Chapter 59

A week pa.s.sed. 

Suhyuk seemed to have collected blood like crazy.

Although he also did things like disinfection and simple tests sometimes, the main task a.s.signed to him was blood collection. 

"It"s the first time I have collected so much blood like this… And all that in just one week."

"Intern, sir, can I ask you to collect blood from patient Lim Harin?"

Nurses began to ask him for a favor like that without any hesitation.

Suhyuk nodded his head gladly. 

It was a basic examination practice to a.n.a.lyze the blood of a patient and at the same time, it was a very important job to do, because blood can reveal a clue to figuring out the ident.i.ty of most diseases. 

So, even if it"s a simple technique, Suhyuk took blood with a good sense of duty.

Morning time pa.s.sed and lunch time came.

Fortunately, he was done with his a.s.signed quota of blood collection, so he moved to the elevator to go out.

At that moment, he heard a woman"s voice.

"How come you disinfected it that stupid way? It"s such an easy job. Didn"t I tell you not to make a mistake?"

Suhyuk"s head turned to the side at the sharp voice.

Resident Oh Heejin was frowning, looking at her intern peers.

She swept up her hair as if she could not calm down her anger. 

Sizing up what they were talking about, the intern made the patient"s wound open more while he was disinfecting it. 

She then noticed Suhyuk.

"Have a good lunch."

And then she opened her mouth again, "Just be like him, no more or no less. Nurses call him "One-shot, One-kill" Can"t you solve it with only a couple of attempts?"

Suhyuk, who bowed his head to her, laughed bitterly and entered the elevator.

He could see the intern"s face when the elevator door was closed. He felt sorry for him somehow. 

Suhyuk came out and looked around. 

"He said he would pa.s.s by not too late..."

Suhyuk called somewhere. sounded out the recorded automatic message.

"Is he busy?" 

When he was about to make another call, someone said, "Hey, Suhyuk".

He turned his head to the side at the familiar voice. 

A man wearing a white suit and a black tie. A figure as handsome as a model, Dongsu.

"I was not late man. I went to the bathroom." 

"What"s wrong with your hand?"

He was wrapping a blood-stained bandage on his hand roughly. At his question, Dongsu opened his mouth with a peek at his hand,

"I"m a bit hurt because that son of a b.i.t.c.h struggled like h.e.l.l."

"Did you go to the the site where the detective caught the criminal?" 

It was not once or twice when he questioned the appropriateness of Dongsu"s profession.

The prosecutor Dongsu was following criminal suspects ahead of the detectives.

"If you are doing things like this, why did you become a prosecutor instead of a detective?"
Dongsu responded briefly, "Because the prosecutor has more to show off."

"How can it be the only reason…" Suhyuk just could not help but shake his head. 

So they both had a light lunch at the restaurant near the hospital and headed for a coffee shop. He had about 30 minutes of free time as long as he did not get a call. 

"So, can you manage your work well?"

Suhyuk nodded lightly at his question.

"Well, I know you can"t live without a patient." 

He was a guy who ran to a sick person, putting aside all his work.

"How about you?"

Donsu said, with a slight frown, "Oh boy. I now know how many crazy people there are in the world."

Yes, there were incidents that did not surface; they were crimes that people could not even imagine. Only coming in novels? Horrible contents such as seen in the movies? That was nothing.

At that moment, his cell phones rang, "Yes, this is prosecutor Kim Dongsu." 

Suhyuk looked at Dongsu on the phone pleasantly. 

He studied so much with his eyes becoming bloodshot just to achieve what he wanted at the end of the day. 

He could imagine how much his mother liked it. He just felt proud of him like as if he were his mother. 

"How this son of a b.i.t.c.h can…" murmured Dongsu who hung up the phone.

"What is it?"

Dongu sighed long at his question.

"The suspect is his keeping his mouth shut, and using the right to remain silent."

"What"s the type of crime he commited?" 

"It"s a murder case. This crazy a.s.shole murdered his mom, dad, and sister and set fire to the house."

