Chapter 2: Eyes for You

Dr. Myoui Mina tapped his Mont blanc pen against the patient’s file as he studied the person’s medical history. He was all alone in the emergency doctors’ office after his mentor Dr. Im Nayeon had rushed out on the ambulance two hours ago to the scene of a machinery accident. Setting the black and gold pen aside, Mina ran a finger over the familiar face in the patient’s photo.

Krr… Krtz…

Static crackled through the intercom, breaking the stillness in the room.

“We need a doctor at the ED stat! Whoever is available please respond!”

Mina’s hand shot out to press a red button on the receiver. “Myoui here. I’m coming.”

The bespectacled doctor hurriedly closed the file he was poring over and shoved it under a pile of other documents before bolting out of the room. Forty minutes after he was gone, Dr. Im returned from her job. As she walked past Mina’s desk, she spotted the familiar-looking file peeking out from under the stacks of papers. She pulled it out gingerly to confirm her suspicions. On the front cover of the beige file, it read the name of one of their colleagues.

Minatozaki Sana.

Shaking her head, Nayeon put the file back in its original position.

---

“I’m sorry. We have done our best.”

Loud wails erupted and an elderly couple lunged forward, grabbing at Mina’s surgeon attire. The young doctor stood unmoving aside from a slight bow of his head.

“Please, we can’t lose Jisoo! She’s our only daughter!” the mother dropped to her knees and tugged Mina’s pant leg as tears flowed freely. “You can save her, right? Right? How much money do you want? We’ll pay!”

“I’m really sorry. Please go in to see your daughter one last time,” Mina pried the woman’s wrinkly hands off his legs as gently as he could. As he turned to walk away, he bumped into the stout chest of a man in his mid-twenties. Adjusting his glasses, he recognized the tanned and muscled man with a blonde crew cut as the patient’s boyfriend.

“You shrimp!” the man yanked Mina by the collar of his shirt. “We are already begging you so go in there and do something!”

Even though the rough action was making his throat feel constricted, Mina kept his cool and repeated his earlier words, “We have already done our best. Now let me go.”

The man’s grip loosened as his expression became unreadable. Suddenly, he slammed his fist against Mina’s jaw, sending the doctor to the floor. A horrid metallic taste filled Mina’s mouth. He slowly pushed himself off the ground, resisting the urge to spit out the blood that was pooling in his oral cavity. The man charged forward, roughly grabbing him up by the collar again. However, instead of the fearsome face he displayed just seconds ago, it had been replaced by pleading desperation. His lips quivered as he sobbed before the silent doctor.

“Please… Jisoo is very important to me…”

Mina’s eyes reflected sympathy as he looked at the broken man. “I understand how you feel. I wouldn’t want to lose the woman I love too.”

Upon hearing those words, the man peered up with expectant teary eyes only to have his hopes dashed by Mina’s next words. “However, Ms. Lee’s heart had already stop beating by the time she arrived. There was really nothing much we could do. Now if you’d please excuse me.”

Mina easily freed himself from the grasp as the man’s hands went lax. As he strode down the corridor, he saw Dr. Yoo leaning casually against the wall.

“As cool as ever huh, Myoui?” Jeongyeon spoke.

“I take it that you saw everything,” Mina said, not bothering to stop as he headed towards the gents. Jeongyeon smoothly fell into step with the shorter doctor.

“When he threw the punch,” the older man answered. “I wanted to call security but then I noticed you had the situation under control. Well, this kind of thing happens to all of us.”

Mina grunted a reply as his inner left cheek throbbed with pain. His teeth had probably cut the soft flesh open when the man’s fist connected with his face. Upon reaching the washroom’s sink, he spat out warm crimson blood before gargling some tap water.

“Want to have it looked at?” Jeongyeon offered but was declined by Mina’s raised palm.

“It’ll heal in time.”

“Or you can ask Sana-ssi to ice the bruise for you.”

Mina turned sharply to face Jeongyeon. “What?”

The tall doctor simply laughed and chucked a piece of paper towel into Mina’s hands before exiting the washroom.

---

It was lunch time and Mina was walking towards the cafeteria to grab a quick bite. In order to reach his destination, he had to pass the Nurses’ Counter. From far, he spotted Sana’s colleagues chatting away and hastily covered his bruised jaw.

