A shabby officetel in Nowon-gu, Seoul.
The farther up the stairs to the fifth floor he climbed, the stronger the stale, musty smell stinging his nose became.
Taeho stood before the door.
Ding-dong.
He pressed the doorbell, but there was no response.
“Professor? It’s Gang Taeho.”
Only after Taeho knocked did a voice drift out from inside, sounding annoyed.
“It’s open. Come in.”
The moment he pushed the door open and stepped inside, a suffocating stench stabbed at his nose. The smell of mold, alcohol, rotting food, and a body that had not been washed in days were all mixed together.
In the living room, delivery boxes were stacked like towers, and empty soju bottles rolled across the floor. Chicken bones and cup ramyeon containers had been left abandoned on the table for who knew how many days.
The bedroom door was slightly open, and he could hear someone inside.
As Taeho approached, he saw the silhouette of a person lying on the bed in the darkness, thick curtains drawn over the windows.
“Professor?”
Bak Suhyeok lay on the bed as still as a corpse. His beard had grown out thick and scraggly, and the T-shirt he had not changed out of for days was filthy. With his eyes closed, Bak Suhyeok did not even turn his head toward Taeho.
“It’s Gang Taeho, Professor.”
“What are you here for? Get out.”
Bak Suhyeok barely lifted a hand and waved it weakly.
“Have you eaten?”
“I told you to stop bothering me and get out!”
“Professor, how long are you going to keep doing this? You have to start again.”
“Start?”
Bak Suhyeok suddenly sat bolt upright and glared at Taeho.
His eyes were bloodshot red from alcohol.
“What am I supposed to start? I can’t play doctor anymore. It’s all over. I said get out, you brat!”
Bak Suhyeok shouted as he grabbed a pillow and threw it.
Taeho dodged the pillow and took a step back.
“Professor. Let’s go hiking.”
“What?”
“You used to like hiking, didn’t you? You talked about Bukhansan and Inwangsan all the time. You often told me to go hiking with you too.”
“You’re telling me to go hiking right now? Are you insane?”
Bak Suhyeok flopped back down on the bed.
“Are you going to stay like this forever?”
“That’s my life. Mind your own business.”
Taeho sat on the edge of the bed and forcibly grabbed Bak Suhyeok’s arm.
“Just thirty minutes. Even the hill behind the neighborhood will do.”
“Hey, let go! I said I don’t want to!”
Bak Suhyeok tried to shake him off, but he could not match Taeho’s strength.
Taeho spoke in a serious voice.
“Professor. Do you remember promising me that you’d grant me one wish someday?”
“I did?”
“There was a patient named Kim Cheolsu, wasn’t there? A man in his fifties who came in regularly for diabetes. He had been laid off during restructuring at his company…”
“Hmm…”
Bak Suhyeok let out a groan.
Taeho was certain Bak Suhyeok remembered that patient.
“Back then, I got a strange feeling from him. He said he was fine, but his eyes looked far too hopeless. So I extended the consultation a little and listened to what he had to say.”
“He confessed that he was thinking about suicide. That man.”
“Yes, that’s right. Back then, you said to me, ‘Taeho, you saved a person’s life. This is what a real doctor does. I’m truly proud of you. If you have a wish, tell me anytime. I’ll grant it once, no matter what’…”
Bak Suhyeok blinked.
A promise he had brushed off like a joke.
Bak Suhyeok slowly looked at Taeho. For the briefest moment, the warm expression he used to have passed across his face.
“Professor. This is my wish. Please go outside with me, just for one day.”
***
The two men stood at the entrance to the Bukhansan Dulle-gil Trail.
Unlike Taeho, who was properly dressed in hiking gear, Bak Suhyeok stood there in the shabby T-shirt he had been wearing for days, dragging a pair of old slippers instead of sneakers. No matter how much Taeho had urged him to change, he had refused, so there had been nothing he could do.
“This is truly absurd.”
Bak Suhyeok muttered resentfully and refused to move.
Taeho gently tugged his arm and persuaded him.
“Professor, it’s a really easy course. Let’s walk together for just thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes? From the look of it, I don’t think I’ll last five.”
But a promise was a promise.
Bak Suhyeok reluctantly began to move his feet. The sound of his slippers scraping over the dirt path and gravel rang out loudly.
Before even ten minutes had passed, Bak Suhyeok leaned against a streetlamp and gasped for breath.
“Hold on… Let’s rest for a bit.”
His face had already turned bright red, and his round, swollen belly heaved roughly like a pregnant woman’s. After two years without moving his body, his stamina was completely gone.
“You said your nickname used to be the Flying Squirrel of Gwanaksan.”
“That was ages ago… I feel like my heart’s about to burst right now.”
Taeho handed him a water bottle.
“There should be a bench if we go just a little farther. Let’s push on until there.”
Bak Suhyeok looked down the trail with suspicious eyes. No matter where he looked ahead, he could not see a bench, but he could not turn back either.
When he started walking again, the strap of Bak Suhyeok’s slipper snapped.
“See? What did I tell you!”
He irritably picked up the slipper.
As if he had expected this, Taeho took a pair of hiking shoes and hiking socks out of the backpack he was carrying. He had brought them from Bak Suhyeok’s house earlier.
“I said I’m not wearing them.”
“Then should I take off my hiking shoes for you?”
