NINE.

"Hello!" Sumin attempted to sound chirpy as she entered the children's section for surgery.

When all the attention was on her, she smiled and bowed. "My name is Dr. Han Sumin and I will be the one to check up on you all today. Please bear with me."

"Yes," An adorable harmony of children responding made her smile. At least no one in the room could hurt her.

Sumin checked on each adorable child-patient, checking their vitals to see if they have fully recovered or if they are healthy enough to proceed with their upcoming surgeries. An hour had passed when Sumin finished and she looked at all of them with a smile.

"Thank you for all your cooperation," Sumin bowed. "I will see you again sometime, okay? I wish you all a healthy recovery!"

Everyone else greeted back as Sumin walked out of the room. That was one job less and now, all she had to do was type in a report about her check-ups then help Taehyung with files before she could-

"Oh my!" A slightly strong force bumped her right leg and she nearly fell but she was able to catch herself. Instead, a kid aged 5 or 6 fall flat onto the ground. He had been running too fast that he had bumped into Sumin and fall.

"Oh my," Sumin gasped, kneeling before the child to help him up. "Are you okay?"

Sumin helped the young boy get up, only to gasp when she saw how he was bleeding on his left knee. By the looks of it, he wasn't a patient. Sumin assumed that he was a visitor or a relative of a patient, while was playing around.

"Doctor," The boy pouted as tears slowly streamed down his face. "It hurts."

"Oh no," Sumin sighed, carrying the young boy. "Come on. Noona will help you."

Sumin held the boy, whom she found out was named Huening Kai, as she led him to the nearest first aid station. On her way, unfortunately, she ran into Sehun who was also tending to patients. When their eyes met, Sumin immediately looked away and headed to an empty table to settle Kai.

Sehun sighed and tried his best to focus on checking up some patients, trying to ignore that Sumin was a few stations away from him and was still blatantly acting as if he didn't exist.

"Okay, Kai," Sumin kneeled in front of the seated boy. "This is going to hurt a little but if you cooperate well, noona will give you a candy bar. Okay?"

"Okay!" Kai chirped.

Sumin grabbed a pair of tongs and used it to grab cotton balls to dip in alcohol. Afterwards, she gently rubbed the cotton over Kai's wound, making the boy squirm. She held onto the boy's hand as she continued.

"It's okay, it's okay," Sumin cooed. "We're almost there."

Once the cleaning was done, Sumin grabbed some antibiotic cream and spread it onto his skin before adding antiseptic into it. Sumin did the exact same thing of comforting Kai as he squirmed in pain.

"It's okay, Kai," Sumin smiled. "We're done. You were so brave. Now noona just has to put some bandage over it then we can go to your parents. Here's your candy bar."

Sumin grabbed a candy bar from one of the drawers and gave it to the boy who thanked her and happily watched the candy in admiration as Sumin started wrapping his wounds.

Sehun smiled at Sumin's actions from afar. It was strange how his heart could flutter at the sight of her and a child. One of Sehun's dreams was to have children of his own and looking at her there, Sehun could not help but smile.

"Noona, why are you sad?" Kai asked all of a sudden, making Sumin stop and look at him.

"Huh?" Sumin forced out a smile. "Noona isn't sad. What made you think of that?"

"When noona isn't looking at me, noona looks like she's about to cry," Kai pointed out. "Please don't lie, noona."

Damn it, Sumin thought. Children were young but they were insanely clever.

Sumin chuckled to herself as she stood up, patting the little boy's head. "Sorry, Kai. Noona is tired and still has a lot of work to do."

"Ahhh," Kai nodded. "But if noona is tired then noona should rest."

"I'll be okay, Kai," Sumin held out her hand. "Come on. Let's look for your parents."

Sehun frowned, knowing that Sumin wasn't tired at all. She was indeed sad, maybe more heartbroken and it pained him to know that it was all because of him. He couldn't just sit and wait for both of them to cool down and knowing that was going to take a while.

Sehun had to do something.

"Taehyung!" Sumin called out as she entered the Residents Room after her shift in the children's department. "Oh, Hana!"

Hana waved and continued with what she had been doing. "You're looking for Tae, right?"

"Yes," Sumin nodded. "Have you seen him?"

"He just stepped out for a little while but he'll be back," Hana responded. "Oh, by the way, someone left those for you."

Hana pointed at one table at the side, Sumin's eyes widened at the sight of one yellow rose and a steaming foam cup that had a note to it.

"Do you know who it's from?" Sumin stupidly asked, though at the back of her mind she knew. She wasn't that much of an idiot.

Hana shrugged. Sumin nodded and headed to the table where a note laid along with what smelled like green tea and a yellow rose with it.

Don't stress yourself.

"You're stressing me out," She scoffed, looking at the tea on the table.

The door to the break room entered and Taehyung came in running and panting. "Sorry, Su. I kind of got caught