After a rough start of a morning trying to show the new interns the ropes, the fifth year residents gather around the nurse station adjacent to the OR board and drop off updated charts. Only Kris, the tall one who saved Joonmyun earlier, is there leaning on the desk, talking to one of the nurses.

“You mean you don’t even know who he is?” he asks the nurse and she only shakes her head before grabbing a stack of charts and walking away.

“Who?” Jongin pipes in as Kris straightens his posture and scrunches his lips to the side, deciding whether or not he should ask for boy advice from a bunch of residents. He figures it can’t hurt.

“Um, do you guys know a Zitao?” Kris carefully voices.

“Oh god, you don’t mean the guy down in the morgue, do you?” Luhan replies, clearly knowing who Zitao is. Kris realizes his decision may have actually hurt, but it’s too late to turn back now. When Kris doesn’t reply, the residents realize that’s who he was asking about and they all begin to question his feelings towards the weird forensic pathologist from downstairs.

“Kris, you should never fall for someone who cuts dead people for a living,” Jongin says, placing a hand on his shoulder.  

“You cut live people for a living,” he retorts, shaking the hand off.
 

“To save their lives, not to figure out what killed them.” Kris shuts his mouth. “The man wears black scrubs. That is an omen enough,” Jongin adds. “Also, Joo should know. She dated a guy from down there. Myungsoo, right?” Jongin adds glancing over at Joo and she rolls her eyes.

“It was only a couple dates, okay. He seemed like a decent guy. We met when I had an unknown death during surgery and he asked me out afterwards and I accepted,” she explains.

“What was wrong with him?” Kris asks.

“He only wears black, even outside the hospital, and he ate his steak rare, and, well, he was just weird.”

“So you broke up with the guy because he liked his meat a little raw?” Kris speculates.

“Jongin kept feeding me these thoughts that he was a vampire and was going to kill me if in my sleep if I ever slept with him and I got freaked out and dumped the guy.” Joo truthfully rambles and Jongin looks proud.

“You’re a doctor and you believe in vampires?”

Joo shakes her head. “Yeah, don’t listen to Jongin. Just talk go talk to him. I’m sure he’s a nice guy.”

Kris regains confidence again, but Jongin butts in again. “Okay, I’ll admit I totally just messed with Joo for fun and I didn’t think it would actually scare her, but this Zitao guy never talks to anyone and I hear he does Wushu outside of work and could actually kill you.”

“I kinda like that about him. He’s mysterious, you know?”

Jongin shrugs. “You’d probably be better off with an oncologist. Just as depressing.”

“He already did,” Luhan coughs and Jongin laughs, realizing that Kris dated an oncologist a few years back.

“Hey, at least Yixing actually talked to people,” Jongin says referring to the oncologist.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Kris waves away the topic. “C’mon, Luhan, we have an amputation to do. Find an intern you like and have him scrub in,” he says, turning on his heels.

Confused, Luhan stays in place and asks, “Wait, I’m with you? I thought I was on Taeyeon’s case.”

Kris turns back around. “Um, yeah, Joonmyun-”

“Suho!” Joonmyun interrupts from down the hall. Everyone turns their head to him and tries not to grimace at his persistence for his new name.

After sending him a weird glance, Kris repeats, “Uh, yeah, Suho…” Joonmyun hears his new name and continues down the hall, content. “He rotated all of you guys because even if you have a specified specialty, you’re still a surgical resident and are required to rotate even if it is your last year here.” He shrugs his shoulders and walks away, Luhan unwillingly following behind.

It probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if Luhan hadn’t decided to change his hair to the shade of obstetrician scrubs. Luhan declared his specialty as pediatrics, which he was learning under Taeyeon, the peds attending. The girls would definitely love his new hair color and the boys would have probably made fun of him for it, but nothing like full grown adults.

The rest of the fifth years are left in shock, wondering who their new on-call attending is.

“This is ridiculous,” another fifth year, Amber, complains leaning on the nurse station. “That amputation had my name on it and now cotton candy head’s doing it.”

Joo’s eyes widen. “Oh my god, I had a hemispherectomy to do with Jinki today. Damn it…”

 “Damn it, indeed,” Jinki, the neuro attending, echoes as he walks by shaking his head. “C’mon Jongin, you need to practice if you’re ever going to be able to fill in Joo’s shoes,” he says, not stopping to wait for him.