Suhyuk frowned, saying, "Does he not have a mental illness?" 

Dongsu laughed, thinking to himself, "Hey, I know you"re a doctor even if you don"t say things like that. It"s not a mental illness. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d is just an a.s.shole."

"What is the motive for his crime?"

"I hear he had an adhesive in his mouth. Obviously he did it to get insurance money." 

Dozens of crimes take place every day. Criminals who commit unbelievable crimes. Crimes overflowing everywhere. Despite such criminals, it was amazing to see the world going around without collapsing. 

"I"ll have to get going first." 

Dongsu, rising from the seat, was in such an emotional mood as if he wanted to rush to the suspect to grab his neck immediately. His character clearly showed it. Suhyuk also rose from his seat and opened his mouth,

"Did you see it on the news? Coercive investigation... Did you not see it on the news that a detective a.s.saulted a suspect? I hope you do not come out on TV news like that."

Dongsu laughed slightly. 

"Those a.s.sholes need some beating, and there are invisible methods to do so."

Suhyuk could not help but laugh dumbfoundedly. This was a guy who would not listen to him no matter what he said. Suhyuk and Dongsu parted in front of the coffee shop, promising to meet again next time.

***

Suhyuk, who entered the hospital lobby, was called. 

It was the call of the doctor in charge, Oh Heejin.

He had to move quickly.

"Did you call?" 

She, turning over the chart, nodded her head. 

"You"re going to the emergency room with me now? It"s the first time you are visiting a pediatric emergency room?" 

"As a PK student I went into the general emergency room. What about the other interns?"

The interns a.s.signed to the pediatrics department were in total 4 persons including himself. Though he looked around everywhere, he could not find them, who usually looked crestfallen like fallen reeds. 

"I gave them some break time because they looked tired."

Break time was in name only, because it was like stopping all their work. It was her way of giving a hard time to new interns. After two or three hours, though, they would show up again.

"It"ll be a little noisy."

Fluttering her gown, she walked ahead. 

The pediatric emergency room was completely different from the general emergency room. 

It was noisy, to say the least. 

Many children cried and threw a tantrum loudly enough to hit the eardrums of those present.  

Nurses soothed those little patients, and the doctors were busy moving around here and there.

Oh Heejin approached a doctor examining the body of a child lying down. It was Park Jungnam in his third year of residency.

"Sir, I"m here to a.s.sist you."

She was called by Park to the emergency room. 

When they were short staffed like this in the emergency room, those residents who had spare time came to their rescue. Or, more correctly speaking, they were forced to do so by their seniors" orders. 

"Yes, thank you," Park said and gestured with one eye. 

The child in her mom"s arms kept coughing.

"The temperature is so high. It"s not a simple cold." 

She nodded and moved to the child. 

"You must be a new intern, right?" Park caught Suhyuk"s hand. 

"Yes, I"m Lee Suhyuk."

"Yes, I heard you are the Prince of blood vessels. I need your helping hand as I"m busy."

Then he pointed to the child lying in bed. A girl who looked about six years old. 

She was such a commendable girl that she suppressed her tears even when she came into the emergency room.

"I think she had a fracture in her arm and needs an X-ray. You know where the imaging room is, right?"

"Yes, sir." 

"Immediately report after taking it," Park said.

Park talked with a middle-aged man who was standing by nervously. 

He was the child"s father.

"I think I need to see an X-ray for an accurate diagnosis."

The middle-aged man asked anxiously, "It isn"t serious, right?"

"Maybe the bones are broken," he said.

While the two talked, Suhyuk said, "You"re brave, and you"re not even crying." 

Suhyuk, who carefully brought the child to a stretcher, moved the wheeled bed. 

While moving to the imaging room, Suhyuk looked over at the child"s body condition.

There were bruises on her arms and on her side.

Yet the child did not shed a tear. Tears were welled up just around her eyes.

"Hold on a little bit. How did you get hurt?"

"I fell." 

"Where?" 

