Minseok is nervous, again, palms sweating slightly as he enters the colonial building and walks down the hall to the GreenLine Psychology rooms and his third - well, fourth, if you count last year’s abortive attempt - appointment with Wu Yifan. Minseok doesn’t really count that one though; would rather put it out of his head entirely. He’s ready to do all he can to prove he’s doing his best to Jangmi, but some things are more difficult than others, and the ghost of the flashback haunts him. He rubs his hands on his jeans, a little irritated at himself, before he grabs the door handle. He shouldn’t still be nervous at his third session. He’s not used to it. He’s used to being able to handle anything and everything the ED can throw at him on its most chaotic and crazy weekend nights, multiple traumas and noise and shouting and bright lights and people everywhere, but here, in this quiet old building on a Tuesday morning, surrounded by muted colours and calming decor, he feels like he’s swimming out of his depth, constantly at risk of his head going under.

Yifan has been accommodating so far, telling Minseok on his first session back that he’d rather Minseok kept coming and didn’t drop out of therapy than push him to discuss something he wasn’t ready for yet, even if it ended up taking more time. They’d used the first session just to build rapport and trust between them, and the second to discuss some initial techniques to address the worst effects of his work addiction, but at the end of last week’s session Yifan had mentioned that he’d like to talk more next time about what makes Minseok need to work so much, and Minseok knows that he’s not going to get away with easy sessions much longer. That’s what has his hands sweating today, leaving smudges on the polished gold handle despite his attempts to dry his palms.

On his previous appointments, when Minseok has arrived, the waiting room has been empty except for the receptionist, who, despite her cool demeanour, remembered Minseok’s name without being prompted when he came back several months after his first, failed session. Today, though, when he walks in there are two tall men leaning on the dark wood of the reception bench, both laughing about something, and the receptionist is laughing too, her stern face transformed. Minseok immediately recognizes one of the men as Yifan, sleek and loose-limbed in slim-fit suit pants, white shirt and grey silk waistcoat. The other man is nearly as tall as Yifan and just as handsome, though in a perhaps less intimidating way; his face is open and friendly, brown hair a little messy, wire-framed circular glasses perched on his nose, and he’s dressed just as stylishly as Yifan. Coupled with the rich antique surroundings, Minseok feels like he’s just walked into a men’s fashion photoshoot.

“Minseok,” Yifan notices him enter and turns to him with the boyish grin that takes every scrap of intimidation from his face. “Good to see you. Have you met my partner, Ryu Changwook?”

Minseok recalls the name of the other psychologist from the door plate as the open-faced man smiles and holds out his hand to shake. Minseok quickly rubs his hand on his jeans again before taking Changwook’s with a faintly embarrassed smile. After a few pleasantries are exchanged Changwook disappears into his own office and Yifan beckons Minseok through.

“How are you today?” Yifan asks when they’re seated, adjacent to each other as usual, without the barrier of a desk.

“Fine, thanks,” Minseok replies automatically, then grimaces a little as Yifan just looks at him. He’s learning that his therapy sessions are one place he should try not to hide behind politeness. “A bit nervous, I guess.”

Yifan tilts his head, again saying nothing. Minseok hasn’t worked out yet if this is a therapy technique, to say so little, or if Yifan just isn’t much of a talker. It made him feel awkward at first, he’s not used to filling silence, but he has to remember that these sessions are for his own good, and he has to make an effort. “It’s what you said at the end of our last session, about talking a bit more about why I work so much, rather than just working on mitigating the effects of the work addiction.”

“It made you apprehensive about today’s session?”

“Yeah." Minseok rubs his hands on his jeans again. “I guess that means something, huh?”

Yifan gives him a quick smile. “But you came to the session even though you were apprehensive. That’s a really positive step, Minseok.”

Minseok blinks. Yifan is right. In the past he would have rescheduled himself on a shift to get out of something he didn’t want to do, called to say he couldn’t make it, or even just not turned up without communicating at all. This time, he actually rescheduled himself off a shift to be able to come to therapy.

