Yunjin was smiling at her phone when Chaewon walked in and looked up to wave as she entered.
"Good morning, how have you been feeling?"
Yunjin tilted her hand back and forth. "A bit better," she wheezed out. Chaewon had been off the last two days and had told Sakura to call her if anything happened but nothing did, which was a very good thing. Yunjin's condition had gotten better and she was finally off the oxygen, but her voice was raspy and weak from disuse for a few days.
"I'm glad to hear it. Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"
Yunjin shook her head. "I've been bored without someone in here, but Yeonjun has been sending me videos of shiro so that's been entertaining." She held out her phone to Chaewon and she watched the giant hound running amuck through the rain soaked streets.
"Seems like she's being well taken care of," Chaewon said with a smile. She never had a pet herself, but with every picture and video Yunjin showed her of the giant white ball of fluff she found herself wanting one.
"Yea I was really lucky to have Jun be able to take her in," she said wistfully. She lamented often about how much she missed Shiro.
"Yeonjun is a good guy," Chaewon offered sweetly as she fixed the settings on Yunjin's IV.
"He really is," Yunjin agreed. "Hey, this might sound weird, but is Sakura seeing anyone?"
Chaewon's spine turned to ice and her stomach dropped. "Oh, umm, she's not seeing anyone but she is also straight. I'm sorry."
"Wha-no!" Yunjin began wheezing out a laugh and had to hold her stomach, which finally got Chaewon to turn around. "Not for me! For Yeonjun."
"Oh."
Yunjin finally settled down and rested back onto the bed. "Yea, no. Sakura is beautiful and all but," she glanced away, "but yea not for me. Yeonjun hasn't explicitly said anything to me but he's also incredibly not subtle at all so I figured I would try and help him out."
Chaewon knew she shouldn't feel as light as she did at the admission but she pushed it aside. "Ok so are you and I going to be in cahoots? Setting our best friends up with each other?"
"I think it's cute," Yunjin said dreamily. "Do you think Yeonjun has a chance?"
"It's worth a shot," she shrugged. "Yeonjun is adorable."
"Hey, leave him for Sakura," Yunjin said with a grin. "What about you? Are you seeing anyone?"
Chaewon blushed and coughed nervously.
"God, I'm sorry if that's too personal, Chaewon," Yunjin began. "I kind of forget sometimes that I'm your patient and that you have to sit here with me and you're just so beautiful and of course you're seeing someone and patients probably always hit on you and now I'm rambling...I'm sorry."
"Wow." Chaewon took a second to breathe, Yunjin just said she was beautiful. Not that no one has ever told her that, but having Yunjin say it was way better. Your patient, Chaewon.
"I'm sorry, Chaewon."
Chaewon chuckled. "Relax, Yunjin, it's fine. For the record though I actually don't get hit on by patients as often as you think."
Yunjin looked at her as though she had three heads. "Really? But you're..." she paused, not wanting to incriminate herself more.
"Young." Chaewon sighed. "I'm very young for what I do and most people either think I'm just a nurse or question my abilities because of my age. I can't even tell you how many people have pushed me away from their kid thinking that I didn't know what I was doing."
"Well that's just stupid," Yunjin said protectively. "I, for one, think it's really cool to have you as my doctor. I mean, you're a genius! How could that be a bad thing?"
She smiled softly, feeling light again. "That means a lot, Yunjin, thank you." Her pager blared for a *911-room 217* and she stood up quickly. "I have to go, sorry." And she ran out.
Yunjin calling her beautiful circled in her head for the rest of the day.
//
"Why are you watching soccer highlights?"
"dear god, Sakura! Warn a girl you're here first."
"I knocked, you're just so engrossed in..." she looked at the screen. "Oh my lord, you're watching Yunjins highlights? Kim Chaewon you are smitten."
"She's a good player!" Chaewon cried. "I've always admired sports."
She hopped onto the desk. "Cut the shit, wonnie," Sakura said with a grin. "You don't give two shits about soccer. You're really into her, aren't you?"
Chaewon pinched the bridge of her nose. "She's my patient, Sakura."
"So?"
"So this isn't Grey's Anatomy. This is real life and we have consequences for that kind of thing."
Sakura scoffed. "Oh please, you own the majority of this hospital anyway and Hansung would never fire you, you're a star!"
"Sakura!" She looked around even though it was her office and the door was closed. "How many times do we have to go over that I don't own anything."
Sakura looked uninterested. "You own the majority of shares in Future Industries, who happens to hold most of the shares of this hospital, ergo you own most of the hospital. Seriously you could sell half of those shares and live a happy and wealthy life of retirement. Yet here you are, working your ass off daily, and watching highlights on your patient who you're crushing hard on who also happens to make a shit ton of money."
"I can't do it, Sakura."
"Why?"
"She's my patient," Chaewon said sternly. "It's unethical. She has cancer and I need to treat her, not fall in love with her."
"She won't always have cancer, Chaewon." Sakura said softly.
Chaewon shook her head. "I can't. There are boundaries."
Sakura hopped off the desk and made to leave the office. "Well while you're sitting here moping and pining behind your boundaries, I'm going to go get laid."
"Already?" Chaewon asked in awe. "You guys have gone on one date!"
Sakura turned. "I don't like to live my life trying to satisfy societal norms and pressure. I get what I want, when I want it. And that is Yeonjun, in bed, with sheets scattered everywhere and-"
"Ok, that's enough imagery!"
Sakura softened. "Honestly though, Chae. You need a date or something. I know you love your work but there's more to life than this."
"I know," Chaewon sighed and sank into her chair. Sakura blew her a kiss and waltzed out of the room.
As much as she loved that woman, fucking hell was she a menace.
