"This is sick!!!" they heard someone say it under their breath in the absolute numbing silence of the corridor.
"Should i Make it more sick!"Se-na roared back looking around to see who said it.
Secretary Han stood motionless, her cold eyes shifting from Do Ra-ik's pale, resolute face to Maeng Se-na's unyielding posture. For the first time since entering Hankuk National University Hospital, the chief corporate strategist of the Do conglomerate looked genuinely unsettled. Before Se-Na could say or do anything more, Ms Han started, "Mr. Do," her voice dropping into a warning whisper. Do Ra-Ik stopped in his tracks and looked back. "You are making a catastrophic strategic error. Your father will not tolerate open defiance especially not from someone in your current physical condition and stand."
"My father has tolerated my existence for thirty-five years only because I was useful to his image," Ra-ik replied coldly his careless expression disappearing, gripping the steel IV pole until his knuckles turned white. "Tell him he can send as many litigators as he wants. The answer is still no."
Secretary Han adjusted the heavy crocodile-skin folder under her arm, her expression freezing into a mask of polite corporate malice. She turned her gaze to Se-na.
"And you, Dr. Maeng," Secretary Han murmured, taking a deliberate step closer. "You speak with remarkable confidence for someone on probation. Enjoy your four weeks of floor duty. We will see how high your chin remains when the hospital board reviews your permanent termination next month."
Se-na's lips curved into a cold, dismissive smirk. "Welcome to be my guest, I'll be sure to mark my calendar. Now, please clear the corridor before I have security cite your team for disrupting patient care."
Without another word, Secretary Han turned on her sharp heels and marched down the hallway toward the VIP elevators, her two litigators falling into quick step behind her.
The moment the heavy brass elevator doors glided shut, the artificial strength sustaining Ra-ik completely shattered.
His knees buckled. A sharp, ragged gasp tore from his throat as he stumbled forward, the IV pole rattling violently against the polished floor.
"Ra-ik!"
Before anyone or anything could stop her, Se-na moved. She caught his massive frame before he hit the deck, her small hands bracing firmly against his ribs and shoulder. The sheer weight of him nearly threw her off balance, but she held her ground, her fingers digging into the fabric of his navy shirt.
"Dr. Lee! Grab the gurney!" Se-na barked over her shoulder at the paralyzed residents. "Don't just stand there looking at my face staring !!! assist me!"
"Y-Yes, Chief!" Dr. Lee scrambled forward, joining the floor nurses to support Ra-ik's height.
Together, they maneuvered Ra-ik back across the threshold of Room 802 and onto the high VIP mattress. Ra-ik fell back against the white pillows, his chest heaving, cold sweat glistening across his forehead as his stitched sternum throbbed from the sudden physical strain.
Se-na immediately stepped up to the bedside, her eyes darting over his vitals monitor.
"Pulse is hundred and twenty-four. Saturation dropped to ninety-four," she recited rapidly, her voice calm, commanding, and absolute but it was visible that she was anxious anyone who didn't know what had happened between them would think she actually had a relationship with him. "Hook up two liters of low-flow oxygen via nasal cannula. Dr. Lee, re-check his dressing for active bleeding. Dr. Choi, if you are quite done cowering behind the central desk, come inspect this telemetry line."
Dr. Choi, who had been watching the entire legal showdown from behind the glass partition, totally forgetting tht se-na was not allowed to directly handle cases, shuffled into the room with his round glasses slipping down his nose. "Dr. Maeng... that was Secretary Han. The Do family legal team will have Director Kang's head on a spike by sunset!"
"This is not a drama, we are not in your costume fetish of whatever garbage you watch and HE has a surprisingly resilient neck," Se-na said dryly, snatching a pair of sterile gloves from the wall dispenser and snapping them over her hands. "Now step aside so I can verify his sternal incision."
She leaned over Ra-ik, her quick, efficient hands unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the heavy white bandages covering his chest. Ra-ik lay still, his dark, exhausted eyes fixed entirely on her face as she worked.
