Beneath His Brightest Smile

[accuscripter]

Se-na's eyes flashed with a familiar, sharp malice. "Are you deaf as well as incompetent? Look at her lips! That is cyanosis! Look at the neck veins! You have a patient in acute congestive heart failure and you're standing there like an ornament for a hallway! Move your damn useless hands or get out of the way before you become a defendant in a malpractice suit!"

The nurse flinched as if she had been slapped. "I... I have to call the attending..."

"ATTENDING! ATTENDING! ATTENDING!!!!" she was chanting maniacally. "By the time your God damn attending finishes his tinted damn dishwater, she'll be dead!" then as of something happened to her, she got silent started to get closer, closer enough to be in the nurse's personal space. Se-na had forgotten that she was a man right now and what her closeness could mean to a woman.

For the nurse, the presence of a man double her size and height getting closer to her face was so overwhelming that she actually tripped backward. "Is this how they train you now? To stare while lungs fill with blood? Get the Lasix, get the O2, and get me a crash cart! If I see you hesitate one more time, I will make sure you never even work as a school nurse in this city! DO YOUR JOB!"

The nurses looked at her with stunned confusion, a boy in a school blazer screaming like a veteran doctor. She was shivering now but then a senior nurse came, she was heavy and sturdy. She pushed ra-ik (se-na) away, "Kid, step back! We have protocols."

"To hell with your protocols!" Se-na snapped back as she stabilized herself. "If you wait, she dies! Do you see the color of her lips? That's cyanosis! If you don't start the diuretic now, her heart will stop!"

"Security!" senior nurse yelled. Two large men grabbed Se-na by the shoulders, dragging her away as the gurney disappeared behind the double doors, snapping back se-na to her fickle reality that she really was just a kid right now. She fell on the bench outside. The silence that followed was deafening. She looked down at her hands, those long, teenage fingers that should have been holding a surgical tool, not trembling in a wrinkled school uniform, praying outside the closed doors.

Finally, a nurse stepped out, looking bored. Se-na rushed her. "The patient from the Do estate. Status? Did you start the medicine? Is the attending here?"

The nurse didn't even look up from her clipboard. "You're the grandson, right? Look, kid, it's not that serious. Just a minor flare-up. Old people get tired. She's fine. We're just going to monitor her."

The word fine hit Se-na like a physical blow. In the medical world, "fine" was a lie told to children to keep them from asking questions.

"Minor?" Se-na's voice dropped. "She was gasping for air. If you treat this as 'minor,' she will be dead by morning. You're missing the mechanical failure of the heart!"

The nurse finally looked up, her eyes full of pity. "I don't know where you're picking up those big words, maybe from a TV show, but you need to go sit down. This is not a drama and you" she looked the boy from bottom to top, "you are certainly not a doctor. You're just a boy who's scared. Go get some water and wait for your father. We've already called Mr. Do."

"My father?" The blood drained from Se-na's face. The man who had just vowed to destroy them was coming. The "responsible adult" who would have the power to stop her from saving the only person who cared about her.

"I'm not just a boy..." Se-na whispered, her voice breaking. She reached for the nurse's arm, a desperate plea in her eyes. "Please. Just check her heart again. Just look at the T-waves... please..."

But the nurse was gone. A security guard stepped into her path. "Back off, son," he said, talking to her like she was a confused toddler.

Se-na slumped into a chair. Her mind was screaming a hundred life-saving procedures, but her hands were empty. For the first time in her life, she had the knowledge of a god and the power of a ghost. She was trapped in the wrong skin, a brilliant mind locked inside a powerless child's frame.

I'm sorry, ahjumma, she thought, a single, hot tear tracking down Ra-ik's cheek. I know what's killing you, and nobody will listen to me because I'm wearing the wrong skin.

She sat there for hours, the hospital lights humming above her. The exhaustion of the day, the guilt of her "greed," and the terror of her father's arrival finally took their toll. She didn't even know these tears were hers or his. Maybe they were a mix the best of none or worst of both.

She didn't know when her eyes closed, but she fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep on the hard bench outside the ward. A tears falling from her eyes even in sleep, staining the fabric of Ra-ik's school jacket.

"WHERE AM I!"

Se-na suddenly woke up with a gasp, her heart hammering against her ribs. But she wasn't on the bench. She wasn't in the hospital hallway.

It was dark and airy around her. The air was cold, smelling of rain and distant city smog. She was standing on a high terrace, the wind whipping through her thin clothes. She felt a sharp, stinging pain in her feet. She looked down.

Do Ra-ik was standing on shattered glass, his bare feet bleeding into the shards.

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[accuscripter]

The transition was like being plunged into ice water. One moment, Se-na was drowning in the hum of hospital lights as a powerless teenager; the next, the world around her started getting vast, dark, and screaming with wind.

The air tasted of rain and the heavy, metallic tang of city smog. She wasn't in a hallway anymore. She was standing on a high terrace, the edge of the world dropping off into a sea of twinkling city lights that looked like cold, distant diamonds. Her thin clothes offered no protection against the gale, but the cold wasn't what made her gasp.

It was the stinging, rhythmic pulse of pain in her feet.

"AHJUMMA!!!" She broke out with a gasp. But there was no one.

Se-na looked down. She or rather, the body she inhabited was standing in the center of a graveyard of broken glass. The shards glittered like malevolent stars in the dark. With every shift of her weight, the glass bit deeper, the warm, wet sensation of blood blooming between her toes and staining the concrete. She looked at her hands. These weren't the trembling fingers of a teenager. They were larger, scarred, the hands of a thirty-five-year-old man who had lived a life of heavy, silent labor.

In her his hand, she clutched a pile of crumpled papers. As her eyes landed on the bold, typed letters, the world seemed to tilt.

I was right! the words screamed from the page. You are not my son! You are not even the son of the woman you call mom! Be ready to pay for the damages!

The word "damages" felt like a scalpel to the throat. To Do Hyun-joo, Ra-ik wasn't a human being; he wasn't a boy who needed a father or a man who deserved a name. He was a faulty product. A breach of contract. A bill that had come due.

Suddenly, the soul inside this body the real Ra-ik surged forward. Se-na felt it like a wave of black ink pouring into her mind. It was an absolute, hollow despair. It was the feeling of wanting to let go, to let the wind take him over the edge of the terrace and drown in the dark. He wasn't a bastard; he was a mistake. A ghost in a house that didn't want him.

Ding.

The doorbell rang, cutting through the wind. Before Se-na could decide what to do, Ra-ik's body began to move. It wasn't her will; it was his muscle memory, a puppet moved by strings of habitual obedience. He limped across the shards, leaving a trail of red blooms on the floor, and opened the door.

Standing there was the woman she had seen watering plants with such practiced grace as if she had no worries in the world. Do Hyun-joo's wife. No idea if her façade was beautiful or if she really had no worries in the world.

"Omm-oni..." se-na blurted out unintentionally, it was ra-ika's conscious at play ... his voice was a broken, deep rasp.

THRASH.

The slap was majestic. It was the movement of a woman who had practiced her dignity for decades, landing with a force that sent the man, a man double her size stumbling back.

She didn't stop. She stepped into the house, her face a mask of primal, distorted fury. She slapped him again, and then again, her rings catching the skin of his cheek.

"Because of an infestation like you, I suffered all my life!" she wailed, her voice cracking the heavy silence of the penthouse. "All my life, I went along with the tag of a 'bad woman'! I let people whisper about my loyalty just so my child and I could keep living! I knew I wasn't disloyal, but I never proved it because I didn't have to; I just had to keep quiet for my child! I just had to sacrifice myself and my honor for my child. As long as I stayed quiet, no one would harm me and my child."

She grabbed Ra-ik by the collar, shaking the grown man as if he were a rag doll. Ra-ik didn't fight back. He let his limbs go loose, his head lolling back as he accepted the blows as if they were his birthright.

"But to see you are not even my son!" she shrieked, her eyes wild with a terrifying, primal grief. "For a pest like YOU I had to sacrifice my life silently?! Tell me, where is my son?! Where is my baby?! What did you do with him?! Tell me! TELL MEEE!"

Se-na's mind suddenly snapped, taking over the dejected man. After all, she, the "guest," had seen enough. As a surgeon who had spent a lifetime fighting for lives, no matter how "damaged" or "mistaken" they were, she had to surge to the front.

With a strength that shocked the older woman, Se-na grabbed her wrists and shoved her back.

"Your child?" Se-na barked, pushing her further away. "Sacrifice? You seem terribly mistaken about your role here, if you even had one!"

She moved closer, her towering frame casting a dark, suffocating shadow over the trembling woman. "You were quiet because that was the only way to preserve your status as an elite lady. It was the only way for you to keep your VIP subscriptions, your high-society galas, and your unlimited black cards."

"YOU!!!" his mother snapped, her face contorting with sheer shock.

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[accuscripter]

"Mother? What Mother? You are not my mother! You never were even when we were joined by this title of mother and son!" Se-na hissed, her voice dropping. "I don't remember even once when you protected Do Ra-ik as a so called Mother. And now that its clear that you are not my mother then ..." se-na stopped mid sentence and took a deep breath, it was as if ra-ik-a was keeping her from saying hurtful things to this woman. But Se-na was also adamanst about saying it out loud, she rubbed her eyes rather forcefully and then continued, "And if you aren't my mother, then you have even less right to stand in front of me, let alone touch me. You are a stranger in my home."

The woman gasped, her chest heaving as she stared at the "son" who had suddenly found a spine of steel.

"And about loyalty? Don't make me laugh!" Se-na continued, her eyes flashing with a sharp, Maeng Se-na malice. "You, a lonely woman, in the penthouse apartment of a man who lives alone? What will people say when they hear the 'loyal' wife is breaking into bachelors' suites at midnight to beat a man? Think of the headlines."

She took a step forward, her massive shadow now completely swallowing the woman. "They will not believe that you are here for your son, or for beating a man you called your son for years. The news that I am not your son might have already been released by Do Hyun-joo, and people... humans are dangerous beings, Mother. They will only see what they want to see, and interpret what they want to interpret. All they will see is a grown man who is not your son and a lone woman who is not my mother anymore in the dark. They will forget I was ever your son or you ever my mother. So, do you really think the world will believe you?"

Se-na reached out, her fingers steady despite the thrumming in her chest. She tucked a loose strand of the woman's hair behind her ear trying to give off a gesture of intimate, terrifying dominance of a man.

"Who will they believe?" Se-na whispered, leaning into the woman's personal space. "The so-called 'tainted woman' of the Do house? Or the man who made a name for himself, the man people love and call the 'Nation's Healer', the one who was shunned by his own family? Me not being your son? That has already been a rumor for a long time you see... so people will not say oh my god they will say why did you never speak of getting a test done? Why did you keep a stranger in your home for all these years? why did you stay quiet? what did you want to hide? who did you want to hide? then mother what do you think Who holds the scale now?"

"Do you think only I will go down alone?!" she shrieked back, her face contorting with a terrifying madness as her saliva sprayed across Ra-ik's face. "I will take you with me!"

Se-na wiped the wetness from his face with the back of her hand. For the first time tonight, she didn't just feel cold irritation, but felt a raw hot fury.

"Ugh, woman!" Se-na cried with deep disgust, her voice cutting through the woman's hysteria. "Keep your spitting to yourself! You, with your filthy statements and demonic actions, cannot afford to leave even a single scratch on this face. This is a face adored by millions! People will chew you up and spit you out of this society like a chewed, dry bone."

"YOU!" The woman raised her hand again, but her fingers were trembling.

Se-na caught her wrist mid-air and held it with absolute strength without causing pain.

"Ok now I am bored of tis game," Se-na whispered, her face completely empty of emotion as she let out a deep sigh. "I have always been tired of this drama. It's good that it's ended."

She let go of the woman's wrist, letting it drop like a piece of dead weight.

"So goodbye. Go play this little game of yours with your husband. Don't waste your time here on an unrelated man. Don't raise mine or your blood pressure okay! now go."

"SECURITY!" Se-na didn't wait. She smashed her palm against the emergency bell mounted next to the door.

Within seconds, the heavy thud of boots echoed in the hallway. Two guards appeared, and Se-na pointed a trembling, bloody finger at the woman. "Get this intruder out of here. Now."

The guards didn't hesitate. They took the wailing, screaming woman by the arms and dragged her toward the elevator. Her cries of "Where is my baby?" echoed down the shaft until the doors hissed shut.

The silence returned, but the body didn't recover. Ra-ik's legs gave out, and Se-na collapsed onto the floor, her hands pressing into the glass shards.

What is happening to me?! she screamed internally.

Her heart was beating in a frantic, painful rhythm fueled by a cocktail of adrenaline and a depression that wasn't hers. She tried to draw a breath, but it came out as a ragged, sobbing pant. Tears hot, thick, and heavy poured down her face.

She could feel it clearly now. This wasn't her grief. This wasn't her trauma. These painful emotions of hate, disgust, and absolute, soul-crushing sadness were being projected into her from the very marrow of these borrowed bones. She was an intruder in a house that was currently being demolished.

She clutched at her chest, trying to distinguish between her own identity and the man's agony, but the lines were blurring. In the dark of the penthouse, with her feet bleeding into the glass, Maeng Se-na realized that the "cozy" life was gone. She was trapped in a war she didn't understand, wearing the skin of a man who had already surrendered maybe.

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[accuscripter]

The silence that settled over the penthouse after the elevator doors closed was far worse than the screaming.

Se-na clutched at her chest, her fingers digging through Ra-ik's shirt, trying desperately to distinguish between her own identity and the man's agonizing despair. But the boundaries were dissolving like sugar in hot water. In the dark of the penthouse, with her bare feet bleeding into the graveyard of broken glass, Maeng Se-na realized with a sickening clarity that the "cozy" life was completely gone. She was trapped in a war she didn't understand, wearing the skin of a man who had already surrendered.

Because right now, Do Ra-ik's body was moving on its own.

It wasn't Se-na commanding his legs. It was Ra-ik's residual consciousness a hollow, dark current pulling his physical frame toward the terrace. He limped past the ruined furniture, leaving a bloody trail across the tile, and pushed open the heavy glass doors into the midnight gale.

The wind hit them like a wall. The air tasted of cold rain, ozone, and distant city smog. A hundred stories below, the city lights flickered like cold, uncaring diamonds.

His death wish paid her no mind, nor did the surrounding world offer any mercy. Perhaps that was the true, silent trap of penthouses. You buy your way into one to escape the crowds, to elevate yourself so no one can ever look down on you again only to realize that when you finally break, when you scream and wail into the freezing night, the very distance you built keeps everyone too far away to care. No one is coming to stop you. The architecture leaves you alone to rot and die in your own golden solitude.

