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A scream erupted a moment too late. She let out a groan dragged from the depths of her lungs, struggling desperately to escape the pain. Her back arched completely and her arms curled. Hee-jin writhed her entire body, suffocating in agony. Her heart beat frantically, and cold sweat poured down her skin. She felt like she was dying. No, she thought it would be better to just die.
“Patient! You mustn't move your fingers!”
The nurse who hurriedly held her down shouted loudly. However, stimulated by those words, Hee-jin tried to move her fingers again. She was seized by a terror that if she didn't, her fingers would simply stiffen and fall off. Hee-jin instinctively denied that something catastrophic had happened—that her life as a musician had come to an end.
“K-kgh!”
“If you move now, the surgical site will be damaged! Patient!”
“Ugh, aaaagh!”
Writhing in the sharp, piercing pain that returned, Hee-jin couldn't properly hear the nurse's words. Even the hands holding her felt terrifying, as if they were nailing her down into this horrific situation. As she continued to twist her body from side to side to escape, the doctor finally ordered the administration of a sedative.
As her consciousness slowly sank, Hee-jin perceived Seok-hyun in the corner of her vision.
He stood silently, a step away. His expression looked cold, yet as if he were suppressing something. Recognizing Seok-hyun, Hee-jin desperately reached out her right hand. But he did not take her hand, and Hee-jin was sucked back into the deep darkness.
✾ ✾ ✾
“The surgery was completed successfully. The proximal phalanges of the second and third fingers of the left hand were comminuted fractures, so we have realigned and fixed the bones with pins. You must absolutely not move them. To ensure the maximum recovery of hand function during the healing process...”
The doctor paused. He had been told the patient before him was a brilliant violinist. Of all places, comminuted fractures had occurred in the proximal phalanges, located close to the finger joints. With the resulting limitation in mobility, it would be difficult to perform at the same level as before, even after rehabilitation was complete. However, delivering such a realistic prognosis to a patient who had not yet accepted her condition was not a good approach.
“For now, let's focus solely on recovery.”
He was openly changing the subject, but there was no way she wouldn't understand what that meant. Hee-jin's eyes shook with shock.
“Recovery... if I recover... everything will go back to how it was, right? Doctor, my violin...”
The moment she mentioned the violin, her voice vanished as if her throat had been blocked. Perhaps it was because she already guessed the answer. She was afraid to even speak the words.
The doctor, forcing a calm smile, spoke as if telling her not to worry.
“The important thing is to recover well. And to work hard at rehabilitation.”
The doctor's cliché words didn't resonate at all. Hee-jin stared blankly down at her bandaged hand. The doctor's explanation—that the bones broken into several pieces had been fixed with metal pins—felt like someone else's story. Only the terrifying pain, which even narcotic painkillers couldn't block, told her that all of this was real.
That it was all over.
“Ah...”
Hee-jin's mind began to crumble. It wasn't her fingers that had been shattered into pieces. It was Yoo Hee-jin's life. The reality that she would never be able to play the violin again crashed over her like a tsunami. It was the moment all her dreams and efforts turned to bubbles.
“You must absolutely not move the operated fingers. The bones must align well for rehabilitation to be possible. It will be difficult, but...”
The doctor's voice grew fainter and fainter. Cold sweat flowed from her forehead into her eyes. Her eyes stung as if they were burning. If she tried moving her fingers again, would everything return to normal like a lie? Would all of this be a nightmare? Even while deceiving herself, she couldn't bring herself to move her fingers. She was afraid the pain that had torn through her entire body would rush back. That pain had been undeniably real; it could not be a lie.
“I didn't... intend for this.”
Hee-jin, unaware that the doctor had already left, didn't immediately recognize the voice coming from above her. The sound of her world, her dreams, and her life collapsing had been too loud, drowning it out.
“Noona.”
