Chapter Text
She met him through an unusual circumstance.
She was an ER fellow, and one day a patient came in with two stuffed dolls tied with a rope as a neck brace, fractured legs tied with thin wood and first-aid that definitely wasn’t the EMT’s doing, and his whole chart written with black markers on his arms: fallen from motorcycle. fractured ribs and ankles, neck needed checking in normal letters, and a thief punk written bigger than the others.
She laughed a bit, telling her nurse, “His charts are written here. I must say it is quite detailed.” Her nurse chuckled, and she proceeds to poke the patient’s stomach lightly, to which the patient winced painfully. “Fractured ribs. This is right,” She asked the patient, “Who wrote this?”
“The one who made me like this.” He grumbled.
“Well, you probably deserved it.” She points to the ‘a thief punk’ writing, finding the whole thing funny. “Let’s get him an X-Ray.” She ordered her nurse.
She came back twenty minutes later to find two men standing on the side of the bed, talking with the patient.
“I’m sorry, are you his guardian? He needs an X-Ray, I think he has fractured ribs.” She interjected politely. The patient grumbled, “I don’t have a guardian,” at the same time the taller man of the two said, “I’ll take care of the administration.” And walked away from them wordlessly.
The other man stared at the patient amusingly, to which the patient nodded to the direction of the standing man. “It’s him.” He said.
“Who?” Songhwa tilts her head.
“The one who made me like this.”
----
Ten minutes later, she found herself treating the chart-on-arm writer. When they were talking earlier, she noticed that blood was seeping through his clothes, and she asked the man to get treated for the wound. Turns out he happened to be on the spot where the patient was stealing a motorcycle, and he and his friend who left earlier shot him with toy guns until the guy fell from the motorcycle.
She stares at the man amusingly, “Toy guns? Is it even possible?” and he shrugs and simply says, “It is, for a soldier.”
She pauses, and asks the obvious: “I take it both of you are soldiers?” He nods, and winces a little when she disinfects the wound.
The wound is quite a big one, so she asks, “Where did you get this wound?”
He replies while chuckling, “It happened when I was shoveling at the unit. Shovel is truly a soldier’s best friend.”
She smiles, but says nothing. “I see you got yourself shot some time ago.” He whips his head to meet her gaze, his eyes widening. “You’ve seen… A gunshot wound?”
She nods easily. “Not in here I didn’t. I saw it when I was volunteering in Africa some time back.” He nods in understanding, and he seems to ponder about something until he says, “Because you seem to know about gunshot wounds… Actually this new wound is from a knife cut back in Somalia.”
“And it seems to reopen when you were strangling the thief earlier,” She concludes, and he nods. “There, the stitches are done. You need to keep it clean and disinfect it regularly,” She starts to stand, “You guys have an army doctor, right?”
“Can I come here instead?”
She stops. “Isn’t coming here a hassle? It’s far, isn’t it?”
“It is. Can I come every day?” He shoots her a small smile.
She is a bit flustered, but she decides to indulge him. “Not every day, maybe three times a week? But may I ask why?”
He holds her gaze, “Hmm… Because my treatment is directly related to the beauty of the doctor?”
She blinks twice, and then proceeds to reply with, “Well, I guess you have no choice then…” she looks at his name on the patient’s chart, “…Lee Ikjun-ssi . Come on Thursday at 2 P.M., I’ll book you an appointment.”
---
To his credit, he really comes three times a week after that, which results in his wound recovering a little bit quickly and them exchanging phone numbers (for medical purposes , Ikjun states). He cracks a lot of jokes, and for whatever reason, Songhwa keeps laughing. She also notices that sometimes he comes with that friend of his who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
She asks about his friend on the third time they met. “Ah, it’s Junwan. His expression is always like that. I always make fun of him whenever I can.” When she asked if Junwan doesn’t get annoyed because of it, he easily replied, “I can always use my sister as an excuse. He’s totally a fool for her.” He snickered, but didn’t elaborate further, so she didn’t ask either.
The fifth time they met, he brings her food and coffee. “For you to get through the day.” He simply said, and she accepts it happily, coffee being her favorite drink and her pill to survive at the same time. When she thanks him and offers him to eat the food together, he looks guilty for some reason. He replies, “I’m sorry, I must get to work after this.”
She nods, wishing him luck on work and is about to bid him goodbye with a see you!, he blurts out, “Do—do you want to watch a movie with me? After I came back from work,” He scratches his head, seemingly embarrassed.
She is taken aback by that question, but before she realizes what she is doing, her lips form a bright smile and she says, “Of course! Call me when you’re in town.”
---
Two weeks after their fifth meeting, on a sunny afternoon after her shift, she walks out from the hospital with super-oily hair, clothes from two days ago, and designer eyebags to find him in casual clothing, leaning against a car in the hospital’s front parking lot. “Chae seonsaeng! ” He calls out cheerily. Glad to see him, she half-runs to where he is standing.
She is two steps in when she realizes in what state she is in; he always sees her in the hospital setting; yes, she’s always sleep-deprived, but at least she is in scrubs, which must’ve made her look nicer than… this, right?
She halts, covering her hair. “Ikjun-ssi ! Wha- what are you doing here?” She walks slowly to him.
He laughs, seemingly amused by her antics. “You said to contact you after I came back. You said you want to watch a movie with me.” She nods dumbly, still trying to process the situation.
“But I think you need sleep more than a movie.” He adds, and she shakes her head quickly, her mind trying to form words to say. “No- no! I… want to watch the movie with you. But can I go home and wash up first?” She flashes him a small smile.
“Of course.” He opens the car door for her, and after she climbs in, he starts to drive. “Just tell me the way.” He starts to navigate out of the hospital, and they’re about halfway to her house when he stops at a red light, looks over to her, and says,
“For the records, I think you’re pretty.”
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