It was right after Taesu had neatly reached his conclusion.
Murmur, murmur.
A loud commotion came from the direction where the vehicles had gathered.
“That building over there is the temporary hospital, so let’s move the supplies first.”
“We have to hurry. People will start pouring in from morning.”
“Come on, let’s move.”
Clap, clap.
There was also the sound of sharp clapping, urging everyone on.
At the same time, people began to move.
Taesu looked around at Jeong Minsu, Kim Hyeok-gwon, and Brad Kim, then said,
“Let’s not just stand around worrying about what people think. We should move too.”
“I’m going over to the volunteer team.”
Whoosh.
As soon as Kim Hyeok-gwon finished speaking, he walked away.
He was right.
Since he wasn’t official medical staff, it would be difficult for him to work with them.
On the other hand, Taesu already felt strangely empty for no reason.
“This is kind of harsh.”
“Find what’s harsh later. I’ll move first too.”
Tap!
Brad Kim also left right away.
Since he had experience in medical volunteer work, he seemed to know where he should go.
But Taesu and Jeong Minsu did not.
“What should we do?”
“We go.”
“Where?”
“Just go for now.”
Taesu answered and moved his body.
He knew all too well that nothing would change if they simply stood still.
They carried boxes into the building over and over again.
It was a single-story but spacious building, divided into several rooms. Conversations between the medical staff and volunteers moving in and out continued endlessly.
“What’s that?”
“It’s an anti-inflammatory painkiller.”
“Please move that to the pharmacy. And that one?”
“This is glucose.”
“Glucose goes to the treatment prep room. And over there…”
Someone was taking charge and deciding where everything should be moved.
Meanwhile, tents were being set up one by one in front of the building. They said the tents would serve as shade from the blazing sun and as the first-stage treatment area.
As if everyone had done this more than once or twice, things proceeded systematically.
And Brad Kim, perhaps because he had experience, blended naturally into it all.
Fortunately, Taesu and Jeong Minsu were assigned to set up tents.
“Hrngh!”
After putting in strength a few times and moving back and forth, the tent took shape.
Since they had specialized in dispatch missions where the two of them had always traveled alone, they were professionals among professionals at pitching tents.
But once they had thrown up one tent in no time, another problem arose.
Their hands were too fast, and they ran out of things to do.
Jeong Minsu looked around at the busy surroundings and asked Taesu,
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know either.”
“You’ve been saying you don’t know to everything.”
“I told you, before you came, I went around with Hyeok-gwon. Seriously, what are we supposed to do?”
Taesu looked around with a troubled expression.
Jeong Minsu’s expression was not much different.
As the two of them stood there awkwardly, someone called out to them.
“Doctor Choi, Doctor Jeong.”
Whoosh!
They turned their heads and, surprisingly, it was Nurse Ellen.
At the appearance of a medical professional they knew, Taesu and Jeong Minsu were intensely glad to see her.
“Ellen!”
“Did you come with us?”
Questions burst out in rapid succession.
But Nurse Ellen, with an apologetic expression, made a request first.
“Could you help me for a moment?”
Something to do?
Thank you.
“What can we help you with?”
“We’ll help with anything!”
Taesu and Jeong Minsu approached her in one stride.
They stopped thinking.
Why they had been dispatched here was not important.
Since they were here now, the right thing to do was adapt to the situation.
One hour later.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu were inside a large room.
Their spot was in one corner.
“Ahem.”
“Hmm-hmm.”
The two of them were awkward enough to clear their throats quietly.
It was because there were several doctors in the room with them.
The dozen or so doctors had different skin colors and hair colors.
One world.
It was enough to bring to mind some slogan he felt he had seen somewhere before.
As if they were used to this kind of situation, they were sitting or lying on their assigned field beds, talking among themselves.
Taesu quietly turned his gaze the other way.
Through the window, he could see the temporary hospital.
In other words, the room they were now in was the lodging where they would be staying.
Murmur, murmur.
Everyone was absorbed in conversation.
But Taesu and Jeong Minsu could not join in.
At that moment, Jeong Minsu, who had been watching the others’ reactions, leaned slightly toward Taesu and said,
“You really don’t know anyone?”
“I told you, I don’t.”
“No one at all?”
“I only know some faces. And even then, they’re people I saw back then.”
Taesu answered the repeated question a little curtly.
“Back then” referred to the Ohamed case.
While Taesu had arrived early and was preparing for surgery, there had been doctors blocking the entrance to James’s surgical tent.
A few of them were among the people here.
“Of all things.”
Taesu gave a bitter smile.
In truth, under normal circumstances, brazenly acting shameless and sociable was his specialty.
But right now, it was not a situation where he could make use of that.
Even Brad Kim, his reliable support, was not there.
For some reason, the empty field bed beside Taesu felt even larger.
Just as the two of them felt unfamiliar, the other medical staff felt the same.
They only looked relaxed and at ease on the surface.
In reality, the air of wariness was stronger.
The reason was also clear.
The crime of trespassing into and using James’s surgical tent without permission.
The crime of summoning the respected Dr. James as they pleased.
And even the crime of buttering up the surgical team members and pretending to be close to them.
If there were a law that judged by those standards?
Taesu and Jeong Minsu would definitely receive a heavy sentence.
Fortunately, no such law existed, so the others were merely keeping their distance.
