Be at the Hospital on the Day It Happens
Knock, knock, knock.
The door slid open with a rattle.
After knocking, Yoon No-nam and Kim Chang-mu opened the hospital room door and stepped inside.
“Director. Did you get some rest?”
The moment he entered, Yoon No-nam offered his greeting—and his gaze fell on the woman seated beside Kim Seong-ho.
So that is the Chairman’s youngest daughter.
Center Director Yoon No-nam recognized Lee Gyeong-eun at once and turned to greet her.
“President Lee Gyeong-eun. How do you do? I am Yoon No-nam, director of the Health Screening Center. It is an honor to meet you.”
Lee Gyeong-eun looked at him in surprise.
“You know me? I… don’t think we’ve met before…”
She studied him carefully and tilted her head.
Yoon No-nam smiled brightly at her.
“This is our first meeting, but I have heard for years how beautiful the Chairman’s youngest daughter is. Seeing you in person, the rumors seem to have understated it. You are even more lovely than I was told.”
“Hohoho.”
At Yoon No-nam’s smooth, natural flattery, Lee Gyeong-eun covered her mouth and laughed. Then she patted Kim Seong-ho’s hand.
“The Center Director is quite the charmer, isn’t he? Seong-ho.”
“Yes, he is.”
Kim Seong-ho agreed and gestured toward the two men still standing.
“Please don’t remain on your feet. Sit down. We have a few minutes to talk before the checkup begins, don’t we?”
“Of course. Plenty of time.”
Yoon No-nam nodded, settled onto the sofa, and tugged at Kim Chang-mu’s sleeve.
“Kim, sit. Let’s chat with the Director for a moment before we start.”
Yoon No-nam had no intention of missing a conversation with the highest ranks of the founding family. Make a good impression, and a regional hospital directorship—perhaps even the overall hospital director’s chair—was no longer a fantasy. He was practically vibrating with the desire to leave a favorable mark on Kim Seong-ho and Lee Gyeong-eun.
“This is…”
Forced into a seat by Yoon No-nam’s hand, Kim Chang-mu wore a sour expression. Unlike the Center Director, he had almost no interest in hospital politics. The title of department head had been thrust upon him with the claim that no one else was qualified; he cared nothing for the cumbersome prestige. Kim Chang-mu was a born physician, absorbed only in how to save more lives.
Kim Seong-ho looked from the delighted Yoon No-nam to the openly uncomfortable Kim Chang-mu. Then the face of the man before him overlapped with the Kim Chang-mu of his previous life.
He said that if she had arrived just two hours earlier she could have lived, and if three hours earlier she would have had no lasting impairment.
That regretful voice still rang clearly in Kim Seong-ho’s ears. Looking down at Lee Gyeong-eun, already beyond help, Kim Chang-mu had lamented that three hours earlier would have meant a normal life. That was how certain he had been of treating her—and how deeply it had pained him that her path to his operating table had been so obstructed.
In the previous life, Lee Gyeong-eun had first been brought in as a simple traffic-accident patient. They had misjudged her unconsciousness as the result of the crash alone. Left neglected in a corner of the ER as the at-fault driver, she had missed the critical early window. By the time they realized something far more serious was wrong, she was already in critical condition. When her identity was finally confirmed and she was transferred to Ilhyeon Hospital, six hours had already passed since the accident.
Looking down at her, Kim Chang-mu had shaken his head and said that opening a skull already filled with blood would be meaningless. Lee Gyeong-eun had not lived through the night. Only later was it determined that the rear-end collision itself had been caused by her losing consciousness from the cerebral hemorrhage—and that she could have been saved if she had reached the hospital sooner. Kim Seong-ho had spent nights weeping over that conclusion.
Now he looked at Kim Chang-mu and thought,
I have brought her straight to you, not three hours late. So you will have to make good on that guarantee from back then.
While Kim Seong-ho was lost in the past, Lee Gyeong-eun spoke first to Yoon No-nam and Kim Chang-mu.
“As it happens, I had been telling this man he needed a health checkup. He nags me so relentlessly that I go every two months without fail, yet he has never had one himself. When he said he was finally getting one, I put everything aside to come with him.”
“Every two months?”
Yoon No-nam tilted his head curiously.
“There is really no need for that frequency. Especially for someone as young as President Lee, even once a year is more than enough. If you are busy, once every two or three years—or even three or four—is perfectly sufficient.”
“Isn’t that the truth? But this man frets so much that he insists on every two months. It is exhausting. And why he is so obsessed with cerebral hemorrhages in particular, I cannot imagine.”
“Cerebral hemorrhage?”
The previously listless Kim Chang-mu’s eyes lit up at the mention of the brain. Talk of his own specialty had finally made the dull conversation interesting.
Kim Seong-ho turned casually to the Head of Neurosurgery.
“Department Head. Is there no way to know about a cerebral hemorrhage in advance? A method to detect it before the vessel ruptures?”
Kim Chang-mu answered with growing interest.
