The man, who had pulled up Geun-yeong’s t-shirt to his chest even though the insulin pump was on his stomach, placed his dry, rough hand on Geun-yeong’s chest. The hand that had been placed on the center of his chest soon began to move from side to side, gradually widening the angle. The hand moving in a wide arc was touching his nipples as it moved back and forth. After going back and forth for a while, the hand stopped over his left nipple.
“Isn’t the clinical training hard?”
“…Yes.”
Geun-yeong tried to stop himself from visualizing the man’s actions that he could feel on his chest. And to prevent any expression from showing, he had to clench his molars tightly.
“Hmm… I see.”
With a single word that couldn’t hide his quickened and deepened breathing, the fingers that had been grabbing, pressing, and rubbing his nipple were withdrawn. Geun-yeong opened his eyes slightly. The man’s hand had returned to his stomach. He was removing the shield with the needle attached. Hiding a sigh, Geun-yeong closed his eyes again.
For people wearing insulin pumps, the moment of changing the insulin needle is probably a brief time when they can breathe. They use that time to take baths, try on tight clothes they usually can’t wear. They pour out sighs that have been pent up for three days, enjoying a brief moment of freedom. With the comfort of those momentarily happy memories, they endure the next 72 hours, a prison without bars.
But Geun-yeong hated this time when the needle was removed and he was separated from the machine.
“Geun-yeong… haah…”
Because when he leaves the prison, hell awaits.
“Let’s see… haah… if there’s any pain… anywhere…”
Geun-yeong would rather stay in prison. He was stripped naked by the man who had kept him alive when he was abandoned, who still keeps him alive, and whom he has to call father. The man’s lips and tongue were going over Geun-yeong’s chest, stomach, and below, as he lay on top of Geun-yeong like a dog.
‘Good and diligent ant. If you’re having a hard time, just reach out your hand.’
The man who had been examining him by licking and tasting his skin got up. He unbuttoned his shirt, took off his pants, and removed his underwear. Now naked like Geun-yeong, he opened a gray box.
Geun-yeong knew what was in the box. Insulin directly provided through a pharmaceutical company, needles for the insulin pump, shields, and lubricant. The man pushed aside the materials for replacing the insulin pump and took out the lubricant.
“Let’s see… our Geun-yeong… haah… let’s check if there’s anything wrong inside your stomach…”
Geun-yeong tried to reach out his hand, avoiding the man’s body that was pressed skin to skin against him, spreading his legs.
‘I’ll be the wind you can breathe, staying by your side.’
There was no wind. It was all lies.
‘If you don’t get injections, your blood will become sticky like sugar water. Bacteria that cause terrible diseases love sweet, sticky blood.’
That was the answer he received when he asked why he had to have a needle in his stomach.
‘When sticky blood blocks your veins, your feet will rot and turn black. And later, they’ll have to cut them off.’
That was the answer he received when he asked why they had to painfully prick his fingers.
Geun-yeong wasn’t afraid of ghosts or spirits whose existence he had never felt. His greatest fear was that if he didn’t perfectly control his blood sugar every moment of every day, over time his feet would rot and eventually be amputated—future events connected to the present.
‘To treat your disease, I need to know your body deeply, to its innermost parts.’
When they first had sex. When he said he was scared, it hurt, and asked if they couldn’t not do it, that was the answer he received. While stroking and comforting the head of the young boy who couldn’t hold back his tears, the man said that.
‘I’m the only person in this world who can treat your disease and keep you alive.’
Back then, he wanted to keep living. If possible, he wanted to live normally, walking on two legs. He had that desire. So Geun-yeong had to spread his legs. He had no choice but to do as the man told him. He had to endure the frightening, terrifying, and painful act. Please let me live. I want to live.
Now he knows that the words that came from the man’s mouth were exaggerations meant to frighten him. He knows there’s no need to be this thorough. He also knows it doesn’t have to be this man. And now, he doesn’t particularly want to live longer than others with a perfectly healthy body.
He could push away the body coming down on him with force, or swat away the hands spreading his legs. But even now, Geun-yeong does as the man wants.
It’s not because he wants to live. It’s because he doesn’t really want to live anymore. He couldn’t think of a reason to refuse something that had continued for over a decade and become a habit, and he couldn’t be bothered with the arguments that would arise. He thought, what does it matter if it’s like this or like that?
Above all, he wanted that person who had told him lies, not truths, to know. To know that the child from back then had lived like this. That he had lived, even like this. He wanted the person who had made him want to live to know.
