Chapter Text
The cafeteria is as bleak as always, with its bare, cream-colored walls and the big plastic tables scattered around the large room. A few tables are occupied, but Minseok is there early for dinner, so he has no trouble finding a table to himself. Working in the Emergency Department has always been his passion - he thrives in the chaos and the fast pace - but it also has its drawbacks, such as never knowing when you’re going to get a chance to eat. After unintentionally losing fifteen pounds in his first three months of ED residency, Minseok has learned to eat whenever he has a quiet moment, regardless of what time of day or night it is.
He has just sat down with a bowl of jajangmyun in front of him when his phone rings. At first he fumbles for his work phone, but when it shows a blank screen he realizes it’s his private phone ringing. When he sees the caller, his heart sinks. For a brief moment he considers giving into the temptation to let it ring out - she can’t exactly blame him for not picking up if she calls him while he’s on shift - but ignoring her won’t work forever. Better to get it over with.
He answers the call and presses his phone against his ear with his shoulder. One hand holds his bowl steady while the other mixes the noodles into the black bean sauce with his chopsticks.
”What do you want?”
“I just wanted to remind you that your daughter turns ten this Saturday and she wants her father at her birthday party,” his ex-wife says.
Minseok drops his chopsticks onto the table with a clatter. This Saturday. The Saturday he’s just agreed to work an extra shift on. He only just manages not to groan aloud. He’d remembered Nayoung’s birthday this year and even bought her a gift already, but the fact that he’d promised to attend her party had completely slipped his mind. Now he’s going to have to rearrange his work schedule for an afternoon of hanging awkwardly around in a house full of hyperactive ten-year-old girls and trying not to mind the disapproving looks all their mothers will be giving him from the corners of their eyes.
“I know,” he answers quickly, but Jangmi hears right through him.
“You forgot, didn’t you? For God’s sake, Minseok! You will be there, right?”
“Of course I’ll be there! I promised, didn’t I?” He picks up his chopsticks and gathers up a clump of noodles, holds them a couple of inches above the bowl, and wonders if she’ll chew his ear off if he puts them in his mouth while she’s talking to him.
“God help me if you’ve taken an extra shift or something. Nayoung will be heartbroken if you don’t show up and I’m the one who’ll have to deal with the aftermath. Don’t do this to me, Minseok.”
Minseok closes his eyes and tries to drown out the cafeteria sounds. “I’ll be there, I’ll be there. Trust me, would you?”
She sighs heavily. “If only I could.”
He’s interrupted by his pager beeping. He hasn’t even gotten to take a single bite of his meal. His stomach grumbles, protesting the denial of the food it’s been anticipating, but there’s nothing he can do now. He drops the noodles back into the bowl and shoves his chair back with a screech.
“Gotta go,” he says. He pauses, then promises one more time before he hangs up. “I’ll be there.”
He abandons his uneaten jajangmyun and walks quickly back to the emergency department, getting there just as a couple of paramedics wheel in a teenage girl strapped to a spineboard. He pushes the phone call out of his mind with a mixture of guilt and relief. Trying to communicate with his ex-wife stresses him out a hell of a lot more than assessing trauma patients. The noise of the ED engulfs him, chaotic in the best way possible - the way that demands every scrap of his attention and leaves him no time or energy to worry about anything else.
When he’s shunted a couple of nurses off in opposite directions to deal with less urgent patients, he jogs over to the trauma patient on the spineboard. The resident has already started check-up and quickly relays the paramedic’s report to Minseok. 16-year-old female, thrown from a horse, landed on her right side. She screams whenever anybody touches her right shoulder but is otherwise quiet. Tears silently flow down her cheeks, but she’s biting her sobs back, obviously trying hard not to show her pain.
Her anxious mother is told to wait outside the treatment room and a nurse closes the door so people can’t look in. Her clothes are cut off amidst tearful protests about her favourite sweater, and blankets are placed on top of her body to keep her warm. When the resident has finished her assessment she turns to Minseok.
“The patient is ABC stable with a GCS score of 15, awake and alert. She probably fractured her right shoulder based on the pain in the area. It crinkles a little on the right side of her chest when she inhales deeply, that’s a possible pneumothorax. She doesn’t have any back or neck pain. The FAST scan is negative.”
