Fan Hearts and True Hearts (2)

After parting ways with Ha Tae-joon, So-yul headed to the ward to make her night rounds.

"How are we feeling tonight, ma'am? Is the pain any better than this afternoon?"

"Oh dear, Doctor, there ain't a spot on this old body that doesn't hurt. Lying flat on my back day in, day out, my back's gone all stiff and creaky. I just wanna go home, and quick."

"I know. It must hurt terribly. Still, the bone needs proper rest to knit back together, so staying in bed really is best."

"Aigoo, I'm so bored I could scream. All I do is blink at the ceiling — I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. And time crawls something dreadful."

The one unloading her grievances was a seventy-three-year-old grandmother who had fallen from the second floor of her house while hanging out the laundry — multiple trauma, plate fixation surgery, and all four limbs now splinted. Orthopedics being what it was, the ward was full of elderly fracture patients like her, and to patients like these, So-yul was all but an idol. Not only was she warm and unpretentious; she kept a whole repertoire of senior-tailored thoughtfulness on hand.

"You mentioned you love Country Diaries, remember? I've got it saved all the way through episode one hundred — shall I put it on for you?"

"Oh my, where in the world did that come from? You mean it plays even when the TV isn't rerunning it?"

"Aigoo, I downloaded it onto my tablet! You can watch it right from your bed, nice and comfortable! Just give me one second."

So-yul snapped the tablet onto the stand she'd prepared in the blink of an eye, fixing it at exactly the angle a patient lying flat would need.

Every other patient on the floor had family coming and going, but this woman, whatever story she carried, had not a single visitor — which worried So-yul all the more.

"Ooh, my, look at that. Time's just whizzing right along now."

"If anything gets hard, press the call button — I'm on night duty today."

"Thank you, dearie."

After the grandmother, who had clasped her hand and patted it over and over, finally let her go, So-yul stepped out of the room.

"Hey, Ong-Ong!"

The moment she entered the corridor, she ran straight into Ahn Hae-young, who had clearly been lying in wait for her. Looping an arm around So-yul's neck, she whispered:

"What is it with you and this much sincerity for every single patient? I keep telling you — keep some distance! Distance!"

So-yul and Ahn Hae-young were fellow residents as close as two could be, but where they differed was in how they faced their patients. So-yul hovered over hers from A to Z; Hae-young drew a strict, clean line and ran on a philosophy of providing exactly the care required — no more, no less.

And to So-yul, Hae-young's words had their point. People took kindness for a right. There were plenty of days when she extended a courtesy only to be cursed at for not giving even more.

"Hae-young, honestly... my mom lost the use of one of her legs. So whenever I see patients, it keeps coming back to me. Someone can live their whole life without a single trouble and then suddenly end up flat on their back — and it's a terribly hard thing, that."

"...Yah. How do you drop something that heavy on me while smiling like that?"

"Should I say it crying, then?"

"Anyway, they must have coined 'soft outside, steel inside' just for you, Ong-Ong. Fine — if that's your reason, I respect it."

And so, trading talk like that, they were walking together toward the far end of the corridor when—

Hae-young suddenly spotted someone beyond the window and fished something out of her pocket.

"Oh — sugar top-up!"

In her hand was a palm-sized chocolate milk. Just as So-yul, stomach growling, reached to take it, Hae-young whisked the milk away.

"Not for you. It's for Dr. So Joo-won over there."

Outside the window her finger indicated stood So Joo-won, in the middle of a phone call in the central atrium.

Hae-young had been bringing that doctor up an awful lot lately. She was the same as ever about romance — never spared it a thought — so what on earth was going on?

Don't tell me she'd actually fallen for him. A sliver of worry crept up on So-yul. Hae-young looked like a stiff breeze would knock her flat, but she was more conservative than anyone guessed, holding fast even to a belief in premarital chastity.

But that slick, glossy face of Dr. So Joo-won's was, how to put it...

"He did look like quite the ladies' man. You think you could handle that?"

"Ah, what are you even saying! It's fandom! When he handled that emergency patient the other day, I gave him a genuine standing ovation. So damn cool."

So-yul had worried she might have tumbled head over heels for that flashy peacock of a doctor and signed herself up for heartache — if it was only fandom, thank goodness.

