Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: A One-Star Amusement Park (Complete)
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Chapter 64
Lee Min-jae’s words left the child’s father speechless for a moment.
“You little shit…!”
The moment he spat out another curse and tried to charge at Lee Min-jae again.
“Doctor.”
Police officers stepped in on either side, blocking his movements.
“Unless you want assault charges added, come with us.”
And with that, the ugly commotion came to an end.
“You quack bastards! Do you know who I am?! I won’t let any of you off! I’ll make you regret this for life!”
That pathetic display turned into a spectacle for everyone in the emergency room.
Finally, the parents were dragged out of the emergency room automatic doors by the police.
And then Lee Min-jae did something utterly bizarre.
Lee Min-jae followed them all the way to the emergency room entrance and waved elegantly and slickly at the departing pair, just like a ground crew member waving off a takeoff plane.
It was a perfectly savage teabag.
That crazy bastard….
He’s not just any madman.
He’s a high-class madman.
That guy’s ice-cold, like he said.
While those two vented their rage with their entire bodies, looking utterly scraped raw in the process, Lee Min-jae just waved innocently with a bright smile.
He’s a real lunatic.
With that, the police car drove off, and the emergency room automatic doors closed.
As if the commotion had never happened, the emergency room returned to its usual state.
But I couldn’t escape the memories from earlier.
My brain felt a bit overloaded, I guess.
It started overloading from witnessing the child abuse, then again when the parents flipped out, and finally went completely offline during Lee Min-jae’s even crazier meltdown.
And so, with a half-dazed expression as I spaced out.
Right then, a familiar shadow approached me.
Lee Min-jae.
Our emergency room’s resident psycho.
Lee Min-jae tossed a word at me as I stared blankly into space.
“What’re you doing? Time to get back to work.”
With that one line, my brain’s power switched back on.
“Ah, yes! Right away!!!”
I snapped out of it in a hurry and headed for the station.
The moment we arrived at the station, a nurse came running toward us.
“Doctor! The kid in C-3 bed took the fever reducer, but the temperature won’t drop below 39 degrees. What do we do?”
Ah.
This shitty pediatric emergency shift.
Nonstop cases—good or bad, who knows.
***
I was huddled in the corner of the station, staring blankly at the blinking cursor on the monitor with empty eyes.
About ten minutes passed like that.
Thud.
A cold can of coffee was placed indifferently on my desk.
I looked up to see Lee Min-jae standing there crookedly, hands in his pockets, looking down at me.
“Ah, thank you.”
“What’s thanks for? Just handing you the one from earlier that I couldn’t give.”
Ah, the exact can of coffee that had been tossed on the floor.
He hadn’t forgotten and had bought another one.
“Haha, still, thanks. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Hmm.”
Lee Min-jae dragged the chair next to me and plopped down.
“Did that child abuse kid make it up to the ward okay? Check the EMR.”
“Ah, yes. One sec.”
I moved the mouse and pulled up the screen.
Next to the child’s name, the location had changed from pediatric emergency to a new one.
“Yeah, safely admitted to the children’s hospital ward 72.”
“Hmm, okay. Good.”
Lee Min-jae nodded in satisfaction.
Lee Min-jae leaned back deeply in the chair and stretched his arms up over his head.
“By the way.”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t I kinda cool earlier?”
…Yes?
I doubted my ears.
What did he just say?
“No, like, wasn’t it badass? Standing right in front of that dad asshole. Huh? Pretty epic, right? Like a movie protagonist. Right? Total noir scene…”
What should I say?
Yes, Doctor, you were like an apostle of justice?
Or honestly, it felt a bit over-the-top and embarrassing?
The first is bootlicking, the second is suicide.
I gave the safest, most efficient response I’d learned during my year as a slave.
“Yes. You were kinda cool.”
Kinda.
I put as much emphasis as possible on “kinda.”
My last shred of pride.
But Lee Min-jae seemed to filter out that “kinda” entirely.
“Haha! Right? I knew it! Right in that asshole’s face, shoving the screen at him like, ‘Know what this is?’ Total noir classic, right? Like, ‘If you’re gonna go, at least let me have one last smoke?’ That vibe? Right?”
‘Not even close, Doctor.’
I swallowed the words I couldn’t say out loud along with the canned coffee.
Lee Min-jae spent a good while marveling at his own heroic exploits, analyzing them, lost in self-admiration.
