Chapter 136

“Oh my.”

“L-Let’s hurry over.”

“I told you not to insert a catheter…”

The three scrambled out of the conference room in a panic.

The nurses who had been near Baek Kang-hyuk were all in shock, as if they had just taken a lion’s roar straight to the face in some martial arts story.

Even the child who had been sedated twitched. That was how powerful Kang-hyuk’s shout was.

“What… What the hell is thiiiiiis!”

Honestly, it was understandable. Who wouldn’t be baffled to wake up and find something inserted into such a private place out of nowhere? Especially while lying in the ICU.

“Professor. You’re awake?”

Yang Jaewon approached with a bright smile, thinking of the saying, ‘You can’t spit on a smiling face.’

“You crazy bastard. Why the hell are you grinning! You think this is funny?”

And Jaewon quickly learned that not all proverbs apply in every situation. Some people, instead of spitting on a smiling face, could throw in a full-blown string of curses.

“Are you okay?”

Leaving the dejected Jaewon behind, Park Gyeongwon stepped in, recalling the saying, ‘Even if you’re caught by a tiger, keep your wits about you.’

At least for them, Kang-hyuk was more terrifying than any tiger right now.

“Do I look okay! Who the hell put this in me!”

And Gyeongwon, too, realized proverbs didn’t always hold true.

“Uh…”

One roar was enough to make him stumble back in shock.

“Guess it’s my turn.”

Cheon Jang-mi rolled her neck as she stepped forward—or tried to—before Kang-hyuk went off again.

“Don’t you come here! What are you trying to look at!”

Right now, Kang-hyuk was staring down at the catheter inserted in his precious part. Which also meant he was, depending on perspective, exposing one of the most unpleasant sights in the world.

And Jang-mi? Absolutely not.

“I’m a nurse, you know.”

“You’re a gangster! Don’t come! Didn’t I say don’t come?”

“Are you clenching your fist? You’re not actually going to hit me, are you?”

“I’ll hit you all I want!”

“Wow…”

“Wow what! Just pull this thing out already.”

Kang-hyuk’s rage suddenly subsided as he looked at Gyeongwon. It occurred to him that shouting with a catheter stuck in him felt rather pitiful. It certainly looked pathetic enough for the surrounding nurses to whisper among themselves.

“Uh… Okay. I’ll do it myself then.”

Jaewon stepped forward bravely at Kang-hyuk’s order, but Kang-hyuk waved him off.

“No, no! I’ll do it.”

“You’re… going to pull it out yourself?”

Jaewon pointed at the catheter, disbelief written all over his face. People unfamiliar with them wouldn’t realize, but they were thicker than one might expect. It could be painful not just going in, but coming out too.

“Would you watch your junior pull this out while fully conscious?”

Come to think of it, Jaewon figured he’d feel pretty upset if a junior tried to do that for him. Maybe even lose a bit of respect.

‘Or… maybe respect would go up after seeing it.’

Jaewon glanced at the dangerous weapon that was Kang-hyuk’s. Gyeongwon cut in.

“Should I sedate you? We can take it out then—”

Talking nonsense.

“You lunatics!”

Naturally, Kang-hyuk’s roar followed. In the Severe Trauma Center, his yelling was so routine that no one from the nearby emergency department even bothered to check in.

“Hand me a syringe.”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Geez… You put this in just because I took a little nap. Lunatics…”

Kang-hyuk mumbled as he attached the syringe to the catheter’s balloon port. The catheter had a balloon inside the bladder to keep it in place. If you pulled it out without draining the water from the balloon first, the patient would see hell.

‘Squelch.’

As he pulled the syringe, water drained out, and he could feel whatever was blocking the bladder entrance shrinking.

“Shit.”

It was a situation that made swearing come naturally.

“You’re really going to do it yourself?”

Even while getting cursed at, Jaewon still asked, which only made it sound like he was teasing.

“You wanna die?”

Kang-hyuk smacked the back of Jaewon’s head. Jaewon looked indignant, but both Gyeongwon and Jang-mi thought, ‘Serves him right.’ Saying “You’re doing it yourself?” to someone with a catheter—how tactless could you be?

“Haa.”

Even after draining the balloon, Kang-hyuk hesitated for a long while, wearing the same expression he’d have when deciding how to rebuild an almost-burst heart.

“Ugh, hhhgh.”

At last, he began to pull it out himself but had to stop soon after—not just from the pain, but from the strange, unpleasant sensation that felt like urinating.

“Knew you couldn’t do it, huh?”

