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“TA patient! Male in his early 30s, currently in a mental semi-coma state, and before losing consciousness, he complained of severe headache and nausea—”
“How are his vitals? That shoulder fracture doesn’t look good either… Since the patient complained of headache, let’s do a brain CT first. Just to be safe, please call the NS doctor.”
Everything felt unreal, as if from a distant dream. Even while riding in the ambulance that had arrived with blaring sirens, and after being thrown into the bustling emergency room, Jaekyung kept wondering if he had a screw loose in his head.
From the moment Jang Yeonhu kissed someone else in front of him, every moment had been a nightmare. Yet none of those nightmarish moments had been as terrifying and surreal as the reality unfolding before his eyes.
But the relentless situation wasn’t going to wait for Jaekyung to regain his composure. As the tension and anxiety in the medical staff’s expressions and voices intensified, the ominous thoughts blooming in Jaekyung’s mind also swelled.
“Doctor!! Patient’s blood pressure keeps dropping even with normal saline full drip! Currently 60/30!”
“Damn, looks like severe intra-abdominal bleeding. Just do a FAST scan and take him straight to the OR. I’ll contact anesthesiology, right now!”
“What? Without doing a CT first?”
“You want the patient to die while getting a CT? Quickly contact the guardian and get surgical consent over the phone, hurry!”
“Uh… The guardian came with the ambulance. Guardian! Jang Yeonhu’s guardian!!”
Jaekyung truly realized for the first time how crowded an emergency room could be on a weekday morning. It was a fact he never wanted to know or would have been better off not knowing.
I need to… I need to pull myself together. Han Jaekyung, get it together. This is important. Focus. Please, focus.
Compulsively repeating this to himself, he hastily stepped toward the young doctor.
“Here, I’m here. I’m his guardian.”
“What’s your relationship with the patient? You’ll need to sign the surgical consent form.”
“I’m his friend. I contacted his family on the way here, but they said it would take at least an hour. Give it to me, I’ll sign since it’s urgent.”
In life, there are moments that are simply impossible to believe. For Han Jaekyung, the traffic accident that happened just thirty minutes ago was one of those.
Unbelievably, he had finally tried to make a belated confession to Jang Yeonhu right as he was about to leave forever. He truly hadn’t intended to turn him back or stop him from leaving.
I liked you too, I’m sorry.
Since it was the last time. Though it didn’t feel real, but because it was the last time, he wanted to leave at least those simple words. So he tried to gently tug at Jang Yeonhu’s collar…
Suddenly, a compact car that appeared from around the corner was menacingly approaching Choi Eunseong, and Yeonhu, who had left with a final “just a moment,” rushed forward without giving Jaekyung a chance to hold him back.
It happened in the blink of an eye. Han Jaekyung only clearly recognized the situation when Choi Eunseong, who had fallen on his backside after being pushed by Yeonhu, screamed with a tearing voice.
The various parts of his body that had rolled carelessly across the asphalt revealed frightening injuries that would be unimaginable under normal circumstances, bright red and demanding attention. The torn skin and shoulder twisted at a grotesque angle were horrifying just to look at. Though physiological nausea welled up, he wasn’t even allowed the luxury of taking a deep breath.
Because screaming in shock and helplessly shedding tears would not resolve the situation. He decided to stop thinking. About how unbelievable it was, or how… desperate. If he remained rooted in such cumbersome thoughts, Jang Yeonhu’s life would only become more precarious. This was a time when being rational was the most emotional course of action.
Choi Eunseong, who had practically crawled toward the accident scene without the strength to stand up, clung to Yeonhu’s body, sobbing and pleading for him to get up, to regain consciousness. At that moment, Jaekyung’s mind cleared. He calmly pushed away Eunseong, who was trying to shake Yeonhu’s body, and called 119. Fortunately, there was a safety center near the airport, so the transport process was relatively quick.
Even as Choi Eunseong, who had been crying incessantly, finally fainted from dehydration, Han Jaekyung stood firmly without batting an eye.
The red letters “In Surgery” were lit up clearly. Damn it, it still didn’t feel real.
Jang Yeonhu had been in a traffic accident. And it happened on the very day he had decided to leave this country.
* * *
“Jaekyung… Our Yeonhu will be fine. Right? Why don’t you try calling him? He’ll get right up and come out, won’t he? He always listened to you.”
“…Madam.”
“This can’t be happening, my son, our Yeonhu, right? No, he’s just upset with me right now. He’s just throwing a tantrum because he’s upset, right? That’s it.”
Although the surgery had gone well, Jang Yeonhu couldn’t leave the ICU. Once again, it was Dr. Park Eunhye from Neurology who came to inform the panicked family members, Jaekyung, and Choi Eunseong, who was still acting like a criminal.
“When he was admitted after the traffic accident, he already had intra-abdominal bleeding. Since it was an emergency, we performed a laparotomy and successfully treated the bleeding, but…”
For news about a successful surgery, Dr. Park’s tone wasn’t particularly bright. The chairman and the others held their breath and waited for her to continue, seeing her apologetic demeanor.
“Since the patient complained of headache before losing consciousness, we did a brain CT after surgery and found bleeding in the brain as well.”
“What are you saying?”
