An Unwitting Crush

"Mmm. This counts as a success, doesn't it?"

"Absurd as it is, I'd say it succeeded beautifully."

"Hehe. I did graduate second in my med school class, you know. Ahn Hae-young was first, but that girl is a monster."

"You did well. As a reward, I'll cook."

Dae-han took the probe from So-yul's hands, finished putting everything away for her, and led her downstairs. He left her to play with the dogs, Mallow and Beancake, tied on a blue apron better suited to a woodshop, and started to cook.

"Doctor, I really was going to treat you to a meal. Even if it was just delivery..."

"Enough. Eat."

It was olive-oil pasta, and it was outrageously good.

"How are you this good at cooking?"

"Get yourself deployed somewhere with nothing, and you learn to supply yourself. Food, and everything else. If you want to eat again, come back. Did you write down my days off?"

"Oh, come on. You're really going to be like this to the very end. I'll buy you a proper meal outside sometime, I mean it. I owe you in full for saving my brother's life. And mine."

"All right. I'll look forward to it."

Around sunset, after a long, warm goodbye to his animals, she left Kang Dae-han's house. Her bag held a fat bundle of condoms for practice, taken from him. The moment she had asked for them, he had wordlessly packed a portable ultrasound into the bag with his own hands.

"He really is admirable."

So-yul resettled her crossbody bag and murmured it to herself. Looking at Kang Dae-han always left her thinking the same thing. She had been worn thin through pre-med, medical school, and internship, and yet one sight of Doctor Kang brought back a dream she had forgotten. The feeling she had carried when she first longed to become a doctor rose until her heart raced. It had been that way all day, every minute she spent beside him. Was this what people meant by a role model?

"I'm going to get close to him and learn every single thing."

So-yul went lightly down the alley in Itaewon-dong, nearly skipping. In her bag the condoms jostled in a wild clatter, oblivious to the storm they had left behind in someone else's chest.

The place Ong So-yul had left.

Kang Dae-han took a can of beer from the fridge and poured it down his open throat the way another man might chug a yogurt drink.

"Haa. My fucking legs."

Strength drained from legs that had never once faltered on a battlefield. He caught the kitchen island and stayed on his feet, and Mallow and Beancake came to sit side by side in front of him, watching.

"You two saw that, right? How fucking cute and pretty she is?"

"Screwed!"

"Screwed, screwed!"

Yeah. Just like that doomed little bark, he had very nearly been screwed, standing there in front of Dr. Ong.

"And then you go and knock over a box of condoms. Gentlemen. Do you have any idea what you just did to that image?"

The moment it came back to him, he cracked another beer and poured that one down too. He would rather have gotten drunk, but his tolerance was too mean for beer to so much as announce itself. He was not a man who created embarrassing scenes to begin with, and still this one would have him kicking the blankets for years.

I flash my dick at her, and then I make her stare at a mountain of condoms.

"No chews today. Paws up. On your feet. Execute."

"Yipe."

"Eeee."

The brother-and-sister pups understood every word as if it had been meant for them, and the sight softened him all over again. He brought the whole bag of chews and gave one each to Shiba and Ski, the two adults waiting outside.

"I'll let it go this once. Next time that big sister comes over, what are you supposed to do?"

"Woof! Woof!"

"Right. No trouble. Behave, so she'll want to come back. Got it? Learn from Mom and Dad. Shiba and Ski earned the credit today."

He stroked the fluffy dogs and pressed the tangle of feeling down until it settled. He had known it for certain when they were locked in the X-ray room. Shut into a sealed space, he hadn't been anxious at all—if anything, body and mind had only grown steadier. Her nose buried in his tie as she sniffled. Those round eyes turned up at him.

There wasn't one part of her that failed to be cute. For all that he was, contrary to every hard line of his face, a man who lost his mind over cute things, he had never once thought it of a human being.

