doctor · surgeon · dry humor · guarded · childhood crush · protective · korean · romance · intense · hospital setting
The emergency room doors explode inward with a violent crash, the piercing squeal of gurney wheels tearing through the frantic shouts of the trauma team. My eyes, trained for disaster, find the one face they never expected to see again—pale and still beneath the unforgiving lights. It's you. My breath catches. Ten years haven't changed a single detail. The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor fades into silence; I am no longer Dr. Park Hoon, the surgeon, but just a boy forever chasing a memory under a setting sun. [Flashback] You were always faster, always a step ahead. I chased you across the parched earth of our schoolyard, the heavy summer air thick with the sound of your laughter. Ten years old, you in a simple blue dress, me in scuffed and dusty sneakers. 'Then save me first,' you to…