"Stop!" Joohyun barks. "Please. You'll have it before noon tomorrow. I swear. Please stop hurting her." She pleads, begging for mercy. Her heart aches seeing the pain and fear in Seulgi's face.

He stops and points the knife to Joohyun. "This is your last warning, Dr. Bae. I'm running out of patience. One more stupid and I'll kill her for real." He threatens. "But I won't kill you, I'll let you watch and live with the guilt for the rest of your life."

Joohyun has lost the ability to speak. She nods and gasps for breath.

"Tomorrow. At noon, Dr. Bae. Every ten minutes that you're late, I'll cut an inch more of her ear."

She nods, again and again.

"Now, I need you to pass the gun to me. Use your foot. Carefully." He commands and Joohyun does as told. She notices that her foot is shaking. In fact her whole body is.

When the weapon is finally within reach, he gestures for Joohyun to move back and grabs the gun. Throwing the knife away, he pushes Seulgi toward Joohyun. "Here, take care of your girlfriend."

Joohyun quickly approaches Seulgi, wanting to distance her from the madman as far as possible. She is surprised when the blonde yells at her.

"Don't touch me!" Seulgi swats her hand away, visibly upset. Her left hand is cupping her ear and the fact that her hair is up in a bun makes it look even more severe with the red blood trickling down directly on her milky skin. 

"Seul.."

"I said get away from me! You're just gonna get me killed before midnight." She spats. "Why don't you take that knife and just ing stab me, Hyun? Just do me a favour and end my misery right now, would you? I seriously don't feel like being tortured until morning because of your stupidity!"

Seulgi's words cut her deep, but she shakes her head and tries to focus on the more pressing issue. "Seul, you can yell at me later but let me check your ear first!" Her voice unconsciously grows louder as she struggles preventing Seulgi from squirming away, grabbing her by the shoulders tightly.

The next thing she knows, she gets a punch in the stomach. It wasn't that hard, but it still hurts nevertheless.  Even the man does a double take on them, but he keeps his mouth shut and only observes them from a distance. 

"I'm bleeding because of you. You don't get to yell at me you ing !"

Joohyun winces, not used to Seulgi cursing at her. "I know. I'm sorry. But please.. we need to clean you up first." 

After a little struggle, Seulgi gives up in the end. Joohyun is a doctor after all, so it's probably wise to let her examine and try to fix it. She doesn't want to lose her left ear, or any ear for that matter. 

Because of the smeared blood, Joohyun can't determine how deep the cut was, but she sees that the man has chosen to cut her on the pointer part of her helix instead of the inner part that directly connects her ear to her head, which is a good thing because there are bigger chance of her nerves getting damaged if she was cut there.

She turns to the man and asks if they could go to the bathroom inside their bedroom because the first aid kit is in there. He goes with them, checking if there's any window they could use to escape. There is none. He then asks for their phones. Seulgi points to the nightstand where her phone is charging while Joohyun tells him that hers is somewhere outside. The man pats them down to make sure they don't have anything on their persons.

Joohyun shuts the bathroom door in reflex once he left but he shouts at her to open it up. She does and sees the man walking out of the bathroom, leaving them alone. She gets to work immediately, getting a clean cloth and using it to apply pressure on Seulgi's ear to stop the bleeding.

"How bad is it?" Seulgi asks weakly.

"We need to clean it first before I get to see the wound clearly. But he wasn't really trying to cut it off, he made a cut over here." She explains, touching Seulgi's right ear to let her know the position of the cut. Her hand then Seulgi's arm softly. "Seul, I'm so sorry."

"How could you?" Seulgi glares at her. "Do you value your resident's career more than my life?"

"Of course not, you know that's not true."

"Who is she to you?" She starts asking accusingly. "Why are you so desperate in saving her? Did you her in the on-call room?"

"No, Seulgi." Joohyun denies, honestly surprised by the accusation. "What the hell. You've met her. She's a child."

"That's right. I've met her and I know she's not a child. She's a grown adult. A rather attractive one if I may add." Seulgi points out. She has seen Dr. Kim at least twice at the hospital when she went there to pick the Joohyun up.

Joohyun turns Seulgi's head to her gently, careful not to inflict more pain to her already injured ear. "Seul, I've never slept with.. her. I never even think about it." There was a very short pause there, if Seulgi isn't in distress over her ear she probably would have caught it.

She wanted to say that she has never slept with anyone at the hospital but that's not technically true. Many years ago when they just started going out, she regularly slept with one of her fellow residents and one attending. However, once Seulgi and her got more serious, she stopped sleeping around.

It was only a friends with benefits thing, to be clear. The surgical program was really tough, and they spent more than half of their lives slaving themselves to the hospital. They didn't go out much and there was this biological need that needed to be fulfilled. Basically everybody was sleeping with everybody. There was a huge panic once when one of them got STD. Luckily the person got it from a one night stand at a bar and it didn't spread among them or else it would have been really difficult to explain why most of the residents, and some of the attendings, were all contaminated by a ually transmitted disease. 

Seulgi studies her face to determine whether she's lying. "Don't think I don't know that you often fool around at the hospital." She grumbles.

Joohyun protests. "Fool around.. as in I'm a little playful with my colleagues, with the nurses, and even the patients. But it's all part of the job."

"Part of what job? You're a ing surgeon! Not a bartender looking for extra tips."

"It's all office politics, Seul. For the favours, only to make my job easier; to get me the best nurses, to put me on priority list for the operating rooms, the CT scan and the MRI queues and whatnot." Joohyun sighs. "You're an art dealer. You know what I'm talking about. Don't tell me you don't flirt with your clients to make them spend more." She has witnessed with her own eyes the way Seulgi operates at her workplace; the sweet talks, the blinding smile, the little touches here and there.

Seulgi could only huff, knowing well that's just how adults operating in adult world. "You weren't playful at all when we first met." She mumbles.

"What?" Joohyun asks, didn't hear clearly what she said. But the blonde ignores her.

After making sure that she's no longer bleeding, Joohyun directs Seulgi to the sink, washing her hands before helping the injured woman clean her wound. She then dries it with a towel and finally is able to take a good look at it.

Joohyun exhales in relief. "Thank God, it isn't that bad." She clamps shut immediately, knowing she has made yet another mistake. 

Seulgi gets closer to the mirror to see herself. "It still hurts! I know you cut people open everyday. I know this is not a gunshot wound or a ing chainsaw stuck on my head. It might not look like much to you but it hurts, Hyun!" She's pissed, feeling like she has been accussed of making a big fuss over a small thing. That's not fair because her ear was literally cut with a knife and there's no guarantee that she would even still have her left ear tomorrow if Joohyun s up again.

"I know. I was just.. you were bleeding quite a lot and I thought that it was even worse than this. I'm so sorry. You don't deserve any of this. I'm really, really sorry, Seul." Joohyun apologizes again.

The blonde stays quiet, ignoring her.

Joohyun sighs and moves to get the povidone-iodine from the first aid kit box from and apply the antiseptic liquid on the wound before covering it with the adhesive bandage.

Seulgi notices Joohyun keeps wiping her face with the back of her hand. It's only then that she realizes that Joohyun is crying and it surprises her because this cold-hearted surgeon doesn't cry often. The sight tugs her heart but she isn't ready to forgive just yet so she pretends that she didn't see.

Joohyun clears b