“So this Seungwan girl… what’s she like? You said you’ve seen her, right?” Joohyun asked, hoping her insecurity wouldn’t seep into her voice, still trying her best to hold back the tide of tears and emotion that threatened to spill forth from her.

“Uhh… yeah,” Jisoo replied uncertainly, “Do you really want to hear this? Maybe it’s best if you don’t know.”

“N-no,” Joohyun said, gripping the phone tighter, “You can tell me. I can handle it.”

“Fine,” Jisoo said with a sigh, “I don’t know what she’s like as a person, but I can describe her physically…”

***

    “Hey, Sojung?” Joohyun asked, walking over to the nurses’ station. The crimson-haired girl was sitting before her computer, typing away furiously. It seemed like nursing was eighty percent documentation nowadays.

    Sojung glanced up from her screen, and upon seeing the approaching blonde, she immediately straightened in her seat, her eyes becoming wide and doe-like. As always, Joohyun had to resist chuckling at the younger girl’s nervous demeanor. She had improved immensely, though, from what Joohyun had seen. Yerim was a good teacher.

    “Can you do me a favor and page Dr. Park? I have a patient whose oxygen saturation has been steadily decreasing, and she’s showing signs of respiratory distress. She’s in room 491.”

    “Umm, well, you see,” Sujung had a habit of beating around the bush, but Joohyun had a near infinite measure of patience, so she waited, “She’s not here tonight. Dr. Son is covering for her.”

    “Dr. Son? From pediatrics?”

    “Yeah, I think so. Apparently she’s trained in acute care as well.”

    “Hm. Alright. Well, if you can get her down here, that’d be great. I’ve never met her before, but I’ve heard her name. And it’s only ever been good things. Hopefully she lives up to the hype, huh?” Joohyun said with a smile.

    Sujung smiled back and went to make the call.

***

    It took Seungwan a little longer than it normally would to get from the second floor to the fourth, as she gave up her spot in the elevator she was originally in to make room for some patients. When she finally got there, it had been about twenty minutes since she’d been called; which she knew was much faster than most physicians responded to things, but she still felt bad taking any longer than fifteen.

    When she arrived on the unit, she headed directly to room 491 to see the patient. She rubbed a glob of hand sanitizer on her hands and knocked before walking in.

    “Who is it?” a female voice called, which Seungwan assumed was the nurse, as the patient in room 491 was male and, as of twenty minutes ago (according to her chart) unconscious.

    “Dr. Son,” Seungwan said, slowly elbowing open the door, “I’m here about the respiratory distress?”

    “Oh wow!” the nurse said, hurrying over to meet the doctor, “You’re just as quick as Sooy- I mean, Dr. Park.”

    Seungwan chuckled lightly. The nurse before her was a small woman, only slightly taller than herself (and Seungwan fully acknowledged that she herself was fairly tiny), with long blonde hair, and a beautiful, almost model-tier face. She somehow had uncanny the ability to make plain scrubs look like the latest fashion trend.

    “You can call me by first name as well,” Seungwan said, “We’re colleagues, it only makes sense. My name is Seungwan.”

    For some reason, the nurse’s expression shifted from bubbly to dark within a matter of seconds. It was such a drastic change that Seungwan felt her own heart drop. However, the older girl seemed to realize this and composed herself, although her affect was much more flat now.

    “Joohyun,” she introduced cooly, turning away and walking back over to the patient’s bedside, “So this is what I have so far…”

    Joohyun explained herself in a robotic manner, barely addressing the doctor as she did so. She described her assessment findings, what her suggested interventions would be, and things she had done in the meantime to provide care and stability to the patient. Her words were clear and concise, without a single mistake or slip-up. Seungwan found herself rapidly jotting notes in her notepad, sometimes even needing to request that the older nurse slow down in order for her to catch up. At the end of her report, Joohyun returned to fixing the IV tubing at her patient’s bedside, abruptly ending the interaction between her and the confused doctor.

    “So… I’ll uh, do my own assessment real quick, and we’ll try to figure out what’s wrong here. Sound good?”

    Joohyun nodded dismissively, not looking up from her work.

    “Is… is everything alright, nurse Joohyun?” Seungwan asked as she began assessing the patient’s chest, “You seem a little off.”

    “Do I?” Joohyun asked, a big, fake smile plastered on her face, making her look a bit terrifying, “Well, considering you haven’t really interacted with me before, you wouldn’t really know what ‘off’ for me was, hm?”

    Seungwan was momentarily taken aback by the sarcastic tone of the older girl. It was a complete one-eighty from her previous demeanor. So much so that Seungwan paused and straightened up, looking directly at the nurse before her.

    “Do you have some kind of issue with me?” she asked. It was only then that Joohyun met her eyes. They were pained eyes, filled with sadness and anger and a mix of negative emotions that caused Seungwan to pause and furrow her brow.

