The Man Who Rolled In — Episode 18
The moment he opened his eyes, San-i grabbed Yun-seo's shoulders and pushed her away. He scrambled upright, flustered, fingers prodding at his own lips.
"I-I'm fine."
Yun-seo sat sprawled on the floor, blinking at him in a daze. San-i ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head, looking thoroughly embarrassed.
"Sorry. I took the joke way too far."
The lips that had been trembling pressed firmly shut. It didn't take her long to understand what was happening.
"You just…… called it a joke?"
That one flippant word felt like the last taut string inside her chest snapping clean through. Emptiness, hurt, and relief all crashed in at once, and the tears burst out before she could stop them.
"You're crying? I'm sorry. I really am."
San-i reached out in a panic, at a complete loss, but Yun-seo smacked his hand away and glared up at him with everything she had. Then she pushed herself to her feet and strode toward the health clinic.
San-i hurried after her, his desperate voice spilling out behind her.
"Teacher, hang on. I messed up."
"Don't follow me……!"
So annoying. This time she truly didn't look back. San-i fell into step beside her, matching her stride.
"I really took it too far."
"……."
"I was completely in the wrong. Okay?"
Only when they reached the front of the health clinic did Yun-seo stop and whirl around. Eyes brimming with tears bore into him.
"I was genuinely worried about you, you know."
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood, and…… yeah, I picked the worst possible way to do it."
The easygoing man from before was nowhere to be found. Watching this unfamiliar face fidget and fret over her reaction, Yun-seo's anger softened a little. Truthfully, the relief that he hadn't actually done anything wrong outweighed the resentment anyway.
Still, letting it all go now felt a little unfair. He'd turned her insides pitch black with worry; she wanted to keep sulking just a bit longer out of spite.
Yun-seo scrubbed her reddened eyes with the back of her hand and punched in the clinic's door lock. Behind her, she felt him close the distance again.
"Ah."
Then, a low groan broke out.
He said he wasn't going to mess around anymore. Yun-seo whipped around to glare at him in exasperation — and her eyes went wide.
"What's wrong?"
This time, San-i's complexion was genuinely alarming. When she caught his arm, his skin was abnormally cold to the touch.
Her eyes swept over him quickly and landed on his side — the black t-shirt there was soaked through. She grabbed the hem and pushed it up. The bandages wrapped snugly around his torso were drenched a deep, vivid red.
It must have torn open during that reckless fight with the thugs. A wound bleeding this much had to hurt like hell — so why hadn't he said anything, the stubborn fool?
"Why on earth didn't you say anything until it got this bad?!"
Most people would have collapsed already from this level of pain, yet somehow he'd been gritting through it. In this sweltering heat, no less.
Face drained white, Yun-seo took his hand and led him to the patient bed.
"Lie down, now. I need to look at the wound."
She laid him flat and pulled over the sterilization tray. The moment she cut away the bandages, the wound looked far worse than she'd expected — no, given how badly things could have gone, maybe surviving with just this much was a stroke of luck……
As Yun-seo stiffened her face and began working to stop the bleeding, San-i — who'd been watching her warily — put on yet another show of bravado.
"Teacher, honestly, it barely hurts."
"……Right, like it doesn't hurt."
"It really doesn't. I don't lie."
"Got it."
"You don't seem to have. Are you mad at me?"
Her throat burned and stung. Yun-seo shook her head, holding back another surge of tears.
She wasn't actually angry at San-i. She was angry at herself — at the fact that she'd snapped at the man who'd thrown his battered body in front of danger for her sake, just because he'd played one stupid joke.
Yun-seo barely managed to settle the roiling mess in her chest and picked up the tray holding the anesthetic and syringe.
"……Local anesthetic first."
She drew the anesthetic from the vial into the syringe and leaned in close beside the bed. But as she carefully aimed the needle, her hands — worked up from all the emotion — shook without mercy.
"Teacher, I never would've guessed, but you're a total coward."
"Just a second. Just…… let me calm down for a minute……"
Then San-i, who'd been lying still, closed his hand around hers. The weight of his grip steered the syringe steadily toward his abdomen.
