7 years later

Jackson enters the room rather loudly and walks toward the figure that is sleeping with his head on a desk. Even though the person looks very much worn out, Jackson has the nerve to shout out and wake him up. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!” he yells rather loud that it makes the person jumps up from his peaceful sleep. He looks a little surprise at first but as soon as he sees Jackson, he sighs in annoyance.

“Oh, it’s just you,” he says.

Jackson pouts playfully. “What do you mean it’s just me? You should thank me for waking you up! By the way, did you pull an all-nighter again?”

“I thought you’re someone else. And yes, I filled in Takada’s duty,” the other person replies while arranging his stuff on the desk.

“Aren’t you working yourself too hard? You could get sick, you know?” Even in Jackson’s cheerful tone, there is a visible hint of worry in it.

But the person only scoffs at it saying, “What’s this? It’s not like you to say that so seriously.”

“I’m being serious!” Jackson insists.

“Okay, okay! I’m just joking. I’m alright, okay? So don’t worry about me. You know I have to do this,” the person says while he gets to the door. Before he walks out, he continues, “I’m sorry, but I’ve to live up to everyone’s expectation.”

Jackson sighs. “You mean YOUR expectation, Mark hyung. How long are you gonna keep doing it?”

In the staff bathroom, Mark splashes water on his face. He can feel his mind becomes clearer. It is a mistake that he almost blurted out his true feelings back there. Jackson Wang, his co-worker and his good friend, knows about his circumstances. But he is afraid that Jackson knows too much. He should not reveal more of his weakness.

Mark still remembers the day when he realized it is a cruel place. He is the popular Mark Yien Tuan, the first son of the Tuan family and the heir to the Tuan Institute Medical Center. He graduated from Tuan Institute as the best student and got a job as a pediatrician in his own family’s hospital. He was really happy to be able to pursue his dream. He thought it was all based on his hard work alone. But then one day after only two months he started working, he heard it all.

“You know about Mark Tuan? He got here without having to go through the election!”

“What do you expect? He’s the son of the director!”

“I know right? We sweated ourselves for almost two years to get a job here. He didn’t even have to send a resume!”

“Even the chief treats him like he’s that special. He gave him such easy cases and deal with the chief’s patients as his assistant. I mean, give us a chance too, we want to learn under him!”

“The chief also always forgive him whenever he makes a mistake. That’s so unfair!”

“Was he really the top student? I bet it’s just one of his family’s powers.”

“As expected of someone who is riding his father’s coattail!”

The ugly voices that were talking behind his back were having such a loud conversation in the pantry, and Mark was there without them noticing him eavesdropping. He quickly got to the bathroom and stares at his reflection on the mirror. He thought he would cry, but he could not. It was too much of a shock for him, that he could not bring himself to cry.

Since that day, he started to work harder than before. He took on more serious cases, worked until night hour, and even took over as many on calls as he can from his co-workers. Of course, they realized his sudden change, but they were more than happy to give him their on call shifts. Besides, his co-workers were the ones who were talking behind his back that day. Mark had lost his trust and respect on them. But Jackson, he only trusts him. Jackson was his junior in college and now is a medical assistant and co-worker. Only Jackson does not mind about his background. Maybe because he himself comes from a rich and well-known family. For that matter, Mark is very thankful.

Mark goes to the registration and reception counter in the pediatric ward and gives some patients’ record files to a nurse behind the counter. He is giving some sort of instructions to the nurse when suddenly, a tall man in his 30s comes to the counter for a registration. The man is very good-looking with the kind of chic and mystery look on his face, that Mark has not even realize that he is staring at him until he feels a tap on his shoulder.

“Handsome, right?” Jackson asks.

“W…what? What do you mean?” Mart stutters.

Jackson raises his eyebrows and gives Mark a knowing smirk. “You’d been staring at him,” he whispers.

“Was not,” Mark replies, hastily.

“Either way, you don’t have a chance. He’s already married. See that ring on his finger?” Jackson points out to the shining silver band that the handsome man wears on his ring finger. Weirdly, Mark feels a pang of hurt in his chest.

“Don’t state the obvious. This is the pediatric,” Mark states as a matter of fact, while trying to ease the pain in his chest.

“You never know, maybe he sends his kid sibling? By the way, his son is under your case,” Jackson informs him.

“Huh? Why me?”

“Because he came last night and it was supposed to be Takada’s duty but since you took over for him, we put the kid under your case. Besides, you like hard work, don’t you hyung?” Jackson shrugs playfully and quickly leaves before Mark could say anything. Mark sighs and turns around to look again at the man, but he has already gone.

