Joohyun woke up hearing the distant sound of her alarm. The night was way too short for her to rest, and she wished she could have at least two more hours of sleep. But in two hours, she would already be getting ready for her surgery. She blinked her eyes open realizing she was glued to Seulgi’s abdomen, somehow shifting through the night, lower on the bed. She was hugging the latter’s waist, pressed to her abdomen, Seulgi’s shirt all riled up.

She got up to turn off the incessant ring of the alarm before it would wake up everyone in her house. Seulgi shifted next to her and slowly opened her eyes looking at Joohyun. Her eyes were still puffy from all the crying yesterday. After they got home, Seulgi was not able to utter a single word for the rest of the night, leaving her to cry with Joohyun holding her until she fell asleep.

As much as it was frustrating for Joohyun not to know still what was on her mind she braced herself for more patience knowing it was even harder for Seulgi. Not being able to speak knowing that it was what it was that was pushing Joohyun away.

But Joohyun wanted to stay, she was willing to. For Seulgi. She was always willing to, and now she just could not bear to lose her. Because if she did they would not even be able to stay friends.

‘’I have to go to work. I’ll call you when your mother wakes up. Sooyoung starts her shift at 2pm so you’ll probably see her. You know where the food is.’’ Joohyun whispered pressing a kiss on Seulgi’s forehead. The girl just smiled. It was too early for her to speak in the morning anyways. Before Joohyun could get up, she grabbed her hand, squeezing it in hers, teary eyes looking up at her.

‘’Don’t apologize for something you can’t control, okay?’’ Joohyun asked, kissing Seulgi on the lips this time before leaving the room.

‘’I said I wouldn’t be against your relationships, but for God’s sake don’t make out in my kitchen. It’s 5 in the morning.’’ Joohyun growled entering the room. She had just finished her shower and was going to make herself some breakfast, when to her surprise, Sooyoung and Yerim were in the kitchen, their hands in very inappropriate places.

‘’Sorry Dr.Bae.’’ Yerim immediately said, bowing in 90 degrees, only making Joohyun roll her eyes.

‘’Please, you and Seulgi are way worse.’’ Sooyung scoffed, grabbing Yerim by her shirt to make her stop bowing. ‘’And don’t call her Dr. Bae outside of work!’’ She harshly whispered to her girlfriend who blushed.

‘’No we are not animals. We know how to behave.’’ Joohyun replied waiting for her water to get hot, scooping some rice into a bowl.

‘’Please, I literally caught you two doing it.’’ Sooyoung crossed her arms, and Joohyun stopped scooping the rice, slowly looking up at her and then Yerim who cowered in fear, feeling as she should not be hearing any of this. Yerim tugged Sooyoung’s little finger to get her to stop.

‘’No, you did not.’’ Joohyun denied.

‘’Joohyun, the covers weren’t hiding anything. And you and your girlfriend did not even wait until I left the house to-‘’

‘’You’re going to the pit for a week. If you want more go on keep on talking.’’ Joohyun tried to sound frightening, fighting the red appearing on her cheeks and neck. She had an inkling her sister had figured out what was going on, but honestly it was her fault for not locking her door and letting Seulgi seduce her again.

‘’You can’t do that.’’

‘’Try me.’’

‘’I’ll go to work, I’m late.’’ Yerim suddenly announced in the middle of the stare battle between the sisters.

‘’A week of pit for you if I ever hear this got out.’’ She threatened Yerim who immediately nodded her head.

Seulgi decided to wake up not much later after Joohyun had left. She was not someone who liked to laze around without nothing to do. She decided to take a shower and go to the hospital and see her mother.

At the hospital, she noticed the nurses smiling awkwardly at her. Probably because she was not a doctor anymore and they did not know how to act. It was not like she was fired, she decided it. But now she wondered if she really wanted to work at another hospital. That meant less of seeing Joohyun and her friends. And as much as she hated to admit it, the hospital was the only place she could socialize with such a busy schedule. And she doubted surgeons in other hospital would be open to befriend a mute person like her. Just the thought of finding a new nurse to be her right hand frightened her. Maybe, after all, she could retire and consecrate herself to fine arts. Or maybe go to Switzerland and focusin more on resear-

‘’I need to speak to you.’’ A voice, precisely Sunmi’s voice took her out of her reverie. She looked at Sunmi with a frown on her face, then stepped on her toes to peek inside her mother’s room which was still empty. Probably still in the wake-up room. She glanced at her watch, before getting worried and let out a sigh of relief noticing that it had only been 5 hours since the surgery had ended. Joohyun finishing it late at night.

‘’Seulgi, please.’’ Sunmi pleaded again. Seulgi pursed her lips thinking. She then motioned to , doing a slicing motion with her hand to tell Sunmi she wasn’t able to speak as of now.

