Tears in the Stairwell
“What do we do… A baby that tiny…”
She had run like a madwoman, but it seemed she was already too late.
The atmosphere among the family members standing outside the intensive care unit was utterly desolate.
“Dr. Yu! So-eun is—!”
Before the nurse could finish, Dajeong pushed inside and found the curtained bed.
The three-month-old infant lay limp. Her junior’s forehead was slick with sweat as he performed CPR with his thumbs instead of his palms on that tiny torso.
“The vitals looked a little off, so I was about to notify you, but then, s-suddenly, she seized and—”
Beeeeeep.
“…”
Her junior’s words cut off. In the end, the horrifying mechanical tone announced that the baby’s heart had stopped.
It was the worst moment. The only time she ever regretted becoming a doctor.
“T-time of… death… 202x…”
Breaking the heavy silence, she listened to her junior’s trembling pronouncement of death and stepped away from the bed.
“…Dr. Dajeong, are you all right?”
When her stumbling steps made her catch herself against the wall, the head nurse rushed over to support her.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
Behind the smile she forced upward, grief she could not hide threatened to spill out.
Dajeong hurried around the corner and, in an empty hallway, sank slowly to the floor.
So-eun had been born with a congenital heart defect and abandoned in the baby box in front of a cathedral. That was why Dajeong had cared about her more than any other patient.
…Because we looked so much alike. Just like Yu Dajeong herself, who had been left in a cold apple crate at the orphanage door.
The only difference was that fortunate Dajeong had, at age three, miraculously found a donor and successfully received a heart transplant. That child…
That child, barely a hundred days into being cast into the world, had ended her life without ever taking a single step.
Her eyes burned. Tears surged up so fast her vision blurred.
She clenched her lips white, desperately swallowing the sob that tried to burst free.
Don’t cry. Please.
Think of the other patients. You can’t show personal emotion.
“Hic…!”
But once the crack appeared, her heart crumbled with terrifying speed.
This time, she knew she would not easily recover her composure.
Dajeong shot to her feet.
She desperately needed a place to be alone.
Somewhere no one ever went—somewhere she could sob as hard as she wanted.
At that same moment, in the A-Ward Surgical Center.
“Ah… this side is, um, the operating rooms mainly used by orthopedics.”
The director and vice director stood side by side, introducing the facilities to Taekyung and sweating bullets.
From the start he had been firing off unexpected questions, leaving them unable to gather their wits.
“Inside, there are dedicated drills and artificial joint equipment now.”
“And next to that is the transplant-only room!”
“What is the purpose of a dedicated room?”
“Excuse me?”
Another assault had begun. The vice director, who had been spacing out, stupidly echoed the question.
“Why a transplant-only room is necessary.”
It wasn’t even a difficult question, yet the vice director’s face went chalk-white.
“Y-yes, the, uh, sterilization levels are different. Transplant ORs are cleaner.”
“Then why does a separate sterile operating room need to exist over there?”
Taekyung jerked his chin toward the sign.
“Couldn’t you just run one sterile OR and do transplant surgeries there as well?”
The director, who had been about to provide covering fire, also went pale.
“Well… theoretically possible, but organ transplants are, you know, the scale of collaboration among the doctors is so large, and, uh…”
“What I want is not that kind of vague answer.”
Naturally, what he wanted was a refined answer from a management perspective.
The efficiency and advantages of operating each OR separately.
On top of that: how far equipment obsolescence had progressed, how the medical staff’s surgical traffic flow had been optimized.
If they had also added what metrics they used to measure turnover rates for each operating room, it would have been a fairly decent inspection.
“Haha! We’ve been out of the field for so long… We’ll organize everything and report by tomorrow, yes.”
“You said you would introduce the hospital. This is rather different from the content I had in mind.”
The flustered director and vice director exchanged glances.
They had expected Jang Taekyung would not be easy, but they never imagined he would dig this meticulously.
Until now, every foundation representative who had taken office had simply toured the facilities as a formality and then gone straight off to drink.
“From now on, send actual working staff for facility tours.”
“Yes… Aigoo.”
A tour that amounted to reading signs was a waste of time. He needed answers that immediately resolved the points he was curious about.
“Ahem! Shall we head out now, then? We’ll escort you to the annex parking garage.”
Where? As Taekyung shot back a look of pure contempt, the vice director cheerfully added,
“After all, the parking garage is a hospital’s greatest cash cow, isn’t it? We recently upgraded the license-plate recognition system and raised the hourly rate—it’s been quite lucrative.”
“So. Seohan Hospital’s core value is the parking garage.”
He couldn’t take any more. Taekyung raked a hand through his hair in irritation.
Seeing the pathetic state of the so-called leaders made him crave a cigarette, but this was a hospital—he could hardly light up right there.
“That’s enough. I’ll look around on my own from here.”