“I know it's important that I come, even when I don’t want to,” he says. “Even when I’m…” he doesn’t want to say scared. “Nayoung and Eunbi are worth it.”

Yifan nods. Minseok told him this when he came back for his first session, that he needs to keep coming to keep joint custody of his daughters.

“When you came here for the first time last year, we began to talk about the reason for the divorce,” Yifan says. “Do you remember what happened when we tried to talk about that?”

Minseok wishes he didn’t. “Yeah. I was pretty rude, walking out on you like that,” he says. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yifan smiles. “People have done far worse, believe me. But going back to that, between me asking about what happened and you walking out, were you aware that you sat completely still for nearly ten minutes without responding to me saying your name?”

Ten minutes? Minseok bites his lip. “I didn’t realise it was that long.”

“Do you remember what was going through your mind during that time?”

“Yes,” Minseok says. “It was a flashback. I don’t want to think about it, though. I’m worried I’ll go off again.”

“You’re in a safe place,” Yifan says. “You don’t need to be hypervigilant here. If you re-experience - if you have another flashback, nothing bad will happen.”

Minseok realises then that he’s stiff and tense in the chair, his eyes darting around the room, almost as if he’s in the ED at its busiest time and having to be aware of twenty different cases at once. He forces his hands to relax, rolls his neck. It cracks.

“Are you more worried about losing touch with reality, or about what you feel when you re-experience?”

“I don’t know. Both, I guess. I can’t lose touch in my profession. Even a second of inattention could mean disaster for an emergency patient. That’s why I never let myself think about it. After - after that session, that flashback, a couple of weeks after, I got this one patient, and I had another flashback. It was just for a second that time, but it was so powerful, like being hit by a sledgehammer. That hasn’t happened to me for over five years, not even with other patients that are similar. I’m worried that if it happens again, I’ll make a mistake at work.”

“Minseok, are you aware that re-experiencing is one of the most indicative signs of post-traumatic stress disorder?” Yifan asks.

Minseok nods slowly. “Yes,” he says quietly. “I am aware of that. It’s,” he smiles a little ashamedly, his eyes sliding away from Yifan’s. “It’s another thing I don’t really let myself think about.”

“There’s a well-documented paradoxical effect in post-traumatic stress,” Yifan says, “that avoidance and numbing can maintain, or even increase, PTSD symptoms. That’s part of the reason why symptoms can persist for so many years after the traumatic incident. It’s been at least five years, you mentioned?”

“Seven, now,” Minseok says. “The thing that caused it - the divorce, I mean - it was seven years ago.” His hands have clenched again. He flattens them onto his thighs, damp against his jeans. “So you think I have PTSD?” He tries to say it calmly, like the medical professional he is. Like it isn’t making his heart bang hard against his ribs.

“Yes,” Yifan says, “I think it’s very likely you have high-functioning PTSD. The work addiction is your way of coping with the symptoms, which helps you function in day-to-day life. As you’ve discovered, this coping mechanism is affecting your personal and family life, your relationships with your ex-wife and your daughters, and it’s now also causing you extra stress as you worry a flashback will affect you at work. That’s why we need to address the cause of the work addiction, the trauma that’s causing the PTSD symptoms, so that you don’t need the coping mechanism any more.”

“Makes sense,” Minseok says. He tries to smile. It doesn’t quite work. “It’s like how we don’t give analgesia to patients when they come into the ED. We need to monitor their symptoms to find the cause so we can treat it, not just mask it with painkillers. I guess my work addiction is my analgesia.”

“That’s a good analogy,” Yifan says. “How about we try it this way. Could you tell me about the traumatic incident as if you were reporting it as something that happened to someone else? That will give me an idea of what I’m looking at as well as letting you practice talking about it with potentially less emotional involvement. Then, if we get through that okay, I’ll get you to try retelling it as it happened to you, either today or at a future session. How does that sound?”

Minseok nods. “I’ll try. It was a medical case, so I could imagine it as a report I had to make.”

“Tell me as if you were reporting it to a senior staff member, then,” Yifan says.

