[oceans] | a txt imagines book

[soobin] • soju

You love your job.

You love it so much that it didn't matter how much time you had to spend doing it. It didn't matter how many sleepless nights you had to face or how many days of empty stomachs you had to fathom.

You loved your job. But even saying the word loved was an understatement.

You were a doctor of pediatrics in your residency at a big hospital in Seoul.

Your performance was always good and you always excelled among your colleagues, but that wasn't any of your concern. You never looked at things competitively, you just wanted to do your job, help people get better and of course, earn good money.

Moving away from that, there was nothing more you could ask from your job. You loved it with every fiber of your being.

You loved talking to kids, and you enjoyed the different ways in which you could entice them to take their medicine or get their shots.

Kids. They were just kids.

That was also where the hard part came from. These were innocent children who still had a world to see before them. So when you see them lying on a hospital bed, unable to move and unable to do things that children should be able to openly do, it breaks your heart.

More so, when a patient of yours doesn't make it, you feel a heavy weight hanging from your heart. You could never stop yourself from crying especially when their parents or guardians would start talking about them. They were just children. They shouldn't even be in a hospital.

More often, your patients would make it, so when they don't it pierces through you for a while.

However, when a child who has been your patient for 4 years passed away, you remember coming from the deafening cries of her mother to walking away with tears of your own flowing down your eyes.

Your patient celebrated all her birthdays with you, remaining on that hospital bed when she should be getting a proper party. Everyone around her, including you, was filled with hope that one day she was going to leave the hospital and live a normal life.

But then you got a call, saying that she was losing the battle. At that time, you were in the cafe of the hospital with your friends, you immediately left your coffee on that table and ran back up to your patient to try to help her. You felt a sunken feeling, the girl wasn't dead yet, but you already had that feeling.

Her vitals were slowly failing, you and your fellow residents helped in trying to bring her back.

Flatline. You heard it. However, you didn't stop just yet. You waited for a few more seconds in hopes that you could still bring her back. Her mom was crying hard, more so when you stopped to face her.

"She had been in pain for a while now, hasn't she? It seems it's time for her to rest." You told her mom. She observed you, seeing how you were trying to stop the tears from flowing down your eyes.

She then looked back at her child, saying her last few words. She was saying sorry that she made her suffer for a long time just because she didn't want to lose her.

You tried to avert your eyes, knowing that the more this continues, the more likely your tears are to fall.

By the time her mother was done saying her last words to her child, you had to say something you never thought you would have to say.