yeon-hoo thought of me now.

If.

If, even.

If he left me.

I wouldn’t be able to hold him back. Because I would be grateful. Because I would feel sorry.

“Um… I don’t know if I should be saying this here, but are you really going to be okay? It’s going to be even harder in the future if you keep seeing her…”

“Um…”

There was silence for a moment.

Sweat flowed from my hands. Unlike me, who was feeling nauseous from the sudden tension.

Yeon-hoo continued to speak cheerfully as always.

“I thought about it a bit after hearing what you said.”

“And?”

“I’m not breaking up with her.”

“Why?”

I, I’m curious too.

Why on earth?

Yeon-hoo’s answer to that was very clear.

“Just… just because I like her.”

“Heena seems to be having a hard time sometimes.”

“Rehab isn’t going as planned… and there’s other stuff too, I guess.”

“She might smile and say okay if I told her to break up.”

“Honestly… Heena didn’t like me as much as I liked her.”

“And I think she feels a little sorry that I come to see her every day.”

“But I don’t give a damn about any of that.”

“It’s not like she told me to break up with her.”

“I’m not going to break up with her because I just like her, and I’m going to keep coming because I want to see my girlfriend.”

“Not out of obligation or pity or anything.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’m that great of a guy, and at first I wondered if that was it. I wondered if my feelings would fade like those guys at school who secretly badmouth Heena.”

“But that’s not it.”

“I want to see her every day, and I feel good after seeing her.”

“Just like when we first started dating.”

“I guess I just like her too much.”

It was a reason that wasn’t a big deal at all, but it was a word that was engraved deeper in my heart than anything else.

‘Because I like her.’

I covered my mouth to keep from sobbing and wept.

As Yeon-hoo said, I had a crush on Yeon-hoo, but it wasn’t like I liked him so much that I started dating him.

However, there was something about him that gradually attracted me more and more, and it slowly soaked into my heart like painting a canvas.

Even so, I don’t think it was love.

Starting with Yeon-hoo was my first love. I didn’t have the experience to clearly define what the feeling of love was.

I didn’t know the passionate feelings I saw in cartoons, novels, and dramas, where you only think about one person and your whole life is swayed by that person.

I didn’t know.

I hadn’t realized it.

Until this moment.

My shining appearance, and my hideous appearance now.

He just likes me without unnecessary words.

I liked him.

When I thought about it, there was always me, just hoping that Yeon-hoo would come.

Savoring the conversations and dates I had with him.

Doing my rehab exercises without fail because he came.

Thinking about where to go with him if my body got better, even in my imagination.

There was me.

Not just gratitude. His face, his expression, his gestures, his words. I was elated and crestfallen by everything.

There was me.

Only now do I.

Learned about love.

I wish I had learned it a little, just a little earlier.

I could have met him more, gone to more places, and dated more.

I could have liked him… much more than I do now.