“Excuse me? You’re not going to see the parking garage?”
“Ah, yes, of course! Please do as you like!”
At least the director had some sense; he quickly hauled the vice director away.
Clicking his tongue, Taekyung stepped through the emergency exit right in front of him.
To make up for the wasted time, he planned to quickly tour the operating rooms on the other floors as well.
Thud, thud—after climbing one dim flight of stairs—
“What the hell is this.”
He discovered someone curled tightly near the exit.
Taekyung paused, then carefully studied the small figure.
The woman in a white coat, jammed into the corner with her knees hugged to her chest, didn’t even notice him approaching.
The hair on the bowed head was a disheveled mess, making it hard to tell who she was, but—
“You can’t sleep here, Dr. Yu Dajeong.”
Reading the ID badge that had stuck out at an angle, Taekyung’s mouth curved crookedly upward.
This was the first time he had run into this tiny woman since she had flung the name “Gaejakdu” at him in the café a few days ago.
She wasn’t an important person he particularly needed to remember, yet she had left such a deep impression.
What kind of woman is this, anyway. Ever since last time she kept doing nothing but bold things.
Badmouthing the CEO, and now, during what was presumably work hours, hiding in a corner to sleep soundly.
What to do with her. He briefly considered shaking her awake, then decided to simply go his own way.
He was just passing the bothersome Yu Dajeong and beeping his access card against the door when—
The door that should have opened did not. Beep. Beep. No matter how many times he tried, the result was the same.
“Damn it.”
Apparently there was a problem with his access card.
In every possible way, this was a ridiculous hospital.
“…Ah.”
Perhaps it was the accumulated fatigue. To have dozed off while sniffling…
Blinking dry eyes, Dajeong slowly lifted her face.
But something was strange. She was certain she had been alone in this space, yet there was a faint unfamiliar scent and a low voice as well.
Huk.
As she raised her bowed head, Dajeong caught an unexpected figure’s back and immediately buried her face again.
Why is CEO Jang Taekyung on the emergency stairs!
The overwhelming height, the broad shoulders, the suit worn like armor—it was definitely that man.
Caught again.
Dajeong sighed soundlessly.
What do I do. Please let him not know it’s me. I’m face-down, so he won’t be able to tell who it is.
To protect that last remaining hope, she must not get up until Taekyung disappeared.
Having finished the quick calculation, Dajeong kept her knees drawn up and hugged, still pretending to sleep.
But whether he was in the middle of a serious call, Taekyung stayed for quite a long time.
My legs are going numb.
She wriggled her toes, but her legs, their circulation cut off, continued to scream.
Even so, Taekyung’s serious profile caught in her vision.
She had felt it when they suddenly ran into each other at the café, but looking carefully like this, he was an even more attractive man.
The cleanly carved bridge of his nose, the masculine jawline, the deep, sharp eyes—staring at them, she found herself admitting it as if under a spell.
He was handsome enough to seize anyone’s gaze. Handsome enough that even Dajeong, who had no interest in other people, had to acknowledge it.
The crown prince of the Hanju Group. The apex predator. Every modifier suited him perfectly—a life that possessed everything.
What would that feel like?
For Dajeong, who had grown up an orphan and struggled all the way to becoming a doctor, it was a life she had never even dreamed of.
“Ah, and. I also need the textbooks that medical students are required to look at when they enter. By tonight.”
Apparently speaking with his secretary, Taekyung issued orders to obtain not only specialized anatomy and pharmacology textbooks but academic journals as well. All for himself to read, he said.
It was unexpected. Even that impressive man, when encountering an unfamiliar field, started from the ground up.
…Somehow it felt as if she had glimpsed Jang Taekyung’s secret. Enough to feel a strange sense of kinship.
And then, at some moment while she secretly watched—
“…!”
The phone conversation cut off abruptly, and she was suddenly entangled with the black, emotionless gaze looking down at her.
Dajeong gasped and tried to smooth her hair. But it was already too late.
“S-so, um. Why… did you come here?”
She asked with a pretense of calm, even as his gaze pinned her.
Her eyelids, swollen from tears and the brief sleep, tensed hard.
Being on guard after getting caught secretly sleeping…
Taekyung simply huffed a laugh. He couldn’t believe it.
“The surgical ward is off-limits to outsiders…!”
“Outsider? Me?”
With her nose completely stuffed, she was putting up prickly thorns in a nasal voice about “outsiders prohibited,” and it wasn’t even funny.
Taekyung’s head tilted to one side.
“I’m your superior. The CEO of this hospital.”
“Even so… ah…”
Only then did Dajeong’s mind clear; she scrambled to her feet.
“But.”
As she turned her head, trying to hide a face that kept crumpling from the pins-and-needles in her legs, Taekyung’s relentless gaze followed.
“Did you cry?”