Yoon Ji-ah - Discharge (2)
"Are you taking a taxi? Or the bus?"
Althea asked, looking toward the lobby's glass doors.
"A taxi, I think. I've got my luggage, and... I'd like to take it easy today."
"Good. I'll walk you to the taxi stand, then."
"You really don't have to come all that way with me."
"I'll just tell them that escorting you to the very end is my job for today."
She set off toward the automatic doors ahead of me.
The moment they slid open, February's cold air brushed my face. Stepping free of that unmistakable hospital smell, I drew a deep breath, and the crisp late-winter air rushed all the way down into my lungs.
Althea walked beside me down the hospital's front drive, slowing to match my pace.
Feeling I ought to say something about all of it, I adjusted my bag strap and spoke up.
"Nurse."
"Yes, Ji-ah?"
"Thank you... truly. For the treatment."
I packed every ounce of sincerity I had into that one short sentence. She had stayed at my side through days and days of treatment, fussing over this and that — a single line felt far too brief to hold it all.
"Honestly, at first I just wanted to run away. I was ashamed to even come to a hospital, I hated being examined... all I could think about was disappearing before anyone found out about me."
Althea didn't slow down; she only tilted her head a little in my direction.
"I think I got through it because you were so gentle with me, always telling me it was all right. No — it wasn't just the telling me it was all right... you tormented me plenty, too."
The instant those last words left my mouth, my ears went hot.
Why did I have to tack that on?
"That was treatment, you know."
Althea laughed softly.
"I know. I know — treatment."
"It was simply a nurse's duty."
Althea said, her eyes on the path ahead. "And you, Ji-ah — you cooperated with the treatment so well, without a single complaint. That's why it all went so smoothly."
Without a single complaint.
Even after she caught me masturbating in the middle of the night?
"Mmm..."
Guilt wrung the sound out of me before I could stop it. Althea must have caught my expression, because she added, "Well — apart from the one time you got scolded."
"That... I really am sorry about that."
"It's all in the past. The magic circle didn't break, and the results were good, weren't they?"
"Still, though."
"Then repay me by taking your medicine properly, every single dose, until your outpatient visit."
However gently we traded words, it always came back around, in the end, to medication guidance and recovery care.
She was fond of her patient — but in the end, she saw her as a patient and nothing more.
The line she drew between herself and her patients was so definite that it made her feel close and far away all at once.
The taxi stand by the hospital entrance came into view.
A yellow line ran beneath a small sign, and a cab had just dropped off a fare; the driver was closing his trunk and climbing back in.
I slowed my steps.
The moment I get in that taxi, it's over.
Althea goes back to the hospital, and I go back to my little studio near campus.
I'll be back in a few days, but that will be an outpatient appointment. Not like today, with her right there beside me.
The taxi rolled forward a short way and stopped at the stand.
I took my phone out of my bag. My thumb paused over the lock screen.
Is it really okay to ask for something like this?
No — if I don't say it now, when will I ever?
"Um... Nurse Althea?"
"Yes?"
I opened the add-contact screen and held the phone out to her.
"Could you... put your number in?"
Althea's eyes dropped to the screen.
She didn't take it right away.
The hem of her cardigan sleeve stirred faintly in the wind.
It was only a moment's wait, but the idle of the taxi's engine felt endlessly long.
"Ji-ah."
Her voice had dropped a little lower.
"Right now... the effects of the male hormones and your dependence on the dedicated nurse who saw you through treatment have all tangled together. It's confusing."
"Confused..."
"It happens sometimes. Patients ask for a nurse's number when they're discharged, or ask to meet up outside."
Althea wasn't looking at my face — only at the phone in my hand. Behind her drooping lashes, her violet eyes moved quietly.
"But give it a few days, and the attraction to another woman fades. As your body settles back into its own hormonal balance, the feelings of dependence on your nurse sink away with it."
Ah.
So that's how it is.
I lowered the hand holding my phone. The screen nearly went dark, so I woke it again with my thumb.
The add-contact screen was still there, but the name field sat empty.
She's right.
She's medical staff who has treated any number of patients.
Of course she would know better than anyone how feelings swell right after discharge, or how the reactions your body has during treatment get mistaken for something more.
And until this very moment, I'd thought I was special.
How stupid.
"Right. You're right. I suppose that could be it."
I tried to smile as I said it, but the corners of my mouth wouldn't lift properly.
