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“She’s a bit scary,” Han Bomin, the first-year resident, whispered conspiratorially while her peer, Kang Insu, nodded his head vigorously.
“What! Her? No!” fourth-year Kim Geon, now Chief Resident, defended his favourite senior defiantly. “You’ll change your mind once you get to know her better.”
“That might not happen soon,” third-year Nam Yuri said, her voice laced with disappointment. “She’s so busy that she barely gets to spend any time with us. She’s just come back from the US, rejoined the department and on top of that, she’s working on her PhD thesis.”
“She’s doing PhD?!” the first years exclaimed in unison. It wasn’t uncommon for doctors to do that but they had never met a doctor with an MD and PhD.
“If there’s anyone who can do everything, it’s her,” Kim Geon fanboyed with a smile.
“Heol! You still have that crush on her,” Yuri said, not surprised.
“Aniyo!”
“Quit it. She has a man in her life.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I just admire and respect her as a sunbae. They don’t make doctors like her anymore.”
“Sonsaengim, you do sound like you have a crush on her,” the junior quipped, hiding her giggle.
“Shh, you don’t want to get him in trouble by saying that out loud,” Nam Yuri joked, half-seriously.
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“Her boyfriend’s family owns Yulje,” Nam Yuri answered, happy that she was in the position to impart knowledge on the social happenings of Yulje for a change.
“DAEBAK!” the young thing said, her appreciation of Dr Jang Gyeoul growing by the minute until her attention was diverted to the subject of their conversation, walking past them towards a table at the far end in a corner by the window in the cafeteria. At that table, she noticed, was already seated Asst. Prof. Ahn Jeongwon, smiling at his girlfriend as if she was the source of all brightness in the world.
“They look like newlyweds,” Han Bomin commented, her tone laced with envy.
“They’ve been together for 4 years or so, would you believe it?” Yuri responded. “Who would think?” she asked, looking at them now, lost in their own world, unaware that they were the point of attention for those seated at more than one table at the cafeteria. “Quit looking at them,” Yuri advised, “or else, you’ll end up having unnecessary expectations in your love life. I learnt that lesson at the end of my first year here.”
The rest nodded and went back to discussing things that didn’t give them a complex.
Meanwhile, at that table at the far corner, Gyeoul was narrating how her meeting with her advisor went. She detailed the parts of her literature review that needed reworks while displaying joy at how he praised the methodology part. Jeongwon, who knew her work-in-progress thesis inside and out listened attentively, occasionally putting succulent pieces of meat on her plate.
“Stop feeding me, you need to eat well too!” she admonished at some point, realising that Jeongwon was barely eating. “Yes, ma’am,” he acquiesced sheepishly.
“Oh, I met Um Jaeil also. He’d been telling me to meet him for ages.
“Um Jaeil…” Jeongwon sounded out the name that sounded so familiar, wondering why he couldn’t place who that was.
“The idol I tutored?” she said, helping him remember.
“Oh yes!” he exclaimed, recalling how tutoring him greatly helped Gyeoul put herself through med school. “He’s in Yulje?!”
“Yes!”
“What are the odds! I’ll remember to find him next time I’m there.”
“Eung? Why?”
“Well, you know I’d like to see who this person is.”
“For?”
“You know, just…”
“And if he wants to know why you are talking to him specifically, what will you tell him?”
“I’m, of course, not going to talk to just him. There’ll be others I’ll be talking to. I just want to know who he is. I’m not going to let him know there’s a hidden motive behind chatting up with him.”
“All right. Good. In any case, he wouldn’t like talking to you if he comes to know who you are to me.”
“Eung? Why?”
“He claims that I was his first love. And was seemingly upset when I told him that I have a boyfriend now,” she dropped casually, as if it meant nothing to her. And it didn’t. But that wasn’t the case for Jeongwon, who put his chopsticks down.
“MWO?! You what?”
Gyeoul stopped chewing and peered at him with innocent eyes.
“You’re his first love? He actually told you that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about this? Before you met him today, that is.”
“Well. I know he used to have a crush on me. But that was eons ago.”
Jeongwon sighed, the possessive beast in his raising its head.
“Don’t get worked up,” she said, caressing his hand and giving him a sweet smile. “How does it matter?”
“Well, it does. To me.”
“Why?”
“You have a steady stream of admirers.”
“And you don’t, gyosunim?” she sneered.
“That’s different.”
“Is it now!”
Jeongwon fumed petulantly. “You really expect me to feel nothing when an ex-idol confesses his love to my fangirl of a girlfriend?”
“What is it? What is it that has our Jeongwon all worked up this time?” Ikjun asked, taking a seat beside Gyeoul, preparing to dive into his meal. Seokhyeong also joined them, taking a seat beside Jeongwon.