As the wait grew longer, resentment grew in his heart that had begun to go astray. Even while knowing it wasn’t that person’s fault, he blamed that person. He hoped that by resenting that person, he would come to hate them, and then eventually stop waiting.
So Geun-yeong received the lips and genitals of the man he had to call father.
Once the act began, closing his eyes was useless. Looking at the ceiling that shook as the man held his waist, he resented that person in his increasingly fading memories.
And someday, even resentment would become futile. Geun-yeong was waiting for that day.
Track 2. Forgotten
Fifth-year medical students, third-year in the regular course, commonly called PK (clinical practice students), often say that general surgery practice is the most impressive. There aren’t many difficult diseases that give you a headache just hearing their names, and most are trauma patients, with the added entertainment of hearing how they got injured.
“The patient we’re going to see now was admitted through the emergency room last night. The diagnosis is Right low abdomen stab, resulting in Caecum Rupture.”
As medical terms poured out of the mouth of the first-year resident leading the way down the corridor, the clinical students following closely behind began busily writing in their practice notes. Some wrote down words they didn’t understand in Korean, just as they heard them. But Geun-yeong just let the words that entered his ears flow by.
‘Right lower abdomen stab wound resulting in caecum rupture.’
It wasn’t something worth writing down. But not wanting to stand out from the group, he pretended to write like his busy-handed classmates.
The first-year resident, who glanced over at the ‘pretend writing’ of Professor Ji Seokhun’s only son, thought for a moment about what more to say before continuing.
“It’s not a difficult surgery, but the doctor on duty who operated yesterday said he really sweated.”
Seeing eight eyeballs asking ‘Why?’, the first-year resident showed a mischievous smile, as if teasing whether to tell them or not, and said:
“The guy has a dragon wrapped around his body, and as luck would have it, the place they needed to cut to take out the appendix was right at the dragon’s head. Since they couldn’t just cut off the dragon’s head, they took great pains to make the incision following the outline of the tattoo so it wouldn’t be noticeable. What a headache, seriously.”
Woo Donghwa, who couldn’t contain his curiosity, asked after the first-year resident’s explanation that ended with a snort and a click of the tongue:
“Is he a… gangster?”
“Huh? Yeah. His occupation is listed as ‘civil servant,’ but someone with a dragon wrapped around their entire body can’t be a police officer, so he’s obviously a gangster. What gangster would honestly say they’re a gangster when asked about their occupation at a hospital? Whether they’re thugs, gangsters, or unemployed, they all just say they’re civil servants, company employees, or self-employed.”
Three heads nodded simultaneously. Geun-yeong also nodded along, roughly keeping in time so as not to stand out.
Meanwhile, they arrived at the hospital room, and the first-year resident and four clinical students poured into the room.
The first thing that caught their eye was a man sitting on a folding bed next to the hospital bed, looking up at the TV hanging on the wall. Thanks to his developed trapezius muscles, his neck looked short. And the man’s forearms were as thick as other people’s thighs.
As if by agreement, everyone there swallowed dry saliva at the same time.
The man who had been watching TV sensed their presence and turned his head. He had a fierce look that matched his closely shaved hairstyle. The gazes that had been fixed on the man exuding gangster energy from his entire body quickly scattered in all directions.
Moving his eyes carefully between thick single eyelids, the man surveyed what kind of doctors there were so many of, and spoke to the doctor at the very front, as all the doctors simultaneously turned their heads in different directions.
“Our big brother is sleeping.”
The first-year resident and the clinical students sighed in unison. Ah, inwardly, of course. The low, slow speech with a strong dialect accent matched perfectly with the energy he was exuding with his whole body, which is why they sighed.
The eyes that had scattered to avoid the gaze of the strange man, if not a gangster, turned to the man lying on the hospital bed.
Yes. The man who had suffered a stab wound near the dragon’s head and had his appendix burst was sleeping. Now everyone’s gaze turned to the first-year resident in charge. Wondering what he was going to do.
The first-year resident, receiving the gazes of everyone gathered here, including the man who was perfectly gangster-like in his expression, eyes, and even speech, pondered for a moment.
He came to receive the handover for a new patient who had been admitted at dawn after emergency surgery from the night shift and to conduct an initial examination, but he couldn’t wake the sleeping person. Especially not a man who was being called “hyung” by another man covered in dragon tattoos and exuding gangster energy. Just then, “Mr. Kyung Jiho?”
A bright voice in G note was heard. The medical students and first-year resident simultaneously turned their heads toward the sound. It was a nurse who had brought syringes on a tray.
And Geun-yeong doubted his ears.
Kyung Jiho?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
