Jongin was led to an empty examination room by a shorter, older female whose wavy, chestnut brown locks framed her small angular face. She had amicably introduced herself as Nurse Park on their way to the room, stating she was the one who prepped Dr. Do’s patients before he saw them. But Jongin honestly could care less about what she did or who she was. He wasn’t here to engage in small talk; he had better things to do with his precious time.

And after being cancelled on by Dr. Kim earlier, the artist was in a terribly foul mood and wanted to get this examination over with so he could return home to properly sulk in his work room some more. Jongin just answered in short, abrupt phrases whenever Nurse Park asked him anything and opted to silently shake or nod his head if it was a yes or no question. As they walked down a hallway, she jotted down notes onto a sheet of paper attached to a thin clipboard she was holding. When they finally entered the small examination room he had been assigned to, which seemed to take forever in the artist’s mind, Jongin plopped down onto the black exam chair while taking care not to accidentally bump into the hefty equipment that was attached to the chair’s left arm.

As he settled into the chair, Nurse Park pushed down her right foot on a metal pedal that was attached to the bottom of the exam chair to slightly recline it and Jongin let out an involuntary sigh while closing his eyes to avoid staring directly into the examination room's bright overhead lights. “Are you comfortable, Mr. Kim?” the nurse asked pleasantly as she stepped away from the chair and extracted the papers from the file Soojung had given her on Jongin.

“Yes,” the artist answered in a clipped tone, his eyes still shut. The rustle of papers was the only sound afterwards and Jongin felt his irritation spike further as more time passed, since it seemed like the ophthalmologist would never arrive. “Where is Dr. Do? I’d like to get this examination done with as soon as possible.”

“I’m here.”

Jongin immediately sat up and opened his eyes, finding a small youthful man wearing a starch white lab coat staring straight at him. And the artist didn’t know what it was, but the man’s huge owlish eyes were drawing him in with that exquisite shade of umber coloring the doctor’s bright irises. He cursed inwardly when he couldn’t figure out if they were raw umber or burnt umber, because he knew the question would plague him until it was properly answered. The ophthalmologist’s eyes might not even actually be umber, but something told Jongin that they were undisputedly umber.

After all, it was a color he had lived and breathed when he had immersed himself completely in studying prehistoric cave paintings for a project in the art history class he had taken when he was twenty, since umber was one of the only colors used in ancient times. Everyone else in his class had opted to go for the flashier, more aesthetically pleasing art movements, such as the Renaissance and Impressionism. But Jongin already knew everything there was to know about those well-known periods of art, since he had studied them all throughout high school on his own. The project admittedly would have been much easier if he had chosen an art movement he was already familiar with, but that would have been boring.

So Jongin had approached his professor to ask if he could research Neolithic rock art instead, after coming back from a family trip to the Bangudae Petroglyphs, even though it hadn’t been on the list of available topics to choose from. Seeing the various animals, ranging from whales to sea turtles to deer, engraved on the shale and hornfels stone cliffs by the Daegokcheon stream of the Taehwa River in Ulsan had placed Jongin in a strangely tranquil state. Even though the artist had been forced to deal with Jongdae whining in his incessantly high-pitched voice during the entire trip about how dull it was to look at eroded rock formations and that the family should’ve gone to a more entertaining tourist spot, the picturesque rock art had captivated Jongin completely.

Kind of like how Dr. Do’s eyes pulled him into a trance just now.

The artist wanted to bring the doctor’s face closer to his own so he could properly study the other male’s eyes, just as he had desired all those years ago to scale the steep cliffs where the Bangudae Petroglyphs were so he could carefully trace his slender fingers over the soft, worn down ridges of the rock engravings.

“Sojin, if you could get Room Three prepped for my two-thirty appointment, that would be great,” Dr. Do spoke in his low smooth voice as he broke eye contact with Jongin, causing the artist to snap out of the hypnotic daze he had been unknowingly placed under. The ophthalmologist lightly patted Nurse Park’s left shoulder while stepping around her towards the counter that was built into the side of the examination room.

