Hey baby! I hope you’re doing well without me, even though I really miss you. Africa is amazing, you have to come visit me one day soon. I finally got to meet the cheetahs in the reservation today, the one pictured below is Ayo. He’s an absolute darling.

There’s a picture following the message. Sohee has a big smile on her face, her hair in a ponytail and her skin sun-kissed with a cheetah laying at her feet. A man stands beside her in the same beige outfit that belongs to the reservation. Jongin has reread the message so many times that he can recite it asleep but he still keeps coming back to it. The picture of her so happy has him feeling so many emotions at once, but the overwhelming one is love. He misses her so much. His own response to the message is still unread, but he knows they don’t have WiFi on the reserve and Sohee has to come into the main building and log on to a computer to send and receive messages. It could be days before she has a chance to do that.

He looks away from the phone, turns around on his chair and stares out the window. Large snowflakes softly spiral down from the grey skies and Jongin sighs. He usually likes it when the snow begins to fall, it always paints the city in a romantic light and the darkness isn’t quite so dark with all the reflective white. But this year it’s different. Last year he had Sohee by his side, giggling and smiling and joking with him. Holding hands and sharing warm cups of hot chocolate - and before that he had Sehun, fooling around, throwing snowballs at each other and allowing the child inside to shine through. This year, though, neither of them will be there to play with him in the newly fallen snow.

He tries not to let himself feel down. It’s not like he’s alone. He could always visit Taeyeon’s, play with his baby nieces and share a cup of coffee with the mother who chose him. He could also ask Chanyeol or Kyungsoo to spend time with him, but everybody seems to be so busy with other things. And besides, he’s almost 31. Maybe it's time he grew up and stopped caring about the first snow. He sighs again and turns back from the window.

His desk is awfully messy, papers spread everywhere and pens lying chaotically everywhere. A knock on his office door has Jongin fumble to grab one, just to look busy. He puts the pen to a random paper in front of him when the door opens and the orthopaedist nurse sends him a smile.

“Dr. Kim, are you busy this afternoon?” she asks and Jongin looks down to realise he has put pen lines on an article he was supposed to review for a coworker. He quickly removes the pen and shakes his head.

“I have rounds in an hour, why?” he asks.

“Dr. Kwon would like to get out of surgery this afternoon. His daughter is to have surgery at one and he’d like to be able to go to her as soon as they’re finished. Would you mind switching?” She enters his office and hands him a paper. It’s Dr. Kwon’s schedule for the afternoon. Jongin quickly lets his eyes scan the surgeries. There’s a knee replacement, an ACL repair and removal of external fixation on a tibia fracture. It’s a perfectly normal schedule without anything complex or risky. Jongin hands the paper back to the nurse.

“It’s okay, I can do the surgeries if he’ll do the rounds for me,” he says and the nurse nods.

“Of course!” She leaves him in his office and Jongin turns back around to look at the softly flowing snowflakes that show no sign of stopping. He should send a picture to Sohee. He grabs the phone and when he unlocks it, he’s still on the picture of his smiling girlfriend with a cheetah in the foreground. He sends it a smile, swipes it away and focuses his camera towards his window. The camera doesn’t pick up on the snow falling but just shows grey skies behind tall buildings across the Han River. He pouts disappointedly, gives up on getting a picture of the falling snow and instead settles back to send her a text message.

It’s snowing in Seoul today. I wish you were here with me, but I’ll drink a cup of hot chocolate for you. I love you.

He pockets his phone when he gets up and leaves his office so he can change into his scrubs. He meets the patients he’s about to operate on in the next hour and lets them know of the switch of surgeons. None of them seem bothered by the fact that they won’t be treated by Dr. Kwon. Mr. Ko is a 65-year-old plumber and he’s the first patient on the table after lunch. Jongin makes the first incision on the knee he’s about to replace and looks up at the anaesthesiologist who gives him a thumbs up. Replacing knees is one of the most standard surgeries and Jongin has done a lot of them. He knows the procedure and could do it in his sleep, but he still focuses as much as he did the first time he did one. Every knee replaced is meant to make life easier for the patient when they wake up from the anaesthesia.

Time goes by quickly as Jongin separates the muscle and tissue and files down the arthritis in Mr. Ko’s knee joint. The prosthesis is made to fit perfectly and the screws that will hold it in place are small enough to not bother the patient when he walks. It doesn’t take more than an hour and a half before he starts suturing the skin back up. It will take a day before the physiotherapist can start his work with Mr. Ko, but Jongin is sure he will be walking around sooner rather than later.

He has just removed the cap over his hair when the pager in his pocket starts beeping. He pulls it out and stares at the text for a few seconds before he really registers what it’s saying. It’s a trauma alert asking for an orthopaedic consult based on trauma mechanism. He lets go of the cap and it falls to the floor. It’s left on the floor as Jongin leaves the scrub area in his blue scrubs.

