Jeong Minsu felt the same way.
This was the hospital the two of them knew better than anyone.
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung, unaware of that fact, continued speaking without pause.
“I got surgery from some doctor who was apparently second-in-command of the surgery department, thanks to one of my father’s connections. That bastard just did whatever the hell he wanted.”
“Did he?”
“I told him my lower abdomen hurt, but that bastard said no, that it should be my upper abdomen that hurt. But my lower abdomen hurt.”
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung’s face grew redder and redder.
Since getting agitated was not good for him, Taesu hurriedly tried to stop him.
“I think it would be better to hear the rest of that story later.”
“Just listen for a moment. I’m telling him I’m in pain, so why does he insist I’m not? Does that make any sense?”
“Let’s conclude that it didn’t and stop there.”
Taesu tried to dissuade him twice.
But perhaps the memory had already come back to him, because Factory Manager Na Dooyoung deeply furrowed his brow.
“When some fellow who’d been a specialist for ages acted like that, I nearly lost my mind.”
“Factory Manager.”
“Fine, I’ll only say this one thing. The conclusion is—”
“What is it?”
Taesu found himself waiting for what came next.
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung’s peculiar manner of speaking had piqued his curiosity.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“So what is it?”
Jeong Minsu suddenly joined in.
At that, Factory Manager Na Dooyoung looked only at Taesu, the one he could see at the moment, and spoke.
“I was born and raised as a human being. I can’t do something beastly.”
“What?”
“I can’t stab the man who saved my life in the back. If my kidney is ruined, then there’s nothing I can do. But I’m still alive, so it’s fine.”
“How does that…”
Taesu couldn’t understand.
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung continued without concern.
“Do you think I’m an idiot? You think I didn’t know what kind of injury I had?”
“You knew?”
“I knew the moment the grenade exploded. I had a feeling I was screwed. I was a deployed soldier, so I’d seen plenty of awful things.”
At those words, Taesu recalled something he had momentarily forgotten.
“I heard it from the president. You were deployed to the Middle East.”
“I saw all kinds of things there too. So I could tell that if I was left alone, it was an injury that would kill me.”
“I see.”
“If a guy like me managed to survive well enough to run his mouth like this, that’s good enough. Don’t worry too much about my kidney. Hwooo.”
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung let out a long breath, as though he had said everything he needed to say.
His face was quite red.
It wasn’t from excitement, but from the strain.
He really had been a deployed soldier—he clearly didn’t know how to give up until he achieved his objective.
His speech was rough, but he himself wasn’t rough-hearted.
It had been a long time since a patient had encouraged him like this.
It was both heartwarming and absurd.
Perhaps because of that, Taesu and Jeong Minsu were smiling before they knew it.
Neither of them had noticed the change.
They had apparently grown accustomed to a life of constantly hearing resentment.
It wasn’t that they regretted it now.
They were simply grateful for patients like Factory Manager Na Dooyoung, who opened a path for them to breathe.
Taesu composed himself and spoke again.
“Nothing is certain yet.”
“I heard it’s really bad. That it might stop functioning.”
“I said that was the worst-case scenario.”
“You did. So?”
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung seemed mentally strong, as his expression barely changed.
Even so, Taesu continued what he had to say.
“It’s immediately after the surgery, so we don’t know how things will change as your body stabilizes.”
“I understand. What next?”
“We’ll carefully monitor your recovery first. If we decide that things are worse than expected, we’ll take you to the NGO.”
“Don’t make it complicated. My head hurts.”
When Factory Manager Na Dooyoung asked for the point, Taesu gave him a brief answer.
“I operated on you, so I’m saying I won’t let you go until I’m satisfied.”
“Doctors don’t like troublesome patients.”
“I do.”
Taesu answered firmly.
At that moment, Factory Manager Na Dooyoung seemed to realize something and weakly pushed back.
“I don’t like you.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“The NGO doesn’t charge money.”
Taesu didn’t give an inch, answering each remark with equal bluntness.
Only then did Factory Manager Na Dooyoung seem to grasp Taesu’s personality, and his expression darkened.
“Damn it, I’m screwed.”
“You need to use the bathroom?”
“I mean I picked the wrong doctor in Doctor Choi.”
“You’re the ones who called me.”
Taesu replied with an innocent smile, and Factory Manager Na Dooyoung buried his face in the bedding.
“Ngvshavbr…”
Perhaps he could already picture Taesu refusing to give up on him, because he vented all his irritation into the bedding.
Taesu was still smiling.
So was Jeong Minsu.
They exchanged a glance.
A signal passed between their eyes.
‘A patient like this?’
‘We couldn’t give up on him even a hundred times over.’
Having met such a fiery patient, it was only natural for the doctors to become just as fiery.
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung was far more cheerful than they had expected.
Perhaps that was why this conversation wasn’t boring in the slightest.
That didn’t mean they could stay and keep talking for long.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu administered the medications according to his vitals.
Then, as they tidied up, Taesu said,
“For today, we administered mostly painkillers and antibiotics.”
“As long as it doesn’t hurt, that’s all that matters.”
“And you know how to use this, right?”
With a soft motion, Taesu held out a military morphine syringe.
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung looked at it with a strange expression.
“I’ve used one before.”
“Just in case. We give oral medicine to other people, but I’m giving this to you because you know when to use it.”
“Sounds like I’m scheduled to die in agony tonight.”
“So we can sleep comfortably.”
When Taesu said something so absurd, Factory Manager Na Dooyoung’s cheek twitched.
“Fine. A good night’s sleep is important. But do I have to keep lying face down like this?”
“If you can move, you could turn onto your left side, but it’ll probably be difficult right now.”
“Ungh… Ah! It hurts even when I just tense up.”
“Your pain tolerance is incredible.”