“Hah… Anyway, that stubbornness of yours, Gang Taeho, is something else. Tell me, was there a single professor at Seyoung Hospital who managed to break that stubbornness of yours? No matter how many punishment drills you were put through, that damn stubbornness of yours never broke…”
Grumbling, Bak Suhyeok put on the hiking shoes.
The two began walking again.
“Ahh, this is exhausting.”
“Good grief, I’m dying!”
“You lunatic! You said we’d only go for thirty minutes!”
“So this is why, haa, haa… you brought me to the mountain? To bury me here?”
Bak Suhyeok cursed up a storm as he followed Taeho.
Hikers passing by glanced at the two of them.
But Taeho only climbed on silently, wearing a smile.
“Hey. You said thirty minutes, didn’t you? It’s already been over an hour.”
When Taeho turned around, Bak Suhyeok was leaning against a tree, panting harshly. His thinning hair was plastered to his forehead, and his entire body was drenched in sweat.
“Let’s go up just a little farther.”
“So when exactly does ‘just a little farther’ end?”
It was then.
“Help! Somebody help!”
A desperate cry came from somewhere down the mountain.
The two of them turned their gazes toward the sound at the same time.
On a slope a little below the hiking trail, a man who looked to be in his sixties was waving his hand. It seemed he had lost his footing on a cliff and tumbled down.
“Sir! Are you all right?”
Nearby hikers gathered one by one, but because of the steep slope and unstable terrain, no one could easily climb down and only hesitated.
“My leg is stuck! I can’t move!”
The fallen man’s voice was growing weaker and weaker.
“119, hurry and call 119!”
“Does anyone have a rope?”
The hikers milled around in confusion. Even when they tried to call 119, perhaps because they were deep in the mountains, the signal was poor.
Taeho stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down. The patient trapped between the rocks was only letting out faint groans as he gradually lost consciousness.
“Professor, the patient looks critical.”
Taeho spoke worriedly.
Bak Suhyeok stared blankly at the scene.
“The rescue team will come. Wait.”
But Taeho had already made up his mind. The patient’s condition was worsening by the second. There was no more time to wait.
“Sir, that’s dangerous! If you go down on your own like that, you’ll get hurt too!”
A hiker behind him grabbed Taeho’s arm and shouted.
“I’m a doctor. Please let go.”
The hiker who had grabbed Taeho’s arm looked startled and quickly released him.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“He says he’s a doctor.”
“Oh my, there was a doctor here.”
The hikers murmured among themselves.
Taeho grabbed the rocks and carefully lowered himself down the cliff.
Bak Suhyeok stood at a distance, watching him.
Taeho’s fingers searched for cracks in the rock as he carefully descended. It was an extremely dangerous situation where one mistake could send him falling as well.
“Be careful! That rock over there looks like it’ll break!”
A hiker shouted from above. The piece of rock Taeho had stepped on crumbled and fell away.
At last, Taeho reached the patient and quickly checked his condition.
The man in his sixties was conscious, but his face was pale. His right leg was trapped between the rocks, and he was drenched in cold sweat.
“Are you… a doctor?”
The patient murmured faintly.
“Yes, don’t worry. I’m a doctor.”
Taeho answered in a calm voice as he examined the patient. The moment BioVision activated, the patient’s condition appeared clearly in colors.
There was a crack in the right femur. Fortunately, it was not a complete fracture, but nerve damage was a concern. More serious was the fact that early symptoms of shock were appearing.
“My leg… ugh, it hurts so much I can’t move.”
The patient’s voice was growing weaker.
Taeho checked the patient’s pulse. It was getting faster. A sign that his blood pressure was dropping.
Taeho examined the man’s foot, trying to see how to free it from between the rocks. It did not look as if it would come out easily.
“Sir, stay with me!”
The patient’s eyes were beginning to lose focus.
Bak Suhyeok was looking down from the edge of the cliff, but he did not move.
The voices of the hikers reached his ears.
“It’ll take too long for the rescue team to get here…”
Bak Suhyeok was confused. One part of him wanted to turn away from this situation, but another part of him felt something stirring.
‘That patient… He’s in real danger… But I’m not a doctor anymore. What can I possibly do with this body…?’
From below the cliff came the sound of the patient sobbing.
“Mother. Mother…”
A crying voice like that of a child, unsuited to a man in his sixties.
In that moment, Bak Suhyeok felt a shock that seemed to stop his breath.
That despairing voice he had heard countless times over nearly thirty years as a doctor.
Old memories surged back all at once.
He had seen countless patients meet their end while crying out to their families. There had been times when he had turned away helplessly, and times when he had refused to give up until the very end and finally saved a life.
Bak Suhyeok’s hands began to tremble.
‘I thought I was already finished… But did feelings like this still remain in me?’
His pupils shook violently. The instincts of a doctor, which he had kept buried all this time, were reviving like a storm.
At that moment, Taeho’s urgent voice rang out.
“Professor, the patient’s foot is trapped right now, and his blood pressure is dropping!”
Something exploded fiercely inside Bak Suhyeok’s chest. He clenched both fists and strode to the edge of the cliff.
“Taeho! Give me the patient’s condition first, accurately!”
His voice had turned firm.
“Suspected fracture of the patient’s right femur, early-stage shock!”
“Taeho, before you pull him out of the rocks, you have to stop the bleeding first! Start applying pressure to the bleeding site right now!”
Without hesitation, Bak Suhyeok grabbed the rocks and began climbing down the cliff.
“Oh, that man’s going down too.”
“It’s dangerous, sir.”
The hikers’ cries rang out, but they did not reach his ears.