The Eyes She Lost
Around midnight, the organizer rose from his seat.
"I'd love to keep this going till dawn, but let's call it here for tonight."
"Can't be helped. The owner and the staff here need to get home and rest too."
"Alright, alright — those of you heading out, go on. Anyone who wants to keep drinking, stick around."
Shin Tae-jin, the group's resident drinker, bellowed it out for the whole table to hear.
"Hell yeah — it's been ages. Let's go for it!"
"Yeah, let's go, let's go!"
More than half the group rallied behind him. Lee Jun and Choi Woo-jin chose to head home. They had work in the morning.
"We'll take off first, then."
"Yeah. Don't overdo it!"
"Sure, sure. I'll only have a little. Just a little. Hehehe."
Kwak Suho, who never met a drink he didn't like, came over with a grin splitting his face.
"Whatever Kim Dong-wook said, just treat it like some lunatic running his mouth on the way past and forget it. You live long enough, you run into all kinds of weirdos — you think he's the only one?"
"Already forgot."
"If we took every insult to heart, we couldn't do this job."
"Fair enough. How many nightmare clients have you two even seen by now? Just file him under that."
"Yeah. Thanks. And don't drink too much."
"Got it."
Kwak Suho waved them off and went to join the group that was staying.
Lee Jun and Choi Woo-jin left him behind, stepped out onto the main road, and waited for a taxi. After a moment, Choi Woo-jin spoke.
"Kim Dong-wook. That guy's got some serious venom for veterinarians, doesn't he? Looked at us like we were his mortal enemies."
He pinched the space between his brows, still clearly in a foul mood. He'd told Kwak Suho to treat Kim Dong-wook like just another nightmare client — but the sting hadn't gone anywhere.
"I know. Sounds like he ran into a vet he couldn't stand. But that doesn't mean you get to trash the whole profession."
Lee Jun felt the same way.
"It's not like every veterinarian is a saint. Anywhere people work together, you get good ones and bad ones. It's not like everyone at his own company is a prize, either."
"Exactly! And even if we give him that — even if he did run into a bad vet — you just stand there and curse them out to their faces? To friends you haven't seen in years? What a petty bastard. We finally come out to see the old class and we run into this piece of sh— augh!"
Choi Woo-jin swallowed the rest, but Lee Jun heard him loud and clear. What really got under his skin was that a friend who worked himself to the bone treating sick animals had to sit there and take that kind of abuse.
Lee Jun knew that feeling well, and he kept his voice easy.
"Let's just take it for what it was — we got to see the old class again. If not tonight, when are we ever going to get to kick back like this?"
Lee Jun's own feelings toward Kim Dong-wook were hardly warm. But they had come out in good spirits, and they had had a genuinely good time. As far as he was concerned, that was enough.
"Like Kwak said, it's not like we've only dealt with one or two nightmare clients. Honestly, a guy like Kim Dong-wook is amateur hour. Amateur hour. The real ones we've met? We could line them up from here all the way to Namdaemun."
Choi Woo-jin burst out laughing.
"Hahaha — just picturing them lined up all the way to Namdaemun actually made me feel better. It really did. Foul mood: gone. Gone."
His face eased, and he went on.
"You're right, though. If you take out Kim Dong-wook picking a fight, today was actually really nice. Really nice."
"I can't even remember the last time we drank without talking shop."
"That's true."
Even when the two of them went out for drinks, it was almost always with people in the same field. Clinic talk, animal talk — it always found its way in. At the very least, someone would start in on how to run a hospital. That was just what their nights looked like.
"So where's this damn taxi? Not even a glimpse of one."
"Says it'll be another five minutes."
Lee Jun was looking at his phone as he said it. Then it buzzed — a message.
"What's that?"
Lee Jun checked the new notification.
"What is it?"
"Looks like today's contacts came in."
"Oh, for crying out loud. Leave it to that guy to be lightning-fast about something like this."
He meant the organizer.
"There were people whose numbers and workplaces had changed, that's probably why."
Lee Jun answered Choi Woo-jin and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
A moment later, the taxi they had been waiting for pulled up. They lived in the same neighborhood, so they rode home together.
Meanwhile, Kim Dong-wook was also in a taxi, heading home.
When he arrived, he held the code key to the front door. The man who, only a short while ago, had worn such an ugly expression as he hurled insults at Lee Jun now wore a face so gentle, so soft, it was hard to believe they were the same person.
