Golden Time

She was Kim Yuri, who had been hospitalized at Daehan Hospital after swallowing a razor.

Tear drops were formed at the tip of her jaw, who was standing with a blank expression.

“He drives me crazy to the end...”

She really hated the man. Very annoying from the beginning...

She squatted in the hallway as if she was collapsing.

Her long hair hid her face.

“Haaaah...” A long sigh came out from her lips.

She was always a lonely kid even though she had parents. Her mother ran a bar in a remote small village, while her father was a gangster that everybody shunned.

Her parents quarrelled whenever they met, and it was common that they did not come home for one week. What was her presence to them? When she ran into them occasionally, they always cast their eyes with disbelief as if they complained that their lives were messed up because of her.

And they would throw 20,000 or 30,000 won as pocket money. That was it.

In the end, they divorced, and her mother claimed the right to keep her in a legal battle.

The situation never changed for her.

It was about one year after they divorced when she experienced some change in her life.

She got married to another man. Exactly speaking, they only registered their marriage.

This ‘new father’ was weird. He would give her pocket money on a regular basis, and made breakfast for her without fail. For what? Any hidden purpose?

Besides, he would find her by all means whenever she fled from the house.

She felt just ashamed about him when she was mingling with her friends.

His attire was always that of a manual laborer.

She could not understand why her mother got married to a man like that.

Anyway, even her mother cut relations with her, and deserted her.

There was a rampant rumor that she met another guy and left.

In the end, she was left alone with this man, the new father.

One day when she was trying to go out, he stopped her.

He told her not to mingle with bad girls, resulting in a quarrel.

“Why? What do you mean to me?”

She chewed a razor before his eyes and swallowed it.

Then he slapped her in the face.

It was the first time she was. .h.i.t like that by him who never used any force.

She was taken to the hospital.

Fortunately there was no damage to the cut lips and bleeding tongue, but she felt pain on her wrist because he pressed on it.

In the end, she was hospitalized, but she closed her eyes as if she was sleeping on the bed.

And she could hear what he was saying to her.

“Do you hate me that much?”

She span hre body around at that and heard a quiet sigh from his mouth in her ears.

She could not see him since then.

She just heard from the nurse that he had paid the bill after checking her condition.

Back home she led the same life as before.

She turned on the TV and sat on the sofa.

Suddenly she cast her eyes at the kitchen.

“You must be hungry. Wait a moment...:

She seemed to see the back of the man cooking for her, but he was not there.

She felt stuffy in heart, and so she opened the refrigerator to get some cold water.

She found fruits and soft drinks in it, plus plenty of side dishes prepared by someone else.

“I didn’t say I want this kind of food.”

Night fell and morning broke every day.

And then the man never came back.

“I’m free at last...”

She just felt relieved after such a long time because the man who interfered with her everyday disappeared at last.

She clenched her fist and gnashed her teeth. Otherwise she felt that she would cry.

She wanted to enjoy some fresh cool air outside, and so she went out.

She was waiting at the crossing to move to a small park near her villa.

While she was waiting, she saw a familiar man wearing manual worker’s clothes with lots of dirt on.

He was the man, her ‘new father.’

The traffic light now turned to green.

Finding her, he was walking toward her, waving at her, with several shopping backs in one hand.

Thump!

She could not move her body as if it were frozen like ice.

Screams came out from pa.s.sers-by here and there.

The shopping bags were flying in the air, with the contents falling down.

“How, how did he know it?”

The contents in the shopping bags were the kind of clothes she wanted to have.

“Uncle!”

***

Suhyuk held out his hand, and the nurse gave him the tool.

With a burning smell, his belly was opened slowly.

“Pull it.”

At Suhyuk’s direction Park on the other side pulled the abdominal walls by using a retractor.

“Sir, his blood pressure is dropping.”

At the a.s.sistant’s words, who had been monitoring the patient’s vital signs, Suhyuk knitted his brows. And he looked at the patient’s face, murmuring, ‘You have to overcome this.’

“Keep up with supplying blood. Suction!”

While blood was being sucked into it, Suhyuk moved his hands.

‘It’s his liver now.’

About two thirds of it was smashed like mushed tofu, from which bleeding did not stop.

Even with the suction, bleeding did not stop.

It was very strange because the amount of bleeding was unusual for damage like this.

Hundreds of educated guess pa.s.sed through his mind.

And he could make a conclusion out of it.

If he had been taking blood pressure pills like anticoagulant that diluted blood, that was possible. Was he taking blood pressure pills?

“Please apply an anticoagulant injection.”

As soon as he said that, he began incising the liver.

As the anticoagulant was injected, the surgery was done sooner than planned.

“Now irrigation!”

Suhyuk poured water liquid into the patient’s belly.

“Suction!”

Though the liver was partially cut, bleeding was not that severe now thanks to the anticoagulant.

His hand moved ceaselessly, and now he was doing anastomosis.

Fortunately there was no other organs damaged other than the liver.

“Please st.i.tch them.”

Suhyuk stepped back, and the a.s.sistants quickly got together for the st.i.tching job.

After letting out a long breath, Suhyuk looked at the bandages wrapping the patient.

He could still see some bleeding from his right leg.

No damage to the bones, but too much bleeding.

After all, he cut the bandages to check it.

As he expected, the wounds were messy, with the s.h.i.+fted skin tearing apart.

Suhyuk began was.h.i.+ng his leg while the medical staff were engrossed in st.i.tching.

Something strange caught his eyes when he opened the wound. Only the fat layer was washed away. The bleeding was severe because the patient was taking that medicine.

Suhyuk began to disinfect again. Otherwise, the skin graft or inflammation might have led to rotting skin after necrosis occurred.

After disinfection, Suhyuk checked the patient’s vital signs.

The blood pressure was coming back, though it was still below normal.

‘You’re doing fine.’

The medical staff doing the st.i.tches were done finally.

“Nice job, doctor!”

“You, too, sir!”

At the medical staff’s complement, Suhyuk checked the vital signs quietly.

There was some silence for a moment.

Now Suhyuk took off his mask, looking at the medical staff,

“Thanks for the work, everybody!”

Though the vital signs were not perfect, the numbers were coming back to normal.

As long as the patient opened his eyes and had enough recovery time, his vital signs were likely to go back to normal.

The patient was take to the intensive care unit.

As soon as the door opened, Kim Yuri, who followed him right before the operating room, could not control her sobbing.

While the medical staff were checking the IV drip and the devices attached on the patient’s body, Suhyuk said to Kim,

“The surgery went well.”

“Boohoo..boohoo...”

She now suppressed her tears, saying,

“When you said the surgery went well, does it mean he is okay now?”

Suhyuk slowly nodded his head, replying,

“Do you happen to know this patient’s relatives or acquaintances?”

“Wait a moment,” said Kim, who then called somewhere.

How long ago did she call that number?

She could not remember it because she did not call it for a long time,

Kim called the number again, but to no avail.

Yes, she was right. He mother deserted her.

Back in the intensive care unit she stopped there.

And she looked at him lying on the bed in the distance.

Why only now did she realize it?

Now she began to see the very person who had been taking care of her up to now.

She walked up to him slowly.

The patient opened his eyes faintly.

“Are you back to your senses a bit now?” asked Suhyuk.

At his asking the patient’s pupils moved.

He fixed his eyes on Kim who came up to him before he knew it.

And she opened her mouth slowly, saying,

“I’m his guardian... It’s me, boohoo...”

She kneeled down as if her legs lost strength, and grabbed his hands gently.

She would never let go of his hands again.

“I’m his guardian. Boohoo... He is my father. My father!”