Chapter 2.1
Chapter 2.1
Heeju, her gaze heavy with fatigue, looked up and met the man’s eyes. She spoke directly while maintaining eye contact.
“It’s illegal for me to perform medical procedure without permission.”
“Do you think the person who stabbed my side had legal license to do so?”
“You said earlier it was just a scratch. And I wasn’t the one who stabbed you.”
“Whether it’s a scratch or a stab depends on what you do next.”
The man pulled Heeju’s hand to his wound, pressing it against the injury with force. She could feel the blood welling up under the pressure. Yet, the man’s expression remained unchanged.
“You don’t like breaking the law?”
The blood clinging to her palm was sticky and warm. A normal person would have screamed in pain, but the man remained eerily impassive.
“Not really.”
Despite everything, she was well-practiced in stitching wounds. Treating a man with a pierced stomach was no big deal. Legal or illegal, it wasn’t her concern; she just wanted to return to her room. The whole ordeal was incredibly tiresome and exhausting for Heeju.
To get back, she’d have to give him what he wanted, right?
“Lie down. Let me see the wound first.”
At Heeju’s weary tone, the man stretched his lips into a wide smile.
“You’re as much of a f@ck~ng angel inside as you look.”
“Ever seen an angel who wants to die?”
“Life’s always a bit of a sh~tty joke, isn’t it?”
The man sat with his long legs crossed, leaning against the headboard of the bed. Heeju looked at him incredulously as he climbed onto the bed with his shoes on. Come to think of it, she was the only one walking around this house barefoot.
“You need to lie down.”
“Then I can’t see.”
“If you look, it’ll just hurt more.”
“Are you worried about me?”
Faced with his absurd response, Heeju didn’t insist further on him lying down. Let him do as he pleased. After all, the pain was his, not hers.
Heeju gently lifted the torn edge of his shirt to examine the wound on his abdomen. The man smirked as he watched her seriously inspect his injury.
“How is it? Does it look pretty?”
“Surprisingly, the wound isn’t too bad.”
Given the amount of blood, she had expected the worst, possibly even organ damage. However, it seemed manageable with just some basic suturing.
“This isn’t your blood, is it?”
Heeju spoke while staring almost entranced at the bloodstains soaking his shirt. Was it the familiar smell of blood? The persistent headache that had been plaguing her eased, and her mind felt clearer.
“Director.”
“…Yes?”
Heeju lifted her dazed eyes. The man was watching her with an arrogant expression. It was only now that she noticed his eyes were an unusually deep shade of gray.
Heeju studied his eyes closely. There was something oddly familiar about them, a color not typically seen in Asians. As she tried to recall where she might have seen such eyes before her head throbbed out of habit…
“It’s a bit annoying when someone so young keeps addressing me informally like that. Try saying Director Kwon Gukhyun.”
Kwon Gukhyun.
That was the man’s name.
Heeju finally learned the name of the man who had saved her life without her consent and brought her to this den of thugs. She quietly repeated his name on her tongue: Kwon Gukhyun. It seemed like a fitting name for someone with such strikingly handsome features.
But Director? No matter how she looked at him, he came off as nothing more than a gangster.
“Or would you prefer to call me oppa?”
Heeju’s expression turned cold with disgust.
“I’ll stick with Director.”
Without hesitation, she replied, and Gukhyun chuckled, gesturing with his chin toward the side table.
“Used to call me oppa so easily, but now you’re all grown up, aren’t you? Open the drawer.”
Heeju felt another wave of unease.
“What do you mean?”
“What.”
“Did we know each other before?”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Then you don’t. The drawer.”
Gukhyun responded nonchalantly and pointed at the side table again. Heeju looked at him with a wary expression before lowering her gaze. If she had known a man like him, she would definitely remember. Kwon Gukhyun. It was a name she was hearing for the first time.
But what is this unsettling feeling?
When she opened the drawer he pointed to, it was filled with disposable medical tools. There were antiseptics, hemostatics, knives, forceps, medical sutures, and needles. Quite an authentic setup.
Heeju pulled a chair over and sat next to the bed, thinking. It had to be one of two things: either he got injured so often that he preferred to treat himself at home rather than go to a hospital, or his injuries were the kind that couldn’t be shown at a hospital.