Thinking he might have misheard, he quickly turned his head. He looked at the bed card attached above the bed over his classmates’ heads. He checked the name of the man again—a case he hadn’t bothered to look at closely since he had no interest in the hospitalization progress or surgery name.
Geun-yeong, who had been standing in the back row until now, pushed through his classmates and stepped forward. He looked at the face of the man who still had his eyes closed. Then he looked at the name again. He checked the age. And then looked at the face again.
Donghwa, who always preferred the back row and tried to remain unnoticed, wondered why his friend suddenly moved forward and stretched his neck to see what was happening. Meanwhile, the nurse who needed to administer medication within the scheduled time asked the first-year resident:
“May I insert the injection while you examine him?”
“Of course.”
At that moment, the man lying on the bed suddenly opened his eyes. Geun-yeong, who had been examining the man’s face, also widened his eyes in surprise. The man standing beside the bed said:
“Our hyung is finally awake.”
Stunned by hearing the name in such an unexpected situation, Geun-yeong lost his focus, and his notebook and pen were precariously balanced on his tilted hand.
“Excuse me.”
Geun-yeong flinched, startled by the hand pushing against his body. He firmly grabbed his items just before they fell. The nurse who had pushed past Geun-yeong and the other students took a seat beside the bed and said:
“Mr. Kyung Jiho, I’m going to insert a new needle.”
Given the situation, the gazes of the students and the first-year resident, which had been directed at the nurse, turned back to the patient. And then,
Wow…
The students were simultaneously amazed, or rather, astonished. The man’s eyes—the way he was glaring at the nurse—were, goodness, so frightening.
“What kind of injection is it?”
The man asked, almost glaring through his narrowly slit eyes.
“Antibiotics. The injection from dawn went in the wrong direction, so I removed it. I need to insert a new one.”
“Antibiotics. Can’t I take them orally?”
“No. You’re fasting. Let me see your arm.”
Wow…
The students were astonished again. Amazed. A gangster with dragon tattoos covering his body, who had come in with a stab wound on the dragon’s head, was glaring so fiercely with eyes as sharp as freshly sharpened knives, yet the nurse didn’t show the slightest intimidation or retreat. Far from backing down, she urged him again:
“Give me your arm.”
Hurry up and give me your arm.
But the tattooed gangster continued to glare without extending his arm. However, she wasn’t the type to back down and say, “That’s fine then,” or “Let’s do it another time.” A veteran nurse with considerable years of experience in the surgical ward, who had seen all kinds of people, grabbed one corner of the blanket and swiftly pulled it back.
And Geun-yeong saw it. The man’s arm flinching and withdrawing inward. Regardless, the nurse quickly found and grabbed the man’s wrist, pulling it out.
“Mmm! This arm is really good for injections!”
The nurse hummed with delight when she saw the arm with prominent tendons and veins. She tied a rubber band around the arm and tightened it. As blood pooled, the veins became even more pronounced, and the nurse’s face was illuminated with a light beyond pleasure—ecstasy. It was the expression of someone about to eat a perfectly cooled porridge.
She swabbed alcohol over the arm where success seemed 100% guaranteed even with eyes closed, and while waiting for it to dry, she opened the syringe cap. Then she lifted the needle tip to check it. Everyone in the room closed their mouths and held their breath. A moment of silence fell, and the instant the needle tip moved toward the forearm.
The man, who had been staring at the needle tip, suddenly turned his gaze, and his eyes met directly with Geun-yeong’s, who had been watching the man’s face all along. Startled, Geun-yeong finally dropped his notebook.
The man with a smooth face—naturally sharp-featured giving a scary and fierce impression, but actually lacking anything that could be called an expression—was speaking with his eyes.
It hurts like hell.
The empty fingertips that had dropped the notebook tingled. Wind blew. It was a wind that came suddenly, embarrassingly, from an utterly unexpected place.
* * *
The stab wound was said to be 3cm long. Comparing it to kitchen knives, it was the size of a sashimi knife, not a cleaver. As a man who had dragon tattoos on his upper body and got into fights where he was stabbed with sashimi knives, this strange patient—if not a gangster—quietly received the injection. Although the corner of his eyebrow twitched at the moment of insertion, no one noticed except Geun-yeong, who was staring intently at the man’s face.
The veteran nurse, unconcerned about being fiercely glared at by the narrow-eyed gangster and the thick-lidded gangster on either side, successfully inserted the needle in one go and reconnected the IV that had been disconnected.