At that moment, a voice suddenly popped up from the side.

"She fell from the stairs."

It was the child"s father who followed with an anxious look. 

At his words, Suhyuk breathed a short sigh.

A child"s bones are weak, and easily broken even with a light impact. 

"Will my daughter be okay?"

His voice showed his genuine concern and love for his daughter.

Suhyuk nodded his head as if to soothe him.

"She"ll be okay." 

Fortunately she got hurt only with fractures. 

The situation would have been even worse if she had hurt her head.

"Protector, please wait a moment here." 

Suhyuk went into the imaging room.

Was it because she was separated from her dad? Tears fell from her eyes. 

"I will not give you a shot, I"ll just take the X-ray. It does not hurt and it"s quick."

The child nodded. On such occasions tears usually ran down.

Suhyuk stroked her head once. At that moment, he could notice something strange.

"Do you have bruises on your ears?"

The child"s face was fine. Then the skin inside her right ear was dark.

"She doesn"t seem to have it hurt today."

The inside part of her ears was languid as if it were stuck with lots of earlobes. 

The cells were dead. Of course, it will recover naturally over time. 

Once he found that strange area, he felt like other parts of her body were not normal.

"Did she say she fell from the stairs?"

He could not find any abrasions on her body common to such an accident.

Suhyuk quickly scanned her body here and there.

If she rolled down the stairs with both hands up, could she get these kind of bruises? 

One tries to instinctively protect their brains and organs. When one falls, they stretch their arms without realising it, and when one falls from the stairs, they lift their arms to wrap their heads and chests. 

And her right arm was likely fractured.

"You came here for an X-ray?"

The radiation engineer approached.

"Yes, her right arm." 

Suhyuk smiled at the child. 

"It doesn"t hurt."

Suhyuk, watch the imaging briefly, went out of the room.

"Yejin"s guardian."

Her father sat up at Suhyuk"s voice.

"Does she need a surgery if she has fractures?"

Suhyuk nodded his head at his uneasy voice.

"Yes, of course."

"How pitiful she is to have a surgery… It must hurt," he sighed a long sigh.

"Yeah, how much does surgery cost…?"

"Guardian."

He rubbed his face as if he were was.h.i.+ng it, and lifted his head slowly.

He could see Suhyuk"s eyes looking at him with a cool gaze.

Chapter 60

Her father stepped back with a flinch. For Suhyuk"s piercing gaze was stinging like a sharp blade.

"Are you sure she fell from the stairs?" 

He looked at Suhyuk as if he did not understand his question. 

"Did you find any other parts injured…?"

Suhyuk"s dry voice cut off his words. 

"Does your child go to a school or kindergarten?" 

At his question, he shook his head with a sigh that seemed to blame himself.

"No, she doesn"t."

Suhyuk"s lips were slightly twisted. 

Her bruise. Even if her father did not tell him, any doctor could infer how she was hurt.

But n.o.body noticed it, which meant that doctors did not care about the patient. 

At the guardian"s description, he doctor moves like a machine and diagnoses and categorizes the patient. The resident who initially diagnosed the child or her father who was lying were the same in that they did not care enough.

"Yejin"s fractures were not caused by falling from the stairs…"

Suhyuk quietly looked at the middle-aged man. His black pupil trembled a little. 

"Fractures caused by violence." 

There arose a capillary in the middle-aged man"s eyes because Suhyuk grabbed his neck.

Suhyuk pushed him to the wall and spoke eerily, "Feel the same thing!" 

He was tripped by Suhyuk. Suhyuk put his foot on his wing bone (shoulder blade), with his body lying sprawled on the floor. He also grabbed one of his arms as if he were about to break it against a fixed chair. 

"Your arm will now break, I"ll show you an X-ray of it." 

"Sir? Sir?!"

The child"s father was looking at him strangely.

Suddenly he was breathing out roughly while leaning against the wall.

Suhyuk was calming his mind and breathing. He was plunging into an imagination like that before he knew it. He almost lost his mind. He shook his head to blow away the dizziness. 

