"It's nothing." Lisa turned her head as her voice quivered.
Jungkook lifted his arm in an attempt to wipe away her tears, but Lisa immediately gripped his IV-injected arm and forced it down.
"Don't move your arm, the blood might backflow."
"Okay." Jungkook smiled a little and said nothing.
"Oh yeah, did you end up switching back the work hours of your employees?" The thought suddenly popped into Lisa's head.
"I did."
"Really?" Lisa questioned.
"If you don't believe me, you can look for yourself." Jungkook pulled out his phone and showed Lisa the company's live security footage.
Lisa felt relieved upon seeing that the employees had returned to their normal schedule.
"Stay home and rest today. Don't go to work."
"It's fine, I'll head out after the IV."
"No, you're staying home," Lisa commanded.
"Will you stay with me then?" Jungkook asked.
Lisa was a little embarrassed, so she didn't answer him, but she did not deny it either.
"I'm working the night shift today so I will be home all day. You can tell me what you want to eat and I will prepare it," Lisa said slowly after a while.
"I can eat whatever I want?" Jungkook tilted his head and stared at Lisa, his eyes gleaming.
Lisa immediately knew that this guy was probably thinking about something inappropriate.
Sure enough, the next sentence Jungkook said was, "Can I eat you?"
"No," Lisa immediately and strictly refused.
Jungkook looked down at the needle in his arm and didn't say anything. He looked slightly disappointed.
"I can make some vegetable congee for you later. You have enteritidis, so you can't eat anything greasy."
"So, you're saying I can't eat you because you're too greasy?" Jungkook playfully lifted his head and asked.
(a/n-😭😭)
Immediately, Lisa raged with fire.
"Do you want to die? I'm not greasy."
"Right, you're fat but not greasy, it's a good thing!"
Lisa was exasperated. If this guy weren't a patient, she would have surely tossed him out the window, despite them living on the sixteenth floor. She couldn't care less.
Of course, the immature side of Jungkook was the same as seven years ago. Not only was he devious, but he also had a venomous tongue.
Back then, they kept bickering and bickering and bickering with each other, until one day the bickering turned into a relationship.
As for this profound relationship, there were many good parts to it every time she walked down memory lane.
If it weren't for those external factors, Lisa thought, meeting Jungkook would have been the best thing that ever happened to her.
The tragedies that later occurred were truly unfortunate...
Lisa picked up a call as soon as she finished making the congee and prepared a bowl for Jungkook.
Lisa's expression changed slightly after hanging up the phone.
A person as clever as Jungkook would never miss it.
"Is it a call from the hospital?" Jungkook took the initiative and asked.
Lisa nodded, "Two patients just arrived and are awaiting delivery. There are not enough people at the hospital and the nurses from other departments lack experience in child delivery. So…" She hesitated to finish the sentence.
"You should get going."
"But how are you feeling?"
"I am a doctor myself. Forget enteritidis, I can slice myself open and perform a bypass on myself if it was necessary."
Lisa chuckled after hearing what Jungkook said...
"I'll head to the hospital then and be back tomorrow morning. You should rest, but don't fall asleep, and keep an eye on your IV."
"Okay."
Lisa left in a hurry after changing.
Jungkook was alone at home, so he took out his phone and began scrolling through his work email.
- JC Headquarters -
Mrs. Jeon missed her son dearly and decided to drive to the company headquarters to see him.
Little did she know that Jungkook wasn't at work.
"Where's my son?" she asked, feeling annoyed.
"Boss is not here today, but he did say to call him if anything comes up," Assistant Lee answered carefully.
"Where is he living now? Take me there."
"Mrs. Jeon, let me call him first. Please wait here a moment."
Lee was smart enough to not reveal Jungkook's new address. He surely didn't want to be held responsible or blamed by his boss.
"Mrs. Jeon, boss says he will be here in half an hour. Please wait in the office." assistant Lee hung up the phone and smiled.
Mrs. Jeon didn't say anything, but clearly, she was unhappy.
Jungkook never showed up again since he last fought with his father, and he even stopped calling them.
Jungkook’s father was a very stubborn man. He assumed Jungkook would only act of his own accord, so he left the city on a business trip to check on the company's branches in other city.
