The Odd Doctor Out | A Drama | S. 2

206 🩺 Confessed

'I can't talk to San about how I feel...'

I can't talk to San like I talk to you... 'Yun-ah, will you tell me how you feel?'

Yunho stared down at his hands, completely unmoving apart from his shallow, tired breath. He bit his lip for a moment before a heart wrenchingly helpless sound escaped his lips. 'Exhausted...'

Heart breaking for him, Mingi gently reached out and touched his fingertips to his forearm. 'Because you feel like you're being pulled in too many directions?'

Very slowly, Yunho nodded slowly. 'And because I wanted med to be something... I wanted it to be something so badly... But it's just not. I'm so sick of playing the game of whether I am going to love it or hate it this week...'

Mingi rubbed his fingertips over his arm. 'You're allowed to feel like that. You're allowed to feel hurt and pulled and tired.'

A long pause ensued, before he spoke. '... I want that doctor to loose his job.'

And Mingi couldn't say he disagreed. 'He deserves to loose his registration.'

'You don't get it. If I say something now... Fuck, even if I don't say something, that pig of a doctor is going to go crying to the director that I acted out in the theatres, and I will be kicked off placement. They'll kick me out of the hospital.'

Feeling Yunho tense beneath his fingertips, Mingi flattened his hand over his skin, squeezing. 'Then let them. You can go elsewhere.'

Yunho shook his head, eyes gleaming. 'It's really hard to find places that will take me, because of my parents... They blew the whistle, and I've been labeled... They know I'm their son...'

Mingi nodded, taking a deep breath. Rubbing circles into his skin, he couldn't help it. He wanted to support him, and he wanted to give him care. And the more he rubbed his skin, the more he felt the boy involuntarily relax under his touch.

'Yun, looking at you... I can't help but see how tired you seem. You have the weight of things that are out of your control upon your shoulders, as well as the added burden of not knowing who you are as a person. You are navigating uneasy waters without a solid knowledge of your own identity, functioning off of your pure morals alone. There's no way you can expect to know what you're suppsed to do if you're trying to feel your way around life with a blindfold on and your hands tied behind your back.'

Slipping his fingers down and using both his hands to take Yunho's in his own, Mingi squeezed, trying his best to bestow confidence into his broken soul as he brought them to rest in his own lap.

'So they kick you off of placement? Well then it's not like you have a million options. You have two. Unenroll, and do some soul searching, or let uni deal with it. It's literally their responsibility to place you and provide you with the hours. All you have to do is wait around until you're given a roster.'

Seeing a tear slip down Yunho's cheek, Mingi reached up and brushed it away with his sleeve. 'And Yun, you should be proud of your parents. They might have been shunned, but they have proved that they are good people, and they have raised you with the same honour. If you must carry that on your shoulders, at least carry it with pride.'

Yunho stared down at their hands, biting his lip gently. His face was like a window straight through to his soul, showing perfectly how broken he felt on the inside. 'Min-ah... what the hell do I do?'

Mingi squeezed his hands. 'Nothing. Let yourself feel, whatever you need to feel. Go home, and sleep. Wake up tomorrow morning and put your ID badge on with conviction, hold your head high and let things play out as they will.