This diary belongs to Lee Seunghyun

Page: 4

Date: 3 June 2021

I believe that even behind the happiest face one's biggest weaknesses may be hidden behind a defensive facade, one will always find something behind, a type of unknown dark depth that hold the fragements of each person, inside each human being.

Today my shift began in the early hours of a bitterly bleak morning. There wasn't much to do, so I visited a good friend of mine (if not the only one), a doctor from the Radiology and Computerized Medical Imaging Department Dr. Sandara Park. We both met in University; first, we kind of disliked each other’s nerdiness yet we still ended up becoming the best of friends.

I told her about this new patient of mine: Kwon Jiyong, and asked her hopefully if she could help me to evaluate the amount of damage and the structure of Kwon Jiyong’s heart by performing an ultrasound exam. So I could deliberate the urgency of his case and decipher if immediate surgical intervention was needed. She stared at me with a weird look; her brown, almond-shaped eyes, staring at me with a shimmer of suspicion because of the urgency my voice strangely had, and told me while her eyes crinkled in to a smile, “If I didn’t know you, I would say you have a particular interest with this patient”.

I just smiled nervously at her trying to calm the red tint my cheeks had taken and replied with the same excuse I’m trying to convince myself with everyday: “It’s just that he is so young, that I want to be able to give him more time to enjoy life”.

She smiled genuinly, patting the back of my shoulder lovingly while replying, “You really are sometimes too gentle to be a doctor. I’ll do it.” She further said, focusing again on the images displayed by the computers in front of us.

Later today, I visited my patient from the 408 to check up on him, and I was received by a dorky smile and bright eyes staring at my own.

“How are you feeling today?” I asked him, with deep curiosity due to the way his dark eyes were holding my gaze.

“Today I met a really nice doctor, she was really, really nice” he replied eagerly. And I couldn’t help but to feel a strange burning sensation twinge inside me when I heard those words tumbling out of his mouth. But before I could begin to focus on that strange feeling, he craftily added. “She seemed to know you very well, because she told me many things about you”.

“Really? What did she tell you about me?” I asked baffled, raising one of my eyebrows and folding my arms over my chest cursing the gossiping mouth of Sandara Park inside my head.

“Basically, she told me you're too proud of yourself to accept the softness of your heart,” he answered staring at me seriously, his eyes still following mines slowly. “But I kind of disagree with her”, he declared forcefully.

I stopped writing annotations over his medical record and looked at him with real curiosity, somehow craving to know his impression of me. He seemed to acknowledge my interest because he smiled shyly and looked down, blushing before murmuring incoherantly. “I think you are the type of person that could do anything for the one he loves… you are the brave.... s-strong type of p-person.” He stammered, his cheeks going a steady shade of pink.

Why had his words provoked my heart to race in fury? Or make my hand weaken, which led to the penthat that was held between my fingers slip and fall to the floor in such a clumsy way? He just looked at me sheepishly, with a weak smile painted over his lips. And as if I were moved by a strange force I surpisingly let out a voice. “Thank you, but I think you are much braver than me.”

He sighed for the first time allowing me to spot a wash of tiredness over his pale face. “Do you have a shift tonight?” he asked.

“No, I had it last night”, I replied soflty and he nodded in silence bringing up his lower lip to bite gently as it quivered, before asking again, “Will you stay here with me tonight?” with a weak, whisper voice. My head was spinning crazily, confused, surprised and scared; with that strange feeling of being divided inside, two distinct voices fighting inside me, two uknown feelings caught in a storm.

“I g-guess...I can”, I stuttered in mental breakdown. To what he smiled and murmured a “Thank you”, before closing his eyes effortlessly.

The rest of my day went quite slow. I was just uneasy, not able to focus myself on my other patients or the meetings with the other specialist doctors, about stuff related with an important congress in November. The ticking of the clock was all I could focus on, making my heart cringe in nervousness and doubts.

