Minseok isn’t looking forward to this particular task. The door to his office is shut and the wall clock inexorably ticks the seconds into the quiet room. He’s in front of his computer, hoping to get a few emails answered, but the thought of what’s about to happen makes him restless and the words on his screen don’t really register no matter how many times he reads them over.

He looks up at the knock on his door. The HR representative gives him a quick smile as she enters. She’s here because he doesn’t want anybody to be able to claim he’s made a bad decision or that he’s been unfair. The rep sits at the small table in his office and Minseok reluctantly moves from his desk to the other chair, suddenly aware as he does so how untidy he looks. It’s not exactly out of the ordinary for Minseok, but it’s situations like this when being dressed smartly and not looking like he’s about to fly apart at the seems might lend him a little confidence. As it is, the sleeves of his doctor’s coat are rolled up and it hangs open around his navy scrubs, the ID clipped to his chest pocket has flipped around, and God knows what his hair looks like. If Kyungsoo saw him right now, he’d probably roll his eyes and threaten to hold him down and forcibly shave his head, military style.

Another knock sounds and both of them turn towards the doorway. Dr. Mae holds her head up high, as if she doesn’t know what’s about to happen, but Minseok can’t imagine that it will come as a great surprise after the warnings she's already had. He gestures towards the remaining chair around the table and Dr. Mae sits down and crosses her legs. She looks almost arrogant, and it irritates Minseok. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism, but she could at least show some humility.

“Mae Yoojung,” he starts and watches as her eyes widen a little as he drops her title. “This is not the first time we’ve talked. Last time we met, I sent you a written warning and gave you a last verbal warning. Unfortunately, things haven’t improved in the slightest. It has also come to my attention that pain medication has gone missing from the medicine room. We have you on the CCTV footage stealing NSAIDs. I’m terminating your contract effective immediately,” he says and looks towards the HR representative who is writing notes onto her notepad. Dr. Mae keeps awkwardly quiet.

“I’m fired?” she asks after a few seconds. Minseok nods and folds his hands in his lap.

“I won’t tolerate medical negligence and theft in my department.” He feels relieved now that the words have been said out loud. It's his job as chief of his department to make sure the practiced medicine is up to his standards and to educate willing and good doctors. He's given Dr. Mae many chances to change and improve, but with the medication theft, which she could actually be criminally charged with if they decided to take it that far, Minseok has reached the limit. So far it was only NSAIDs that had been taken, cheap and available over the counter, but he's well aware of the theft statistics of stronger, addictive drugs such as opioids by hospital staff, and it's a slippery slope once started. All things considered, he's relieved Dr. Mae is still a resident and won't be able to practice medicine independently. If she wants to continue with medicine, she'll have to apply for and be accepted into another university hospital's residency programme.

“You'll still be paid for the next month, but I don't want you to show up to work from today on," he tells her. "Please use the rest of the day to empty out your closet and your desk space with your personal belongings. If you need help moving anything, you can ask an orderly for help or bring someone in to help you another day."

The only sound in the office is the pen on paper. When that stops too, Minseok glances at the HR rep and she nods her approval. Dr. Mae looks down in her lap before she stands up.

“I understand.” Her voice has changed slightly. Instead of sounding arrogant, it sounds bitter. Minseok sort of understands. Being fired can’t be the most enjoyable experience, but he knows his decision is the right one. Minseok sees her out of his office, then turns back towards the rep. She smiles at him.

“Well done. I’ll make sure the paperwork is fixed within the next couple of hours,” she tells him and stands up to shake his hand. Minseok asks her to leave the door open as she leaves. The hallway is bustling and busy, but it takes some of the pressure out of the air in his silent office.

He moves back to sit in front of his computer, and again he’s staring at the list of emails without really reading them, but this time he feels better. Despite the unpleasantness of having to terminate an employee, Minseok finds that a weight has gone off his shoulders. It feels good to be decisive and assert himself. It has been a long time since he felt as confident as he does now. This time last year, he would’ve avoided the difficult situation and tried to fix everything with passive measures such as watching the medication room and observing her consultations rather than confront the problem head-on. He really must be getting better.

A new email notification pulls him back into his work. The chief of orthopaedics wants to meet with him to discuss some referral pathways from the ED to the fracture clinic. Minseok is about to accept the scheduled meeting when he’s distracted by a commotion in the hallway. He hurries to the source of the noise and finds a middle-aged man yelling at Aecha behind the triage desk. The head nurse sits tall in her chair as she calmly tries to reason with him, but she can barely get a word in edgeways.