The needle pierced the skin and sank precisely into the edge of the wound. Yun-seo's reddened eyes went round as saucers.
"If you just stab it in carelessly like that……!"
"Then it'll be numb, won't it?"
He held her fingers firmly in place and pressed the plunger down with his thumb. Once the clear liquid had emptied completely, he drew the needle back out.
"That stings, teacher. Let's get this over with."
His voice urging her along was perfectly composed, even as his brows knitted against a sting that was clearly anything but trivial. Yun-seo squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, refocusing her blurred gaze.
"T-tell me if it hurts too much."
Steadying the tremor in her fingertips, she picked up the suturing instruments. As the doctor in her gradually reasserted itself, her hands stitching the torn wound grew calm and sure.
"Wow, how does it not hurt at all? You're a real artisan, one stitch at a time. With those teeny-tiny hands, too."
San-i tossed out the joke lightly, as if trying to break the tension. Yun-seo's eyes narrowed as she glanced at him.
Doesn't hurt, my foot. Anesthetic dulls the pain — it doesn't erase it.
Yun-seo kept her mouth pressed shut and finished the sutures. Only after she'd thoroughly disinfected the area and applied a clean dressing pad was she finally able to breathe again.
"Done already?"
"Yes."
Her reply was clipped, and she went about tidying the instruments in silence while San-i, perched on the edge of the bed, watched her quietly. He kept tilting his head this way and that, straining to catch her eye, and the effort looked oddly pitiful on a man his size.
But Yun-seo refused to spare him even a sliver of attention, absorbed in the cleanup. Perhaps feeling ridiculous at being treated as a complete nonperson, San-i rubbed his stomach with slow sweeps of his hand and let out a pained noise.
"Ah, the wound's starting to hurt a bit."
"What? Where?"
All of her attention had, in fact, been on San-i the entire time — Yun-seo whipped around like a bolt of lightning. Her heart began pounding all over again, terrified she'd botched the treatment.
"Never mind. Actually, it feels like the flesh is already knitting back together. Man, nothing's ever tearing open on you again. That's basically a sewing machine you've got there."
San-i delivered it with a perfectly straight face, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Yun-seo's exasperated expression twisted.
How this man can be so casual and unbothered while literally drenched in his own blood is beyond me.
"……Of course it does. I'll grab your antibiotics, so stay seated."
She was just about to hurry off — determined not to fall for any more of his antics — when he spoke up.
"By the way, your lips swell up first when you cry?"
Flustered by the gaze tilting down to study her lips, Yun-seo pressed them tightly together.
"They were already plenty full, but sliced up, you'd get a whole plate out of them."
"Stop joking around……!"
The moment she snapped at him, San-i reached out and pressed gently down on her lower lip.
"Fascinating. How do lips even swell?"
There was no real ulterior motive in the light touch. But the finger pressing into the soft flesh made her skin burn hot as if scalded, and Yun-seo stiffened without meaning to.
She stared straight at him, and he slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers. The moment those black eyes collided with hers in midair, every vein in her body seemed to pull taut.
"I'm fine, so wipe that look off your face."
San-i withdrew his hand and stretched his mouth into an exaggerated grin.
"……You call that smiling?"
"Hey, it would've torn open, but I just miscalculated the force. Next time I'll do it with more finesse, so……"
"Next time?"
At the fury of her glare, San-i's smile faltered and his shoulders flinched.
"Why are you being so scary? Whoa, with that look, those punks from earlier would faint on the spot."
San-i mimed cracking his knuckles and rubbing his arms.
I should be scolding him, but this clown has had me fighting off laughter for the past few minutes. Yun-seo bit down hard on her lip and forced her expression rigid. Only after wresting her scattered feelings back under control did she speak, firm and resolute.
"I'm being serious."
"So am I."
"……That's exactly it. I'm truly grateful for everything today, but never — never — pull a stunt like that again."
"Why, are you mad that I butted in on my own?"
"It's not that I'm mad…… I'm a doctor, no matter how I look. I can't stand it when someone gets hurt because of me."
"Ahh."
Out of nowhere, a look of deep suspicion flew her way.
"W-why are you looking at me like that?"