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Two weeks have passed since the start of Hero Zion’s Rehabilitation.

“Thank you again today, Mrs. Baker.”

“Oh, Teacher, just helping with what you’re doing makes me happy.”

Every morning begins with receiving bread from the Baker family’s bakery.

The person in front of me is the mother of a patient who has successfully completed her rehabilitation at our center.

She is a kind soul who brings freshly baked bread from the renowned bakery ‘Baker Baker’ to our home every morning.

“By the way, Teacher, there’s a rumor I’ve heard lately, may I ask you about it?”

“What rumor is that?”

I’ve exchanged greetings with this bakery lady, but we’ve never had a conversation beyond that…

What kind of rumor could it be that she’s asking me?

“Well, I’m not sure if it’s okay to mention this, but…”

“Huh?”

Is it really such a difficult rumor to speak about?

“There’s a young, pretty patient that you seem to be seeing often lately, and I heard you take her home every time you leave work…”

“Excuse me?”

What? Did I just hear that correctly?

“Could you say that again, please?”

“Huh? You want me to repeat it?”

“I think I might have misheard…”

“AAAHHHH!! Teacher Hop!!!!!”

“What?!”

What the heck? Suddenly, there’s a screaming voice calling for me from Zion’s room.

“Oh my… you really have a young woman at home… until morning…”

“NOOO!! I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s not that at all!!”

“TEACHER HOP!!!”

The sudden scream turned the house upside down.

Why is Zion acting like this all of a sudden? What’s going on?

“I’ll be there shortly, so just be quiet, Zion!!”

“Zion?”

“Mrs. Baker, can you please go home for now? I’ll explain later, but it seems the patient’s condition has worsened, and I need to attend to him.”

“Oh… sounds like a serious patient, I didn’t mean to say anything strange… Oh dear, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine, just go home for now. I appreciate the bread.”

I hurriedly sent Mrs. Baker away and burst into Zion’s room.

Inside, I found Zion lying straight on the bed, staring at the ceiling, face scrunched up in pain. Upon seeing me, he barely turned his head and opened his eyes.

“T-Teacher…”

“What’s the matter, Zion?”

“I can’t move my body at all!”

“That’s how it has been, though.”

“I’m not joking, it’s really true!!! It hurts so much!!!”

Is he really unable to move at all?

Zion has been under care for almost all the time he spends with me.

There were no signs that his condition would worsen…

“Zion, can you tell me how you’re not moving? Is there weakness?”

“No. Every time I try to use my legs, it hurts too much…”

“Where does it hurt? The joints?”

“No. It’s, um, the whole leg…”

This is an impossible phenomenon. I needed to verify this situation in more detail.

“Zion, I’m going to pull the blanket off you.”

“Ugh…”

As I lifted the blanket, Zion’s thin body, wrapped in pajamas, was revealed. His legs, which he claimed hurt, were stiff and rigid, but sometimes they would twitch with a “Ow!” as if having a spasm.

I sat next to his bed to conduct a careful examination and wrapped one of his legs in my hands.

“Zion, tell me if it hurts here…”

“AAAHHH!!!”

As I pressed on the muscle area, Zion cried out in agony. I felt like I might have an inkling of what was going on. Could it be that…?

“Then what about here…”

“That hurts too!!”

“And here…”

“Maybe that one is tolerable?”

“Is this the worst pain then?”

“GUHAAAK!! Is this even an examination? Are you just torturing me?!”

“You still think I’m that kind of person?”

“Ugghhh… it hurts so much…”

I think I have a rough idea of what happened, but I need to finish my checks.

We’re checking the joints…

“What about here? Does it hurt when I twist like this?”

“No, that’s fine.”

“And if I lift it?”

“AAAHHH!!!”

Seeing Zion scream with just a little pressure was amusing, but I needed to conduct the examination as necessary. It wasn’t fun to make him suffer.

“It’s muscle pain. You can’t train today, so just stay still.”

Muscle pain with no muscles at all.

Zion looked up at me with a pained expression, clearly troubled by the examination results.

“WHAT?! I can’t train? That’s not okay!”

“Sigh, Zion…”

No matter how much he pouts, what’s done is done.

The reason it has come to this stems first from Zion’s hasty mindset, but there was also some responsibility on my part for not letting him know important matters even though I knew he was anxious.

“You exercised without telling me.”