Ra-ik reached out with trembling, blood-stained hands and grabbed the wet iron grill of the terrace railing.

"No... no, no, no!" The words forced their way past his locked teeth, a choked, ragged rasp that was instantly torn away by the gale. Se-na wasn't just screaming inside the vault of his mind she was frantically fighting his physical muscles, forcing his voice box to vibrate with her own desperate panic.

Ra-ik lifted his heavy leg, swinging it over the top rail.

"DO RA-IK!" she wailed out loud, her voice tearing raw through his dry throat, mixing with the roar of the night sky. "PLEASE, RA-IK-A, DON'T! I know what you're going to do! You won't survive this, man! Please don't! I didn't even know I was scared of heights, but right now I am terrified! DO-RAIK! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! YOU CAN HEAR ME! STOP IGNORING ME! I KNOW THIS IS YOU!"

She screamed through his vocal cords until his throat burned and her internal voice cracked, but the momentum of his death wish drove him forward regardless. Ra-ik climbed over the iron bar, his bare, bloody feet coming to rest on a narrow concrete ledge no wider than a palm. He was hanging over the open sky, holding onto the iron bars behind his back.

As they hovered over the hundred-story drop, Ra-ik's suicidal despair flooded Se-na's consciousness so violently that her own past began to scramble before her eyes. The cold operating rooms. The sterile apartment where no one ever waited for her. The solitary meals. The bitter realization that in her previous life, if she had vanished, no one would have cried.

What was the point? the dark thought echoed through their shared brain. What was the use of my life? My existence? Why keep fighting when every room I walk into wants me dead?

For a terrifying, intoxicating second, Se-na felt herself leaning into the drop. The void felt warm. The dark felt like rest.

"NO!" Se-na shrieked into the empty air, her body trembling violently as she fought with every ounce of her identity to drag herself back from the edge of his depression. "SE-NA, THIS IS NOT YOU! THIS IS RA-IK! Please... Do Ra-ik, don't do this to me! DON'T DO THIS TO US!"

She was holding onto the steel bar with one trembling hand, one loose grip away from plummeting into the pavement.

Then, she felt it.

It wasn't a violent fight for control. It was far worse. Ra-ik's will simply gave out.

Se-na could feel his control snapping not like a breaking bone, but like a sudden, shameful surrender of the body. It was like losing complete, involuntary control of your bowels right in front of a staring crowd. A moment so excruciatingly humiliating, so sickeningly embarrassing that you would instantly choose death over living through the disgrace. Yet, underneath the burning shame and the urge to turn to dust, there came an animalistic, primal wave of physical release. The agonizing pressure dissolved. The desperate holding on simply ended. It was a horrifying, pathetic dilemma sobbing out of pure, naked helplessness while simultaneously drowning in the quiet, sweet bliss of finally letting go.

Her breath hitched. Hot, blinding tears overflowed her eyes, blurring the glittering city lights into streaks of gold and red.

The hand slipped.

The wind roared in her ears, her stomach plummeted into her throat, and the world spun into pitchblack darkness.

Beep... beep... beep...

The rhythmic, sterile sound of a heart monitor was the first thing to pierce the darkness.

When Se-na finally managed to flutter her eyelids open, the icy gale and the midnight sky were gone. Soft, fluorescent light bathed a private hospital room. She tried to lift her arm to rub her eyes, but nothing happened.

She tried to turn her head toward the door, but her neck felt as heavy as a block of cement. Panic surged through her as she tried to flex her ankles, her toes, her fingers nothing moved.

Her entire body was locked in place, stiff, bound, and completely unresponsive on the hospital mattress. She couldn't move a single finger. She was a brilliant surgeon trapped inside a silent, paralyzed cage.

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[accuscripter]

The echo of the shattered metal tray was still vibrating through the VIP corridor when Se-na stepped through the open door of Room 802.

Inside, the room was in total ruin. An IV pole had been upended, spilling saline across the hardwood floor. Monitors beeped frantically, their leads torn free and dangling like dead vines. Standing in the center of it all, clutching his hospital gown against his chest with a blood-soaked bandage showing beneath the fabric, was Do Ra-ik.

He looked wild. His dark hair was matted with sweat, his hollow eyes burning with a terrifying, incandescent rage.

"WHO SAID TO SAVE ME?!" he roared again, his voice cracking violently as he grabbed a ceramic vase from the bedside table, ready to hurl it at Dr. Choi, who was ducking behind a medical cart. "I SIGNED IT! I SIGNED THE DNR! YOU HAD NO RIGHT!"

Se-na didn't stop to think. She didn't calculate the professional risks, nor did she consider the ethics board already sharpening their knives for her.

She walked straight through the puddle of saline, still barefoot, stepped over a fallen monitor, and closed the distance between them.

Ra-ik raised his arm to throw the vase, and Se-na met him.

THRASH!

The sound cracked through the room like a pistol shot.

Ra-ik's head snapped to the side. The ceramic vase slipped from his numb fingers, crashing onto the floor. There was silence, absolute, suffocating silence that fell over Room 802. Dr. Choi froze in the doorway, his mouth half-open in utter horror. The two attending nurses gasped in unison.

Ra-ik stood frozen, his hand slowly coming up to touch his stinging cheek. He slowly turned his head back to look at her.

For the first time, their eyes met in the physical world.

Se-na's heart hammered against her ribs as she stared into those dark, exhausted eyes. She recognized every line in his face, every drop of bitterness in his gaze. She had inhabited those eyes. She had looked out at the glittering city from a hundred stories up through those exact pupils.

"Does that sting?" Se-na asked, her voice dropping into an icy, unyielding register that cut through the room like a scalpel. She took a sharp step forward, poking her index finger hard against his bloodied chest bandage. "Does your cheek hurt, Do Ra-ik? Answer me! Does a simple slap sting?!"

Ra-ik stumbled backward half an inch, blinking in utter shock. "You..." he rasped, his eyes narrowing as a flicker of phantom recognition flashed behind his gaze. "Who... who the hell are you…"

"Didn't it hurt more when you threw yourself off a hundred-story building?!" Se-na shouted, shoving her finger into his sternum again, forcing him back toward the bed. Her eyes blazed with a raw, terrifying fury that surpassed even his own. "When every muscle, every cell, every single nerve in your body was screaming and begging you to hold on, you didn't care to fight! You didn't fight to live like you're fighting right now to throw a pathetic temper tantrum!"

"I didn't ask…" Ra-ik tried to growl, his voice trembling, but Se-na didn't give him room to breathe.

"Shut up!" she barked, pushing him back yet again. "NOR DID I!!! You selfish, reckless bastard! You think you were the only one terrified on that ledge? You think you were the only one suffering when you let go?!"

She was breathing heavily, her fists clenching so hard her short nails bit into her palms. In that moment, Se-na wasn't just a doctor reprimanding a hysterical patient. She was the victim standing in front of her tormentor. She was the soul that had been dragged down into the dark against her will, the person who had begged inside his mind for him to stop while he turned a deaf ear and plummeted into the void.

Ra-ik stared at her, his mouth slightly open, completely stunned into silence by the sheer magnitude of her rage and the uncanny, impossible weight of her words.

"You didn't fight then, so don't you dare act like a brave warrior now," Se-na hissed, her voice trembling withheld-back rage. She turned her head slightly toward the doorway without breaking her glare on him. "Dr. Choi! Nurses! What are you standing there gaping for? Do your jobs and stabilize him!"

Dr. Choi snapped out of his trance. "Hold him! Sedative, now!"

Three orderlies and two nurses burst into the room with a pre-filled syringe. The orderlies tackled Ra-ik from behind, forcing his weakened, unresisting body back onto the mattress. Ra-ik didn't even fight them this time; his dark, bewildered eyes remained locked on Se-na, searching her face frantically as if trying to decipher a ghost.

A nurse pressed a vial of Lorazepam into the Y-port of his IV line.

Within seconds, the violent tremors in Ra-ik's limbs began to subside. His heavy breathing slowed into a drug-induced rhythm. As his eyelids fluttered shut, his gaze remained fixed on Se-na—filled not with anger anymore, but with a deep, burning, unanswered question—before he finally slipped into unconsciousness.

Ten minutes later, Se-na stood outside in the quiet corridor, her knuckles still red. Dr. Choi was pacing beside her, rubbing his temples furiously.

Are you insane, Dr. Maeng?!" Dr. Choi hissed under his breath. "Twice?! You hit him twice?! First in the ER and now in front of the entire floor staff?!"

"He was pulling his central line and endangering the staff," Se-na said flatly, though her own fingers were trembling behind her. "And what was he screaming about? A DNR?"

Dr. Choi let out a heavy sigh, adjusting his glasses. "Yes. His legal team had a Do Not Resuscitate order on file with the legal department. It came through right as he was being brought in by the paramedics."

"Then why … resuscitate!!!?" Se-na asked, her brow furrowing. "If he had a valid DNR, the hospital would never have allowed us to bypass it."

"You didn't look in your senses at that time and you are asking me this question??? With the way you were acting when if we told you... you wouldn't back away would you?"

"i…." but Choi cut her, before she could say anything, "Also … Because it wasn't valid," he revealed, leaning in closer. "The legal board threw it out thirty minutes after he arrived. The DNR was submitted six months ago by Do Hyun-joo's legal proxies not by Ra-ik himself. Furthermore, because he was brought in with acute traumatic injuries and blood loss under circumstances suggesting third-party endangerment, the emergency medical doctrine overrode it. Ra-ik was deemed incapacitated, and the document was flagged for fraud and duress. Legally, his DNR was null and void the moment he crossed our threshold."

Se-na swallowed hard. Null and void. Ra-ik had built his entire surrender around that piece of paper, believing he had bought his escape only for the system to force him back to life anyway.

"Regardless of his DNR," Dr. Choi added grimly, looking at her with genuine pity, "you have bigger problems now, Dr. Maeng. Director Kang wants you in the board room. Immediately."

The Ethics Committee chamber was cold, sterile, and designed to intimidate.

Se-na stood at the center of the dark wood floor, facing a crescent table where five senior board members, including Director Kang, sat with her personnel file open before them.

"Dr. Maeng Se-na," Director Kang began, his voice echoing off the paneled walls. "Your record at this hospital has been exemplary. You are, without a doubt, one of the finest cardiac surgeons this institution has ever produced. Which makes this hearing all the more painful."

He gestured to the tablet in front of him. "We have reviewed the incident reports from the ER, as well as the security footage from Room 802 earlier today. On two separate occasions, you physically assaulted a patient in critical condition."

"I restored a heart rhythm during an acute arrest," Se-na said steadily, keeping her chin up. "And I stabilized an uncooperative patient who was tearing out his own arterial line."

"By slapping him!" a board member snapped. "Dr. Maeng, this is a flagrant violation of medical protocols, patient rights, and fundamental decorum! If the public or the media hears that Chief Surgeon Maeng Se-na physically strikes comatose and recovering patients, the reputation of this hospital will be ruined!"

"The family specifically Mr. Do Hyun-joo is already threatening a massive lawsuit," Director Kang added gravely. "We cannot sweep this under the rug, Maeng Se-na. Your actions were reckless, unprofessional, and violent."

Silence settled over the room. Se-na didn't offer another defense. In the world of medicine, she knew the rules: once the board decided you were a liability, no number of saved lives could clear your name.

Director Kang cleared his throat and read from the official verdict paper.

"Effective immediately, Dr. Maeng Se-na is assessed a formal disciplinary fine of fifty million won, to be docked from your hospital equity.

Se-na didn't flinch at the money. But Director Kang wasn't finished.

"Furthermore," Kang continued, his voice cold and definitive, "your surgical privileges are suspended indefinitely until further notice. You are strictly forbidden from setting foot inside any Operating Theater, scrub room, or surgical bay within this facility until a full psychological evaluation is completed. You are stripped of your active cases."

The words hit Se-na like a physical blow.

No operating theater!

For Maeng Se-na, the surgical suite wasn't just a workplace it was her entire identity, her sanctuary, the only place where she held absolute control over life and death. Stripping her of her scalpel was no different than locking her in a cage.

"Do you understand the ruling, Dr. Maeng?" Director Kang asked.

Se-na stood tall, her hands clenched tightly at her sides until her knuckles turned white.

"I understand," she said softly.

She turned and walked out of the board room, the heavy doors closing behind her with the finality of a prison vault.

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[accuscripter]

The morning after the tranquilizers wore off, Room 802 fell into a quiet that felt far more unnerving than the shattered glass and roaring screams of the day before.

Do Ra-ik lay propped up against his pillows, his large frame still and subdued. He didn't throw another tantrum. He didn't tear at his IV leads, nor did he hurl medical equipment at the staff. In fact, he didn't utter a single word.

Instead, every time the heavy wooden door clicked open, his head would snap toward the threshold. His dark, sunken eyes burned with an intense, almost desperate anticipation searching for a specific silhouette, a specific cold gaze. But the moment a standard floor nurse in blue scrubs or Dr. Choi in his round glasses stepped into the frame, a flicker of sharp, bitter irritation would wash across Ra-ik's face. He would immediately avert his eyes, staring cold and motionless at the blank ceiling until they left.

He was waiting. And he was stubbornly silent.

On the other side of the city, Maeng Se-na was officially processed.

She was discharged from the medical ward as a patient, and effectively exiled from the surgical wing as a doctor. With her privileges suspended indefinitely and a hefty fifty-million-won fine hanging over her head, she packed her modest personal belongings into a single tote bag and walked out of the hospital doors. The institution that had been her sanctuary, her entire identity, had locked its gates behind her.

When she finally stepped inside her private apartment, the oppressive silence hit her like a physical weight.

Her home was immaculate, minimalist, and icy a mirror image of her professional persona. No clutter, no unnecessary warmth, no lingering scents of home-cooked food.

"Well, congratulations, Maeng Se-na," she muttered sarcastically, her voice echoing off the bare tiles of her entryway. She caught her reflection in the dark glass of the hallway mirror and let out a dry, bitter scoff. "You really outdid yourself. Banned from the OT, fined half a year's savings, and suspended for slapping a patient who was already halfway in the grave. Brilliant surgeon, truly."

She spent the afternoon trying to hide behind her usual armor of cold, biting cynicism humbling herself with sharp internal jabs before anyone else could do it for her.

But when night fell, her psychological defenses completely collapsed.