"Sorry. Ahaha... I guess my head isn't quite back on straight yet."
Papering over the moment with that awkward laugh, I moved to slide the phone into my pocket.
That was when Althea's hand closed around my wrist.
The same body heat I'd felt inside the hospital.
Warm.
This time, nothing stirred in my lower body. Instead, it was only my heart, beating strangely loud.
Althea carefully lifted the phone from my fingers.
"Just for you, Ji-ah. As a special exception."
She glanced at the screen and hesitated for a beat, then tapped the name field with her thumb.
I stared, dazed, as the letters appeared one by one.
For all their imposing size, her fingers moved with surprising precision, even on the little smartphone screen.
"One week."
With the number fully entered, Althea pressed save.
"If after a week you still want to reach me, then call. Until then, I won't be replying."
"A week..."
"Yes. Your outpatient visit in three days is hospital business, so that's separate. Anything personal begins after one week."
She moved to hand the phone back — then suddenly turned her face away.
The tips of her ears had gone faintly red.
A color I'd never once seen under the hospital's fluorescent lights.
"For me, too... this is the first time I've ever given someone my number."
Drawing her cardigan sleeve down over the back of her hand, Althea tugged at the cuff for no reason at all.
"If you truly still feel the same after a week, contact me then."
The phone settled back into my palm.
On the screen, a new contact had been saved.
Althea Bess.
I'd been so sure I was about to be turned down — but the moment I saw that saved contact, my knees went weak.
If I hadn't been gripping the taxi door, I would have swayed right off my feet.
"Yes. In a week... I'll contact you."
"Until then, take your medicine properly. And no staying up all night scouring the internet for hospital reviews — and no cramming all your overdue assignments in one go, either."
"How did you know I'd been reading the reviews?"
"Your face looked different from the day before."
"Nurses are honestly terrifying."
"I was your dedicated nurse, after all."
Althea gave a small, mischievous smile.
The taxi driver rolled his window down and asked, "Are you getting in?"
"Oh — yes!"
I opened the rear door, pushed my bag in first, and ducked in after it.
I pulled the door shut and rolled the window down. Althea bent at the waist to peer inside the cab.
"The moment you get home, rest. And let your family know you've been discharged."
"Okay."
"See you in three days, at outpatient."
"Yes, Nurse Althea."
I shut the taxi door.
While the driver typed the address into his navigation, I watched Althea through the window.
What else am I supposed to say?
Thank you — already said.
"See you" feels too flippant.
So does that leave "rest well"?
Althea raised her hand in a small wave first.
"Get home safe, Ji-ah."
"You too, Nurse. Today... if you can, get some rest yourself."
"I'll try."
"If I message you in a week... you really do have to reply."
The corners of Althea's mouth lifted.
"If your feelings haven't changed after a week."
"And if they haven't?"
"We'll talk about that when the time comes."
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror, silently asking if we could go. When I nodded, the taxi began to pull away.
I rolled the window up.
As the glass rose, the sounds outside faded little by little. Althea's figure, too, grew distant beyond it.
The hospital entrance, the small sign at the taxi stand, the pale pink cardigan — and that pastel-pink hair.
I twisted around in my seat, chasing the sight of her.
Althea was still standing there. She kept watching as the taxi wound its way out along the drive, sunlight catching the ends of her hair and making them shimmer.
I watched her lips move, slow and deliberate.
The glass swallowed the sound, but I could read Althea's voice in the shape of her mouth.
Take care.
Her lips moved once more.
My baby.
My fingers clenched hard around the phone.
Did I just misread her through the glass?
Or was that Althea's real heart, showing through?
The taxi swept out of the hospital's main gate. The building slid backward, its sign shrinking into the distance.
Treatment Hospital
The first time I'd ever seen it, the word Futanari on that sign had squeezed the air right out of my lungs.
Now it looked like nothing more than an ordinary building on the edge of the city.
I lit up my phone screen.
There was a new name in my contact list.
I tapped the name once with my fingertip — then shut the screen off at once.
Winter streets slid past the taxi window.
A convenience store. A bus stop. People waiting at a crosswalk for the light to change.
And somewhere in among it all was the place I was going back to.
A warmth I couldn't quite explain still lingered, faint, on my lips.
The taxi merged onto the main road and picked up speed.
I rested my forehead lightly against the window and looked back toward the hospital, fading out of sight.
A week.
If, after waiting out that week, I still wanted to press this number—
Then I would press it.