Chapter 21

So Gi-hyeon’s greatest strength, which simultaneously served as his most fatal flaw, was his profound inability to agonize deeply over a problem. That exact trait was the lifeline that had dragged him out of the suffocating, suicidal despair of his twenty-fifth summer.

Even while staring down at a catastrophically shattered ankle, his sole, hyper-fixated concern was simply how the hell he was going to earn a living moving forward. He maintained that exact same terrifyingly practical mindset when he began his grueling rehabilitation.

Just focus on wiggling the big toe.

Just focus on being grateful this isn’t a permanent, crippling disability.

Perhaps it was the relentless repetition of those internal mantras that saved him. Aside from the occasional, suffocating nightmare and the intermittent limp, Gi-hyeon aggressively refused to acknowledge or remember the horrors of that specific day.

He survived by rigidly compartmentalizing it as ancient history. If he got hurt, he was still So Gi-hyeon; if his luck was absolute garbage, he was still So Gi-hyeon. Therefore, the only person capable of embracing those accumulating, jagged scars and forcing them to heal was So Gi-hyeon himself.

However, this terrifyingly efficient mechanism of violently oversimplifying complex problems occasionally mutated into a massive, catastrophic vulnerability. The current crisis was the perfect example.

The hospital… it’s a bit of a hassle… I don’t even know which department I’m supposed to go to.

His aggressive oversimplification of the terrifying anomaly had rapidly devolved into profound laziness. Furthermore, the absolute paralyzing confusion over whether he needed to consult Internal Medicine or Surgery completely halted his momentum.

When he had desperately searched the internet for symptoms, the results were exclusively flooded with bizarre, incomprehensible jargon about Omegas, offering absolutely zero practical medical information. Some of the results even aggressively demanded age-verification checks just to view the content, leaving Gi-hyeon utterly baffled as to what the hell he was even looking at.

Since his comprehensive annual health screening late last year had returned completely clean without a single red flag, he ultimately decided he would only haul himself to the hospital if the terrifying fluid explicitly returned. For now, he resolved to simply focus on his immediate workload.

“How on earth can a patient who just underwent surgery yesterday possibly think it’s acceptable to drink alcohol? Your knee is literally radiating heat right now.”

“I didn’t have surgery yesterday, it was a week ago…”

“It’s the exact same thing, Mr. Park Sang-ho.”

Delivering the reprimand with a terrifyingly stern expression, Gi-hyeon firmly secured an ice pack over the patient’s knee, wedged a pillow beneath the leg to aggressively combat the severe edema, and explicitly ordered the man to completely skip his rehab exercises for the day. He was a patient from the general ward, notorious for throwing violently abusive tantrums the exact second his treatment was delayed even slightly. Rumor had it he had originally been receiving treatment at a different facility but was forcefully transferred here after physically fighting with his previous therapist. Unfortunately, by the time the warning reached them, it was far too late; he had already officially commenced his rehab program.

Team Leader Lim absolutely reveled in intentionally dumping these toxic, explosive patients entirely onto Gi-hyeon.

—Why are you glaring at me like that, Dr. So? Should I dump this patient on Dr. Seung-hee instead? If that’s what you want, just say the word. I’ll gladly reassign him to her.

It was absolute, manipulative extortion.

Refusing to take the bait, Gi-hyeon simply shook his head and agreed to handle it himself.

These aggressive, abusive patients ironically tended to keep their mouths completely shut and feign polite compliance when confronted by a physically imposing male therapist. It was infinitely better for Gi-hyeon to absorb the abuse than to subject Seung-hee to the nightmare. Not only was she his senior, but she had also gone out of her way to help him countless times since he first joined the clinic; he desperately wanted to repay that massive debt whenever the opportunity arose.

“Please remain perfectly still. You absolutely cannot do anything until the swelling in that knee completely subsides.”

The patient refused to answer, simply clicking his tongue aggressively. Tch.

Releasing a heavy, exhausted sigh, Gi-hyeon turned his back to attend to his next patient when a highly familiar face strolled through the entrance of the sports clinic.

“So Gi-hyeon.”

“…Oh, it’s been a while.”

It was Moon Si-hoo, one of Jo Yeon-oh’s friends.

Back when Yeon-oh was so obsessively dedicated to fencing that he had actually received an official scouting offer for the national team qualifiers, Si-hoo was one of the few people he actively maintained contact with.

As an épée fencer himself, Si-hoo possessed a long, deeply intertwined history with Yeon-oh. While Gi-hyeon had occasionally bumped into him while tagging along with Yeon-oh, the bastard constantly scrutinized Gi-hyeon with a deeply uncomfortable, intensely calculating gaze, making him someone Gi-hyeon actively wished to avoid.

“Team Leader Lim told me to drop by today.”

“Ah… He’s currently away from his desk.”

Gi-hyeon answered while casually rubbing the center of his chest with his palm—the exact spot where the military dog tags he kept hidden beneath his scrubs rested.

There was another massive, glaring reason Gi-hyeon found the man so incredibly repulsive: Moon Si-hoo was one of Team Leader Lim’s absolute, untouchable favorites.

While Moon Si-hoo’s actual athletic performance was aggressively mediocre, Team Leader Lim obsessively coddled and prioritized him to such a sickening degree that it sparked massive resentment among the other athletes enduring the same rehab programs.

The Team Leader would exclusively focus all his energy on Si-hoo’s rehabilitation, completely neglecting the treatments of the other athletes assigned to him.