Mrs. Jeon, on the other hand, missed her son dearly, so she decided to come looking for him at the company.
Jungkook took out the IV and drove to work after his assistant called him.
"Mom, you were looking for me?"
Jungkook walked into the office, sat down on his chair and took off his jacket.
"Son, where have you been? Why weren't you at work?"
"I was out on business," Jungkook said nonchalantly.
"You look pale, are you feeling alright?" A mother could always notice the tiniest of details.
"Yeah, I've been pretty busy."
"I told you not to work so hard. You can delegate miscellaneous tasks to the people below you. You're making me worry."
"Mom, did you need me for something?"
"What would I need you for? I just miss you, that's all, so I thought I would come and see you."
Jungkook nodded and said nothing. He turned to open the documents on his desk and began reading.
"Son, the Chan Group's President is turning sixty soon, you…"
"I don't have time. You and dad can go to those business gatherings," Jungkook interjected before his mother could finish.
Mrs. Jeon sighed, "Son, you're getting older now, you can't just focus on work. You should find a girlfriend. You don't need to get married, just so long as you start dating first. Your dad and I are getting old, and we want grandchildren soon."
"I will keep that in mind." Jungkook answered, clearly saying it just to satisfy his mother.
"There's been some rumors going around. Look at our family status, we can't let those clowns talk about us like that."
"What are they saying about me?" Jungkook put down the report and lifted his head in curiosity.
"They are saying… um… anyways, whatever they're saying is terrible. Just hurry up and find a girlfriend so I can stop worrying. The girl doesn't need to be like us, it's fine even if she's someone with an ordinary family background. I don't have a lot of demands for you anymore, as long as she's a woman."
The rumors were that JC's president could possibly be homosexual, and Mrs. Jeon had been worried sick.
"So it could be anyone?" Jungkook asked.
"Yes, as long as she's a girl, and of course, as long as she's not that girl, Lisa."
"I will take care of my own business." Jungkook looked away as his eyes dimmed.
"If you're not busy, let's have dinner together."
"Mom, I'm busy. Maybe another day."
Jungkook felt slightly uncomfortable by the fact that after all these years, his mother still wouldn't accept Lisa.
So, he didn't even provide his mother with the opportunity to have a meal with him. Seeing her son so busy with work, Mrs. Jeon didn't dare say anything else and stood up to leave.
As she was walking out, she bumped into Yerim, who came to the top floor to deliver some reports.
Due to previous warnings, Yerim never had the guts to walk into the president's office again. She would directly pass the files either to the assistant's office or Assistant Lee.
"Mrs. Jeon, I didn't know you were here." Yerim smiled gracefully.
"Yes." Prior to Jungkook's return, Mrs. Jeon used to be the CFO of JC, so Yerim knew who she was.
"If you're not busy, Mrs. Jeon, you should come to have tea in my office. I never get to see you, I've missed you dearly since your departure."
"Let's go." Mrs. Jeon liked sweet talkers like Yerim.
Mrs. Jeon knew that Yerim studied overseas and that she was smart, talented, and great at establishing social relations. Naturally, Mrs. Jeon couldn't help but have a favorable impression towards her.
*
Jungkook was working on reports when Lisa's call came in.
"Lisa."
"Did you finish your infusion?"
"Yes."
"Where are you?"
"Home."
"Yeah? Accept my video request then." Lisa quickly hung up and called Jungkook again through video chat.
With no other choice, Jungkook had to hit the decline button and proceeded to send a voice message, "The Wi-Fi at home is down, I can't connect. I don't have enough data on my phone either."
Lisa almost passed out with rage.
It's understandable to say that the Wi-Fi was down, but not enough data? Was he expecting her to fall for that lie?
Does this guy look like someone who was afraid to use too much data?
"Jungkook, are you trying to challenge my intelligence?" Lisa sent him a voice message.
"No, I wouldn't dare." Jungkook never thought about challenging Lisa's IQ, which was an incredible 130.
"So why won't you accept my video call?" Lisa asked angrily.
"I'm not at home, Lis, I'm at work. My mom came to JC and wanted to see me. You didn't want them to know about us, so I couldn't let her come to our new home," Jungkook explained patiently.
"Oh." Lisa replied with one word and disappeared.