“Of course, Kyungsoo,” Sojin answered, beaming cheerfully at Dr. Do.

Kyungsoo. So that was the doctor’s first name.

Do Kyungsoo. What a quaint name. It somehow fitted the ophthalmologist perfectly.

But then, Jongin raised an eyebrow as he listened to the two speak casually to each other. Although he hadn’t spent much time in hospitals, deeming checkups to be a general waste of time if he knew he was healthy, the artist didn’t think it was normal for doctors and nurses to be so…close. Well, at least not close enough for them to speak so informally, especially at work. It was like the two of them were in their own little world as they continued conversing with each other in extremely saccharine tones that were beginning to grate on the artist’s nerves, causing Jongin’s annoyance to steadily rise as the seconds ticked by. He let out a loud, obviously fake cough to remind them he was still sitting in the exam chair with a large scowl on his face.

Sojin gave the two males a quick little bow before leaving the examination room and then pulled the sliding wooden door shut behind her, leaving the artist alone with the ophthalmologist.

With the nurse finally gone now, Jongin allowed his anger to cool slightly. He kept his eyes trained on Kyungsoo, who was busily riffling through Jongin’s file after attaching it to the clipboard that Sojin had left on the counter. The artist wished the ophthalmologist would look up, because he wasn’t done looking at those round umber eyes.

“Hello, Mr. Kim,” Dr. Do finally greeted after placing the clipboard on the counter and holding a hand out to Jongin.

The artist just gave the ophthalmologist a curt nod, still miffed that he had been treated as if he were invisible earlier.

“So would you like to tell me why you’re here today?” Dr. Do asked as he retracted his hand, not at all perturbed by Jongin ignoring the proffered handshake, and sat on top of an ivory-colored wheelie stool.

“Shouldn’t you know that already?” Jongin responded scathingly while casting his right pointer finger towards the clipboard. “You’ve spent quite a bit of time reading my file, so I presume you should already be well-informed on why I made this appointment.”

Dr. Do didn’t let Jongin’s wrath faze him and replied good-naturedly, “Yes, that’s true, but sometimes, problems are best conveyed through verbal words than on paper. That’s why I’d like for you to explain your problem to me yourself.”

“I can’t see color the way I used to.”

The ophthalmologist waited for Jongin to continue, but when the artist kept silent, Dr. Do asked, “Could you possibly elaborate a bit more, Mr. Kim? Do you mean you’ve become colorblind or…”

“I’m not colorblind,” Jongin clarified. “But something about my color vision is wrong. I can’t differentiate shades anymore, since they all basically look the same to me. Everything seems muted and bland now, and I can’t trust my own eyes anymore.”

“Well then, let me do a quick examination to see if there’s anything abnormal about your eyes’ anatomy. We can work our way from there once I have a better idea of the health of your eyes.” The doctor flipped the room’s light switch off before using his legs to scoot himself and the wheelie stool directly in front of Jongin. He took hold of one of the instruments attached to the exam chair and swiveled it so that the large contraption was between the two of them. “Press your forehead against the head band and place your chin on the chin rest please,” Dr. Do instructed as he began flipping through different lenses on the other side of the machine.

Jongin obeyed and positioned his head accordingly, although it was a bit difficult in the darkened room. He waited for the ophthalmologist to finish setting up, feeling his heartbeat accelerate in anticipation for the long-awaited answers about his suddenly weak color vision.

Dr. Do turned the slit lamp on and moved the beam of light to Jongin’s right eye. “Keep your eye fixed on the sticker,” he directed as he began looking through the microscope while tapping the side of the attached illumination source that had a bright yellow smiley face sticker pasted on it.

The slit lamp’s light was annoyingly bright, but Jongin stayed still and tried not to give in to the urge to shift his gaze away from the smiley face sticker.

“Now blink. Good. Keep blinking.”

Jongin blinked in time with his heartbeat, feeling a sense of tranquility wash over him. The artist then noticed the ophthalmologist pick up a small handheld lens and place it in front of his eye. The tool didn’t mitigate the intensity of the beam of light, but at least it refracted the radiance to some extent so that his eye wasn’t as uncomfortable as it was earlier.

