Just then, James’s hearty laughter rang out.
“Ha ha. You said you’d teach him a lesson.”
“I did leave his head spinning. I was merely a bit surprised in the process.”
“Quite something for a second-year resident, isn’t he?”
When James asked, Team Leader Mario lightly shot back.
“Only a second-year? Isn’t it that he’s on his second round as a resident?”
“Heh heh. Would you do it again, if it were you?”
“Absolutely not. In any case, he certainly has the makings of someone worth teaching.”
“Have you become a fan?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But I do think I might call him in every now and then and put him through the wringer. Heh heh. I’ll contact you again, then.”
Click.
After setting down the receiver, Team Leader Mario leaned deep into the back of his chair.
“Well, now. He’s an interesting doctor.”
That was Team Leader Mario’s assessment of Taesu.
At that time.
Taesu had handed the patient over to the ICU and come outside.
“Phew. I can finally think straight.”
At first, he had followed the surgery, but later on, he had been dragged along by it.
It was the truth, so he had no choice but to admit it.
Surgical Team 1.
They weren’t called the elite of this medical camp for nothing.
On top of that, his very first surgery had been on a severe lupus patient.
As expected, he had properly felt just how high the level was for surgeries involving rare and intractable diseases.
Taesu thought for a moment.
What if he had been the lead surgeon?
Shake, shake.
He quickly shook his head.
He didn’t just lack confidence—his fighting spirit had sunk as well.
The moment they touched anything, problems erupted endlessly like a bomb.
Team Leader Mario, who had led that surgery without a hitch, was certainly an incredible surgeon.
And Dr. Bex, who had assisted, was also a tremendously skilled doctor.
There were many excellent doctors in Korea as well.
However, among the doctors Taesu knew, there was no one he could compare them to.
Their level was that high.
He was in the middle of thinking that when—
Drrr-ring.
His cell phone rang.
This time, too, it was an unknown number.
Taesu was puzzled, but he answered for now.
“This is Dr. Choi.”
“This is surgical tent A11.”
“Ah, yes.”
“We have a laceration, subclavian vein rupture, hemorrhage symptoms—an emergency situation. Requesting a helper!”
As he listened quietly, Taesu’s hair stood on end at the word helper.
They want me to squeeze blood packs?
But if the bleeding had been caused by a torn subclavian vein, it was definitely massive hemorrhaging.
Squeezing blood packs was the hardest task, but it was also the most important.
To hell with it.
“I’m coming!”
Thud-thud-thud!
After roughly lowering the phone, Taesu ran with all his might.
Not long after.
Flap.
Taesu roughly pulled aside the surgical tent flap and stepped inside.
“Huff, huff, huff!”
His breath was catching in his throat, and sweat poured down like rain.
After a ten-hour surgery and a run like that, there was no other way for his body to react.
But an unfamiliar nurse waiting in the surgical waiting area pressed him.
“Dr. Choi, hurry. Hurry, the gown!”
“Breath... huff, huff. Damn it!”
Thud, thud.
Taesu forced himself over and put on the surgical gown.
A mantle truly did change a person.
Once he put on the surgical gown, his trembling thighs steadied, and his hunched back straightened.
“Hoo!”
“All right. Mask and hair cap...”
“I can put them on after I go in.”
“What are you talking about?”
Grab!
The nurse seized Taesu’s arm.
Taesu froze and answered with an incredulous look.
“I can put them on while squeezing the blood packs.”
“That’s already being done. They called you because the assistant is exhausted!”
“Y-you should have told me that from the start!”
Whip, snap!
With rough movements, Taesu quickly put on the mask and hair cap.
Then he immediately pulled open the inner screen and entered the operating room.
The screen returned to its place, cutting the operating room off from the outside.
From inside the operating room, the lead surgeon’s sharp shout rang out.
“What took you so long!”
“Hah. Are you trying to make a swimming pool out of blood!”
“You bastard, is this the time to say crap like that so leisurely?”
“I’m disinfecting, aren’t I... Hey, nurse over there, what are you doing? You need to hold the assist until I get there!”
Bark, bark.
The sharp voices from beyond the screen did not stop.
Taesu, in particular, reacted completely differently from how he had during Team Leader Mario’s surgery.
The lead surgeon was a specialist he had only exchanged greetings with in passing. Even though they were merely acquainted by face, he shouted and argued back.
That was how urgent the emergency situation was.
That pointed and rough exchange continued for quite some time.
Before long, time passed, midnight went by, and dawn arrived.
Taesu, dressed in scrubs, trudged toward the lodging.
He was a mess, as if blood had been poured all over his body. As though even that unpleasant feeling no longer mattered, he could only walk with a face utterly worn out.
“I only did two surgeries, and I’m in this state.”
Perhaps because the day had begun in chaos, it seemed it would be that way until the end.
As he thought that, he arrived in front of the lodging.
Creak.
The moment he opened the door and stepped in—
He ran into Jeong Minsu, who was coming out of the washroom.
Jeong Minsu, who had been shaking water from his wet hair, screamed when he saw the blood-covered Taesu.
“Aaaagh, it’s a ghost!”
Whoosh. Smack!
Hit by a wet towel, Taesu glared at Jeong Minsu.
“You little...”
“Wh-what the hell. It was you? Aaagh.”
Jeong Minsu placed a hand on his chest and calmed himself.
It seemed he really had been startled.
Still, Taesu felt a little hurt.
“You don’t see the man who worked until he ended up looking like this?”
“Now that I look again, you’re not just a ghost. You’re a bachelor ghost.”
