Code blue, code blue.

Panic and chaos were all in the scene. The screeching sound of wheels from the stretcher, loud footsteps and people were dashing towards the operating theatre down the hall. Jieun was there, among the other doctors. Dowoon was there as he was in charged for the sedative given. It was her first day in the cardiac care unit and first surgery case that she had been into as a resident. Gushed of anxious and nervous were mixed in her.

The scrub tech wore her gowns, gloves and masks. All were set to began the surgery. She was positioned as the resident surgeon in the operation and she was being so jittery and edgy. She tried to remain calm despite the tension inside the theatre. She could not let her uneasy feelings disrupted the whole surgical process. She breathed in and then her eyes landed on Dowoon’s.

He gave a slight nodded, assuring her that it was okay.

The sound of beeping from the machine near her, skin peeling on a scapel and blood passing the tubes made her even nervous. Jieun kept her eyes focused on the body in front of her as the main surgeon was carefully made an incision down the chest area so that it would be easier to reach the heart. As they were done, a machine was connected to the patient while they began to operate the heart.

Beating heart was all her eyes seen and her hands were slowly becoming shaky. The head surgeon carefully instructed her and the other resident surgeon to make a small for removing the carbon dioxide from the vessel. Her vision was starting to get blurry, short breathing as her blood were rushing highly inside her body. She was at stake of saving people live here and it was terrifying as it was her first time performing a real situation surgery. She could feel her heart was gradually throbbing in a fast, rapid rate. The blood was coated on her gloves, the smell of iron around her, those ticking and beeping of the heart machine making herself became a bit restless. She tried to gain some peace but slowly close her eyes for a moment but a flashback of her father’s death kicked her awake.

The other resident surgeon was gazing at her intensely as he was waiting for her to do a small cut on the left side of the heart. “What are you waiting for?” He asked in a very serious tone. His hand hands were ready with the tools around it.

“Uh, s-sorry. Okay, let’s d-do it.” She inhaled slowly, controlling her hands from shaking as it could do more damage to the tissue and the heart. Sweats were streaming on her forehead. Jieun could the tension and pressure from the eyes that were focusing on her. The resident helped her cleaned the blood that came out from the tissue and allowed the head surgeon to continue opened up the tissue and reaching the valve that contained the blockage. She was glad she did it right.

The whole surgery took up for almost 4 hours. It was critical case for the whole department to conduct since the patient had other chronic complication which required them to be a lot more careful when operating the incision.

The machine then went beeping loudly, alerting them that the patient was losing a lot of blood. Jieun moved around her tool to find a blood vessel bursted around the heart. It was one of the main vessels that connected the heart.

“Cleaned it up!” The head surgeon ordered while asked the anesthesiologists to put up a bit more sedative drugs on the patient. More chaotic scene was created. She began to feel the clenching and pain in her chest area. Shorter breaths were escaping . The machine did not help her much. Bleeping sound were echoing the whole room, making Jieun to feel more anxious. Jieun quickly tried to remove the blood vessel but unfortunately her hands were too shaky causing her to gash on the wrong area. More blood was spilling and more signal were hearing.

Jieun gasped sharly.

“What have you done?” The head surgeon panicked. But he had to stay calm or else, more distruction would occur. “Clear the blood and slowly remove the vessel.” And Jieun did as she was told, slowly and gently.

Another hour passed and the surgery was finally over. Everything went well after the sudden encounter of emergency happened. Most of the staffs there were relieved as they managed to pull off the last-gasp in the room. Yet, Jieun was not that relieved at all. In fact, she was put into blame for causing more commotion at the very end.

‘You could have killed the patient.’, was only she heard after the surgery over. The resident surgeon was furious that she had accidentally made a mistake in there and critized her for being so careless during at such critical time. She kept on scrubbing her hands back and fort while she was lost deeply into her thoughts. Jieun kept on remembering the old days when her father died into an accident. It was vivid to her while she was inside the operating room. The blood, the person laying on the bed, tubes were connecting to the body. It made her sad, thinking that if that was her father would she be doing the same mistake as well. She was disappointed of her performance earlier because she had to admit that she nearly killed a patient. Just because of her being so reckless. Just because of her being so fearful and discouraged.

Jieun kept on scrubbing hard on her right arm util too much foam was forming from the soap. She did not aware of Dowoon’s frame was standing next to her doing the scrub routine as well.

“Slow down.”

Dowoon held her hand and that was when she snapped back to reality. No more voices playing her head, accusing her with her irresponsibility. Jieun stared at his hand long before moving it away. A weak smile was trying to draw on her face. Dowoon saw how she was inside there. He saw how frightened she was when the machine gone wrecking with loud warning signals. He saw how panic her eyes trying to search for tools and trying to help the patient there. He saw it clearly inside.

“Breathe, don’t strain yourself with what happen earlier. I saw you and it’s not your fault. Things just happened.”

There was no sign of sights people at the scrub sink. It was just the two of them at the moment. Jieun eyes flared in outrage. Both of shoulders showed a slight leap. The foam was still there on her arm.

“It’s not my fault? I could kill a man there!” She half yelled.

Frustration took her over. The voices had already made up her mind saying that it was her fault, saying that the mishap happened because of her.

Then all of sudden, two nurses came into the scene which made Jieun pretend to continue scrubbing her arm. Dowoon as well did the same but he stole some glances at her. He could saw her being so hateful on herself for what just happened inside the surgery. Jieun shut her eyes, trying to erase the horrible voices that were playing in her mind.

‘You could have killed the patient.’

“I’m sorry. I just got too stressed I supposed.” She turned to Dowoon when she finished her routine and drew him a small, hesitant smile before walking away. That was when Dowoon had to do something or at least tell someone who could coax her from accusing or framing herself as an almost murderer in the theatre.

Jieun laid her back on the bunkbed inside the on-call room. She looked at the photos of her family inside her purse; eomma, appa and herself, happily smiled to the camera. She began to have doubts on herself, on her capabilities. Was being a cardiologist was the right thing to do? Was she good enough to be one? Can she actually do it? Fear and hesitation grew inside her as the voices appeared. She traced her finger against the picture and jerked up when a drink can suddenly landed loudly on the table near her. She looked up to find Jae was leaning his shoulder against the stand of the bed.

“Go away.” She said but Jae did not move an inch.

He gave her a look and alerting her to the can drink only by his eyebrows. Jieun growled and pushed his legs away from