BC | Chapter 5

Yoo-eun quickly turned her head away, her heart racing so fast it felt like it might split in two, fearing that Beom-woo would acknowledge her again.

“The heart has two atria and two ventricles.”

It felt as if  Beom-woo’s cold voice, which had been echoing in her mind, was suddenly right in her ear.

“Noona?”

Jun-young tilted his head in suspicion as he watched Yoo-eun furrow her brows and dart her eyes around.

“Okay, let’s go get some porridge first.”

Yoo-eun quickly replied and grabbed Jun-young’s arm, moving forward with quick, light steps.

     “But why am I avoiding him?”

Only now did the fundamental question float up in Yoo-eun’s mind.

“Was it artist Song Jun-young?”

Beom-woo quietly observed Yoo-eun’s back as she walked, her arm linked with the man, moving swiftly like she was in a hurry.

“What are you staring at so intently?”

Seong-heon playfully tapped Beom-woo’s shoulder with his own, teasing him.

“Hey, isn’t that artist Yoo-eun over there? Didn’t Professor Jeong Beom-woo say he knows her personally?”

Seong-heon laughed like a frog, as if the situation was utterly ridiculous.

     “Had Shin Seong-heon’s laughter always been this obnoxious and irritating?”

Beom-woo looked at Seong-heon with a gaze that carried a hint of disdain.

“Why are you trying to eat me alive again? It’s clear she has a boyfriend.”

Seong-heon pointed with a smirk at the couple exiting through the revolving door—Yoo-eun and Song Jun-young—laughing like a frog.

“It’s not like that.”

“What do you mean, ‘not like that’? When have you ever shown interest in a girl?”

Seong-heon had been Beom-woo’s friend since pre-med, both entering medical school at a young age. They shared a bond from their early days through their time at the cardiovascular center.

While Seong-heon pursued numerous relationships, Beom-woo focused intensely on his medical career and quickly became a professor, partly due to the high turnover in the field of cardiothoracic surgery.

“Ms. Lee Yoo-eun, she’s a student I taught.”

“You taught her?”

Seong-heon tilted his head in confusion and asked blankly.

“Were you tutoring her without me knowing?”

Seong-heon had a good memory. It seemed that the information about the short internship and the student who had fled during the summer break was still fresh in his mind.

“You remember how we had that sub-internship, right? She was one of the medical students who came during that time.”

As Seong-heon stepped out of the hospital, he suddenly stopped. His mouth formed an “O” shape, and he furrowed his brow, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“Do you remember who she is?”

He rubbed his chin with his right hand, buying some time in response to Beom-woo’s question.

“Do you remember Lee Yoo-eun? Did she come to you too, laughing about applying for cardiothoracic surgery?”

 

Sticky sweat trickled down Beom-woo’s back as memories of that sweltering summer flooded his mind. It was the evening when a 60-year-old male patient, who had undergone open-heart surgery for aortic valve stenosis, had passed away. It was a day marked by a profound sense of emptiness, having watched over that patient for a long time.

Standing before the boundary of life and death, which seemed beyond the control of any human effort, Beom-woo had felt lost. Seeking solace, he had found himself alone in the deserted garden, trying to gather his emotions in the silence.

“I plan to apply for cardiothoracic surgery here later.”

The youthful face, blushing as she smiled, felt almost tangible in his memory. He had held her arm, which seemed on the verge of collapsing, with the same hand that had gently closed the eyes of the patient whose forehead he had brushed, now cold. Her skin had felt so warm, as if his palm might burn from the heat.

“Hmm.”

As Seong-heon hesitated, Beom-woo felt a strange unease growing within him. Lee Yoo-eun was a quiet and intelligent student. Even when she mingled with her peers, she never raised her voice or laughed boisterously.

The calm face of  Yoo-eun, who only wore a serene smile.

As Yoo-eun spotted Beom-woo on her way home, she had blushed and confessed with a smile that she would apply to the cardiothoracic surgery department. Just thinking about the youngest member joining made her heart race with excitement.

But did Seong-heon really understand that fluttering in her heart?

It was a moment when her mood suddenly began to sink into an inexplicable abyss.

“I don’t remember.”

Seong-heon shrugged his shoulders and muttered.

“Were there only one or two students who came for the sub-internship? How could I remember all of them?”

Shaking his head as if the idea was absurd, Seong-heon took the lead, heading toward the butcher’s restaurant across from the hospital.

“Right. There weren’t just a handful of sub-interns.

But why do I remember Yoo-eun?”

Suddenly, an existential question popped into his mind.

As they entered the meat restaurant, the owner recognized the two and offered them a quiet room.

 

“It’s Christmas Eve, after all.”

Seong-heon raised his voice in an exaggerated manner as he held up the menu, which was wrapped in black faux leather.

