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“Lee Gyusunim AND Kim Gyusunim! How lucky for me to find my two favourites here together. And how did your surgery go Lee Gyusunim? Not that such a question needs to be asked knowing your skill.” Cardiology resident, Do Jaehak tore off his operating cap and plonked himself down on the sofa of the small surgical rest room. He beamed at the other two doctors who had their feet up on the table and were drinking coffee.
Kim Junwan sat up more formally at the entrance of his mentee and observed him over the top of his glasses. “Never mind Ikjun’s surgery, how about yours? You were in there a long time. Were the vessels not big enough for access or the adhesions from the previous surgery worse than we thought?” He pinned his junior with a stern gaze.
“Worry not gyusunim,” Dr Do patted his sunbae on the arm. “I have learned from the best and I would have called you if I’d got into trouble. I took my time as you instructed but it was a straightforward procedure.”
Kim Junwan nodded curtly, although the corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll come with you to the ward and see for myself whether the patient survived.”
“Ignore my grumpy friend - good job Dr Do!” Liver surgeon-extraordinaire, Lee Ikjun, stretched up his arms, rotating his shoulders to release stiffening muscles. “I must go and check on my own patient.” He stood and then paused at the door. “How’s your wife Jaehak? She must be due quite soon?”
“Yes! Only a week or two more to wait – thank you Gyusunim. She feels enormous and is very tired now but to me…” Do Jaehak sighed out and smiled coyly at his feet while he flexed his ankles, “…she truly gets more beautiful every day we are married.”
Kim Junwan snorted his objection to this statement but the gooiness in his eyes undermined any attempt to appear steely-hearted. There was no point anyway: Both his colleagues knew he was really more marshmallow than man.
Lee Ikjun, who made no secret of his own soppiness, asked, “How long have you two been together now?”
“Today is our day 6,332,” Jaehak answered without even pausing for a moment’s thought. The other two men’s jaws dropped. He continued, “But Gyusunims – surely you must both be approaching your own 100 day anniversaries of love? Yulje’s cardiology department will be going out of business given all the happy hearts beating in our corridors these days!” He clasped his hands together. “So how will you and Chae Gyusunim be celebrating, Lee Gyusunim?”
“Warn me if I need to put my fingers in my ears…” Junwan interrupted. He visibly shuddered.
Ikjun ignored his friend and rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. We’ve both been so busy recently that we haven’t made any particular plans. But you’re right – it must be coming up next week.”
Dr Do looked disapproving. “These dates are very important to mark properly. What about you Kim Gyusunim?” It was Do Jaehak’s turn to give a stern stare and Kim Junwan shuffled awkwardly in his seat. “It may be second time around for you but that makes it even more vital that you get it right and show improvement.”
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. Do Jaehak clicked his tongue against his teeth and shook his head. “Yah! But mine is further away than his.” Junwan nodded towards Ikjun as he stood up. “I have lots of time.”
Ikjun grabbed hold of Junwan’s scrub top and squared up to him. “Listen up punk – put some effort in. Make sure you treat my sister well.”
Junwan grabbed a handful of material of his own on Ikjun’s scrub top, “Worry about your own love-life, loser. I treat my bidulgi like a queen, and whatever you do for Songhwa I’m going to do better. Buy her a hundred roses and I’ll send Iksuni a…a…THOUSAND roses! Ha!”
Ikjun laughed, let go of his friend and smoothed out his top. “Go ahead with that and it won’t be me who you’ll have to answer to in a fight – and you know how my sister kicks. Dr Do may be the expert in love in this room but I can tell you one thing for sure: nobody wants to find space and vases for 1000 roses. You’d better think again.” He turned on his heel.
But Junwan was determined to have the last word, “Yeah well and you’d better think faster!” he shouted after Ikjun’s retreating back.
Ikjun hated to admit it but Junwan was right. The fact that every day with Songhwa felt like a miracle to be celebrated; that every cell in his body was constantly preoccupied with finding new ways to make her smile was entirely irrelevant: 100 days was a milestone that required something special and he was running out of time to work out what that something special might be. Having established that neither of them were on call and arranged for his dear son to have a sleepover elsewhere on the relevant night, Ikjun tried to work out what Songhwa would like best. The woman herself was no help:
“Just a quiet evening in with you is all I want. I don’t need more jewellery or fancy restaurants with views or -don’t even THINK about it Ikjun-ah - a trip up the tower. I’ve been so tired this week.”