Minseok nods and turns his gaze back to the girl. The phlebotomist has turned up and is about to take a blood sample. The girl’s silent tears have slowed and she’s focusing on the nurse instructing her to breathe while watching out for the shoulder, but he can detect a bit of panic in her eyes. She won’t understand what the resident has just told him and he can tell that she’s worried she’s gotten badly hurt. Minseok sends her a reassuring smile, but she’s too focused on the nurse’s instructions and her breathing to see him.
“What do you suggest we do?” he asks the resident.
“Full CT scan to make sure there’s nothing we’ve missed?”
Minseok nods.
“Switch her onto one of our spineboards so the paramedics can get back on the road, and call radiology,” he instructs before leaving the room to attend to the next patient.
---
Yixing's polished black shoes clip briskly on the linoleum floor as he walks down the hallway to the oncology ward. His crisp white coat swishes, his shirt is pressed to perfection, and his dark brown hair is stylishly messy. The doors slide open for him and he’s given a rushed greeting by a busy young nurse. He greets her back and turns left towards the chemo unit. He’s on his way to see a patient who has been in his care since her diagnosis, one Yixing likes particularly well. She’s funny, her eyes sparkle with hope and happiness, and she never lets it show that she’s dying. They haven’t talked about death in particular but only because she never seems to want to. Every time he tries to bring it up, she stubbornly closes her eyes and says “I’m sleeping”. Yixing has gotten the message.
She’s half asleep in a chair, a plastic bag for vomiting held loosely in her hand with the chemo slowly feeding into her veins from an IV drip. He gently taps her shoulder as he sits down in front of her.
“Oh,” she jumps awake, then smiles when she sees him. “Hello, Dr. Zhang! What have I done to deserve this visit?”
Yixing shakes his head fondly and chuckles.
“How are you doing, Sooyoung?” he asks instead of answering her question.
She shrugs and nods towards her IV drip. “Getting chemo.”
Yixing’s smile falters as he looks at her. Sooyoung notices and lights up in a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Don’t look like that, Dr. Zhang. It’s my only choice, right?” Yixing nods. “Besides, it’s not your fault. I know you’re helping me, so don’t feel bad.”
She smiles and looks at the IV bag to gauge how much she has left. Then she pales. Yixing automatically reaches out to grab a plastic bag, but Sooyoung is faster and holds her own bag to her mouth as she vomits into it. Watching her nauseous and vomiting makes Yixing’s heart sink a little. If there was a way to remove chemo side-effects, he would be on them in a heartbeat. Sooyoung takes a few deep breaths when she’s done and hands the bag to Yixing’s waiting hands as he rubs her shoulder.
“Do you need a couple of tissues?” He’s already leaving her chair even as he speaks, throwing away the bag and grabbing her some tissues from the nurse’s station. Sooyoung looks at him with teary eyes when he returns and gratefully accepts the tissues.
“Ugh,” she complains and rests her head back against the chair. “I swear I would’ve chosen radiation over this if I could.”
Yixing knows she would, but he can’t justify radiation on her. The cancer has spread too far.
“Um, Dr. Zhang?” Sooyoung glances at the almost-empty chemo bag. “I was wondering...can you push my next session a little further back?” She twists her fingers together, looking up at him with hope written all over her too-pale face. “My friends have invited me on a camping trip and I’d love to go.”
He shakes his head reluctantly. “Sorry, Sooyoung. I can’t do that. We need to stick to the scheduled timing or the cancer cells get an opportunity to grow. They can also get more resistant to treatment.”
Sooyoung’s lip trembles. “But it would only be a week,” she says. She sounds like she’s whining, but Yixing understands.
“I know, but the treatment schedule is really important. You remember how I explained about chemotherapy suppressing your immune system? You’re more at risk of picking up an infection, and if you got sick while you were on the trip, we’d have to delay the chemo again until you were well enough to receive your next dose. I just can’t risk it.”
She’s hanging her head now, and he sees a couple of teardrops splash onto the knees of her jeans, though she doesn’t make a sound. Heart sinking, he sits back down on the chair in front of her, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees so that their faces are level. “Don’t cry,” he says gently. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to miss out. I’d say yes if I could.”
She looks up to meet his eyes, tears trembling on her lashes. “If I get all my treatments on schedule,” she whispers, “then I can go camping when I’m better, right?”
He feels his heart twist even as he manages to smile, wishing he could answer that question the way he wants to. “Why don’t you ask some of your friends over to watch a movie instead?” he suggests.