Beep-beep-beep.
The door unlocked, and the entryway lit up.
"Song-i, Daddy's home!"
He called it out in a voice that was warm and tender, and as if she had been waiting for exactly that, the inner door opened.
"Song-i, Daddy's here!"
At the same time, a bright little woof rang out. The corner of Kim Dong-wook's mouth lifted. His wife came to meet him, her face full of welcome.
"You're back?"
He answered with a quiet smile.
"I'm later than I meant to be, aren't I?"
"It's been so long since you saw your friends. Did you have fun?"
For a moment his face tightened. Then it smoothed back into that same gentle expression.
"Yeah. It was great. Did you eat, though? And Song-i?"
"What time do you think it is? Of course we ate. I ate, and our Song-i ate too!"
Kim Dong-wook's gaze dropped below his wife's arms. Nestled against her was a white Pomeranian, her little head tipped up, sniffing — snff, snff, snff. The look that came into his eyes was pure love, and his hand drifted toward her head of its own accord.
He curled the hand into a fist before it could touch her.
"Song-i, Daddy's home. Just a second, okay? Let me wash my hands and change, and I'll be right out."
"Woof!"
The Pomeranian in his wife's arms gave a small, high bark, then turned her head in the direction he was walking and kept sniffing, snff, snff, snff. The corners of her mouth curled up, just slightly.
His wife looked down at her with a face full of quiet sorrow.
A moment later Kim Dong-wook came out into the living room in comfortable clothes. His wife had been waiting the whole time with Song-i in her arms, and when he opened the gate of the enclosure set up in the living room and stepped inside, she followed.
The fence wrapped the entire living room. Even in homes that kept dogs, you almost never saw an enclosure this large. Anti-slip mats covered the floor, and padded guards had been fitted along the fence — thick, cushioned bumpers, so that bumping into them wouldn't hurt.
His wife sat down on the floor and spoke to Song-i.
"Song-i, go to Daddy."
At her words, Song-i started walking, sniffing as she went — snff, snff, snff. Watching her come, Kim Dong-wook clapped his hands in small, quick beats.
Clap, clap, clap.
"Song-i. Over here!"
Clap, clap, clap.
Nose working, ears tracking the sound of the clapping, Song-i walked to him. When she reached him she hopped — a little spring — and burrowed into the well of his crossed legs.
He scooped her up as if she were the bravest, most wonderful thing in the world, and stroked her with painstaking care.
"Our Song-i. Did you have a good day? Did you eat well?"
"Woof woof."
She yipped softly at every word, as if she were answering him. His eyes, as he stroked her, drifted to her face. To her eyes, more precisely.
Song-i's eyes were closed. She was sniffing his scent and grinning, a happy little pant of a smile. Looking down at her, his heart was a tangle.
I miss Song-i's eyes. ... If I could just see them again, even once.
He thought of the Song-i who used to look up at him with those big, black, clear eyes, bright and shining, and his throat burned. He swallowed, then stroked the dog in his arms with deliberate, extra care, and asked his wife,
"How was Song-i's condition today?"
It was the voice of a man who wanted to hear that she had been fine.
"She was alright. She slept well, ate well..."
His wife trailed off and tipped her head, as if turning something over. He asked her,
"What? Did something happen?"
"No, nothing like that. I went out for about an hour to get groceries, and when I came back the rug was folded over. I don't know if Song-i was playing and it got like that..."
The thin rug laid over the mats. It had been folded.
"Must've gotten bored and played by herself."
He smiled as he stroked Song-i.
"Our Song-i had a fun day, huh? Was it fun?"
"Woof!"
He stroked her as her tail wagged, slow and easy, and the couple's conversation went on.
Song-i was seven now. They had been raising her since they were still dating. The year she turned two, she had surgery on her knee.
One day on a walk, she had suddenly shrieked and gone down. She got up after a moment, but she wouldn't put any weight at all on one hind leg. She was in so much pain she wouldn't even let them touch her, so they rushed her to an animal hospital, where they were told it was a luxating patella — a dislocated kneecap — and that she would need surgery.
Kim Dong-wook had wanted a second, more precise opinion, so he took her to a place famous for orthopedic work. If Song-i truly needed surgery, he wanted it done somewhere good.
The hospital he found was one even he and his wife-to-be had heard of, run by a well-known veterinarian. And there, he was told something that knocked the wind out of him.
