Downstairs stood a girl in a white sundress.

She looked up at Reginald with reddened eyes, her face full of grief.

"So I guess we're not watching the World Cup after all, are we? Then I'll go first."

The girl ran off, eyes brimming, and for a moment Reginald tensed as if to call her back, but in the end no sound left his throat.

"Wait here for me a second."

After two minutes of hesitation, Reginald set me down at the door and chased after her.

He ran so fast he never noticed his phone slip out of his pocket.

I wheeled my chair over, picked it up, and meant to bring it to him.

Only to catch Reginald and the girl arguing at the corner.

"Didn't we agree? That once you got back, you'd tell her the truth, and end things clean?"

"You have your own life. You shouldn't be dragged down by her forever."

Reginald fell silent.

The girl bit her lip and watched him, tears spilling over.

"Say something. Didn't you tell me you had feelings for me?"

"You said Priscilla Fox was an independent person, that you were willing to take this step for me."

"If you don't say it now, are you really going to let her tie you down for the rest of your life?"

"Reginald, I know how exhausted you are right now. You're on the edge of falling apart."

"Better a short pain than a long one…"

But he kept his head down, silent for a long while, before choking out a single line.

"I'm sorry. I can't abandon Priscilla."

"The way she is now, she can't survive without me. May McClain, it's me who isn't good enough for you."

Fat tears rolled down the girl's face. Her heart was clearly shattered, and she ran off in disappointment.

Reginald watched her figure disappear, and still he didn't leave.

He slammed a fist against the wall, a smothered sob catching in his throat.

What a fool.

You're in that much pain, so why won't you just throw me away?

Back then, when I saved you, all I ever wanted was for you to be okay.

That night, Reginald wheeled my chair back to the little courtyard in his hometown.

"Let's stay here a couple of days. There's no gas line in the old house."

Reginald was afraid I'd try again, that I'd turn on the gas and end my life.

For dinner he cooked a couple of extra dishes. I barely touched a bite, and he hardly picked up his chopsticks either.

He just kept pouring glass after glass of liquor down his throat.

Ever since I'd turned on the gas and failed to die,

he hadn't said a single word of blame to me.

But the pain and the misery seeped out of him, from the very marrow of his bones.

And it left a bitter ache in me too.

Watching him suffer, I suddenly spoke.

"Reginald."

"Don't worry about me anymore. Just leave me behind."

Reginald froze for a moment.

The next second he shot me a sour look and glared as he said,

"I'd love to leave you behind."

"But every time I think about how you lost your leg because of me, I can't bring myself to do it."

He raked his fingers through his hair in agitation.

"So many times, I've wondered—why wasn't I the one hit in that accident?"

"If I were the one who'd lost a leg,"

"maybe I wouldn't be this miserable now."

I seemed to turn that last sentence over and over, sinking into thought.

Miserable?

That first year, whenever Reginald looked at my severed leg, his eyes would redden every time.

"Priscilla, I've wronged you. I owe you."

"If you hadn't rushed in to save me,"

"the one lying here today, without both legs, would've been me."

"I can never repay what I owe you, not in this lifetime. I'll take care of you forever."

But the moment he said those words, I turned him down.

"Carrying another person's whole life on your shoulders. It wears you down."

"Reginald, I saved you because I chose to. I never wanted to guilt you into it, never wanted to hold some debt over you."

"How about this. Just put me in a nursing home."

But Reginald refused, flat out.

"Don't be so cruel to me, Priscilla."

"Let me stay by your side and take care of you."

"This isn't suffering for me. It's redemption."

But now, that redemption had turned into suffering, completely and utterly.

And this relationship should have ended too.

I don't know how many bottles Reginald put away that night.

I don't know how many times I said I was sorry.

Until he was so drunk he could barely stay conscious.

He gripped my hand and asked.

"If you could do it all over again, would you still save me in that accident?"

I nodded without hesitation.

Of course I would.

Even if it left me crippled. Even if it cost me my life.

I would never let anything happen to Reginald.

But he pushed me away, a bitter little laugh on his lips.

"If I could do it over again."

"I'd shove you away as hard as I could."

"Priscilla Fox, I don't want to owe you anymore."

Looking into his eyes, I froze for a moment.

Then something in my nose stung sharp.

So it turned out they were right after all.

A great kindness becomes a great grudge.

I never once meant to trap Reginald with the debt of what I'd done.

I only, only wanted to keep him from getting hurt.

And yet, in the end, he was the one I'd trapped.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

If that was how it was.

Then in the next life, I'll keep my distance. I won't save you again.

Reginald was dead to the world.

But the tears kept sliding from the corners of his eyes, on and on.

His heart was full of bitterness.

