Strategic Mating Partner Chapter 110

There would be no smoke without a fire, so could it be that there was truly some kind of catalyst for everything? People who knew Taehyun well knew that since his failure in the last Olympics, he had been living like a monk, repeating only training and rehabilitation without any joy in life, but those who only vaguely knew his face or did not know him well could have such misunderstandings. What was visible on the surface was only that he was well-connected and had a wide network of acquaintances, so he was on good terms with people in the broadcasting industry. Some people even thought that it might not be impossible, since he must have met many celebrities in reality.

Regardless of all that, Taehyun had no energy to care about anything else as the anxiety he had managed to forget was rekindled.

🤺

“Ah, shoot…. Just a moment.”

Right after the quarterfinal match finally ended. As soon as he left the arena, Taehyun almost collapsed onto a waiting area chair and kept fiddling with his ankle. On the outside, there did not seem to be anything seriously wrong yet, but that familiar, tiresome tingling had worsened to a level that could no longer be ignored.

“Wait, don’t touch it anymore and let’s go get an X-ray right now. It doesn’t look swollen, but you never know.”

At the coach’s words, uttered with a face full of worry, Taehyun did not refuse any further and obediently nodded his head. There was no point in insisting and holding out here.

‘Well, I’ve made it to the semifinals at least….’

Just one more step to the finals. He had barely climbed up to a point where he had a chance to stay within medal contention even if he lost the next match. There was nowhere to retreat from here. If there had been no possibility from the start, it would be a different story, but he had not endured all that long time just to sit down and give up with only one step left. In any case, Taehyun was grateful that the pain was still at a level where he could put his weight on it and support himself. Though even if it had been worse, he would have ignored it and competed anyway.

“Can you walk by yourself? Should I ask them to prepare a wheelchair right away, just in case?”

When the coach asked while glancing toward where the head coach was, Taehyun immediately shook his head. Of course, it was right to spare his ankle even a little, but the pain was not that severe, and besides, there was nothing to be gained by leaving room for it to become an issue. If Taehyun, who was already receiving a great deal of attention for whether he could win a medal or not, were to be featured in an article in a wheelchair, he could be bashed for things he did not even do, with comments like ‘Is he using the injury excuse again this time?’ or ‘Isn’t he already pulling strings because he thinks he won’t win?’ So it was better to pass it over quietly, pretending it was no big deal. Even if it was impossible to completely hide the fact that there was something wrong with his ankle, with the press swarming everywhere.

“No, I’ll just walk. It’s just a slight tingling, it’s not severe, so I’m fine.”

Even if he was not fine, he had to be fine. Taehyun took a deep breath, placing a hand on the wall, and then slowly took a step. His gait, which was noticeably heavier than before the match, seemed to be quite conspicuous.

“Could you perhaps cover me a little? Not too obviously, I think it would be good if you could stand this way.”

Taehyun pulled the coach, consciously trying to make his injury less apparent.

“Oh, right. That would be better.”

The remaining matches, whether he won or lost the next one, would be two. It was only natural that there was nothing to be gained by openly revealing an injury. The potential opponents had already been narrowed down to a handful, and all of them would be considering Taehyun as the opponent to be most wary of.

“Don’t push yourself to endure it, and if you can’t, tell me. I’ll ask for wheelchair support. Being a little conspicuous is better than making it worse.”

“I told you, it’s not that bad.”

It would be okay. When he first started rehabilitation, it was much worse than this. He had endured it back then and come this far, so it was not yet time to collapse.

However, once he actually got examined and the test results came out, the situation changed. The interpreter, with a troubled expression, stood between Taehyun and the doctor, translating the doctor’s explanation.

“He says the condition is worse than it looks. You see the inflammation here? This part is the ligament, and this area around it is currently filled with inflammation, which is causing the bone and joint to melt.”

His desperate wish for it to be just a minor dip in his physical condition was rendered meaningless; his condition had drastically worsened from the last time he was examined. Taehyun, caught off guard by the unexpected thunderbolt, could not hide his bewilderment and asked with a dumbfounded face.