Jaewon piped up again, but this time Kang-hyuk didn’t hit him. Not because he wasn’t irritated, but because he realized this was something he couldn’t manage alone.

“Shit… Shit…”

He cursed with a face on the verge of tears. (T/N: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

Jang-mi turned away. No matter how much of a bastard he was, he was still the chief of the Severe Trauma Center. To see someone like that in this state shattered his usual charisma to pieces.

‘I’m never getting admitted to our hospital…’

While she steeled her resolve, Jaewon put on gloves—not for sterility, but simply to protect his hands from touching something dirty.

“If you’re going to do it, hurry up.”

Kang-hyuk looked pitiful as he said it, his tone like that of a resistance fighter captured by the enemy.

“Understood.”

In contrast, Jaewon wore the face of a police officer about to interrogate. He tried to hide it, but he was clearly enjoying the role reversal after always being on the receiving end.

“Here I go.”

“Just do it! No stalling!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Mm.”

Jaewon yanked it out in one swift motion. Since Kang-hyuk had no issues like [benign prostatic hyperplasia] (T/N: Non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate gland that can obstruct urine flow.), it went smoothly—though a few drops of urine did spatter out. Normal enough, but never not embarrassing.

“Damn it.”

Kang-hyuk quickly pulled up his pants, eyes on the yellow stains now dotting the once-white bed sheets. The sight only made his anger boil higher.

“Who… Who the hell did this?”

He glared at Jaewon, Gyeongwon, and Jang-mi. None spoke—they were all accomplices, after all.

“Professor, you didn’t just fall asleep—you lost consciousness.”

Jaewon spoke up.

“Lost consciousness? Hey, if I say it was sleep, then it’s sleep!”

“What kind of sleep makes you not notice a CT scan… You answer calls the moment your phone rings when napping in the hospital.”

“That’s alert mode! This was deep sleep mode! Don’t you know? It’s basic for trauma surgeons!”

His confidence was so absurd that Jaewon even wondered if such a term existed in medical textbooks—before realizing it was nonsense. People weren’t machines; you couldn’t set a sleep mode.

‘Or… maybe this guy can…?’

With how often Kang-hyuk defied common sense, it was hard to tell anymore.

“You put in a catheter just because I napped? You—oh.”

Kang-hyuk stopped mid-yell, noticing the child lying behind Jang-mi. The child, fitted with a [colostomy] (T/N: A surgical opening in the abdominal wall for diverting waste into a bag.), was sleeping peacefully.

“How’s the kid doing? Okay?”

He’d saved that child with his own blood donation. In fact, the humiliation he was enduring now was indirectly because of that child.

“Ah, very good progress. We even did a post-op CT earlier. Would you like to see?”

Relieved to change the subject, Jaewon pulled up the patient’s report, thinking, ‘Gotta get him in a good mood before telling him the helicopter news.’

“Hmm… Looks good.”

Kang-hyuk nodded as he reviewed the scan. For someone hit by a forklift just yesterday, the wounds were remarkably clean. The bladder he’d painstakingly repaired looked almost brand new.

“Catheter… Damn it… You put one in, right?”

He circled the mouse cursor over the bladder and asked.

“Yes? Of course. Hehe.”

“Right. That one needs it. As for me… sigh…”

He looked down at his own lower body and sighed—not in anger, but in something closer to pity.

‘Creak.’

Just then, the ICU door opened and Han Yoo-rim entered, face flushed from unresolved business.

“Oh. Oh. Perfect timing—you’re awake, Professor Baek.”

It was an unexpected visitor for Kang-hyuk.

“Chief? What brings you here?”

“What brings me… Ah, you haven’t heard? Guess you’ve been busy.”

Han gave a hollow smile at the Severe Trauma Center team. While others ignored or belittled them, he knew these people worked harder than anyone in the hospital.

‘And yet this is all I have to tell them. Damn it.’

He shook his head before speaking.

“That helicopter from Gyeonggi Fire Department…”

“Yes, Team Leader Kim Kang-ryul.”

“The district mayor filed a complaint, and now support’s been cut—starting today.”

“What? Those crazy bastards?”

“I tried talking to them, but the director and admin chief wouldn’t listen. Said using a helicopter when we have an ambulance is just for show.”

It was enough to drain anyone’s strength. It made clear how divorced the country’s talk of ‘revitalizing trauma centers’ was from reality.

“This—”

Kang-hyuk was about to curse again when the TV in the conference room blared breaking news.

“Some members of the Hanbit Unit deployed in South Sudan have been caught in a skirmish with an armed group!”

(T/N: Oohh, so we are getting the Sudan arc a little bit earlier.)