Golden Time

Chapter 42

With a funny smile, Dongsu put his bamboo sword to the side, and said,

“My friend’s father is the director of a fencing center, and I feel like I have to learn somehow.”

When Dongsu sat down next to him, Suhyuk asked, “Why should you learn fencing?”

“Well, to be a prosecutor, you should know something about fencing,” he said.

What is he talking about? What has fencing got to do with a prosecutor’s job?

Suhyuk shook his head. It was impossible for Suhyuk to predict what he was thinking.

“Hey, the kimchi stew smells so good. Please give me a cup of soju, sir!” Dongsu said to Hana’s father.

“Hahaha. Yeah, I guess you are stressed a lot because of studying.”

After giving him soju, he looked at his daughter.

Hana was just staring at him through the door with her arms folded.

“Hana, do not stand there like that. Just come here and try some.”

“I won’t drink it,” she said and went out.

As he stared at the door where his daughter was leaving, he smiled bitterly.

‘She would not open her heart to Suhyuk who came to the store to repent from his mistakes every day. But the day will come someday when both of them will be laughing and smiling because she was not only tender-hearted but also far from having a tough character’, he thought to himself.

“Now, toast.”

All three toasted and drank some soju.

At that moment, the door opened and Hana came back. With a transparent red nose, she breathed on her hands as if they were freezing.

“One cup of soju will make you warm,” Dongsu said.

At his words, she approached them with a reluctant look. And she, still standing, asked for a cup of soju. After savoring a sip of it slowly, she put down the cup and said, “It tastes bitter…”

“Now have some appetizers.”

Hana’s father gave her a spoon in which tofu and kimchi lay.

Knitting her cute frowns, she ate it quickly.

Her face seemed to lighten a little.

“Wasn’t it delicious?”

When Suhyuk asked her that, her facial expression turned prim instantly.

The atmosphere grew increasingly ripe.

Dongsu kept talking to Hana’s father ceaselessly, while Suhyuk just smiled listening to their conversation. Hana sipped soju as if the birds were pecking at the feed.

“Where are you going, dad?”

“To the restroom, honey.”

Watching him limp on his leg to the outside, Suhyuk sighed a deep breath.

And he muttered in his heart,  ‘Please wait a little longer. Uncle.’

After he emptied his soju cup at once, Dongsu suddenly looked at Hana and said,

“I hear you’re employed at a large company. Don’t you see any pretty women in the same cla.s.s? Please introduce one to me.”[1]

She shook her head, holding her soju cup.

“Which lady would like someone like you who’s just ignorant and wants to fight with someone?”

Dongsu straightened up his shoulders widely, and said,

“Don’t you know I was on TV? And I’m going to be a prosecutor. Many young ladies would come and see me in droves…”

Dongsu could not continue there because he did not have any close girls around him.

That was something Suhyuk was curious about too. Given his cool character, handsome face, and great school background, he could attract some nice girls’ attention. Moreover, as he worked very hard, he would be a great judicial officer someday. Suhyuk had no doubt about it.

Then why?

“Suhyuk, you have to marry me off. Don’t you have any nice girls around you?” he asked.

“Well, it is a kingdom of animals around me. Lick ants, salmanders…”

Hana shook her head, saying, “How could you compare human beings like that man?”

Dongsu, bringing his soju cup to his lips, stared at her. Was it because he had a drink? He had bloodshot eyes, too.

“Hey man, you’ll find it out later. All the beautiful girls are taken by somebody already, and the rest are…”

When Dongsu wore a tearful face, Suhyuk made a dumbfounded smile.

At that moment Hana’s cell phone rang.

“Dad, why don’t you come back inside? What? Did you leave to meet your friends? I wish you had told me about it in advance…”

“I haven’t met these friends in ages, so have a good time. Just leave the tables as they are, because I can clean up tomorrow.”

So, the phone was hung up, and a text message arrived on Suhyuk’s cell phone.

It was from Hana’s father.

“Suhyuk, it’s late already. If it’s too late, I would appreciate it if you can take Hana back home.”

“Do not worry.”

“Let’s go.”

Rising from the seat, Hana began to clean up the tables.

“Hey, Why? I have not yet quenched my thirst…”

“You can do that at some other place.”

“Oh, forget it. I don’t know. Just one more bottle of soju. Let me just have one more and then stand up.”

She stared at him, but she soon took out one bottle of soju from the refrigerator and put it on the table.

“Just one more bottle.”

“Okay.”

***

All of a sudden, all of them were getting tipsy off their faces.

Only one person, Suhyuk was sober, who even Dongsu recognized as a heavy drinker.

Hana, after sweeping her hair, stood up from the seat.

At that moment, Suhyuk hurriedly grabbed her arms because she was staggering.

Hana was looking down at his hand briefly, and then moved out.

“Where are you going?”

“Bathroom, toilet.”

In the bathroom she wet her face with water to cool off her hot face, and she looked at herself in the mirror.

“Did you get drunk? Kim Hana? Wake up! You should not do this.”

It was just nonsense. Images of Suhyuk kept coming back to her eyes, that smiling face of his at her screaming. Images of Suhyuk bending down to the drunk customers p.i.s.sing up a storm, images of him running to the drugstore to get medicine for someone hurt or sick.

