He was looking at his phone to see if he'd gotten a call while on his rounds when he saw that Prof. Lee Won Seok had contacted him.
[I have a seminar scheduled so can I ask you to include Jeong Woo-seok in your rounds this morning? Although he is under the care of the neurology department, there's no other doctor I'd trust more than you.]
Since he was already in the VIP ward, he sent a reply saying he would.
After talking to the receptionist nurse, he entered Room 2005. Jeong Woo-seok's daughter, who he'd met once before, greeted him in the parlor.
"Oh my. Please come in, doctor."
Dowook began by asking the patient's family.
"Did anything happen last night?"
"He had trouble sleeping."
The patient's symptom of insomnia seemed to have made his family unable to sleep since she looked very haggard as well.
"It's not something you would worry about. Insomnia will slowly get better."
Since he rummaged through the patient's head, no matter how neatly the surgery was performed, there were various aftereffects, including headaches, that would bother the patient.
There was a long way to go until the sutures in the scalp healed up.
Dowook went into the inner room and talked to Jeong Woo-seok.
"It's Park Dowook, sir."
"Dr. Park? I can't seem to hear Prof. Lee."
"Something urgent came up so I came this morning instead. He should come by for the evening rounds."
He examined Jeong Woo-seok's physical condition for a while.
"How is your eye?"
"It's still at a level where I can classify light sources."
Since he had lived for so long without using his eyes due to visual impairment, there seemed to be no more miracles beyond this point.
Dowook hid his disappointment as a doctor and asked brightly.
"You said you were going to check the sound of the piano during the filming last time. Was there any change in your hearing?"
"That I don't know myself. Since I can't play with my own hands, I couldn't get a feel for it."
At the same time, his daughter, who came in with a plate of peeled fruits, told Dowook.
"Dad also woke up in the middle of the night sometimes before the surgery. Back then, he could go to sleep right away after playing the piano for a while. But now, he can't do that, so he seems to be having more trouble. Dad, do you want an apple? Pear?"
"Apple. Dr. Park might misunderstand. I do want to play the piano, but I think my difficulty is causing so much annoyance to my daughter….."
Pausing his words, Jeong Woo-seok turned to look in the direction Dowook was standing in.
"How does she look right now? She has rabbit eyes, doesn't she?"
Holding a slice of fruit passed by Jeong Woo-seok's daughter, Dowook couldn't think of what to say and simply laughed awkwardly.
Jeong Woo-seok, who was munching on an apple, put on a serious expression and told Dowook.
"Can I ask a favor from you, Dr. Park?"
"What kind of favor?"
"Chopin's Nocturne No. 2. Please play this song for me. There should be a primer sheet in front of you."
"Uh….."
"Park Mina, a musician from the city orchestra, performed the piece so stiffly I could hardly listen. You have emotions at your fingertips, so it's nice to listen to."
Playing a song that he had never heard before. He tried to refuse because he wasn't sure that he could play even if he borrowed Jeong Woo-seok's sense.
"To be honest, I'm a beginner who can't even read a music sheet."
"That's fine. I just want to feel the emotions as you play. The most important thing in music isn't recorded in a music sheet."
Those words touched his heart.
"I'll give it a try."
Dowook uneasily sat in front of the keyboard in the room. He didn't think he would play the piano once again.
'Let's see if this works, shall we?'
He accepted Jeong Woo-seok's sense in his hands.
'Nocturne. Nocturne.'
He kept thinking in his head and waited for something to happen. But his hands were still. Not even the slightest bit of the intense impulse from before arrived.
"Hmm. This is….."
Now that he was here, it felt as if his piano sense had run away.
Jeong Woo-seok calmly lying in bed and his daughter's expectant expression fell into dowook's eyes. Then, an idea suddenly came to mind.
The owner of this sense was not someone who played while looking at the piano like he was doing.
When he gently closed his eyes, his fingers naturally went over the keys.
The soft and quiet first note rang in the room.
This time, his fingers moved not with intense impulse, but just for the sake of playing. His fingers moved with a feeling that he would absolutely be able to control them.
