Only after suppressing his simmering emotions was he able to smile.
But he did not want to simply laugh it off.
Taesu deliberately muttered in Korean right in Dr. Takeshi’s face.
“Ha ha, this neighborhood doesn’t have any glass windows.”
If anyone understood him, it would have made their heart drop.
Dr. Takeshi, unable to understand, narrowed his brow.
“What did you just say?”
“Ah, I meant to say it in English, but it slipped out. He may be a patient I handed over, but we did meet, so I wanted to see him for a moment.”
“Is it only my imagination that there seems to be some other intention hidden behind that?”
“I’m also curious whether that unidentified sound was heard again. I was the one who first examined the patient, so it’s been on my mind.”
Taesu answered without bothering to hide it, adding a reasonable explanation.
It was then.
Dduruk. Dduruk.
A strange cell phone ringtone sounded.
Seeing Dr. Takeshi’s hands grow busy, it seemed the ringtone belonged to him.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
After informing them of his leave, Dr. Takeshi turned around with the phone to his ear.
‘What a ridiculous ringtone.’
Taesu heard it crookedly, but did not show it.
Then Dr. Takeshi’s attitude changed in an instant.
“Hai, hii.”
Not only did he bow and scrape, he even held the phone with both hands.
Taesu was honestly dumbfounded.
“That bastard left his liver and gallbladder behind somewhere.”
But it seemed Taesu was not the only one displeased.
Nurse Casey whispered softly, grumbling in an incredulous voice.
“What kind of person talks on the phone like that?”
“That’s how they act when they’re talking to someone higher than themselves.”
“It looks a little cowardly, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not the one who made the rule.”
To Taesu, it was simply someone else’s culture and someone else’s business.
He still had not obtained any results, so he had no room to concern himself with every little thing.
Dr. Takeshi’s call was growing longer little by little.
“Hoo.”
‘Should I really just hit him once?’ Since Taesu kept thinking he was hateful, hateful, Dr. Takeshi seemed to be choosing only the most hateful things to do, and Taesu wanted to give him one big present.
He suppressed that feeling again.
In Taesu’s life, this was the first time he had ever restrained himself like this.
Vanessa was playing the decisive role.
The hand she had held was still vividly clear in his memory.
He almost wished he had never heard her say thank you.
It was merely a complaint venting his frustration.
Until Vanessa became healthy, Taesu could endure to the very end.
If this was a sin?
Then it was the sin of having examined her first.
No, perhaps it was a blessing?
In any case, it was far better that no problems occurred with a patient he had first examined.
‘That’s right. It’s a blessing. A blessing.’
The blessing of patients.
It felt like a truly harsh blessing from the world.
Nurse Casey watched Taesu with a look of surprise.
About a minute passed like that.
In his heart, it felt like an hour.
Dr. Takeshi lowered his phone and turned around, his face cold once more.
“Dr. Kuramoto says you are to come along.”
“We’re going to see the patient, I assume?”
“If you’re told to come, just come.”
Dr. Takeshi turned away icily and left the nurses’ station.
On the other hand, Taesu’s mood fell into utter disorder at the order.
Clench.
“I swear, I’m going to—”
“Dr. Choi, don’t hold back. Go hit him.”
Nurse Casey went one step further.
At those words, Taesu actually regained his reason.
“Later.”
“You don’t even have that good of a temper. How are you holding it in?”
“I’m saving it up at quadruple interest. Let’s go for now.”
He hated following along without knowing why, but this time he had no choice.
A moment later.
Slide.
A door somewhere opened, and Dr. Takeshi, Taesu, and Nurse Casey entered one after another.
Taesu frowned slightly at the interior.
“Isn’t this a briefing room?”
“I was only told to guide you here.”
“If this is a joke, you’d better stop. I’m not exactly in a position to take things leisurely right now.”
Taesu’s voice finally turned cold.
But then it happened.
Slide.
Along with the sound of the door opening, a familiar voice rang out.
“Dr. Choi and Casey were here?”
It was Dr. Schmidt’s voice.
Whoosh.
When Taesu turned his head, the man really was entering.
Behind him, Dr. Kuramoto was guiding him as if in attendance.
They were not the only two to enter.
Dr. Oliver was there as well.
However, those two were surgeons who performed operations centered on general surgery.
They were not particularly suited to a thoracic surgery briefing.
Dr. Schmidt was the overall director of the medical volunteer work, and Dr. Oliver was something like his attendant, so they likely had not been forced to come to this meeting.
Taesu accepted it that way.
But then, two more doctors entered.
Dr. Benedict and Dr. Ruffalo.
They were currently the two central pillars of thoracic surgery.
Their appearances could be defined in a single phrase.
‘They look like they’d be damn good at surgery.’
Anyone who saw them would have no choice but to agree.
Those two also greeted Taesu with puzzled expressions.
“Dr. Choi, what about outside?”
“You came to hear the briefing because you were the one who first examined Vanessa?”
The way they welcomed Taesu, a member of the NGO, was exceedingly warm.
The places where they worked were very different. Though they could not meet often, he was occasionally called in as staff for thoracic surgery operations, and they had become acquainted.
So even in this unexpected meeting, there was plenty of familiarity.
Shake, shake.
As they lightly shook hands, Taesu answered politely.
“I came to see Vanessa once more, but I didn’t know I’d end up here.”
“You really do like patients.”
“At this rate, I’m going to become a patient myself.”