“And whose fault is that Professor Sure-I-Can-Do-That-Teaching-Session-As-Well-As-An-Extra-Clinic hmm?” Ikjun had softened his telling-off with an on-the-spot shoulder massage and later delivery of coffee and cake.
He chewed over the problem with Oh Dongbaek; the ahjumma who ran Yulje’s favoured florist. Ikjun had become a regular customer of hers; although his orders were somewhat smaller than the potential thousand blooms boasted of by idiot Junwan. Every few days, Ikjun came and picked out a single perfect stem to arrange in a vase on Songhwa’s desk. He took a photo each time and had even started an Instagram account for the pictures, although so far the only people who had taken pity on him and bothered following it were Chu-Chu and Gyeouli. He liked to choose flowers for their meaning.
“It’s a tough one Gyusunim,” the florist agreed. “I mean….” she began checking off on her fingers, “…you’ve already given Chae gyusunim a red rose for passionate love, a white rose for sincerity, an orange rose for first love, a pink rose for happiness, a tea bush flower for sweet memories, a red tulip for eternal love, an aster for everlasting love, baby’s breath for even more eternal love, a butterfly flower for attraction…” she took a deep breath “…and then there was the camellia for I love you best and the chrysanthemum for joy, the cosmos for I love you, the cotton flower for cherishing family, the dahlia for happy-making love, the delphinium for promising happiness, the freesia for a new beginning…”
“Oh yes – I liked that one,” Ikjun interrupted, grinning.
“…the forsythia for deepening love, the gerbera for gratitude, the amaranth for unchanging love, the lily of the valley for return to happiness, the hydrangea for I love you, the lisianthus for even more unchanging love, the protea for sending sweet love, the stock flower for forever beautiful…”
“She IS,” sighed Ikjun.
“…and the zinnia for longing desire,” the ahjumma concluded.
“Ah that was when she had three days of back-to-back surgeries and I barely saw her. So, what have I missed then?”
The florist looked at him with a stricken expression. “I don’t know Gyusunim.”
“Jinja?”
“I’m sorry. I’m struggling to think of any new flowers to suggest. I mean if you have an argument or break up there are lots of other meanings…”
“That will never happen,” said Ikjun, still smiling but very very definite.
The florist laughed. “You’ve become my favourite customer gyusunim, so I really want to help you any way I can, but maybe you are asking the wrong person this time. Don’t you remember what you said to me the first time you came to choose? - ‘I only want one bloom to start with because I don’t know if she’ll like a gift she can’t eat’. You did make me chuckle! Perhaps you should be booking a table at the steak house over the road rather than buying my flowers? Or should I make you up a posy of carrots and radishes perhaps?”
Ikjun stared at the florist, all the synapses in his brain suddenly flying off at once in a way that would have created quite a challenging EEG print out for his neurologist true love to analyse. “You’re a genius,” he said. “Not carrots, but I know exactly what I want to order from you. I promise I haven’t gone crazy but can you sell me a dozen…”
“Sterile drape…” ordered Professor Lee. His assistant spread it over the operating field. “Knife…” he commanded, “…but carefully,” he added. His surprisingly diminutive assistant handed it over safely. “Sutures!” demanded the surgeon. “Aiish this is fiddly.” Unusually, Yulje hospital’s foremost hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeon appeared to be struggling with his stitchwork. “I need more light,” he said in frustration.
“Shall I go and fetch my torch appa?” his operating assistant offered.
“Thank you Uju, but I’m okay. This is just a new procedure for appa to master.”
“Do you mind if I go and watch television then?”
“Aha – maybe if I use the Howard ligature technique on the bottom here then… What’s that sweetie? No, you go ahead. I think this could take me a while.”
“Okay appa,” Ikjun’s small son got down from the kitchen chair he was standing on and trotted off towards the living room. He turned back suddenly and made a small fist of encouragement: “Hwaiting appa!”
Ikjun typed in the passcode to his apartment. “Just wait there a moment,” he said to Songhwa. “I want to make everything ready.”