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'Huh. I did it, didn't I? It feels better than last time.'
This melody he was playing note by note conveyed a special feeling to Dowook, who didn't even know its title.
A slight melancholy. An overwhelming sense of hope coming from within it.
Somehow, it was similar to the situation Jeong Woo-seok was experiencing. It was like an ending song in movies that was played after all the hardships.
As he was playing, Dowook fell into a trance.
This was probably why music was considered the language of emotions.
When a person perceives something visually, what was seen with the eyes would be 10% and what was processed by the brain would be 90%.
Similarly, when a person hears something the ears perceive 10% while the brain interprets and feels 90% of the stimulus.
Dowook only knew the literal meaning of these words from the Introduction to Neurology. But now, he understood that there was something intangible that could be heard.
To a human, music was a source of comfort that couldn't be missed.
The song, which smoothly changed from a splendid tremor to a calm embellishment, was over.
Jeong Woo-seok's daughter, who'd been listening raptly with her jaw dropped open, looked at Jeong Woo-seok.
"It's really similar to the one Dad plays."
"Is it? I did something like…. Have I played something like this for you?"
Dowook opened his eyes and flinched in surprise. Perhaps because he had been completely immersed in Jeong Woo-seok's sense, his vision flickered from normal and black-and-white causing him some confusion.
Thinking he had to get out first, he gathered his senses and said.
"I will leave first. It's almost time for my next surgery."
"Dr. Park Dowook."
"Yes?"
"You have good sentiments. Just right for comforting people."
Dowook walked down the hall of the VIP ward and thinking he couldn't continue this way, he fell onto a bench in the rest area.
"So there's a disadvantage like this."
It was not a diagnosis for a neurosurgeon to give, but it seemed his brain's synaptic structure tried to imitate Jeong Woo-seok's because he had focused all his attention on the piano.
While he was waiting for the lingering sense to disappear, he heard a familiar voice emerging from the hall opposite the rest area he was in.
"Unni. This time we should stretch the road until here….huh? That doctor is over there."
"Who?"
He felt the approach of the sound of someone pulling a mini oxygen tank and someone covered in the scent of fruit tea.
"Dr. Park."
"Is that you, director?"
Dowook turned to look in the direction where Lim So Yool's voice was coming from with his eyes closed.
"Why are you sitting there with your eyes closed?"
"That thing is."
Dowook tried to make excuses as he quickly accepted Lim So Yool's sense to erase the previous one.
"My head was hurting from spending several days in the hospital. I was just resting for a while."
"Does it hurt a lot?"
"It's a migraine so it will go away soon."
"I know as much as a doctor when it comes to migraines. Do you also have a fever?"
He could feel Lim So Yool touch his forehead with the back of her hand.
"Migraines caused by exhaustion don't disappear just because you close your eyes tightly. It's best to massage here and here."
As he was getting tips on getting rid of headaches, Lim So Yool's sense completely occupied his neural circuit.
Sparkle.
Dowook became embarrassed as soon as he opened his eyes. This was because he met Lim So Yool's eyes which were a few inches away from his.
"Umm…."
Maybe because Lim So Yool didn't think Dowook would open his eyes without warning, she didn't take back her hand, which was pressing the middle of his forehead, right away.
Gabby, who was standing next to them, looked at them with a gaze saying, 'What is this atmosphere?'
* * *
Lunchtime belatedly taken after a surgery.
Watching Dowook eat his food quickly, Seong Chang Soo asked.
"You don't seem to have any worries lately? You're eating the food like it's really delicious."
"If you're not going to eat that, give it to me. You're talking so much because you don't feel like eating, aren't you?"
At Dowook's move of stretching his chopsticks toward the Hamburger steak, Seong Chang Soo quickly blocked it with his fork.
"What are you doing? I'm always hungry. Shoo! Go away!"
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Dowook laughed at his friend's reaction when he was only pretending.
"Why are you so surprised? I'm going to get another side dish, what about you?"
"Get me another plate of salad?"
Dowook returned to the table with a plate of jeyukbokkeum and a plate of salad. Then he saw Seong Chang Soo staring at the TV without moving his spoon.