‘’Just listen at least.’’ Sunmi added and Seulgi finally acquiesced. They walked in front of the attending lounge, and she noticed Seungwan and Joohyun engaged in an emotional conversation. From the corner of her eye she noticed Seungwan hugging Joohyun and a twig of jealousy pinched her heart. Because she could not have conversations with Joohyun. She could not directly apologize, she could not reassure Joohyun, nor understand her as well as she wanted to, due to the lack of conversation.

‘’I need you to call your lawyer and stop the resignation process. Please, you won’t have to do any classes.’’ Sunmi said, as sternly as she could. But Seulgi noticed the tears in her eyes, the eyebags, how heavily tired she seemed to be. She tilted her head to the side, a habit her friends, including Sunmi, picked up as asking ‘’why’’ or to press further on the subject.

‘’I don’t want to be the chief of surgery anymore. I cannot manage people. The decisions I’ve made weren’t the best. The vote will take place in three weeks. In the meantime please don’t resign, I still want to keep a place as a surgeon here. But if you don’t comeback a few investors threatened to back up. Especially big neuro companies.’’ Sunmi said. She sighed, taking out a list out of a folder giving it to Seulgi. ‘’Here’s the list of nominees for the successor. If you care about either Seungwan or Joohyun and their love for the OR, don’t vote for them.’’ Summi said and Seulgi frowned. The list was upsetting her. Because she knew it was Sunmi had to submit names, that investors had to approve. And other chiefs of surgeries. Unless the procedure had changed, but she was not aware of it. And she did not understand why Joohyun was on the list when after Seungwan’s nomination she never even once expressed an envy to become Chief of Surgery. She looked with confusion at Sunmi, who had lips pursed, awaiting a reply from Seulgi. On whether or not she would withdraw from the resignation.

But Sunmi did not get her answer as Seulgi left the office without saying a word.

Seulgi was angry. And she hated being angry. It only made her even more unable to speak, frustrating her more. She went to her mother’s room, waiting for the latter to comeback from the wakeup room, Joohyun having sent her a text that her mother was on her way.

‘’Not to be rude or anything, but have you been stress eating?’’ Joohyun asked Jennie after having completed her morning rounds. She had time to buy tea and something to grab a bite on before getting ready for surgeries.

‘’I’ve just gained weight.’’ Jennie mumbled, picking out three sugary snacks, which was weird for her, since Jennie was known to be a health freak.

‘’Have you and Jisoo talked?’’ Joohyun probed, paying for her tea and snacks, walking towards the elevator next to Jennie.

‘’She’s been sending me flowers and wanting me to get back with her.’’

‘’So, isn’t it good? Isn’t this what you wanted for her to change? Jennie you two are the most in love people I’ve known.’’ Joohyun probed. She honestly didn’t quite understand Jennie now. Jisoo has been doing everything to show that she was changing, that she loved Jennie.

‘’It is…’’ Jennie started, biting one of her nails. Joohyun raised her eyebrows at her, awaiting a further explanation.

‘’How…’’ Jennie started, with a faltering voice. ‘’How do I tell the love of my life that I’ve been screwing the radiologist for four months and that I’m three months pregnant now?’’ She announced, so fast that she was almost rapping but Joohyun understood the most of it. opened, unable to say anything. Well, how could she even reply to a cheating confession, basically. She never thought Jennie would even be able to hurt Jisoo in that way.

‘’Look me in the eyes and repeat to me what you’ve done.’’ A third voice chimed in from behind them and Joohyun’s eyes widened, recognizing Jisoo.

‘’Jisoo…’’ Jennie started with a teary voice.

‘’Don’t. Don’t talk to me ever again.’’ Jisoo gritted through her teeth and walked away. Jennie was about to run after her when Joohyun grabbed her arm.

‘’Not now, let her breathe.’’

Joohyun was in the cardiology office going through the scans and patient files, trying to segregate and do some cleaning. Since there were a lot of patients and nurses were extremely busy, they had more troubles with the files. So, since she did not have any surgeries left for today, she decided to clean up, delegating her responsibilities to her resident.

Seungwan was in the same room as her, but they were not talking. Although they cleared things up, Joohyun did not feel too enthusiastic about spending time with the other woman. Especially since she butted in and judged her for her relationship with Seulgi.

It did actually hurt Joohyun that Seungwan related their relationship to that she had with an ex, more specifically an ex-fiancée who happened to be one of Seugnwan’s close friends in the past. Their relationship was toxic and tumultuous, so she did not speak of it to anyone, keeping it secret. Except from her sister and Seungwan. The breakup did not go well, thus Seungwan thinking that Joohyun had hurt the man.