Mark pulls out the stethoscope from under the 8-year-old boy’s shirt and turns to the father, the handsome and tall man who he saw earlier, that he had learnt his name as Im Jaebum. “Dr Chae was the one who examined him in ER(Emergency Room) right?” Mark asks, and Jaebum nods. “There’s nothing bad. He only has a slightly high fever. I’ll prescribe some medicine and give him IV drips and he can check out after resting for a night,” Mark explains while writing something on a file.

“But why did he throw up? Is it really because of a fever?” Jaebum asks, seems to be very concern.

“Yes. Fever can cause headache and nausea. That must be the case. You don’t need to worry much,” Mark says. “If any problem occurs, you can always refer here.”

Jaebum does not say anything, much less looking at him. He only stares at the small figure that is sleeping on the bed with such expression, that Mark notices, full of love. “If only he could look at me like that,” Mark thinks to himself, before he gets back to his senses. “Of course he would look at his son like that. What was I thinking?”

Mark clears his throat and reminds Jaebum, “I’ll come in the morning to examine him again. Get enough rest.” Then he heads out of the room, not before taking a short glance at Jaebum, and shuts the door.

“I wonder where his wife is,” Mark suddenly blurts out while he is having a late lunch with Jackson in the cafeteria.

Of course, Jackson looks at him dumbfounded. “What the heck are you talking about?” he asks.

“Im Youngjae, the patient that I checked on this morning, his dad wears a ring right?”

“What about it? It’s nothing weird,” Jackson says with a mouthful of rice.

“I don’t see his wife anywhere. That’s weird,” Mark wonders.

“Ah…his wife? Isn’t he a widower?”

“What?”

“It was stated in his registration form, wasn’t it? He ticks on single and there’s no mother’s information.”
“EH?!” Mark shouts a bit too loud out of surprise, that many people turn to look at them. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“Is it my fault that you didn’t even read through his information? The father is really that handsome, huh, that you didn’t have time to look at anything else?” Jackson teases.

“Yah!” Mark yells, this time a bit slower, careful not to get other people attention again. “I wasn’t staring at him.”
“Yeah, right. You’re too obvious. But lets put that aside. How is the kid?”

Mark sighs. “Nothing special. Just a high fever.”

“Oh, another small case?”

“Yeah,” Mark puts down his chopsticks on the table, while having the same kind of sad expression that Jackson saw this morning. “I thought this was a big case. You know, the kind of case that would prove my worth. But now I realize I shouldn’t hope that way to an 8-year-old kid.”

Jackson smiles and taps his senior’s hand that is on the table. “It’s not wrong. Anyone would hope to get a big case so that we can learn from it since we’re still newbie. It’s just not the time yet,” Jackson tries to encourage him, but Mark looks at him in surprise.

“I never knew you can say something like that, Jackson,” he says.

“Aww, !” Jackson rubs his nose, pretending to be embarrassed.

“That’s not a compliment.”

Jaebum is sitting quietly by Youngjae’s bedside while holding his son’s tiny hand. It is usually at a time like this that he is reminded to the day Youngjae was born. The little tyke was born two months earlier due to his mother’s illness, so he was so tiny that Jaebum was really scared if he will break him when he held him in his arms. Youngjae was so delicate and fragile that he had to stay in a baby incubator for a week. Until this day, Jaebum cannot bear to see him get sick. Youngjae is always like that. Even when he is obviously sick, he would never tell his father and would stubbornly insists that he is fine whenever Jaebum asks him. That is one of the flaws that he inherits from his mother, he would rather keep it as a secret than making his father worried.

“Even though you aren’t here, he can learn that from you huh, Jinyoung-ah?” Jaebum says to himself and smiles. Whenever he mentions that name, he could feel as if Jinyoung is there with him, that it brings small smile to his lips.

Mark is putting on his coat in the doctors’ locker room when Takada Haruhito, his male co-worker, calling his name. “Going back already, Tuan? You’ve a curfew?” he asks while smiling. There is a hint of mocking in his voice that makes Mark fidgeting a bit.

“I haven’t gone back for two days now, thanks to someone,” he states.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot!” Takada laughs. “Thanks to you, I got to go for a date with my girlfriend. You’re a lifesaver, kid! If you want to work for on calls again, just ask me anytime! I’ll be glad to give you mine!”

