Chapter Text
Everyone’s going on a date, and Jeong-won’s absolutely not jealous. Or maybe he was. Maybe just a little. But it’s not because he wanted to date too—hah, never. As for Seokhyeong—does that guy have nothing else to do? Good for him. Jeongwon had thought at least he was going home early tonight, but even that he couldn’t do now, as it turns out.
Little Min-yeong’s situation isn’t really looking good, and his dad’s isn’t any better too. Mom wants him over at Yulje after work, but she seems to be taking things well when he arrives later that night, all weary from worrying about his own little patients.
“Frankly, it won’t be easy. But we’ll do our best,” the doctors inform them. He knows that line all too well; he’s said it and a hundred versions of it himself, yet it’s still as if he can never get used to it. If only he could say it so easily every time he has to.
At the outdoor shed of the hospital, he wonders how to tell it to Min-yeong’s eomma. She’s finding it hard to let go, he could sense, what with everything they’ve gone through in the past three years to keep the sweet kid by their side. He knows it’s not easy letting go of something you’ve been holding on to for so long, but it must be done.
He heaves a sigh, feeling his heart grow heavy with all these thoughts. His mind is in a haze, like the sight that grew before him from his own hands.
“You shouldn’t be smoking. You’re a doctor.” Hyung scolds him, but Jeong-won thinks maybe he shouldn’t be a doctor at all. The dream he’s had ever since he was a child comes to mind, and his head hurts.
He looks up, hoping to find comfort in the heavens, but the smoke from his cigarette is muddling his view of the night sky.
*
They had done everything they could.
They had done everything they could…Hadn’t they?
The guilt is there, behaving itself at the back of his mind, never really doing anything actively to get noticed. It’s just…there, always, even weeks later when he has settled himself along with long-time friends into the new hospital environment.
So when he sees the expression on a mother’s face that one day at the ER lobby, he immediately knows what it is. It is all-too-familiar because he’s been at the receiving end of it, and it always feels dreadful recognizing it in others.
“He could’ve lived if you’d done CPR."
How could she say that!? He glowers at the resident, but she couldn’t see. Perhaps it’s her arrogance blinding her.
“Dr. Jang. A word please,”
He is angry. Very, and he does not even want to put much effort in masking it. With confident steps, she moves across the lobby to meet him. He leads themselves into an empty ER bed, closes the curtains, and all the while she seems to have never lost any of that air of loftiness.
The guilt that’s been sitting, piling up at the back of his mind for weeks, years—like a dormant volcano, almost at the point of being forgotten—is still very much there, waiting for the perfect time to erupt. The time is now.
He hears his own voice tremble, like glass falling apart. Jeong-won, of all people, hated confrontations, but this must be done.
She tries to justify her words, and it makes his blood boil. When she leaves, his legs almost give out. He is done.
During dinner, he replaces all energy lost with a warm bowl of kalguksu. Song-hwa and Jun-wan had broken up with their partners but he’d totally seen it coming for his roommate. Poor guy reserved a romantic place in Busan a month ago only for it to go to waste so soon. (But it is not his money, so he shouldn't be too concerned.)
Song-hwa’s case though was entirely different. Prof. Jang, that jerk… This is why he could never imagine himself dating—it’s pretty burdensome when someone turns out far from what you ought them to be. If he were really to date though, it definitely would not be someone like Dr. Jang, who he has already decided is not his cup of tea.
So no one else is going on a date anymore in the next few days? He sure is not rejoicing. As for Seokhyeong—that ssaeki—he's finally getting what he wants.