Minseok talks through the incident. He speaks quickly, tries not to let himself think about what he’s saying or feel it, and the words come out almost robotically. When he’s done, he snaps his mouth shut and presses both hands hard into his eyes.

“What are you feeling?” Yifan asks.

“Nothing.” Minseok watches fireworks explode behind his eyelids.

“Nothing at all?”

Minseok is lying, and he knows Yifan knows. “It’s hard to put into words.”

“What part of what you just told me is the most difficult?”

“All of it,” Minseok says. He stops digging his hands into his eyes and blinks them open, letting the imprints on his retinas fade away. “The whole thing is just awful.”

“What’s the worst of it, though? The worst moment?”

“I guess when I saw Ilsung.”

“Can you explain to me what he looked like when you saw him?”

“He was lying on the floor on his back. The plastic bag was tight over his face. His mouth was open beneath the plastic and it had onto his face as he tried to breathe.”

“What are you feeling right now?”

Minseok shudders. “I feel sick, nauseous. Why didn’t I watch him? Why didn’t I know? I basically killed him.”

“Continue to feel those emotions. Don’t run away from them. Anything else that you’re feeling?”

“Angry at myself, and guilty.”

“Were you feeling angry and guilty at the time?”

“No. I was horrified.”

“Okay, let’s stay with that feeling.”

Minseok’s hands are back against his eyes, grinding in. “I don’t want to feel this any more.”

“I know you don’t. You’re doing a great job of not avoiding your feelings here. Let them run their course. They’ll decrease if you stay with them.”

Minseok does as he’s told. It’s horrible, but he keeps the feeling with him, and after a period of time that seems endless, it does eventually begin to fade a little, become less extreme and all-encompassing. After a while Yifan speaks again, asking him to talk about the divorce, and it’s such a relief to think about something else that Minseok finds it easy to explain, and they discuss it until the session is nearly over.

“What you did today was one of the hardest steps of your therapy,” Yifan tells him. “You did really well getting through that. We’ll still need to work some more on it, but it will get easier from here.”

“Thank for that,” Minseok says wearily, and Yifan grins. He walks Minseok out to the waiting room this time, going over to the water cooler and filling him a plastic cup, handing it to him without comment. Minseok drinks the cold water and it’s more refreshing than he’d expected. Just as he’s about to leave his phone rings. It’s the ED wanting a consult on a trauma case, and Minseok idly watches Yifan leave the waiting room as he tells the resident he’ll be back in twenty minutes. Instead of going into his own office, Yifan enters Changwook’s office, closing the door behind him.

On the way back to the hospital, the music station Minseok is listening to interrupts a song half-way through to issue an emergency bulletin. There’s been a shooting in another part of the city with multiple reported casualties, and the announcer relays the police cordon locations and asks civilians in the area to stay indoors until further notice. Minseok listens tensely until he hears that it’s nowhere near Nayoung and Eunbi’s school or Jangmi’s workplace. There are several closer hospitals than Hangang, so he doubts his ED will see any of the victims, but if the other hospitals are swamped, other patients may be redirected to his hospital. He needs to get back and make sure everything’s running well.

He shrugs quickly back into his white coat in his office and heads to the nursing station to discuss the situation with the head nurse. As he’d thought, none of the shooting victims are being sent to Hangang, but Aecha tells him that the smaller of the two hospitals is redirecting non-urgent patients to them, and within half an hour they’re close to capacity. Minseok sinks into the bustle and the next few hours fly by. This is the way he likes it, busy enough that he can’t think of anything else, though he’d never wish it to happen because of something so terrible as a shooting.

He finishes reducing a shoulder dislocation with little trouble and is going back to grab the next chart when Aecha catches him on his way past the nursing station.