“Gyeoul had a meal with an ex-idol today. He is in love with her,” he complained to his oldest friends.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Gyeoul said, cutting him, before he could add his own twist to the story. “And technically, I only bought him some bread.”
“Aigo aigo, Jeongwona,” sighed Seokhyeong, shaking his head.
“Okay, she had bread with an ex-idol. So?” Ikjun asked challengingly.
“So, nothing,” Jeongwon retreated, knowing his friends would chide him for being petty, which he knew he was.
“Uri Gyeoul has always been popular. Back when she was a resident, she did attract the attention of more than a few people around,” recounted Ikjun, noting that Jeongwon’s face was turning sour and naturally getting a kick out of it.
“One of Minha’s friends was also interested in her. He was a prosecutor, if I recall right,” said Seokhyeong, adding fuel to the fire. He was making it up, of course. This was too golden an opportunity to miss to rub Jeongwon the wrong way.
Gyeoul stared at the two professors, mentally tuning out from the scene that was unfolding.
“What did you think? When you were dealing with your priest-life crisis, Gyeoul didn’t get asked out by other men?” Ikjun taunted.
Jeongwon rested his head against the palm of his hand. He felt an oncoming lecture.
“Fine, that was in the past,” Ikjun continued, “but why aren’t you both married yet? It’s been a while since I went for a decent wedding banquet.”
“Was my wedding banquet not good enough for your majesty?” Seokhyeong asked in mock humility.
“That was months ago!” Ikjun whined.
“So much for wanting to have a lunch date with my girlfriend,” Jeongwon muttered, shaking his head.
“Lunch date?! Don’t you both live together?” Ikjun asked, looking surprised.
“She’s staying with her mother this week,” Jeongwon answered with downturned lips.
“Ah,” Ikjun nodded in understanding, immediately ceasing to pull Jeongwon’s legs.
“You both can go ahead if you’re done,” Seokhyeong offered in sympathy, “don’t wait for us.”
“That’s okay,” Jeongwon and Gyeoul said in unison and continued to make good use of the next half hour they had before Gyeoul was to head for her surgery. After all, in the year that they lived away in the US, they did miss their friends quite a bit.
___________________
Gyeoul knocked at Jeongwon’s office door after her surgery. She knew he wouldn’t leave for the day without meeting her.
“Yes?” she heard him say before opening the door. He was at the coffee station undecided about whether he should make a cup of coffee or not. He turned to her fully once he saw who it was and Gyeoul fell into his arms as soon as she reached him.
“Tired?” he asked her, running his hand through the back of her head.”
Gyeoul nodded wordlessly.
“Can I get you something to drink or eat?”
“No, Ikjun gyosunim has ordered dinner for us.”
Jeongwon let her be, running his hand through her head comfortingly.
“Did you have dinner?” she asked, speaking into his chest, too tired to look up.
“Yes. Songhwa and I had it earlier.”
“Okay,” she said, still not letting go of him. She continued, several seconds later, “you shouldn’t be having coffee now. Go home. Sleep. And you don’t need to wait up every night this week to see me before you leave.
“Really? You’re okay with me leaving without seeing you every night?”
“No,” she mewed, digging deeper into his chest and then looked up.
“Don’t leave without seeing me,” she pouted and reached up to kiss him. “I’m in so much trouble,” she confessed after the kiss.
“Why?”
“Because I need you, I need this, at the end of every day,” she said, causing a warmth to spread across Jeongwon’s chest.
“I miss you too, woman!” he said, leaving several pecks on her lips and cheeks.
“Whose idea was it again that I should stay with eomma this week and help her out?” she complained.
“A clearly stupid man who was trying to score some brownie points from his future mother-in-law. If he ever makes such suggestions again, feel free to tell him to shut up.”
“Like this?” she asked, kissing him again.
“Whichever way you prefer, aegya,” he said, swooping down to kiss her properly. When their lips parted, Gyeoul felt as if he had breathed some life into her. “With that, I think, I can survive this night shift,” she said, patting his chest. “Are you packed up? I’ll walk you down to the parking lot.”
“Aren’t they waiting for you to have dinner?”
“They can wait for another 5. Let’s go.”
Hands firmly clasped together, they walked through the lobby discussing mundane affairs of their homestead.
“Can you get my other pair of glasses tomorrow?”
“Sure, what happened to this one?”
“I accidentally put a pile of books on it and now it’s wonky.”
“Show,” he said, plucking her glasses from her face, and checking what was wrong with it. Kim Geon, Nam Yuri and Han Bomin, who had just stepped out for some fresh air, were looking at them, trying to catch their attention so that they could say bye to their favourite professor. It was in vain, not that they were surprised. Oblivious to everyone else’s existence, the couple walked ahead to where the car park was.