As Se-na lay beneath the heavy duvet of her king-sized bed, the pitch-black darkness of the room began to breathe. The illusion of her clinical detachment dissolved into thin air.

Suddenly, she was no longer Chief Surgeon Maeng Se-na.

Her body began to tremble violently beneath the blankets. The physical phantom sensations returned with terrifying clarity the roaring wind of a hundred stories up, the dizzying drop of open air, the sickening weightlessness in her stomach, and the agonizing, jagged bite of broken glass beneath bare feet.

She curled into a tight ball, clutching her own chest as tears overflowed her eyes.

She missed the warm, cedar-scented hugs of the grandmother. She missed the chaotic, noisy banter of the high school boys in the small diner, the simple comfort of hot rice and salty soup. And above all, she was terrified.

Underneath her brilliant mind and formidable reputation, Se-na was still a young woman. Her heart a maiden heart that had spent its entire life guarded behind sterile walls could not process the horrific, raw intimacy of having inhabited another person's suicidal despair. She had stood on the ledge. She had felt his desire to turn to dust, and she had experienced the terrifying drop into the abyss.

She pulled the duvet over her head, her quiet, broken sobs shaking her shoulders in the cold, empty room.

Three days passed in Room 802 with the same suffocating silence.

The floor staff walked on eggshells around the VIP patient, baffled by his complete refusal to speak or interact. He took his medication, allowed his bandages to be changed, but remained an impenetrable wall of granite.

On the afternoon of the third day, a senior nurse was standing beside his bed, carefully hanging a fresh bag of saline on his IV pole.

Ra-ik, who had sat motionless for hours, cleared his throat. The sound was horribly dry and raspy a consequence of severe vocal cord trauma from his screaming and days of disuse.

"The... woman..." he croaked out, his voice sounding like grinding stones.

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The nurse paused mid-motion, turning her head with a look of genuine surprise. She leaned her ear closer to his face. "Pardon? Did you say something, Mr. Do?"

Ra-ik swallowed hard, trying to force his stubborn throat to cooperate. "The... woman..."

"Which woman?" the nurse asked, a mischievous, teasing glint suddenly appearing in her eyes.

Ra-ik's brows furrowed in deep frustration. "THAT woman!" he rasped out more forcefully, his dark eyes flashing.

The nurse bit back a smile, thoroughly enjoying the rare sight of the formidable, terrifying patient looking flustered. She crossed her arms, tilting her head with exaggerated curiosity. "That woman? Sir, this is a hospital floor. There are dozens of female doctors, nurses, and specialists coming in and out. Which woman are you referring to?"

Ra-ik froze.

The words caught in his throat. How was he supposed to say it? 'The woman who slapped me across the face twice and poked her finger into my surgical wounds?'

A deep, burning flush crept up his pale, scarred neck, reaching his ears. Mortified by his own embarrassing predicament, Ra-ik reached up with a heavy, bandaged hand and clumsily touched his stinging cheek, casting a brief, uncomfortable glance at the nurse.

The nurse's eyes lit up with instant recognition, and a wide grin broke across her face. "AHHH! That woman!" she gasped, trying desperately to suppress a laugh.

Ra-ik's face burned hot with utter humiliation. Snorting with irritation, he grabbed his heavy white blanket, yanked it over his head, and hid beneath it like a moody, embarrassed teenager.

He waited under the dark cover of the duvet, his heart hammering against his ribs. He fully expected her to explain to tell him her name, her department, or why a female doctor had looked at him with such terrifying, intimate fury as if she knew the exact weight of his soul.

Instead, he heard the soft rustle of scrubs, followed by a quiet chuckle.

The nurse simply finished adjusting his IV line, stepped back, and quietly walked out of the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind her without saying a single word.

Hearing the soft click of the latch, Ra-ik slowly pulled the blanket down past his eyes.

The room was completely empty.

He lay back against the pillows, staring up at the sterile white ceiling in profound frustration. Because of his drug-induced dizziness, the trauma, and the chaotic blinding light of that morning, he couldn't even remember her face clearly. She remained a blurred, sharp silhouette with blazing, unyielding eyes.

Yet, as he rested his hand against his stinging cheek, the echo of her voice echoed relentlessly in the quiet room:

Didn't it hurt more when you threw yourself off a hundred-story building?!

He closed his eyes, unable to escape the phantom memory of a woman who seemed to know his darkest secret.

The silence in Room 802 didn't last long after the nurse walked out.

Do Ra-ik threw off the white blanket, his dark eyes ablaze with a sudden, relentless focus. The drug-induced brain fog was clearing, replaced by an obsessive need for answers. He reached over, grabbed the call button, and held it down until the chime echoed endlessly through the nurses' station.

Five minutes later, Dr. Choi entered the room, looking visibly worn and carrying a thick medical binder.

"Mr. Do, please, pressing the emergency call repeatedly is..."

"Who was she?" Ra-ik interrupted, his voice deep, gravelly, and cutting directly through Dr. Choi's weary explanation.

Dr. Choi paused, adjusting his round glasses. "Pardon?"

"The doctor," Ra-ik said, sitting up straight despite the dull, throbbing pain in his chest and the heavy fiberglass cast wrapping his broken left forearm. His gaze locked onto Dr. Choi like iron vice grips. "The female doctor who came into this room. The one who... s..lap me."

Dr. Choi winced slightly, clear discomfort flashing across his face. "Mr. Do, there was a minor breach of decorum during your acute episode. The hospital administration has already handled the matter internally. You don't need to concern yourself..."

"Give me her name," Ra-ik growled, taking a low, dangerous step off the side of the bed, his bare, bandaged feet touching the cold floor. "Or I rip out this arterial line, walk down to the lobby in my gown, and ask every single staff member until I find her."

Dr. Choi raised his hands in immediate surrender, knowing all too well that this man was capable of making good on his threat.

"Dr. Maeng Se-na!" Dr. Choi blurted out. "Her name is Dr. Maeng Se-na!"

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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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[accuscripter]

A dry, sarcastic scoff escaped her lips. She had spent days trapped in his skin, drowning in his pathetic despair, feeling his bare feet bleed on glass, and suffering the terrifying drop off a ledge...only to return to her real life and find herself stripped of her scalpel, banned from her sacred Operating Theater, and humiliated by a board of suits. He was a living curse. In her mind, coming into physical proximity with Do Ra-ik was equivalent to walking willingly into an ongoing natural disaster.

She folded her arms and sat back on her sofa, letting the doorbell chime again. And again. And again.

"Keep ringing, mummy," she muttered under her breath, her voice dripping with venom. "Maybe the vibration will snap your other arm."

Outside, Ra-ik leaned closer to the intercom speaker. "Dr. Maeng. I know you're in there. Look at the screen. I'm not leaving until you open this door."

She walked slowly toward the entryway, stepping onto the dark tile. She glanced at the wall-mounted video intercom display.

The screen showed a tall, imposing silhouette standing in the softly lit corridor outside her private elevator. He was wearing a heavy black wool overcoat over a simple dark sweater, his dark hair falling slightly over his forehead. His face was pale, marked by a fading bruise along his jaw, but his posture was rigid, formidable, and unmistakable. He had discharged himself. He had tracked down her private address. Se-na kept starring at his bruised face on the screen. The sheer audacity of this man...standing at her doorstep demanding an audience...was too much for her pride to bear.

For a long moment, Se-na simply stared at the monitor, her fingers hovering over the lock mechanism. She remembered the sheer despair of his soul, the way he had surrendered on that ledge, and the way he had screamed at the medical staff for dragging him back to life.

She took a deep, steadying breath, forced her clinical armor back into place, and instead of pressing the the door release, she slammed her palm onto the intercom talk button instead.

"You should be in Room 802 resting your cardiac tissue, Mr. Do," Se-na said flatly, her voice dropping into that familiar, razor-sharp register. "Discharging yourself just days after acute traumatic arrest is an act of sheer medical idiocy."

A faint, bitter smirk touched the corner of Ra-ik's lips, though his eyes remained deadly serious. "I see your bedside manner hasn't improved."

"I don't have a bedside manner anymore," Se-na replied coldly. "In case you were never told, I was stripped of my privileges because of you. So state your business, Mr. Do. If you're here to serve me with a lawsuit, hand over the papers so I can go back inside."

"I didn't come here to sue you," Ra-ik said quietly, his voice dropping into a low, resonant murmur. "I came to pay you back!" Ra-ik called out through the speaker, his gravelly voice tight with flustered humiliation. He pulled a crisp cashier's check from his coat pocket and held it up to the camera lens. "Fifty million won. The fine the hospital board forced on you. I paid it."

A sharp, cruel laugh echoed through the speaker.

"Fifty million won?" Se-na mocked, her voice laced with pure, arrogant laughter. "Do you think you're handing a tip to a waitress, Mr. Do? Do you have any idea who I am? I am Maeng Se-na! My family owns equity in half the private medical foundations in this province! Fifty million won is what I spend on a weekend shopping trip when I'm bored!"

"It's not charity. It's a debt," Ra-ik said firmly, his gaze unwavering. "You saved my life when my own family signed my death warrant. And you lost your scalpel because you slapped some sense into me."

"Listen to me very carefully, you pathetic excuse for a medical miracle," this time Se-na actually lost it. Her voice blasted through the corridor speaker, cutting through the quiet hall like a blade. "If you do not take your battered, fracture-ridden carcass off my floor within ten seconds, I am calling security to have you tossed to where you belong."

Ra-ik blinked, flinching slightly at the sudden raw, venomous cadence of her voice, but he didn't step back. "Dr. Maeng, please. Just open the door."

"Why? So I can marvel at the medical anomaly that is your survival?" Se-na sneered through the speaker, her words designed with effortless precision to strip away every shred of his dignity. "You plummeted off a building like a sack of wet flour, shattered a glass canopy, broke your own bones, ruined my record, and got me suspended...and now you're standing outside my home like a lost, brain-damaged stray? Do you have no shame, Do Ra-ik? Or did the fall knock out whatever microscopic brain cells you had left?"

A faint flush of color crept up Ra-ik's neck, burning red against his pale, bruised jawline. Her words didn't just sting...they completely dismantled his formidable composure, making him feel exposed and absurdly small. "I…"

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[accuscripter]

The door suddenly unlocked with a loud, aggressive hydraulic click.

The heavy oak door swung open, and Se-na stepped into the threshold. She stood there in a crisp silk blouse and dark trousers, looking untouchable, immaculate, and utterly furious. Her eyes blazed with a sharp, lethal malice that made the air in the hallway feel paper-thin.

"You think my career is worth fifty million won?" Se-na snarled, her small stature completely overshadowing his towering, bandaged frame through sheer force of aura. "You think you can just hand me a piece of paper and erase the fact that my scalpel was taken from me because I had to slap some sanity into a dramatic 'Nation's Healer' who couldn't even save himself?!"

Ra-ik stared down at her, his throat working hard as he swallowed, completely paralyzed by her razor-sharp tongue and the terrifying intensity in her eyes.

"I don't want your filthy money!" Se-na hissed, poking her sharp index finger hard against his uninjured right shoulder, forcing him to stumble back half a step. "I want you to take your broken ribs, your stupid cast, and your pathetic savior complex, and get out of my sight before I use my bare hands to re-fracture your leg!"

Ra-ik took her verbal assault, his face burning with a mixture of embarrassment, shock, and an eerie, deep-seated awe. But as she raised her hand to push him again, his large, rough right hand moved on instinct, gently catching her wrist mid-air.

Se-na froze, her eyes flashing with pure rage at his touch. "Let go of me."

Ra-ik didn't let go immediately. He stared down into her fierce, intelligent eyes, his dark gaze searching her face with a terrifying, vulnerable desperation that stripped away all her cynical armor in an instant.

"I'll leave," Ra-ik whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, agonizing tremor. "I'll leave and never come back if that's what you want. But answer me one thing first..."

Se-na glared up at him, her breath hitching slightly at the sudden shift in his demeanor.

"That morning in the ER... and when you pushed me back in Room 802..." Ra-ik's chest heaved against his bandages, his fingers trembling slightly around her wrist. "You yelled at me. You spoke about the wind... about the ledge... about my mind..."

He stepped closer, his shadow falling heavily over her face as his voice dropped into a desperate, haunting whisper:

"Who are you, Maeng Se-na? And how... how do you know what it felt like on that ledge?"

The corridor grew terrifyingly quiet, the hum of the air vents fading into background noise against the heavy, syncopated rhythm of their breathing.

Ra-ik's grip on her wrist was firm, but not painful. His large, scarred palm was warm against her skin, transferring a steady, grounding pulse that made Se-na's chest tighten with an overwhelming, suffocating discomfort.

She looked up into his face...and for a harrowing, dizzying second, her breath caught in her throat.

She looked at him the way a person looks into a mirror that has suddenly stepped out into reality. Just days ago, this was her face. These dark, heavy-lidded eyes were the eyes she had blinked through. This sharp, carved jawline was the bone structure she had traced with her own trembling fingers in the penthouse glass. She had felt his heart pounding against his ribs, felt his lungs gasp for oxygen, and suffered the excruciating, raw agony of his bleeding soles.

A sudden, fierce flush of heat crept up Se-na's neck, burning hot across her cheeks.

It was deeply, unnatural and wrong. To be standing here in her own small frame, looking up at the towering silhouette of a man whose deepest, most humiliating secrets were laid bare inside her mind...it made her feel exposed, flustered, and profoundly stripped of her usual clinical detachment.

"Who are you, Maeng Se-na?" Ra-ik repeated, his deep, gravelly voice trembling as he leaned closer, his dark eyes boring into hers. "How... how do you know what it felt like on that ledge?"

Every self-preservation instinct inside Se-na screamed at her to deflect.

She wanted to laugh in his face. She wanted to summon her usual cold, sharp malice, scoff at his absurdity, and tell him that head trauma and brain swelling had turned him into a delusional lunatic. She wanted to strip away his dignity with a single, biting joke and shut the door on his battered face.

She opened her mouth to deliver a lethal verbal blow...to mock him, to insult him, to tear him down...but no sound came out.

Her tongue felt like lead. Her head began to spin with a sickening, dizzying vertigo as memories that weren't hers flooded her mind all at once: the smell of rain, the icy gale, the salt on her lips, the taste of blood, the sound of glass crushing beneath bare feet, and the agonizing, silent tears shed in a cold estate room.
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A lump formed in her throat, so tight and sharp it physically hurt. To her own absolute shock, hot, unbidden tears welled up in her eyes, blurring the sight of his bruised face.

