The Price Tag of Fake Priority
The price tag was posted even before the medicine bags.
It was right beneath the glass pane of the emergency wing reception desk.
[Priority Treatment Bracelet: 1 for 3,000,000 Won]
[Includes Temporary Association Certification]
The red lettering was as neat as an official hospital notice. That only made it more disgusting.
I sat on the gurney and stared at the paper. A patient ID tag was tied to my wrist, and Silent Thunder stood upright, strapped to the side of the bed.
It hadn't been long since I returned from the storage room. My body was still radiating heat, and Cha Yu-ri was rewrapping the bandages around my flank.
"Only move your eyes," she said.
"I am just looking."
"Your body is already trying to get up."
Her fingertips pressed down on the knot of the bandage once more. It was an angry touch. But that anger wasn't directed at me.
The line in front of the reception desk was split into two.
On one side were people wrapped in blood-stained blankets, guardians clutching medicine bills, and rescue workers propping each other up.
On the other side were managers in clean, unsoiled jackets. The same silver bracelets gleamed on their wrists.
The man pushed back at the very front of the line was Kim Do-sik, the civilian rescue worker who had injured his shoulder during the gate debris rampage. He was the same man who had been ushering people behind the walls in the storage room lobby.
A prescription was crumpled tightly in his hand.
"You said earlier that I just needed to clear the payment hold," Kim Do-sik pleaded.
The clerk behind the desk avoided his gaze.
"Priority registrants come first."
"They said my arm will stiffen up tonight without this medicine."
The manager in the adjacent line thrust his wrist through the window.
"Our hunter has a shoot scheduled, so let's speed this up. You checked the bracelet, right?"
The Association logo on the inside of the silver bracelet flashed faintly.
At that moment, Kim Do-sik's shoulders slumped. The injured people behind him bowed their heads in turn. A woman carrying a small child on her back slowly lowered the hand holding her queue number.
What I hated more than gates was this sort of thing.
People being pushed back without a single attack.
Clean wrists getting ahead of injured hands.
I gripped the bed rail.
Cha Yu-ri's hand immediately pressed down on my shoulder.
"Don't get up," she said.
"They're getting pushed back over there."
"Which is why, if you get up, those bastards will run away."
I looked at her.
Cha Yu-ri wasn't smiling. It wasn't the face of a doctor stopping a patient, but of a hunter determined not to let her prey escape.
"Stay here. Where everyone can see."
"What difference does it make if I just sit here?"
"It makes a difference. Those people aren't selling bracelets right now; they're selling the time you spend unable to stand."
Her words sank in slowly.
Cha Yu-ri walked toward the reception desk. The manager lowered his hand with an annoyed expression.
"If you're in charge of treatment, go look after your patient."
"I am looking after him."
Cha Yu-ri gestured toward me with her chin.
"And I'm checking if that thing is interfering with his treatment."
She grabbed the manager's wrist. The manager tried to pull away, but Cha Yu-ri was faster. The silver bracelet unclasped with a click.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
"Verifying medical authorization."
She tapped the bracelet against the scanner.
Beep.
Instead of a green light, a gray screen appeared.
The air in front of the reception desk froze.
Color drained from the manager's face.
"It must be a machine error."
"Fine."
Cha Yu-ri looked at another manager's wrist.
"Then we can just scan them all."
The second bracelet.
The third.
When Cha Yu-ri reached for the fourth, the managers hid their hands behind their backs all at once.
At that moment, a low metallic sound echoed from the side of the reception desk.
Thud.
The strap securing Silent Thunder to the side of my bed slipped slightly. I hadn't swung it, nor had I moved it.
I had simply let go of the rail, relaxing my fingertips, and the head of Silent Thunder had barely brushed against the bed's wheel lock.
The bed didn't budge any further.
The temporary queue barrier installed on the floor in front of the desk trembled. It was a thin stanchion set up to create a separate line for the silver bracelets.
One of the managers grabbed the rope as he backed away.
Click.
Instead of the rope unhooking, the latch at the base of the stanchion gave way first. The flimsy priority line collapsed under its own weight.
The silver rope that had divided the injured slid to the floor.
The child's mother gasped.
Kim Do-sik raised his head.
The manager shouted.
"This is property damage!"
I looked in his direction.
"I didn't touch it."
Cha Yu-ri immediately chimed in.
"Exactly. The queue rope simply couldn't bear the weight of its own price tag."
Han Mi-rae walked in from behind the reception desk. Her pace was slower than usual. She had a smile on her face, but her eyes were cold.
"I checked the account where the bracelets were sold," Han Mi-rae said. "It's not a temporary Association certification; they stole the Association's logo image. The payment gateway is registered under an affiliate of Oh Min-hyeok's party. And they stole the hospital's notice template for the price tag."
The manager opened his mouth.
"That wasn't us, an external seller—"
"Hearing that from the person standing at the very front of the bracelet line makes you sound rather cheap," Han Mi-rae cut in.
Han Mi-rae turned the terminal next to the desk so everyone could see it.
[Priority Treatment Bracelet: Invalid]
[Payment Cancellation in Progress]
[Patient Queue Restored]
Cha Yu-ri immediately blocked the terminal from view.
"Look at the notifications later. Medicine first," Cha Yu-ri said.