She rubs her hand across her eyes and perks up a little. “Well…I guess I could ask mom to put up our tent in the lounge? We could lie in it and watch Into the Wild.”
“Perfect!” Yixing exclaims. “Nearly as good as the real thing. Actually it’s better. You know how many bugs end up in a tent when you’re camping? Creepy-crawlies everywhere.” He makes his fingers crawl spider-like up her arm and laughs when she squeals that it tickles.
“I’ll ask Joohyun and Seulgi over. We could toast marshmallows over candles instead of a campfire!" Yixing listens patiently as Sooyoung starts to chatter about ideas for the sleepover, happy to see that her tears have dried up.
“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” She suddenly puts her hand over her mouth and grins at him from behind it. “Sorry. Mom says I could talk the hind leg off a donkey.”
Yixing laughs at the expression. “Well, you talked all the way through the rest of your dose.” He points at the empty bag and smiles when she claps her hands together in delight. He calls the nurse over to release her from the IV line in her arm and leaves her, heading back towards the office where he has some outpatient appointments scheduled. As he walks away, the fond smile he’d been wearing while she chattered about her plans fades, and a nurse passing him in the opposite direction is surprised by the sadness she sees in his usually cheerful face.
When Yixing thinks back to his 17-year-old self, the quiet, studious teenager who had decided he wanted to become a doctor, he knows he hadn’t really understood at that time what he was getting himself in for. He’d been sure he’d thought it all through. The idea of years more study hadn’t daunted him – he was good at schoolwork and found biology and chemistry fascinating enough to study far more than was required to simply pass his exams. A future filled with long working hours and sleepless nights seemed more of a positive than a negative – as a lifelong insomniac, working graveyard shifts made the draggingly long nights a heck of a lot more interesting. He’s never been squeamish, so the idea of blood, vomit, pus, and all the other interesting things that could come out of a sick or broken human being hadn’t fazed him in the slightest. Even that stuff has its bright side - he’s developed an instinct for telling when a patient undergoing radiation or chemotherapy is about to vomit all over his pressed slacks and polished shoes, and he’s honed a pretty mean dodge reflex to go with it. All those things considered, Yixing is a pretty good fit for his chosen career.
But one thing about being a doctor that hadn’t penetrated into the confidence of his teenage self, every now and then still rears its ugly head. He can go months if he’s lucky without tripping over his personal obstacle. But when that obstacle does crop up, Yixing always ends up falling flat on his face.
This time, his stumbling block is Park Sooyoung. Every time he looks at her, he knows it is only a matter of time before he ends up hitting the floor with a hard and painful smack. Park Sooyoung is going to die of cancer, and Dr. Zhang Yixing, her attending oncologist, is going to lose a patient. The knowledge of what is to come hangs over him like a distant cloud on the horizon, slowly lumbering its way over the landscape, growing in size and ferocity, until it finally, eventually, eclipses the sun and drenches him in a sheet of cold rain. The Sooyoung-cloud is months away, yet. But it is coming.
“How do you do it?” He asks Songmi that afternoon. They’re in the cafeteria on the ground floor, rather than in Yixing’s more private office on the oncology floor, because his wife is an emergency department nurse and more likely to be urgently called away than Yixing, whose cancer patients tend towards slow declines rather than sudden crises. They’re sitting side-by-side rather than facing each other, because having a whole table between them seems far too much. Side-by-side they can push their chairs close together, and Yixing can wrap his arm around her while she eats, hugging her into the Songmi-sized space that exists at his side and always feels empty when she’s not occupying it.
“How do I do what?” She asks, glancing up from her rice and fried chicken.
He bites his lip, a tell-tale sign of distress. He didn’t really mean for those words to come out. He doesn’t like to worry her. But it’s too late now she’s looked at him. She knows all too well the one thing that can make the light in her happy-go-lucky husband’s eyes go dim.
“Who is it?” She puts down her chopsticks.
“Her name is Sooyoung. She’s only 18 and she’s metastasized all through her lungs and pelvic bones. Songmi, she’s such a sweet kid, and all I can do is drip bucketloads of toxic chemicals into her for the next few months, and she’ll die anyway.”
“Oh, darling.” Songmi wraps her arms around him and he pulls her close, feeling the warmth of her small, familiar body. He rests his chin on her head and feels the vibration of her words in her chest as she speaks. “It’s not your fault. You’re doing the best you can.”