“Wait, a moment…. Does that mean I can’t even compete in the next match right now?”

Even if it had worsened, he had not expected it to be this bad. It was a bolt from the blue. It had not even hurt that much in the first place? The pain had not been severe, and while there had been an issue that could be alleviated with a massage, if the inflammation had progressed this seriously, he had barely felt the pain that would have naturally accompanied it. It was only today that he had detected an undeniable pain, making him think, ‘Is there really something wrong with my ankle?’ and now they were telling him his bone was melting. When Taehyun asked with a face of disbelief, the interpreter exchanged a few words with the doctor and then spoke again.

“I think that’s something you, the athlete, will have to choose. The reason you haven’t felt much pain until now is that pain, in the end, is something you can only feel when your nerve response is alive. In your case, he says that the inflammation has been constantly present for several years, with relapses and recovery repeating, so a lot of the nerves have probably died in the process.”

So, the reason it had not hurt until now was not that he was perfectly fine, but that his ankle was breaking down, and even the nerves that would make him conscious of it were dying. Taehyun knew there was no point in asking this, but he could not give up so pathetically and asked again.

“The test results weren’t that bad just two months ago. Is it possible for it to worsen this quickly?”

Something had to be wrong. The results must have been switched with another athlete’s… or the X-ray was temporarily taken incorrectly…. He clung to a sliver of hope, but the answer that came back was utterly cold.

“In your case, it’s not a sudden injury, but a chronic condition that has been repeating relapse and rehabilitation, so he says it’s a common case for it to suddenly worsen drastically depending on your condition.”

The interpreter, who had to deliver such disheartening news, also looked quite troubled. With the situation crashing down on him like an unexpected natural disaster, his vision went dark, and Taehyun pressed his forehead and closed his eyes. For now… he was not at a point where he could not stand. On top of that, if he threw in every kind of legally permissible painkiller, it would not be impossible to at least stand in the next match.

The problem was what came after. If he won here, he would advance to the final, the gold-silver medal match, and if he lost here, he would still have to compete in the bronze medal match. If the next match were to be his last, he absolutely had to seize victory to secure a medal. Because if he lost the next match and then automatically withdrew from the subsequent bronze medal match, he would be out of medal contention. Taehyun broke into a cold sweat for a moment, wiping his dry face, then gathered his resolve and asked.

“So, what you’re saying is that I’m not in a state where competing is impossible, right?”

When Taehyun asked again with eyes that showed his firm resolve, the answer came back right away through the interpreter.

“He says that if you can accept the risk of possibly having permanent aftereffects, you could just get a prescription for painkillers for now and receive treatment after the competition is over.”

Permanent aftereffects? At the sudden story, Taehyun’s eyebrows twitched once more.

“Aftereffects?”

“Yes, if you look, your ankle bone is… as I explained earlier, it’s in a state of being melted by the inflammation, so it’s barely holding on. He says that if a large physical impact is applied here, this part could snap and break. In a normal person’s case, bone is a part that can regenerate and recover to some extent, so it would heal after being immobilized and resting for a few months, but in your case, the inflammation is so severe that you would have to undergo surgery to scrape that part out, implant an artificial bone, and fix it with a metal pin.”

As Taehyun nodded his head silently, the interpreter continued the explanation with a solemn expression, as if he himself felt sorry while speaking.

“The ligament is already damaged, so if you undergo surgery on top of that, the flexibility will decrease significantly, which could make your walking unnatural or make it difficult to run like you do now…. He says this is a recommended surgery regardless of the remaining matches, even if it doesn’t break. Since in your current state, you’ve been enduring with willpower, but it could be difficult to carry on with daily life…. Still, he says that proceeding with it now would be better than becoming completely reliant on an artificial bone, as it would preserve as much of your own bone as possible….”

So, he was being told to choose for himself. Whether to withdraw here and try to minimize the expected aftereffects, or to push ahead with the competition, merely blocking the immediate pain and accepting the risk of much greater aftereffects.