Jongin doesn’t seem to upset at the change. What a way to start his fifth year. “All I had were skin grafts with Heechul today. Thank you, Joonmyun!” Jongin exclaims as he follows Jinki to the elevator.

A faint “Suho!” is reverberated through the halls and it’s hard for everyone not to make a face.

Instead of an in person introduction to Joo’s next attending, she instead gets a page from Chanyeol, the oh-so-charming cardiothoracic attending, informing her to come to a patient’s room along with her four interns. She rolls her eyes at the latter and sends a page to her interns on her way there. But she’s not as disappointed in her newly assigned attending after all.

The hospital is filled with its fair share of good looking doctors, but many of them, unfortunately for Joo, swing the other way. Chanyeol’s ual orientation wasn’t really known to any of the staff since he never broadcasted who he was dating, if he was dating at all, like other doctors seemed to do. So Chanyeol was basically fair game to everyone and no one really had a problem with that.

When she walks into the room, Chanyeol isn’t there yet. He’s probably allowing the interns to have some time to examine the chart so they can present the case themselves and she only hopes that they would be faster so that she could impress the cardio attending. She sends an encouraging page to her interns (Get here faster or I’ll kill you) and smiles at the patient.

She picks up the chart at the foot of his bed and glances at his name. “Baekhyun Byun?”

The patient nods. “Yup, that’s me. Back again,” he sighs. “And you’re…?”

Joo hesitates a moment because Baekhyun’s medical history is stacked with surgeries and procedures. He was in the hospital only 5 months ago for the same tumor, and it’s back again. She goes back to the first page and looks up. “Dr. Seo,” she says smiling at him, a little half heartedly this time.

Her interns finally make it in and she sighs a little in relief. She hands one of them the chart and tells them to study it before Chanyeol gets there and to ensure that they’re able to present Baekhyun’s case well.

“Seo Joo? Kinda like the drink?” Baekhyun pipes in and Joo turns her head back to him, wondering how he knew what her name was, but she quickly realizes she has a name badge and dismisses any creepy suspicions of Baekhyun.

“Um, Joo Seo actually, but I guess if we were in Korea, then yeah, it is Seo Joo. Like the drink,” she says, a little embarrassed. Her parents did indeed think it would be funny to name her that because of the drink and she thought she escaped that embarrassment by moving to the states. Clearly that’s not the case.
 

“That’s kinda cool I guess,” he reassures, probably noticing the slight tint of pink the edges of her ears turned. “Well as long as people aren’t associating you with being an alcoholic or anything.”

At this time, Chanyeol walks in, tall, hair styled back, and lab coat perfectly pressed and wrinkle free. “Oh, Joo is totally an alcoholic. She’s at the bar down the street every time I’m there.” If Joo wasn’t blushing earlier, she definitely is now.

“If you’re there every time she’s there, doesn’t that make you just as much of an alcoholic, Dr. Park?” Ken, an intern of Joo’s chimes in and Joo’s eyes scold him behind Chanyeol’s back. But thankfully, Chanyeol laughs in response.

“Yeah, I guess.” Chanyeol turns to Joo and smiles, “Seems like your interns are just as snarky as you.”

Joo tries to keep her composure under such a smile and just shakes her head. “Okay, Ken, since you spoke up, why don’t you present?”

Ken shuffles a little on his feet before standing up a little straighter. “Baekhyun Byun. 25 years old. Here for a recurring Atrial Myxoma in the upper left atrium. Diagnosis is immediate removal in case of metastasis and blockage of the mitral valve.”

Joo’s eyebrows raise, impressed with the intern and relieved that he didn’t embarrass her in front of her second favorite attending—first favorite being Jinki, the neuro attending.

“Baekhyun’s surgery is being done pro bono-”

“Really?” Joo interrupts, wondering how she didn't catch that in his chart.

“I turned 26 this year and fell off my parents’ insurance,” Baekhyun says. “Thankfully Dr. Park likes me enough to donate a surgery.”

Chanyeol chuckles. “Since Baekhyun no longer has insurance, we need to make sure we get all of the tumor so that he doesn’t need to come back again. And hopefully he can finally be healthy enough to get a job and have his own insurance,” he says with a smile. “Get a chest x-ray, run a CT scan and an angiography and page me when it’s all done so we can prep for surgery. See you in the OR,” he says patting the edge of Baekhyun’s bed and walking out.