The untouchable, arrogant Chief Surgeon couldn't find a single insult. She couldn't laugh. She couldn't joke. She stood there paralyzed, her chest heaving as her fierce facade cracked wide open right in front of him.

Ra-ik stared at her, his breath catching as he watched the tears gather in her eyes. The cold, lethal woman who had just verbally dismantled him through the speaker was suddenly trembling, her eyes flashing with a mixture of raw trauma, humiliation, and profound exhaustion.

"While I was in the ICU... while my heart stopped..." Ra-ik rasped, his voice dropping into a low, strained register, his fingers tightening slightly around her wrist. "I wasn't just unconscious. It was like a parallel hell... a nightmare where I was forced to re-live every single moment of my life."

Se-na swallowed hard, trying desperately to pull her wrist back, but her strength felt completely drained.

"The beatings. The cold room... my grandmother dying in that sterile hospital room when I was a teenager... the glass on the terrace... every agonizing second played back in my head while my brain was dying," Ra-ik continued, his brow furrowing in genuine, terrifying distress.

He took a slow, ragged breath, his voice shaking with a deep, unsettling fear.

"But it was different this time," he whispered, searching her tear-filled eyes. "I wasn't alone. In every memory... in every painful moment... there was a phantom presence. A soul trapped in the dark with me. Someone who was weeping when I was struck... someone screaming in terror when I looked over the ledge... someone who suffered along with every drop of blood."

He stepped half an inch closer, his dark eyes filled with an agonizing, desperate question. "I thought my brain was playing tricks on me. I thought it was a stress-induced hallucination. But then you stood over my bed in the ER... yelling about the wind... about the terrace... about the scream in my throat..."

Hearing him put her secret nightmare into words was too much for Se-na to bear. The boundary between her pride and her trauma completely shattered.

"LET GO!" Se-na suddenly shrieked, her voice cracking with raw, overwhelmed emotion as hot, flustered frustration boiled over. Ra-ik kept looking at her without doing anything.

"Let go of me," she snapped again, throwing his official public title right in his face. "Is this the stellar decorum of the 'Nation's Healer'? Manhandling a fellow physician at her own front door? Where did you get your medical ethics, Do Ra-ik shi? Out of a trash box?"

"Don't divert the question!" Ra-ik yelled back, his raspy voice cracking, a desperate glint of tears shining in his exhausted eyes. "Right now, we aren't playing doctor and patient! I am being serious!"

"So am I!" Se-na spat back, her sharp tongue cutting through his plea without a shred of mercy.

Then as if a something passed through her head and her voice coldly dropped, "I have zero desire to speak to you! I could easily call security right now and report you as a stalker at my door. A lone, disgraced man lurking outside the apartment of an unmarried woman late at night... 'Nation's Healer Turned Unhinged Stalker', who do you think tempts the media more? Who do you think the public will believe?"

Ra-ik's dark eyes widened in sheer, paralyzing shock.

The breath left his lungs in a cold gasp. Those exact words that precise, venomous phrasing, the cadence, the ruthless sarcasm were the exact words spoken in the privacy of a locked room. No living soul had been present to hear it. But hearing her scream his own nightmare back at him, a faint, bittersweet smile came across Ra-ik's face.

He moved forward, stepping across the threshold closer to her.

"My words," Ra-ik said softly, his dark eyes locked onto hers with a sudden, quiet intensity. "I said those words to protect her to keep her away from me… you are doing same."

"You..." Ra-ik stumbled back a fraction of an inch, his hand trembling on the doorframe as the horrifying certainty locked into place.

"LET GO!" Se-na suddenly shrieked, her voice cracking with raw, overwhelmed emotion as hot, flustered frustration boiled over she did say those words to indirectly tell him that she was there but that's it she didn't want anything more with him.

She violently yanked her wrist free from his grip, taking a sharp, unsteady step back toward her doorway. Her face was burning hot, her eyes blazed with intense anger and vulnerability.

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[accuscripter]

She violently yanked her wrist free from his grip, taking a sharp, unsteady step back toward her doorway. Her face was burning hot, tears spilling over her eyelashes as her eyes blazed with intense anger and vulnerability.

"Do Ra-ik-shi!" she yelled, her voice echoing down the corridor as she wiped her eyes with the back of her trembling hand. "I need time to contemplate what I suffered these past few days! I think I have gone insane with all YOUR trauma! All YOUR pain! And ironically YOURS...not even mine! How is it even possible?! How can something like this even happen?!"

Ra-ik froze, staring at her in utter shock as her words confirmed the impossible reality.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Se-na sobbed out in pure, flustered rage, her chest heaving violently. "I have zero intention of ever looking back on it or speaking to you about it! Go away! Just go away!"

Desperate to escape his penetrating gaze, Se-na grabbed the edge of the heavy oak door and tried to slam it shut in his face.

"Se-na, wait!" Ra-ik gasped out.

Ignoring the agony in his fractured ribs, he lunged forward, throwing his large, uninjured right palm flat against the wood to block the door from closing.

"Please... don't shut me out!" Ra-ik pleaded, his gravelly voice cracking with a desperate, breathless panic as he held the door open. "Just... just tell me... I'm not crazy, am I? You were really there with me, weren't you?!"

Se-na stood on the other side of the gap, her small frame trembling violently. At his desperate plea, a fresh, heavy tear overflowed her eye and spilled down her burning cheek, glittering in the hallway light.

Ra-ik's words caught in his throat.

Looking at that single, glittering tear tracking down her face, he hung there as if stupefied...completely frozen in place. The ruthless, untouchable female doctor who had slapped him, berated him, and spoken to him with sharp, icy malice was standing before him broken and weeping. The sight struck him with such surreal, staggering impact that his grip on the door loosened, his mind completely paralyzed.

Se-na didn't miss the moment. Taking advantage of his stunned pause, she shoved the door forward with all the remaining strength in her body and shut him out.

BANG!

The lock engaged automatically with a sharp, aggressive electronic click.

Inside the dark, quiet foyer, Se-na backed away from the door, her hands frantically rubbing at her cheeks.

"What is this, Se-na? What on earth is this?!" she choked out, her voice trembling with intense self-contempt and humiliation. She violently swiped the back of her hand across her face to dry the wet trails, but more tears kept spilling out anyway, completely betraying her iron control. "Why are you crying?! Stop it! Stop crying this instant!"

No matter how hard she pressed her palms against her eyes, the tears refused to stop.

Her legs gave out beneath her. She slid down against the cool surface of the heavy door, her knees pulling up to her chest as she buried her face in her hands. Broken, frantic sobs escaped her throat in the quiet entry.

She was terrified. She was deeply, profoundly scared...terrified of the bizarre cosmic joke that had entangled her soul with his, terrified of the raw, suffocating trauma that wasn't even hers, and terrified of the man standing on the other side of the wood who had just stripped away every defense she had built over a lifetime.

Inside the quiet apartment, only her ragged breathing filled the room.

Until...

THUD!

A heavy, dull impact vibrated through the solid oak frame, shaking the lock itself.

Se-na's head jerked up instantly, her tear-stained face pale, her breath hitching in her throat. She sat frozen on the floor, her ears straining as she waited for another aggressive push, a frantic yell, or the repeated chime of her doorbell.

Silence.

Complete, suffocating, dead silence returned to the hallway. There were no heavy footsteps retreating toward the elevator. No raspy breathing. Nothing.

A cold prickle of dread ran down Se-na's spine.

Forgetting her embarrassment, she scrambled to her feet, unlocked the electronic latch with shaking fingers, and pulled the door open almost instantly.

Do Ra-ik had collapsed.

His tall, battered frame lay crumpled across her entryway floor, his dark coat pooled around his trembling shoulders. His casted left arm was pinned awkwardly beneath his chest, his head resting limply against the cold tile, and his dark eyes closed in total unconsciousness.

The sheer physical toll of escaping the hospital ward, dragging his broken body across the city, and standing at her threshold had finally drained the very last drop of his strength.

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[accuscripter]

The emergency transport vehicle's sirens sliced through the midnight air, but inside the cabin, the only sound that mattered were the unsteady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor tracking Do Ra-ik's pulse.

She sat in the corner of the vehicle, arms crossed over her tailored coat, her posture immaculate despite the chaotic night. She stared at the monitor not with panic, but with the cold, demanding scrutiny of a master craftsman inspecting a flawed piece of machinery.

When the vehicle pulled into the subterranean bay of Hankuk National University Hospital, the reception was instant, suffocating, and entirely predictable.

Whispering floor nurses, wide-eyed orderlies, and lingering residents stared at her as if she were a ghost returning to desecrate a grave. To them, the spectacle was scandalous: Chief Surgeon Maeng Se-na the disgraced Heiress-Surgeon currently suspended for physically assaulting a VIP was bringing the "Nation's Healer" back into the ER after he had mysteriously vanished from his private suite.

Dr. Choi rushed down the corridor, his face pale, his round glasses slipping down his nose as he gestured frantically toward the gurney orderlies were wheeling out.

"Dr. Maeng?!" Dr. Choi demanded, his voice pitching into an embarrassing squeak. "What on earth is the explanation for this?! A critically injured VIP with sternal fractures sneaks out of Room 802, and you bring him back in the middle of the night?! Do you have any idea how this looks to the administration?! To the media?!"

Se-na didn't blink. She stepped off the transport ramp, her heel striking the polished concrete with a sharp, decisive click. She scanned Dr. Choi from head to toe noting his rumpled lab coat and the scuffed, neglected leather of his loafers.

Neglected footwear, neglected discipline, she thought with her usual biting detachment.

"Save your pathetic hysterical conspiracies for the breakroom, Dr. Choi," Se-na said flatly. Her voice didn't rise, but it dropped into an icy, penetrating vibrato that instantly silenced the surrounding nurses. "I was taking an evening walk down the avenue when I found your high-profile patient collapsed near the curb like a stray cat. If your floor security spent less time gossiping over cheap, instant coffee and more time monitoring the corridors, a cardiac patient under acute observation wouldn't have walked out the front doors unimpeded."

Dr. Choi choked on his own breath, his face flushing crimson as her jab at hospital security hit its mark with clinical precision.

"Get him up to Room 802," Se-na commanded, turning to the orderlies and taking immediate, effortless control of the floor. "Hook him up to a continuous saline drip, monitor his blood pressure every fifteen minutes, and if his oxygen saturation dips below ninety-five, notify the attending on call. Don't just stand there gaping at me! move."

The staff scrambled into motion as if propelled by a electric shock, wheeling Ra-ik directly toward the dedicated VIP elevator.

Satisfied that the immediate mess was contained, Se-na turned toward the main glass doors of the lobby, intent on escaping the suffocating smell of floor disinfectant and returning to her apartment to process the madness of the evening.

"Dr. Maeng!"

A sharp, authoritative voice echoed across the marble lobby. Se-na paused, turning slowly to see Chief of Cardiac Surgery marching toward her, holding a thick leather folder.

"Gyoso-nim," Se-na acknowledged, keeping her chin lifted, her eyes cool and unreadable.

Chief stopped in front of her, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses with a long, weary sigh, he was pretty irritated with her but afterall her family funds ran the department he had no choice. "I was notified by the desk the moment you arrived. I was looking for you before you left the building."

"If the board has drawn up another absurd fine for my presence on hospital grounds, send it to my attorney," Se-na replied smoothly, adjusting the strap of her designer handbag over her forearm. "I have zero interest in listening to administrative lecturing at two in the morning."

"No," Chief interrupted, opening the leather file. "Two developments occurred while you were away tonight. First, the fifty-million-won disciplinary fine issued by the ethics board was settled in full two hours ago via a certified cashier's check."

Se-na's throat tightened slightly. The image of Ra-ik standing at her apartment doorway, holding out that exact check with dark, burning eyes, flashed through her mind. She forced her expression to remain absolute stone.

"Second," Chief continued, "Mr. Do Ra-ik submitted an official legal affidavit through his personal representative before his unauthorized departure tonight. He explicitly stated that he holds no grievances against you, that your physical actions in the ER were necessary emergency measures to restore his heart rhythm, and that he refuses to support any civil or professional charges against your license."

Se-na stared at the Chief. Underneath her immaculate armor, a sharp pulse of indignation flared. The arrogant bastard, she thought, her mind racing. He cleared my name before he even dragged his broken body to my door.

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[accuscripter]

"Given these developments," Chief Kwon said, his tone turning strictly bureaucratic, "the disciplinary committee met in an emergency session half an hour ago. Your indefinite suspension has been commuted."

A faint, victorious smirk almost touched Se-na's lips, but Chief Kwon held up a stern hand.

"Do not celebrate just yet, Dr. Maeng. Your punishment has been commuted to a strict four-week probationary period," Kwon clarified firmly. "During these four weeks, you are strictly prohibited from stepping foot into any Operating Theater, scrub room, or surgical bay. You will not touch a scalpel. Instead, you will carry out general floor duties outpatient consultations and daily ward rounds."

For a surgeon of Se-na's caliber, being barred from the OT was like forcing a maestro to play a plastic whistle. It was a petty, bureaucratic humiliation. But having her coat back was an asset and Se-na never turned down an asset.

"Four weeks of floor rounds," Se-na said smoothly, her voice laced with quiet condescension. "I suppose someone needs to teach the residents how to read a chart without fainting. I will report at seven sharp, Chief Kwon."

The next morning, the clinical hum of Hankuk National University Hospital returned with relentless force.

Se-na stood before the floor-length mirror in the senior staff lounge, meticulously adjusting the collar of her crisp, white doctor's coat.

She inspected her reflection with uncompromising rigor: her hair pinned into a flawless, immovable bun, her tailored maroon trousers immaculate, her designer leather heels polished to a high sheen. For weeks, the white coat had felt stripped away. Today, putting it back on felt like putting on royal armor even if the hospital had temporarily confiscated her sword.

She picked up her tablet, took a slow, measured breath, and stepped out into the VIP corridor, where four junior residents were waiting nervously.

"Good morning, Chief Maeng," the residents chorused hastily, shuffling their feet and standing up straight like soldiers facing a general.

Se-na's sharp eyes swept over the group, lingering for a scathing second on the scuffed toes of the lead resident's shoes.

"If your clinical observations are as sloppy as your footwear, Dr. Lee, we are going to have a very miserable four weeks together," Se-na said coldly, not pausing her pace. "Focus on the patient charts, not my face. Room 801 is clear. We are moving to Room 802."

The residents exchanged terrified, wide-eyed glances, practically tripping over themselves as they fell in line behind her.

The group stopped outside the heavy, dark-wood door of Room 802.

Se-na didn't hesitate. She grabbed the handle, pushed the door open, and glided into the softly lit suite with effortless authority.