    “Do you know a woman named Kang Seulgi?” Joohyun practically spat the words out, her tone rapidly increasing in harshness.

    Seungwan’s heart dropped. How did this random nurse whom she’d never even seen before know about her and Seulgi?

    “I… I think that’s something we should talk about when we’re not working.” Seungwan said nervously.

    “I agree,” Joohyun straightened up then, apparently finished with her adjusting of the IV tubing, “When do you go on break?”

    “In about an hour…” Seungwan said, “I can meet you in the breakroom up here.”

    “Alright. I’ll take my break in an hour, then.” Joohyun said as she left.

    A wicked spider of anxiety began to tiptoe its way through Seungwan’s intestines as she began doing her assessment on the patient. She had a bad feeling about this.

***

    So that was Seungwan. Dr. Son Seungwan. She fit Jisoo’s description to a “T”. Very short, with a stockier build, long blonde hair, chubby cheeks like a hamster, and an almost sing-songy voice that matched her enthusiastic demeanor. Yes, Joohyun was absolutely sure, especially by the way she’d reacted to the “Kang Seulgi” question. It had to be her.

What a happy coincidence that she’d be working in the same hospital as Joohyun. And what a wonderful turn of events that she’d be covering for someone the day that Joohyun was covering for someone else.

    Joohyun sat in the breakroom, glancing at her watch every now and then as she waited for the doctor to arrive. She wasn’t nervous, merely resigned. She knew that since she was in her workplace, she would have to control herself properly. No sense in making a scene and embarrassing them both. She didn’t even know what she would say to Seungwan. What was there to say to the person your ex-girlfriend cheated on you with?

    Just then, the doctor walked into the room, face red, breaths coming in heavy pants.

    “Sorry, a patient coded a little while ago so I had to deal with that,” Seungwan said, attempting to be lighthearted, as she took a seat across from Joohyun, “CVA. Good thing we have a good team here, huh?”

    “Yep.” Joohyun said shortly, taking a sip of her coffee.

    “So… Seulgi,” Seungwan said with a sigh, “You know her?”

    “Obviously,” Joohyun said, narrowing her eyes, “She was my girlfriend of five years.”

The color drained from the young doctor’s face immediately. Joohyun remained silent, awaiting her response.

“I didn’t know,” Seungwan said, and she sounded genuinely ashamed with herself, “When I met her, I thought she was single. She never mentioned having a girlfriend, just a roommate.”

“Yeah, I don’t see why she would let you know that she was actively cheating.”

“I only found out a few days ago,” Seungwan admitted.

“Probably when I kicked her out…” Joohyun practically hissed, her heart sinking to her stomach as the realization dawned on her, “She went to you.”

“Um… she did,” Seungwan said with a nod, flinching as if she expected the nurse to strike her, “We… we spent the night together. This was, of course, before I knew. She woke up early the next morning, crying. She told me she’d messed up, and then told me the truth. I kicked her out and I haven’t had anything to do with her since. And I don’t plan to in the future.”

“What else did she say?” Joohyun asked. Oddly, despite the roiling storm of emotions that were attacking her insides, the blonde girl didn’t feel like crying. Probably because she’d already cried out all of her tears in the past couple days, “When she told you the truth, that is.”

“Well,” Seungwan replied, swallowing, “She told me about how she’d been hiding our relationship from you since we met. She talked about a lot of things… things about how she thought she could have us both without it being a problem, about how she felt like she was possessed, about how she wasn’t acting like a rational person… the main thing being that once you’d found out, she thought she could replace you with me, but that she loved you too much, and deeply regretted what she’d done.”

Joohyun was silent then, sitting back in her chair and staring off into the distance, lost in a flurry of thought.

    “I’m very sorry for what I did,” Seungwan said, “If I’d have known, I would have never continued pursuing her. I would’ve never gone out with her. I would’ve never let her in my house. For what it’s worth, she seemed to be pretty remorseful for it.”

    “That doesn’t matter,” Joohyun mumbled, still not looking directly at the doctor, “She cheated. But I accept your apology.”

    “Joohyun-”

    “I have to go back to work now,” Joohyun unceremoniously stood, taking her cup of coffee and draining it in one large swig, “I want to say that it was nice meeting you, Dr. Son, but I don’t want to lie. If I see you around the hospital, I’ll most likely act like this never happened, and that we’re just pleasantly distant co-workers who happen to be on the same floor sometimes. I expect you to do the same.”

    Seungwan blinked, most likely taken aback by the strength and demandingness of Joohyun’s words. Joohyun herself was shocked at how she was speaking, but she didn’t allow herself to show that. She had to be strong.

    “I-... Understood.” Seungwan said, remaining in her seat.

    Joohyun offered the doctor a short nod of acknowledgement before departing.

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I know I said I wouldn't update again for a bit, but the last update felt way too cliffhanger-y for me.

Thanks for reading<3