The cafeteria is as bleak as always, with its bare, cream-colored walls and the big plastic tables scattered around the large room. A few tables are occupied, but Minseok is there early for dinner, so he has no trouble finding a table to himself. Working in the Emergency Department has always been his passion - he thrives in the chaos and the fast pace - but it also has its drawbacks, such as never knowing when you’re going to get a chance to eat. After unintentionally losing fifteen pounds in his first three months of ED residency, Minseok has learned to eat whenever he has a quiet moment, regardless of what time of day or night it is. 

He has just sat down with a bowl of jajangmyun in front of him when his phone rings. At first he fumbles for his work phone, but when it shows a blank screen he realizes it’s his private phone ringing. When he sees the caller, his heart sinks. For a brief moment he considers giving into the temptation to let it ring out - she can’t exactly blame him for not picking up if she calls him while he’s on shift - but ignoring her won’t work forever. Better to get it over with.

He answers the call and presses his phone against his ear with his shoulder. One hand holds his bowl steady while the other mixes the noodles into the black bean sauce with his chopsticks.

”What do you want?”

“I just wanted to remind you that your daughter turns ten this Saturday and she wants her father at her birthday party,” his ex-wife says.

Minseok drops his chopsticks onto the table with a clatter. This Saturday. The Saturday he’s just agreed to work an extra shift on. He only just manages not to groan aloud. He’d remembered Nayoung’s birthday this year and even bought her a gift already, but the fact that he’d promised to attend her party had completely slipped his mind. Now he’s going to have to rearrange his work schedule for an afternoon of hanging awkwardly around in a house full of hyperactive ten-year-old girls and trying not to mind the disapproving looks all their mothers will be giving him from the corners of their eyes.

“I know,” he answers quickly, but Jangmi hears right through him.

“You forgot, didn’t you? For God’s sake, Minseok! You will be there, right?” 

“Of course I’ll be there! I promised, didn’t I?” He picks up his chopsticks and gathers up a clump of noodles, holds them a couple of inches above the bowl, and wonders if she’ll chew his ear off if he puts them in his mouth while she’s talking to him.

“God help me if you’ve taken an extra shift or something. Nayoung will be heartbroken if you don’t show up and I’m the one who’ll have to deal with the aftermath. Don’t do this to me, Minseok.” 

Minseok closes his eyes and tries to drown out the cafeteria sounds. “I’ll be there, I’ll be there. Trust me, would you?” 

She sighs heavily. “If only I could.”

He’s interrupted by his pager beeping. He hasn’t even gotten to take a single bite of his meal. His stomach grumbles, protesting the denial of the food it’s been anticipating, but there’s nothing he can do now. He drops the noodles back into the bowl and shoves his chair back with a screech. 

“Gotta go,” he says. He pauses, then promises one more time before he hangs up. “I’ll be there.” 

He abandons his uneaten jajangmyun and walks quickly back to the emergency department, getting there just as a couple of paramedics wheel in a teenage girl strapped to a spineboard. He pushes the phone call out of his mind with a mixture of guilt and relief. Trying to communicate with his ex-wife stresses him out a hell of a lot more than assessing trauma patients. The noise of the ED engulfs him, chaotic in the best way possible - the way that demands every scrap of his attention and leaves him no time or energy to worry about anything else. 

When he’s shunted a couple of nurses off in opposite directions to deal with less urgent patients, he jogs over to the trauma patient on the spineboard. The resident has already started check-up and quickly relays the paramedic’s report to Minseok. 16-year-old female, thrown from a horse, landed on her right side. She screams whenever anybody touches her right shoulder but is otherwise quiet. Tears silently flow down her cheeks, but she’s biting her sobs back, obviously trying hard not to show her pain. 

Her anxious mother is told to wait outside the treatment room and a nurse closes the door so people can’t look in. Her clothes are cut off amidst tearful protests about her favourite sweater, and blankets are placed on top of her body to keep her warm. When the resident has finished her assessment she turns to Minseok.

“The patient is ABC stable with a GCS score of 15, awake and alert. She probably fractured her right shoulder based on the pain in the area. It crinkles a little on the right side of her chest when she inhales deeply, that’s a possible pneumothorax. She doesn’t have any back or neck pain. The FAST scan is negative.”

Minseok nods and turns his gaze back to the girl. The phlebotomist has turned up and is about to take a blood sample. The girl’s silent tears have slowed and she’s focusing on the nurse instructing her to breathe while watching out for the shoulder, but he can detect a bit of panic in her eyes. She won’t understand what the resident has just told him and he can tell that she’s worried she’s gotten badly hurt. Minseok sends her a reassuring smile, but she’s too focused on the nurse’s instructions and her breathing to see him.

“What do you suggest we do?” he asks the resident.

“Full CT scan to make sure there’s nothing we’ve missed?” 

Minseok nods. 

“Switch her onto one of our spineboards so the paramedics can get back on the road, and call radiology,” he instructs before leaving the room to attend to the next patient. 