“You’ve been on the go for four hours, Dr. Kim,” she says cheerfully. “Time for a break.” Minseok holds back a sigh and nods.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’ll take fifteen.” One of the things Yifan had suggested in an earlier session was to ask his staff to remind him to take regular breaks and to finish his shifts on time. Minseok asked his head nurse to do this, and Aecha has taken the request to heart. Minseok appreciates her diligence, he supposes, even though he hates to break the flow. He glances at his watch and finds that it’s half past five already. Did he eat lunch? No, he remembers, he got distracted by checking on the shooting, so he heads towards the cafeteria with the aim of grabbing a quick sandwich. He won’t be finished till eleven tonight and it’s only going to get busier in the evening. He might not get another chance to eat.

He probably shouldn’t have allowed himself to glance into the waiting room as he passed. It was an automatic habit, but when he does, thoughts of his sandwich are immediately driven from his mind, because he recognises the two people standing at the reception. Or, one of them is standing, peering through wire-framed glasses as he fills in the registration paperwork. The other is more draped, leaning floppily on the reception desk as he holds a bloody towel to his forehead, face grey. Minseok pauses for a split second as the unexpectedness of seeing Yifan and his colleague here in the ED makes him doubt his eyes, but there’s no mistaking them. It would seem Yifan has had an accident. Minseok starts to walk over, but he’s only taken a few steps when the triage nurse reaches for the towel and takes it from Yifan’s head, probably wanting to check the head wound beneath it. Yifan’s eyes go to the blood-stained towel in her hand, then roll back into his head, legs giving way as he collapses. Minseok lunges for him at the same time as Changwook and the triage nurse, and between them they manage to catch him before he hits the floor.

“There he goes again,” Changwook says, rather long-sufferingly, both arms wrapped around Yifan’s torso. Minseok glances up at Aecha as she tells him trauma bay 3 is free, and between them he and Changwook carry Yifan over and get him onto the bed, where Minseok starts to check his vital signs. Changwook is hovering on the other side of the bed. Minseok notices there’s a bloodstain on the shoulder and sleeve of his expensive shirt. “Are you hurt?”

Changwook looks confused, then follows Minseok’s eyes to glance at the stain. “Oh, no, that’s Yifan’s blood. He dripped on me when I was carrying him to the car.”

“What happened?”

“He cut his finger in the kitchen and passed out when he saw the blood. Went down like a stone,” Changwook says. “I was across the room and couldn’t catch him in time, and he hit the counter on the way down. Took a pretty good chunk out of his forehead.”

Minseok remembers Kyungsoo telling him about this tendency of Yifan’s. No wonder the poor guy had switched from medicine to psychology. He leans forward to examine the gash at Yifan’s hairline, which has started to bleed again on removal of the towel. It’s a couple of inches long and has gone right down to the bone. It needs stitches. He presses the gauze pad a nurse hands him over the cut and tapes it down as a temporary measure. “How long was he unconscious?”

“Around six, seven minutes, I’d say. I thought he’d knocked himself out, because the other times he’s done this he always woke up in under a minute.” He shakes his head at the unconscious man on the bed. His face displays more worry than is evident in his voice. “He’s going to be so embarrassed when he realises he passed out again.”

“Well, passing out in the waiting room is a pretty good way of getting yourself to the top of the list,” Minseok tells him with a slight smile. From what he’s heard and witnessed, he’s pretty sure Yifan fainted again on seeing the blood on the towel rather than due to any worsening brain injury, but being out for six minutes is longer than normal for vasovagal syncope, so he decides to get a CT head just in case. He’s about to make the call when Yifan blinks his eyes open and stares up at the ceiling.

“Welcome back,” Minseok says, smiling a little.

Yifan’s eyes land on Minseok and focus. Then he shuts his eyes again and says, “.”

“Yifan,” Changwook scolds, suppressed laughter in his voice. “Be nice.”

Minseok can’t help grinning at the reaction. He takes out his torch to check his pupils. “Yifan, do you know where you are?”

“Considering you’re here, Hangang emergency department,” Yifan says. His voice is weak and a little slurred. He rolls his head to look at Changwook pitifully. “Why’d you have to bring me to Hangang? This is so humiliating.” There’s almost a whine in his tone.

“Do you remember what happened, Yifan?” Minseok asks.