Trauma bay one is full of people when he arrives. The first year orthopaedic resident stands in the corner. He looks a little overwhelmed as an emergency resident relays rapid-fire information to him. Jongin sees the ortho resident’s eyes glaze over and he quickens his steps, trying to catch his younger colleague’s eye. He remembers the first time he was the first to attend a trauma without backup. It had been a terrifying experience, feeling like he didn’t know anything useful.

When they get eye contact, the resident looks like Jongin is here to save him from drowning and it makes the ED resident refocus on him with squinted eyes. Minseok detaches himself from the small crowd of staff busily working around the bed and smiles at him.

“Orthopaedic fellow reporting to the trauma bay,” Jongin tells Minseok and the other doctor snorts.

“Welcome to the trauma bay,” Minseok says with a hint of laughter before he turns serious and points towards the large screen with information of the incoming trauma.

“Suicide attempt,” Minseok says and turns serious again. “Jumped from the second floor, landed on both feet. Fractures on both legs, suspected pelvic fracture as well. Hemodynamically stable, no major head trauma and has been conscious all the time.” Jongin nods. It sounds like he will have to reschedule the ACL repair and the removal of external fixation. The patient is wheeled in shortly thereafter complaining of pain. There are tears streaming from her eyes and she’s placed in a vacuum mattress to take pressure off of the fractures in her legs. Jongin quickly lets his eyes run over the bloodied legs as he steps back and lets Minseok and the rest of his team stabilize her breathing. It doesn’t take long for them before Minseok turns to look over his shoulder to send Jongin a quick nod.

Jongin assesses the damage to her legs. There are open fractures of both tibia and fibula on the left leg and there’s a dislocated ankle fracture on the right based on the way her right foot points. He waves his resident over and directs him to make sure there is continuous blood flow while he examines the rest of the patient. She’s crying from pain as Jongin makes her way up her legs. There’s damage to the knee joint as well, likely a patellar fracture on the left and when he makes it to her pelvis, he immediately notices something that isn’t right.

He puts both hands on either side of her pelvis and gently shakes it. It feels unstable beneath his hands, rattling in places it’s not supposed to rattle and he looks up at Minseok just as the patient quiets down unexpectedly.

“Pelvic binder,” he says just before the anaesthesiologist shouts out a dropping blood pressure. Jongin holds back the curse that wants to fall from his lips and loudly repeats his request for a pelvic binder. Her dropping blood pressure can only be caused by the unstable pelvic under his hands. She’s bleeding into her pelvis.

“Do you need a CT scan?” Minseok asks from his left and Jongin shakes his head and grabs the binder he’s handed by the nurse.

“No time.” He grits his teeth and pulls the strings on the binder taut around her pelvis, stabilizing her pelvis. “Get her to the closest OR or she’ll bleed out before the CT scan finishes.” He steps back as the anaesthesiologist starts tubing the patient and he sighs. So much for a relaxed day in the OR.

“I’ll go ahead and prepare,” he tells Minseok before he pulls off his gloves and leaves the trauma bay. The patient arrives at the OR ten minutes later, blood pressure still low with a large bag of saline and two bags of blood flowing into her.

Her hip bone has smashed her pelvis into a lot of small pieces. Her blood spills onto the OR floor as Jongin opens her, but the team of anaesthesiologist and nurses do a terrific job of keeping her blood pressure up while he sutures the vein back together, effectively stopping the blood loss. The repair of the bone will take a lot longer.

In the hours he’s bent over her legs and pelvis, he puts in a large plate to hold the pelvic bones in place, he replaces her broken hip and repairs the tibia and fibula fractures with plates and screws. The ankle is fixed with two plates, screws and a strip of wire to hold it all together in place. Every wound is then irrigated to wash out bacteria. The job he’s done on her legs doesn’t guarantee survival with the amount of blood she’s lost and she will likely need a CT scan when her blood pressure stabilizes a bit to make sure there’s no intracranial injuries that will hinder recovery - and then there’s the recovery from the mental health issue that drove her to the decision in the first place.

Jongin sighs again when he once again pulls off the cap from his hair, this time frazzled and sticking out everywhere. He has just washed his hands and pulled off his mask as he looks up to stare at his reflection in his mirror. He might have saved her legs, but her recovery will be long and hard.

He goes to the wardrobe to change into a new set of scrubs. He has just pulled his soiled shirt off when his phone lights up and sings the incoming message chime where he placed it on the bench. His heart skips a beat as he reaches down to grab it.

Want to meet up for coffee? I’m in Seoul for a conference.

It isn’t Sohee. It’s Sehun. Even though he had hoped for Sohee, his disappointment is quickly replaced by happiness to hear from his best friend. He hasn’t spoken to Sehun in a week. The days have just passed by so quickly and every time he’d thought of texting, something else had robbed his attention and he’d forgotten. Jongin feels a pang of guilt. He will do better. He confirms with Sehun and they agree to meet up at the café that’s closest to the conference hall.

Jongin finishes changing his clothes and he only gets to the ACL repair before he’s off work. The patient is annoyed he has had to wait and complains all the way to the OR. It’s a relief when he’s finally put under. As his complaints fade into blessed silence, Jongin turns to his assistant nurse with comically wide eyes and she giggles, reading his mind.