Obviously, she wasn't fond of Jungkook's mother. After all, Mrs. Jeon was the main reason behind Uncle Watanabe's death.
Lisa put the phone in her pocket. Since Jungkook was fine now, there was no point in her worrying.
Why was she so worried? She thought she didn't love him anymore.
She must be feeling bad because the enteritidis was caused by eating seafood with her. Yes, that must be it!
Lisa thought to herself deludedly...
Later that evening, when eating at the hospital cafeteria, she heard others mention that Dahyun had resigned.
According to the rumors, Krystal couldn't stand to have her in the ophthalmology department, let alone having her work closely with Kai, day in and day out.
So, she found an excuse to transfer her to the morgue. Dahyun understood the difficulties that lied ahead and decided to step back. Therefore, she resigned.
Apparently, she made sure to make a scene prior to leaving the Ophthalmology Department and left Kai very embarrassed.
Dahyun, the woman who wanted to watch the world plunge into chaos, wanted to get rid of Lisa, but got rid of herself instead. It seemed like she accidentally shot herself in the foot.
"Unnie, Dahyun is gone now. We will have nothing but peace and quiet from now on."
"Yeah, less trouble for me."
"I heard that Dahyun was pregnant. Initially, she wanted to use her pregnancy to threaten Kai into marrying her, but then Dr. Krystal became pregnant too. The decision was obvious for Kai, so he somehow tricked Dahyun into taking abortion pills. She suffered quite a bit. It wasn't a very successful abortion either. She had to go to a private gynecology clinic not far from us for curettage because she was too scared to come to our clinic for help. If I were her, after going through all that just to get dumped in the end, I would be pissed off and make a scene too."
Lisa listened thoughtfully and couldn't help but feel bad for Dahyun...
It was never easy to be a woman, but why did women have to make each other miserable? The end result for Dahyun today was almost unbearable to look at.
"You and Kai were together for a long time, and he's been so nice to you. I never knew that he could be such an asshole. Perhaps he was just playing with Dahyun; I feel bad for her," Wonyoung sighed.
Lisa replied with silence. After all, this was none of her business anymore.
"Unnie, you should be more careful. I'm afraid that you might be Dr. Krystal's next target," Wonyoung whispered.
"It's fine. Worse comes to worst, I can quit. There are so many hospitals out there, I can just transfer to another one."
"But I heard Dr. Krystal is quite resourceful. She made sure that none of the other hospitals would hire Dahyun."
"Dahyun is Dahyun, I am me. I'm not afraid of her," Lisa said, setting down her chopsticks since she had lost her appetite.
After dinner, Lisa and Wonyoung went back to the clinic and began their rounds.
They worked till eleven o'clock at night before things began settling down.
"Unnie, I'm going to go take a little nap, can you take watch for me?"
"Sure, go sleep. I'll be here." Lisa nodded.
The hallway suddenly became noisy...
Lisa opened the door and was frightened by what she saw...
A man was screaming as he held onto a pregnant woman, "Where are the doctors? Please, somebody come and save my wife!"
The pregnant woman was unconscious, and the lower half of her body was covered in blood, drenching her dark blue maternity dress.
"Wonyoung, wake up! Go find the doctor on call, we need to help this patient!" Lisa tried to wake her up.
Wonyoung woke up from her nap stunned.
"Unnie, the on-call doctor left early, she said she had family issues. There are no doctors that can perform a C-Section right now. Can we help her through natural labor?"
Lisa shook her head immediately, "No, we can't, she's bleeding out. We'll need to stop the bleeding and give her a blood infusion. If we go through with natural labor under these circumstances, the mother and baby will both die. We need to go into surgery immediately."
"Our surgeon already left work, perhaps you can go to another hospital?" Wonyoung glanced at the patient and said to her husband.
"No, we're running out of time. My wife's going to die from exhaustion. Please, save her!" The man's knees hit the floor as he held onto his bleeding wife, tears streaming down his face.
Lisa furrowed her brows and struggled for a bit. "Won, take her into the OR. I'll start prepping her."
"Unnie, what are you going to do?" Wonyoung looked puzzled.
"Perform surgery on her." Then, Lisa walked into the sanitization room and changed.
