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The night in the city hospital was a hushed symphony of beeps and soft footsteps. Dr. Jeong Jinsoul, with her striking blonde hair pulled back in a practical yet elegant bun, moved through the quiet corridors. Her office, a small haven against the sterile backdrop, was infused with the scent of antiseptic battling a subtle vanilla sweetness from her diffuser. Two plush dolls, a bear and a rabbit, sat perched on her desk, silent companions during her night shifts.
Jinsoul was diligent and sharp, a rising star in the hospital. She liked the quiet of the night, the focused energy when the world outside slowed down. That peace, however, was about to be disrupted in a rather peculiar way.
A knock. A hesitant, almost shy knock, unlike the usual urgent raps of nurses or hurried thuds of gurneys startled her. The door creaked open to reveal a woman with a slightly disheveled appearance, her dark hair a mess, and a collection of bruises blooming across her cheekbone and jaw.
“Doctor Jeong?” The woman’s voice was soft, laced with a nervous cheerfulness that seemed oddly out of place with her injuries.
“Yes, come in.” Jinsoul gestured to the examination chair, her professional mask settling firmly in place. “What happened?”
“Oh, clumsy me,” the woman chuckled, a wide, almost unnervingly bright grin spreading across her face, pushing up her cheeks. “Tripped. Really bad trip.”
Jinsoul, despite years of training, had to suppress a scoff. Tripped into a wall, judging by the purplish-blue hues of the bruises. She efficiently examined the woman, noting the lack of other injuries beyond the facial contusions. “Ice and rest,” she prescribed, writing out a quick note. “Come back if it worsens.”
“Thank you, Doctor Jeong!” The woman beamed, taking the note as if it were a golden ticket. “You’re, uh, very pretty, you know?” She added, a slight blush dusting her cheeks.
Jinsoul simply raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Take care,” she said, dismissing the comment as an odd quirk of a patient in discomfort.
Two days later, the same woman was back. This time, the grin was a little strained, a little less bright. Her shoulders were bandaged, peeking out from under a loose jacket. “Slipped in the shower this time,” she explained, the grin wavering slightly.
Jinsoul’s eyebrows climbed higher. “Both shoulders?” she questioned, her voice coolly skeptical.
“It was… a very slippery shower,” the woman insisted, her eyes darting around the room, landing briefly on the alpaca dolls. Jinsoul sighed internally. She cleaned and re-bandaged the ‘shower slip’ injuries, which looked suspiciously like rope burns, and prescribed stronger pain relief. The woman, again, was excessively grateful, her cheesy compliments a constant hum throughout the brief consultation. Jinsoul was starting to find it… endearing? Annoying? She wasn’t quite sure.
Then came the night a week later. The emergency buzzer shrilled, and Jinsoul rushed in to find Jungeun again, paler than before, clutching her stomach. Blood seeped through her fingers. A stab wound.
"What happened this time, Ms. Kim?" Jinsoul asked, her voice sharper than intended, concern warring with a growing bewilderment.
“Stab wound,” the woman announced, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. “Kitchen accident, you see. Brand new knives, terribly sharp.”
Jinsoul stared. A stab wound. “Let’s take a look,” she said, her voice dangerously level. Underneath the coat, a jagged wound marred the woman’s abdomen. It wasn’t deep, thankfully, but it was definitely more than a ‘kitchen accident’.
“I need to operate,” Jinsoul stated, her voice firm. “We need to clean this properly and ensure there’s no internal damage.”
The woman shook her head, her dark eyes wide. “No, no operation. Just… stitch it up. Please?”
Jinsoul blinked. Stitch a stab wound in her office without anesthesia? That was… insane. And definitely against hospital policy. “That’s not advisable,” Jinsoul began, but the woman’s eyes pleaded with her, a strange mix of desperation and… was that trust?
“Please, Doctor Jeong,” she whispered. “Just stitch it.”
Against her better judgment, and a hefty dose of hospital policy, Jinsoul relented. "Come with me," she said, leading the woman towards her office, away from prying eyes. Stitching a stomach wound, even a seemingly superficial one, without local anesthesia was borderline reckless, and certainly against regulations. But this woman's stubbornness was strangely compelling.