“I want to speak to the manager!” the man shouts. Minseok clears his throat to gain his attention. The man turns towards him with fire in his eyes, but Minseok isn’t intimidated. The ED is a stressful place for most people, and he deals with anger born of fear, frustration and a myriad other situations rather often.

“I’m the chief doctor of the emergency department. What’s the problem here?” he asks. The man takes a deep breath.

“You damn lot are all incompetent as hell, is what is going on! My wife is in pain and you sent her home.” He points towards a woman sitting on a chair, holding her side as she takes breaths which look difficult and painful.

“When did you visit us?” Minseok asks, turning his attention back to the husband. The man runs a hand through his hair and glares at Minseok.

“Last Saturday when she fell and hit her chest. The doctor barely looked at her, but she can’t even breathe properly!”

Minseok looks around him again and watches the woman lean forward, trying to make breathing easier. “I understand your concern. We’ll take another look at her in just a few minutes,” he tells the husband. The husband grumbles under his breath, but goes back to his wife without any further display of anger. Minseok turns around to face Aecha and leans over the reception desk. “Can you check who cared for her when she was here last Saturday?”

Aecha looks relieved by his intervention. She taps away on her computer, then sighs deeply before she gently turns her screen a little towards him. Minseok has to stand on his tiptoes and twist his upper body over the desk to look at it. The last note in her chart reads “Trauma to upper body in fall from stairs. Rib 5 fracture. Sent home with analgesia and agrees to seek medical treatment if symptoms persist or worsen” and it was written by Dr. Mae. Minseok nearly groans aloud. He’s already fired her, but the knock-on effect of her negligence continues. He decides to see the patient himself, rather than delegate to a resident. Dr. Mae was still his staff member, and it’s the least he can do to take responsibility for this situation.

Choi Yeeun tells Minseok that she fell down a few steps last Saturday and landed on her right side, chest hitting the edge of a step directly. She has a hard time breathing and she’s sore without Minseok even touching her. When he asks her to lift her arms, her eyes tear up with pain.

“I’m going to listen to your lungs,” he tells her and asks her to her shirt. She does so slowly, but Minseok uses the time to warm up his stethoscope with his hands. It’s always uncomfortable to get an ice cold stethoscope on skin and he doesn’t want to cause more discomfort than necessary. Her right lung crinkles in a way lungs aren’t supposed to when she struggles to take a deep breath and Minseok frowns.

“Did the doctor last Saturday get an X-ray of your chest?” he asks.

“No,” Yeeun says as she redoes her buttons. “She didn’t listen to my lungs like you're doing either.” Minseok has to struggle to keep the scowl off his face, reminding himself that he won’t have to deal with this blatant negligence anymore.

“I’d like to send you for an X-ray so we can check your lungs,” he tells Yeeun. “And after that, I’d like to get a blood sample from you as well. Do you think you can find your way to the radiology department on the first floor?” Yeeun and her husband both look overwhelmed with the idea of finding their way around, so Minseok continues before they have to answer. “It’s okay, I’ll find an orderly to take you. I’ll see you when you get back.” Yeeun nods, and her husband sends Minseok a small smile. Minseok just hopes they don’t feel ignored this time around.

He leaves the room to call radiology and find a computer to write the referral. Halfway through the phone call he becomes aware that Kim Songmi is hovering. It’s obvious that she wants him for something, so he sends her a quick nod to acknowledge her presence and turns to her once he’s hung up.

“Hi, chief,” she says, and Minseok blinks. Since the Christmas party, Songmi has made it a point to address him by his first name like she said she would, and now it feels odd to hear her call him by his title. “Can I get off an hour earlier today?”

Minseok is a little taken aback, but he doesn't think Songmi would ask unless it was important. “Sure, as long was we have enough people on the floor,” he says, and Songmi nods, assuring him that she’s already checked this with Aecha. “Is anything wrong? Something I can help with?” he asks.

Songmi hesitates. “Maybe...you’re friends with Yixing, so…” she starts, then shakes her head. “No, never mind. It’s nothing to worry about. Thank you for letting me off early.” She gives him a polite smile, then leaves him to confirm with Aecha.