Seok-hyun, kneeling to meet her eyes, called her. Her eyes, which had gone dark and dead, barely regained a spark of life at that soft call. As she recognized Seok-hyun, tears welled up in Hee-jin's large eyes. Crushed by a reality that was hard to accept and impossible to handle, Hee-jin's face brightened slightly, as if she had finally found a breath of air.
“My hand... I... what do I do...?”
“......”
The moment she looked at Seok-hyun, the brilliant future he had assured her of unfolded before her eyes like a mirage. Herself, standing in a black dress under sparkling lights. But the moment she raised the bow and pressed the fingerboard, the inside of the bandages became hot as if on fire. At the sensation of her fingers burning, Hee-jin screamed in agony.
Seok-hyun's expression, as he looked back and forth between Hee-jin's right hand clutching him and her bandaged left hand, looked like that of an angry person.
“I didn't... intend to hurt your hand.”
As Hee-jin reflexively clung to Seok-hyun and complained of her pain, Seok-hyun's voice was poured over her like cold water. Forgetting even the pain in her fingers, Hee-jin looked at him.
“...What... did you say?”
“I only wanted the legs, yes, only the legs. I clearly calculated and controlled it.”
“......”
“Yes... the speed, the timing of the brake, and even the direction of the steering wheel were perfect. So why...”
Hee-jin heard something snap in her mind. What is he talking about? Is he saying he deliberately planned and hit me with a car? Intentionally? Suddenly, her mind went blank.
She couldn't comprehend what she was hearing. Hee-jin shook her head, her lips trembling. It couldn't be. The person she saw in the car couldn't have been Go Seok-hyun. There was no way he had hit her on purpose.
“What... what are you talking about...”
While desperately denying his words, Hee-jin unconsciously shifted her hips back.
“On purpose? You hit me...?”
It was too much to handle—the fact that the man who promised to elevate her violin career to the very top had destroyed her fingers.
She remembered a young Go Seok-hyun smiling mischievously while breaking a violin. Just as he did then, this time too... was he smiling inside the car? He must have been. Proud of himself for coming up with a way to keep her tied to him.
“I'm explaining that it wasn't my intention. Why would I want to hurt your hand, Noona?”
“I asked what you're talking about!”
“I'll make sure you recover completely. So you can play just like before...”
“Ugh...!”
The moment Seok-hyun said he would fix her fingers, Hee-jin couldn't suppress the surge of nausea and gagged. She tried hard to deny reality, but the excruciating pain radiating from her fingers made it impossible to deny everything.
She could no longer endure this reality.
✾ ✾ ✾
“Since she is at an age with good recovery power, I would tell a typical patient that the possibility of rehabilitation and recovery is high, and that if they focus on rehab for about a year, they'll be able to use their hand well again... but for a violinist, well...”
The doctor stroked his chin several times, choosing his words carefully as if it were a difficult problem. He was told she was a brilliant violinist who had placed 5th in the Paganini Competition. It was hard to even imagine how sensitive and precise her finger sensation must have been.
“Just tell me if it's possible.”
When Seok-hyun asked, as if urging for a definitive answer, the doctor paused and frowned. He seemed uncomfortable with the haste, but soon calmly scrolled through the computer files. The hand moving the mouse was slow, but since his eyes showed a desire to answer cautiously, Seok-hyun waited quietly.
“There is a case of a cellist who underwent surgery for a proximal phalanx fracture and returned to the stage because the nerve damage was minimal. However...”
The doctor trailed off, looking at Seok-hyun. The moment he heard about the cellist's case, Seok-hyun's gaze transformed. He already seemed to believe that Yoo Hee-jin could make such a successful return. The doctor quickly shook his head to calm him.
“It is too early to be certain about patient Yoo Hee-jin's prognosis. There is still a precise recovery process and rehabilitation ahead, so let's wait and see. I will do my best.”
However, the conviction in Seok-hyun's expression did not vanish. Since the doctor said it was possible, it was a strong belief that he could make it possible.
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