“Hi, Dr. Myoui!” Joy called out cheerily. Eunha and Wendy echoed her greeting from their seat.

Mina nodded in response and quickened his pace but luck had it that Joy had extremely sharp eyes.

“What happened to your jaw?” she piped. The other two dropped what they were doing and crowded around Joy.

“You’re right,” Eunha pointed at Mina’s face. “It looks red!”

Without asking, Wendy reached out and pulled Mina’s arm down, revealing the swollen bruise on his left jaw.

“Oh my God!” the trio gasped. “Did you get into a fight?” Wendy asked.

“Who dared to disfigure such a perfect face?” an incensed Joy raged loudly as the large red mark stood out like a sore thumb on Dr. Myoui’s fair and otherwise blemish-free skin. Wendy extracted a cold compress from the mini cooler behind the counter, jogged over to the stunned doctor and began fussing over him.

“P-Please stop, Wendy-ssi,” uneasiness overtook Mina as he stepped back but Wendy merely closed the distance again and pressed the ice cold pack against the bruise, causing Mina to flinch.

“What’s going on here?”

Mina froze at the sound of the nasally male voice while Wendy seemed oblivious to the new arrival and continued attending to his wound. “Stop moving!” Wendy grabbed the back of Mina’s top as he turned his back on her.

“Psst, Wendy!” Joy whispered.

“Dr. Hirai’s here,” Eunha added, also in a whisper. Instantly, Wendy stopped behaving like a mother hen and spun around, putting on her brightest smile.

“H-Hello, Dr. Hirai!” Wendy fluttered her eyelids at the kind-looking doctor who had a hair as dark as night.

“Good afternoon, Park-ssi, Son-ssi, Jung-ssi,” Hirai Momo acknowledged with an amiable smile, “and Dr. Myoui.”

Mina gave a small nod while the nurses swarmed to the new transfer doctor. Just as he was about to slip away, he caught the face of the woman who had been occupying his mind behind Dr. Hirai. His heart clenched at the sight and he slinked away before she could notice him. As he made his way past patients and staff, he grimly recalled how he came to feel this way.

Flashback

It had been a month after Sana’s birthday and she was still wearing the necklace Mina gave her every day. The quiet doctor and the beautiful nurse had been spending more time together. Whenever she was off-duty, she would pop by his office when he was alone and watch him do his paperwork. She enjoyed the little quirks he displayed: spinning the pen while in deep thought, doodling little penguins when boredom struck, taking off his glasses and rubbing his nose bridge when he was tired. One day, while the pair was having lunch at the cafeteria, Mina was called to the Hospital Director’s office where Nayeon was already waiting too. The two doctors were informed that they had been selected to attend a conference on emergency medicine in America and were to leave the very next morning.

“How long will you be gone?” Sana asked Mina that night as they enjoyed the cool breeze at one of the hospital’s balconies.

“Most likely a week,” he answered, swirling the contents of his warm canned coffee. Sana played with her fingers as she bit her lower lip.

“I… I will miss you,” her voice was so soft that it almost got carried away by the wind.

Mina faced her and gazed into her shy eyes. There was a rare sincere smile on his face. Taking her hands in his, he smoothed the nervousness away, warming her cool palms.

Two days later, in America.

“The chicks here are so hot! Nayeon exclaimed as she set her tray of food on the table that she and Mina shared in a fast food restaurant near the conference venue. “Check out that blonde behind you. Her s are boing-boing huge!”

Mina rolled his eyes at his salivating senior. Im Nayeon was well-known as a raging lesbian among the JYP Hospital staff. She never hid her ual orientation and was rather open with her fantasies, often sharing them with her fellow doctors much to their discomfort. Mina was, unfortunately, her No.1 confidante.

Nayeon frowned upon detecting Mina’s lack of response as he calmly unwrapped his hamburger. “Seriously, if I didn’t know you better, I’d have thought you were gay,” Nayeon tsked, wagging a French fry at his stoic face. “I mean how can any straight man not be moved by these babes? Some of them don’t even wear bras!”

Feeling the appalled stares of the surrounding patrons, Mina hissed, “Nayeon, you are too loud.”

Not getting his hint, the agitated woman continued in her usual blaring voice, “Oh wait, I understand now! You ain’t interested because you’ve got your own big-melons, Sattang back home.”

Hearing that, Mina choked on his food