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A collective sigh of relief could be heard as soon as the group of medical staff finally wheeled the open-heart surgery patient out of the operating room. After 8 long, mind-boggling hours, the surgeons and the assistants only had one thing in mind: the bed. The idea of their soft, cloudy pillows, and ever-soothing mattresses is getting more and more attractive as one more minute passes by.
Home is where he should probably be but the growl in his stomach made it hard to ignore. Behind him was Nurse Oh, who clearly heard the sound of hunger pains. In spite of her exhaustion, she still managed to stifle a chuckle while giving him a sideways glance.
“We’re gonna get some ramyeon at Dr. Nam’s,” Cha Eun Jae said, stretching her fingers. “Do you want to come join us, Sabu-nim?”
He gave it a thought or two, but he didn’t think he could wait a minute more to eat. “Thank you, you can go ahead and grab yourselves a hearty meal.” He refused cordially.
“What about you, Sussaem?” Asked one of the nurses.
The nurse smiled but politely turned down the offer, saying she had to check-in with the ER to see if they needed any assistance.
As the group were leaving to get changed in the staff locker, Cha Eun Jae found it somehow odd, and murmured, “Huh, I am pretty sure he was hungry. Even Sussaem heard his stomach growling.” She shrugged and shoved the idea out of her head and went along her merry way to eat handfuls and handfuls of food.
~
Waiting for the rest of his coffee to finish brewing, Master Kim heard the door creak open. He looked up to see who was behind the door. When he finally caught sight of who it was, he pulled another set of coffee cup from his collection and invited his visitor in.
“Should you really be making coffee at this hour?”
“Come on, you love my coffee,” he let out a low inward laugh.
Sussaem, or simply Myung-Shim to him, settled herself on the couch and asked, “You should have come to Dr. Nam’s place with the other staff.” She persuaded. It was apparent that he was dying to eat something.
But the genius doctor argued that an instant ramyeon is just as good.
She grumbled at his stubbornness, “Then you should have just gone straight home, Kim Sabu.” She added and squirmed at the sight of the instant noodles he just grabbed from his shelf. Not only was it unhealthy but even the mere mention of its name was making her a tad nauseous as of late.
“It’s not as if I could go home immediately after the surgery, you know that. And why haven’t you? ” He tossed the question back to her.
As if he didn’t know why. Nurse Oh rolled her eyes and set down a small bag in front of him.
“What is that?”
“What else, your food.” She answered. She had prepared yukgaejang this afternoon before her shift and brought some for when the surgery is over.
His eyes lit up as soon as he saw the scrumptious meal that the nurse took out for him. It was heated adequately to perfection, too. “Thank you,”
When the coffee was finally done, he offered her a cup but Sussaem had told him she was trying to cut down on her caffeine intake, and it was quite late to be drinking some. It would surely defeat the purpose of getting some rest.
“ Ga! Eat up, then finish here and get some rest.” Myung-Shim admonished.
The wooden chair he was sitting on was too high to be eating on the centre table he had in his office, he transferred beside her on the couch and asked her to scoot a bit. He could feel her eyes watching him like a hawk as he gobbled up the food she was feeding him.
The yawning nurse next to him struck and made him look in her direction, her languid eyes looked heavy and it was evident that she was fighting with herself to fall asleep.
“What are you doing?” Sussaem squinted at him when Kim Sabu placed his arms over her shoulders and brought her closer to him.
His voice notched up a few pitches more than his usual, “Oh Myung-Shim, you’ve been telling me to get some rest but you can’t even do the same for yourself. Nap for a few minutes.”
Even though she wanted to utter her protest, Master Kim made it hard for her to decline his offer. It was true that she was equally tired and she had to admit that the surgery really took its toll on her. She gently leaned on him and succumbed to slumber. But before she could finally fall asleep, she looked up at his gorgeous face. He held her gaze, he had that unfailing kindness and unconditional love radiating in his eyes. She reminded him, “Please, wake me up after a few minutes, yeobo .”
“Okay, just close your eyes now.” He traced his hand over her hair and planted a tiny kiss above her head.
~
To say that the emergency room was chaotic the day after would be an understatement. With patient after patient getting admitted to the hospital, it’s beginning to become unmanageable for Nurses Park Eun-Tak and Miss Eom being the only skilled staff to be on duty. Dr. Jung couldn’t focus on his tasks at hand after hearing another patient arriving even before he could aptly diagnose someone.