"Why are you like that? Is there something interesting on TV?"
"Just wait."
Seong Chang Soo didn't take his eyes off the TV even as he kept shoving food into his mouth so Dowook couldn't steal it.
"It's on! It's on!"
"The next piece of news is about the student at Myeong Sae Hospital who overcame severe trauma and took his CSAT and became a hot topic."
News about the condition of the students and Jeong Taejun's unusual surgery flowed out and moved on to the interview scene.
Along with the subtitle 'Emergency Medicine at Myeong Sae Hospital,' a cheesy doctor's face with hair fixed in place with a ton of wax came out.
"Dowook. Look at that. I'm on TV!"
Seong Chang Soo, who was excitedly sending messages to his acquaintances, was overflowing with energy.
Dowook couldn't help but laugh.
"Are you really that happy?"
"Ve~ry happy. Hey, listen carefully to the interview. I gave a good shot at the dean of Hansung Hospital."
"...someone from the same bus could take the test, while some couldn't? If we failed that day, reporters would probably have written something like this. Some of those from the bus lived, while others died. I want to ask the dean of that hospital who decided to use the sad story of the students to promote their hospital. Would you have promoted this matter if the students brought to Myeong Sae Hospital's emergency center did not survive?"
"Kya. What do you think? Great question, right?"
"Isn't that too provocative?"
"We have to do this much to let the anger fade away."
Seong Chang Soo's phone began to ring continuously with message notifications. The doctors from several departments who were called over by Commander G that day sent him messages telling him that he'd done a good job.
"See, see. I wasn't the only one who got angry."
As he was reading the messages while humming, Seong Chang Soo frowned when he read a message saying [Everything was ok, but you styled your hair so much it's making me feel embarrassed.]
Then, he suddenly raised his head when he read that the sender was Park Dowook.
Dowook waved his phone and said.
"You won't look handsome just because you took a bit more care of your hair when your eyes look so tired. You should have just styled it as usual. It's so obvious that you've never done an interview."
"Bullsh*t. As if you've had any."
"Yeah, three times."
"Stop kidding around."
"Why don't you try searching for it."
As they were eating, they argued like they usually did. Then, someone ran over to Dowook's side.
"Senior!"
It was Nam Hana.
"You have to go upstairs immediately. Yoo Sang-il has regained consciousness."
At the news that the driver of the cram school bus had woken up, Seong Chang Soo's eyes also widened.
When Dowook entered the ICU, the vice-dean had already arrived. Chief Ha was also in attendance.
Quickly approaching, Dowook bowed his head in greeting.
Accepting the greeting, the vice-dean pointed into the sterile room.
"The attending physician should check personally."
"Understood."
Putting on a sterile cap and gloves, Dowook entered the sterile room and asked the ICU nurse who was performing preliminary care beside the patient.
"How long has it been since the patient regained consciousness?"
"A little under 10 minutes."
When he got closer, Dowook saw Yoo Sang-il who opened his eyes with difficulty. Although the swelling had reduced over the weeks, there were still many signs of bruising all over his face.
Dowook spoke to the patient first.
"Sir, I am Park Dowook, the doctor who operated on you. It has been about 4 weeks since you were brought to the hospital. Although your body is very heavy and there is pain everywhere, please don't worry. If you understood what I am saying, could you squeeze this hand for me?"
The patient's right hand wiggled. Considering the injury suffered by Yoo Sang-il, it was possible to diagnose that he had improved tremendously since he was able to move his body with his own will.
'Active breathing seems to also be possible.'
Looking outside the cleanroom, he could see Chief Ha nodding his head.
"Please raise the patient's body."
The nurse controlled the patient's neck and raised the upper body of the patient. When the respirator was removed, the patient who had no energy coughed.
"We've sent a message to your wife so she should be here soon."
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The patient, who'd been trying to understand the situation, asked Dowook in a small voice.
"The students…. The students who were in the same accidents as me…"
"They are all safe. They also took the CSAT."
The patient who came back from the edge of death was still thinking of that accident.