For reasons they do not know, Suhyuk smiles every day, looking at her and her father.

“How can I keep thinking of him like this? I should not do this to a bad guy who hurt my dad … Huhh …”

When she gave a sigh, a streak of tears flowed down her face.

She lifted her head suddenly and looked up at the ceiling.

“Come to your senses, Kim Hana!”

Despite her self-reproach and determination, her wishes collapsed in a moment. She dropped her head and pounded her heart.

“Boohoo… boohoo…”

Darkness, darkness.

Whenever she clinched her white hand and touched her chest, drops of tears fell down.

Who was she reproaching and blaming?

Her sobbing quietly filled the bathroom.

—–

The weekend pa.s.sed quickly.

Suhyuk, befitting of a PK pract.i.tioner, went to the hospital.

“This morning we’re going round with the professor. Be careful so that you don’t stand in the way. Got it?”

“Yeah!”

Park Ganghyun chuckled at the voices of the interns slightly.

It was as though the newborn chicks were chirping.

And Choi Suryon’s long straight hair caught Park’s eye.

Then the professor came to them. He was was a middle-aged man who seemed to be in his early 50s. The square jaw strongly emphasized his impression. He was neurosurgeon Prof. Lee Mansuk.

“So, is everyone here?”

He glanced at the interns quietly, and his eyes stopped where Suhyuk was standing.

What was he thinking? Prof. Lee fixed his eyes on Suhyuk and he nodded his head a few times and started moving. Of course, the trainees followed him.

Three interns followed him closely.

“Which patient do I see first?”

Park answered, looking at the chart, “A patient with a facial bone fracture. He has been treated.”

The professor’s eyes fell into his hands because the hospital call was ringing on his phone.

“Take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then Park turned his head and answered the phone quietly.

“Telling me to do it even during my break time? Are there any other staff available?”

“I think they went into the operating room.”

When Park sighed, the professor asked, “What?”

“No one is available to do surgery for a lumbar puncture patient…”

The professor shook his head as if it were just hopeless.

“I have no idea how they manage the hospital. How is there no one available to do the lumbar puncture surgery?”

He paused for a moment and opened his mouth again,

“It’s a good experience, and it will be a good experience for the trainees. I’ll go there first.”

Park guided the professor.

A student, who seemed to attend high school, was lying on the stretcher, naked in his top coat. The professor gave instructions to Park.

“Let’s get started. It would be better if you list the surgery order before doing it. That would be helpful to the students.”

Then he looked at the students and interns.

“It’s a good experience, so watch it carefully.”

Park Ganghyun, who approached the patient, relaxed his tension.

“If you put up with it a little bit, it will be over soon. Crouch your body a bit more.”

He naturally induced the patient to crouch his posture.

That surgery needed a technique in which a needle is placed on the vertebrae to pull the cerebrospinal fluid. If you can not pinpoint the exact location, the patient may become disabled. Park disinfected the area where the needle should be inserted and spoke out loud so that the students could hear it well.

“Keep the spine as level as possible. Bend your head and neck to make the acantha gap wide.”

His face became bitter. He could not understand why he was doing this before the trainees.

Nonetheless, he had to do it because he was instructed to by the professor.

Park picked up a syringe. And the professor opened his mouth when he was trying to inject it to the target area.

“What are you using now?”

“Oh, it’s a local anesthetic needle.”

It was the professor’s intentional question to Park that he should continue to explain each and every step of the practice.

The interns and pract.i.tioners began to write down his words. But the only one who did not, was Suhyuk.

Professor Lee looked at him with a slight glance.

Obviously he heard Suhyuk’s mumbling before he spoke.

That was about what Park would do with the surgery.

Did he not hear it wrong?

“Uhh.”

As the needle came in, a small moaning sounded from the patient’s mouth.

It is a procedure that makes adults clench their teeth tight enough to get cold sweats.

The student put up with it well, though.

Park’s moves continued.

The syringe that reached the dura mater began dropping fluid from the tail.

Park gagged at his hand and went on to explain.

Then the professor asked the interns, “Does anyone know what complications are going to happen if you don’t treat lumbar puncture in the correct way or make a mistake?”

No one answered. All of them were busy laying their eyes on the floor and avoiding the professor’s gaze. That’s the same for Suhyuk. He was only looking at Park’s procedure.

‘That’s what I guessed.’

The professor, who looked at Suhyuk for a moment, turned his head.

Suhyuk’s body was shaking back and forth like a languid person.

Choi cast a mysterious look at him. She always watched Suhyuk’s actions closely.

A thin smile flowed over her mouth. ‘What kind of interesting situation will happen?’ She muttered herself and tapped him on the back gently. It was a small force but he could not withstand it and moved forward in the middle of Park treating the patient and the professor.

Narrowing his brows, the professor looked at him.

“What is it?”

After he swept his hair, Suhyuk looked at the professor.

“Brain herniation, headache, nerve damage, hemorrhage, paralysis, muscle weakness, bladder rectal symptoms, infection…”

He opened his mouth again, “And… isn’t the doctor who causes the complications stupid?”