Special Tutoring (1)

That was when it happened.

A thunder of footsteps came pounding toward us from the resuscitation room.

"Out of the way! Move! Everybody move!"

I turned toward the sound. It was the Chief.

"What the fuck is going on?! What, what, what?! Why'd the alarm suddenly go off in Zone B?! Did someone arrest?!"

Fourth-year Lee Min-jae shoved through us and went straight to the patient.

The Chief took a moment to assess him, then checked the BiPAP settings.

"Hmm..."

He stroked his chin, thinking, then tapped a few buttons and nudged the numbers.

"Bump the RR to 16, and let's give a little more FiO2 at 30%. That should be a lot more stable."

He glanced at the ABGA results in the EMR and nodded.

"Good. Initial management looks solid."

Satisfied, the Chief headed back to the resuscitation room to finish dealing with the trauma patient.

...I saved him.

I peeled off toward a corner, pretending to head for the supply closet, and quietly opened the system window.

A vivid popup bloomed across my vision.

My eyes went round.

...Whoa. Three hundred just landed.

The night was dying.

I was slumped in a corner of the station, practically running on fumes. One by one, the seniors who'd been fighting for their lives in the resuscitation room trudged out with exhausted faces. The trauma patient had made it — alive — up to the OR.

"Hyun-jae, you not heading home?"

Kim Ji-hoon had appeared at my shoulder, looking down at me with hollow eyes. One look and I could tell he'd gotten absolutely wrecked.

"You go first. I've got a few more charts to finish."

"Dude, you're going to die like that. Half-ass it and let's go. We've still got to prep for conference the day after tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be right behind you."

I waved him off and sent him on ahead.

Conference, my ass. All I wanted was to dive face-first into a bed.

My fingers had no strength left for the keyboard. I finally finished the last patient's chart and hit logout.

"I'll be heading out first."

I bowed to the senior holding down the station. Clocking out on time. That's the MZ way.

"Go on, get some rest. You worked hard today."

Yeah, yeah, I know. I swallowed the soulless reply and turned around.

Should I grab a taxi?

No. Just take the bus. A cab at this hour of the morning was a luxury I couldn't justify.

...But does this thing even work outside the hospital?

The thought struck me out of nowhere. Was it like Wi-Fi? In all this time, I'd never once thought to open the Gallery on my commute, outside the hospital.

Gallery.

Ping—

The familiar blue interface bloomed into view.

It worked.

I let out a breath of relief and scanned the main screen. Then I couldn't help but snort.

The brutal, bone-deep accuracy of it left me speechless for a second.

These bastards were watching my every move, apparently.

I let out a hollow laugh and started typing.

I hit post. A moment later, the comment notifications exploded like a bomb.

Give me a fucking break.

I wasn't dying so these guys could have a good time.

I was scrolling when my eyes snagged on one comment.

It was a fact. A hundred-proof fact, straight to the gut.

I froze.

...Was it?

Now that I thought about it, yeah.

A comment flickered through my mind.

If I didn't have talent, I at least had to put in the work. I couldn't lean on this insane gallery forever.

I thought it over for a second, then typed a reply.

The second my reply went up, the mood of the Gallery flipped on a dime.

These insane workaholic bastards.

I snorted and closed the gallery window.

A comment one of the ghosts had left flickered through my mind.

And so I arrived at my studio apartment with plastic bags swinging from both hands, suture-practice pigskin packed generously among the rest.

Gauze, suture, surgical instruments, and a slab of bright crimson pigskin.

Alright.

Let's do this.

A scene out of hell had taken over my studio kitchen. A desk lamp stood in for an operating light. Under it, the pigskin.

A wave of crushing absurdity rolled over me.

You can borrow a brain. You can't borrow hands.

Knowledge I could cheat my way into. The feel in my hands was mine alone.

...I'm going to have to record this and upload it.

Sitting here grunting at a slab of pork by myself wasn't going to get me anywhere. I needed feedback.

This insane gallery wrote posts from my thoughts alone — it even took photos. Video recording couldn't be any different.

Start recording my field of view. One minute.

A small REC icon appeared in the corner of my vision.

Okay.

I picked up the needle holder and the forceps.

I let out a breath. One deep inhale.

The first needle went into the pigskin.

Thunk.

Ah, fuck. Too deep. The angle was garbage too.

I tried to pull the needle out and it wouldn't come. When I tugged the skin with the forceps, the pigskin tore into an ugly rip. Forget a knot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— I'd just made the wound worse.

End recording.

I opened the Gallery, attached the one-minute disaster I'd just filmed, and put up a new post.

The first comment was, of course, that bastard.

Abuse and curses pouring in from every direction.

Right. Ninety degrees.

Ninety degrees.

I started recording again. This time I put everything I had into the angle.

Perpendicular. A perfect right angle, and I drove the needle in.

Oh. That worked. It went through almost smoothly this time.

I smiled, brought the needle out the other side, and pulled the thread. Now I just had to tie it. I tried a surgeon's knot, the way I'd been taught.

Once around, twice around.

Wait. My fingers were tangled. The thread was knotted on itself.

End recording.

I shot another one-minute video and attached it as a reply.

I swore under my breath and untangled the thread.

Instrument tie. Tying with the tools.

Right. Tie it with the instruments.

Recording. Again.

I caught the end of the thread with the needle holder and looped it around the forceps, round and round.

Ting—

Ah, fuck. I dropped it.

I barely stopped myself from slamming my head into the desk.

That was when the internal medicine bastards decided to pile on too.

I did my best to ignore the circus and focused on the pigskin again.

Record.

Upload.

Get cursed out.

Then record again.

Upload.

Get double-cursed out.

Crooked. The spacing was a mess, and no two knots looked alike.

Sweat ran down my jaw and dripped onto the table.

But strangely, the more I repeated this insanity, the sharper the sensation in my fingertips became. The grip on the needle holder. The delicacy of catching tissue with the forceps. The tension when I pulled the thread.

It wasn't my head doing the work anymore. My body was starting to remember. On its own.

Around the eleventh video, the tone of the comments began to shift, just slightly.

And then, after I uploaded the fifteenth.

In the video, my hands weren't trembling anymore. I laid down five consecutive knots, clean, at fairly even intervals.

That was the highest praise I was going to get.

I snorted a laugh before I even realized it.

I closed the gallery window.

A vicious exhaustion settled over my whole body. I wanted to collapse face-first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠onto the table and sleep right there.

Still. I'd done it.

Time for a drink.