Chairman Noh, who had only ever sat in a wheelchair as a pretext to avoid prosecution investigations, had difficulty accepting that his only precious grandson was still in the ICU and had not regained consciousness after the sudden accident.
“The intracranial pressure is high, so it would be best to proceed with surgery immediately. But the patient’s physical condition isn’t strong enough to withstand another surgery to open his skull.”
“Speak so I can understand, speak clearly!! Do you know how much money I pour into this hospital every year, Dr. Park!”
“…I’m sorry, Chairman.”
With his face flushed red and no time to consider appearances, the chairman’s hand finally grabbed Dr. Park’s white coat and shook it roughly. Tell your father to come out, tell that friend of the director to take responsibility and save my grandson!!
Before being doctor and patient, they were cousins who had been particularly close since childhood because they came from prestigious families. So Dr. Park must have been deeply troubled to deliver the medical update that there wasn’t much hope in Yeonhu’s current condition. Especially since it wasn’t even a case she had interfered with. The medical team had made the most rational choice to save the patient’s life, and she was merely delivering it as Yeonhu’s regular doctor.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Chairman… We’ll control the intracranial pressure with medication or other measures and wait just a little, just a tiny bit until the patient’s condition improves.”
Dr. Park’s eyelashes were inevitably getting damp as she tried her best to hold back tears. Though she looked like she might collapse at any moment, Jaekyung deliberately calmly detached the chairman from her.
“Yeonhu can endure this. He has to. So we need to endure too, Chairman. What we’re doing in front of the ICU… that’s not helping Yeonhu. You know that.”
At Jaekyung’s intervention, the chairman finally crumbled to the floor. He cried bitterly, beating his chest. That harsh old man who used to pursue his own interests with piercing eyes, disregarding others’ gazes, social norms, or ethical standards, claiming that he didn’t have many days left to live anyway. Beating his chest, literally tearing at his entire chest. Like a child, wailing.
Turning his body toward the wall so others couldn’t see, Jaekyung brushed away a few tears caught on his eyelashes. After Jang Yeonhu was lying there like that, he couldn’t show his weakness to anyone.
“This is all… because of that bastard.”
The chairman’s anger, needing someone to blame, eventually turned toward the pale Choi Eunseong.
“It’s all because of you, everything! If it weren’t for you!! You should have died instead, why my grandson, how, how dare you do this to my grandson!!”
“Ch-Chairman…”
Choi Eunseong, who seemed to have suffered mentally and only woke up around the time Yeonhu’s surgery was ending, shed tears without offering any excuses in the face of the chairman’s thunderous roar. Even to himself, it seemed like his fault, so he had nothing to say even if he had ten mouths.
“How dare you come here, what right do you have to be here!! Jaekyung, remove that thing from my sight immediately. I, I can’t stand being near such trash outside my Yeonhu’s hospital room! If it weren’t for you, why would Yeonhu have gone to the airport at that time and gotten into this mess!”
The driver who hit Yeonhu died on the spot. Jaekyung had heard from the paramedic that he was an ordinary middle-aged office worker who had returned from an overseas business trip on a morning flight, rented a car, and was heading to his hometown. What a terrible fate. That he happened to have a heart attack just as he was about to start driving.
According to the person who explained the situation, that’s why he hit Yeonhu like a raging bull that couldn’t see ahead. He had lost consciousness with his head slumped over the steering wheel while pressing the accelerator.
No matter how you looked at it, it could only be explained as having terribly bad luck, but the family’s shock and grief were too great to simply fold everything up and resolve it by blaming luck.
For that reason, those who loved Jang Yeonhu each needed someone to blame.
“Ch-Chairman… I’m sorry… If I had been less greedy, if I had broken up and stepped back when you told me to, this wouldn’t have happened, sob, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Kneeling and trembling, Choi Eunseong crawled right up to the chairman and apologized repeatedly, bowing his head.
“I’ll break up… If you tell me to break up, I will, and if you tell me to get lost, I will. I’ll do whatever you tell me to, just please let me see him wake up, just let me see Yeonhu hyung regain consciousness before I go. Please.”
‘Chairman… I, I love Yeonhu… sob… I can’t live without him. Chairman, you used to like me. You used to pity me… Can’t you just consider it charity to a beggar and let it go just once? I really, I’ll live quietly without even breathing. As long as I can be by Yeonhu’s side, that’s enough…’
The sense of déjà vu was intense. Yeonhu’s family members surrounding one person authoritatively, and a man crouching before them, clasping his hands and begging desperately.
“You’ll do whatever I tell you? Oh, well said! Just let anything happen to my grandson. I hear your grandmother is ill? I’ll make sure there’s not a single hospital in Korea that will take that old woman!”
Jaekyung, who had been holding up well until then, finally felt the suppressed nausea boiling up.
How could he not change at all? The vulgar sight of intimidating with Jaekyung’s only remaining maternal uncle and Choi Eunseong’s elderly grandmother was disgustingly similar.
“That’s enough, Chairman.”
“W-What?”
He put strength in his legs and walked to stand in front of Choi Eunseong. If everyone here was desperate to find someone to blame for Yeonhu’s accident,
“Are you deaf? I said that’s enough.”
Jaekyung’s anger would surely be directed at this old man.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