Do Ra-ik was awake.

He was propped up against a stack of white pillows, wearing the standard dark navy VIP hospital shirt. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead, exposing the sharp, striking angles of his face. Though his skin remained pale and marked by exhaustion, his dark eyes were bright, razor-focused, and utterly arresting.

The moment Se-na stepped through the threshold, Ra-ik's gaze locked onto her.

The room seemed to shrink instantly. The sterile smell of antiseptic dissolved, replaced by the ghost of last night the tearful confrontation at her doorway, the bitter screams of shared trauma, her humiliating sobs against the wooden door, and his sudden collapse onto her dark entryway tiles.

Se-na's internal pulse gave a violent, traitorous thud against her ribs, but her clinical armor locked into place with absolute perfection. She didn't let a single flicker of vulnerability cross her face.

"Good morning, Mr. Do," Se-na announced, her voice dropping into a smooth, icy, and impeccably formal register as she stepped to the foot of his bed. The residents filed in behind her like nervous ducklings. "I am Dr. Maeng Se-na, overseeing floor rounds for this ward today."

A faint, dangerous curve touched the corner of Ra-ik's lips. His dark eyes burned into hers, searching her guarded face for even a sliver of the woman who had wept in front of him twelve hours ago.

"Good morning, Dr. Maeng," Ra-ik rasped softly, his deep, gravelly voice sending a subtle shiver down her spine. "It seems you've recovered your professional composure quite rapidly."

Se-na ignored the jab entirely, clicking her pen against her tablet without blinking. "Patient exhibits stable oxygen saturation at ninety-eight percent. Blood pressure is one-twenty over eighty. Resting pulse is... seventy-two bpm."

She took two deliberate steps toward the side of the bed, her white coat flaring elegantly. "I need to inspect the dressing on your sternum to verify there is no local inflammation or suture tearing following your little... unauthorized midnight excursion."

Se-na reached out with her stethoscope.

Before she could pull her hand back, his large, scarred fingers moved on pure instinct wrapping gently, firmly around her delicate wrist, stopping her movement mid-air.

The junior residents behind her gasped in unison, horrified, fully expecting Dr. Maeng to strike the patient again.

Se-na froze.

The cold of his palm against her pulse point was blinding, threatening to tear down every defense she had built over a lifetime. She slowly lifted her head, her sharp, intelligent eyes meeting his intense, desperate gaze from mere inches away.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Do or I file a harassment case against you?" Se-na whispered, her voice tight and laced with a quiet, lethal warning, commanding him with her eyes not to expose their shared nightmare in front of an audience.

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[accuscripter]

"Given these developments," Chief Kwon said, his tone turning strictly bureaucratic, "the disciplinary committee met in an emergency session half an hour ago. Your indefinite suspension has been commuted."

A faint, victorious smirk almost touched Se-na's lips, but Chief Kwon held up a stern hand.

"Do not celebrate just yet, Dr. Maeng. Your punishment has been commuted to a strict four-week probationary period," Kwon clarified firmly. "During these four weeks, you are strictly prohibited from stepping foot into any Operating Theater, scrub room, or surgical bay. You will not touch a scalpel. Instead, you will carry out general floor duties outpatient consultations and daily ward rounds."

For a surgeon of Se-na's caliber, being barred from the OT was like forcing a maestro to play a plastic whistle. It was a petty, bureaucratic humiliation. But having her coat back was an asset and Se-na never turned down an asset.

"Four weeks of floor rounds," Se-na said smoothly, her voice laced with quiet condescension. "I suppose someone needs to teach the residents how to read a chart without fainting. I will report at seven sharp, Chief Kwon."

The next morning, the clinical hum of Hankuk National University Hospital returned with relentless force.

Se-na stood before the floor-length mirror in the senior staff lounge, meticulously adjusting the collar of her crisp, white doctor's coat.

She inspected her reflection with uncompromising rigor: her hair pinned into a flawless, immovable bun, her tailored maroon trousers immaculate, her designer leather heels polished to a high sheen. For weeks, the white coat had felt stripped away. Today, putting it back on felt like putting on royal armor even if the hospital had temporarily confiscated her sword.

She picked up her tablet, took a slow, measured breath, and stepped out into the VIP corridor, where four junior residents were waiting nervously.

"Good morning, Chief Maeng," the residents chorused hastily, shuffling their feet and standing up straight like soldiers facing a general.

Se-na's sharp eyes swept over the group, lingering for a scathing second on the scuffed toes of the lead resident's shoes.

"If your clinical observations are as sloppy as your footwear, Dr. Lee, we are going to have a very miserable four weeks together," Se-na said coldly, not pausing her pace. "Focus on the patient charts, not my face. Room 801 is clear. We are moving to Room 802."

The residents exchanged terrified, wide-eyed glances, practically tripping over themselves as they fell in line behind her.

The group stopped outside the heavy, dark-wood door of Room 802.

Se-na didn't hesitate. She grabbed the handle, pushed the door open, and glided into the softly lit suite with effortless authority.

Do Ra-ik was awake.

He was propped up against a stack of white pillows, wearing the standard dark navy VIP hospital shirt. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead, exposing the sharp, striking angles of his face. Though his skin remained pale and marked by exhaustion, his dark eyes were bright, razor-focused, and utterly arresting.

The moment Se-na stepped through the threshold, Ra-ik's gaze locked onto her.

The room seemed to shrink instantly. The sterile smell of antiseptic dissolved, replaced by the ghost of last night the tearful confrontation at her doorway, the bitter screams of shared trauma, her humiliating sobs against the wooden door, and his sudden collapse onto her dark entryway tiles.

Se-na's internal pulse gave a violent, traitorous thud against her ribs, but her clinical armor locked into place with absolute perfection. She didn't let a single flicker of vulnerability cross her face.

"Good morning, Mr. Do," Se-na announced, her voice dropping into a smooth, icy, and impeccably formal register as she stepped to the foot of his bed. The residents filed in behind her like nervous ducklings. "I am Dr. Maeng Se-na, overseeing floor rounds for this ward today."

A faint, dangerous curve touched the corner of Ra-ik's lips. His dark eyes burned into hers, searching her guarded face for even a sliver of the woman who had wept in front of him twelve hours ago.

"Good morning, Dr. Maeng," Ra-ik rasped softly, his deep, gravelly voice sending a subtle shiver down her spine. "It seems you've recovered your professional composure quite rapidly."

Se-na ignored the jab entirely, clicking her pen against her tablet without blinking. "Patient exhibits stable oxygen saturation at ninety-eight percent. Blood pressure is one-twenty over eighty. Resting pulse is... seventy-two bpm."

She took two deliberate steps toward the side of the bed, her white coat flaring elegantly. "I need to inspect the dressing on your sternum to verify there is no local inflammation or suture tearing following your little... unauthorized midnight excursion."

Se-na reached out with her stethoscope.

Before she could pull her hand back, his large, scarred fingers moved on pure instinct wrapping gently, firmly around her delicate wrist, stopping her movement mid-air.

The junior residents behind her gasped in unison, horrified, fully expecting Dr. Maeng to strike the patient again.

Se-na froze.

The cold of his palm against her pulse point was blinding, threatening to tear down every defense she had built over a lifetime. She slowly lifted her head, her sharp, intelligent eyes meeting his intense, desperate gaze from mere inches away.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Do or I file a harassment case against you?" Se-na whispered, her voice tight and laced with a quiet, lethal warning, commanding him with her eyes not to expose their shared nightmare in front of an audience.

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[accuscripter]

"He... he mentioned that since you are currently barred from entering any surgical bay, floor administrative management falls directly under your primary probationary duties," the nurse stammered, taking an involuntary half-step back.

....

Ra-ik held her wrist tightly, his dark eyes unwavering as he stared into hers, his pulse fluttering against her thumb. The grip wasn't aggressive; it was grounded, silent, and deeply possessive the quiet plea of a man who had survived the dark with her.

"No problem, Doctor," Ra-ik whispered back, his voice low and magnetic. "I just wanted to ensure... that my doctor isn't planning on running away from her rounds today or at worst hitting me..."

Se-na stared down at him for a long, quiet second, feeling the fierce thrum of his life beneath her fingers, before smoothly, effortlessly sliding her wrist free from his grasp.

"I don't run away from my duties, Mr. Do," Se-na said coolly, pressing the cold metal disc gently over his heart.

"And slap…" he started

"Shhh….."

The silence in Room 802 stretched paper-thin as the cold, chrome earpieces of Se-na's stethoscope pressed firmly into her ears.

She stood bent slightly over the bed, isolated behind the rubber tubing from the muffled gasps of the four junior residents hovering at her back. Through the diaphragm resting over Do Ra-ik's sternum, his heartbeat thundered into her ears heavy, rapid, and fiercely resonant.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

It wasn't the chaotic, lethal flutter of ventricular fibrillation she had fought in the trauma bay. It wasn't the failing, threadbare pulse she had monitored in the back of the emergency transport vehicle hours ago. It was a surge of raw, kinetic power that accelerated the moment her manicured fingertips brushed against the fabric of his navy VIP shirt.

Se-na's clinical eyes remained unblinking, but her breath hitched imperceptibly behind her immaculate mask.

"Tachycardia," Se-na announced in a dry, even register, lowering the stethoscope and letting it rest around her neck. She looked down into Ra-ik's dark, unyielding eyes with deliberate clinical detachment. "Your resting heart rate is hovering at one hundred and eight beats per minute, Mr. Do. Are you experiencing acute angina, or is your cardiac muscle simply reacting to the sudden stress of an audience?"

A faint, dangerous curve touched the corner of Ra-ik's pale, chiseled lips. "Neither, Doctor. My heart simply reacts strongly whenever someone attempts to look right through me."

Behind Se-na, Dr. Lee swallowed so hard it echoed in the quiet suite. To the residents, the "Nation's Healer" was engaged in a dangerously subtle verbal duel with the most terrifying surgeon in the hospital a woman who had been suspended for physically assaulting him just days prior.

"Elevated heart rate increases myocardial oxygen demand," Se-na said coolly, clicking her pen against her tablet without a single flicker of hesitation. "I suggest you practice deep diaphragmatic breathing and refrain from unnecessary banter. Dr. Lee, record his vitals and update the electronic chart."

"Y-Yes, Chief Maeng!" Dr. Lee stuttered, scrambling forward with his tablet, almost dropping his stylus in the process.

"We are done here," Se-na said, turning on her heel with a crisp, authoritative swish of her white coat. "Next room."

"Dr. Maeng," Ra-ik's gravelly voice called out before her hand touched the stainless-steel handle.

Se-na paused at the threshold, her back turned to him, her posture immaculate and rigid.

"I'll be waiting for afternoon rounds," Ra-ik said softly. His voice was low, carrying a heavy, unspoken promise that rippled across the sterile room.

Se-na didn't offer a response. She pulled open the heavy door and stepped into the bright, antiseptic corridor, the door gliding shut behind her with a soft, pneumatic hiss.

The transition from Chief Cardiac Surgeon to floor physician was a daily, agonizing exercise in quiet humiliation.

By noon, Se-na was seated at a cramped, secondary workstation near the central nurses' station, buried beneath a mountain of mundane outpatient files, cholesterol panels, and routine prescription approvals.

For a surgeon accustomed to holding human hearts in her hands and orchestrating seven-hour open-chest procedures inside sterile operating theaters, reviewing blood lipid profiles felt like being forced to practice finger scales on a plastic toy piano after conducting a symphony at the national opera.

"Chief Maeng," a senior floor nurse said hesitantly, setting a fresh stack of thick manila folders on her desk. "Dr. Choi requested that you personally sign off on the discharge papers for the general ward outpatient cases before three o'clock."

"Dr. Choi is capable of reading printed text without my assistance, isn't he?" Se-na asked, not bothering to lift her eyes from the glowing tablet screen. Her tone was laced with quiet, lethal venom.

"He... he mentioned that since you are currently barred from entering any surgical bay, floor administrative management falls directly under your primary probationary duties," the nurse stammered, taking an involuntary half-step back.

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[accuscripter]

Se-na's jaw tightened. Her fingers gripped her pen so hard the plastic groaned, but she forced a cold, impeccably controlled breath through her nose.

"Leave them on the tray," she said flatly.

Neglected authority, petty retaliation, she thought bitterly, watching the nurse scurry away. Choi thinks four weeks of paperwork will break me.

Before she could sign the first file, a sudden commotion erupted near the glass double doors of the elevator bank.

The sharp, metallic click of high heels echoed against the polished marble floor, accompanied by the heavy, synchronized footsteps of three men in dark charcoal suits. Emerging from the central VIP elevator was a woman in her late fifties, wearing an immaculate cream tailored suit and holding a sleek crocodile-skin folder.

It was Secretary Han, the chief corporate strategist and primary legal representative for Do Hyun-joo's board flanked by two high-powered corporate litigators.

Se-na stood up from her desk, her clinical instincts sharpening instantly.

"Where is Do Ra-ik's suite?" Secretary Han demanded, sweeping toward the nurses' station without acknowledging the hospital staff. Her voice was sharp, efficient, and thoroughly devoid of warmth. "We are here to process his immediate medical transfer to a private corporate facility in Gangnam."

The floor nurses froze, looking like panicked deer caught in headlights.

"Mr. Do is currently under acute post-traumatic observation," Se-na said, stepping out from behind the desk and placing herself squarely in the center of the corridor leading to Room 802. She crossed her arms over her white coat, her posture radiating absolute authority. "External transfers are strictly prohibited for patients within seventy-two hours of acute traumatic resuscitation."

Secretary Han stopped, her cold, calculating eyes scanning Se-na from head to toe. A condescending smile touched her crimson-painted lips.

"Ah. Dr. Maeng Se-na," Secretary Han said smoothly, adjusting the folder under her arm. "The disgraced surgeon who assaulted our client in the emergency bay. I heard the board restored your coat... or rather, demoted you to desk clerk."

Se-na's expression didn't flicker. "My administrative assignment does not alter medical reality. Do Ra-ik suffered severe sternal trauma, multiple rib fractures, and acute hemodynamic collapse. Transporting him across the city risks cardiac tamponade, internal hemorrhaging, or suture disruption."

"That is no longer your concern, Dr. Maeng," one of the litigators stepped forward, pulling an official document from his leather briefcase. "We hold broad medical power of attorney executed by Mr. Do Hyun-joo. Furthermore, the family has formally revoked this institution's authority over his care. Step aside immediately."