“This is highly irregular, understand? And it’s going to hurt.”
“I can handle hurt,” the woman grinned weakly. “It’s kind of my specialty.”
As Jinsoul prepped the area, she finally allowed herself to truly look at the woman. She was petite, almost delicate-looking, with those perpetually grinning lips and bright eyes. And absolutely bonkers.
In the privacy of her office, under the soft glow of the desk lamp, Jinsoul worked. The shorter woman bit her lip, a low groan escaping as the needle pierced her skin. Jinsoul was impressed, and slightly disturbed, by her tolerance for pain. She was stitching with practiced precision when she, through gritted teeth, started a conversation.
"You have… nice dolls," she hummed, eyes fixed on the bear and the alpaca dolls that she saw few days ago.
Jinsoul scoffed, pulling the thread taut. "They're for comfort. Unlike some people, they don't get repeatedly stabbed." She immediately regretted the sharpness in her tone.
The shorter woman giggled, "they are very comforting-looking."
“You’re… quite resilient,” Jinsoul commented, her voice softening slightly despite herself.
“Gotta be,” the woman chuckled, then winced again. “Oh, by the way, I’m Kim Jungeun.”
“Jeong Jinsoul,” Jinsoul replied, her fingers moving deftly with the needle. “Doctor Jeong, for now.”
“Jungeun, please,” Jungeun insisted, her grin widening again. “And you can call me anytime you need a… clumsy patient.”
Jinsoul rolled her eyes, but a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
After what felt like an eternity, Jinsoul finished, cleaning and bandaging the wound. "There. Try not to get into any more… kitchenware accidents, Ms. Kim."
Jungeun was still grinning, that cheesy, persistent grin. "Call me Jungeun. And I'll try my best. Though, accidents do happen."
From then on, Jungeun became a regular visitor to Jinsoul’s night shift, though thankfully not always with life-threatening injuries. A sprained wrist from 'dancing too enthusiastically', a cut hand from 'a very aggressive cactus', an ankle twisted while 'admiring architecture'. Each time, Jungeun would flirtatiously grin, offer some cheesy line, and Jinsoul would scoff, then expertly patch her up, often in the privacy of her office, a strange routine developing between them. They'd chat, mostly about Jungeun’s fantastical mishaps and Jinsoul's increasingly exasperated advice to ‘be more careful.’ Jungeun would linger longer than necessary, drawn to Jinsoul’s quiet competence and unexpected kindness.
Jinsoul started to notice the pattern. The injuries were too frequent, too varied, and Jungeun, despite the pain, seemed almost… cheerful about them. She also noted Jungeun's surprising resilience, and the way Jungeun seemed to seek her out specifically. It was… odd.
One particularly quiet night, Jungeun arrived, looking surprisingly unscathed. "Just a check-up," she announced, that familiar grin plastered on her face. "Though…" she hesitated, reaching a hand towards her chest. "There might be… some glass."
Jinsoul raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Glass? And where exactly is this glass, Jungeun?"
Jungeun shrugged, a small grimace replacing the grin. "Around… here." She tapped vaguely at her upper chest area.
Jinsoul sighed, a mixture of exasperation and morbid curiosity rising within her. "Alright, let's have a look."
In the office once more, Jinsoul carefully examined Jungeun. Indeed, embedded in the skin near her collarbone, were several small shards of glass. "How did this happen?" Jinsoul asked, her tone losing its amusement, becoming genuinely concerned. Jungeun mumbled something about a window and a sudden gust of wind. Jinsoul didn’t believe a word of it. As she meticulously started to extract the glass shards with forceps, Jungeun tensed, a sharp inhale escaping her lips.
"Hold still," Jinsoul instructed, her voice soft. Then, curiosity, long suppressed, finally broke free. "Jungeun, what is your job? Seriously. Because I've seen you more times in the past month than my own mother, and every time you're sporting a new injury that sounds like it was concocted by a cartoon villain."