Suhyuk, who took his hand off the wall, looked at him straight. 

"Is it you, who hit your daughter?"

He shook his head. 

Suhyuk knitted his brows more and more. 

The bleeding from the capillaries and veins around the site of the fracture told such a story.

A fracture caused by a blunt object. It was clear on the X-ray.

Checking it from various angles, it did not make sense that she fell down the stairs.

"I"ll call the police." 

Suhyuk pulled out his cell phone in his pocket. 

At that moment, he heard a child"s crying sound.

The child screamed in the imaging room.

Suhyuk hurriedly opened the door and went inside. 

"What"s the problem?"

The radiologist was holding the small child"s body lying down as if he were calming down a man who had a seizure. 

"This child is strange," said the radiologist.

Suhyuk quickly approached.

"Yejin, we just want to take an X-ray. We"re not trying to hurt you."

"Let me go! Let me go! Dad! Dad!" 

The child shouted as much as she could to get out of the radiologist"s hands. 

Suhyuk carefully took the child"s swollen shoulders. 

If a fracture occurred, the sharp bone could destroy the muscle or pop out. 

Suhyuk constantly calmed the child and confirmed her condition.

"It"s not like a seizure. Why is she doing this suddenly?"

The pupil of the child recognized things clearly. 

Then, the child who rolled her feet lifted her head. 

At the same time, she went to hit the back of her head on the floor. 

However, Suhyuk was one step faster. He put his hand on the floor and picked up her falling head. Then the child repeated the action many times. Without Suhyuk"s actions, her head would have been broken. 

"Did she hurt herself?"

In his head, the name of a disease came to his mind.

"Impulse control disorder?"

It is a disease with a comprehensive symptom, which makes the patient repeat harmful actions to oneself or others. 

"I"m going home! I"m going home!"

The child cried with a sore throat, and tearful eyes. 

She also continued to shake her body. But two adults were holding on to it, and it was impossible for her to move. 

"Yes, Yejin, I"m here. Dad is here."

Her father was beside her already. 

"Dad!"

The tears on her face just stopped suddenly. Her father started hugging her gently.

"I think the child is scared, so please take a quick shot. Good daughter. It"s only an X-ray."

She just nodded at his words.

She had an X-ray taken calmly as if nothing had happened. It was such a contrast to her behavior from just a moment ago. Of course, the pain she felt in her arm was reflected in her face. Suhyuk looked at the daughter and father alternately.

The father of the child who lied that she fell from the stairs, and the daughter constantly glancing at him as if he were fleeing somewhere.

If her father had been violent, one could never have found such a look in her eyes.

There was nothing like dread in her eyes looking at him.

And the act of her hitting her head on the floor. It was obviously self-injury.

When he saw her actions, he could think about her in other aspects.

A bruise in her ears, and the bruises where fractures are expected to have occured. If she hit her arms on a desk or an object, it could easily happen, and no luck was required for it to happen.

Suhyuk opened his mouth to speak to the child"s father while he watched Yejin, who had her X-ray taken gently. 

"Yejin did not fall from the stairs. Why are you hiding it?"

Suhyuk"s tone wa full of confidence in his question.

Looking sadly at his daughter, he sighed deeply. Then he saw himself in the child"s eyes and said with a small voice,

"Because I wanted to curry favor with her."

Suhyuk made an expression as if he did not understand at all.

He continued, "It all began when our second baby was born. Because she complained she was sick on any day she could, we took her to the hospital many many times as if it were our house. On all such occasions, doctors said it was only her feigned sickness, and that there was nothing wrong with her body. Still she kept saying she was sick. I gave her a scolding with a warning that she shouldn"t do it again…"

Recalling the past memories, he opened his mouth again,

"After she got that scolding, she began to hurt her own body. In addition, she had a habit of beating her ears with her own palms, and doing that playfully."

When he noticed it, he did not take his eyes off her for a moment. However, the scratched and torn wounds were found here and there, and he had to take her to the hospital again. 