After what seemed to be a lifetime, a group of doctors finally arrived. Mr. Jang managed to alarm them just in time to go back to the hospital as they needed all the help they could gather.
“Kim Sabu-nim eodi gyesseyo?” (Where is Master Kim?) Doctor Seo repeated his question.
They tried contacting the chief surgeon but there was no answer. The bed he usually occupies in the emergency room was empty. It was very peculiar that he was nowhere else to be seen. It wasn’t like him. Surprisingly, it was Dr. Park who came to his peer’s defense saying that Kim Sabu was very exhausted from the previous surgery and they should probably cut him some slack. With the number of capable doctors that they have, they’ll be able to manage the piling patients just fine.
“Mr. Goo!!!!” Manager Jang yelled for the orderly to look for the missing doctor. Although Dr. Park had already ordered them to let Kim Sabu be, it still didn’t sit well with him that the doctor is missing on all these actions. Scared as he was of him, he knew very well that if there's anything that angers him more than having his sleep interrupted was his staff keeping him in the dark like this.
Dr. Park sighed, he hated how Manager Jang bypassed his authority but he also knew that the older man made a good point, “Come on, Mr. Goo. I’ll check on the staff rooms and you check on the second floor. Call me when you’ve found him.”
A few minutes later, the emergency room had calmed down a little. The patients were being attended and the doctors had done their jobs accordingly. A few people need to be operated on, but despite them having a busy morning most of them are out of grave danger.
~
“Ah, jinjja?” Dr. Park let out a smirk and then fished for his mobile phone inside his trousers pocket. He wrote, “ I found them .”
Manager Jang’s phone beeped. “Who’s them?” He read the message louder than he initially intended.
Some of the staff gave him a rather suspicious look, but also curious about "them," apparently. As far as the team was concerned, they were only looking for Kim Sabu, who else could Mr. Goo or Dr. Park have found?
“We’re looking all over the hospital and not one of you had thought to check on him in his office?” The Doldam Hospital’s director declared quite loudly. He gave an irritated remark when he noticed that some of the curious physicians unambiguously following his lead.
A couple of heads peeked behind the glass window of the chief surgeon's office— the one where Dr. Park had told them where Kim Sabu was located, but they couldn’t see clearly since the pleated blinds on his window was blocking the view.
Park Min-Guk brought one of his fingers over his lips, persuading all of them to be silent and just watch who he found curled up on the couch together.
“ Omo !” Cha Eun-Jae clasped a hand over her mouth, trying to stop herself from making more noise than what she had just let out.
They had found used dishes on the table, cups of coffee that were neglected to be finished and unopened instant ramyeon. But that was just the tip of the iceberg because the sight before them made the contents on the table utterly uninteresting.
The peaceful couple sitting close to each other received “oohs” and “aahs” from their unwanted audience. Sussaem was snuggled under his arms with her head resting over Kim Sabu’s chest while his other hand was entwined with hers as one of his feet raised above the table supporting them both from falling over.
The group murmured that they must let them rest since the emergency room had already settled down anyway. Prying on their seniors would only get them in trouble but how juicy does this piece of information look to just pass up on? Dr. Park reprimanded them quietly and convinced them that they should all just leave the room at once.
“There’s nothing to see here, people. These are just colleagues sharing a meal and who are extremely tired after a long day. Stop creating malice in your heads.” Manager Jang agreed. If there were something going on between these two, he was confident that he would be the first to know. He decided that it was only fitting that they give them the benefit of the doubt.
They thought they were exiting the room quietly but the indistinct chattering had become more and more audible as it reached Sussaem’s ears.
A loud gasp startled the silence that used to fill the room, “Wake up, Yong-Joo ssi!”
The staffs looked at each other, with wide-eyed curiosity. “YONG-JOO SSI?!” They exclaimed in chorus.
She quickly bit her tongue when she realised they had company and she shouldn’t have called him by his name. Sussaem looked away.
Kim Sabu’s tongue clicked in slight annoyance. “Ya, yeobo, go back to sleep!” He hated being prematurely awakened in his sleep. He felt his wife release herself from his embrace then swatting his arms to keep him awake.
“YEOBO?” Doctors Cha, Seo, Yoon, and Nurse Park echoed.