"Power of attorney?" Se-na let out a quiet, sarcastic scoff, her voice dropping into an icy vibrato that silenced the whispers at the nurses' station. "The same family proxy that attempted to enforce a fraudulent, duress-signed DNR while he was actively flatlining on my trauma table?"

Secretary Han's composure cracked slightly, a sharp glint of annoyance flashing in her eyes. "Watch your tongue, Dr. Maeng. Slander against the Do family will destroy whatever remains of your family's social standing and your medical license."

For a second, the corridor hung in silence and then, a low, genuinely amused chuckle escaped Se-na's lips.

To threaten the Maeng family with social annihilation was like a provincial mayor threatening an international dynasty. The Do conglomerate was formidable, but compared to the sheer, global financial clout of the Maeng empire whose corporate donations bought entire university hospital wings without blinking Secretary Han's threat was utterly hilarious.

A cold, wicked smirk touched Se-na's lips as she tilted her head with supreme condescension.

"Destroy my family's social standing? Guess you don't know who you're talking to," Se-na murmured under her breath, her voice dripping with arrogant mockery. "Your entire board couldn't even buy out my own pocket change, let alone touch our name."

Secretary Han's eyes narrowed into slit-like daggers. "What did you say?"

Se-na instantly caught herself. Realizing she was letting her inner rich brat leak out in front of the floor staff and legal team violating the precise clinical discipline required of her she quickly stifled her chuckle, cleared her throat with a polite, artificial cough, and adjusted the crisp collar of her white coat.

She composed her face into a picture of strict, unyielding medical authority.

"I said," Se-na replied smoothly, her voice dropping back into an icy, dry, and impeccably formal register, "that I am stating verified medical and legal records. The legal affidavit submitted by Do Ra-ik last night explicitly revoked all third-party medical proxies. He is a legally competent adult who has designated himself as his sole medical decision-maker. Unless you have an emergency injunction signed by a magistrate within the last twelve hours, you are currently trespassing on a restricted VIP wing."

The lawyer opened his mouth to issue a counter-argument, but Secretary Han held up a gloved hand, cutting him off.

"You speak with immense arrogance for a woman sitting at an outpatient desk," Secretary Han murmured, leaning in closer to Se-na. "Do you truly believe you can shield him, Dr. Maeng? Do Ra-ik is an asset belonging to the family conglomerate. A broken, defective tool that will inevitably be discarded."

"Then discard him somewhere else," Se-na snapped, her eyes flashing with pure, unyielding disdain. "Because as long as he is breathing inside Room 802, he is under my clinical jurisdiction. And security will escort you out of this lobby in two minutes if you take another step down this hall."

The standoff hung in the air like a taut steel cable.

Before Secretary Han could utter her next threat, the heavy dark-wood door of Room 802 swung open with a soft, resonant thud.

Do Ra-ik stood in the doorway.

He was leaning heavily against the wooden frame for support, his dark hair messy, his navy hospital shirt unbuttoned at the throat, and an IV pole clutched tightly in his right hand. Though his skin was pale and marked by profound physical exhaustion, his tall, imposing shadow dominated the entire corridor.

His dark eyes swept past the litigators, landing with cold fury on Secretary Han.

"Secretary Han," Ra-ik rasped out, his deep, gravelly voice cutting through the corridor. "Did my father send his cleanup crew so quickly?"

Secretary Han instantly shifted her posture, bowing her head slightly with practiced corporate deference. "Mr. Do. You shouldn't be standing. We are here to ensure you receive private, high-level care away from... compromised public institutions."

"I am fine right where I am," Ra-ik said, his voice absolute and sharp. He looked down at the legal papers in the lawyer's hand with open disgust. "Tell Do Hyun-joo that if he wants me moved, he can come drag my body out of this hospital himself."

He shifted his gaze toward Se-na, the intense fury in his dark eyes softening into something raw, profound, and spoken only between two people who had survived the dark together.

"And tell him," Ra-ik added, his eyes locked onto Se-na's guarded face, "As you can see… just now my doctor has already refused his request."

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[accuscripter]

"This is sick!!!" they heard someone say it under their breath in the absolute numbing silence of the corridor.

"Should i Make it more sick!"Se-na roared back looking around to see who said it.

Secretary Han stood motionless, her cold eyes shifting from Do Ra-ik's pale, resolute face to Maeng Se-na's unyielding posture. For the first time since entering Hankuk National University Hospital, the chief corporate strategist of the Do conglomerate looked genuinely unsettled. Before Se-Na could say or do anything more, Ms Han started, "Mr. Do," her voice dropping into a warning whisper. Do Ra-Ik stopped in his tracks and looked back. "You are making a catastrophic strategic error. Your father will not tolerate open defiance especially not from someone in your current physical condition and stand."

"My father has tolerated my existence for thirty-five years only because I was useful to his image," Ra-ik replied coldly his careless expression disappearing, gripping the steel IV pole until his knuckles turned white. "Tell him he can send as many litigators as he wants. The answer is still no."

Secretary Han adjusted the heavy crocodile-skin folder under her arm, her expression freezing into a mask of polite corporate malice. She turned her gaze to Se-na.

"And you, Dr. Maeng," Secretary Han murmured, taking a deliberate step closer. "You speak with remarkable confidence for someone on probation. Enjoy your four weeks of floor duty. We will see how high your chin remains when the hospital board reviews your permanent termination next month."

Se-na's lips curved into a cold, dismissive smirk. "Welcome to be my guest, I'll be sure to mark my calendar. Now, please clear the corridor before I have security cite your team for disrupting patient care."

Without another word, Secretary Han turned on her sharp heels and marched down the hallway toward the VIP elevators, her two litigators falling into quick step behind her.

The moment the heavy brass elevator doors glided shut, the artificial strength sustaining Ra-ik completely shattered.

His knees buckled. A sharp, ragged gasp tore from his throat as he stumbled forward, the IV pole rattling violently against the polished floor.

"Ra-ik!"

Before anyone or anything could stop her, Se-na moved. She caught his massive frame before he hit the deck, her small hands bracing firmly against his ribs and shoulder. The sheer weight of him nearly threw her off balance, but she held her ground, her fingers digging into the fabric of his navy shirt.

"Dr. Lee! Grab the gurney!" Se-na barked over her shoulder at the paralyzed residents. "Don't just stand there looking at my face staring !!! assist me!"

"Y-Yes, Chief!" Dr. Lee scrambled forward, joining the floor nurses to support Ra-ik's height.

Together, they maneuvered Ra-ik back across the threshold of Room 802 and onto the high VIP mattress. Ra-ik fell back against the white pillows, his chest heaving, cold sweat glistening across his forehead as his stitched sternum throbbed from the sudden physical strain.

Se-na immediately stepped up to the bedside, her eyes darting over his vitals monitor.

"Pulse is hundred and twenty-four. Saturation dropped to ninety-four," she recited rapidly, her voice calm, commanding, and absolute but it was visible that she was anxious anyone who didn't know what had happened between them would think she actually had a relationship with him. "Hook up two liters of low-flow oxygen via nasal cannula. Dr. Lee, re-check his dressing for active bleeding. Dr. Choi, if you are quite done cowering behind the central desk, come inspect this telemetry line."

Dr. Choi, who had been watching the entire legal showdown from behind the glass partition, totally forgetting tht se-na was not allowed to directly handle cases, shuffled into the room with his round glasses slipping down his nose. "Dr. Maeng... that was Secretary Han. The Do family legal team will have Director Kang's head on a spike by sunset!"

"This is not a drama, we are not in your costume fetish of whatever garbage you watch and HE has a surprisingly resilient neck," Se-na said dryly, snatching a pair of sterile gloves from the wall dispenser and snapping them over her hands. "Now step aside so I can verify his sternal incision."

She leaned over Ra-ik, her quick, efficient hands unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the heavy white bandages covering his chest. Ra-ik lay still, his dark, exhausted eyes fixed entirely on her face as she worked.

"You shouldn't have stood up," Se-na muttered under her breath, her fingers gently pressing around the edges of the dressing to check for subcutaneous emphysema. "A man with four healing rib fractures has no business trying to play the heroic protector in front of corporate sharks."

"I wasn't playing protector," Ra-ik rasped out, his deep voice carrying a faint, breathy chuckle. "I was simply confirming what my doctor had already decided."

Se-na's fingers paused for a fraction of a second against his chest before resuming their clinical work. "I was protecting hospital legal policy, Mr. Do. Nothing more."

"Is that right?" Ra-ik murmured, a faint, dangerous glint appearing in his dark eyes despite his physical exhaustion. He tilted his head slightly, watching the subtle flush creeping up her neck. "And what about that comment outside? The one about your family's pocket change?"

Se-na froze.

A sudden, horrifying heat surged up her neck, burning hot across her cheekbones. The memory of her slip-up her inner arrogant rich heiress leaking out in front of litigators and floor staff hit her like a splash of boiling water.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Se-na said coolly, stripping off her rubber gloves with a crisp snap and throwing them into the biohazard bin. "You were likely experiencing mild hypoxia-induced auditory hallucinations."

"Hypoxia doesn't make up phrasing like 'your entire board couldn't buy out my pocket change,'" Ra-ik replied softly, his rough voice laced with genuine, quiet amusement. "I must admit... Surgeon Maeng Se-na is terrifying. But the Maeng family heiress is surprisingly ruthless."

Se-na turned on her heel to face him, crossing her arms over her crisp white doctor's coat, her chin lifted high in defensive superiority.

"If you have enough energy to analyze my vocabulary, Mr. Do, then you have enough energy to complete your breathing exercises," Se-na said, her tone laced with biting, clinical condescension. "Dr. Lee, remain in Room 802 and monitor his vitals every ten minutes. If he attempts to stand again, sedate him."

"Yes, Chief Maeng!" Dr. Lee squeaked, standing at rigid attention.

Se-na turned and glided out of Room 802, her white coat swishing elegantly behind her as the heavy door glided shut.

Outside in the corridor, the floor nurses were whispering frantically among themselves, looking at her with a mix of awe and terror. Se-na walked back to her secondary workstation, her heart beating at an uncharacteristically rapid tempo. She pulled out her chair, sat down, and picked up her digital stylus to resume signing routine outpatient charts.

She stared at the glowing tablet screen, but the medical numbers blurred into background noise.

She remembered the look in Ra-ik's dark eyes when he stood beside her in the doorway battered, bleeding, yet standing unyielding against his father's empire. For a man who had tried to let go of everything on a hundred-story ledge just days ago, there was a sudden, roaring pulse of life back inside him.

She stared at the glowing tablet screen, but the medical numbers blurred into background noise.

She remembered the look in Ra-ik's dark eyes when he stood beside her in the doorway battered, bleeding, yet standing unyielding and she still feeling as if looking at her own self through the lens of her soul. For a man who had tried to let go of everything on a hundred-story ledge just days ago, there was a sudden, roaring pulse of life back inside him.

Yet, there was no room for romance in the suffocating weight settling over her chest. What she felt wasn't affection; it was something far more terrifying and complicated.

For thirty-five years, she had been Maeng Se-na, a woman forged in cold discipline, untouchable ambition, and clinical distance. She had spent only a single night trapped inside Do Ra-ik. But in those agonizing hours, she hadn't just inhabited his flesh; she had lived his entire existence. She had navigated his most unbearable agonies and his rarest, quietest moments of beauty, enduring every drop of his torment completely alone.

Now, returned to her own skin, her own life felt like an ill-fitting garment. She couldn't readjust. That single night as Do Ra-ik weighed infinitely heavier on her soul than thirty-five years of being Maeng Se-na. Looking at him now wasn't like looking at a patient, or even an ally. It was like looking directly into her own living memories, navigating his raw physical presence as if their souls were still fused within one shared body.

And as Se-na tapped her pen against the desk, her trembling fingers gripping the stylus, she realized with terrifying clarity that she had no intention of letting anyone extinguish a life that had become so inextricably tied to her own.

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[accuscripter]

The standard shift change at 02:00 AM brought a heavy, suffocating silence over the VIP floor.

In the dim light of the central nursing station, Se-na remained seated before her workstation monitor. Her shift as attending physician on floor duty had officially ended two hours ago, yet her coat remained on, the crisp white fabric reflecting the pale blue glow of clinical charts.

Footsteps echoed softly down the corridor. Dr. Lee approached cautiously, holding a tray of updated telemetry printouts, his eyes wide with exhaustion.

"Dr. Maeng..." Dr. Lee whispered, catching himself and adjusting his voice. "Uh... Patient in Room 802's vitals have stabilized. HR is back down to seventy-eight, oxygen saturation is holding at ninety-eight percent on ambient air. But..."

Se-na didn't lift her eyes from the screen, though her fingers stopped typing. "But?"

"He refuses the prescribed sedative," Dr. Lee reported nervously. "He told the night nurse that if anyone tried to administer intravenous sleep medication, he would rip out the line himself. He's... just sitting up in the dark staring out the window."

Se-na let out a long, quiet exhale. A man who spent his whole life trapped in nightmares would naturally treat sleep like an enemy's trap.

"Go take a nap in the residents' call room, I will call for you if I need you," Se-na said flatly, standing up and smoothing her coat. "I'll handle Room 802."

"A-Are you sure, Dr?" His eyes glittering with tears. "If Director Kang's night rounds patrol sees you handling his ward..."

"Director Kang is currently asleep in his penthouse, dreaming of how to sell this hospital to the highest bidder," Se-na cut in, her tone laced with cool contempt. "Go, I will take responsibility for whatever."

Without waiting for his response, she walked down the silent corridor toward Room 802.

The room was bathed in the pale, silver glow of the city skyline pouring through the window. The overhead lights were completely switched off; only the rhythmic green pulse of the cardiac monitor illuminated the space.

Ra-ik was sitting straight, half-lying back against the raised hospital mattress. His hospital shirt hung loosely over his broad shoulders, exposing the thick white dressing taped across his sternum. He was staring out at the distant lights of Seoul, his profile carved in sharp, shadowed lines.

He didn't turn around when the door glided open, but his deep, gravelly voice broke the quiet before she even reached the foot of his bed.

"You walk quietly," Ra-ik rasped softly. "Most doctors step into a room like they own the floor. You step into it like you're trying not to wake up a ghost."

Deep inside Se-na, a heavy, suffocating lump formed in her throat. She was still trapped in the trance of that single, harrowing night...living his beatings, feeling his blood on her tongue, and crying his tears. How could she throw bitter words at someone whose soul she had inhabited?

Yet, looking into his dark eyes, the sheer vulnerability of their bond terrified her. The moment he looked at her like he knew her, her defense mechanisms kicked into overdrive.

