Chapter 7. Not a Prison Cell, but an Operating Room
“EpiPen, here—quick!”
Taeheon reached out urgently with one hand, ignoring everything else.
“What’s going on? The woman running over there told us to stop someone…….”
The paramedic trailed off hesitantly.
“I’m a doctor! Anaphylactic shock, airway obstruction! Hurry!”
“Please state your affiliation first!”
“Ha Taeheon, Sein University Trauma Center! The patient will die! EpiPen, now!”
“Oh—yes! Right away!”
Only then did the paramedic hurriedly pull a portable epinephrine injector from the emergency bag.
Before he could even hand it over, Taeheon snatched it and drove the needle straight into the patient’s thigh without hesitation.
Now all that was left was to wait for the medication to circulate through the body.
“Ugh…….”
A faint breath escaped between the patient’s teeth. It had taken less than three minutes.
“Thank you, doctor. We’ll transport the patient to a nearby hospital!”
“Yes, please do.”
As the commotion faded, the mountain returned to silence.
Taeheon stared at the backs of the departing paramedics.
Yet for some reason, his mind was filled only with the image of that strange woman who had run off earlier, her long hair fluttering behind her.
Are you going to end up back in prison the moment you get out?
The moment you get out of prison…….
Prison, prison, prison……
Her words echoed in his ears like a reverberation.
Do I really look like such a bastard?
With an incredulous scoff, Taeheon ran a hand through his hair.
The place he had spent the past seven years in was not a prison cell.
It was an operating room.
And somehow, he regretted not being able to say that one thing.
It was the fastest she had ever run in her life.
As soon as A-gang turned the corner down the slope, the rescue workers felt like saviors descended from the sky. The orange stretcher looked like a guiding beacon found in the middle of a vast sea.
She was relieved. The patient would live.
“The patient is over there! And please, whatever you do, stop that man next to him! He’s dangerous!”
She sprinted all the way back to the Baekunsa temple lodging.
She wanted to run all the way to Seoul, but there was something she had to do first.
A-gang steadied her breath and looked down at the telephone on the side table.
Then, as if making up her mind, she picked up the receiver.
“112 emergency line. How may I help you?”
“Hello. I’m on Cheonghwa Mountain. A man just tried to stab someone with a knife……”
She lowered her voice, glancing around, and explained the situation.
“Hello? We can’t hear you clearly!”
“Can you hear me now?”
“Please don’t panic. Take a deep breath and speak slowly.”
“The man! I think he just got out of prison after serving seven years. He was holding a knife and swinging it around, so I took it away!”
Her words kept coming out tangled.
“Are you saying he is a released inmate?”
“Well… that seems to be the situation. He told me he’d been confined for seven years.”
“Please continue.”
The sound of rapid typing came through the line.
“He also said he came here to atone for something—he’s at Baekunsa temple right now! He’s probably heading down the mountain!”
“We will dispatch officers immediately!”
“This is really a life-or-death situation for me too, so please keep my identity confidential! Please!”
A-gang quickly packed her things and bowed deeply to the monk who had just finished morning prayers.
“Thank you so much for everything! I’ll visit again. Something urgent came up today.”
“Of course. Come whenever you’re free. You’re always welcome.”
“Oh, monk! That man from yesterday—the very tall one…… please be careful of him!”
“Taehon? Why Taehon?”
“I think he hasn’t fully atoned for his wrongdoing yet……”
“Wrongdoing?”
The monk looked genuinely puzzled.
“Anyway, I have to go now! If that man asks about me, please say you haven’t seen me! Please take care!”
As always, the monk’s smile remained calm and serene.
Without looking back, A-gang descended the mountain.
It was a perfectly peaceful Saturday at the end of February.
Early morning.
A-gang stopped in front of a massive building.
Even tilting her head all the way back, she couldn’t see the top. It was a towering, imposing structure.
Blue glass windows reflected the sunlight like crystal.
It was dazzling.
Once again, she was struck by the sheer prestige of the Sein Medical Foundation of the Sein family.
15th Floor, Department of Plastic Surgery.
She cautiously opened the door, and the eyes of four already-arrived interns turned toward her at once.
Following them was the sharp gaze of a young professor she had never seen before.
“Hello! Nice to meet you. I’m Ju A-gang!”
He must be the professor she hadn’t seen during orientation……
While she was still thinking, the professor, who had been scrutinizing her closely, spoke abruptly.
“Oh, from Cheonwoo University?”
“Yes!”
“You caused some trouble, didn’t you?”
“Pardon?”
A-gang swallowed dryly.
“If not, there’s no reason for you to come here instead of staying at your own hospital, right?”
“……”
“Sein University and Cheonwoo University—aren’t they basically enemies?”
Not just rivals. More like enemies who couldn’t wait to destroy each other.
The two greatest medical schools in Korea, locked in fierce competition.
A-gang looked up at Professor Park Dojun, who was smiling faintly, and bit her lower lip.
“It’s not that I caused trouble……”
The nightmare she had wanted to forget resurfaced in her mind.
She had never imagined that her once-in-a-lifetime internship would end with such an absurd disgrace.
Far from a graceful conclusion—it had been a complete fiasco.
With a deep sigh, A-gang shook her head.
It had been during her final two-month rotation in thoracic surgery at Cheonwoo University Hospital.
“Oh! It’s up again!”
Nurse Jung giggled and pointed at the monitor.
The other staff quickly crowded around her. The thoracic surgery station erupted into noise.
“Everyone, quiet!”
After clearing her throat twice, Nurse Jung began reading the post on the praise board.
“Title: My diagnosis is love.”
“Read it louder! We can’t hear!”
“No, stop it!”
Flustered, A-gang tried to block the large monitor with her hands, but it was useless.
As if enjoying a rare bit of entertainment in their exhausting hospital routine, everyone’s eyes were already glued to the screen.
[Doctor Ju A-gang, can love be treated too?]
Nurse Jung widened her eyes and made an exaggerated expression, triggering laughter all around.
[The moment you held my hand warmly for the first time, you became my light. The moment I saw you, I knew it—I had been waiting my whole life for my heart to beat for this beautiful woman!]
“Wow! We should take a screenshot before it gets deleted!”
A fellow intern shoved A-gang aside and held a phone right up to the monitor.
[Every time you come near, my heartbeat goes wild. You’ve broken my heart.
My only attending physician is you, Ju A-gang.
A patient suffering from the disease called love,
—Oh Deok-ho]
Nurse Jung finished reading the last line with dramatic solemnity.
And then the entire room burst into laughter again.
“How many are there now? One, two, three—this makes twenty posts today!”
The interns counting posts from the username “AgangLove” were busy tapping away.
“Damn! Dr. Ju A-gang’s popularity! You could debut as a celebrity right now.”
“She’s seriously that pretty. Cute, pure, gorgeous—and don’t even get me started on her body. I thought she should’ve been on TV, not in a hospital.”
“If I were her, I’d thank my parents and go make a fortune as an actress.”
A-gang’s face turned beet red as she chewed on her lip in embarrassment.
The teasing interns only added fuel to the fire.
“Do you think that patient’s going to propose tomorrow? I heard he was asking where the flower shop near the hospital is.”
As if those words had been a prophecy.
The very next day, the patient from room 809 actually showed up on one knee and proposed, sending the entire hospital into chaos.
Heart-shaped balloons, LED candles, pink letter garlands dusted with glitter everywhere—no one even knew where he had gotten them.
All she had done was treat him kindly……
And overnight, A-gang had become a well-known figure at Cheonwoo University Hospital.
A so-called intern who unintentionally “dated” her patient.