“I know,” Yixing says. Knowing he’s doing his best doesn’t change how he feels, of course, and he knows she understands that. Her presence is a comfort, though. Holding her close makes his heart ache a little less.
“I wish I could do something to help.” She pulls back a little to gaze into his eyes.
He manages a smile, though perhaps it’s not quite as bright as usual. “You help just by being here.”
She smiles back, and he reaches around her, picks up her chopsticks and grabs a piece of chicken. “Open wide,” he teases, and she opens her mouth to let him pop it in. She closes her eyes and makes a blissful humming noise as she chews.
“Is it that delicious?”
“Mm-hmm,” she swallows and opens her eyes. “Not as delicious as you, though,” and she jumps up out of her chair to give him a quick kiss right on the lips.
“Songmi! Behave,” he scolds, then looks around with his eyes stretched wide. “Isn’t that Kim Minseok watching?”
She glances over her shoulder at the mention of her boss, and he takes the opportunity to lean down and blow into her ear. She squeals, and he kisses the top of her ear quickly.
“Got you.”
“You little ratbag,” she scolds, unable to hide her laughter. He laughs too. She always calls him “little”, as if he wasn’t three years older and a full foot taller than her. Little ratbag when he’s being cheeky. Little panda when his dark circles are down to his knees after two sleepless nights followed by a graveyard shift. Little ray of sunshine when he can’t stop beaming because a patient’s in remission.
“Stop distracting me, I only have three minutes of my break left,” she says, grabbing her spoon and taking a huge mouthful of rice.
“Are you off at the shift change?” He asks, and she nods, her mouth too full to speak. His day is officially over, but if they’re working at the same time, he likes to wait for her to be done. He can do some research in his office for a few hours and pick her up from the ED at 7 pm. It’s worth staying at work for two hours longer for her company on the bus ride home.
He walks her into the ED, where she’s immediately swooped upon by the constantly frazzled-looking ED chief and pointed towards a moaning patient. He nods politely to Minseok, who doesn’t notice, and turns away. As he walks towards the elevator to go back to his office, he decides to go through the latest edition of the Chinese oncology journal and see if there’s any new ideas for making chemo side-effects a bit more bearable.
---
The subway car is crammed full with commuters heading home after work. Kyungsoo finds a small gap near the doors to stand in, and reaches up to grip one of the hanging grey handles above his head. The doors close and he rocks slightly with the accelerating surge as the train plunges into its tunnel. He catches sight of his own face reflected in the window against the darkness. A pair of tired, deep-set eyes stare back at him, and he looks away.
He’s been putting off visiting his parents for some time now. It’s not hard to find excuses. Radiology is always run off their feet, every department always wanting imaging for every little thing, even stupid things that they ought to know he can’t possibly diagnose via imaging, or that could easily be cleared clinically if they could actually be bothered. It’s such a waste of time and resources, but what can he do?
The residents are all so sure of themselves, so sure they can’t possibly be wrong, so sure that checking criteria is for plebians, and especially sure that they know far more about which patients need radiology than an actual radiologist. He’s no good at standing up to residents.
If he’s honest with himself, he’s no good at standing up to anyone, and that includes his parents.
His wandering thoughts take him off the subway, up the three flights of concrete steps to street level, and into the street-lit night. It’s a ten-minute walk to his parents' apartment from the station. He wasn’t late when he got off the subway, but when he finally arrives, he realizes he’s walked too slowly, his legs unconsciously obeying his mind’s reluctance, so it’s at five minutes past six that he keys in the code and pushes open the door.
“Kyungsoo!” his mother cries, appearing from the kitchen and nearly running to the door. She brings with her the scents of home cooking, and he recognizes the smells of his favourite dishes. She wraps both her arms around him tightly, then stretches up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He hugs her back, trying not to be too stiff. He’s not one for physical contact, even from his mother, but she’s obviously overjoyed to see him, and he can’t hurt her feelings by pulling away the way he wants to. A twinge of guilt pinches at him. Has it really been that long?
“Oh darling, look at your face, you’re so pale!" She steps back to fuss over him, clicking her tongue. “You work far too hard. Come in, dinner’s all ready.”
“Sorry I’m late,” he says. He slips off his shoes and hangs his coat by the door before putting on the slippers she’s left out for him and following her inside. “The trains…”
She’s not listening, busying herself in the kitchen, taking dishes from a warming oven. His father is already sitting at the head of the dining table, the Economic Observer occluding his face.
