Golden Time

Chapter 69

Hana was walking with men in suits. They looked like her colleagues at the company she worked for.

She came up to Suhyuk and spoke,

“Looks like you finished up work early today.”

Saying so, she looked at Binna.

“h.e.l.lo!”

Binna bowed her head. So did Hana.

“h.e.l.lo, who is she…?” Hana asked him.

He agonized for a moment as to what to say, but it was only for a very brief moment.

He opened his mouth instantly, “She is my colleague at the hospital.”

“Ah…”

She was really beautiful in Hana’s eyes. In particular, her dimples looked so cute even to the eyes of a woman like her. And her small face too.

“h.e.l.lo, I’m Suhyuk’s friend. My name is Kim Hana.”

“My name is Han Binna.”

At that moment her colleagues called her from the back.

“Ms. Hana, our section chief is waiting. Come back quickly.”

“I’m coming now.”

Replying like that, she alternately looked at Suhyuk and Han.

Hana made a smile at them. Though they could not recognize that her smile was tinged with a hint of something like loneliness.

“I have a dinner meeting with my colleagues. So, have a good time!”

Suhyuk looked at her quietly.

“Your friend is really beautiful.”

He nodded his head slowly at Binna’s words.

“Actually she has good characteristics, and she is kind-hearted.”

While looking at her disappearing among the restaurant guests, Suhyuk turned around instantly.

“Let’s go in.”

The two went into the pasta restaurant. A lady was looking at them from the distance.

She was none other than Hana.

“Ms. Hana, what are you doing? Come join us quickly!”

“Yes!”

Suhyuk and Binna moved, guided by the waitress at the restaurant.

Fortunately there was one table left, so they sat there.

“What kind of spaghetti do you like?”

Suhyuk looked at the menu at the sound of her voice.

Well, he has never had spaghetti before even up to now.

So many kinds of similar spaghetti, and the price was so expensive.

That was understandable. Binna could only stop by this place a few times per month.

The prices were so expensive, but the food was so delicious.

That’s why she took him there. As it was the first time she met him, she wanted to treat him to delicious food.

Blinking her eyes, she was either looking at the menu, or stealing a glance at Suhyuk gently.

Even after reading the menu for some time, he seemed not to have picked any food.

“Bongole pasta is well known at this place.”

Suhyuk, while staring at the menu, raised his head and said, “Let me have it, then.”

Nodding her head, she made a little smile. A bright smile befitting her name Binna.

They soon ordered from the menu, and Suhyuk looked around. Young men and women having delicious food while gazing at each other. To him, he felt envious when he found them laughing at each other with a lovely look, but that kind of sentiment was felt only very brief.

He had so much work to do in the future. After his interns.h.i.+p, he was to start residency, which he currently felt was something like a distant future. Of course, it was not something he could not accomplish if he walked step by step toward his goal. Yeah, for the sake of his dream.

He wanted to be the best doctor more than anything else.

“Your bongole is ready.”

The waitress put down a dish of Bongole, before he realised, with steam rolling up from it.

“Enjoy the food!”

Mixed with plump clams and scattered parsley, it was a really appetizing pasta.

Binna, like the waitress, said, “Please enjoy it!”

“You too, Ms. Binna.”

The two started eating. As if she were making a careful gesture of eating, she put in her mouth a few strands of pasta cautiously. Suhyuk was different. The pasta was gone with a few strokes of his fork. An expensive price for a small amount of pasta.

Though it was delicious enough, he felt it was not his kind of food.

‘Is it because my taste is so cheap?’

A pot of hangover rice and soup came to his mind, plus soju to drink.

His thinking reaching at that point, Suhyuk suddenly felt he made a mistake.

Binna on the opposite side did not yet finish even half her pasta.

He ate it so fast. He needed to moderate his eating pace, but did not.

With an embarra.s.sed look, he said, “I ate rather fast, didn’t I?”

Binna shook her head hard, and showed a bright smile.

“I’m so glad that you liked it. Actually I was a bit worried…”

She dropped her head, while looking at him.

Though she met his eyes only briefly, she had a blush on her face.

“Shall we stand up?”

“You didn’t have it all yet. So, please go ahead and enjoy it slowly. I ate too fast…”

With a surprised look, she waved her hands.

“I had a lot for lunch, so my stomach is full even now. I think I can stop here!”

Suhyuk smiled slightly.

“Shall we get up then?”

“Yes!”

Rising from the table abruptly, she grabbed the check. Then, Suhyuk held out his hand, and said, “The check is on me this time. Looks like you didn’t eat it much because of me.”

She shook her head from side to side.

“No, no. I ate my fill, and it’s me who offered to eat first.”

Going to the counter, she paid for it immediately.

They went out of the pasta house.

At the door Suhyuk said, “Are you going home?”

As a nurse she did not need to stay at the lodging.

“Yes.”

Then she explained about the direction of her house. She did not know why she was talking about it.

“Your direction is in the opposite of mine. Are you coming to work tomorrow?”asked Suhyuk with a sorry expression.

She nodded her small face, and he smiled at her.

“Before it gets darker, please go home. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Binna smiled, bending her waist, and said, “Thanks for your concern. You too, take care then. See you tomorrow.”