“Watch yourself when you sleep. I’m going to sit on your chest and give you sleep paralysis.”
“That’s a murder warning.”
Jeong Minsu grumbled, but even that was too much trouble for Taesu.
“I don’t care. I’m washing up first.”
Step.
Taesu went into the washroom first.
And a little later.
Bang.
Taesu came out clean, wearing only a towel over the parts that needed covering.
In the meantime, Brad Kim and Kim Hyeokgwon had come in.
They were sprawled on the sofa with blank faces.
As Taesu put on clothes, he asked casually.
“Did you just get back from somewhere?”
At that moment, the back of Taesu’s head felt hot.
When he pulled on his shirt and turned around, Brad Kim and Kim Hyeokgwon were glaring at him.
“We just got in, and what did you say?”
“You came in first and still have the conscience to say that?”
At their sharp reaction, Taesu shrugged.
“I’ve only been here five minutes myself.”
“Aigoo. I got in ten minutes before you did.”
Jeong Minsu suddenly rose from the single-seater sofa and added.
It seemed they had all had similar days.
They gathered on the sofa and rummaged for snacks to eat.
They were trying to deceive their hunger.
As they did, conversation went back and forth about what surgeries each of them had taken part in and in what position.
“I was dragged away first, so Dr. Benedict...”
“What? It wasn’t simple pulmonary valve atresia with insufficiency. Ah, the name is hard too.”
“That’s what I’m saying. To resolve that...”
Whoosh, whoosh.
Jeong Minsu explained the surgical process grandly, adding hand gestures.
What was more surprising was that it did not feel like an exaggeration.
And Jeong Minsu had not taken part in only one surgery either.
He had even done more than Taesu.
“When I went into the third surgery, everything in front of my eyes turned yellow...”
The three people listening intently deeply sympathized with grim eyes, as if they knew exactly how that felt.
Then the same process continued in the order of Brad Kim, Jeong Minsu, and Taesu.
It took more than an hour just for each of them to unpack their surgeries.
They were extremely exhausted, but there was a reason they prioritized this time over sleep.
After reviewing the experiences of the day, Taesu said,
“It doesn’t feel like they were just trying to roll us around for a day.”
“My head’s still a mess, but it does feel like something’s been left inside.”
“Then are they trying to teach us something?”
At Jeong Minsu’s words, Brad Kim voiced his doubt.
That was when Kim Hyeokgwon stated his own opinion.
“This is a conspiracy.”
“What?”
“They tore us apart, didn’t they? If they put us together, we cause accidents, so they split us up.”
Kim Hyeokgwon was certain.
But Taesu did not agree.
“I think your guess is way off this time.”
“Then why would they go out of their way to split us up? There’s no need to do this, so why make things troublesome and chaotic like this?”
“Hmm.”
“See? I’m right.”
Kim Hyeokgwon seemed to grow even more certain of his own guess.
At that moment, Taesu quietly asked,
“Then why would they have you participate in surgeries, Hyeokgwon?”
“...Huh?”
“There’s no need to go that far while even paying you a special allowance, is there?”
“Hmm... Hmmm... Ah, I’m too tired today. I can’t think of anything.”
Even while using such an obvious trick, Kim Hyeokgwon’s expression did not change.
Judging by the various circumstances, he seemed to have decided Taesu’s words were more correct.
At that moment, Jeong Minsu tilted his head and asked,
“But would they suddenly start tempering us like this?”
“Maybe we were just called around today because they were short on people.”
“What? Why are you going back and forth?”
“We’ll only know once tomorrow comes.”
Taesu answered with a light shrug.
Brad Kim lent weight to that opinion.
“Actually, I checked the surgery schedule on the way here.”
“Are we scheduled for surgery?”
“No, we’re not.”
“Really? Then I guess they were strangely short-handed today.”
Taesu chose to accept it neatly rather than feel disappointed.
But Brad Kim introduced a twist.
“What I mean is, there was no surgery schedule.”
“There are only a few hours left until morning.”
“I don’t know what’s going on either.”
“In the end, we’ll have to wake up and check.”
“Probably.”
The moment Brad Kim answered—
Slide.
Taesu rose from his seat and said,
“Then let’s hurry up and sleep. Seems like sleeping is what’ll benefit us most.”
“Let’s do that. Tomorrow’s sun... Today’s sun will rise today, I suppose.”
Since midnight had long since passed, Kim Hyeokgwon corrected himself.
Then everyone headed to their own beds.
No, they collapsed onto their beds.
Flop, flop.
And no one moved at all.
No hands reached out to turn off the lights, and no voices exchanged good night.
“...”
There wasn’t even the sound of snoring.
They had personally put into practice the legendary one-second sleep method.
A few hours later.
Taesu and the other three got up without even being able to open their eyes properly.
“It feels like I opened my eyes the moment I closed them.”
“Ugh, my whole body aches.”
“Uaaah. Let’s go check the schedule.”
“Ughhh.”
Trudge, trudge.
The four of them shuffled along in a line, moving their stiff bodies.
Soon, they checked the surgery schedule posted in the hallway.
The schedules for every operating room in the NGO camp were densely written on it.
Slide, slide.
Using even his finger to trace down line by line, Taesu froze.
“Jeong Minsu, congratulations. Surgical tent A2.”
“What surgery is it?”
“Hepaticodochotomy.”
“Ah, what the hell.”
Scratch.
Jeong Minsu dug at his ear with half-open eyes, intensely expressing his annoyance.
That attitude did not last long.