“…The pain gets worse when it rains.”
My legs felt heavy, as if they were rooted to the ground.
Taeui’s condition next to me was strange, and I had to hurry back to the members’ side, but my head went blank as if all my thoughts had been blown away.
Jo Inchan, who had been limping as if one leg was numb, stiffened when someone who knew him called his name, then immediately put his weight evenly on both legs. As if he was a normal person with no problems.
The nurse looked at him and asked with a pitying expression, “It might be partly because of the weather … but it feels like you’ve been coming to the hospital more often lately. Has your knee condition worsened again?”
The question went unanswered.
Jo Inchan didn’t seem particularly offended by the question, but he also didn’t seem willing to answer it, as he remained completely unresponsive. Unlike the deeply emotional state he had displayed during our last conversation, he now gave off an air of indifference.
“Let’s stay together as Prism for the rest of our lives!”
No, it would be more accurate to say that he looked dull and desolate. It was as if all the numerous emotions Jo Inchan had previously shown in front of us had vanished without leaving a trace.
The nurse spoke in a softer tone, perhaps having roughly guessed his condition as she watched him neither deny nor confirm her words.
“For patients like you, Inchan-ssi, who have suffered recurring injuries without receiving timely treatment, chronic pain is often the most common outcome. Even the surgery was something you had done after enduring it until the end, until it finally ruptured, wasn’t it?”
‘Recurring? He endured it until the end and then had surgery?’
There was no relationship left between Jo Inchan and me now.
If I had to label him, I would say he was a colleague of a close senior, someone who was no different than a stranger.
As such, I understood well enough that I shouldn’t show my one-sided emotions in front of others. But I could feel my eyes shaking against my will.
…I was agitated.
The nurse spoke as if she had known him since before his surgery. If so, did Jo Inchan already had a problem with his knee before that?
“…….”
I had no idea.
This was something I didn’t know.
But I knew that I couldn’t rely on that reason alone to escape this enormous responsibility, so I began desperately searching my memory.
Jo Inchan hardly showed any signs of pain in front of me until the day he collapsed while clutching his knee. I only thought something seemed off with his movements for maybe three days. Even then, it felt like nothing more than minor muscle soreness. Since his condition was serious enough to require surgery, he must have been suffering for much longer, but that was how he looked like back then.
‘…That’s impossible.’
No matter how busy I was, it wouldn’t have been easy for someone to hide any abnormalities while being next to someone as extremely sensitive as me all day.
But now, the sight of him standing straight and tall in front of me as if there were no problem at all felt so familiar that I couldn’t deny this unbelievable reality.
‘Since when? … Why?’
As I pondered these questions in a daze, a certain memory suddenly surfaced.
“Hyung, if your back hurts, take a break.”
Like most dancers, I also had a time when I suffered from a herniated disc or arthritis. During a particularly bad period, I would often be found frowning in a corner backstage with my hands holding my back.
Every time Jo Inchan discovered me like that, he would worry and express his concerns, but I, being immature at the time, would just brush him off with the same nonchalant answer.
“…It’s okay. It’s not something that will be fixed by taking a day or two off. I don’t want to be weak and miss a performance over something like this. I don’t want to worry the fans either.”
‘Everyone experiences this level of pain, so there’s no need to make a big deal out of it.’
‘It’s unprofessional to take a break for a minor injury, it’s a weak thing to do.’
I said those things because I didn’t want to worry the members and because I was too stubborn to get off the stage. It was a selfish slip of the tongue, with no thought given to how the members, who blindly followed and idolized me, might take it.
‘…No way, did Jo Inchan try to hide his injury from me until the end because I said that?’
As soon as my thoughts reached that point, my face stung as if I had been slapped.
As the blood drained from my face and I could barely feel the skin on it, I finally felt the weight of just how thick-skinned I had been.
“
Don’t be swayed by what people say and focus on your practice. If you’re afraid of falling behind, you shouldn’t waste your time looking at such things.”
If my guess was correct, Jo Inchan was already having problems with his leg around that time, and he was likely trying to hide it from me. The moment I realized that, an overwhelming regret hit me.
I shouldn’t have said that back then.
[Those messed-up steps, damn lol. Everyone else, even the vocalists, are nailing the choreography, so why is this one person constantly out of sync? It’s even more noticeable because Seo Yutae is dancing so perfectly next to him … Honestly, ruining the group choreography like that is a major inconvenience for the whole team.]
[How come his skills aren’t improving, but keep getting worse?]
└ For real, he was at his best when he was a rookie. Frankly, it feels like he’s lost his original intention and doesn’t practice properly anymore. You can tell from how sloppy his footwork is … It’s even more disappointing because we know how good he used to be. It’s clearly a lack of practice.
[Jo Inchan should only be filmed from the waist up, he can’t use his fucking legs well]
Jo Inchan was mocked the most for the choreography that required him to move his legs quickly to step in time. He definitely wasn’t slacking off in practice, but for some reason, his skills in that part didn’t improve at all and he kept making mistakes, which made me think something was odd.
[His footwork is sloppy. He should be stepping strongly and moving onto the next movement, but why does he keep dancing half-heartedly, with no strength? He knows his mistakes stand out even more on camera, right?]
So, believing Jo Inchan’s footwork was his weakness, I kept pointing out his mistakes and urging him to fix them. I thought it was the only way to keep him from getting criticized.
He never said anything whenever I did that. He just kept practicing over and over again, trying to correct the things I pointed out. But he was frowning, so I assumed his feelings were hurt.
