Soldier Doctor (1)

"All right, let's get ready for ward rounds. Everyone, have a good day with our splen-did fellows!"

Professor Ham broke into a wide grin and declared them dismissed.

"Ong So-yul, let's go. What are you doing?"

"Ah—yeah, I'm coming. Go on ahead, go ahead. I just need to tie my shoe."

Her thoughts still refused to settle. She was hanging back to be the last of the residents out the door, and the moment she stepped through she collided with someone. Thud.

She looked up. Kang Dae-han, broad as the door itself, was looking down at her.

"Ong."

That blade-keen gaze, the kind that made her flinch at the mere brush of it, dragged slowly over the name on her coat.

"...Dr. So-yul. The department you applied to was Orthopedic Surgery, not Urology. Is that correct?"

Just bolt?

The thought flickered past and died. True to form, So-yul chose a frontal assault. Drag this out, and the only person who got more embarrassed was her.

She swept a quick look around. Seniors and colleagues were already walking down the hall with their backs turned. She caught the man's sleeve and pulled him straight back into the room.

Kang Dae-han was not a build that got dragged anywhere he didn't mean to go. Even so, just as he had in the cafeteria, he surrendered his steps to her hand without resistance.

Bang. The door shut, and silence closed over the room.

"What's the scheme."

Dae-han tipped his head at a crooked angle and looked at her.

"You lock me in, and then what. Planning to haul in another rubber basin, strip me bare, and sit me down in it?"

A laugh leaked through his teeth. Expressionless, he was too frightening to even speak to. The faint smile made him a completely different man.

Maybe that was why her guard loosened, and the question she'd been sitting on popped out.

"Did you use the basin that time? Did you even fit?"

"What did you say?"

"Ah. I'm sorry."

So-yul shook her head hard and looked up at him.

A specialist military surgeon with four deployments behind him. How did a man end up with a face that fit the title so exactly?

Truth was, a uniform would have suited him better than a doctor's coat, and everything about him was cut on a hard edge. The eyes and the bridge of the nose ran out in clean, balanced lines, and so did the shape of his mouth and the masculine cut of his jaw.

And that fellow's coat. The creases looked sharp enough to slice a hand that so much as brushed them. She'd never seen anything like it in all her time in a hospital.

Working under this man, the residency ahead of her was not going to be easy. The feeling landed hard.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. Everything was such a mess that day that I never managed a proper apology. I'm truly sorry. Again."

"You're only sorry you didn't apologize?"

Arms folded, he leaned at a slant against the door. Muscle pulled the coat taut across him, and the swell of his forearm showed through.

I will never win against this man. So bend. Bend further.

"I'm sorry I accidentally dumped Ongsimi on the patient—no, on Dr. Kang Dae-han's precious. And I'm also sorry I charged in insisting I had to get a look at said precious right that second. You must have been very startled."

"Precious... what?"

"Precious. Your precious parts. If you don't like that, should I call it Smarty instead?"

Her older brother had never lacked for girlfriends, and she'd accidentally seen the texts they traded. That was why she'd tried it. Was this wrong?

"Does my cock look like it belongs with Precious or Smarty?"

"No. Honestly, something like a CheyTac M200 or a Barrett heavy sniper rifle suits you better, but—"

"You know your guns."

"Ah, my brother's a military nut. I picked some of it up along the way. Yes."

He gave a nod that might have meant he understood and might not have, and unfolded his arms.

Had the answer pleased him? Maybe she should have gone with a cannon instead of a rifle. Or proper clinical language—penis and scrotum—wouldn't have been a bad choice either.

"So. Are you finished?"

"Ah, no! I wanted to know if you were all right. No aftereffects. I am the one who did it, after all. I've been sick with worry."

Even as she spoke, her palms kept sweating. She rubbed them together and fidgeted.

"Even so, don't get any ideas about stripping me open again."

It must have looked strange to him. He knotted his brow and raked a rough hand back over his hair.

"O-of course not. Haha. If anything feels uncomfortable, please do tell me..."

Sad as it was, the injury she'd inflicted could still count as criminal assault. She was about to go on.

The announcement boomed through the department office.

Their eyes met, fast.

The office door opened, and Kang Dae-han took the corridor at a dead run, quick as a beast of prey. So-yul went after him, bound for the emergency department.

The emergency department was a battlefield in the most literal sense.

A nearby tunnel had collapsed, and ambulances were hauling the rescued in without a pause.

"Aaaagh! Save me!"

"Over here, please—somebody's dying!"

Screams burst from every direction. They had finished their internships, but it was day one of residency, and the first-years were frozen stiff.

"Is nobody going to get a grip? If you're scared enough to cry for your mother, take that coat off and get out. Move!"

The voice of Kang Dae-han, reigning over this emergency room, snapped them awake.

He hadn't even read the charts. One look at the patient on the bed, and he was directing the staff on the spot. Blood soaked his hands as he examined the injury, and his eyes were merciless.

"Open fracture, right lower leg. The femoral artery is torn and he's bleeding heavily, so call the vascular team and prep for repair. Dr. Kim."

"Yes, yes! Doctor!"

The resident he'd called fell in beside him. Dae-han moved on, scanning the next patient as he walked.

"Get me an external fixator. If the fragments shift, the blood loss gets worse, so stabilize it and control the bleeding. Pin."

He took the fixator, found the position in a single glance, drove the pin home, and locked the fracture down.

"Keep reporting the status. Next patient. Closed fracture, so get an MRI. The one after that has severe nerve compression. Acute spinal cord compression—we need to go in for decompression, so call Neurosurgery and have an OR standing by. I'm going in with them."

Maybe it was because he had actually served in a war zone. Unchecked, Kang Dae-han read more patients, and faster, than the fellows from the other services, and he operated on them too.

"Doctor. There are no ORs left, and none of the Neurosurgery attendings can come..."

"Enough. Make an operating room. BP is dropping. We have to go in right now!"

The Chief Resident who had been reporting went white as a sheet.

Make an OR by brute force? How they were supposed to manage anesthesia, or drag Neurosurgery in at all, looked hopeless.

"Chief. What are you doing."

"Th-that's... D-Doctor..."

"Do you have time to stammer right now? Can't you see the patient dying?"

In front of the hesitating Chief Resident, Kang Dae-han roared, voice ringing off the walls. Blood from driving the pin had spattered his mask, and he looked more than ever like a vicious commanding officer.

"Still, I think we sh-should check with the o-other departments first..."

"Is this the sorry way things have been run every time there's an emergency? While you're checking, beds are already turning over. Shut up and listen to me. Are you going to move or not!"

So this is what they mean by beating someone with words.

Faced with a critical patient, Kang Dae-han turned cold, without mercy or exception.

"I'll secure a temporary OR!"

In place of the frozen Chief Resident, So-yul raised her hand and made herself heard.