Dun-dun.
In that instant, the atmosphere inside the medical tent changed strangely.
Doctor Quentin, in particular, was indescribably flustered.
Twitch.
For a moment, his eyes lost their way.
Then he quickly shouted back at the person who had called him.
“W-what do you mean? Patient Vanessa was transferred to ENT, wasn’t she?”
“They checked with ultrasound, and apparently it involves the blood vessels and nerves. So they’ve decided both sides will go into surgery together.”
“What in the world……”
“Anyway, please come quickly.”
The person shouting from afar delivered the notice, then slipped back into the building.
Inside the tent?
“……”
“……”
An awkward silence flowed.
Doctor Quentin, in particular, could not even look Taesu straight in the eye and only rolled his eyes around.
It was understandable. Everything he had gone to such lengths to criticize until now had turned into nonsense.
At that moment, Taesu quietly called him.
“Doctor Quentin.”
“Ahem. I, I……”
“I was just thinking that surgery should come first.”
When Taesu spoke first, Doctor Quentin flinched hard. But it was clear that Taesu had opened a path for him to survive this embarrassing situation.
Doctor Quentin cleared his throat even more loudly and answered.
“Ahem. Th-that’s right. Whatever else may be the case, we can’t delay a patient’s surgery…… Hm. We mustn’t.”
“Thank you for the advice you just gave me. I mean that sincerely.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m truly grateful. What I should do from now on had been vague, but now it’s become clear.”
Bow.
Taesu even lowered his head.
Doctor Quentin’s expression as he looked at Taesu was filled with bewilderment.
If he took offense, Taesu’s sincerity could be felt; but if he simply accepted it, something about it felt oddly unsettling.
“Ahem.”
He avoided answering by letting out a cough.
Taesu paid it no mind and gestured toward the hospital building, urging him again.
“Shouldn’t you get going?”
“Then.”
Swish, swish.
Doctor Quentin moved away even faster than he had approached.
Only then did the subtle air inside the medical tent disappear.
In the meantime, Jeong Minsu came over and stood looking toward the hospital building.
Perhaps he was angry that Taesu had taken it one-sidedly; his expression was crumpled.
“That all-mouth bastard. Eat this.”
As if he could no longer hold back, Jeong Minsu was about to thrust his fist forward.
But then Taesu’s hand blocked its path.
Tap.
“People are watching.”
“Did that bastard not know people were watching when he tore into you over and over? I thought you were an onion.”
“An onion? Ha, you punk.”
Taesu was dumbfounded by the absurd expression.
But Jeong Minsu seemed unable to just laugh it off, grumbling with his face still twisted.
“What are you, some kind of saint? You got beaten helplessly like a punching bag, and you can still laugh?”
“If we’re being strict, Doctor Quentin wasn’t wrong.”
“Oh, sure. I saw everything, you know? I saw just how thoroughly you examined that kid Vanessa.”
Jeong Minsu was even snorting, more worked up than if it had been his own business.
Taesu, on the other hand, was calm as if it were someone else’s affair.
“I wasn’t certain.”
“……”
“I just got lucky today and somehow got through it.”
“I don’t think you should look at it only that way.”
Jeong Minsu’s anger had eased somewhat, but his distress seemed to remain.
A faint smile hung on Taesu’s face as he looked at him.
“So I thought about it……”
“Ooh. I knew it. Our Taesu, who’d be offended if anyone called him second-best at holding grudges, must have some clever plan, which is why you’re acting so relaxed.”
“It’s called leisurely composure, and I have no intention of holding a grudge.”
At Taesu’s words, Jeong Minsu paused and rolled his eyes.
“Then what were you thinking about?”
“Do you still not know why James sent us here?”
“He said he wanted us to mingle with other people.”
When Jeong Minsu answered, Taesu shook his head.
“That’s the superficial reason.”
“Then?”
“What on earth did you feel while watching me just now?”
“That I shouldn’t embarrass myself?”
The moment Jeong Minsu asked back without confidence, Taesu’s calm expression distorted.
“That if we’re going to keep going around by ourselves, we need to fill our heads more, you dimwit.”
“I guess so?”
“Sigh. Forget it. The patients are waiting. Go on, hurry.”
Shoo, shoo.
Taesu waved his hand and turned away first.
Jeong Minsu had answered stupidly, but he must already have realized it.
He had clearly joked around in case Taesu’s mood had been hurt.
By now, Taesu could tell such things by feel without needing them expressed.
That was that.
Taesu’s expression had hardened before he knew it.
‘I thought too complacently.’
Until now, he had placed much of his weight on general surgery and thoracic surgery. As for other medical departments, he had thought it would be enough if he could handle the basics to some extent.
That had been the greatest miscalculation.
No one knew what kind of patient would be waiting in the villages they would visit from now on.
Studying only when the time came would be too late.
Even studying after returning to the NGO medical camp would be too late.
There, treatment and surgery were divided by department, making it difficult to mingle unless one belonged to that department.
From that perspective, this place was undoubtedly the optimal location.
As Taesu was thinking, he suddenly let out a short cry.
“Ah.”
This had to be the exact arrangement James had planned.
How?
The moment the question arose, a part of a conversation he had once had with James naturally came to mind.
—I can’t very well entrust myself to a doctor who doesn’t even know what a spinal implant is, can I?
It wasn’t exact, but the nuance had been similar.
Remembering that, Taesu’s expression went blank for a moment.
‘He wasn’t just saying that?’
Just how far did James see through things?
