Ra-ik froze. The name rolled through his mind, smooth and sharp like fine crystal. Maeng Se-na.
"She is one of our top cardiac surgeons," Dr. Choi added quietly, his tone turning grim. "And if you are looking to file an official complaint or take legal action, Mr. Do, you should know that the board has already taken severe measures. Falling off a penthouse terrace and landing five floors down on a reinforced glass canopy roof was a freak statistical anomaly that broke your arm and caused a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage. You were in full traumatic cardiac arrest when you reached us."
Dr. Choi paused, looking at Ra-ik thoughtfully. "Dr. Maeng dragged you back from death when we had almost pronounced you dead. She kept compressing your chest relentlessly... but the way she was performing those chest compressions on you in that trauma bay... honestly, it seemed to everyone present that she knew you personally. Or had some deep, personal grudge. If I may ask do you know each other?"
Ra-ik's head snapped toward Dr. Choi. His dark eyes narrowed into an intense, chilling glare that bored straight into the older physician.
Dr. Choi instantly froze, an uncomfortable chill running down his spine. He cleared his throat nervously, quickly adjusting his glasses to break the uncomfortable eye contact.
"Ahem! I only meant for if you know each other maybe that can lessen her punishment… any ways… Yes…she was wrong nevertheless…as I was saying..." Dr. Choi stammered, picking up his pace. "She cracked three of your ribs herself in the process. Now, cracking ribs during CPR is not an offense...such cases happen frequently in resuscitation. But losing one's decorum, acting hysterically with a patient, and physically striking them is not something this hospital can afford to tolerate in one of our faculty members...especially in front of staff, patients, and potentially the media. Effective yesterday, she was fined fifty million won and her surgical privileges have been suspended indefinitely. She has been relieved of all her hospital duties undefinitely."
Ra-ik's dark brows furrowed, a heavy, suffocating realization crashing into his chest. "Suspended? Because of me?"
"Because she physically struck a patient," Dr. Choi corrected dryly. "Twice. Once in the trauma bay to shock your heart back into rhythm, and once in this very room when you were pulling at your central line. She saved your life, Mr. Do... but she broke every protocol in the book to do it, regardless if you know each other or not."
Ra-ik stood motionless in his hospital gown. He remembered the sting on his cheek. He remembered the sharp, index finger digging into his bloodied chest bandage. But above all, he remembered her eyes, blazing with an intimate, furious grief that belonged to someone who had stood on the edge of the world with him.
She saved my life... and I ruined hers, he thought, the heavy weight of the realization settling in his stomach like lead.
For Maeng Se-na, time had lost its clinical structure.
Without the rhythm of morning rounds, scrub-ins, eight-hour open-heart procedures, and post-op consultations, her day was an endless, hollow void. A surgeon's hands, trained to execute micro-movements under intense pressure, now held nothing heavier than a cold cup of black tea.
She spent her mornings staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows of her high-rise apartment, watching the gray city traffic crawl below. Every time the wind howled against the reinforced glass, a phantom shudder would run down her spine, bringing back the terrifying memory of the 100-story terrace, the bite of broken glass, and the dizzying drop into nothingness.
She wasn't just grieving the loss of her scalpel; she was haunted by a man whose soul she had inhabited.
…..
On the other hand… two hours later, Do Ra-ik stood in the dimly lit corridor of a luxury high-rise apartment complex.
He was a walking disaster. Discharging himself against medical advice, he had limped out of the hospital in black trousers and a coat thrown over his bandaged chest, his left arm locked in a dark sling, thick gauze taped across his temple, and a dark bruise painting his jawline. Every step sent a searing bolt of pain through his fractured ribs, but he paid it no mind.
He stood outside the private entrance of Apartment 1201, staring at the polished brass doorbell.
He pressed it.
Inside the quiet apartment, Maeng Se-na was sitting on her leather sofa, staring blankly at her unlit television screen.
Ding-dong.
Se-na didn't move. She didn't even flinch. She simply turned her head slightly toward the wall-mounted video intercom display.
The monitor flickered to life, showing the towering, battered silhouette of Do Ra-ik standing outside her elevator landing. He looked like a patient who had crawled out of a mass casualty zone, leaning heavily against the wall with his bandaged head and casted arm.
Se-na let out a cold, bitter breath. Her eyes narrowed into slits of pure, unadulterated contempt.
Open the door? For him?
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