I Risked My Life To Save The Cheeky Girl, And As A Result, I Lost My Right Arm.

The Day I Lost My Arm (Part 2).

The first thing I heard was the monotonous beeping of a heart monitor.

“Beep… Beep… Beep…”

Slowly, I opened my heavy eyelids, and the blurred faces of my mom and dad came into view.

“Reijiro! Thank goodness! You’re awake!”

“Reijiro! Do you recognize us? Do you know who we are?”

Their faces were streaked with tears, their voices trembling with relief and desperation.

Every part of my body ached with a dull, throbbing pain, and a weight seemed to press down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

“Where… am I?”

My voice was barely more than a whisper, hoarse and fragile.

“You’re in the hospital,” my dad replied, his voice wavering.

“You’ve been unconscious for a whole week. Do you have any idea how worried you made us?”

“A week…?”

The word echoed in my mind, pulling me back to the fragments of memories I had—standing in the street, the car speeding toward us, Hasegawa.

Hasegawa.

My heart jolted.

Was she okay? Did I save her in time?

But then, a sharp, throbbing pain in my right arm pulled me back to the present. The ache was unlike anything I had ever felt, concentrated and searing.

“Hhhhh……”

Instinctively, I tried to soothe the pain, moving my left hand to touch my right arm.

But I couldn’t find it.

Confused, I ran my left hand over the area where my arm should have been, searching for the source of the pain.

My fingers found nothing.

“What…”

I turned my head to look.

And then, my breath caught in my throat.

My right arm—everything from the shoulder down—was gone.

It wasn’t there.

At first, I thought my vision was still blurred, that I wasn’t seeing things correctly. But no matter how many times I blinked, the result was the same.

My right arm was gone.

“What… what is this…?!”

I clutched at my shoulder with my left hand, feeling the blunt end where my arm should have been.

“No! No! My arm! My arm’s gone! Why?! Why is it gone?!”

“Reijiro!”

“Reijiro, calm down!”

My parents tried to hold me down as I thrashed, overcome by the crushing reality of what I’d just discovered.

“No! No! No! My arm! My arm! It’s gone! It’s gone! Aaaaahhhhhh!”

The room filled with my screams, the sound echoing endlessly in my ears as despair consumed me.

It took over three hours for me to calm down.

The moment I fully grasped that my right arm was gone, a stinging pain seemed to radiate from the stump.

But more than the physical pain, it was the sheer shock of losing my arm that overwhelmed me.

It wasn’t about the inconveniences or how hard life would become. It was the crushing reality of the loss itself that plunged me into despair.

(My arm… My arm is gone.)

It felt as though a massive hole had been carved out in my heart—a hollow emptiness, like the grief of losing a dear friend. A loss I couldn’t find the words to describe.

“Reijiro, I’m just so relieved… so relieved that you’re alive.”

“That’s right. You’re lucky to have survived… that’s what matters.”

Mom and Dad hardly mentioned my missing arm. Perhaps they thought avoiding the topic would spare me further emotional pain.

In truth, I was grateful for that. The wound was too fresh, too sensitive to touch. But even their well-meaning reassurances about my survival felt like a burden, too heavy to bear right now.

“Reijiro, is there anything you want? Should I go buy something for you?”

Hearing Dad’s offer, I shook my head lightly and muttered, “I’m fine.”

“More than that… I just… I need to be alone for a while.”

“…”

At my request, the two of them stood up silently and left the room.

Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…

Once again, the sound of the heart monitor echoed in my ears.

In the eerie quiet, my dazed mind drifted as I stared blankly at the stark white ceiling.

Knock, knock.

At that moment, the door to the hospital room was knocked on. I responded with a simple, “Come in,” and the door slowly opened.

It was Hasegawa who entered. Standing beside her was a woman, likely her mother.

“Hell…o, my name is Hasegawa. I apologize… for the trouble… my daughter…, Yuzu, has caused…”

Hasegawa’s mother spoke in a voice that seemed on the verge of tears.

“………………”

I didn’t want to see her, to be honest… right now, I didn’t want to face Hasegawa.

Even though I had taken the initiative, it had resulted in such a severe accident that I had lost my arm. If I weren’t careful, I might end up saying something harsh to Hasegawa. I wasn’t calm enough to handle it.

So, I quietly wished they could just leave…

“………………”

That’s when I looked at Hasegawa’s face and froze.

Her right cheek was bright red and swollen. It looked as though she had just been slapped there.

The usual teasing aura she had when she joked around with me was nowhere to be found. Her eyes were hollow, the light gone from them.

“Yuzu! You—! What are you—!”

Hasegawa’s mother slapped her hard across the face. The loud sound of the slap echoed through the room.

“Why can’t you even apologize at a time like this?! Seriously! You… you really—!!”

Hasegawa was slapped over and over again by her mother, but she didn’t say a word.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?! Do you even realize… how much… how much…!!”

“………………”

Hasegawa was like a punching bag, enduring the blows in silence.