Goosebumps spread all over his body.
It was truly moving, and awe-inspiring.
It did not end as a mere thought in his head.
Flash.
Taesu’s gaze had become sharp before he knew it.
Now, he truly could not neglect a single department.
Of course, he could not master every medical field.
But he had to learn and train at least enough not to stand helplessly before a patient.
That would be the moment he broke free from the self he had called a coward.
He clearly understood James’s intention.
That did not mean he could immediately learn and master everything.
First, he had to do his utmost to examine the patients before him and lessen their discomfort.
He was just about to continue meeting patients again.
Then Taesu suddenly stopped and muttered bitterly.
“Doctor Quentin was practically the easy one.”
It happened at the same time as his mutter.
Swoosh.
Taesu turned his gaze widely.
At that instant, the gazes that had been fixed on him scattered in confusion.
Rustle!
As expected, he had been drawing attention.
Taesu’s gaze stopped midway.
Within that gaze stood Doctor Oliver, far off in the distance.
“……”
He was looking this way with eyes from which no thoughts could be read.
But only for a moment.
Doctor Oliver was the first to avert his gaze, then turned and walked far away.
Until the very end, Taesu could not get any sense of what he was thinking.
But this much was certain.
“Damn it. Why does this feel harder than when it was just us?”
“My point exactly.”
Jeong Minsu sidled over and looked on with a bitter expression.
Tap.
He lightly patted Taesu’s shoulder.
It was surely a gesture of comfort.
With his expression not much improved, Taesu opened his mouth.
“People…… I really like people, but people are so hard.”
“Taesu.”
Jeong Minsu rolled his eyes for a moment, then called him with a strangely resolute tone.
Taesu answered calmly.
“What?”
“Should we pack?”
“Heh, you punk. I haven’t even digested breakfast yet.”
“Exactly. What the hell is all this chaos in just a few hours? They’re jerking us around from every direction. I’m seriously going crazy.”
Scratch, scratch.
Perhaps his chest felt stifled, because Jeong Minsu even raised his fingertips and roughly scratched the front of his shirt.
At that moment, Taesu lightly patted Jeong Minsu’s shoulder and asked.
Tap.
“Minsu. Are we the ones who are crooked?”
“What?”
“We came all this way, but somehow it feels like nothing has changed much.”
“Is this really the time to say crap like that?”
When Jeong Minsu genuinely bristled, Taesu once again patted his shoulder gently and said,
“Don’t get mad. But even this time is a waste.”
“What’s suddenly a waste?”
“The patients are waiting.”
The moment Taesu admonished him, the corners of Jeong Minsu’s eyes shot upward.
“Right, patients! Patients are friends I’m glad to see even a hundred, a thousand times, damn it!”
“Did you just curse?”
Whoosh.
Taesu’s air abruptly turned cold.
His reaction was completely different from when he had been beaten down from every direction.
He was this sensitive when the conversation concerned patients.
Jeong Minsu even felt a chill run down his spine.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know why Taesu was like this, so he quickly admitted his mistake.
“Nonsense, nonsense. I was so annoyed it just slipped out.”
“Phew. Minsu, let’s just walk our own path.”
“Of course. Anyway, enough chatter. Let’s stop looking elsewhere and treat them properly. Wajajat!”
Jeong Minsu mischievously shouted a cheer and turned away first.
It clearly meant they should quickly shake off this gloomy mood.
“You punk.”
Taesu simply laughed it off.
Naturally, he felt the same.
The moment he turned around after him, he erased the events that had just occurred from his mind.
Instead, he reignited the passionate resolve he had hardened only moments ago.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu focused on the patients all the more to make up for the time that had been delayed.
Their concentration was beyond astonishing—it was almost frightening.
It was not as if they had a quota for how many patients they had to see today. Naturally, no one was watching them from nearby either.
If anything, the string of incidents had dampened the curiosity toward Taesu and Jeong Minsu.
The people involved, however, did not care at all.
To be precise, they had no leeway to look around.
That was because the patients’ symptoms were far too varied, and also unfamiliar.
One patient had been born with a congenital split from the upper lip to the palate.
Another patient had a nose that was badly crooked.
There was a patient with six fingers, called polydactyly, and someone else had skin that was red and also peeling white.
Besides that, there were rows of patients with uneven or missing teeth, and there was even a case where a large tumor had formed inside the nasal cavity.
“What am I supposed to do?”
His head began to ache from the symptoms that were all too unfamiliar.
There certainly were patients related to general surgery and thoracic surgery.
But looking at the overall proportion, they could actually be considered few.
Most of the symptoms he was facing now were firsts for Taesu.
Even after traveling through so many remote areas, he had never experienced this.
It was a difference in population.
When there were many people, one inevitably saw a wide variety of symptoms.
These symptoms were clearly caused by environmental influences, as well as poor hygiene and underdeveloped medical facilities.
That was why many congenital and acquired deformities occurred.
Even if not until now, these were also symptoms he had every chance of facing someday.
Taesu once again keenly realized that James’s arrangement had been foresight looking far into the distance.
But that was not what mattered.
Was he going to stand by helplessly just because he did not know the symptoms and diseases?
That was absolutely impossible.
His resolve not to repeat the same mistake had already hardened.
So he put it into action.
That action was to go to another doctor and ask.
He had said himself that he was growing tired of people.
Considering that, it was an extremely contradictory sight. But Taesu’s expression contained not the slightest hesitation.
He moved to Medical Tent 2 right beside them.