“Hi, dad,” Kyungsoo says, and his father lowers the newspaper long enough to briefly meet his eyes and give him a nod. That’s as good as he’s going to get, Kyungsoo knows, and honestly, he’s far more comfortable with that than his mother’s fussing and petting.
He helps his mother put the dishes on the table, and when they’re all seated his father finally puts aside the newspaper. Though it’s been months since he ate with his parents, Kyungsoo automatically folds his hands and waits for his mother to say grace. It’s an ingrained habit inextricably linked with sitting at this table, in this room, his father on his right, his mother opposite.
His mother says a few lines about gratitude, which he doesn’t really listen to, and finishes with, “and Heavenly Father, we thank thee for bringing our son to us to share our meal today.” She opens her eyes and nods at Kyungsoo. She wants him to say something. Kyungsoo cringes internally. Even only in front of his parents, he feels so awkward at times like these. God knows what would happen if she ever made him do this when they had guests over. He’d probably melt into an oozing puddle of embarrassment and drip onto her nice cream carpet.
“We thank thee, Lord, for these thy gifts,” he mumbles. It’s his go-to prayer. He’s not creative enough to think of original ones like his mother does. Finally they start to eat, and his mother asks him how work is going.
“Fine,” he says. “Busy, as always.”
“Have they put you up for a promotion yet? As hard as you work, you ought to be the radiology department chief. I don’t know why they’re overlooking you. You should stand up for yourself more.”
Kyungsoo stifles a sigh. He’s pretty sure he knows why she’s asked this, and sure enough, her next topic turns to what all the children of the ladies from the church are doing. Kyungsoo knows who some of these children are - the ones who, like him, were dragged to Sunday school for most of their childhood and adolescence, though he’s not seen most of them in over a decade.
“You remember Sekyung, don’t you? Kim Minha’s little boy? Well, he’s just been made managing editor of the entertainment department at the Korea Herald! Isn’t that something?”
Kyungsoo nods. This is where she’s gotten the idea that he needs a promotion. She’d love to brag to Kim Minha that while Sekyung may be a managing editor for a newspaper, her son is chief of radiology at a big hospital.
“And you’ll never guess what,” his mom continues. “Remember Lee Taehee who got married last year? She’s just had her babies – twins! Two girls! Isn’t that lovely!”
“Mmhmm,” Kyungsoo says vaguely, remembering Lee Taehee as a shy teenager who never said more than two words to him in all the six years they were in the same Sunday school class. He can’t imagine her married with twin babies. It just seems so strange. Now that he’s thirty, more and more people his age are marrying and having kids, but Kyungsoo just doesn’t get it. He knows it must be appealing, or people wouldn’t do it – but why is it appealing? What is it about having a relationship that’s so attractive?
“Isn’t Taehee’s mother lucky,” his mother sighs. “Imagine. Two grandchildren at once!” She darts a look at Kyungsoo. “Have you met anyone special lately, Kyungsoo? Anyone you’d like to tell me about?”
Kyungsoo looks down at his plate. Here it comes.
“No,” he says, and takes a huge mouthful of rice so that she can’t make him talk more.
“Honestly, darling, you’re already thirty years old. It’s time you settled down...” and the familiar, dreaded lecture begins. Kyungsoo chews his endless mouthful as she tells him all about how it’s not good to be alone, that he needs someone to look after him, that if he’s not careful he’ll end up a bachelor for life, that all the nice girls will be taken. He nods vaguely at each point. He doesn’t see what’s so bad about being a bachelor for life. It sounds much better to him than all the baggage attached to a relationship.
It’s the part about the grandchildren that really gets to him. His mom had been unable to have any more children after Kyungsoo, and he’s her only hope. He can see how much she longs to have children about. He knows she’d be a wonderful grandmother. She’s always been so affectionate, and it’s really not her fault that her only son takes after his reserved, undemonstrative father. But how can he give her grandchildren when the idea of getting close to a woman, let alone the sexual intercourse that is a fairly vital part of creating children, makes him feel like running for the hills?
His phone rings, and he answers it like a drowning man who’s just been tossed a lifebelt.
“Sorry, mom. They need me in the ED. I have to go.”
And he does, leaving his mother staring sadly at his half-finished meal and empty chair.
