Jeong Minsu’s accuracy also rose sharply, perhaps because everything appeared so much larger.
It made them realize anew just how important being able to see was.
Gang Songhui, too, had to be able to see this wide, bright world for a long, long time.
A moment ago, it had been an uncertain vow, but not anymore.
They proved it with their hands.
“Minsu, this way.”
“Okay. It’s a problem if a king-sized vessel is sitting right here like this… There, I pushed it aside.”
“Good. Keep it just like that. Up to here looks like the neurofibroma, right?”
Taesu asked vigorously.
A faint discoloration was appearing in the area indicated by the tip of the surgical instrument.
It was such a tiny difference that they would have missed it without the loupes.
But with the loupes on, Taesu picked it out clearly.
Jeong Minsu did the same.
“That’s exactly the spot. I think you can proceed as is.”
“Okay, good. I’ll cut here like this.”
“And here, this much. Right?”
Jeong Minsu grasped it with the hook and asked in a voice filled with certainty.
And that certainty was correct.
“Right up to there. Perfect.”
“Then you cut— Hey, hey, there’s a vessel the size of a loach underneath that.”
“Oops. I almost missed such a thick, sturdy vessel. Nearly made another big mistake.”
The voices of both the one pointing things out and the one responding had grown brighter.
They were worlds apart from the way they had started, nerves sharpened and eyes blazing.
It was to the point that Kim Hyeokgwon, who was assisting them, looked dumbfounded.
“You put on those stingy little glasses, so why did your hearts get wider?”
Only Kim Hyeokgwon, who had never looked at the surgical field through loupes, failed to understand.
Even that remark sounded pleasant to Taesu and Jeong Minsu now.
That was how completely different the operative field looked through the loupes.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu’s tension soared to the extreme.
But it was different from before.
This time, they raised their voices in the opposite way.
“Minsu, toward the zygomatico-orbital artery.”
“Where’s that?”
“The cheekbone artery.”
“There’s an easy, perfectly good term for it, then.”
Jeong Minsu shouted proudly that he had not understood.
Taesu found the answer utterly absurd.
It was then.
Clack.
Kim Hyeokgwon picked up a hook and asked,
“Enough noise. So where do I fit in?”
It was the first time he had taken up a surgical instrument before being told.
Taesu asked with a startled expression,
“Can you lend us a hand?”
“You two are just screeching at each other. Should I just stand here sighing, then?”
“That’s not it, assisting is…”
“I’ve set it up my way.”
Slide.
A structure had been installed over the operating table, like a low desk placed on top of it.
If they reached out, Taesu and Minsu could exchange surgical instruments as much as they wanted without burdening each other.
But Taesu and Jeong Minsu were seeing it for the first time.
There was no time to ask where he had gotten it.
Proceeding with the surgery came first.
Taesu immediately gave Kim Hyeokgwon his support.
“We’re going with the Ijambak style.”
“It was brutal back then.”
“With that feeling. Go.”
Taesu shouted vigorously again and plunged into the surgery.
That did not mean the surgery proceeded quietly.
Only James’s surgical team could manage that.
For them, at present, it was like a dream.
Reality?
What more needed to be said?
Voices rang out so loudly that any call for silence became meaningless.
“Minsu, keep some distance from that infraorbital nerve.”
“I said I know.”
“Hyeokgwon, don’t hook just anywhere like that. The cephalocele…”
“If you say it like that, I really don’t know. Medical terminology isn’t English, it’s alien.”
“I’ll just say it in Korean. You see this muscle here, right? The triangular one. Hook that and pull it downward.”
Taesu quickly excluded medical terminology.
Then Jeong Minsu’s voice rang out noisily.
“Taesu, this nerve is…”
“You use the medical terms.”
“We all need to be able to communicate, don’t we?”
Jeong Minsu was right about that.
Taesu accepted it immediately.
If anything, it was more comfortable.
Perhaps because of that, Taesu’s orders became overwhelmingly frequent.
“Minsu, connect the vessel while checking the tension on the upper lip.”
“Hyeokgwon. I told you to follow my hand.”
“Minsu, you really… Stop rupturing vessels.”
“Hyeokgwon. Why are you pressing with the hook upside down? I told you, if you press there like that, it’ll cave in because it’s hollow inside.”
His mouth had no time to rest.
And it did not end there.
There was no way surgery would progress just by shouting.
Taesu had to move his own hands and lead the operation.
‘This muscle goes this way. No, this way…’
Swish, swish.
Both hands were connecting the two ends of the muscle he had found earlier.
If the only problem had been the muscles, he might have shouted for joy.
Why were there so many nerves, too?
And the vessels weakened by the effects of the neurofibroma burst like soap bubbles at every turn.
Beep, beep.
The sound of the ECG changed.
Taesu, whose nerves were already on edge, reacted first.
“Hyeokgwon, replace the blood pack and glucose.”
“Ah, Hyeokgwon. Just in case, please add a little lidocaine to the IV.”
Jeong Minsu cut in between Taesu’s orders whenever he could.
He was not merely adding a word here and there.
Every moment was fierce for Jeong Minsu.
He was proceeding mainly with vascular suturing, tense to the limit.
He no longer knew how many vessels he had already sutured.
Even with magnification, the thin, delicate vessels themselves did not become any thicker.
Precision suturing drained stamina quickly.
He was growing exhausted just as quickly.
He could feel the signs that those symptoms were about to appear.
“Uaaagh!”