“What are you up Ikjun-ah? I thought we agreed we weren’t going to make a big fuss.” But Songhwa was smiling and she waited obediently until Ikjun took her by the hand and led her inside. Then – “Ah!” she bounced on her toes happily as she saw the dining room table. Ikjun felt satisfied that he’d achieved the effect he’d wanted to.
“Happy 100 Days to you – to us,” he said.
It was nothing fancy. He’d set the table up with the grill in the middle. There were lettuce leaves, and all the side dishes and sauces necessary for an evening of making ssam at home. Ikjun had kept the place settings simple and although he’d lit a couple of candles there were no balloons or streamers or confetti cannons. Those things just weren’t Songhwa after all. The only extravagant touch on the table was the vase of a dozen long stemmed roses. And even from the other side of the room they caught Songhwa’s eye.
“Are those flowers for me Ikjun-ah? They’re beautiful and so many of them this time! Have you taken your photo already? What do these ones mean?” Songhwa knew the right questions to ask about Ikjun’s flower gifts.
Ikjun grinned. “I think they’re going to be my most popular post yet. Those roses mean ‘I hope you’re hungry jagiya.’” Songhwa looked at him questioningly.
“Jinja? That’s unusual…”
“Why don’t you take a closer look?”
Songhwa walked up to the table. Each rose was enormous - a fat, plump and perfect bloom and an unusual bi-colour of deep red with delicate cream veining running through each petal. They looked magnificent. They looked juicy… Juicy?? Songhwa looked more closely and gasped. “Are these…?” Ikjun giggled with delight as he saw the penny drop.
“They’re hanwoo roses! Flowers are all well and good but celebrating 100 days together called for the thing my love likes best of all. It’s not quite the whole cow there but I’ve got most of the rest of it in the fridge. Tonight, you can have all the steak you want as fast as you can eat it. I promise I won’t ever tell you to slow down or stop.”
Songhwa doubled up laughing. Once she’d recovered from the surprise, she plucked a stem out the vase to examine the wonder more closely. Delicate slices of top-grade beef had been folded and wrapped around each other to create a brilliant illusion, then neatly sutured at the bottom to hold onto real rose stems. “Where on earth did you buy them?”
“I made them myself and it was the trickiest surgery I’ve done in a while I can tell you! You and the boys may laugh at the time I spend on Instagram but it gives me good ideas sometimes.” Ikjun looked proud. “I saw a post with something similar ages ago but forgot about it until I was trying to work out what to give to you. Don’t look too closely at the roses hiding in the middle – they’re the first ones I made. My friend at the florist saved the stems for me to put them on.”
Songhwa flung her arms around Ikjun’s neck. “I love them. And I love your crazy brain that thought they could make them and your beautiful hands that really did make them. Most of all, I love you.”
Ikjun beamed, wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed tight. “Anything for you…Everything for you. Thank you Songhwa-ya. Thank you for the last 100 days and for all the days that went before it and for all the days to come. I love you.” He kissed her lips lightly. “Would you like these beautiful hands to start grilling you a rose right now?”
Songhwa put her head to one side, pouted slightly and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. I am hungry now but I think I could get even hungrier…”
“Hungrier?”
“If we could only think of a way to work up an appetite first.” Songhwa reached up and kissed Ikjun, her mouth was soft but lingered suggestively. Her lips were slightly open and the tip of her tongue brushed teasingly against Ikjun’s teeth before she pulled away. “Maybe I have a 100 day present for you too…”
Ikjun could feel the heat rising. At this rate he wouldn’t even need to turn the grill on to sizzle the hanwoo. He swallowed. “A present you say?”
“Uh-huh. Perhaps your beautiful hands might like to do some unwrapping to find it before they start grilling?” Songhwa idly ran a finger round the collar of her blouse and pulled it casually off centre revealing just a flash of hot pink and lacy shoulder strap.
“Songhwa-ya…” Ikjun’s eyes widened and his voice went croaky.
“Yes, Ikjun-ah?” Songhwa giggled and then gasped as Ikjun cupped her buttocks and lifted her whole body off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her fingers twisted into his hair. Mouths open, their lips and tongues melded together with urgency. Then, carrying his true love, lost in their kiss, and sending a stray button scattering across the floor in his haste to get rid of the blouse preventing full sight of his ‘gift’, Ikjun crashed blindly across the room in the direction of the bedroom.
Hanwoo was a good way to celebrate 100 days together for sure, but some ways were even better…