Taesu was quite bewildered.
Then, as something suddenly came to mind, Taesu asked cautiously.
“Could it be because right after Doctor Hanks’s surgery, I administered an IV to him…? That’s not it, is it?”
“I’m not the type to hold grudges, unlike someone.”
“Then… hmm.”
Taesu fell into thought again.
But no answer came to him.
With the fire right at his feet, he had no room to think.
On the other hand, James, utterly at ease, brought up another topic.
“I heard you received a letter from Doctor Hanks. I got one too. Handwritten letters do seem to have more warmth than emails.”
“I felt the same way.”
“I heard you received letters from other patients as well. How did it feel?”
When James asked, Taesu answered at once.
“It made me want to see the patients right away.”
“I told you not to be hasty.”
“James, I’m sorry, but I really feel like my body is twisting up from this.”
Taesu was so restless that he said such a thing.
He even complained with an anxious expression, as if pleading for James to understand him.
Nevertheless, James said in a low voice,
“Doctor Choi, calm down.”
“You told me I could be as greedy as I wanted when it came to this.”
“Yes. I said that. But Doctor Choi, it seems you still don’t know where you are.”
James emphasized his words with a sharp look in his eyes.
There was reproach in that gaze.
Taesu found that look both flustering and puzzling.
“This is the medical camp.”
“If you’re aware of that, then is Doctor Choi forgetting who he is right now?”
“I’m… Ah.”
As if something had occurred to him, Taesu’s expression turned complicated.
James seemed to want to confirm whether that answer was correct.
“Who is Doctor Choi?”
“I’m a doctor assigned to the Helicopter Medical Team. At present, the team is on hold, and it is scheduled to resume next month.”
“And you’re also a resident.”
“That’s…”
Confusion showed in Taesu’s eyes.
James did not particularly enjoy spelling such things out.
As if he clearly remembered that fact, James immediately continued.
“I said right here that Doctor Choi is at a level similar to that of a specialist.”
“You did.”
“But that doesn’t mean everyone thinks of Doctor Choi as a specialist.”
“That, of course, is true.”
When Taesu answered, James added a little more.
“Do you remember what I told you before about harmony?”
“You said it in Malnoi.”
“I’ve even given you the hint, and it still doesn’t come to you?”
James asked again.
In that way, he kept trying to make Taesu realize something.
When questions continued, one’s thoughts were bound to turn in that direction.
Harmony.
As Taesu recalled that advice, he suddenly paused.
It seemed it had finally come to him.
Taesu did not stop at thinking it. He spoke it aloud.
“If I run around doing as I please here, the situation would become rather strange.”
“To be precise, you’d become the most arrogant resident in the world.”
“Before…”
“Is it as chaotic now as it was then?”
“No.”
Taesu’s voice lost some of its force.
As if he thought there was still a long way to go, James continued with direct questions.
“Even if you were assigned patients, where and how would you treat them?”
“I don’t have my own medical tent, so I’d have to borrow someone else’s.”
“Then have you thought about who would put their own patients aside and yield to Doctor Choi?”
“That would be practically impossible.”
Taesu answered in a subdued voice.
It was to the point that he had raised the white flag.
As his burning heart cooled along with it, only now did the picture form in his mind.
If the NGO headquarters was the inner core, then the medical camp was like the outer core.
It was a place packed not only with specialists at the level of medical doctors, but also with veteran nurses.
It was hard to imagine a second-year resident running around there saying he would take charge of emergency patients.
There was no such reckless fool under the heavens.
If there was one member of the medical staff who would understand Taesu, there would be more than ten who would not.
That was the cold reality.
Taesu completely let the strength drain from his body and reflected on his impatience.
“I nearly became the most impertinent resident in the history of medicine.”
“Even if this place is desperately short-handed, it would be difficult for the turn to come all the way around to Doctor Choi.”
“Yes. You’re right.”
Taesu had no choice but to accept it.
It felt as though his broad shoulders were shrinking.
Taesu might run freely in the field, but the wall called the medical camp was on an entirely different level of height.
James watched him.
As if he had something to say, he erased his bitter smile and let the words slip out.
“It might be different if everyone here were people who had a personal connection with Doctor Choi.”
“Even then, I think it would be absurd.”
“I’m telling you this because you’re still at an age where you run forward only looking ahead.”
James calmly soothed Taesu.
Taesu was not a young doctor.
He was an inexperienced doctor.
Because James knew his overflowing hot-bloodedness, he had put on the brakes.
Taesu now understood as well.
But there was one thing he found puzzling.
“Then Doctor Jeong and Mister Kim weren’t called for emergencies?”
“You mean Doctor Jonathan’s surgery.”
“Yes. And I remember they were called several times while I was hospitalized.”
Taesu was not arguing. He was genuinely curious.
James did not misinterpret him either.
But his expression grew a little heavier.
“What did they say after they came back?”
“Mm… Now that I think about it, they didn’t say much.”
“It seems they were quite considerate of Doctor Choi.”
At those words, a slight tension appeared between Taesu’s brows.
“They were considerate of me?”
“It will be faster for you to see for yourself… As it happens, it’s right here.”
Slide.
James pushed one of the document files piled on the table toward Taesu.
Taesu respectfully opened it with both hands.
It was a bundle of weekly charts awaiting approval.