Song-i's knees were a problem, they said — but so were her hips. Hip dysplasia, or something like that. If they didn't correct both the knees and the hips right away, she might go down and never walk again.
He arranged the surgery in a panic. The operation itself went well. She didn't limp even now, so the surgery, at least, seemed to have been a success.
The problem was somewhere else.
Back then... I should never have let them operate.
They had fixed her painful legs. And in return, Song-i had lost those bright, shining eyes.
They'd promised they'd take such good care of her.
The day after the surgery, Kim Dong-wook went to the hospital to see her. Overnight, she had become a wreck. She had cried so much both eyes were raw; one in particular was bright red and swollen thick. He asked the attending veterinarian what had happened. She had been crying from the pain, they told him. Don't worry about it.
When he visited the next day, it looked even worse. The answer was the same as the day before. Both of Song-i's legs were wrapped thick with bandages. He couldn't just take her home on a whim. All he could do was ask them to take good care of her.
The day after that, work kept him too busy to go, and only his wife went. That day, a message came from her — a few photos of Song-i, and a worried note. Something looked wrong with her eyes.
He wrapped up as fast as he could and went to the hospital late that evening. It was as bad as they had feared. Something had happened to Song-i's eyes. Whether she had scratched them on the kennel, banged them on the cone she was wearing, or something else entirely — he never got a clear answer — but a hole had opened in the eyeball. It had gotten worse and worse, until eye drops were no longer enough to treat it.
Those bastards. They'd looked me in the eye and said they'd watch over her like she was their own.
The surgery had been expensive, and the hospitalization fees were no joke either. But they had told him they would care for her as if she were their own dog, and he had believed them, and left her there. The result was that Song-i had lost both her eyes.
Worse, the hospital insisted they bore no responsibility whatsoever for what had happened to her eyes, and washed their hands of it. Kim Dong-wook had even looked into a lawsuit. Then he was told that, based on previous cases, he would be better off giving up — and in the end, he had no choice but to let it go.
That old wound was what had risen up in him today, the moment he met Lee Jun.
As if she had sensed the turn of his thoughts, his wife put her arms around him carefully.
"Let the past go. Be grateful that our Song-i is here with us now."
He looked at her for a long moment. Dark, clear eyes were looking back at him. Something surged up in his chest.
From the day Song-i came home, his wife had done so much. She had watched over a dog who could no longer see, attentively, tirelessly, down to the smallest thing.
A person to be grateful for. A good person.
He put all of that gratitude into two words.
"Thank you."
"If you're grateful, then live a long, long life. You, and Song-i too. A long, long life."
How did she always know how to say things so beautifully? He was grateful she was beside him. Grateful, too, for the warmth Song-i shared from his arms.
The couple had no children. That was why Song-i was all the more precious to them. And the one who had put this cute, beautiful, irreplaceable dog of theirs through so much — that veterinarian — was someone Kim Dong-wook could not forgive.
He was thinking that when the dog in his arms gave a few sharp little coughs.
"Doesn't Song-i's cough sound a little worse?"
"I think so. These past few nights, especially, she's been doing it more often."
Worry settled over both their faces. But the words maybe we should take her to the animal hospital did not come out of either of their mouths.
From that day on, the two of them had stopped setting foot in animal hospitals. They had lost Song-i's clear, lovely eyes in one. Distrust was the only thing that could have followed.
The rest of the day passed. The next day was peaceful too.
And then, in an instant, that peace shattered.
Sunday afternoon. A ripping scream tore through Kim Dong-wook's house.
Kyaaaaang! Yip-yip-yip-yip!
Song-i the Pomeranian was barking in a voice like something being torn apart.
"Wh-what's wrong? S-Song-i, what's wrong?"
"Song-i! Song-i!"
The couple, stunned with panic, tried to soothe her. Kim Dong-wook scooped her up.
"If we just calm her down, sh-she'll be okay."
"R-right."
Their hope lasted seconds. The moment he lifted her, the sound she made was even worse.
Kyaang! Yip-yip-yip-yip!
They cried out at the same time.
"Th-the animal hospital. We have to go to the animal hospital."
"We have to go to the animal hospital."
"R-right. Does the one up the street even open on Sundays?"
"L-let's just go."
They jammed their shoes on half-laced, half-not, gathered Song-i into their arms, and ran — out the door, down the street, toward the animal hospital around the corner.