After the nurse who had finished her task left the room, the examination that had been briefly suspended resumed. There wasn’t much to ask the young man who had no medical history, was very healthy and trouble-free, and had simply been admitted after being stabbed with a knife. The first-year resident lifted the patient’s gown just enough to expose the navel and visually examined the surgical site. The students weren’t looking at the surgical site but at the dragon’s head that seemed ready to breathe fire at any moment, and they were tense.
After completing the visual examination, the first-year resident politely lowered the clothes and even neatly arranged them while asking:
“Do you have any pain or heat sensation at the surgical site?”
A wrinkle formed between the patient’s eyebrows. He seemed to be thinking something like, “I was stabbed and cut open, am I not supposed to feel pain?” The patient, looking fiercer than before, briefly glared at the first-year resident. It might have just been a normal look. But it appeared to be a glare. So the patient asked the resident who was holding his breath:
“Am I not supposed to have pain?”
The students who were also holding their breath simultaneously looked at the first-year resident.
“No. You’ll be in p-pain. I mean, is it… bearable…?”
What would he do if it wasn’t bearable? With an expression suggesting such thoughts, the glaring patient said:
“It’s bearable.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The first-year resident bowed his head almost to his chest, leaving an inexplicable expression of gratitude, and turned to leave. The medical students followed him out.
Woo Donghwa stopped on his way out. While everyone was turning to leave, there was someone who wasn’t even thinking about picking up the notebook he had dropped earlier and was standing in a daze. Woo Donghwa took two steps back, picked up the notebook that had fallen at Geun-yeong’s feet, and whispered very quietly while pulling his arm:
“What’s wrong? Are you sick? Is it hypoglycemia?”
Finally coming to his senses, Geun-yeong blinked his eyes, which had been open for so long they were stinging. He was suddenly out of breath, as if he had forgotten to breathe. After releasing a held breath, Geun-yeong turned away from the man who was now reaching out to pick up his phone from the table.
Kyung Jiho.
Though he turned away, the image of the bed card and the name and age written on it, now imprinted in his mind, kept coming back to him.
‘Let’s meet again, Saetbyeol.’
It seemed that he was indeed that boy, that hyung, from 18 years ago.
* * *
In the year of his adoption, Geun-yeong’s age was estimated to be between six and eight years old. On his resident registration, he was registered as six years old at that time. If he had actually been eight years old then, it meant that Geun-yeong could, in fact, be two years older than Woo Donghwa and his other classmates.
And Geun-yeong himself believed he had been around eight years old at that time. This was because his memories of the year he was adopted were clear.
Of course, whether he was six or eight, it’s not common for memories from that age to remain vivid after 18 years. But Ji Geun-yeong could do it. It was thanks to his ability to remember everything as if there was a camera inside his head. An ability given by someone—whether it was Buddha, God, or Allah, whoever is generally called a deity—perhaps out of guilt for abandoning him as a baby and afflicting him with a terrible disease that required him to be pricked with needles for life. Whether it was a gift or a curse was unknown. He had lived thinking it was a gift until now, but currently considered it a curse.
Geun-yeong, being pulled along with his arm in Donghwa’s grip, stopped walking. Although still in a daze, he had been quietly allowing himself to be dragged along, but when he suddenly became heavy, Donghwa turned back with a puzzled expression and asked:
“What?”
“Donghwa, I… need to go to the bathroom.”
With a face that would have a speech bubble saying “Huh?” if it were possible, Donghwa tilted his head, lowered his gaze to look at Geun-yeong’s stomach, and Geun-yeong quickly raised his hand to touch his lower abdomen. Stomach hurts.
“Ah. Number two?”
Geun-yeong nodded, and Donghwa released his arm. Looking around to make sure there were no listening ears, Woo Donghwa put his hand to his mouth and whispered:
“Just get rid of the urgent stuff quickly, and if nothing else comes out, just finish up and come out. Don’t sit there waiting until you feel completely relieved, man. Everyone’s waiting for you. The first-year won’t give a proper explanation without you there. Got it?”
So many words just to let someone go to the bathroom. Geun-yeong gave a slight smile and quickly turned away.
Coincidentally, the public restroom near the break room was also in that direction. Geun-yeong, who returned the way he came without arousing much suspicion, didn’t go to the public restroom that was a bit further away but instead re-entered the hospital room he had just left.
It was a two-bed room, and since so many people—nurses and doctors—came in and out without knocking, no one paid attention when Geun-yeong entered. Unlike before, the man, Kyung Jiho, now sitting up with the upper part of the bed raised, was conversing with the man sitting on the folding bed.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