To protect herself, she chose to put up her guard and fight. So, she stopped near the entrance and slowly turned her head left and right, carefully verifying that no nurses, residents, or floor cameras could overhear her. Medical ethics dictated equal, non-discriminatory care for all patients...professional misconduct toward a bedridden man was a career-ending offense.

Once she verified they were completely isolated, Se-na stepped up to the edge of his bed frame. She leaned in close, her eyes narrowing into cold, predatory slits.

"Do Ra-ik-shi," Se-na whispered, her voice dropping into a whisper, chewing every single word with precision. "Look at you. Is this the celebrated decorum of the 'Nation's Healer'? Threatening night nurses and acting like a pathetic, grumpy toddler over a standard IV line?"

Ra-ik turned his head slowly, his dark eyes locking onto hers in the gloom. Instead of flinching under her glare, a subtle spark lit up in his eyes.

"A 22-gauge needle in a blown vein, Dr. Maeng," Ra-ik countered smoothly, leaning forward just an inch despite the tightness in his chest. His raspy voice carried a quiet, teasing cadence. "Even a first-year intern knows better than to push sedatives into an irritated line. I didn't expect this from your team. Or maybe your own medical license came out of a cereal box?"

"My medical license comes with honors, Do Ra-ik-shi!" Se-na shot back, completely dropping her clinical composure as her temper flared. "Unlike a disgraced senior surgeon who throws a temper fit in a hospital gown!" She was still whispering.

"If your former medical board saw you right now, they wouldn't just revoke your license out of embarrassment; they'd scrub your name from every medical journal in Asia! 'The Great Do Ra-ik, reduced to crying over a needle!'"

"And yet, here you are at two in the morning," Ra-ik whispered back, a smirk tugging at his lips as he actively provoked her. "Standing right by my bed, losing your mind over my vitals. Tell me, is this intense clinical concern, or are you just completely obsessed with me?"

"Obsessed?!" Se-na scoffed loudly, her face flushing hot with flustered, petty outrage. "Your ego is even more bloated than your medical chart! I am protecting hospital policy! You are a walking malpractice suit waiting to happen! A broken, arrogant patient who can't even go to sleep without a night light!"

"A night light? Please," Ra-ik chuckled softly, wincing slightly as his ribs protested the laughter, but refusing to back down. "I just prefer looking at the skyline over looking at someone's scowling face. Though I must admit, Dr. Maeng, shouting but in a whisper at a bedridden cardiac patient! I must say, really highlights your exceptional bedside manner."

"My bedside manner is reserved for actual human beings, not narcissistic liabilities!" Se-na hissed, stepping right up to the metal guardrail of the bed, her fingers twitching with rage. "Your father treats you like defective inventory, your litigators look at you like a toxic lawsuit, and here you sit, posturing like you're king of the ICU!"

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[accuscripter]

"Defective inventory? Ouch. That cuts deep, Chief Surgeon," Ra-ik replied, leaning his head back against the pillow with a lazy, provoking smile. "But coming from a woman who could buy out this entire hospital ward just to fire a nurse who looked at her sideways, I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't you dare! There is something called discipline and decorum in such a specialized department, there is no space for careless errors, if only your own professionalism was solid enough would you have understood this" Se-na said, her voice echoing off the glass.

As do ra-ik was about to say something, she got more agitated, and started again, "You ruined my surgical privileges, cost me fifty million won, and turned my immaculate department into a chaotic circus!"

"And yet, your life was profoundly boring before I an unprofessional liability landed in your ER," Ra-ik teased softly, his dark eyes gleaming in the shadow. "Admit it, Dr. Maeng. You love having someone who doesn't tremble when you open your mouth."

"Boring?!" Se-na's eyes widened in sheer, incredulous fury. "My life was peaceful, prestigious, and completely free of an ungrateful, theatrical maniac who refuses his medication!"

For those chaotic minutes, the sterile VIP room turned into a full-blown verbal arena. They openly sparred back and forth, hurling sharp insults and cheeky retorts without restraint. Bizarrely, under the surface of the petty argument in whispers, both of them were actually enjoying it. For Se-na, it helped blew off the suffocating pressure built up inside her; for Ra-ik, seeing her abandon her stiff clinical facade brought a genuine, roaring pulse of life back into his quiet world.

Then, right in the middle of their chaotic sparring match, Ra-ik's expression softened. The teasing spark in his eyes gave way to a deep, weary earnestness.

"Dr. Maeng... jokes aside," Ra-ik rasped softly, his gravelly voice dropping all arrogance. "I really respect you. And... well, I don't know what took over me that I got to the verge of this bad decision... I seriously want to know. How do you know so much?"

Se-na's sharp defense mechanism flared instantly. "I told you, Do Ra-ik-shi, it is nothing more than standard medical deduction..."

"Look..." Ra-ik cut in, his voice cracking with an almost pleading desperation. "I know I am not talking sane. I know even I am feeling strange. Previously... I was entirely disrespectful to you, going directly to your house. I sincerely and greatly apologize to you."

Se-na froze, caught off guard by the raw, humble sincerity in his eyes.

"But I seriously want to know..." Ra-ik pressed, his chest rising and falling heavily. "Even right now... you were talking about me as if you know me like the back of your hand. I am so confused. Is this a hallucination? Have I got something wrong in my head? Or am I on the verge of another death?"

He ran a weary hand over his face, shaking his head. "I am racking my brain... What brought me back to life? Why did I keep living the same loop in my head, but still didn't feel like it was just me? If I say it was a dream, then it surely explains... but then how do you know so much? It's not normal, Dr. Maeng. Strangers don't talk like this..."

Se-na stood paralyzed under the weight of his words. Being a top-tier expert who lived by medical science, logic, and clinical evidence, the reality of what happened was scientifically impossible. Experiencing another person's memories? Sharing a soul during clinical death? It sounded like unhinged insanity. She couldn't accept it herself, let alone explain it to him while still trapped in the lingering trance of his trauma.

As her lips parted, her eyes narrowing as she prepared to unleash another wave of ruthless, defensive insults to shut him down...

Ra-ik suddenly lifted both hands and jammed his index fingers directly into his ears!

"Ok! Don't say!" Ra-ik shouted loudly over her, closing his eyes tightly and shaking his head back and forth like a rebellious five-year-old child on a playground. "I know you will say more insults! My ears will bleed at this point! Blah, blah, blah... I'm not listening! Stop talking! I can't hear you!"

Se-na's sharp, lethal tirade ground to an abrupt, violent halt.

She stood completely paralyzed, her mouth slightly open, her chest heaving as she stared at a six-foot-tall former senior surgeon sitting half-up in a VIP bed with his fingers shoved into his ears.

Silence descended on the room once more.

When the stream of merciless insults unexpectedly failed to materialize, Ra-ik slowly cracked one eye open. Seeing that her lips were no longer moving, he opened both eyes, pulled his fingers out of his ears with a satisfying pop, and looked up at her with an innocent, wide-eyed expression.

"What?" Ra-ik asked simply.

Se-na kept staring at him, her eyes squinted into skeptical slits of sheer annoyance.

"What????" Ra-ik repeated, tilting his head slightly, a subtle confused expression on his face.

As she looked at him sitting there with that ridiculous, disarmed posture, something quiet shifted inside her. In the thirty-five years of his life that she had inhabited during that harrowing night...among all his dark, terrifying memories of beatings, cold hospital corridors, and silent isolation...she had never seen him like this. In all those memories, Do Ra-ik had never been allowed to be disarmed, silly, or easygoing for even a single second.

She closed her eyes and let out a long, heavy, utterly defeated sigh. That sudden realization had melted the last of her aggressive defense mechanisms.

She reached over, grabbed a rolling metal stool from beside the telemetry monitor, dragged it across the floor with a harsh, screeching scrape, and sat down directly in front of him.

"Ask whatever you want to ask," Se-na said flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Do ra-ik looked at her with an unreadable shocked expression. And then as if he realized what she was saying, he took a deep breath and moving a little forward, he started.

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[accuscripter]

"The terrace," he spoke quietly, searching her face in the silver light. "When I closed my eyes in the ICU... I saw you. And when you stood in my doorway, you spoke like you lived every second of my life. How is it possible?"

Se-na deflected smoothly, her face composed despite her pounding heart. "Do Ra-ik-shi... asking about the terrace is pretty nonsensical, don't you think? The whole world knows the height of your building. You are a public figure in the media...you are no less famous than a government minister. So I am quite confused as to why that specific detail is triggering you so much..."

Ra-ik looked at her, his voice dropping into a low, quiet murmur. "The way you said it was what triggered me..."

Se-na's fingers tightened against her coat sleeves, her subtle flush masked under her remaining clinical shield, she ignored what he said and continued. "and for others… well…I don't have a medical explanation for it. For one night... while your body was dying and mine was unconscious... I was trapped in your memories. I felt the rain. I felt the cold glass. I felt your father's beatings."

Ra-ik stared at her, the gravity of her words settling over him like a physical weight.

Then Se-na kept talking. She started from the exact moment she fainted in the ER...completely masking her internal panic and the horror of watching him die right in front of her under a veneer of professional detachment. She laid out his life piece by piece, listing his most critical, agonizing moments so he could remember: the night he was a frightened little boy who wet his pants, scarred his bare foot on broken glass, and walked through that dark pool of blood; the day his father disowned him and his grandmother took him into her modest house; the second time, when his grandmother was rushed to the ER in his teens; and finally, the ledge on the hundredth floor.

As she reached the end, her voice lost its clinical edge, escalating into an emotional, raw complaint. "I was screaming out loud for you to stop yourself! But you just walked over, stepped right onto the rail... my breath was hitching and my tears were overflowing! I have never cried in my entire life! Can you understand? Of course you can! You lived it!"

Ra-ik was listening. He didn't interrupt her once. He sat in absolute silence, but with every word that spilled from her lips, it felt as though she was peeling away his flesh, stripping him of his last shred of integrity and privacy. His jaw clenched tightly, a deep, burning red flush spreading across his neck and face as his trauma was laid bare.

Suddenly, the telemetry monitor behind his bed began to emit a sharp, rapid chime.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! HR: 138 BPM -- TACHYCARDIA ALERT

Se-na abruptly cut herself off. Clinical reflex instantly took over...she jumped up from the stool, rushed to the side of the bed, and unclipped her stethoscope from around her neck.

"Hold still," Se-na commanded, placing the cold diaphragm against his chest above the white dressing. His heart was hammering frantically against his ribs, his breath coming in short, uneven gasps. "Take deep breaths. Your myocardial workload is spiking."

She immediately adjusted the flow rate on his oxygen line, opened the IV port to push a low-dose, fast-acting beta-blocker to suppress the acute adrenergic storm, and held his wrist firmly.

"Breathe in through your nose. Slow and steady," Se-na instructed in a steady, unyielding doctor's voice, her eyes locked onto the flashing red numbers. "Control your diaphragm, Ra-ik shi. In for four... hold... out."

She hit the alarm silence button as his pulse began to respond to the intervention. Gradually, the chaotic chiming ceased. The telemetry display numbers steadily ticked down from 138 to 112, then settled into a smooth, safe rhythm of 82 BPM, the warning light shifting back to a calm green pulse.

Only when his cardiac workload stabilized completely did Se-na lower her stethoscope, and a sigh of relief escaped her, though her eyes remained laced with genuine worry.

"Are you okay, Do Ra-ik-shi?" Se-na asked softly, stepping back slightly.

Ra-ik didn't look at her. He slowly pulled his wrist away from her grip, his chest rising and falling heavily, his face tight with raw, humiliated distress.

"I want time with myself," Ra-ik rasped, his voice rough and distant.

"Do Ra..." Se-na started, taking a step forward.

Before she could finish, Ra-ik turned his body over, shifting onto his side away from her and staring silently at the dark wall. "I want to be alone."

A sharp prickle of irritation burned in Se-na's chest. He begged and pleaded for the truth, and now that I tell him, he turns his back on me? He gets angry and acts like I'm a fool for answering him?

She gripped her stethoscope tightly, and turned toward the door. She was about to leave when the sharp, frantic chime of her pocket pager shattered the tense silence.

Se-na pulled the device from her coat pocket. The red digital screen flashed an urgent, high-priority internal message:

SYSTEM ALERT: EMERGENCY BOARD JURISDICTION UPDATED - DIRECTOR KANG HAS ADVANCED THE TERMINATION HEARING TO 06:00 AM. MEDIA EMBARGO LIFTED.

Se-na stared at the screen, a smile touching her lips. She looked toward the bed, where Ra-ik remained motionless with his back to her.

"It seems your Do group has officially started to revoke my license..." Se-na said softly, her voice calm and empty. "Well... I guess this might be our last meeting."

She turned on her heel and walked toward the threshold. Her hand reached out and pressed the door control. As the heavy glass door glided open, Se-na stopped right at the doorway. She stood frozen for a beat, looking back over her shoulder at his shadowed, silent figure. There was something more she wanted to say...a warning, an insult, or perhaps a consolation...hovering on the tip of her tongue.

Instead, she swallowed her words, stepped out into the quiet corridor, and let the door seal shut behind her.


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[accuscripter]

In the executive lounge on the twelfth floor of Hankuk National University Hospital, Se-na stood before a wall-mounted mirror. Her face was pale, the dark circles under her eyes masked only by her rigid posture. She adjusted her collar, her eyes cold as steel in the mirror reflection. Let them come.

At exactly 05:58 AM, she pushed open the heavy brass doors of the Executive Boardroom.

The room was bathed in the harsh white glow of recessed LED panels. At the head of the polished mahogany conference table sat Director Kang, flanked by seven senior board members, including Chief Dr. Park of Cardiac Surgery, and two hospital legal advisors. Along the right side sat Secretary Han, her crocodile-skin briefcase open, flanked by three senior litigators from the Do conglomerate's primary law firm.

Every head turned as Se-na entered. She walked in carrying her clinical folder, her eyes heavy with exhaustion from the overnight shift, but her posture still rigid and dignified.

Director Kang didn't even wait for her to sit down. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and tapped a printed document against the mahogany surface.

"Dr. Maeng," Director Kang spoke, his tone smooth, cold, and entirely devoid of warmth. "Take a seat or well remain standing, it doesnt really makes any difference to any of us. One thing, you need to put in your head very clearly, we have not called you here to discuss, debate, or hear your medical justifications. We called you here simply to inform you of the board's decision. So don't bother to waste your breath on useless formalities."

Se-na's jaw tightened. She stepped up to the table and placed her clinical folder down, opening it with a weary, measured breath.