After saying goodbye to my peers and checking out from the hospital, I lead myself to room 408 dressed in my favorite black leather jacket and a backpack slung over my shoulder. I opened his door, and as always I was received by his foolish grin. One of his hands was stained with black tint and was holding on the other one a bunch of paper tissues.

“I broke my pen”, he explained shrugging. To what I opened my backpack searching for one of my multiple pens and gave one to him without much thought. He thanked me and promised to give it back to me later.

“I thought you wouldn't come”, he faltered while wiping his hands.

“I have nothing else to do tonight, apart from going to sleep,” I answered sincerely, plopping down on the sofa next to his bed.

“This thing makes me dizzy and dull, I couldn’t write today” he suddenly said, pointing at the drug pouch hanging over him.

“I’m sorry” I frowned at the sight of the drops falling one by one, entering to his body. Hating the sight in front of me.

“You shouldn't, it’s just, that I was inspired today and well… I don’t like not being able to write,” he replied coughing a little between words while I observed his breathing, which seemed a little bit strained and laboured.

“I just finished one of my songs yesterday. Want to read it?” He asked optimistically, opening his notebook quickly and stretching his arm towards me. I took his tattered notebook between my hands as if I was afraid of breaking it. I read the lyrics thoroughly after what I asked him with tint of curiosity, “You loved someone before?”

He nodded wih sadness washing over his eyes, the always there happiness over his face fading out. “I love life”, he replied.

And this heavy weight over my heart grew stronger upon see him like that, upon understanding the real meaning of those words written in his notebook. At the end, he gave those lyrics to me, smiling with a bit of sadness. “When I get out of here, show me this, ok”, he exclaimed.

Here is a part of the lyrics he gave me:

Love is painful all love is painful.


Repeating like a fool. That’s what I always do.


But pain is beautiful. It’s same as you.


Hope turns into disappointment. Wish turns into despair.


As love deepened, pain deepened more


Illusion or expectation that this time, it’ll be different,

Eventually, how many years have passed?, there is no “forever”.


Eventually, We’re not meant to be, become alone again.


Barely, barely, barely, I thought I finally found my love.


Eventually, eventually, It’s ended again like this.

My mind has not changed from the very first


But my mind is now full of wounds cuz of you


Cuz of your cold voice, I’m changing,

I’m getting cold as well
 it’s hard to get back,

between you and me


we are drifting farther and farther apart from each other


It’s hard to go around each other


So I gave parting to you as a gift and turned my back


I’m falling without you

Eventually whose fault is it. There’s no love.


Eventually I’m saying goodbye to you.

Tired, I’m falling asleep.


barely barely barely, it seems like this is an end between us.


Eventually eventually, we’re becoming strangers.

I feel an aggressive desire to do something for him. To be able to assure him we both would live forever… that he can be something else apart from a terminal ill patient.

“I’m afraid”, he gasped in a soft whisper looking down at his hands which were trembling with force. “I.. I don’t like the night, I don’t like to sleep, cause I’m afraid I won't be able to wake up again”, he said, tears b in his always bright eyes, this time though the reflections casted from the tears in his orbs made my heart twist and turn.

Without being able to stop myself, with a strong desire to protect him, to shelter him, I bent close to him and placed my hand over his small fail one. “I’ll be here tonight taking care of you. I promise that while I’m here you will wake up tomorrow, I’ll wake you up.”

He smiled staring at our hands; and he interlaced his fingers with mine. And even though I knew that was wrong, that what was happening at that very moment was simply wrong, I tightened the grip of our hands, holding myself on him. We both clung to each other, and having someone to hold on was something I realised I had missed the feeling of.

Now I’m here, writing, sitting over a sofa, while next to me lays a face which is sleeping with trails of tears running down at the same time. I’m here next to this person that in a way I don’t know how and cannot understand why has become important to me. This person, who radiates lightheartedness during the day, but is crying right now hidden by the dark of the night, crying of fear.

A fear, that day by day, is growing stronger inside me. We both are here, afraid of his death. 

Lee SH