Hyuna, the only girl in Joo’s batch of interns, sighs, “Wow, he’s dreamy.”

“Indeed,” Joo agrees, before snapping back into reality. “But eyes off. He’s off limits. All attendings are really… Uh, anyways let’s get Baekhyun to radiology.” She turns to face him. “Are you okay with walking or should we get a wheelchair?”

“I can walk,” he says, slowly sitting up and getting on his feet. His balance shifts a little and Joo rushes beside him before he can fall.

“Kyungsoo, get a wheelchair.”

Baekhyun blushes a little before settling his bottom back down on the bed. “I’m just a little lightheaded from this presurgery diet…”

Kyungsoo rolls in a wheelchair and Joo holds Baekhyun’s arms as he settles into it, surprised at how skinny he is. Kyungsoo pushes the chair as the other three interns follow behind with Joo adjacent to Baekhyun.

“So is your family here, Baekhyun?” Joo asks.

“Um, no, I’m here alone. My parents are in Korea for a while, but I live with my two brothers here. One’s in school and one’s working, but they’ll be here before surgery if you want to meet them.”

“Well, it’s a little bit of a given to meet a patient’s family, but yes I’d love to meet them,” Joo chuckles as they enter the elevator. A floor down, the elevator doors open, and Jongin is there aggressively pushing the down button. When he realizes the elevator car is there, he looks up and meets eyes with Kyungsoo first, who blushes, and then Joo.

Joo notices the little exchange, but chooses to ignore it as Jongin walks in. She figures Kyungsoo’s probably impressed with all that is Jongin and shrugs off any other ideas. “Jinki is totally doubting my neuro skills and it’s all your fault.”

“Not my fault you clipped an aneurism wrong that one time and ruined his impression of you.”

“That was two years ago!” Jongin complains, then returns his cool, realizing one of his targets is in the elevator with him. “Whatever, you’re just bitter I stole your cool surgery.”

The elevator doors open and Jongin strides out first, leaving those in the elevator to stare at his back as he walks away with a little more strut in his step than usual.

“What was the cool surgery?” Baekhyun asks, realizing that he is the replacement.

“He gets to cut a brain in half,” Joo replies, trying not to sound too disappointed as they file out of the elevator. “Don’t worry though, your procedure will look just as good on my file since it’s pro bono,” she says trying to alleviate any negativity that Jongin easily filled the air with.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Kyungsoo randomly asks.

“Ha. No,” she quickly counters. She gets that question a lot considering how much the two like to banter.

She tries not to notice the look of relief that comes across Kyungsoo’s face when he hears her answer, but she does anyway.

 
**More Medical Jargon

Attending – a doctor who has completed residency and practices medicine in a clinic or hospital

Forensic pathology – also known as an autopsist, someone who determines cause of death by observing a corpse

Oncologist – a doctor who specializes in treating people with cancer (Yixing is a surgical oncologist)

Pediatrics – (usually abbreviated as peds—pronounced “peeds”) the branch of medical science that deals with the care of children

Skin grafts – basically skin transplants usually carried out by plastic surgeons (in this case Heechul is a plastics attending)

Cardiothoracic – specialty treating diseases affecting organs inside the thorax (the chest) including the lungs and heart

Radiology – the medical specialty that diagnoses and treats diseases using imaging technologies

Pro bono - professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service

And since this list is kinda long I left out Baekhyun’s medical stuff because it’s not really too relevant and I only want to define words that you’ll be seeing again c: 

one day I will be able to update things without having to apologize for long waits. 

today is not that day. lol

SORRY I KNOW ITS BEEN HALF A YEAR BUT I HAVE AN ONGOING FIC (NOW TWO) BUT I WILL TRY HARDER OK. 

Um, anyways I totally forgot how fun it was to write this. There are so many character roles and I just ghlshglhjalghaljsdhg its all so fun. CAN YOU GUESS WHO BAEKHYUN'S BROTHERS ARE SCREEEAAAAAMSSS yeah they're two people who are very dear to me and also look like him so wow just so many pluses

and don't worry baekhyun isnt going to die lmao