Chapter 9
“Uh…”
“Oh, and give me your ID card.”
Without waiting for a response, Kang-hyuk snatched the staff ID hanging from Anus’s chest.
Then, he unlocked the ICU door and stepped inside.
“Hey! Anus! Get the gear ready! I’ll check on the patient and meet you at the entrance!”
“Uh…”
“Hey! You deaf?!”
“Y-Yes, yes!”
Thankfully, Anus managed to snap out of his daze before the ICU door fully closed.
As Kang-hyuk watched him sprint back toward the ER, he continued forward.
“Wait, how did he get in?!”
Someone blocked his path.
“Huh… Oh.”
A new face.
But the voice was unmistakable.
“Oh, it’s the stubborn one!”
“What do you mean, ‘stubborn one’?! This area is for medical personnel only! Get out!”
“I am medical personnel! Baek Kang-hyuk, Trauma Surgery Professor!”
“There’s no Trauma Surgery department in this hospital! If you’re going to lie, at least do your research first!”
“What’s your name?”
“And what if I tell you? You gonna stab me or something?”
The nurse boldly shoved her ID badge in his face.
Large letters spelled out:
“Cheon Jang-mi – Trauma Center Nurse”
“Cheon Jang-mi.”
“Yeah, that’s my name. So what? Now get out!”
Jang-mi, seeing that Kang-hyuk had no intention of leaving, decided to physically remove her.
But it was pointless.
Kang-hyuk was massively built, while Jang-mi… was not.
At most, she could only pathetically slap at his chest.
“Whoa, whoa, violence?!”
“Why the hell are you so solid?! Are you wearing body armor?!”
Kang-hyuk brushed past her without effort.
“Enough fooling around. Where’s the patient?”
“H-Hey!”
Jang-mi lunged to stop him, but he was too fast.
His unnaturally quick movements, impossibly sturdy build, and rough mannerisms—
It all clicked in Jang-mi’s head.
> ‘Wait… wasn’t the patient this morning rumored to be a gangster?!’
If that were true, then this guy might be here to finish the job.
“NO!”
“What is wrong with you? Just tell me where the patient—”
“You’re here to kill him, aren’t you?!”
“What kind of dumbass— Oh, there he is.”
Ignoring her, Kang-hyuk spotted his patient.
He rolled up his sleeves and hurried over.
Jang-mi’s eyes went wide.
> ‘H-He’s really gonna do it!’
Nowadays, plenty of young people got tattoos.
But for someone like Jang-mi, tattoos still meant gangsters.
And Kang-hyuk’s weren’t even normal designs—just ominous symbols covering his arms.
“NO!”
Mustering every ounce of courage, Jang-mi grabbed him from behind.
But it barely did anything.
Kang-hyuk was so tall that she only reached his waist.
She looked like a cicada clinging to a tree.
“…What the hell are you doing?”
That was the exact moment Anus rushed in, carrying medical supplies—
And froze at the scene.
His new idol, a man he respected for his skills and dedication, was—
> “Flirting with an ICU nurse?!
Anus immediately regretted ever asking for Kang-hyuk’s help.
The most embarrassed person, though?
Kang-hyuk himself.
“A-Anus, this is a misunderstanding.”
Sometimes, saying ‘it’s a misunderstanding’ only makes it worse.
This was one of those times.
“What exactly is being misunderstood here…?”
“Cheon Jang-mi, let go of him already. This is getting weird.”
“NO! NEVER!”
“Are you two Romeo and Juliet or something?”
“No, you idiot! Someone’s about to die!”
“Uh… yeah, Juliet also died, actually.”
“When did this relationship even happen?! Professor Baek just arrived today!”
“This guy’s a gangster!”
Unable to hold it in any longer, Jang-mi pointed at his arm tattoos.
Kang-hyuk’s massive forearms, covered in strange markings, certainly looked intimidating.
But a gangster?
Anus blinked, looking confused.
“A gangster? Professor Baek is the new Trauma Surgery Professor.”
“…Eh?”
Jang-mi’s eyes widened in horror.
She had mistaken a professor for a criminal.
Normally, such a misunderstanding would be impossible.
But this was Baek Kang-hyuk.
So it actually made sense.
“I-I mean… I was a little confused too at first, but… yeah, he’s a professor.”
“…Oh.”
Jang-mi, still clinging to his waist, finally realized she needed to apologize.
“S-Sorry… I really thought…”
“In all my life, I’ve never been called a gangster.”
Jang-mi was certain that wasn’t true.
But she nodded along anyway.
“R-Right. Sorry again.”
“Whatever. We don’t have time for this.”
Checking his watch, Kang-hyuk turned toward the patient.
His expression instantly changed.
Gone was the man who had just been mistaken for a thug.
In his place stood a cold, calculating doctor.
“The patient’s still under sedation, right?”
Anus quickly responded.
“Yes! We’ve got Remifentanil running.”
“Remifentanil. Good choice. That’s the right call.”
The ICU had many sedation options, but the most common was Midazolam, a type of sleep-inducing sedative.