"And what about you? You've been seeing a whole lot more of Dr. Kang Dae-han lately. Nothing going on there?"

"Fandom on my end too, obviously?"

"Right, then! Let all fans of the Soldier Doctors stand united! Cross!"

Ahn Hae-young, who claimed to have done her fair share of celebrity stanning back in the day, raised her arm in the gesture. And for some reason So-yul couldn't quite name, she refused to lose when it came to fandom for Kang Dae-han, and pressed her arm up to meet hers.

Meanwhile, at the very moment the residents' fangirl alliance was forming in grand solidarity, Kang Dae-han lay in the fellows' on-call room, his head a hopeless tangle.

"Dae-han. That pink-haired resident. She's a rather unique one, isn't she?"

From the upper bunk, So Joo-won peered down and muttered, his face brimming with delinquent charm. In one hand he cradled a chocolate milk as mismatched to him as could be, holding it like some sacred household relic.

"You know that shooting range I've been hitting lately? The top score there is fucking unbreakable. I'm a military surgeon who's done an overseas deployment, for god's sake — you think that doesn't wound my pride? So I waited it out."

"..."

"And guess who that number one turned out to be? The pink-haired Ahn Hae-young herself. Not my type, but the girl's got something. Think she's got a boyfriend? Haah... should've asked when she handed me the chocolate milk earlier."

Kang Dae-han could bear it no longer. He shot up, seized a pillow, and hammered it down onto So Joo-won's face, again and again — a smashing so ferocious the stuffing all but burst from the seams.

"You're past thirty years old. Get your head on straight, you punk."

"Kehk — kehkh. Look who's talking! You're one to run your mouth, eyeing the girl next door yourself! Hey, hey — Kang Dae-han, where do you think you're going!"

Deciding it was better not to keep looking at the very culprit twisting his already tangled head into worse knots, Dae-han left the on-call room.

Truth be told, a voluntary on-call meant he could have simply headed home. But somehow — tonight being one of Ong So-yul's call shifts — his feet refused to carry him out the door.

What had thrown him into confusion earlier came back to him, too.

When it came to him, she drew her lines thick and fast — don't come near me — but in front of some police officer? Not a trace of that. Grabbing his arm without a moment's hesitation, no less. What exactly was between them, that they had looked so close?

"Hah."

With the sense of some inexplicable fire pit settling into his chest, Dae-han swept toward the emergency room, gown flapping.

The instant he pushed through the doors into the ER, the sharp bite of antiseptic stung the tip of his nose.

Old soldier's habits died hard. He swept the hall with razor-sharp eyes, and Kang Dae-han's harpoon of a gaze planted itself in one spot.

It was the small hours, and the ER was crowded with drunks hauled in for every story imaginable — and among them sat one patient who didn't belong there. A little boy who didn't look old enough even for elementary school.

"Oh, come on, my kid's not even sick! Let him out! You think I can't see through this little racket, ordering every test under the sun to wring hospital fees out of me?"

As the man — evidently the boy's father — roared himself hoarse, So-yul raised her head, hands still folded at her waist.

"Lower your voice. This is a hospital."

"What? Lower it? Yah, I've got a business to run right now — am I supposed to stay chained up in here? Huh? Get the discharge papers moving, right now. Miss, are you deaf or what?"

And then, as if that weren't enough, he shoved So-yul's shoulder with the long cloth money bag he was carrying.

Ha. Fuck. How many times was this today alone?

So-yul, who looked as delicate on the outside as some small animal, apparently read as easy prey. There was never any shortage of bastards who took her lightly and laid hands on her.

Must be a fucking exhausting way to live, Ong So-yul.

Kang Dae-han was already moving. He crossed the floor in a heartbeat, bent the offending guardian's arm back with an easy twist, and forced the distance wide open.

Even without real strength behind it, the sheer gap in build sent the man rolling across the floor, wheezing like a cur.

"D-Dr. Kang..."

"Dr. Ong So-yul. On this one, I absolutely cannot stand down."

Wide-eyed with shock, So-yul turned to look at him — and Dae-han, meeting that small face, drove the nail in all the deeper.