Taesu responded lightly with a bit of wit.
Since Dr. Kuramoto was there as well, a faint bit of ease arose in his anxious heart.
At that moment, Dr. Takeshi gave a heavy cough.
“Ahem. We will begin the surgical briefing.”
At that sound, they urged one another toward the chairs.
Thud.
Once Taesu sat down, Nurse Casey approached.
But then it happened.
Slip.
Dr. Oliver quickly sat in the seat Nurse Casey had been eyeing, as if cutting in line.
“……”
“……”
Taesu and Nurse Casey stared at him with dumbfounded faces.
Dr. Oliver stared straight ahead without the slightest change in expression.
Into the ears of those three came Dr. Schmidt’s voice.
“Casey, there are plenty of seats. Why are you standing?”
“No. I’ll sit.”
After answering briefly, Nurse Casey eventually took a seat beside Dr. Oliver.
An odd tension could be felt between the two.
Taesu’s mind was already complicated enough, but now he was starting to worry about this side too.
‘What’s with these people now?’
More than anything, the fact that Dr. Oliver was sitting beside him was slightly unpleasant.
That fight over seats lasted only a moment.
Dr. Takeshi seemed to be in charge of proceedings, and he raised his voice.
“We will begin the first surgical briefing of the Hirajuku University Hospital medical volunteer team.”
“……”
There was no applause.
They were not in a situation where they could be bound by such formalities.
Based on the prepared materials on the whiteboard, Dr. Takeshi explained the patient’s condition.
“The patient’s name is Vanessa, a fifty-one-year-old female……”
Taesu let it pass by, as it was something he already knew perfectly well.
What mattered was whether the explanation included anything about that strange sound.
Dr. Schmidt and the other doctors listened silently.
“……”
“……”
Normally, they did not make such a troublesome occasion.
It was a specially arranged meeting because it was the Japanese medical team’s first surgery.
It was also a sign that Dr. Kuramoto was paying that much attention to it.
Soon, Dr. Takeshi’s initial briefing ended.
Then Dr. Kuramoto stood before the whiteboard and opened his mouth.
“As explained earlier, the first patient we will be operating on is an L.V.H patient.”
It was a medical term meaning left ventricular hypertrophy.
Dr. Kuramoto continued speaking.
“The surgical method we have devised is……”
It was just before he said it.
Flash.
Taesu’s gaze sharpened.
The most representative surgical method for LVH surgery came to mind.
That was……
‘Batista.’
The moment he recited it inwardly, Dr. Kuramoto’s voice rang out.
“The Batista procedure. We will do our utmost to effectively reduce the myocardium so that the patient no longer suffers pain in her chest.”
Dr. Kuramoto declared solemnly.
Everyone wore expressions that suggested they had expected as much.
Among them, Dr. Benedict raised a hand and asked.
“I know that it is your specialty, Dr. Kuramoto, but given the environment, it could be extremely dangerous.”
“I, Kuramoto, perform more than one hundred Batista procedures a year.”
“I am aware.”
“If I may dare say so, I take pride in being the closest to Dr. Caprene, who became the star of thoracic surgery. No, I can already prove it with many results.”
The resolve he showed was not merely solemn, but almost desperate.
He emphasized that this was not a surgery he was forcing through, but one he routinely performed.
Even so, the reaction was not very favorable.
“Ahem.”
“Hmm.”
There were also coughs tinged with displeasure.
His pride was certainly worth boasting about.
That much was acknowledged in the atmosphere.
However, placing himself on the same level as Caprene was worth minus one million points.
They knew Dr. Kuramoto had said it as an expression of confidence.
But that was something that should have remained only a thought.
Taesu in particular felt not just dumbfounded, but drained of strength.
From Taesu’s current standpoint, what Dr. Kuramoto had accomplished was certainly quite impressive.
But if Caprene was the point of comparison, the story changed completely.
‘He does barely a hundred a year and he’s acting like that?’
Caprene had once performed fifty surgeries in a single month.
That number counted only pure Batista procedures.
Taesu knew that far too vividly, so he could not even be bothered to respond.
Dr. Kuramoto’s surgical briefing continued.
Perhaps because the response was not very good, he seemed to hurry.
“And so, that part will be……”
Unexpectedly, Taesu was listening to him without letting the words pass by.
That was because he did not know where the abnormal reaction in the heart might emerge.
But no matter how long he waited, those words never came.
“……That is all.”
The briefing ended abruptly.
Taesu, who had been listening carefully, was dumbfounded.
‘Didn’t he look at the chart?’
This was an issue he had to challenge.
This was not the time to weigh the pros and cons, consider this and that, or watch others’ reactions.
Thrust.
Taesu shot his hand into the air.
Dr. Kuramoto noticed and said,
“Dr. Choi, I will give you time for questions shortly.”
“That—”
“It will only be a moment.”
Dr. Kuramoto once again asked for his understanding.
There was something in his gaze that suggested he had a move prepared.
Denied the chance to speak, Taesu bit his lip lightly.
However, his deep irritation eventually forced its way through his lips.
“Damn it.”
There was not a single thing he liked about this.
Meanwhile, another Japanese doctor with a fairly neat appearance opened his mouth.
“I will now call out the surgical personnel……”
Dr. Kuramoto as the operating surgeon, Dr. Takeshi as assistant, and so on—the names of doctors and nurses rang out.
Each time someone was called, the corresponding person showed themselves.
That made it easy to match who was who.