And while he was consulting with the doctor, he carefully brought it up: she was hurting herself. 

Was she ashamed of it? Or did she not want to appear weird to her other friends?

She was crying and screaming to the extent that doctors shook their heads.

Going beyond making trouble with her feigned sickness, she made a big fuss at the hospital.

It was natural that the hospital staff did not like her. 

He learned later that Yejin was chosen as a person that needs a watchful eye, with her name put on the blacklist. The hospital did not accept his daughter anymore. It was a refusal to treat her feigned illness, and it was decided to not give medical treatment.

So when she got hurt or was sick, he had to take her to another hospital without mentioning anything about her self-injury.

If the child heard him saying it was a self-injury, she might cause a seizure and make a fuss.

Even her homeschooling was effective only for a brief moment. His daughter"s rebellious behavior became more and more intense. 

And today, while he did not pay attention momentarily, his daughter struck her arm down against the TV set. It was the most severe act of hers ever. 

The doctor was suspicious of any possible fractures. 

Hearing all his explanation, Suhyuk sighed shortly. Yejin was suppressing her tears before her father. Did she do that to get his praise? On the other hand, she was crying in the imaging room.

She was scared and surprised, because she was separated from her father, and the strange s.p.a.ce could have fully stimulated the child"s fear. 

"She"s got a fracture on the bone," the radiologist approached and said she was fortunate.

Yejin, who lied on a stretcher, told him with a white pale face. 

"Dad, I did not cry."

"Yes, good daughter."

He stroked her head, lying on bed. 

"Let"s go," Suhyuk moved, pus.h.i.+ng the child"s bed.

***

A woman who was anxiously waiting outside came up hastily. She was Yejin"s mother. 

She wrapped her two-year-old baby in a baby blanket.

"Is she okay, sir?"

Suhyuk nodded his head. 

"Fortunately, she doesn"t need surgery. She would be fine with just acast."

Looking at the baby she was holding onto, the man said to his wife, "Is Kahyon okay?"
"Yes, he"s just a little surprised." 

He sighed relievedly at her words. Yejin, while holding her brother, dropped him on the floor. Then when her father approached her in a surprise, she was. .h.i.tting her arm down on the TV. 

So, they took their children to the hospital, but they were treated by different doctors.

Suhyuk looked at the baby in her arms quietly. He talked to the radiologist in the imaging room.

"Can I ask you to take care of Yejin?"

The radiologist nodded gladly.

And Suhyuk told her father, "Can I talk with you briefly?"

He nodded his head.

"First of all, I"m sorry I misunderstood you as an a.s.saultant."

At Suhyuk"s words, he smiled bitterly.

"It"s okay, It can happen. I appreciate it. You don"t look like other doctors. By the way, what do you want to say?" 

"I saw those bruises on her body. It seems she had them because she pinched herself, right?"

He sighed and nodded. He also made an expression wondering how he could figure it out. 

Suhyuk was able to firmly establish his thoughts at his reply.

"You can"t correct her behavior just with discipline."

Suhyuk had pulled out one piece of the vast medical knowledge he kept stored in his head. Yejin"s behavior was explained with this. 

"It seems to be a munchausen syndrome." 

"What is it?"

"It is a mental illness that causes a desire for the interest and compa.s.sion from others." 

Her illness was not just one. Impulse control disorder seemed to have attacked her.

Even though one who has this disease knows their behavior is harmful to themselves and others, one does not stop committing such violence and self-harm. Besides, she also has munchausen syndrome.

It is a desire to receive the attention of others by using falsehood and self-harm.

His eyes became wider at Suhyuk"s explanation.

He thought she might have a mental illness, but it was hard for him to admit it when he heard it from the doctor directly. She was an adorable child he did not beat with his hands even once. 

"Are you sure? Are you really sure? Really? What is the cause?" 

Amid his questions asked with an unbelievable expression, Suhyuk recalled the mother and the baby the mother held in her arms. 

"I think it"s because of her brother."