If I go two days without changing the bedding, sores break out on my skin.

My stomach is weak too. Prepackaged meals always upset it, always leave me doubled over with cramps.

So Reginald cooked every single meal for me with his own hands.

And then there were the medical bills, the enormous ones.

After I lost my leg, my parents cut all ties with me and moved abroad.

The last thing they said to me was this.

"As far as we're concerned, we never had this daughter."

So in this whole country, all I had left was Reginald.

He couldn't stand to watch me rot in the mud like some useless thing.

So he worked himself half to death, earning money, then came home and cared for me day and night.

No matter how exhausted other people get, at least they have room to rest.

But he'd been chained to me, this dead weight, for three years.

Never once able to catch his breath.

"Don't cry, Reginald. It's all my fault..."

I turned my wheelchair gently and stopped beside him.

Carefully I reached out to wipe away his tears.

But he caught my hand on instinct.

"May, don't go..."

"Don't leave me."

I went still, my expression frozen along with me.

May. May McClain.

That was the name of the girl from earlier that day.

I'd heard they met while he was working one of his side jobs.

Reginald worked himself to the bone at those jobs to earn my medical bills.

All so he could fit me with the most expensive prosthetic leg.

And him, working that hard, shining bright in the middle of the crowd, that was exactly what caught May's eye.

May was a college student who'd come back from studying abroad.

They were kindred spirits who fell for each other at first sight.

They'd often have lunch together, take walks together.

They'd even talk about their dreams for the future, their philosophies of life.

I knew that, to pursue Reginald.

May had given up the whole prestige of being a returnee from studying abroad.

She'd actually gone and taken a part-time job at a coffee shop right downstairs from our place.

Just so she could see Reginald Gilbert every single day.

That was it.

Even the mug I'd broken by accident.

It was the one May McClain had given him with her own hands, on his birthday.

No wonder he'd been so furious when it shattered.

I even remembered how, every time he took me out for a walk.

Reginald always made a small detour, bringing me to sit for a while at that café.

He'd order only the cheapest coffee on the menu.

Sipping it in tiny sips, drinking it slowly, so slowly.

When we left, May would chase after us and press a paper bag into his hands, saying it held fresh-baked cinnamon rolls.

When Reginald took it, his ears went red.

Yet all he gave was a polite, gentlemanly thank-you.

I sat in my wheelchair, tilting my head up to look at the side of his face.

And that little ache in my chest, I forced it back down.

The truth was, I should have known long ago.

The moment May McClain appeared.

Reginald had stopped belonging to me.

And I couldn't use the fact that I'd saved his life.

To bind him to my side by force.

He was born to be a bird that soars a thousand miles; he should fly toward the sky that belonged to him.

So that night, while Reginald was in the shower, I dug through his contacts and reached out to May.

"Hello, is this May?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Priscilla Fox."

The other end went silent for a moment.

"What do you want from me?"

"Could we meet in person?"

Sitting across from me at the café, May was so lovely to look at.

"I only think of Reginald as a brother."

"I think… he should have his own life, a home, a career of his own."

"May, could you help me talk him into it? Into giving me up?"

May let out a cold little laugh.

The look she gave me carried a trace of hostility.

"Aren't you the one who's been clinging to him all this time, holding your life-saving debt over his head?"

"Are you really that kind-hearted?"

I lowered my head.

"I never wanted to cling to him."

"Before, it was my fault. I held Reginald's whole life back."

"But now, I'm letting him go."

The guardedness and hostility in May's eyes slowly faded.

"So you do have a conscience after all."

In the days that followed.

Reginald came home later and later.

And the smiles on his face grew more and more.

When he went to shower, I leaned in close and smelled his clothes—there was a faint trace of perfume.

Exactly the same scent I'd caught on May that day at the café.

Reginald still did all the things that came with caring for me, every day.

But his movements grew more and more mechanical, like a robot running a preset program.

When he wiped me down.

He no longer spoke to me, just kept his head down and worked.

When he massaged my legs, he was rushed too; sometimes he'd finished before I even registered it.

Then he'd take a call and hurry off again.

Even on my birthday, he was out the entire day.

From the moment the sun rose, I'd been praying quietly in my heart.

"Please, please."

"Please let Reginald remember that today is my birthday, all right?"

"Let me have the last birthday cake of my life."

Every year before, Reginald would buy me a big cake for my birthday and let me make a wish.

But this time, I waited from before dawn until the sky went dark, praying quietly all the while.

And that cake never came.

Neither did Reginald.

At ten that night, I only got a phone call from him, full of apology.

"Sorry, Priscilla, I was busy working today and forgot to come home to make you dinner."

"There's some leftover rice in the fridge. Just heat it up and eat."