While Team Leader Lim was busy pampering his favorite, the monumental burden of treating the abandoned athletes fell entirely onto Gi-hyeon’s shoulders.

Forced to manage his own assigned roster on top of the sudden, massive influx of neglected patients, Gi-hyeon had been forced to completely sacrifice his lunch breaks just to keep up. To make matters infinitely worse, this catastrophic workload had peaked during the absolute dead heat of mid-summer while the clinic’s air conditioning was completely broken, resulting in a torturous, agonizingly brutal period.

Recalling that absolute nightmare, Gi-hyeon let out a sigh—carefully controlled to be entirely imperceptible to the man—and politely escorted Moon Si-hoo into the main office.

“He went to observe the athlete checkups, so he should be back soon. Just wait here.”

“All by myself?”

Having escorted him to a seat, Gi-hyeon fully expected him to sit quietly so he could return to his patients, but he was violently halted in his tracks when Si-hoo flashed a sly, sickeningly sweet smile and grabbed his arm.

“Shouldn’t I? I have a massive backlog of patients waiting.”

“We haven’t seen each other in ages, you’re making me sad. That bastard Jo Yeon-oh hasn’t been answering my calls lately either. …Are you two still getting along well?”

…Right.

This exact brand of sly, calculating probing was the core issue.

Forcing his rigid face to relax, Gi-hyeon desperately summoned every last ounce of his professional customer service persona.

“Yeah, we’re doing fucking fantastic. I guess he’s just on bad terms with you. You know how incredibly picky he is. He heavily discriminates against the people he associates with.”

He had completely failed.

Unable to swallow the provocation, he had violently rammed straight back into him.

Moon Si-hoo’s eyes narrowed into sharp, dangerous slits as he darted his tongue out to wet his lower lip. He let out a hollow, mocking laugh and slowly nodded. “Of course he wouldn’t be on good terms with me. I don’t associate with filthy Beta bastards, and I certainly don’t take it up the ass from them either.”

“…What did you just say?”

The sheer, visceral disgust triggered by the explicit, degrading insult made the hairs on the back of Gi-hyeon’s neck stand straight up. Taking a threatening step forward, Gi-hyeon was fully prepared to demand exactly what the fuck the bastard had just spewed, but the explosive confrontation was violently derailed. Team Leader Lim strolled into the office, clapping his hands together enthusiastically.

“Oh my god, my darling! If you were here, why didn’t you call me! Dr. So, be a dear and go make us some coffee.”

“It’s fine, Team Leader. He and I are old friends, so treating him like an errand boy to fetch coffee is a bit…”

As Moon Si-hoo giggled mockingly while delivering the utterly insincere defense, Team Leader Lim finally turned to look at Gi-hyeon.

“Really? Are you offended, Dr. So? Fine, I’ll just ask someone else. Go fetch Dr. Seung-hee or Byung-joo.”

The sheer, transparent malice of explicitly threatening to summon the clinic’s absolute youngest trainer, Byung-joo, or Gi-hyeon’s senior, Seung-hee, just to run a pathetic errand was so absurd it was almost comical. Shoving both hands deeply into the front pockets of his scrubs, Gi-hyeon discreetly extended his middle fingers entirely out of sight, turned his back, and delivered his answer.

“I will go make the coffee.”

“Oh, really? Would you?”

While Team Leader Lim beamed with absolute delight, Moon Si-hoo continued to snicker mockingly from the sidelines. Adopting the grim resignation of a man walking to the gallows, Gi-hyeon exited the general ward. However, Moon Si-hoo’s vile words violently clung to his mind like a parasite.

Taking it up the ass…

…Did he hear that directly from Jo Yeon-oh?

The Alpha had seemed so desperately intent on keeping their relationship a total secret that Gi-hyeon had been the one to formally suggest the arrangement. The horrifying thought that Yeon-oh had been casually broadcasting the intimate details of their dynamic to absolute garbage like Moon Si-hoo left a vile, bitter taste in his mouth. How much longer was he condemned to be brutally punished for the unforgivable sin of shattering their grand, sacred friendship? Gi-hyeon found the answer utterly elusive.

He didn’t make the coffee.

Instead, he poured his entire focus into aggressively treating his patients. When an infuriated Team Leader Lim finally marched out to hunt him down, demanding to know where the coffee was, Gi-hyeon maintained an absolutely flawless, deadpan mask, repeatedly apologizing and claiming he had simply “forgotten” due to the overwhelming patient load.

While Team Leader Lim’s face turned a violent, apoplectic red as he shrieked and screamed at him, Gi-hyeon merely offered another polite, mechanical bow, allowing the abuse to wash completely over him.

Turning his back on the screaming manager, he calmly proceeded to remove the ice pack from patient Park Sang-ho’s knee.

“Dr. So Gi-hyeon! What the hell do you think you’re doing right now?! Are you blatantly ignoring me?!”

“Ah, I just realized I left the ice pack on Mr. Park Sang-ho for far too long. We absolutely cannot have him suffering from frostbite, can we?”

Delivering the completely half-assed excuse, Gi-hyeon stared blankly down at the philtrum of the shrieking Team Leader Lim. Idly noting that the man possessed an unusually large Adam’s apple, Gi-hyeon effortlessly tuned out the explosive rage entirely. That chaotic confrontation marked the absolute end of his afternoon shift.

During his commute home, his phone vibrated with an incoming call from Jo Yeon-oh.

Gi-hyeon stared blankly at the caller ID flashing across the screen for a long moment before calmly shoving the phone back into his pocket and continuing his walk in absolute silence.

***