It was cheap and effective, making it widely used.
For patients like the one lying in front of Kang-hyuk, where frequent consciousness checks were necessary, Remifentanil was a far superior choice.
It was more expensive, but it provided better hemodynamic stability and, most importantly, had a short [half-life] (T/N: the time it takes for drug concentration to reduce by half), making it easy to wake the patient when needed.
“Blood pressure is stable, wounds are fine. Have the lab results come back yet?”
“Yes. Since the patient is on a central venous catheter, we’re sending blood tests every 30 minutes.”
“That’s too frequent. Reduce it to once every hour. Hemoglobin is already over 10. With IV fluids running, that effectively means it’s around 11—almost normal.”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
“Where’s the gangster nurse? You heard all that, right?”
Jang-mi grimaced.
Did he seriously just call her gangster nurse?
Was that something you actually said to a person?
But given what she had just done, she wasn’t in a position to complain.
“Yes, professor.”
“Good. Gangster. Keep an eye on the patient and report vitals every 30 minutes.”
“…Yes, sir.”
“And that empty ICU bed—don’t give it to anyone else. We’re reserving it.”
“Acknowledged.”
Just as they finished talking, Anus’s phone rang.
Not his personal phone—his on-call phone.
At this hour, there was only one reason it would be ringing.
“The helicopter’s here.”
“Ah. Where’s it landing? The rooftop?”
“N-No, the hospital’s tennis courts.”
“The… tennis courts? You don’t have a helipad?”
“Are we supposed to have one…?”
Hearing Anus’s clueless response, Kang-hyuk let out a chuckle.
Then, shaking his head, he muttered:
“Right… this is Korea.”
Anus wanted to ask what he meant, but he held back.
There was too much weight behind those words.
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go. Lead the way.”
“Yes, professor.”
“Run. If we’re late, the patient dies.”
“Y-Yes!”
At the mention of the patient, Anus immediately took off running.
Having spent most of his life inside the hospital, just sprinting 30 meters from the ICU to the ER entrance left him gasping for air.
“Huff… Huff…”
“Anus, are you even going to survive on that helicopter?”
“Ugh…”
“Unbelievable.”
Meanwhile, Kang-hyuk looked completely unbothered.
Even after grabbing Anus’s emergency kit, he was still fine.
At this point, he was practically pushing Anus forward, forcing him to keep running.
Tat tat tat tat tat—
As they neared the tennis courts, fierce winds buffeted them.
The helicopter had landed but hadn’t shut off its rotors.
Since helicopters were rotary-wing aircraft, they had more flexibility in takeoff and landing than fixed-wing planes.
However, restarting the rotors from a full stop took way too much time.
“Bend down! Keep your head up!”
“Y-Yes!”
“And follow behind me!”
Kang-hyuk moved like someone who had boarded helicopters countless times before.
With precise movements, he aligned his body with the rotor’s airflow and nimbly leaped inside.
His fluidity and ease were so surprising that even the firefighters waiting inside were caught off guard.
“Inside, now!”
Anus grabbed Kang-hyuk’s outstretched hand and clambered in.
As soon as he was in, the helicopter lifted off.
One of the firefighters, a man with kind eyes and a warm smile, greeted them.
His name tag read Ahn Jung-heon.
“The official request for Trauma Surgery assistance was approved a year ago—but this is the first time we’re actually working together!”
“You’ll be seeing a lot more of me from now on.”
Kang-hyuk replied calmly, flipping on his noise-canceling headset.
Seeing that, Jung-heon’s eyes lit up.
“You’ve flown in helicopters a lot before, haven’t you?”
“Isn’t this… normal?”
“Uh, not for everyone.”
Jung-heon let out a laugh and pointed at Anus.
The poor guy was curled up in his seat, clutching his armrests with both hands.
His eyes were screwed shut, his head ducked down in pure terror.
Jung-heon understood completely.
For someone riding a helicopter for the first time, the violent shaking and vibrations were no joke.
There was a reason helicopters had the highest crash rate among aircraft.
“Whew.”
Jung-heon shook his head.
“We’re supposed to treat the patient mid-flight… But looking at him, I don’t think he’s ready.”
“You can perform surgery here?! That’s… impressive.”
As they spoke, the helicopter reached the accident site on Bukhansan Mountain.
Visibility was atrocious.
Dense fog blanketed the area, making it impossible to see more than a few meters ahead.
The pilot turned around, his expression tense.
“This is… too dangerous. I can’t get any closer.”
Just then, a frantic radio transmission came through from the rescue team on-site.
“We’ve reached the patient! There’s a pulse, but it’s weak! The patient is unconscious!”
“There’s significant bruising around the chest, and we can feel bone fragments shifting!”
The message could be summed up in one sentence:
> “If you don’t do something right now, the patient will die.”
“You heard that, right?”
Kang-hyuk looked directly at the pilot.
But the pilot shook his head.
“If I try to land here, we’ll all die!”
Kang-hyuk didn’t hesitate.
“Then I’ll do it.”
The pilot blinked.
“…Do what?”
“Fly the helicopter.”