Taesu and Jeong Minsu were both genuinely astonished.
His flank had been cut open to a width of nearly a handspan, and his kidney had been rummaged through internally.
No matter how many painkillers he had been given, it was far beyond something that could be described simply as pain.
Taesu was reminded once again that he had been a deployed soldier.
‘Active-duty soldiers like Saem would be even worse.’
Thinking of that, Taesu understood Factory Manager Na Dooyoung’s stubborn tenacity.
Just as they finished tidying up—
Creak.
The door opened, and Bong Yoonju entered carrying a basket woven from grass.
“Fortunately, I’m not late.”
“We were just about to get up.”
“This is just something I…”
She gently held out the basket, which was covered with a cloth.
Jeong Minsu took it and peered inside.
At that moment, Jeong Minsu’s eyes shook more violently than they had in recent days.
“This, really…”
“What is it?”
“Fried nurungji. With sugar sprinkled on top.”
“What?”
Taesu was startled.
They lifted the cloth.
Sure enough, the nurungji was puffed up and golden, with white sugar sprinkled over it.
There probably wasn’t a single Korean who disliked nurungji.
It was a nostalgic flavor, one people naturally grew accustomed to from childhood.
They had encountered that snack here, where they couldn’t even find it in the Korean village.
At the two men’s intense surprise, Bong Yoonju’s face turned bright red.
“This is embarrassing. It’s really nothing special.”
“What are you saying? We might actually cry.”
“What?”
“There’s nowhere here that sells anything like this. Even if we wanted to eat it, we couldn’t.”
Taesu spoke with a face full of emotion.
Jeong Minsu went one step further.
“Mom.”
“Doctor Jeong.”
“What? Am I not allowed to miss my mother? My mother used to make this for me all the time.”
Jeong Minsu really did have tears glistening in his eyes.
Even when Taesu kept giving him warning looks, Jeong Minsu remained unmoved.
The sense he had shown during the surgery apparently had nothing to do with nurungji.
‘How am I supposed to live this down in the neighborhood?’
Taesu could do nothing but watch Bong Yoonju with an awkward smile.
Still, he felt exactly the same way about the snack. It was a beloved taste from a treasured, long-missed memory.
Taesu sincerely thanked Bong Yoonju.
“Thank you so much for bringing out such precious memories for us.”
“I-I told you, it’s nothing… Sniff. I’m grateful too.”
Suddenly, tears welled in Bong Yoonju’s eyes.
Taesu faltered, but he understood her in a way.
They said people who shared the same suffering could understand one another.
Having spent so long away from home, there were things they could sense without saying a word.
It must have left her heart aching.
But once her tears began, Bong Yoonju couldn’t seem to stop them, and she asked for their understanding.
“I’m sorry. Sob. I just…”
Tap-tap-tap.
Bong Yoonju couldn’t finish her sentence and hurried out of the room.
Now Taesu was the one left flustered.
As for Jeong Minsu—
“Mom, when I miss you, ta-ta-ta-ta, when I want to see you, ta-ta-ta-ta, Mom’s picture…”
He was gazing at the nurungji and murmuring an old song.
In this complete disaster of a situation, even Taesu didn’t know what to do.
In the end, his gaze turned toward Factory Manager Na Dooyoung.
“…”
He was staring at them with a stiff expression.
They had already made a sorry spectacle of themselves, and it was unlikely he thought well of them after they had needlessly stirred up Bong Yoonju’s homesickness.
For that reason, Taesu apologized first.
“I’m sorry. We behaved too immaturely.”
“Doctor Choi. Come talk to me for a moment.”
“Yes. All right.”
With that, Taesu set down his house-call bag and approached Factory Manager Na Dooyoung.
He took a position where Na Dooyoung could see him easily, then turned his gaze away out of embarrassment.
“Ahem. I don’t know what to say.”
“Then listen to me for a moment.”
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung spoke in a voice that had dropped flat.
His reaction felt somehow different to Taesu.
So Taesu encouraged him.
“…Go ahead.”
“I’m sorry the mother of my child showed you such an unpleasant side.”
“That was our fault.”
“No, it wasn’t that.”
He stated it firmly, and Taesu turned to face him.
“What do you mean?”
“She was reminded of our daughter.”
“Your daughter?”
“Our Yeongju. We named her by combining the final syllables of her parents’ names.”
At that, Taesu immediately thought it through.
Na Dooyoung. Bong Yoonju.
Na Yeongju.
He understood at once.
“Ah. I see.”
“Our Yeongju is in Korea. She’s seventeen this year.”
“If she takes after both of you, she must be very beautiful.”
Taesu offered the compliment in an attempt to lighten the heavy atmosphere.
But Factory Manager Na Dooyoung’s expression sank even further.
“She must be beautiful.”
“What?”
“The day before I left Korea… I left her with my mother-in-law.”
“Huh… Ahem.”
For no reason, Taesu’s eyes suddenly grew hot.
He had heard about the years that had passed since then from President Gu Seungheon.
Factory Manager Na Dooyoung’s eyes also reddened.
The man who had snorted at pain stabbing through his entire body collapsed instantly at the mention of his daughter.
He moved his eyes from side to side, trying to hold back his tears, and said,
“She was ten then. ‘Can’t you not go?’ She cried and begged me. I can still hear her voice.”
“Whew.”
“When I told her I had to go, she said, ‘Then can’t I go with you?’… I can still vividly feel her clinging to my leg.”
“Hoo…”
Taesu quietly wiped beneath his nose once, then again.
Staring into the distance, Factory Manager Na Dooyoung continued.
“She loved nurungji that much.”
“Ah…”
“I hadn’t made it here even once—not a single time… But today, I did.”
“I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have…”
Taesu’s shoulders gradually hunched inward.