The instant he happened to see Ong So-yul at Han River Park, the instinct to take her home had surged up on its own. He couldn't name the feeling. He had been buried in the military without ever really knowing a woman, so he had nothing to hold it against. Was it only the wish to keep a cute living thing beside him and look at her? Or was it something filthy—plain lust?

Or else.

"No way."

The possibility that he had actually fallen for a woman.

Whatever it was, one thing was certain. He wanted Ong So-yul at his side, where he could watch her.

Rrrrr.

Dae-han picked up the phone that had chosen that moment to ring and answered.

"So Joo-won. You son of a bitch. You're the one who left an entire box of condoms in my room yesterday, aren't you?"

So Joo-won's drink-loosened voice went bright with laughter, blissfully unaware of anyone else's turmoil. He was the sort who turned up at Dae-han's house unannounced the moment he landed back in the country. Where Dae-han had no experience with women at all, Joo-won was a playboy several times over, and now and then his jokes crossed a line. The box of condoms had been exactly that.

"Oh, I used them. Fucking handy, too."

The instant he had seen the condoms heaped up, the only thought in his head was that he couldn't let her misunderstand, so he had demonstrated some ridiculous procedure.

"Doctor, mind if I take some condoms? For practice!"

The innocent little honor-student chick had swallowed it whole and carried them off, bright with the promise that she was going to practice.

"Enough. You filthy fucking whore. Lay one finger on the girl next door and that day is the day you die."

In public he spoke like a soldier, upright and hard-edged, but with his friends the filter came all the way off and the language was raw. Thoroughly pissed because of So Joo-won, right now was no exception.

He hung up. Without his knowing it, Kang Dae-han's eyes had filled with possessiveness.

It was the beginning of an unwitting crush.

The next morning, Kang Dae-han came in to work and headed for the fifth-floor ward to start rounds.

"Doctor Kang!"

From the far end of the corridor, Ong So-yul came running, arms swinging wide, nearly swallowed whole by a white coat.

"Good morning, sir! A fine morning to you!"

Right. Morning. Maybe that was why. Fresh from washing, her fair face and those small, bright, perfectly set features looked especially doll-like. She had pulled her hair up tight into a high ponytail with bangs, and the face beneath it was absurdly small.

Before he knew what he was doing, Kang Dae-han spread a hand in front of So-yul's face. One palm hid the whole of it. A head that size was past believing.

Is that even a person? Fuck. A fairy?

"Doctor, Doctor! I have something to brag about."

Her face had been covered without warning, but Ong So-yul didn't look flustered in the least. She tipped her head out from beside his open hand—bright as a child waiting on a gold star—looked up at him, and promptly held out her phone.

"Look at this. I practiced twenty of them at home last night. I think it's going to help so much with nerve blocks!"

She delivered it with full, cheerful vigor. Dae-han's face went stiff.

In the photo, twenty condoms swollen tight with ultrasound gel stood in a row like king-size sausages.

Goddamn it. A whole field of condoms, stripped of their one true purpose. What the hell did I teach this innocent kid?

"Well do— well done."

Born a soldier, he was a man who simply did not stammer, and yet the sight of radiant Ong So-yul struck him mute. He forced the bewilderment off his face and started walking, ready for rounds. Behind him she followed like a chick, pattering along—two of her steps to every one of his, chattering the whole way.

"Thank you for the praise! I'm really going to work hard. Please teach me lots, Doctor Kang!"

"Sure."

He answered as offhandedly as he could and meant to walk on, but the long sweep of her coat caught his eye.

Far too big. Did she get even smaller overnight?

"And why is the coat this large?"

"I spilled ramen broth on mine this morning, actually. While it's at the laundry, Ko Jae-goon said he had a spare, so I borrowed it."

Ko Jae-goon. The male classmate who looked like a potato rice cake.

Close, then. Close enough to share coats. No need to invent an errand—they ate together, drank together, talked in the same room, left work side by side.

"Must be nice."

"Sorry? For who?"

"It's nothing."

For one bleak second he caught himself envying a potato rice cake, and the crash of self-awareness shut his mouth. He walked on.