Perhaps because of their differing thoughts, the air in the lodging felt somehow awkward.
That awkwardness continued.
Creak.
The door opened, and people who looked damp as if they had washed up entered.
Among them was Brad Kim.
As he approached, Taesu and Jeong Minsu raised their hands high without realizing it and greeted him.
“Brad.”
“Teacher Kim.”
At their intense calls, Brad Kim approached and looked at them in disbelief.
“Brad is one thing, but what’s with ‘Teacher Kim’?”
“Ah, haha.”
“Seeing you welcome me like this, I guess you were feeling awkward and watching everyone’s mood for no reason.”
Brad Kim spoke not as a guess but as a certainty.
Embarrassed, Taesu scolded Jeong Minsu for no reason.
“How are you going to live in this harsh world when you’re so painfully shy?”
“Hey, you were exactly the same as me.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Wow, unbelievable. There’s a limit to how shameless you can be.”
“What did I do?”
Even as Jeong Minsu showed an utterly dumbfounded expression, Taesu’s face did not change in the slightest.
Brad Kim mediated the two as they bickered.
“Whoa, whoa. I get it, so calm down. If you keep doing that…”
“Brad.”
Before he could finish, a voice called from behind him.
Brad Kim turned around and, with a bright expression, offered his hand to the other person first.
“Doctor Johnson, how long has it been?”
“I’ve been watching you since earlier. You didn’t notice?”
“It was hectic. Oh, right. More importantly, these are…”
Brad Kim tried to introduce Taesu and Jeong Minsu.
But the white doctor named Doctor Johnson was one beat faster.
Step.
Doctor Johnson, a tall, slender blond man wearing glasses, stepped forward and greeted them first.
“I’m Doctor Johnson. You must be Doctor Choi and Doctor Jeong?”
“Yes. That’s right. But…”
As Taesu trailed off, Doctor Johnson answered his curiosity on his own.
“There’s no way I wouldn’t know the people everyone at the NGO camp has been talking about lately.”
“It’s not as if people have been talking that much.”
“Pardon me for asking, but I heard you’re the youngest members of Dr. James’s surgical team. Is that true?”
His eyes were filled with curiosity as he asked.
Taesu found it a little strange.
It was because the smile Doctor Johnson wore did not seem fake.
In contrast, the doctors behind him showed an even stronger wariness in their eyes.
Before he knew it, the murmuring in the room had noticeably decreased.
That meant everyone’s ears were focused on this side.
Taesu’s gaze, which had swept around the room, stopped on Jeong Minsu.
“The atmosphere sure is nice and awkward.”
“It’s burdensome when they stare at us like that.”
Jeong Minsu conveyed that meaning with eyes whose corners drooped pitifully.
Meanwhile, Brad Kim seemed to have grasped the atmosphere as well.
His expression immediately hardened.
At that moment, Taesu faced Doctor Johnson.
Since he had been asked a question, answering was the proper order.
“Well…”
“Doctor Choi, wait.”
Step.
Brad Kim immediately stepped in to block him.
Then he looked at Doctor Johnson and spoke in a loud voice so everyone could hear.
“So I was just an excuse, and that was what you were really curious about?”
“It is kind of a hot topic.”
“So? What changes if Doctor Choi is the youngest team member, and what changes if he isn’t?”
Brad Kim challenged him somewhat emotionally.
But there was a slight contradiction in his words.
A doctor behind him pointed that out.
“Brad, you said it repeatedly too. That you wanted to join his surgical team.”
“I put that off a bit.”
“After going around telling everyone about it?”
“Because Dr. James told me to gain a little more experience.”
Brad Kim raised his nose proudly toward the ceiling.
Among the people currently facing him, none had operated with James.
For Brad Kim as well, the surgery before his vacation had naturally been his first.
The other doctors must have heard the news too, because their expressions immediately twisted.
“He even gave you advice?”
“Wow, damn, ah… I’m seriously jealous. Ugh!”
“Damn it. I could do well too!”
Thud.
There was even the sound of someone striking a mattress.
Meanwhile, Taesu was beginning to get used to this atmosphere.
It was jealousy and envy.
He was reminded anew of just how many doctors respected James.
He understood why the way he appeared to them was not welcome.
“To them, it must look like I cut in line, and badly at that.”
But that was their perspective.
Taesu had no reason to step back or avoid it.
Brad Kim still had the floor.
He looked around at everyone with cold eyes and said,
“The NGO is surprisingly closed off too. Testing unfamiliar doctors like this.”
“Ahem.”
“Really, you’re all amazing. And seriously, this is too much. An NGO overflowing with love and warmth? Hah!”
Brad Kim spat out his honest feelings as they were.
Because of that, the atmosphere grew even colder.
It was then.
Step.
Doctor Johnson once again moved in front of Brad Kim.
And then.
Wink.
He quickly gave him a look.
It was a signal sent with his back to the other doctors.
It probably meant that he did not like this either, but they should let it pass roughly.
He also offered words befitting that signal.
“Brad, still, you shouldn’t say it like that.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Normally, we should ask what we’re curious about privately, but this is a little different.”
“Sigh. If Dr. James knew, he’d truly be dumbfounded.”
Brad Kim spoke bitterly and turned his head.
It felt like he was saying they should end it here.