“One moment I was chopping vegetables and the next I was on the kitchen floor with this clown kneeling over me,” Yifan says, gesturing vaguely at Changwook. His voice is getting stronger. “I assume I managed to see something when I got here and went down again.” He sighs. “You should just blindfold me while I’m here.”

“How do you feel at the moment?”

“Sick. Shaky. It’ll pass with the vasovagal response,” Yifan says. “I know how this works. Fix my head up and I’ll get out of your hair and let you deal with some real patients.”

“I’m going to send you to radiology for a CT scan,” Minseok tells him. “According to Changwook you were unconscious for six minutes, and I’d like to rule out any brain injury.”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Yifan starts to protest, but Minseok just smiles at him.

“This is my ED, you’re the patient now,” he says. “Besides, I can’t let Kyungsoo up in radiology miss out on the opportunity of looking after you.”

Yifan groans loudly, covering his face with one hand. “Spare me,” he mumbles. Changwook takes the hand from his face and interlaces their fingers, and Yifan looks at him for a few moments. They don’t say anything, but something in their locked gazes suddenly makes Minseok feel like he’s intruding on something private.

“Do as the doctor says,” Changwook says gently, and Minseok busies himself calling radiology to get the CT scan.

When Yifan gets back from radiology, CT scan clear, it’s with a small, dark-eyed radiologist pushing his wheelchair. Kyungsoo’s face is impassive as usual as he deposits Yifan in an examination room to get stitched up. He leans against the wall, arms folded, and watches Minseok irrigate Yifan’s wound and prepare a suture kit without speaking. Minseok would usually give simple suturing jobs like this to a junior resident or one of his specialist trauma nurses, but Yifan is his psychologist and Kyungsoo’s friend, and he wants to do the job himself.

“You going to hang out here?” he asks Kyungsoo.

“My shift is over. I thought I’d come and enjoy the show,” Kyungsoo says, raising an amused eyebrow at Yifan, who scowls at him.

“You doctor types are so weird. How is watching my head get sewn back together enjoyable?”

“That’s not the part I’m here for,” Kyungsoo tells him, deadpan. “I want to watch you squirm.”

“You ,” Yifan grumbles. “Where’s Changwook? I only want friends who are nice to me.”

“You might want to close your eyes,” Minseok tells Yifan as he readies the toothed forceps and suturing scissors. “It’d be preferable if you didn’t lose consciousness again.”

“I’ll only black out if I actually see blood,” Yifan says, but closes his eyes anyway.

“His friend is in the waiting room. His name is Ryu Changwook,” Minseok tells Kyungsoo as he starts to suture, and Kyungsoo disappears, returning a minute later with the tall psychologist in tow. Changwook comes over and sits on the chair beside the bed, taking one of Yifan’s hands again. Kyungsoo stands over Minseok’s shoulder and offers “helpful” comments on Minseok’s suturing, mostly along the lines of “no, Minseok, don’t put that there - oh well, too late now” and “well that's torn it, now we’ll have to amputate, but you can manage without your head, right Yifan?” Minseok snickers to himself, enjoying the banter, and Yifan’s face, which had gone ashen again despite his words when Minseok approached with the suture kit, regains a little colour as he’s distracted by shooting back retorts. He dresses the closed wound, then cleans the blood from where it’s dried down Yifan’s face and neck, making sure he gets every bit of it. The last thing they need is him going down a third time.

“Okay, we’re all done,” he tells him, and Yifan opens his eyes and thanks him.

“Do you want to grab dinner?” Kyungsoo asks. “The cafeteria here isn’t too bad.” Changwook and Yifan agree, and Kyungsoo turns to Minseok. “You too,” he says, shaking his head when Minseok opens his mouth to protest that he doesn’t have time now that the evening rush has begun. “You have that hypoglycaemic look again.”

“It was too busy with the redirected patients from the shooting to eat lunch,” Minseok explains, then shoots a guilty look at Yifan. Yifan doesn’t say anything, though, which Minseok is grateful for. He appreciates the other man keeping his therapy