“Aish!!” The head nurse bit her lip in sheer embarrassment and hid her face in both her palms as if she wanted to disappear from the face of the earth this instant.
When Kim Sabu regained his composure, and the moment his sleepiness completely left out his system, he finally realized what was happening. How long have they been asleep? Has it really been a couple of hours since? They only intended to take a quick nap and then go home together. He shot up from his seat quicker than a ray of light. He turned his look over at Nurse Oh, who had her face still buried behind her hands, he also noticed that her cheeks had turned pinker than usual.
“Y-yeobo? Why are you calling Sussaem ‘yeobo?’ And when were you ever on first name basis with Kim Sabu?” Manager Jang stuttered in disbelief. Wondering how on God’s green earth could he have missed this big information hiding in plain sight. He had always suspected that there was an underlying tension between them and they could have been more than friends if they would act on it. Obviously, they did.
“Well...” Kim Sabu chuckled nervously.
“Well…” Sussaem started racking her brain to come up with an excuse but she couldn’t find any.
“WELL?” The group of doctors leaned in closer to not miss any of the details.
“STOP REPEATING EVERYTHING WE’RE SAYING LIKE A GROUP OF STARVING PARROTS!” He raised his voice at them, causing them to back off and gave them a dirty look like he could cut off their hands. He prevented and threatened them that if they parroted another word, he would do something unimaginable.
“When did you even start dating?” Dr. Park interjected himself into the conversation.
“Why are you all even here?” Nurse Oh avoided the question.
Before one of them could answer, the orderly Mr. Goo poked his head in by the doorway informing the doctors that they really need help back in the ER.
“Duty calls. Can we talk about this later?”
“Kim Sabu, ani !” Sussaem gave his arms another open-handed strike. She was discouraging him to say anything more but it seemed like her husband had given the team a reason to bring up the subject again.
“Sure,” Dr. Ah-Reum replied, chortling lowly.
“And don’t you think we’d ever forget it,” Dr. Park Min-Guk added.
They started to leave, for real this time, leaving both their seniors behind.
As soon as they were sure that no one is around, Kim Sabu took her hands in his, “it’s going to be okay.”
“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so,” she pouted like a little girl after someone had taken away her candy. “We should’ve just gone home last night. We have been so careful, we had become so good at hiding, and now…” She rambled on.
Before Sussaem could express another word, her husband reached for her lips and gave her a quick peck.
“KIM SABU! Mwoeya?” The surprised tone in her voice didn’t faze him in the least. She protested again, “This is why we promised to keep our relationship a secret. You can’t just kiss me whenever it strikes your fancy.”
“Really?” He teased.
“Well, not when we’re at work,” Sussaem blushed. “But we set rules, limitations! We can’t go around parading our marriage to everyone…”
“MARRIAGE?” There was a loud repetition coming from outside the room.
“…just because everyone now knows. This is why we agreed to separate our private lives from our work…”
He kissed her again.
“KIM! SA! BU!” her anger flared.
“I’ll stop kissing you when you stopped rambling and complaining,” he winked at her.
"M-MWO?! Neo micheossyeo?" Sussaem hissed under her breath. Oh Myung-Shim knew that there was nothing that she could do or say to make him stop once he got started in his little silly antics unless she complied. But she loved him for it, anyway. She returned his smile and nodded her head. “Alright, Master Kim.” She resigned and rolled her eyes.
“We really gave them a shock, didn’t we?” He whispered in her ears.
“I’d wait ‘til we tell them about our baby.”
“BABY?” he parroted. “What baby?”
It was Sussaem’s turn to grab her husband’s hand in hers and placed it on her slightly protruding belly. “This baby. Our baby.”
Once those words had left her mouth, she knew she had given him the biggest surprise he could ever have in this life.
Strange as it was at the beginning, despite the entire medical staff’s glistening eyes, they could clearly see and understand why these two chose to hide their romance, and they have all the right to do so.
At this moment, he didn’t feel like he was the genius doctor, Master Kim. But who he was was simply his true elated self, Boo Yong-Joo. He pressed his lips over his wife’s, his fingers rested on her chin. There isn’t anything else he could have asked for. He had his job, this hospital, and his health. But what he was most thankful for is this woman in front of him, his best friend, his lover, his wife forever, and soon enough the mother of his unborn child.
“Gomawo, Sussaem. Saranghae.”
“Saranghaeyo, Kim Sabu-nim.”
FIN.