“How did you know?”

“How could I not know when your body has come to this state?”

I had identified the areas experiencing pain, so I was well aware of what kind of exercises he performed.

“I thought if I exercised just a bit more, I’d recover faster…”

“Zion… I told you that if you rush, you’ll stumble.”

With Zion’s confession, I had identified the cause of the issue.

Having finished the examination, I noted that Zion’s exposed form lying on the bed seemed cold, and I was concerned, so I covered him with the blanket again.

“That’s true, but…”

Then Zion, feeling embarrassed, pulled the blanket up to cover half his face, leaving only his eyes peeking out.

“Well, I guess I have some responsibility.”

“Huh? Teacher Hop, you didn’t do anything wrong! I acted on my own…!”

“I didn’t say not to exercise secretly. I should have told you it was important.”

When it comes to rehabilitation, maintaining a steady pace and not overexerting oneself is crucial.

Exercising isn’t just to heal; it’s using the body. When you use something, it inevitably wears out.

However, the human body has a built-in recovery system to heal any wear or damage, so using exercise to build or restore muscles is merely an effective way of utilizing this system.

Therefore, for a patient with little muscle and low recovery capability, training must strictly adhere to the guidance of an expert, and Zion violated that.

“I thought since I was watching Zion all day long, he wouldn’t encounter such issues. Plus, the training at the center was already tailored to be almost the limits of what Zion’s body could handle. So even a little bit of extra exercise must have pushed him over the edge. Both problems ultimately stemmed from me.”

If I had warned him not to exercise secretly or had laid out the rehabilitation program with a more relaxed approach, this situation might never have occurred.

I’m watching Zion all the time except when he’s sleeping, and yet he managed to exercise in secret during that time!

I let my guard down while handling matters related to Zion… it’s a regretful mistake.

“No, it’s all my fault, Teacher Hop. I thought I could manage something as simple as sitting and lifting my legs on my own. I could have asked you, but I just went ahead and did it for three hours…”

“What? Three hours?”

“…….”

Three hours? He did leg exercises for three hours all by himself?

“That explains why you were screaming! How could you have exercised that much?!”

“I was focusing slowly, and before I knew it, I just… and when my legs started to hurt, I stopped and fell asleep.”

“No way, even so…!”

With this unexpected twist, my head began to ache.

He exercised in the middle of the night, without a light on, sitting on the edge of the bed lifting his legs until he was in pain?

“Whoa…”

I took a big sigh to calm my mind.

What’s done is done. I needed to think about what to do moving forward.

“If you’ve exercised that hard, I can’t guarantee today will be the last of the pain.”

“Is it a big deal…?”

Since he exerted himself far beyond what was expected, it could take several days for muscle pain to subside. The recovery is usually slow for a patient.

But if you ask if it’s a big deal, the right answer would be,

“It’s not a big deal. As long as Zion just rests quietly.”

I suppose that’s it. Zion needed to realize just how serious his mistake was.

“You’re completely banned from exercising or training until you’re fully healed. Understood?”

“Yes…”

“And just to clarify, not being able to train now doesn’t mean you get to make it up later with extra training. Let me remind you again, you can’t rush. Is that clear?”

“I got it…”

As I continued to nag Zion, he shrank deeper into the bed, hiding until only his eyes were visible.

“And lastly,”

Wow, he’s already completely hidden. There’s still more to say.

“The one who knows your body best isn’t you, but me. So if you’re going to do something different from what I told you, you have to ask me first. Understood?”

“Yeees…”

With this level of talking, he should have understood. I took another deep sigh and gathered myself.

I had plenty of tasks to tackle today.

“Then keep resting like that. I’ll be heading to work soon, so if you need anything, let me know before I leave. Make sure you rest quietly!”

“……”

Zion was still hiding under the blanket. As I turned back to prepare for work and headed out the door,

“Work…?”

I heard Zion’s flustered voice, so I turned back to him.

She had pulled the blanket down again and peeked her head out, looking at me with a pout while holding onto the door handle.

“Uh… I can’t move at all right now, aren’t you going to leave me alone and go to work?”

Oh, now that she mentions it…

“Please don’t leave me alone. Teacher Hop, please…”

Peeking out from half behind the blanket, Zion’s ruby-colored eyes swayed with a pleading look… they had become something I could no longer ignore.

 

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