I just nodded soullessly with lifeless eyes, throwing in occasional
“Ah…”
“Yeah…”
“Impressive…” interjections.
Maybe this hospital is just a giant kindergarten.
And I’m the nanny placating the pickiest kid there.
No matter how you look at it, this doesn’t feel like a facility under a higher education institution like a university.
Just my imagination?
***
Peaceful 6 a.m. arrived.
The end of the hellish night shift was finally in sight.
The children’s cries that had echoed all night had quieted, and the nurses at the station were nodding off with dazed expressions, unable to fight the onslaught of drowsiness.
I was slumped in my chair too, my brain an empty shell, staring meaninglessly at the screensaver.
Hmm, should I ponder the history of screensavers?
Did they exist in the ‘90s or not?
How do screensavers differ by OS?
Right then, the emergency room automatic doors slid open quietly.
A boy with a youthful face walked in, grimacing as he carefully cradled his right arm with his left, shuffling along.
“Um… excuse me…”
At that small voice, the nurse dozing at the desk jolted awake and looked up.
I dragged my heavy body over to the boy.
“…Kid? Where does it hurt? How’d you get here?”
My voice was thick with sleep.
“From home…”
“From home?”
“While watching anime and shaking a cheering stick…”
…
“Huh?”
“Suddenly there was a pop from my shoulder, and now my arm won’t move…”
I was at a loss for words for a moment.
Anime.
Cheering stick.
Shoulder.
So, he was watching anime and shaking a cheering stick.
Okay, that I get. Some of my friends are like that.
I was in the anime club, after all.
But what? Shoulder dislocation?
I checked the boy’s name on the EMR registration and gave some quick instructions.
“…Yeah, Jin Se-hyun. Have a seat on that bed for now. When your name’s called, head to the imaging room over there. We’ll need an X-ray to know for sure.”
I led the boy to an empty bed.
Lee Min-jae, passing by, didn’t miss this intriguing case and came over.
“What’s up?”
“Ah, 14-year-old kid. Was shaking a cheering stick at home while watching anime, thinks his shoulder popped out.”
At my explanation, Lee Min-jae’s face took on a blank, what-the-hell expression.
A bit later, the X-ray came up.
The screen clearly showed a textbook anterior dislocation: the round humeral head popped straight down and out from the shoulder socket.
“Hmm, dislocation confirmed.”
Lee Min-jae said.
“Need to do a reduction, right?”
“Yep. You do it. Even first-years need reps on stuff like this to improve.”
And so, the final task of the night—maybe—was handed to me. I took the boy to the procedure room. The whole time he sat on the bed, he stared at my hands with terrified eyes.
“Alright, kid. I’m gonna put your shoulder back in place now. It might hurt a bit, but if you tense up, it’ll hurt more, so relax as much as you can. Got it?”
“Y-Yes… yes…”
I carefully grabbed the boy’s left arm.
To start the reduction, I tried to evert it just slightly outward.
Right then.
“Aaaaaah! It really hurts! Really! Wait, please, it hurts!”
I let go of his hand.
“Kid?”
“Yes…”
“I haven’t even touched it yet.”
“Oh… Okay. I’ll really try.”
“First, let’s give you a shot to relax the muscles. That’ll make it hurt less.”
I picked up the syringe with painkiller and muscle relaxant.
I swabbed his upper arm with alcohol cotton.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! It stings! Wait! It hurts!”
“…….”
I held the syringe and looked at the boy.
“Kid. I haven’t stuck the needle in yet.”
After some back-and-forth, I finally managed to give the injection.
Then I waited for the muscles to fully relax.
After enough time, I grabbed the boy’s arm again.
This time, Lee Min-jae grabbed the opposite shoulder from the side.
“Alright, kid. Take a big breath. One, two, three!”
As I slowly everted the arm and lifted it up.
Crack-
A dull but crisp sound rang out.
A short groan escaped the boy’s mouth.
The satisfying sound of the bone sliding back into place.
I carefully moved the boy’s arm.
Unlike before, it moved smoothly.
“Huh… Huh? It doesn’t hurt!”
The boy’s face, which had been screaming like he was dying moments ago, lit up.
“Alright, sling the arm and no overdoing it for a few days. Got it? And no more crazy cheering from now on.”
Yeah, kids that age are full of fire.
I patted the boy’s shoulder and sent him off.
“Be careful from now on.”
And with that, the long, long night shift finally came to an end.