Swish. Swish.
He drove his arms on with a desperate snarl as they slowly began to ache.
He did not rest for even a single moment.
He pushed himself harder and urged himself on again.
It was an image filled entirely with the desperate resolve that he would not run away, not even here.
And there was Kim Hyeokgwon.
“I added everything— I told you to save the gauze.”
Tatata.
He was moving nonstop, as if the operating room were too small for him.
At first, he had participated for the allowance.
But now, the allowance had been pushed to the back of his mind.
He was slowly being colored by the taste of saving a person.
It was a surgery carried on by three people, each with a distinct personality.
Their inner circumstances were also different.
Yet their hearts were beginning to gather as one for the first time in a long while.
Their teamwork had improved as much as each of them had developed.
“Minsu, this way.”
“Okay… Done, right? Hyeokgwon, me for a moment.”
“This time it’s me? Anyway, it’s done. Doctor Choi, should I support you over there?”
“Yes. This way. Minsu, you too, over here for a moment.”
At the same time Taesu called out vigorously,
“I’m coming.”
“Coming, coming.”
Kim Hyeokgwon and Jeong Minsu approached at once.
Clink.
The three people’s surgical instruments met in one place for the first time.
The heat was different.
It felt good, too.
Flash.
Their eyes met and shone firmly.
Now, the atmosphere was one where the word trust could be used.
That feeling and atmosphere were so good.
Then the only proper thing to do was run.
“Like this, to the end.”
“Run.”
“Let’s go!”
Swish, swish.
Taesu, Jeong Minsu, and Kim Hyeokgwon strengthened their resolve with vigor and immersed themselves frantically in the surgery.
Two hours later.
The fiery atmosphere of the operating room had calmly settled.
Gang Songhui’s face had clearly changed.
White compression bandages were wrapped around it, except for her eyes and mouth.
And the protruding appearance was gone.
Meanwhile, Taesu and Jeong Minsu were checking her vitals while watching the ECG.
Drip.
Sweat ran down again.
Even though they wiped it with surgical drapes again and again, the sweat would not stop.
Kim Hyeokgwon, too, was sweating as he cleaned up after the surgery.
Watching the ECG, Taesu wiped away his sweat with a surgical drape and said,
“Hoo, hoo. She stabilized quickly.”
“How should I put it? The surgery ended well, but it feels a little lukewarm.”
“Because it wasn’t an emergency.”
“That’s true. But strangely, I don’t remember how we did the surgery.”
Jeong Minsu spoke as if slightly dazed.
Taesu smiled faintly and answered,
“That’s how tense you were.”
“Right. I really was.”
“So was I.”
Taesu admitted it calmly.
What use was there in weighing the gravity of surgeries?
Surgery itself was what mattered.
Then Kim Hyeokgwon called to Taesu.
“Doctor Choi, there’s more blood left than I expected.”
“We’ll have to freeze it again.”
“What I mean is, did you really need to have them prepare this much?”
“When I operate, I get sensitive about bleeding.”
Taesu spoke bitterly.
But Kim Hyeokgwon, who had watched Taesu up close, acknowledged it.
“Well, I’m the same way. Anyway, I’ll take care of this. How awkward. And nice.”
He seemed unable to believe that blood packs remained after the surgery was over.
After that, the cleanup continued a little longer.
Jeong Minsu, his voice suddenly hoarse, said to Taesu,
“The guardian, ahem. We need to meet the guardian.”
“Right. I should go out… What’s wrong with my voice?”
Taesu’s voice was exactly the same.
Jeong Minsu pushed Taesu on the back.
“The guardian is waiting.”
“Right, I know. I’ll go out first.”
Taesu said briefly and headed out of the operating room.
Soon, Taesu pulled back the screen and came outside.
Rustle.
Gang Yeonghun was sitting at the table in the prep room.
But his expression was completely at a loss.
“Ah.”
Even as he awkwardly tried to stand at the sight of Taesu, there was no strength in him at all.
Seeing his face turned pale, Taesu began by soothing him.
“Please sit. You may stay seated.”
“Your voice…”
“It will get better soon. Please sit down first.”
Taesu calmly urged him again.
“Mm.”
Thud.
Only then did Gang Yeonghun’s body drop weakly back into the chair.
He looked extremely exhausted.
How much must his heart have been burning?
High voices had even rung out from the operating room, so he must have been all the more anxious.
Taesu fully understood that state of mind.
So although his throat stung, he paid it no mind.
He set the mood firmly and immediately began to explain.
“It took a little longer than the estimated time I told you. You must have been very worried. I’m sorry.”
“Did something happen to our Songhui?”
“Mm, no. Rather than Songhui, we were the problem.”
Perhaps Taesu’s answer was unexpected, because Gang Yeonghun’s expression turned complicated.
“Then the conversations inside…”
“Ahem, so you did hear them.”
“Did you perhaps fight?”
At his serious question, Taesu froze for a moment.
“Pardon?”
“You were arguing very loudly.”
“You must have been very worried hearing that.”
“I wanted to rush in there. No, I held myself back dozens of times and had to stop the child’s mother, too.”
At those words, Taesu interrupted briefly.
“She came here?”
“Yes. When she heard the surgery was over, she hurried away, though.”
“I see. She came. She really came.”
Taesu only repeated the earlier words.
It did not matter what they thought of them.
The fact that Gang Songhui’s mother, whom he had seen that morning, had come all the way here was more important.
That was what Taesu thought.