Wonyoung was dumbstruck...
"Who's the on-call doctor tonight?" Lisa walked out with a surgical mask on after she changed.
"It was supposed to be Dr. Krystal."
"Why did she leave halfway through her shift? Shouldn't she be working through the night?" Lisa frowned slightly.
"She's the hospital director's niece, could we really have stopped her? It looked like she had some business to tend to elsewhere, so she left," Wonyoung replied.
Lisa picked up the office phone and called Krystal after searching on the phone directory.
The phone rang for five seconds before someone finally picked up.
"Hello….?" It sounded like Krystal was asleep.
"Dr. Jung, we need you back here for a surgery. A patient's life is in danger, she's bleeding…" Before Lisa had the chance to finish, the person on the other end interrupted her.
"Are you crazy? Do you know what time it is?"
Before Lisa could respond, the phone went dead...
Lisa was unwilling to give up, so she called again. However, Krystal turned her phone off.
Initially, she thought that since Krystal lived close by, if she took a taxi she could still make it to the hospital on time to operate.
It wasn't because Lisa wasn't confident enough to proceed with the operation, it was just that despite her excellent medical skills, she was still a nurse.
She didn't have the required medical certifications. If she were to operate, not only was it extremely risky, it could also bring forth many troubles in the future.
Lisa put down the phone and glanced at Wonyoung, "Won, if I were to operate, can you be my scrub nurse? Are you okay with that?"
"Unnie, are you kidding? You're a nurse, not a doctor. Are you really going to operate?"
Wonyoung asked in disbelief...
"There's no time to think about all that now, this patient is losing too much blood. She won't be able to hold on for much longer. If we do nothing, two lives will be lost."
"I know, unnie. I want to save them too, but we're not doctors and the on-call doctor isn't here. We have no other options. I feel really bad too, and I can only be an assistant. I don't know anything about surgery."
"It's okay if you don't understand. I know how to do it. I need you to calm down and be my assistant."
"But… even so, the two of us won't be able to perform the surgery. The anesthesiologist isn't here." Wonyoung was on the verge of crying.
It's almost midnight, and there's no anesthesiologist. The best option is to transfer the patient to another hospital, Wonyoung thought.
"I can administer anesthesia."
"Um..." Wonyoung no longer had any idea what to say.
"We can't wait any longer, hurry up and start preparing the operating room." Lisa slid on her gloves and walked out.
"Unnie, this isn't a joke. These are people's lives we're talking about."
Regardless of what Wonyoung said, Lisa had already made up her mind. She was going to perform the surgery with or without her.
Lisa looked at the man that was still sobbing uncontrollably.
"Take her to the OR."
"She can have the surgery? That's great!" The man got up excitedly. He held onto the pregnant woman and followed Lisa towards the OR.
Lisa had been working in the OB/GYN department for over six months now. C-Sections were performed almost every other day, so she was very familiar with the procedure. Despite having never actually performed such a surgery, she was confident that she wouldn't fail.
The only issue was that she was not a licensed doctor, and it would be rather troublesome if the family members decided to come looking for her after the surgery.
But of course, under normal circumstances, no one would pursue the matter if the operation was successful and the patient did not suffer from any side effects.
After all, she was only doing it because it was an emergency.
Wonyoung still felt unsettled before the surgery, "Unnie, we can't do it. It's too risky. If the operation fails, you will be charged with medical negligence. Not only will you go to jail, but you will also need to pay a lot of money. Even if you succeeded, you will still be in big trouble if the family decides to pursue the fact that you're not a licensed doctor. The losses outweigh the gains. We're not Jesus, we don't need to sacrifice ourselves to save others."
"Won, I understand what you're saying, and I've contemplated the issues you mentioned. But I can't watch two lives perish in front of my eyes, especially when I can save them. Do you understand? My teenage dream was to become a doctor. It is very meaningful to be able to study the human body and provide individuals a second chance at life after studying and understanding the state of their illness."
Before Wonyoung could say anything else, Lisa took a long and thin needle and injected a carefully-calculated amount of anesthesia into the patient's spine.
Wonyoung trembled in fear as she watched, for she knew that an untrained anesthesiologist may very likely leave the patient paralyzed for the rest of their life.