“I’m going to switch to your left eye now. Hold still and keep your eye on the sticker again.”

The illumination source changed sides and Jongin had to consciously make sure he was staring at that stupid smiley face, which seemed to be openly mocking him and his problem by being so unnecessarily happy. The artist wanted to scratch it off the contraption, but kept his impulses in check.

“And blink again.” Once Dr. Do finished the examination, he switched off the slit lamp’s light source and pushed aside the machine so that there was nothing between the two males. The doctor leaned back to turn on the examination room’s overhead lights and then scooted towards the counter to pick up the clipboard, so he could mark down the observations he had made just now. After he finished jotting down his notes, Dr. Do crossed his arms with a thoughtful expression on his youthful face as he commented, “Well, I can definitely rule out macular degeneration. You’re much too young to—”

“Macu-what?”

“Macular degeneration,” Dr. Do repeated slowly. “It’s one of the most common causes of visual impairment and partial blindness, which you obviously don’t have,” he quickly added, seeing Jongin about to interrupt, “but one of the early visual symptoms of the disease is poor color perception. But as I was saying, you’re too young to be experiencing such a medical condition. It’s age-related and most people who have macular degeneration are older than fifty.”

That sounded awful. It was bad enough not being able to discern colors properly, but having his overall vision disappear? Jongin might as well just kiss his life goodbye at that point.

“Your retinas also look very healthy. I can’t detect any damage to your rod cells or cone cells,” Dr. Do continued as he skimmed over the notes he had taken during the examination.

Jongin stared dumbly at the doctor, not processing these next words either.

“Your cone cells and rod cells are light-sensitive cells in the retinas of your eyes that are responsible for color vision and night vision, respectively,” Dr. Do defined patiently when he saw the perplexed expression on the artist’s face. “Rod cells don’t affect color vision that much, but any damage to them could affect the amount of light being processed by your eyes. And if your cone cells aren’t working properly, that would explain why your color perception is faulty.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with them,” Jongin said, repeating the ophthalmologist’s earlier observation.

“Not that I can detect at the moment,” Dr. Do answered with a shake of his head. “I’ll make a note for Dr. Kim to consider doing a more specialized, comprehensive retinal examination during your next visit.”

Jongin nodded along, but began to feel irritated once more. It seemed like Kyungsoo was just doing the bare minimum and pushing everything onto Dr. Kim, who was incompetent and unreliable as well in the artist’s opinion, even if he hadn't met the guy yet. He was still mad about being cancelled on earlier and that anger was being subconsciously directed towards Kyungsoo, even though the man had done nothing wrong, since the ophthalmologist was the only one with Jongin right now.

Unbeknownst of the artist’s simmering fury, Dr. Do continued asking questions to try to pinpoint the cause behind Jongin’s problem. “You haven’t been taking any drugs, correct?”

“Correct.”

“No contact with any hazardous chemicals or toxins in the last year?”

Jongin shook his head.

“And you haven’t been ill this past year either?” Dr. Do asked as he looked over Jongin’s medical history on the forms the artist had filled out in the waiting room.

“Nothing other than the common cold that I usually get when winter begins.”

Dr. Do drummed his fingers against the edge of the clipboard as he stared at Jongin, trying to think of what else could be causing the artist’s poor color visualization. “I don’t think you have a Vitamin A deficiency since your retinas are fine,” the ophthalmologist mused while still staring at the other male, “but I’ll let Dr. Kim know that you should get a blood test the next time you come in so we can be sure. In the mean time, I’ll mark you down for a supplement prescription and I’ll have Nurse Park hand you a list with foods that have Vitamin A, so you can make sure they’re part of your diet.”

There he went again. Just blabbering on about these tests that he could be administering at this moment, but choosing to let Dr. Kim handle everything during a future appointment. Jongin wanted to know what the problem was now, not weeks later. “You don’t actually think something’s wrong with me,” the artist accused with a hard edge to his voice while narrowing his eyes.