Looking at the patient who was tearing up, Dowook recalled what Seong Chang Soo just said in the interview.
If some on the bus lived and some died. How big of a shock would that have been for this patient?
When faced with the greatness of life, it sometimes felt like all the hubbub of a doctor's daily struggles were taking place in a distant world.
The reason he had decided to become a doctor. The first time he was faced with the death of a patient.
On top of the accumulated weight on his shoulders, Dowook realized that the first thing the patient asked after he woke up was also weighed with responsibility.
After taking a few tests, he went out of the clean room.
"How is he?"
"I saw some arrhythmia, but I think we should delay the administration of drugs until the anastomosis on the head blood vessels stabilize."
"Ok. Take good care of the patient until the 3rd round of surgery."
"Yes, sir."
After receiving the report, the vice dean turned his gaze to Chief Ha.
"I think I mentioned it before. You taught your student well, Chief Ha. I am really looking forward to the future of the neurosurgery department."
The vice dean disappeared after patting Chief Ha on the shoulder. Chief Ha, who had been bowing from the waist, elbowed Dowook in his side.
"Did you hear?"
"I heard."
"Do well, student. My shoulders are too heavy thanks to you nowadays. I mean, why is a severe trauma patient who recently underwent a head surgery and was about to undergo a chest and hepatopancreatic biliary surgeries still being cared for by the neurosurgery department? We aren't even a part of the 3rd round of surgery."
"You have to hold on. That is the composure of a surgeon."
Letting out a deep sigh, Chief Ha patted Dowook on the shoulder as if he was getting dust off him and said.
"Ok. I'll clean up, you'll clean up. Let's try to keep on together. Why?"
"Because neurosurgery is one body?"
"Correct. In that vein, Dowook. Since we removed you from on-call duty, there were some holes in the weekend schedule….."
"Ahem, it's time for surgery. I'm leaving!"
* * *
Hansung Hospital, Dean's office.
-...I want to ask the dean of that hospital who decided to use the sad story of the students to promote their hospital. Would you have promoted this matter if the students brought to Myeong Sae Hospital's emergency center did not survive?
"That greasy-looking bastard."
An issue that had to be refuted right away came out.
Gritting his teeth and raging at Myeong Sae Hospital, Dean Kim Chun Man grabbed the phone temporarily wrapped in tape because he threw it.
"Hey, this is the emergency department, right? Put on Sangdong."
-Sir, this is Chief Shim.
"Gather all the names of Myeong Sae Hospital's emergency center staff and send it over right now."
-Myeong Sae Hospital's? Why so suddenly….
"I'm preparing because not doing anything would make us look like idiots. You don't want to get any applications in the future? Don't you know that we'll only get picked if we step on Myeong Sae Hospital?"
-I'll do it! I'll do it right now!
As soon as he put down the phone, it rang again. Thinking it might be Shim Sangdong, he answered the phone and heard a familiar sound from the other side.
-This is Yoon Jinho.
"Reporter Yoon? What? You want me to buy you dinner? From now on, you will only receive lunches under the Kim Young-ran Act from our hospital. Don't contact me for personal reasons, either. Such a useless reporter.
[T/N: The Kim Young-ran Act is an anti-bribery law in Korea that states those working in public institutions cannot accept gifts exceeding ₩50,000.]
-I understand why you're angry, but I contacted you for an interview today.
"What is it?"
-There is a rumor that the parents of the students from the cram school bus accident that are hospitalized in Hansung Hospital all wish to have their children transferred to Myeong Sae Hospital in preparation for the college interview and discourse. Is this true….
Crash bang!
The phone which was barely holding itself together rolled on the floor.
The title of a news article, 'Myeong Sae Hospital, which has Recovered its Honor. Who Will Win the Title of Best Regional Trauma Center?' entered his sight as Kim Chun Man leaned back on his chair while grabbing onto the back of his neck due to his blood pressure going up.
"Oh f…."
—–
sync : Pianist's skills that shine due to blindness
action : When placing hands over the keys with eyes closed, a touching melody flows out.