Her Men
Professor Ham of Orthopedic Surgery had gone into the OR at first light and left every round to his fellow, Kang Dae-han. Tablet in hand, the charts glowing on its screen, Dae-han headed for the department office on the ward.
The residents who spotted him scrambled to get their greetings in first.
"Good morning, sir!"
A musty male smell that no amount of washing could scour out, and voices thick as rope, packed the corridor full. Orthopedic Surgery being what it was, take away Ong So-yul and Ahn Hae-young and what remained was a wall of strapping men who looked entirely capable of running a bone saw—a gender ratio hardly different from the army.
Perhaps that imbalance was to blame.
"So-yul, what's with the outfit today?"
"Aigoo, look at the little shrimp. You come in wearing your dad's clothes? Even the name badge is buried. Real professional."
"I heard Ko Jae-goon lent her that."
"And he barely even washes. Forget it—Dr. Ong, I've got a brand-new one. Take it off me later."
The moment Ong So-yul tucked herself in among the men, they started in on her one murmur at a time, as if they had been waiting. They carried on like sulky elementary-school boys, but the fondness under the grumbling was so plain that even a soft little dog crazy for a chew toy would have caught it.
"Sitting around with nothing but idle talk. Are you going to be quiet."
Thoroughly out of temper, Kang Dae-han cracked the order at them, voice gone hard.
"Sorry, sir!"
At that killing presence the men who had served snapped to attention and fell into line, while the ones still green went white and stared up at him. Dae-han looked them over with the severity of a battalion commander holding court, then jerked his chin at one of them first.
The one who had been laughing and calling So-yul a little shrimp. How much time on his hands did a man need, to let something like that out of his mouth.
"You. The resident with the glasses."
"Y-yes? M-me?"
"Yes, you. Overnight events. Report. I'll give you five seconds. Begin."
"Ah—yes, sir! Room 502, the TK patient. The, uh, NRS went up to six—no, seven—so IV P, P..."
"Time. Get your head on straight. Understood?"
"I'm sorry, sir!"
Personal feeling was one thing. A man who had pulled call and still could not properly report his own patient was not a matter Dae-han intended to let slide. He cut the resident off in a single stroke and pointed to another.
All that bulk, and nothing behind it—the residents folded under Dae-han's presence and botched their reports one after another. In the end only Ong So-yul and Ahn Hae-young were left.
"Dr. Ong. Report."
"Yes! The TKA patient in 502—pain climbed to an NRS of 7, so we kept the IV PCA running, and one additional dose of tramadol, 50 milligrams IV, went in. No fever. Hemoglobin is 10.2, no real change from yesterday."
"The dressing?"
"Being kept dry, as I understand it."
"DVT prophylaxis. How should it be managed?"
"Yes. I think we should start enoxaparin, 40 milligrams subcutaneous, daily."
She answered even the hard questions without a snag, and Ong So-yul's eyes glittered as if someone had set stars in them. Full of hunger to learn and a sense of calling, they were nothing like the dead-fish stares of the other doctors.
That's who ought to be a doctor.
"Well done."
His hand rose of its own accord, wanting to smooth her hair, and he stopped it only just in time before he caught the door of the patient room and pushed it open. It was the sort of day when every nerve in him seemed fixed on the little chick pattering along at his back.
It was well into the afternoon when Dae-han scrubbed into a spinal fusion as co-surgeon alongside So Joo-won.
A high-difficulty case. Under ordinary circumstances a fellow went in as junior staff beneath a professor's eye—but these were the Soldier Doctors. Years in the military, thick with every kind of trouble, had made them masters wherever the patient was trauma; they could take the knife at a serious level from the first incision. And perhaps because of his father's management-by-spectacle, their work had even reached the press. The cases already on the books were more than they had fingers to count.
"Babe, come on, talk to me. Did you make history or not?"
Dae-han was scouring from fingertips to elbows at the scrub sink, and So Joo-won would not let up about where the condom had gone.
"And who's this neighbor's little sister nobody's allowed to touch. Hm?"
He shook the water off, stepped out of the OR, and was on his way down to the emergency room, and still the mouth did not rest. Maybe I ought to suture it shut. Dae-han was glaring murder at So Joo-won's mouth when the man suddenly pointed ahead, toward the ER doors.
"Don't tell me that's the neighbor's little sister. The ride you gave her last time—that wasn't what I think it was, was it?"
Ong So-yul was standing there. She had been running so hard that the hair tied back in one had come loose, and the hem of the oversized white coat fluttered around her ankles. He could not pull his eyes off her. He only stared, blank.
"Ahh. What is that look. So the 'don't tell me' is actually a yes?"
Having read the situation, So Joo-won caught his shoulder and gave it a pat.
"Buddy. This is not going to be easy."
The words of a self-styled master of romance—a man who had been with more than his share of women, and liked to say so—sent a throb ringing through Dae-han's head.
"You left the easy road sitting there and went the long way around. Dr. Ong? Drop it, Dae-han. Let's pick that first love of yours all over again."
So Joo-won carried on entirely to his own rhythm, and now he was dispensing advice that was not worth the breath. On any other day Dae-han would have snapped that it was not like that and told him to shut his mouth—but strangely, he found himself wanting to hear the rest.
"What's wrong with Dr. Ong. Don't talk about her so carelessly."
"That's not what I mean, Dae-han. I've been with this woman and that one, haven't I? And the highest difficulty is exactly that type. I told you before."
"So what is the problem. Explain it so I can understand."
"Dr. Ong. She smiles, and it looks like she hands her affection out easy, right? She doesn't. That kind doesn't have a low hurdle. She has no hurdle at all. Why? Because she never left a man any ground to run on in the first place. You clear it, and what's under you isn't dirt. It's a cliff."
"What the hell are you talking about."
"If you can't follow, look at that neurosurgery anchovy over there. He's gone off the cliff and straight down into the sea. Eyes wide. Watch."
It was in the middle of that talk.
While Ong So-yul drew a splint from the treatment cart for a patient with a turned ankle, a man sidled up beside her. The resident who had trailed after her outside the bar last time. She had refused him flat, and still he clung.
"Patient's brain doing all right? If you need a neurosurgery consult, I can help."
"It isn't a fall. Nurse Park, one more elastic bandage, please."
"Coffee when you're done."
"I'm on call."
"After your shift, oppa will buy you dinner. Or how about a drink?"
"I'm going home when I'm done, and do you not see a patient waiting right now?"
"Hey, So-yul. Oppa's really hurt, you know. You won't even pick up. Why are you like this, between us. Play hard to get within reason."
Perhaps she had reached her limit with the anchovy. In a flash, a deep, hard anger flooded the round little chick's eyes. People talked about someone swapping their eyes out for a different pair. This was that, exactly. As if a cold wind had cut through, the bright, beaming face went stiff. She lifted the Lister scissors in her hand with a vicious little edge and answered.
"Why do you keep looking for a little sister inside a hospital. And who exactly is your oppa?"
"I'm older, so I'm oppa."
"Then try calling oppa to the resident seniors who are younger than you. Look—Dr. Kim's walking by right now. I'll call him over, so go run your oppa bit on him."
"...Hey. Ong So-yul!"
The instant the anchovy's hand closed around Ong So-yul's wrist, the last thin thread of Dae-han's patience snapped clean through. His feet moved before the rest of him did.
A thick, lethal voice rang through the ER.