Since the medical camp wrote charts by hand, there was a procedure for checking them once more.
They were for storage, so they were neatly organized.
Rustle, rustle.
Taesu looked for the surgical chart corresponding to the date of the emergency call.
Soon, he found one.
It was a surgery led by another surgical team.
Naturally, there were also records regarding Jeong Minsu and Kim Hyeokgwon, who had rushed over after receiving the call.
Seeing that, Taesu’s expression slowly sank.
“Doctor Jeong only managed blood, and Mister Kim only replenished medications.”
“Keep checking.”
“Yes. Next is…”
Rustle, rustle.
Taesu continued flipping through the charts, checking them in order.
There had been more than ten emergency calls in the meantime.
What they had done in the operating rooms they arrived at was more or less the same.
Blood management and medication replenishment.
Both were positions absolutely necessary in an emergency.
The king of the operating room was the patient, so what role the medical staff played was not what mattered.
Taesu clearly understood that concept as well.
However, with every call, they had been assigned similar roles.
“They’re all much the same.”
This was a bit of a problem.
The two of them also had considerable emergency treatment skills.
When their teamwork was good, they even showed astonishing improvisation.
They had not been called for those emergency treatment skills.
It would be more accurate to say they had been called because there were not enough hands.
Among them, there were also emergency call cases where the two had been given slightly more weight.
They were surgeries called by Brad Kim and Doctor Jonathan.
Those two times were all.
The medical staff who knew their abilities inside and out had placed them in appropriate positions and actively made use of them.
After finishing his confirmation, Taesu closed the file.
Thud.
“…”
His lips were pressed tightly into a straight line.
Seeing Taesu like that, James said quietly,
“How does it look?”
“It hits me very hard, what our reality is.”
“Aren’t you angry at the surgeons who called them just to make them do that much?”
James asked in a slightly provocative way.
It seemed he wanted to draw out Taesu’s reaction clearly.
After thinking for a moment, Taesu shook his head.
“If I were to get angry, I’d want to blame myself for mistakenly thinking we had finally started to be recognized a little.”
“Through that series of dispatches, Doctor Choi was recognized to some extent.”
“Was I the only one who was recognized?”
When Taesu asked, James answered with an expression that was not entirely clear.
“Even that would be limited to the scenes of those dispatches.”
“I see. Well, it hasn’t even been a year yet, so it would actually be stranger if we had already been recognized.”
“There’s no need to force yourself to act magnanimous.”
James spoke with a somewhat heavier face.
But from Taesu’s position, it was not something he could easily express.
He forced a smile and answered.
“I’m naturally magnanimous.”
“Even I get angry looking at this, and Doctor Choi is fine with it?”
“It all happened because I was lacking.”
“What I want right now is for Doctor Choi to be honest. In that sense, I’ll ask again. What do you think?”
James gave him one more chance.
It was then.
Taesu’s smiling expression rapidly hardened.
Anger?
It was already boiling inside his chest.
The moment the reins came loose, it seemed difficult for him to control his anger, and it showed plainly on his face.
In an instant, Taesu’s face flushed red, and he slammed both fists heavily down onto the table.
Thump!
“We were being treated like a second-year resident and a trainee nurse.”
“Does it feel bitter to finally realize it?”
“You said it takes two hands clapping together to make a sound. It’s probably our fault for not giving them enough reason to trust us.”
“I think you need to be more honest.”
James urged him in a low voice.
It meant that whatever was said in this moment would not leave the tent.
James’s reliability was one thousand percent.
For that reason, Taesu’s expression twisted mercilessly.
“Honestly, I don’t think this is right.”
“Go on.”
“Doctor Jonathan’s surgeries are on a different scale, so I understand requesting helpers.”
“But the others weren’t like that.”
James accepted his words plainly, without any change in expression.
At that weighty response, Taesu became even more heated.
“Yes. I think some of the emergency situations were excessive to request helpers for. They were even somewhat ambiguous to call emergencies.”
“I acknowledge that part as well.”
“Then why did they call them? Did they call them over to observe surgery up close?”
Taesu asked with a bitter face, twisting his words.
James answered calmly.
“Because those positions require stamina more than technique.”
“If I take that to mean they were convenient to work to the bone, I suppose I’m being too twisted, right?”
“…”
James did not answer.
At his silence, the corners of Taesu’s eyes slowly lifted.
“If that’s what everyone thinks, that’s too much.”
“It’s unfair. But from the position of the one making the call, it isn’t entirely unreasonable.”
“I know everyone is struggling, and I understand wanting to be even a little more comfortable… No. Never mind.”
Taesu flared up, then abruptly stopped speaking.
As if he could not guess what it was, James calmly encouraged him.
“What were you going to say that you swallowed?”
“It was a bit of an extreme thought.”
“I told you to say it.”
“…At this rate, I think it would be better for us to go outside until the Helicopter Medical Team resumes.”
Taesu released the words he had swallowed with a bitter expression.
At that moment, James lightly snapped his fingers.
Snap!
“Now those words finally come out.”
“What?”
“Do that.”
James simply repeated the same words.
At that moment, Taesu did not immediately understand and his eyes widened.
Fortunately, he was quick-witted.
As he looked back over everything that had led up to this point, Taesu flinched and asked James.