"Director Kang," Se-na began, her voice low and raspy with fatigue, yet carrying an unmistakable edge of clinical authority.

"i just said..." Director started, but se-na cut him off.

"Patient Do Ra-ik presented with acute ventricular fibrillation refractory to standard biphasic defibrillation. I brought back a corpse. When every pharmacological and electrical intervention failed, targeted precordial impact was the only closed-chest maneuver left to mechanically disrupt a lethal arrhythmia."

Director Kang didn't even glance at the telemetry printouts she tapped on the table.

"Standard cardiac resuscitation protocols do not include punching a high-profile patient in the chest, Dr. Maeng," Director Kang cut her off smoothly.

"And what about Room 802?" Se-na pressed, fighting through her exhaustion as her clinical instincts flared. "The patient was experiencing acute postoperative delirium, actively threatening central line dislodgement and catastrophic hemorrhage! Was I supposed to hold a committee meeting while he bled out, or physically restrain him to save his life?"

"That is why sedatives exist, Dr. Maeng," Director Kang interjected without an ounce of emotion.

"Sedatives in a compromised vascular state would have dropped his arterial pressure to zero!" Se-na countered, leaning forward over the table. "As doctors, our primary ethical duty is the preservation of human life above procedural bureaucracy!"

Secretary Han smirked, crossing her arms. "In corporate medicine, Dr. Maeng, your righteous little medical speeches are worthless."

Before Se-na could say something another voice from the side interrupted.

"Ethics? You speak of ethics, Dr. Maeng?!" Chief Dr. Park of the Cardiac Department sneered from the board table, leaning forward with deep, bitter disdain. "Don't make me laugh! Have you forgotten how you put that young athlete patient's life on the line while you threw a temper tantrum over a drop of sweat in the operating theater?! You talking about ethics?! You're even disrespectful to your seniors! Go on, call your father! Run to your daddy to protect you! Dr. Maeng Se-na, no more of your advances about bringing modern machinery will tempt anyone here! We cannot risk our patients in the hands of a daddy's girl who treats every human life like a machine!"

Outside the open threshold, Do Ra-ik had just dragged his broken body up to the doorway, hand tight on his rolling IV pole. He froze, hearing every single poisonous, humiliating word hurled at the exhausted doctor who had saved his life twice. He was struck numb and couldn't bring himself to enter.

Inside before Chief Dr. Park could take another breath, Se-na's cold, piercing gaze locked directly onto him. A dry, mocking laugh escaped her lips.

"Finished whining, Dr. Park?" Se-na asked, her voice dangerously quiet as she raised a single hand to silence him mid-sentence. "Because hearing you lecture anyone on ethics is truly comical. So you think sweat violating a sterile open-chest surgical field isn't a critical medical issue? Wow. Bravo to your surgical standards, Chief! Remind me never to let you step into an operating room again."

Chief Dr. Park's face turned blotchy red. "What did you say?!"

"And how convenient of you to bring up modern machinery," Se-na sneered, tilting her head with absolute contempt. "Who was it that spent three months whining like a spoiled child in every budget meeting, begging my family's foundation to fund the very modern surgical equipment you now pretend to despise? have you forgotten how you eagerly pocketed my research grants to cover up your department's declining success rates! You tell me to run to my daddy? HAHA ... That's rich coming from a man whose speed in running to my father and Director Kang to complain is the only thing faster than his incompetent hands in an operating theater!""

"You arrogant little..!!!" Dr. Park blustered, trying to rise from his chair in fury.

Se-na cut him off with an icy glare, flicking her wrist in dismissive disgust. "Sit down and stop embarrassing yourself already, relying on a junior doctor's foundation to keep your failing department, relevant has zero standing to speak about ethics."

Director Kang's face flushed deep crimson. Secretary Han spoke up sharply, "Dr. Maeng, control your tone! You are only increasing complaints against you!"

"Shh," Se-na turned her gaze slowly toward Secretary Han, raising a single finger without missing a beat. "It's not your turn yet. Stay quiet and wait!"

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[accuscripter]

In the executive lounge on the twelfth floor of Hankuk National University Hospital, Se-na stood before a wall-mounted mirror. Her face was pale, the dark circles under her eyes masked only by her rigid posture. She adjusted her collar, her eyes cold as steel in the mirror reflection. Let them come.

At exactly 05:58 AM, she pushed open the heavy brass doors of the Executive Boardroom.

The room was bathed in the harsh white glow of recessed LED panels. At the head of the polished mahogany conference table sat Director Kang, flanked by seven senior board members, including Chief Dr. Park of Cardiac Surgery, and two hospital legal advisors. Along the right side sat Secretary Han, her crocodile-skin briefcase open, flanked by three senior litigators from the Do conglomerate's primary law firm.

Every head turned as Se-na entered. She walked in carrying her clinical folder, her eyes heavy with exhaustion from the overnight shift, but her posture still rigid and dignified.

Director Kang didn't even wait for her to sit down. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and tapped a printed document against the mahogany surface.

"Dr. Maeng," Director Kang spoke, his tone smooth, cold, and entirely devoid of warmth. "Take a seat or well remain standing, it doesnt really makes any difference to any of us. One thing, you need to put in your head very clearly, we have not called you here to discuss, debate, or hear your medical justifications. We called you here simply to inform you of the board's decision. So don't bother to waste your breath on useless formalities."

Se-na's jaw tightened. She stepped up to the table and placed her clinical folder down, opening it with a weary, measured breath.

"Director Kang," Se-na began, her voice low and raspy with fatigue, yet carrying an unmistakable edge of clinical authority.

"i just said..." Director started, but se-na cut him off.

"Patient Do Ra-ik presented with acute ventricular fibrillation refractory to standard biphasic defibrillation. I brought back a corpse. When every pharmacological and electrical intervention failed, targeted precordial impact was the only closed-chest maneuver left to mechanically disrupt a lethal arrhythmia."

Director Kang didn't even glance at the telemetry printouts she tapped on the table.

"Standard cardiac resuscitation protocols do not include punching a high-profile patient in the chest, Dr. Maeng," Director Kang cut her off smoothly.

"And what about Room 802?" Se-na pressed, fighting through her exhaustion as her clinical instincts flared. "The patient was experiencing acute postoperative delirium, actively threatening central line dislodgement and catastrophic hemorrhage! Was I supposed to hold a committee meeting while he bled out, or physically restrain him to save his life?"

"That is why sedatives exist, Dr. Maeng," Director Kang interjected without an ounce of emotion.

"Sedatives in a compromised vascular state would have dropped his arterial pressure to zero!" Se-na countered, leaning forward over the table. "As doctors, our primary ethical duty is the preservation of human life above procedural bureaucracy!"

Secretary Han smirked, crossing her arms. "In corporate medicine, Dr. Maeng, your righteous little medical speeches are worthless."

Before Se-na could say something another voice from the side interrupted.

"Ethics? You speak of ethics, Dr. Maeng?!" Chief Dr. Park of the Cardiac Department sneered from the board table, leaning forward with deep, bitter disdain. "Don't make me laugh! Have you forgotten how you put that young athlete patient's life on the line while you threw a temper tantrum over a drop of sweat in the operating theater?! You talking about ethics?! You're even disrespectful to your seniors! Go on, call your father! Run to your daddy to protect you! Dr. Maeng Se-na, no more of your advances about bringing modern machinery will tempt anyone here! We cannot risk our patients in the hands of a daddy's girl who treats every human life like a machine!"

Outside the open threshold, Do Ra-ik had just dragged his broken body up to the doorway, hand tight on his rolling IV pole. He froze, hearing every single poisonous, humiliating word hurled at the exhausted doctor who had saved his life twice. He was struck numb and couldn't bring himself to enter.

Inside before Chief Dr. Park could take another breath, Se-na's cold, piercing gaze locked directly onto him. A dry, mocking laugh escaped her lips.

"Finished whining, Dr. Park?" Se-na asked, her voice dangerously quiet as she raised a single hand to silence him mid-sentence. "Because hearing you lecture anyone on ethics is truly comical. So you think sweat violating a sterile open-chest surgical field isn't a critical medical issue? Wow. Bravo to your surgical standards, Chief! Remind me never to let you step into an operating room again."

Chief Dr. Park's face turned blotchy red. "What did you say?!"

"And how convenient of you to bring up modern machinery," Se-na sneered, tilting her head with absolute contempt. "Who was it that spent three months whining like a spoiled child in every budget meeting, begging my family's foundation to fund the very modern surgical equipment you now pretend to despise? have you forgotten how you eagerly pocketed my research grants to cover up your department's declining success rates! You tell me to run to my daddy? HAHA ... That's rich coming from a man whose speed in running to my father and Director Kang to complain is the only thing faster than his incompetent hands in an operating theater!""

"You arrogant little..!!!" Dr. Park blustered, trying to rise from his chair in fury.

Se-na cut him off with an icy glare, flicking her wrist in dismissive disgust. "Sit down and stop embarrassing yourself already, relying on a junior doctor's foundation to keep your failing department, relevant has zero standing to speak about ethics."

Director Kang's face flushed deep crimson. Secretary Han spoke up sharply, "Dr. Maeng, control your tone! You are only increasing complaints against you!"

"Shh," Se-na turned her gaze slowly toward Secretary Han, raising a single finger without missing a beat. "It's not your turn yet. Stay quiet and wait!"

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[accuscripter]

Secretary Han gasped sharply, her eyes widening in disbelief. Her face flushed a mottled red, and her lips parted to spit back a furious, scathing insult. But before she could get a single word out, Director Kang raised a firm hand, interjecting to cut her off and force the room back into his control. He adjusted his glasses, struggling to maintain his posture of rehearsed, patronizing regret.

"We are truly sorry, Dr. Maeng," Director Kang spoke smoothly, trying to reclaim authority. "You are indeed our most precious faculty, but your recurrent actions over these past few days are completely unacceptable. We simply cannot allow a doctor who acts on the whim of emotion to handle our high-profile patients, it is far too dangerous."

"Emotion?" Se-na scoffed softly, a bitter, disbelieving laugh slipping through her lips. "Saving a dying cardiac patient is an emotion to you?"

Director Kang held up a single, dismissive hand. "Dr. Maeng, I acknowledge the miracle hands you possess," Director Kang interrupted, his voice dripping with condescending pity. "But our hospital can do no more with you. Do not worry, I will personally ensure that no blotch is placed on your official record to stop you from entering any other hospital in the country. Seeing your exceptional surgical skills, I myself will gladly assist you in moving to another facility."

Before Director Kang could finish his sentence, the heavy double doors of the boardroom were thrown open wide.

Standing in the doorway, bracing himself upright with one hand against his rolling IV pole, was Do Ra-ik. He was deathly pale, wearing hospital pants and a dark coat pulled over his surgical chest dressing, his dark eyes burning with chaotic panic and protective fury. Beside him, Dr. Lee stood trembling in total panic.

"Director Kang! Secretary Han Enough is enough!" Ra-ik shouted, his raspy voice cracking with desperation as he fought through the tearing pain in his chest. "How much do you want to stretch this? You cannot do this!"

Director Kang's brow furrowed. "Mr. Do, you are in no condition…"

"I am the patient!" Ra-ik barked, dragging his feet into the room and leaning heavily on the steel pole. "I am the victim! And as a former senior surgeon myself, I am telling you right now that I am not filing a complaint!"

Secretary Han stood up, smoothing her skirt. "Mr. Do, as legal representatives of your father's estate, we are acting in your best, "

"I refuse to press charges!" Ra-ik roared, cutting her off, his knuckles turning white on the IV stand as he glared at the entire board. "So why are you dragging her into this slaughter?!"

The boardroom fell dead silent. Ra-ik took a ragged breath, his chest heaving under his surgical dressing.

"Don't you know what you're doing?!" Ra-ik raged, his voice trembling with furious disgust. "Stripping a doctor of her license, her reputation, and her career over a life-saving intervention is the most despicable, unforgivable thing an administration can do! I am the victim, and I am not complaining! So on what grounds are you executing her?!"

Director Kang exchanged a tight look with Secretary Han. "Mr. Do, hospital policy, "

"If you push this termination forward," Ra-ik growled, leaning forward over his IV pole, "I swear I will mobilize every legal resource and media outlet I have left to burn this entire board to the ground!"

Se-na slowly turned her head toward the doorway.

She watched Ra-ik standing there, battered, pale, gasping for air, desperately trying to use his own ruined reputation as a shield to save her from the tribunal.

For a beat, silence hung in the room.

Slowly, Se-na interlaced her fingers in front of her on the table. A quiet, disbelieving chuckle escaped her lips. She lifted one hand and covered her eyes with her palm, a silent, exasperated gesture that screamed, Who on earth are they kidding? Enough is enough.

Secretary Han let out a quiet sigh of relief, snapping her leather litigation file shut with a satisfied click as if Ra-ik's outburst was merely the desperate rambling of a dying patient. Director Kang offered a calm, patronizing smile, reaching for his pen to sign the termination papers.

Then, right before Ra-ik's wide, panicked eyes, Se-na stood up.

Director Kang watched her, expecting her to bow gracefully and exit. Ra-ik took an unsteady step forward, preparing to physically step between her and the board.

Instead, Se-na reached up to her lapel, unpinned her silver Chief Surgeon ID badge, and tossed it onto the mahogany table with a sharp, metallic clink.

She unbuttoned her white doctor's coat, slipped her arms out of the sleeves, and draped the lab coat neatly over the back of an empty leather chair.

Finally, Se-na raised both hands to the back of her head. She pulled out the hairpins holding her tight, immaculate surgical bun. With a soft, dramatic rustle, her long, dark hair tumbled down over her shoulders. She lightly scratched her scalp and ran her fingers through her hair to let the cool air reach her roots, a nonchalant, deeply satisfying gesture that completely shattered every remaining shred of formal decorum.

The transformation was staggering. The stressed, subordinate doctor had vanished, replaced by an aura of raw, untouchable corporate privilege that made everyone in the room look beneath her.

Without looking at anyone, Se-na pulled out the leather chair and sat down once again. She crossed her legs, resting her elbows lightly on the mahogany table, looking across at Director Kang like an empress addressing servants.

"Earlier, I was Dr. Maeng Se-na, the senior faculty member you dragged in here to put to slaughter," Se-na spoke, her voice dropping into a smooth, velvety register laced with terrifying arrogance. "But honestly? I'm actually enjoying this. You've finally perked up your game, Director Kang. Good. I would do the exact same thing if I were in your shoes as a businessman."

Director Kang's face flushed red. "What nonsense are you... "

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