“No, I’m not trying to doubt your concerns. After all, you know best what you’re seeing. But I’ve never dealt with a case like this before, especially since I don’t specialize in color vision,” Dr. Do explained evenly, trying to stay professional and not to let Jongin’s sour attitude affect him. “Although I do find it strange that a pair of perfectly healthy eyes have suddenly stopped working in this aspect, I’m doing my best to try to find the root of the problem, Mr. Kim.”

“Well, try harder then.”

Kyungsoo stared at Jongin with an unfathomable expression and his striking umber eyes after those harsh words escaped the artist’s mouth. Jongin found himself in a trance once more and didn’t even realize he had been so rude to the ophthalmologist, because he was so mesmerized by those large unblinking eyes again. Several seconds passed in silence before the doctor finally said in a brisk manner, “I think this consultation has come to a conclusion. Please speak to Ms. Jung at the front desk about making a follow-up appointment with Dr. Kim. Have a good day, Mr. Kim.” The ophthalmologist stood up from the wheelie stool and gave the artist a slight bow before exiting the examination room.

The spell broke again and it took a moment for Jongin to recollect himself before standing up from the exam chair he had been sitting in for the past half hour. Even though he was pissed off, Jongin couldn’t rid himself of the image of Kyungsoo’s eyes because of that asive question of precisely what shade of umber they were. The ophthalmologist’s eyes completely took over the artist’s mind as he walked out of the room to return to the eye clinic’s waiting room. He was so preoccupied with trying to decipher Kyungsoo’s exact eye color that he almost walked out of the building without scheduling a follow-up appointment. Soojung’s voice calling his name jolted the artist out of his thoughts and Jongin turned to see the receptionist motioning for him to come to her desk.

“How was your consultation with Dr. Do?” Soojung asked cheerily with a wide smile after Jongin stepped up to her desk. “And Nurse Park told me to give this to you,” the receptionist added while handing over a thin packet to him.

But the artist ignored her question as he accepted the stapled papers and ordered brusquely, “Take me off of Dr. Kim’s patient list. I want to be seen by Dr. Do from now on.”

“A-are you sure, Mr. Kim?” Soojung asked nervously while silently chastising herself for sounding so meek. She didn’t know what it was about the man that made her so apprehensive. And his blatant aggressiveness didn’t help assuage her timidity either. “You haven’t even seen Dr. Kim though.”

“I want to see Dr. Do,” Jongin repeated shortly with an expressionless face. He didn’t feel that it was necessary for him to explain his reasoning for permanently switching doctors to the receptionist. In fact, she should be grateful he was asking to transfer now instead of later. That meant there wouldn’t be any need for the artist’s examination notes to be shuttled between the two ophthalmologists and Jongin wouldn’t have to deal with another person dismissing his obvious disability.

Kim Jongin was going to make sure Do Kyungsoo fixed him, even if it meant he had to come to this godforsaken eye clinic every single day.

He watched Soojung pull up his records on her computer and key in the necessary information to officially transfer Jongin to Kyungsoo’s patient list in the clinic’s records system. Once the reassignment was submitted and processed, Soojung switched windows to the booking system and asked, “Did Dr. Do specify when to come in for your follow-up appointment?”

“I want the next available time with him.”

Soojung scrolled through the calendar and carefully checked for any open slots, not wanting to accidentally aggravate Jongin like she had before his appointment earlier. After triple-checking Kyungsoo’s schedule for the next month, she clicked a box and reported, “Dr. Do has an opening for noon on Friday, two weeks from now. Will that be a good time?” Jongin nodded, prompting Soojung to schedule him into the system. She wrote the date and time of the appointment on a small white card that she handed to him afterwards, saying brightly, “Here you go! We’ll see you in two weeks then!”

The artist placed the card into the front pocket of his black button-up shirt and waved his hand as he walked away from the receptionist. He smiled to himself when he thought how surprised Kyungsoo would look with those big eyes of his after finding out that he’d officially be treating Kim Jongin from now on.

♈♈♈