The clerk seemed to snap out of it and took the prescription.
"Mr. Kim Do-sik."
Kim Do-sik took a step forward. This time, no one blocked him.
The silver rope lay flat on the floor, and the priority bracelets dropped one by one into the transparent bin next to the desk.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
The sound grew quieter as the bracelets piled up. The sound of those silver rings, which had pretended to be so precious, clattering against each other inside the plastic bin was cheaper than expected.
The child's mother asked hesitantly,
"Then is our number still the same?"
Cha Yu-ri nodded.
"Yes. We'll check the child's ankle first. In order of injury, not in order of payment."
Only after hearing those words did I completely release my grip on the rail.
Cha Yu-ri walked back and stood in front of me.
"Good job."
"I didn't do anything."
"Today, that was the hardest thing to do."
Han Mi-rae chuckled softly from the side.
"Since you didn't get up, there was room for me to step in. It was quite an expensive spot."
"How much was it?"
"Three million Won per bracelet. But I can't put a price tag on the value of you staying still."
Cha Yu-ri looked at Han Mi-rae.
"Don't attach price tags in front of the patient."
"Right. I came here today to tear down the price tag that was already up, after all."
She peeled the price tag off the glass pane of the reception window. The red letters folded and crumpled.
I looked at the floor.
The silver rope could no longer divide the room into two.
Silent Thunder remained quiet, strapped to the side of the bed, and Kim Do-sik held his medicine bag.
There was no grand explosion.
Just the sound of an injured person being called in their proper turn.
The next name appeared on the electronic board above the desk.
The mother walked forward, cradling her child. None of the people wearing silver bracelets could block her path now.
Just then, the man who had been selling the bracelets tried to slip out through the emergency exit behind the desk.
He wore a white gown, so at first, he looked like a hospital employee. However, a bundle of the same silver bracelets spilled out from the inside of his gown pocket.
Kim Do-sik reflexively tried to move toward him.
"Your arm," Cha Yu-ri said.
With that single word from Cha Yu-ri, Kim Do-sik froze.
Han Mi-rae walked forward instead. She didn't run. If she ran, the injured people would have to clear the way for her again.
Instead, she folded the paper she had peeled off the window and dropped it right in front of the man's feet.
"Take this with you. It's yours, isn't it?"
The man nearly tripped over the paper. In that split second, the bundle of bracelets in his hand scattered across the floor.
The silver rings rolled across the tiles in front of the desk. A few rolled toward my bed, only to stop right before the shadow of Silent Thunder.
Before the unmoving hammer, the bracelets could roll no further.
"If you're planning to run, it's going to cost you," Han Mi-rae smiled.
"Cancellation fees, compensation for false certification, and charges for obstructing patient traffic. There are so many of my favorite items on this list."
"Mi-rae," Cha Yu-ri called out in a low voice.
"Right, no talking about money in front of the patient."
"And no threatening people with a smile."
"Now, that one is a bit difficult."
At those brief words, the child's mother at the end of the line let out a small laugh for the first time.
The smile vanished quickly, but in that brief moment, the child's grip around her neck loosened slightly.
Lee Na-gyeong appeared quietly, as if she had arrived late. In truth, she seemed to have been standing behind the desk all along.
She captured the scattered bracelets, the collapsed silver rope, and the torn-off price tag all in a single frame.
"Sale of fraudulent medical priority. Unauthorized use of the Association logo. Obstruction of the patient queue," Lee Na-gyeong stated dryly. "We will preserve both the seller and buyer accounts."
Her words were brief. That only made them heavier.
The man selling the bracelets tried to make an excuse, but the silver rings rolling on the floor answered for him.
Unregistered authorization. Unsold order. A front-row seat that no one should have ever been allowed to buy.
Cha Yu-ri returned to the side of my bed and adjusted the ends of my bandages.
"You really didn't get up this time."
"Is that a compliment?"
"It's an achievement worthy of noting in your medical records."
"That sounds a bit stiffer than a compliment."
"Because a patient needs to listen to stiff words to behave."
Han Mi-rae slipped into the conversation from the side.
"I can offer you a softer compliment, you know."
Cha Yu-ri immediately looked at her.
"When you do it, Mi-rae, it sounds like a contract."
"That's unfair. I can give a pure compliment too."
"Then go ahead."
Han Mi-rae looked at me, hesitated for a moment to choose her words, and then gave up.
"Oppa, you didn't move today, and it was very expensive."
Cha Yu-ri sighed.
"As expected, it sounds like a contract."
Even after receiving his medicine bag, Kim Do-sik didn't leave immediately.
He looked at the pile of bracelets in the transparent bin next to the desk, then stared down at his prescription.
"It's the first time my name has felt this heavy," he muttered.
I couldn't find the words to answer him.
He let out a small chuckle.
"I didn't know that calling the injured first, instead of the one who paid, would feel so strange."
Cha Yu-ri spoke up.
"It's not strange. It's how it's supposed to be."
"Then please, keep it how it's supposed to be from today on."
Kim Do-sik tucked the prescription bag into his coat.
His words lingered quietly in front of the desk. How it's supposed to be. Those simple words felt far sturdier than any silver bracelet.
The price tag had been put up before the medicine bags, but in the end, what remained wasn't the price.
It was the name clearly printed on the prescription.