Back at the hospital, Kyungsoo has to squeeze past the two X-ray technicians, one resident, two interns, one orderly and three nurses who have all somehow crammed themselves into the small operator room behind the CT scanner to get to his office. It’s loud and full of the accumulated stress vibes of too many people trying to work in too small a space, and after the less-than-successful dinner with his parents he’s finding it hard to concentrate.
He’s haunted by thoughts of disappointing his mother, and they’re distracting him from the scan in front of him. He gets up and shuts the door to block out some of the noise. Then he closes his eyes, breathes in the silence, and pushes the worries away. When he opens his eyes again, he’s able to focus on the grey-tone scans on the screens in front of him instead of the ghosts of children that will never be.
He scrolls up and down through the pictures, then changes to the lung window and assesses the damage to the lungs. Considering the multiple broken ribs and pneumothorax, he’s surprised the patient has energy to whimper about her shoulder. Changing back to the abdomen window, he looks over the shoulder injury and isn’t surprised to see that she’s fractured it, as well as her collarbone. She must’ve hit the ground pretty hard.
Kyungsoo leans back in his chair and stares at the different shades of grey on his computer screen for a minute. You couldn’t pay him enough to get on a horse; he’s seen far too many bad injuries after a fall from one. They might not be mean creatures, but they’re stupidly big and kind of scary all the same, even without the injuries a fall can result in. This patient has gotten off lightly compared to some he’s seen.
The scan hasn’t revealed any other injuries outside of her fractures and pneumothorax, and Kyungsoo considers not bothering to call the attending in and instead just describing his findings on the computer system so he can leave the office without having to actually talk to anyone, but eventually decides against it.
His phone feels heavier than usual in his hands as he reluctantly dials the number for the attending ED physician, but when it’s picked up by Kim Minseok he breathes a sigh of relief. The section chief is always friendly and to-the-point, despite being a little messy, and he never gives Kyungsoo any grief about why he’s done what he’s done and why he’s changed exams to more relevant ones, unlike the residents.
“Did you see Ryeo Miyoung earlier? Yeah, the trauma patient. You should come here and see the scan for yourself,” he says into the phone and when Minseok agrees to stop by, he hangs up and leans back in his chair again. He could quickly describe what he’s seen, but he’s in no rush. The ED doctors will have already started treating the obvious injuries.
Five minutes later, there's a knock on the door to his office and it opens before he has a chance to answer. Minseok gives him a tired smile. As always, he looks a little ruffled. His hair looks like he’s run his fingers through it without realising, making it stand up, and his stethoscope is almost falling out of its pocket.
“See anything we have to act on immediately?” Minseok asks as he closes the door behind him and Kyungsoo shakes his head.
“I’m guessing you already sent her to the OR for the pneumothorax. Maybe you should consult orthopedics for her fractures, her shoulder is a 3-part fracture that’s anteriorly dislocated. It doesn’t look good. The collarbone is a midshaft fracture; it might need a plate or screw.” He scrolls with his mouse so he can show Minseok exactly where the shoulder and collarbone is fractured. “It must’ve been a lot of impact to do that damage on such a young body.”
Minseok looks at the grey tones on the computer. “How many fractures on her ribs do you count?”
Kyungsoo scrolls a little further down and points to a few cracks on her ribs. “Ribs three through twelve are fractured, ribs seven through nine in multiple places. I’m guessing she hit something hard when she landed.”
Minseok looks at his screen for a couple of seconds before he turns to Kyungsoo and sends him a tired smile. “Thanks.”
“It’s my job,” Kyungsoo shrugs. Minseok chuckles, then makes a grab for his stethoscope as it topples out of his pocket, snatching it from the air with lightning reflexes. Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. “You know, if you put that thing deeper in your pocket, you wouldn’t have to keep replacing it when you break it every three months.”
Minseok shakes his head fondly and opens the door behind him, stethoscope still in hand.
“You’re on call, right? Go home and get some sleep. Maybe you won’t get called again tonight.”
“Minseok, you just jinxed it!” Kyungsoo complains. The ED section chief laughs and raises a hand in farewell, leaving Kyungsoo alone in front of his computer screen. The faint hum of the computer is the only sound in the small office. He should leave like Minseok suggested, but in the quiet his thoughts drift back to dinner with his parents. It’s too late to go back and be lectured, but that doesn’t mean the thoughts and the words have disappeared.
He sighs deeply and shakes his head to shake the thoughts away. He gets up, sticks his head into the break room to wish the X-ray technicians a good evening on his way out, and heads home.