Slow Journey || 2KIM

Chapter 32

It's almost been a year since Minju's accident. It's almost been a year since she lost her precious grandma. It's almost been a year since she fell into a coma and a year ever since Chaewon has gone nuts looking out for her for two whole weeks without a sign of where Minju has been.

Sometimes not many things change in a year. Sometimes a year isn't enough to change some things and sometimes life moves on steadily for years...

Minju's life however has never been stable ever since she enrolled in college and met Chaewon and her friends.

So even if a year has passed and for many people it was just a stable year wherein not much happened and not many changes in themselves happened, for Minju it has been a busy year filled with trial and error, with so many efforts of her to get physically and mentally better and reach a point wherein she can confidently claim that she's fine and stable again. From being in a coma, and completely in pain, with impaired legs and deaf ears she's reached a point wherein she can hear normally again —of course always with the help of her hearing aids— and she can also walk again.

Not normally, like how she used to though. Unfortunately, according to the doctors she will never reach her previous point, running, walking normally and fastly or standing still for hours like how she used to. But surely, she can walk again. With a lot of effort, a lot of practice on her legs as well as undergoing a surgery to improve her walking abilities, she can definitely claim that she can stand back up to her feet again, one day...

Not everything goes well though. She's been struggling a lot in every practice she gets and there have been plenty of times in which she felt too depressed and wanted to give up. Fortunately for her though she always had Chaewon by her side who was always so strong and always there for her to encourage her or soothe her when things are getting tough.

So here she is now, getting prepared to get one of the most difficult and serious surgeries out there in order to improve her legs' walking ability. The doctors have advised her to not undergo in such surgery before her legs would show some improvement themselves first, which would only happen with constant training. Minju has been training hard, without skipping a day so her legs have grown a lot stronger so the doctors are positive this surgery will help her walk again.

Minju has given it a lot of thought before actually agreeing as she's been extremely hesitant to undergo through so much pain and effort only to end up having a failed surgery. She was afraid. Afraid of hoping for something that couldn't be true and as much as the doctors have been positive and encouraging Minju is still hesitant and in disbelief as she doesn't want to end up getting hurt. Still though, she wants to try it out no matter her hesitation and insecurities as she thinks this is better than doing basically nothing and for sure staying impaired for the rest of her life. At least if she does this surgery there are possibilities for her to walk again.

Chaewon hasn't left her side as she's been following her around and helping her throughout every single test the doctors have done to Minju in order to make sure that she's completely ready before getting the surgery.

Minju is now lying down on the hospital bed again, waiting for the nurses to announce that she's ready to get in the surgery room to get her surgery. Chaewon has been sitting by her side, holding her hands as she can clearly see the nervousness in Minju's eyes as the girl keeps looking around.

"I don't have good memories from this place..." Minju ends up saying after a couple of minutes of silence, having scanned the place way too many times by now, that many times that she can claim she has memorized every detail about her hospital room.

"It's time I would end up here was always for no good reason. Especially the last time I was here... It only kept getting worse each time I would get here. I hope this time won't be like this and will break this pattern of misfortunes." Minju continues and Chaewon hums softly, understanding very well what Minju means by that. Hospitals are indeed not nice places to be in and usually people don't go there because there's a good solid reason...