Suhyuk bent his head quietly and said goodbye, and then he moved to get on the bus.

Binna was quietly looking at him disappearing into the crowds.

How could they part like this after eating…

She murmured to herself, looking at him barely seen in the distance,

“I know a cart bar on the street that serves terrific side dishes. Shall we go there?”

‘Why didn’t I say that to him?’

She hit her head with her own hands. ‘Stupid! Stupid!’

At that moment a man approached her, saying, “Well.. you’re my ideal type. Can you give me your contact number…?”

“Sorry, I have a lover…”

She left the scene right away.

***

At the pasta restaurant where Suhyuk and Binna left behind, two women were entering inside. They were Hana and her company friend.

“You had meat already, and then want pasta too?”

“Yes, I hear it tastes so delicious here!”

Inside the restaurant she looked inside closely.

At that moment a waitress came up and asked, “Welcome. How many are you?”

“Sorry, let me come next time,” said Hana.

Hana left the place right away. Her friend looked at her with a suspicious look.

“I thought you said you want pasta?”

Hana showed a sorry expression.

“Instead of pasta, shall we have another drink?”

A sigh came out her mouth, which n.o.body could understand.

—–

Oh Byungchul was grinning at Suhyuk in the hallway, and then looked at the other two interns.

“Glad to meet you. Some of you know me, some are seeing me for the first time. I’ll spend the next one month with you. My name is Oh Byungchul. Right now the chief is busy, so let me introduce him later. Welcome to the Emergency Medical Department!”

To the interns, his voice sounded like that of the angel of the death.

In some way, life at the emergency medical department was much harder than at the surgery department.

It was because they had to take care of those taken into the emergency room for all 24 hours of the day, and thus they had no sufficient time to themselves compared to any other department.

Looking at the interns with a calm expression, Oh smiled a bit.

He thought that though they looked calm on the surface, they were screaming in their hearts.

Except for only one person. Lee Suhyuk. He got two nicknames from the surgery department. CT genius and Alien.

Shaking his head a bit, Oh opened his mouth again.

“You just do what you’re instructed to do. Personal opinion or questions are allowed only when you’re free, okay?”

“Yes, sir!”

With such a vigorous reply, they went into the emergency room along with Oh.

And there they could not help but stand blankly.

A patient was swearing, complaining about abdominal pain, and there was a man bleeding profusely from his leg bones laid bare.

They felt dizzy and at a loss of what to do.

During their interns.h.i.+p at other departments all they did was to follow the resident, and they did not get any big scolding if they did an errand well. But they really could not figure out what to do here.

“Doctor, it looks like this patient needs to have a CT as soon as possible!”

At the nurse’s voice Oh looked at the interns in the back.

“You know where the shooting room is, right?”

“Yes!”

One intern, understanding Oh’s words, went to the patient quickly.

Oh called a nurse pa.s.sing by.

“Ms Lee, here is an intern newly a.s.signed to our department. Please give him some work to do.”

Oh smiled slightly, but the nurse hardened her face a bit.

She was already very busy, and even worse, she now had to take care of an intern.

“Did you ever disinfecting before?”

“Yes.”

The nurse and intern disappeared, and now only Suhyuk was left alone.

Oh, touching his chin, looked at him and said, “You…”

“Sir!”

At the nurse’s voice, Oh turned back his head.

The nurse among the ambulance crew was laying a patient on the bed.

Oh approached them quickly. It was a woman patient in her late 40s.

Though she had no external injury, she was making a big frown.

“Where do you feel pain?”

“I feel so painful as if my belly is splitting. Ooops, my belly!”

Oh raised her upper clothes and put the stethoscope on her.

“It seems like the main artery.”

Oh looked at Suhyuk as if he was asking what he is talking about.

Suhyuk pointed to the patient’s belly.

The spot right above the navel was pounding a bit as if it were hung with a heart.

Only with a careful examination could he notice it, and it lasted very briefly.

The pulse of the belly that bulged like a convex lens grew bigger.

It showed that the main artery swelled up as much as it could.

Oh called somewhere quickly. It was the emergency artery surgery team.

The patient was handed over to the team.

Oh said to Suhyuk, “Don’t go away from me.”

Suhyuk nodded his head, and that was the beginning of his interns.h.i.+p.

***

“I suspect that the patient had pulmonary embolism. So oxygen should be given first of all.”

“The patient is breathing well. What are you talking about?”

“The veins need to be expanded without causing hypoxia.”

Suhyuk moved continuously. Carrying a patient to the shooting room directly, and handing over an emergency patient to another department team with the name of the patient’s disease. He alone was carrying out the work of two persons without any problem.

He was doing the same thing at the same moment.

Checking the ultrasound of an emergency patient, he approached Oh, saying,

“I noticed about 1.5 cm of heterogenerous mixed echoiclesion. Looks like it was a gallstone. I think you can check it with a laparoscopic rather than doing laparotomy.”

Oh just nodded his head blankly.

“Yeah, just as you did before, just hand the patient to the surgery team.”

“Yes, sir.”

Suhyuk was turning back.

Looking at him, Oh murmured before he knew it,

“What kind of star has he come from?”