Joohyun just let it be that way, wanting to put everything past her, not having the mental energy to explain her stance. It still hurt her when Seungwan brought it up to her current relationship with Seulgi, two years after her previous breakup.

‘’We need to redo a crash course on internal sutures, my last surgery the resident butchered it.’’ Seungwan said looking at a surgery file.

‘’They all run to be egocentric maniacs in neuro.’’ Joohyun said without much thoughts.

‘’They’re not all like that.’’ Seungwan said, clicking her tongue.

‘’No. But Ha is the biggest maniac. Such a shame he’s head of the department.’’

‘’Do you have any complaints about the chief of cardiology?’’ Seungwan asked with a light tone, teasing Joohyun.

‘’Yeah, she’s a bit of a sometimes. Too much lately.’’ Joohyun chirped back, a smirk on her face.

‘’Well, sometimes you just have to.’’

‘’I’ve been thinking on doing rounds in rural hospitals. They need more cardiologists than here. Did you notice the people coming in for cardiological problems is less and less while neuro is going up?’’ Joohyun changed subject, not wanting for it to end up in a fight like last time.

‘’People trust cities hospitals to get their skulls opened.’’

‘’Yes, and they’re too tired or scared to come here with a weak heart. You’d think Sunmi would agree?’’

‘’Honestly, that’s a good PR move, but you would not even have free time for yourself.’’ Seungwan warned.

‘’This week I’ve had surgery every other day.’’ Joohyun complained.

‘’Yes, but next week you have at least 2 surgeries a day if not three. How do you want to manage going to lost towns across Korea?’’

‘’I mean we can schedule it so it’s when I have no surgeries.’’

‘’Joohyun, who is going to take care of your patients here? Even if there are no surgeries, we are not enough in cardio to just do the postop care like this. The nurses are overworked.’’ Seungwan steadied her tone and Joohyun pursed her lips.

‘’I’ll think this through.’’ Joohyun settled on going back to managing her files.

It was nearing 9pm, and it Joohyun’s shift was finally over. She walked in the direction of Seulgi’s mother room all the while cleaning her pager of notifications. She ran a hand through her hair, putting her pager in the pocket and smiling at the nurse from the floor desk who did not return the smile. Joohyun rolled her eyes and entered the room, seeing Jisoo lying on Seulgi’s lap, Seulgi’s mother fondly watching them.

‘’Hello,’’ Joohyun announced entering the room, Seulgi returned the smile, same for her mother and Jisoo faintly waved at her. Joohyun naturally went to the bed to check the patient’s vital and her plasters.

‘’Where’s Jennie?’’ Jisoo asked.

‘’Finishing up stitching her patients. I think there was a problem when she went to labor.’’ Joohyun replied while examining the scar on Seulgi’s mother chest.

‘’It’s looking good. Did the nurse change the plasters recently?’’

‘’Yes, yes. She kept coming in regularly to check on me. But I think she just wanted to flirt with Seulgi.’’ Seulgi’s mother joked, making her daughter turn red and Joohyun scowled before returning a friendly laughter.

‘’Of course she was. That’s what they aaaalll do.’’ Jisoo said before getting up.

‘’I’m going to leave you two, I have some talking to do with my ex-wife. Ladies,’’ Jisoo waved and left the room, Joohyun squeezing her shoulder.

‘’Oh and Seulgi,’’ Jisoo exclaimed returning to the room. ‘’Glad you’re coming back.’’ She smiled and Joohyun furrowed her brows looking at her girlfriend who sighed.

‘’How bad is the pain?’’ She opted to ask, returning to her patient.

‘’A 4 out of 10, it’s bearable my dear you don’t have to worry. You guys can go home, Seulgi is already half asleep.’’ Her mother replied and Seulgi just nodded her head, getting up and dragging Joohyun out of the room, without saying goodbye to her mother.

When they were walking in the corridor, in direction of the attending’s lounge, Seulgi grabbed Joohyun’s hand, surprising the latter.

‘’What are you doing?!’’ Joohyun exclaimed, looking with wide eyes at their hands. ‘’Seulgi, Seulgi, please I hate PDA.’’ She retracted her hand and Seulgi looked confused at her.

‘’Unless you… like it?’’ Joohyun tentatively asked and Seulgi shrugged her shoulders. They settled on walking next to each other, and Seulgi pulled out her phone opening a conversation with Sunmi, giving it to Joohyun. After a few seconds, Joohyun halted her steps.

‘’So you’re coming back to work?’’ She asked and Seulgi nodded her head. ‘’That’s… That’s amazing. I thought she did not want you back.’’ Joohyun said still confused. ‘’I mean I’m happy for you, I really am, I’m just confused.’’  She smiled and Seulgi smiled back, before leaning in and pecking Joohyun on her cheek, making the latter blush.