But if it was because his leg was in pain…….
‘…What in the world have I done?’
My fingertips trembled at the thought of having committed an irreparable mistake. And knowing that it was beyond repair, my regret deepened as I foolishly clung to a hope that was already lost.
If I had been able to recognize Jo Inchan’s injury right away, just like I did with Lee Hwayoung, and if I had guided the members to prioritize their own bodies, just like I did with Do Yuda, would Jo Inchan’s injury have gotten that bad?
If Jo Inchan had received proper treatment and rest in the early stages, he would be able to dance to his heart’s content with healthy legs by now. He wouldn’t have been mocked by the public for not being able to fully showcase his skills because of the injury. He wouldn’t have been backed into a corner that led him to make a slip of the tongue in front of me. He wouldn’t have had such a clear scar on his knee. He wouldn’t have had to go to the hospital because his condition worsened due to something as simple as the weather, especially since it wasn’t even his active period.
I was immature.
I was
foolish
.
The small seed I left behind had grown without end, and it eventually led us to this present situation. Everything was turning into a chain that was strangling Jo Inchan, and yet I, the person responsible for all of this, was completely unaware of the whole story until now. I was beyond pathetic.
“Inchan-ssi, if your ligament tears again, you’ll need another surgery, so you need to take care of it carefully to prevent it from getting worse. You know that the success rate of a second surgery is lower, so it’s better to avoid it if possible, right? Please think of it as something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life and keep paying attention to it.”
“…Yes, I know.”
When the nurse mentioned the possibility of a second surgery, Jo Inchan responded nonchalantly, as if he had already known.
It was another thing I hadn’t known. I had naively assumed that he would recover well and live a life that was at least a little better than the one he had when I was by his side. Was I so scared of any other outcome that I despicably tried to ignore the reality?
“Do Yuda-ssi is young, so his recovery rate is quite good. If he doesn’t get anxious and keeps taking care of himself from now on, he should be able to continue dancing. The swelling has also gone down fairly quickly. It’s mainly because you did such an excellent job with the first aid that the soft tissues didn’t get further damaged. Mother-nim, Father-nim, you should praise Seungbeom-ssi a lot.”
“Seungbeom-ah, thank you … Thank you so much.”
The words of the surgeon who operated on Do Yuda and the words of Do Yuda’s mother, who hugged me, came to mind. At the same time, I saw my hands holding Do Yuda’s leg and perfectly administering first aid, as if I’d foreseen the situation all along.
“Call an ambulance! He can’t get up!”
And then I saw myself in the mirror, frozen and unable to move, as Lee Chise’s piercing scream filled the air and Jo Inchan lay collapsed on the floor before me.
‘…What am I even doing right now?’
Are the things I’m doing right now nothing bu
t self-satisfaction
? Am I trying to find solace for my past failures by taking care of the members of Pantheion ‘without mistakes’, based on the experience of ruining the lives of the members of Prism?
‘No, it’s because I don’t want to repeat the same mistake … because I cherish the members.…’
“…….”
The children I first brought into my fence were still drowning in pain, yet I was planning to overcome it all alone?
“If by chance things go wrong, you can blame me. It’s okay. Isn’t that what a leader is for?”
It wasn’t ‘
you can blame me
‘. I was someone who deserved to be blamed. I have always been the worst leader. I made others believe that overworking themselves was the right thing to do, and then I pressured them until they got injured. After everything I’d done, I still had the audacity to say such a thing.
“…Ugh.”
Once I admitted that, my stomach churned with self-loathing, and I was hit with a wave of nausea.
As I groaned out of physiological response, despite realizing how selfish I was for even reacting this way, Jo Inchan, who was talking to the nurse, turned around. He stared at my face for a moment, then quietly moved his leg.
“…….”
Jo Inchan was walking towards me.
The instant I realized it, my heart began to pound wildly.
He was definitely coming towards me. Unlike me, he was a kind person who would always offer support and ask if someone was okay whenever they seemed unwell.
With every step that closed the distance between Jo Inchan and me, I could feel the veins in my hand, which was covering my mouth, throbbing faster and faster.
“Han Seungbeom-nim?”
I didn’t even have the capacity to notice Taeui’s flustered reaction.
I felt like I needed to hide somewhere—anywhere. I knew that no one here would be able to recognize my true identity, but there was this undefined dread that if I didn’t disappear right now, I would be crushed to death by something that couldn’t be simply described as
guilt
.
But my feet were rooted to the spot, and I felt like I was losing my mind.
As I clenched my teeth, the same words kept repeating in my head.
‘Don’t run away.’
It was my own voice.
“Where are you going? You’ve been keeping your mouth shut this whole time, so why are you acting like this all of a sudden?!”
‘Don’t run away.’
“My leg hurts. Are you still going to leave me?”
‘Don’t run away.’
“It seems like they tricked him into going.”
“They promised to make it possible for him to talk to Seo Yutae.”
‘Don’t run away!’
In the meantime, at some point, Jo Inchan had walked down the long hallway and was now less than four meters away from Taeui and me. Even though I clearly remembered what I had been thinking just moments ago, I cowardly grabbed Taeui’s arm and, gasping for breath, spoke.
“Hide me, please hide me…….”
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Translator’s Corner:
Today’s song recommendation is Red Velvet – I Just …
Idk guys, personality aside, I would think everything is my fault too if I were in MC’s shoes … I mean, indirectly … it is…..
is this water from the rain or from my tears …