Mark could not stand to listen to his words anymore, quickly grabs his backpack and leaves while Takada’s mocking laugh can be heard sending him off. It has always been like this. At first, when he just started working in the pediatric team, everyone welcomed him with huge smiles and treated him nicely. However, since he heard their conversation at that time, he changed drastically to a very hard working man and he noticed everyone started to take advantage of it. He is surprised himself that he does not mind at all. He feels rather thankful to be given many works to prove himself as not the kind of person they thought he was.

“Ah, forget about it. I want to sleep fast,” Mark mumbles as his eyes feel heavy. He almost steps out of the pediatric ward when a nurse stops him, her face sweating.

“Doctor, there’s something wrong with Im Youngjae!” she tells him very urgently, and instantly the tired feeling he felt is gone. He quickly jogs to Youngjae’s room with the nurse trailing behind. Once he gets there, the chief of the pediatric ward and several other nurses are already there surrounding Youngjae’s bed. It is a huge chaos when Mark closes toward them. The chief doctor is checking Youngjae’s heartbeat rate while the other nurses are either measuring his blood pressure level or giving him oxygen.

“What happen?” Mark asks. He notices Jaebum is standing at one side watching them with horrifying look. A nurse keeps telling him to leave and wait outside but he does not move an inch. Never mind that, Mark has more important matter at hands.

“The patient has hard breathing, low heartbeat rates and BP level, he’s sweating and body temperature rises drastically. Just now he had a convulsion, his nose and gum were bleeding, and his body shows rashes all over his skin. Also, we received the blood test result from the lab, his white blood cell and platelet level is low, but has high hematocrit level,” a nurse kindly explains to answer his question in the heat of chaos. The last few words get him shocked.

The chief stops his work for a moment and looks at Mark with a stern face. “Mark Tuan, what makes WBC and platelet low but high hematocrit level?” he asks, and when Mark is hesitating to answer, he yells, “Doctor Tuan!”

“Urm…Dengue fever.”

“And how do you explain the bleeding and rashes?”

Mark glances nervously at Youngjae before answering, “Dengue hemorrhagic…”

“So why did you diagnose him as a mere fever? Didn’t you consult with the lab on his blood test? Do you even know that we have to check for dengue fever for children under 13 years old?” the chief shoots him with these many questions, and even though Mark knew all the answers, he is too shocked to even reply.

“The…symptoms were all shown as fever, also the blood test wasn’t finished…”

“It takes only an hour for a blood test and yet you didn’t get it?” the chief cuts in. Somehow, the room becomes all too silent because this is the first time the chief ever yells at Mark the way he did. The situation is too nerve-racking that they almost forgot Jaebum when he butts in.

“What’s happening? Tell me what’s wrong with my son!” he shouts.

The chief lets out a sharp sigh and looks at him. “He’s having a dengue hemorrhagic, which is worse than ordinary dengue fever. But we need to hurry. Any later than this, he could die,” he says, and hearing that, Jaebum’s eyes become wide-opened from shock. Then the chief turns to the nurses and instructs them, “Get his blood samples, send to the lab and request for blood culture and serology ELISA! Give him IV drips for 30cc per hour and antipyretic!”

Upon watching the nurses injecting his son’s vein to take blood sample, Jaebum comes back to his senses as if he has just woken up, and unexpectedly jumps up to Mark and punches him in the face. Mark stumbles backward until his back hits the other empty hospital bed and Jaebum grabs his collar with much force while some nurses shriek in surprise. “You said it’s just slightly high fever! You said he’ll be alright! What are you? You’re not a doctor! You’re just a fake!” Jaebum yells in anger and gives Mark another punch.

The chief and two of the nurses quickly get in between them and break them apart. Jaebum is forcefully dragged outside to leave the scene, and Mark is too shocked to even move. Truthfully, he thought he is already used to people insulting him, but Jaebum’s words really hit him like daggers straight to his heart. He feels the same kind of pain he felt when he first saw him. The chief watches his painful state and sighs. “Go take some coffee or something and calm yourself. After you’re done, meet me in my office,” the chief tells him and pats him on the arm before he leaves with the remaining nurses.

Meanwhile, Jaebum is trying to calm himself in the visitors’ waiting room alone. He sits with his palms cupping his face that is drenched with tears. He thinks to himself that he could not believe this is happening to his son. He really thought Youngjae is going to be alright, but now that it comes to this, he does not know what to believe anymore. “Jinyoung-ah, what should I do if he goes to you?” he whimpers.

He could only hope.

I'm sorry for the medical situation. It just need to be there. I'm going to stop before it gets boring. Lol