Jungeun hesitated, her eyes meeting Jinsoul’s. For the first time, the cheesy grin faltered, replaced by a hint of seriousness. "Okay, okay… you got me." She sighed, then in a hushed tone, leaned closer. "I'm… a field operative."
Jinsoul paused, forceps hovering over a particularly stubborn shard. "A… field operative? Like… secret agent field operative?"
Jungeun nodded, a sheepish look returning. "Top secret. Solo missions. Things get… messy."
Jinsoul stared, dumbfounded. “Top secret… agent?” She resumed extracting the glass, her brow furrowed in disbelief. “You’re telling me… all this time… the bruises, the shoulders, the stab wound, the ankle… it was all from… secret agent missions?”
“Yeah,” Jungeun mumbled, flinching slightly as Jinsoul removed another shard. “Sorry, should have mentioned that earlier.”
“Sorry?!” Jinsoul pressed down a little harder with the forceps, deliberately.
“Ow!” Jungeun yelped. “Hey! What was that for?”
“For lying to me! For making me stitch you up illegally in my office! For all the ridiculous stories about slippery showers and aggressive cactus!” Jinsoul’s voice rose, tinged with a mixture of anger and… relief? It all made a bizarre kind of sense now. The constant injuries, the almost practiced nonchalance about pain, the underlying competence that peeked through the cheesy facade.
“And for what possible reason would a top secret agent come to a hospital, to me specifically, for these injuries?” Jinsoul demanded, continuing to work, her movements precise and efficient despite her agitation.
Jungeun’s grin returned, this time genuine and undeniably charming. “Because… you’re cute?” she offered, her voice laced with that familiar, cheesy lightness.
The taller women scoffed, but a blush crept up her neck. “That’s the lamest, stupidest reason I’ve ever heard.”
“But true!” Jungeun insisted, her eyes sparkling.
Jinsoul finished cleaning the last of the glass. She looked at Jungeun, really looked at her, at the ridiculous, brave, charming, injured woman lying on her examination table. She shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. “Lame and stupid,” she repeated, but the tone was softer now.
She reached for Jungeun’s phone, which had been placed on the side table. “Unlock it,” she instructed.
Jungeun did, her eyebrows raised in question. Jinsoul typed in her own number, saved as ‘Dr. Jinsoul (Not for Hospital Visits)’.
“We don’t need to meet at the hospital anymore, Agent Kim,” Jinsoul said, handing the phone back. “You can call me… whenever and wherever you want.”
Jungeun’s grin widened, brighter than ever. She chuckled, the pain momentarily forgotten. “Deal, Doctor Jeong.”
Weeks passed. The hospital nights felt quieter, somehow emptier without Jungeun’s surprising and disruptive visits. Jinsoul worked her night shifts, the alpaca dolls her silent companions, the vanilla scent a comforting constant. Jinsoul found herself occasionally glancing at her phone, a faint anticipation fluttering in her stomach. A part of her, a small, unexpected part, missed the cheesy lines, the improbable injuries, the bright, unwavering grin that had somehow become a familiar, if chaotic, presence in her quiet office She wondered if Jungeun’s mission had taken her far away, or if she’d simply found a less… ‘cute’ doctor.
Then, one night, as she was reviewing patient files, a notification popped up on her phone. It was a message from an unknown number.
Mission accomplished. Window wasn't gust of wind related after all ;) Boba milk tea date? - Jungeun.
Jinsoul leaned back in her chair, a slow smile spreading across her face. The vanilla scent in her office suddenly seemed a little sweeter. Perhaps, she thought, some rules were meant to be broken, especially for a top secret agent with a penchant for trouble and an annoyingly charming grin. She typed a quick reply.
My place? 8 PM? And maybe skip the ‘mission accomplished’ details this time. Just bring yourself, unscratched, if possible.
The reply came instantly.
Deal. Though, unscratched is never a guarantee with me. But for you, Dr. Jinsoul, I'll try my best.
Warmth creeping out Jinsoul's body as she read secret agent's text, she typed a reply with a smile drawn on her face.
And for the record, Agent Kim, cheesy lines are still lame and stupid. But… acceptable.
She hit send, the smile widening. The night shift just got a whole lot more interesting.