She opened her laptop back up and clicked the next video. It was one thing to have Yunjin talk to her about the sport but watching her highlight plays? That was a completely different kind of enthrallment. Chaewon knew nothing about soccer but the way those pale thighs pumped as Yunjin soared across the field had her wondering why she had never taken the time to look before.
//
Something crept up behind her as she stared at the soundless monitor.
"Finally watching her stats from out here?" A voice whispered.
"Fuck, Sakura," Chaewon yelped. "Stop scaring me like that."
"Couldn't help it," Sakura singsonged, "I could feel you pining from the OR."
Chaewon swiveled in her chair. "How'd it go with Chang?"
"Good. We got all the tumor out and he's starting to wake up. I know you're not a huge fan of Heesung, but he is a great surgeon. He can stop a bleeder faster than they start."
Chaewon scoffed and turned back to the monitor. "Yea well he's also a bigot, so there's that. He's only contracted until you finish residency anyway so I can manage."
"How's our girl?" Sakura asked, finally looking down on the screens in the nurses station. "Probably asleep since you're out here and not moping by her side."
"Hush." It was true, and no one who paid attention could deny that Chaewon spent an interesting amount of time monitoring her patient inside her room and not at the nurses station, where everyone else does. She just passed it off as the fact that she didn't have anyone else in isolation at the moment and it's proper patient care.
Which is a huge lie, but whatever.
"Her BP was elevated for a while and then dropped but it's on a steady incline again as well as her heart rate. Any higher and I'll have to go in there. Her blood panels from today showed her pneumonia is pretty much gone but she's been in a lot of pain."
"The final stretch is always the worst," Sakura said sadly. Yunjin had spent the last three weeks in isolation and had another one to go. Round one of her chemo wouldn't be done for almost another month, but the last few weeks were always so exhausting.
Yunjin's heart rate spiked before Chaewon could reply and a monitor alerted them that she had pushed the button for a nurse.
"Go, I have to go back to check on Chang."
Chaewon nodded and they headed in separate directions quickly. She knocked on the door and walked in. Yunjin was writhing.
"Hey! What's wrong, Korra?"
She gasped and brown eyes opened wide. "Chaewon! It hurts, my stomach. Please-my mouth. It all-it all hurts."
Chaewon quickly entered the amount of pain meds to administer into the machine and coaxed Yunjin onto her side. Usually her painful stomach led to vomiting, so she was prepared.
Once that was over Yunjin laid back on the bed and pushed the button to raise it up to a sitting level.
"Is the pain better?" Chaewon asked when she came back with a new pan. IV pain medication worked fast, thankfully. She hated seeing her patients in pain like that.
"A little," Yunjin nodded. "What are you doing here? It's like, 2am."
"I'm on call every other weekend," Chaewon said as she fiddled with the machines. "You just haven't needed anything in the middle of the night when I'm here."
"You work a lot."
"I like what I do," Chaewon turned to face her and crossed her arms. Yunjin threw her a lopsided grin. Pain meds must be kicking in.
"I like what you do too," Yunjin said with a grin, but then her brows furrowed. "Well, like, not the fact that I have cancer and you have to deal with that, but I just like that you're here with me. I don't want another doctor. I want you."
"Yunjin, I-"
"Hang on that sounded wrong," Yunjin said with a pout and damn those meds. Chaewon gave her a little more than usual because of how much pain she had been in and to get her to sleep, which clearly had made Yunjin loopy. It was pretty cute.
"No, not wrong?" Yunjin continued. "I do want you, but I'm your patient and that's all. You probably don't even like girls. You're a good doctor, Chaewon." She finished and gave Chaewon a dopey smile and her heart raced.
"Yunjin you should get some sleep."
Another pout. "My mouth still hurts, can you kiss it and make it better?" Fuck, Yunjin was never getting that dose again when she was here.
"Go to sleep, Yunjin," Chaewon said finally. "Just push the button if you need something."
Yunjin nodded and closed her eyes. Chaewon took in the picture for a moment, her fur lined hat somewhat askew, muscles shrinking by the day, dark skin had gotten so light that she really just wanted to take her outside, but they still had a week to go in isolation.
She left the room and leaned against the wall to breathe. Yunjin had gotten to her, had crawled under her skin and somehow began residing next to that heart that ached for something but was too afraid of what could be.
She hated it. She hated the situation that they were in and she hated the fact that she had watched as this drop dead gorgeous woman had deteriorated before her eyes from the effects of cancer. She watched as skin lightened, weight and hair fell off, and though she was no stranger to it at all she couldn't push it aside and be impartial like she usually could. Chaewon liked Yunjin, her patient, and she didn't know what the fuck to do.
Yunjin was just bright, and that would be the only way to describe her in an all-encompassing way. She had smiled through every poke of needle, every emptying of her stomach, every procedure. She laughed and joked constantly, usually winding up in pain from the exertion, but she continued on. It would be easy to succumb to the pains and aches, but Yunjin fought it every second of the day. She knew her limits, and it was only on really bad days that she needed pain meds.
The thing is, Yunjin just had this energy about her that made Chaewon forget about the world, forget that they were in the belly of a hospital fighting for her life. Her energy was infectious, her stories were wild, her eyes and face were bright. Chaewon couldn't care less about depleting muscles and a bald head, not when those eyes could whisk her off into the clouds with the way they conveyed emotion, no way. Yunjin was stunning, PICC line sticking out or not. Chaewon was bright.
And that's why Chaewon needed to get away.
Not away, away. She would still be Yunjin's doctor of course, but she needed to distance herself like she does with every other patient. She needed to be professional, ethical. She knew the pain of what if , and she couldn't do it again.
She made it back to the nurses station and her trusty sidekick was sitting there with a bag of chips.
"Sakura, I need you to find me a date."