Minseok watches her go, wondering what she isn’t telling him. The only thing he can think of is that Yixing might still be suffering from the after-effects of his injury and the resulting string of surgeries to try and stop him rebleeding. It’s been two months now, but the haemophilia could be complicating his recovery. Songmi said it was nothing to worry about, but she wouldn’t have mentioned her husband like that for no reason, and Minseok knows he won’t be able to relax now until he’s checked on his friend. It’s too long since he last talked to Yixing anyway, maybe they can catch up for lunch or dinner. He’s about to find his phone and message his friend to that effect when his pager starts beeping and a seizing patient rolls into his department. Minseok files a mental note so he can remember later and goes to deal with the emergency.

Thirty minutes later, the seizing patient has been stabilized and Choi Yeeun and her husband return to the emergency department. Minseok looks through the X-rays and lab results and hides his internal grimace.

“You have a fractured rib, right here,” he tells Yeeun as he puts the X-ray up on the lightboard for them to look at, tapping the area where the displaced fracture of the 5th rib is blatantly obvious to him, though perhaps not to the untrained eye. Yeeun nods, but this isn’t news to her. Dr. Mae had, at least, told her she probably had a fracture. “The bone end has poked a small hole in your right lung, which caused blood to enter and slowly build up inside your lung. That’s what is making it so hard for you to breathe. The best way to treat this is to insert a tube into your lung and drain the fluid. That will make it easier for you to breathe, but it won’t take away the pain when you take deep breaths. That's from the rib fracture.”

“How long before her rib heals?” Yeeun’s husband still sounds a little angry, a little apprehensive about the competence of the ED personnel perhaps, but Minseok understands. He would be too, if someone he cared about had gotten badly injured and dismissed at the emergency department. The thought of Nayoung getting hurt during soccer and being dismissed actually makes him a little moody.

“Fractured ribs usually take six weeks to heal. During this time, it’s important that you take deep breaths to prevent pneumonia and I am happy to prescribe some stronger pain medication if needed to make that easier for you. For now, I’m going to admit you to the hospital for chest tube drainage,” he explains. Yeeun sighs, and Minseok feels bad for her as she closes her eyes. He turns his attention to writing his notes in her chart, glad once again that he’s dealt with Dr. Mae. Having things like this happen in his department, under his responsibility, is just not acceptable.

Around lunchtime he’s caught by Aecha, who reminds him yet again to take a break, get some food and talk to someone that isn't a patient. Minseok stands reluctantly in front of the nurses station as she makes fond shoo-ing motions at him, trying not to look as much like a lost child as he feels. He doesn’t want to leave the department, he wants to stay here where he's safe and comfortable. Then he remembers the mental note he made earlier after speaking to Songmi and decides to see if he can find Yixing. It might be nothing at all, but either way, it will still be nice to see his friend.

He takes the staff elevator to the ninth floor and enters the oncology ward to find Yixing just shutting his door to his office. Yixing looks startled when he sees him, before his face relaxes into his sweet, dimpled smile.

“What are you doing up here, Minseok?” he asks.

Minseok sends his friend a smile. “Want to have lunch with me?”

Yixing’s face lights up. “Are you sure you won’t be whisked away to an emergency?”

“When can I ever be sure of that? Come on, the more time we spend talking, the less chance I have of actually getting something to eat.”

Yixing laughs and pats his shoulder affectionately before he starts walking back towards the elevators. Minseok follows him. He doubts Aecha will let anything but an extreme emergency interrupt him. She’s been very persistent about the responsibility he gave her of making sure he gets his breaks. They get to the staff cafeteria on the fourteenth floor, where Yixing orders dumplings and Minseok gets a roll of kimbap.

“How are you?” he asks when they’re sitting down at a table. “It’s been a while since we last talked.” He takes a bite of his kimbap and looks up at Yixing from beneath his fringe. Yixing seems to be playing with his food instead of actually eating anything.

“Okay, I guess,” he says, and Minseok puts his food down. He knows he hasn’t been the best of friends over the past few years. It hasn’t only been his former marriage that suffered from his work addiction and the cause of it, but now that he’s finally learning in therapy how to overcome all that, he wants to extend the better person he's becoming to all of his friends too.

“Something on your mind?” he asks.

Yixing nods slowly. “There’s been a lot my mind since the accident,” he says.

“Are you having any trouble with your injury?” Minseok asks.

Yixing smiles a little, shaking his head. “No, physically I’m fine now. It just got me thinking a lot about things I hadn't really considered before."