"You shouldn't have stood up," Se-na muttered under her breath, her fingers gently pressing around the edges of the dressing to check for subcutaneous emphysema. "A man with four healing rib fractures has no business trying to play the heroic protector in front of corporate sharks."
"I wasn't playing protector," Ra-ik rasped out, his deep voice carrying a faint, breathy chuckle. "I was simply confirming what my doctor had already decided."
Se-na's fingers paused for a fraction of a second against his chest before resuming their clinical work. "I was protecting hospital legal policy, Mr. Do. Nothing more."
"Is that right?" Ra-ik murmured, a faint, dangerous glint appearing in his dark eyes despite his physical exhaustion. He tilted his head slightly, watching the subtle flush creeping up her neck. "And what about that comment outside? The one about your family's pocket change?"
Se-na froze.
A sudden, horrifying heat surged up her neck, burning hot across her cheekbones. The memory of her slip-up her inner arrogant rich heiress leaking out in front of litigators and floor staff hit her like a splash of boiling water.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Se-na said coolly, stripping off her rubber gloves with a crisp snap and throwing them into the biohazard bin. "You were likely experiencing mild hypoxia-induced auditory hallucinations."
"Hypoxia doesn't make up phrasing like 'your entire board couldn't buy out my pocket change,'" Ra-ik replied softly, his rough voice laced with genuine, quiet amusement. "I must admit... Surgeon Maeng Se-na is terrifying. But the Maeng family heiress is surprisingly ruthless."
Se-na turned on her heel to face him, crossing her arms over her crisp white doctor's coat, her chin lifted high in defensive superiority.
"If you have enough energy to analyze my vocabulary, Mr. Do, then you have enough energy to complete your breathing exercises," Se-na said, her tone laced with biting, clinical condescension. "Dr. Lee, remain in Room 802 and monitor his vitals every ten minutes. If he attempts to stand again, sedate him."
"Yes, Chief Maeng!" Dr. Lee squeaked, standing at rigid attention.
Se-na turned and glided out of Room 802, her white coat swishing elegantly behind her as the heavy door glided shut.
Outside in the corridor, the floor nurses were whispering frantically among themselves, looking at her with a mix of awe and terror. Se-na walked back to her secondary workstation, her heart beating at an uncharacteristically rapid tempo. She pulled out her chair, sat down, and picked up her digital stylus to resume signing routine outpatient charts.
She stared at the glowing tablet screen, but the medical numbers blurred into background noise.
She remembered the look in Ra-ik's dark eyes when he stood beside her in the doorway battered, bleeding, yet standing unyielding against his father's empire. For a man who had tried to let go of everything on a hundred-story ledge just days ago, there was a sudden, roaring pulse of life back inside him.
She stared at the glowing tablet screen, but the medical numbers blurred into background noise.
She remembered the look in Ra-ik's dark eyes when he stood beside her in the doorway battered, bleeding, yet standing unyielding and she still feeling as if looking at her own self through the lens of her soul. For a man who had tried to let go of everything on a hundred-story ledge just days ago, there was a sudden, roaring pulse of life back inside him.
Yet, there was no room for romance in the suffocating weight settling over her chest. What she felt wasn't affection; it was something far more terrifying and complicated.
For thirty-five years, she had been Maeng Se-na, a woman forged in cold discipline, untouchable ambition, and clinical distance. She had spent only a single night trapped inside Do Ra-ik. But in those agonizing hours, she hadn't just inhabited his flesh; she had lived his entire existence. She had navigated his most unbearable agonies and his rarest, quietest moments of beauty, enduring every drop of his torment completely alone.
Now, returned to her own skin, her own life felt like an ill-fitting garment. She couldn't readjust. That single night as Do Ra-ik weighed infinitely heavier on her soul than thirty-five years of being Maeng Se-na. Looking at him now wasn't like looking at a patient, or even an ally. It was like looking directly into her own living memories, navigating his raw physical presence as if their souls were still fused within one shared body.
And as Se-na tapped her pen against the desk, her trembling fingers gripping the stylus, she realized with terrifying clarity that she had no intention of letting anyone extinguish a life that had become so inextricably tied to her own.
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