“Three servings of flower sirloin and a bottle of Andong soju, please.”

The sound of meat sizzling on the well-heated grill filled the air, and by the time they had consumed about three glasses of soju, the atmosphere had lightened considerably.

“You remember, how?”

Quick-witted Seong-heon asked with a strange smile. As the alcohol flowed, his whole body turned a rosy shade, and he wore a mischievous grin.

“Lee Yoo-eun ran away during the sub-internship program.”

“There are quite a few students like that. But do you remember the other students who ran away?”

As Beom-woo slowly shook his head, Seong-heon narrowed his eyes.

“I saw earlier that it looked pretty, like it was finely shaved—pink salt.”

Seong-heon dipped a piece of the flower sirloin into the pink salt in the bowl and shoved it into his mouth.

     “Why do I suddenly feel the urge to snatch the dish of pink salt away?”

Beom-woo glared at Seong-heon through half-closed eyes, elegantly tilting his head as he emptied his glass

“Why are you looking at me so intensely again?”

The high-proof soju was both sweet and bitter. The memories associated with Yoo-eun were the same—sweet yet painful.

“The day of the accident was massive. An 8.5-ton LPG gas truck crashed into a bus, which then overturned, crushing a taxi and a passenger car in the process.”

Until now, Seong-heon’s playful demeanor suddenly turned serious.

“It was chaos in the emergency room. I remember that day too.”

It was after school hours, and the bus was packed with students. For Seong-heon, who specialized in pediatric cardiology in the cardiothoracic department, that day seemed to be etched in his memory like a nightmare.

“That day, of all days, Professor Park Soo-han was performing a vascular graft surgery, and a patient who had been under follow-up exams for about two years was in that taxi,” Seong-heon said, his voice carrying the weight of the memory.

Seong-heon nodded quietly, choosing to listen in silence. His usual playful demeanor was now replaced by a solemn attentiveness as the weight of the memory settled between them.

“I was part of that surgical team,” Beom-woo continued, his voice growing more somber. “I happened to be in the professor’s office during that patient’s consultation. There were no complications after the surgery, so we all felt relieved. I think it was less than 30 minutes after seeing the patient leave, looking reassured.”

Beom-woo’s mind was flooded with the vivid, blood-soaked memories of that day in the emergency room. The trauma was severe. The injuries to the chest were critical, necessitating immediate surgery. He could almost hear the chaos of the ER—the frantic shouts, the urgency in every action—as they scrambled to save lives amidst the overwhelming carnage.

Beom-woo climbed onto the patient’s abdomen to apply pressure and stop the bleeding from the gaping wound. Although the patient had received emergency treatment in the ambulance, the bed was soaked with blood.

“Call Professor Park Su-han! Hurry!”

Since no one answered, Beom-woo shouted loudly.

“Get it together! I said call!”

When Beom-woo turned around, there stood Lee Yoo-eun, her face pale with shock. At that moment, blood spurted from beneath the patient’s collarbone, shooting toward her. Yoo-eun’s right cheek was drenched in the splattered blood. Covered in the crimson spray, she froze, as if paralyzed, like someone who had just lost all sense.

As the bed rolled quickly, Beom-woo glanced back to see Lee Yoo-eun crying. That was the last thing he saw.

From the following day, Yoo-eun did not return to the sub-internship program. The patient, unfortunately, passed away in the operating room.

Since she was still a student, Beom-woo thought she must have been in shock amidst the chaos of the tragic incident. Even though she had given up on the sub-internship, He briefly imagined that Yoo-eun would eventually become a doctor.

“But I heard she’s an artist.”

Seong-heon laughed as if he had finally reached a conclusion, playfully poking the air with his chopsticks.

“Ah, I see. So the student who was supposed to come into cardiothoracic surgery dropped out of the sub-internship? I thought she would become a doctor. Oh? She’s pursuing art? But for a moment, she couldn’t recognize her mentor? Is that why you’re upset?”

Beom-woo neither agreed nor disagreed with Seong-heon’s words. While there was nothing to specifically point out, it wasn’t a matter that warranted excessive agreement either.

 Is he upset? Is that why he keeps wanting to bring it up?

It was at the moment Beom-woo was about to pour soju into his empty glass.

“Hey, you jerk!”

Seong-heon chuckled mischievously. With his cheeky smile, he resembled a bright red gummy bear melting away in the midsummer heat. He curled all his fingers except for his pinky, which he extended and dipped into his saliva.

“What are you doing, that’s disgusting.”

Beom-woo furrowed his neatly shaped eyebrows in disgust. Seong-heon, clearly trying to show off, dipped his pinky into pink salt and licked it with his tongue.

“Hey, you have to try it to know. How do you know if it’s pink salt or pink sugar?”