---

Yixing's polished black shoes clip briskly on the linoleum floor as he walks down the hallway to the oncology ward. His crisp white coat swishes, his shirt is pressed to perfection, and his dark brown hair is stylishly messy. The doors slide open for him and he’s given a rushed greeting by a busy young nurse. He greets her back and turns left towards the chemo unit. He’s on his way to see a patient who has been in his care since her diagnosis, one Yixing likes particularly well. She’s funny, her eyes sparkle with hope and happiness, and she never lets it show that she’s dying. They haven’t talked about death in particular but only because she never seems to want to. Every time he tries to bring it up, she stubbornly closes her eyes and says “I’m sleeping”. Yixing has gotten the message. 

She’s half asleep in a chair, a plastic bag for vomiting held loosely in her hand with the chemo slowly feeding into her veins from an IV drip. He gently taps her shoulder as he sits down in front of her.

“Oh,” she jumps awake, then smiles when she sees him. “Hello, Dr. Zhang! What have I done to deserve this visit?” 

Yixing shakes his head fondly and chuckles. 

“How are you doing, Sooyoung?” he asks instead of answering her question.

She shrugs and nods towards her IV drip. “Getting chemo.” 

Yixing’s smile falters as he looks at her. Sooyoung notices and lights up in a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“Don’t look like that, Dr. Zhang. It’s my only choice, right?” Yixing nods. “Besides, it’s not your fault. I know you’re helping me, so don’t feel bad.”

She smiles and looks at the IV bag to gauge how much she has left. Then she pales. Yixing automatically reaches out to grab a plastic bag, but Sooyoung is faster and holds her own bag to as she vomits into it. Watching her nauseous and vomiting makes Yixing’s heart sink a little. If there was a way to remove chemo side-effects, he would be on them in a heartbeat. Sooyoung takes a few deep breaths when she’s done and hands the bag to Yixing’s waiting hands as he rubs her shoulder. 

“Do you need a couple of tissues?” He’s already leaving her chair even as he speaks, throwing away the bag and grabbing her some tissues from the nurse’s station. Sooyoung looks at him with teary eyes when he returns and gratefully accepts the tissues.

“Ugh,” she complains and rests her head back against the chair. “I swear I would’ve chosen radiation over this if I could.” 

Yixing knows she would, but he can’t justify radiation on her. The cancer has spread too far. 

“Um, Dr. Zhang?” Sooyoung glances at the almost-empty chemo bag. “I was wondering...can you push my next session a little further back?” She twists her fingers together, looking up at him with hope written all over her too-pale face. “My friends have invited me on a camping trip and I’d love to go.” 

He shakes his head reluctantly. “Sorry, Sooyoung. I can’t do that. We need to stick to the scheduled timing or the cancer cells get an opportunity to grow. They can also get more resistant to treatment.”

Sooyoung’s lip trembles. “But it would only be a week,” she says. She sounds like she’s whining, but Yixing understands.

“I know, but the treatment schedule is really important. You remember how I explained about chemotherapy suppressing your immune system? You’re more at risk of picking up an infection, and if you got sick while you were on the trip, we’d have to delay the chemo again until you were well enough to receive your next dose. I just can’t risk it.”

She’s hanging her head now, and he sees a couple of teardrops splash onto the knees of her jeans, though she doesn’t make a sound. Heart sinking, he sits back down on the chair in front of her, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees so that their faces are level. “Don’t cry,” he says gently. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to miss out. I’d say yes if I could.”

She looks up to meet his eyes, tears trembling on her lashes. “If I get all my treatments on schedule,” she whispers, “then I can go camping when I’m better, right?”

He feels his heart twist even as he manages to smile, wishing he could answer that question the way he wants to. “Why don’t you ask some of your friends over to watch a movie instead?” he suggests.

She rubs her hand across her eyes and perks up a little. “Well…I guess I could ask mom to put up our tent in the lounge? We could lie in it and watch Into the Wild.”

“Perfect!” Yixing exclaims. “Nearly as good as the real thing. Actually it’s better. You know how many bugs end up in a tent when you’re camping? Creepy-crawlies everywhere.” He makes his fingers crawl spider-like up her arm and laughs when she squeals that it tickles.

“I’ll ask Joohyun and Seulgi over. We could toast marshmallows over candles instead of a campfire!" Yixing listens patiently as Sooyoung starts to chatter about ideas for the sleepover, happy to see that her tears have dried up.

“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” She suddenly puts her hand over and grins at him from behind it. “Sorry. Mom says I could talk the hind leg off a donkey.”

Yixing laughs at the expression. “Well, you talked all the way through the rest of your dose.” He points at the empty bag and smiles when she claps her hands together in delight. He calls the nurse over to release her from the IV line in her arm and leaves her, heading back towards the office where he has some outpatient appointments scheduled. As he walks away, the fond smile he’d been wearing while she chattered about her plans fades, and a nurse passing him in the opposite direction is surprised by the sadness she sees in his usually cheerful face. 

When Yixing thinks back to his 17-year-old self, the quiet, studious teenager who had decided he wanted to become a doctor, he knows he hadn’t really understood at that time what he was getting himself in for. He’d been sure he’d thought it all through. The idea of years more study hadn’t daunted him – he was good at schoolwork and found biology and chemistry fascinating enough to study far more than was required to simply pass his exams. A future filled with long working hours and sleepless nights seemed more of a positive than a negative – as a lifelong insomniac, working graveyard shifts made the draggingly long nights a heck of a lot more interesting. He’s never been squeamish, so the idea of blood, vomit, pus, and all the other