Chapter Text
Seunghyun was tired.
Sure, he loved his job as a doctor, and it had taken years for him to get where he was, but flu season was the absolute worst. People constantly came in feverish, demanding medication and treatment almost every hour of the day. Most people barely even showed their appreciation for Seunghyun’s work in constantly testing and treating them with vaccinations.
And while he didn’t entirely mind it, Seunghyun feels that the absolute loneliness he gets when he collapses on his bed compared to the bustling environment of the clinic was starting to get to him. It got to the point where even his coworker, Daesung, couldn’t even get him to smile anymore during their lunch breaks by making up stories that usually had Seunghyun snorting out his coffee. Seunghyun didn’t even realize anything was wrong until he’d declined an offer to go out for drinks, which he rarely ever did. Instead, he spent his nights in the living room of his house with an open bottle of wine.
Today was a busy day, seeing patients that were angry when they didn’t get their weekly dosage of medicine. He managed to administer several flu shots to screaming children that were pinned down by their parents. Even the humongous paycheck he got every month wasn’t worth the feelings he felt, and his mansion of a house felt lonely in itself when he couldn’t will himself to go to sleep.
It wasn’t only flu season; it was also the start of school for high school and college students. For Seunghyun, that meant he had to deal with kids that got into fights, sent in bloody and bruised to be patched up by the doctor. It was almost automatic as he absent-mindedly greeted a patient with those exact symptoms sitting in one of the last rooms for the day.
According to a nurse’s report that had just been made, a boy named Kwon Jiyong was sitting in front of him, covered in bruises and also ‘looks like he’ll have some head trauma.’ Well, that decision was Seunghyun’s to decide when he inspected his wounds.
“What brings you here?” Seunghyun asked into the empty air, and his eyes finally rested on the boy sitting on the examination table.
The boy, Jiyong, said absolutely nothing to his words as Seunghyun took in his appearance. He was dressed in a black leather jacket, complete with leather pants and laced combat boots. To top it all off, his hair was dyed a bright red, part of it caked in a dark red from dried blood that had crusted on his forehead. Further, his tattooed hands had red, open wounds on them that signified that he fought back, too. The most important thing Seunghyun noticed, however, was that he was absolutely fuming. The sweat on his brow outlined the large scowl on his face as his eyes were wide and glued to the ground. Must’ve been some fight, Seunghyun thought.
He was used to dealing with different patients, though. And they varied from some that were nervous, angry, calm, or even horny. Since Seunghyun was considered very young to be a doctor, women that were a bit younger than him would often try to flirt with him. He had his ways of dealing with every type of patient, though. That was part of his job.
So, he said absolutely nothing as he began patching up the frustrated boy, Jiyong, sitting on the examination table. The wounds were obviously bad, and the boy would flinch away and hiss every time Seunghyun dabbed some antiseptic on his wounds. Yet, he said nothing.
“I’m assuming it’s a fight,” Seunghyun muttered to himself as he broke his rule of not talking to an angry patient. He tilted Jiyong’s head up slightly to inspect a large purple bruise on his chin. The boy’s eyes still looked down, and his breathing was still slightly heavy. Nonetheless, he complied with Seunghyun’s small commands to point where it hurts, pull up his sleeves, and keep an ice pack on his head, which Seunghyun was glad he did, because he didn’t want to force him to do anything.
“Here,” Seunghyun frowned, placing a jar of healing cream in his hands when he finished wrapping a bandage around his head, “if you apply it every morning and every night on your hands, the wounds will be gone in a few days. And try not to touch your head too much.”
The boy said nothing as he got up and left, limping slightly and grabbing the wall to stabilize himself. Seunghyun watched him leave, avoiding the temptation to check him out as he had a slight sway in his step. As bad as he didn’t want to admit it, Seunghyun had a thing for tattoos. He collected art pieces, so it was understandable that he did.
When he was patching up his head, he couldn’t help but notice the tattoo of an angel on the back of his neck. His shoulder also had roman numerals, but most of them were covered by the shirt he was wearing, so he could only make out the number VIII. Something inside Seunghyun itched to know what it meant.
Seunghyun supposes that that’s the reason why he watched him leave the room. He saw him meet up with his burly friend, who was shaking his head at him in a disappointed way, but still wrapped an arm around his shoulder to support him on the way outside of the lobby. The red hair was still visible as Seunghyun watched them get into a car, and as he caught himself watching, he shook his head and returned to treat the next patient waiting for him. As expected, he was being yelled at for not refilling a prescription, even if it wasn’t his fault.
He found himself thinking back to the silent, angry boy with red hair, and for the first time in a long time, Seunghyun wasn’t bothered by the patients anymore.