It’s still snowing lightly when he leaves the hospital and it makes Jongin think of his girlfriend again. He’s glad he doesn’t have to be alone for the first snow after all. The drive to the conference hall is longer than anticipated because of traffic and he arrives to find Sehun standing on the dark pavement, shuffling his feet and huddling in on himself. Jongin laughs when he gets out of his car to greet his best friend huffing in the snow.

“Idiot, why didn’t you go inside?” he asks and Sehun huffs again, a cloud of breath misting in the air. He doesn’t let Sehun answer, puts a hand around his shoulder and drags him into the café. They order their drinks and sit down in the corner with the large plush armchairs. Sehun sheds his jacket and Jongin blinks as he notices his best friend looks skinnier than usual. That’s odd. Sehun has always been the thin type but his cheeks look hollower than they did before he moved to Busan. He might look a little paler too, but maybe that’s the cold.

“Are you okay?” he asks and Sehun looks up, looking confused. Jongin gestures to his own face. “You look skinnier. Doesn’t Mikyung feed you?”

Sehun snorts and shakes his head. “I had the flu about a month ago. I lost a couple of kilograms because I couldn’t eat a lot, but I’m on the way back to health. Mikyung cooks all the time,” he says and Jongin sends him a smile. “Also, my best friend left me standing in the cold for five whole minutes.”

This time it’s Jongin who snorts. “I asked you, why didn’t you go inside? You could’ve just gotten a table. Traffic was terrible.” He leans back against his chair and closes his eyes as he feels the soft cushions behind him. The cup of coffee warms his fingers as he holds it and he opens his eyes again to send his best friend a raised eyebrow. Sehun shrugs.

“How’s things with Sohee in Africa?” he asks instead of answering the question and Jongin softens into another smile. He puts the cup down to get out his phone, finds the picture of Sohee and Ayo and hands the phone to Sehun so he can look at it.

“Good. She’s learning so much and she’s so happy. Her smile is worth it all,” he says and Sehun whistles at the photo before he hands the phone back. The look on Sehun’s face is hard to decipher and Jongin feels the pride he’d had moments ago dim a little.

“That’s great,” Sehun says wistfully before he fixes Jongin with a gaze that says it all. Jongin sighs a little and grabs his cup of coffee in an attempt to hide the conversation that is about to follow. He’s been trying to quench the loneliness at the empty apartment. Sohee’s pillow no longer smells of her and the soft comfort of her presence is harder to find these days. It’s probably weird of him to feel lonely in an empty house when they’d never actually managed to officially live together, but in the last few months before she’d left he’d spent more time in Sohee’s house with her than in his own apartment. Sometimes it feels so empty that he has to put on the radio just for the comfort of hearing noise and voices around him.

“I miss her,” he admits after a moment of silence. Sehun nods before he softens into another smile.

“I know.” Jongin raises an eyebrow at him and the smile on Sehun’s lips changes into one of mischief.

“I spent last year away from Mikyung,” he says. “I know the misery so well, you lovesick fool.” He reaches over to punch Jongin’s shoulder and the coffee in the cup sloshes dangerously before it settles back down in the cup.

“You were worse than me with your ramen and coffee diet,” Jongin laughs and feels a mischievous smirk grow on his own face. “How is married life anyway? Still in the honeymoon phase?” He wiggles his eyebrows but Sehun doesn’t respond the way Jongin expects. Instead of smirks and jokes about how much he’s getting, he gets a best friend who’s unusually quiet.

“Anything wrong?” Jongin asks and Sehun blinks a couple of times before he looks up and shakes his head. There’s something hidden behind his eyes.

“No. Married life is great. Did I ever send you the photos from our honeymoon?” Sehun fishes out his phone and scrolls through a few photos before he hands Jongin the phone and talks him through a week in the Maldives. The atmosphere changes between them, the loneliness that seems to follow Jongin when he gets a quiet moment disappears and the sudden pensive look in Sehun’s eyes disappears and is replaced with jokes and laughter. When they leave the café and walk out into the snow, the street lights are and cast orange light onto them. Sehun walks ahead and Jongin reaches over to scrape newly fallen snow from a car. It’s a soft snowball but as he throws it onto Sehun’s shoulder it has Sehun swearing revenge and Jongin starts running, followed by his best friend, shrieks and laughter echoing behind them.

---

Joonmyun is in navy blue surgical scrubs, binocular loupes on his nose, cap and mask and gown and gloves covering almost every inch of his skin as he works on the patient positioned on his back on the operating table. The operating room is quiet save for the classical piano music playing from the stereo, the resident and surgical nurses assisting him silently handing him the equipment he asks for. There’s no steady beeping of a heart-rate monitor. It’s so quiet that even the faint hum of the extractor fans is audible.

Joonmyun’s patient is in deep hypothermic circulatory arrest, a surgical technique that involves cooling the body to around 20 degrees Celsius and sto