“Warning signs can appear—changes in vision, slurred speech, paralysis or weakness on one side of the body. Those can alert us.”
“Without any of those signs… can it simply rupture without warning?”
Kim Chang-mu’s expression hardened.
“Sudden rupture without warning signs is not common, but it does occur. When it does… treatment becomes extremely difficult. Even if the life is saved, the aftereffects are often severe enough that ordinary daily living becomes nearly impossible.”
“In those cases, even a prior scan of the head would not show it?”
Kim Seong-ho asked while looking at Lee Gyeong-eun. Kim Chang-mu found the deepening questions strange, yet he continued to answer.
“Correct. In acute cases, imaging often cannot catch it beforehand.”
Still gazing at his wife, Kim Seong-ho thought,
So that is why they never found it.
Since his regression he had forced checkups on Lee Gyeong-eun, desperate to prevent the past. No test had ever revealed anything abnormal. He could hardly demand they open her skull on suspicion alone. He had therefore searched for another way to stop the nightmare from repeating—and this was the answer.
Be at the hospital on the day it happens.
Place Lee Gyeong-eun directly in front of the doctor who had once sworn he could have saved her if only she had arrived sooner.
Kim Seong-ho had brought Head of Neurosurgery Kim Chang-mu before her precisely for this day from the previous life.
They said the rear-end collision happened on her way to work.
He turned to the calendar and the clock.
June 30th.
The date of that nightmare was today.
7:20.
The time of the original accident—the moment her cerebral vessel was estimated to have ruptured.
“Shall we begin with the blood tests, then?”
Kim Chang-mu, thinking time was being wasted, spoke first. Left alone, they would still be talking at lunch.
Yoon No-nam looked at him with open regret. Kim Chang-mu rose under that gaze and pressed again.
“We should finish quickly so the Director can rest as well. Neither of you looked as though you slept well last night.”
At those words Yoon No-nam had no choice but to swallow his disappointment.
Then the unexpected occurred.
“Seong-ho. I… suddenly feel so dizzy…”
Lee Gyeong-eun, who had been quiet for some time, complained of dizziness. Kim Chang-mu, still standing, looked at her.
“It’s so dizzy… Ugh—”
Overcome by the sudden wave, she finally vomited onto the floor while still seated.
“President!”
“Gyeong-eun!”
Startled, Yoon No-nam and Kim Seong-ho called out to her. Having vomited without even reaching the bathroom, Lee Gyeong-eun twisted, trying to stand. She could not control her body. Strength seemed to have left her right side; she listed heavily, the right half of her face contorted, helpless.
Kim Seong-ho quickly supported her and looked at the silent Kim Chang-mu.
“President. What’s wrong? Where do you feel unwell?”
Yoon No-nam snatched a penlight from his pocket and shone it into her eyes. After checking the pupil response he turned to Kim Chang-mu.
“Kim. This looks like…”
He suspected the symptoms but would not name them. A greater expert stood beside him; he wanted that man’s judgment first.
Still watching Lee Gyeong-eun, Kim Chang-mu met Yoon No-nam’s eyes and nodded. The suspected diagnosis was correct.
Yoon No-nam flung open the door and shouted.
“Nurse! Get a nurse in here right away! And contact Radiology—prepare for a CT scan!”
Kim Chang-mu, remaining in the room, helped Kim Seong-ho support Lee Gyeong-eun and spoke calmly.
“President Lee is showing signs of a cerebral hemorrhage. We will perform a CT immediately. If the scan confirms it, we will operate at once.”
“Understood. Please take good care of her.”
Together they moved her onto the bed. Kim Chang-mu answered,
“Do not worry. In this field I pride myself on being the best in the country—indeed, the best in the world. And I will never lose a patient whose symptoms appear right before my eyes, even if the sky falls. Set your mind at ease, Director.”
Having delivered the near-guarantee, he looked down briefly at Lee Gyeong-eun, already unconscious on the bed. Then he raised his head to Kim Seong-ho.
“I will go prepare for surgery.”
He reassured Kim Seong-ho once more, turned, and left the room. Passing the nurses rushing in, he gave brief instructions on the necessary treatment and strode out.
Kim Chang-mu walked purposefully toward the radiology suite. Some distance from the room he stopped and looked back.
“Just a coincidence, right?”
He recalled the conversation immediately before her collapse. The timing—collapsing the moment they finished discussing cerebral hemorrhage—was far too neat. Yet he did not dwell on it. The nurses who had changed Lee Gyeong-eun’s clothes were already wheeling her bed out of the room.
“What am I thinking… Save the patient first.”
Kim Chang-mu wiped the thought away and quickened his steps toward radiology.
“What happened?”
Chu Suk-ja came running into the family waiting area outside the operating room, face pale with shock. Right behind her appeared Oh Min-yeong, wife of Lee Sang-jong. Both looked haggard, as though they had left the moment the call came.
Kim Seong-ho briefly explained how Lee Gyeong-eun had entered surgery. Chu Suk-ja collapsed into a chair. He tried to calm her.
“They say there is no need for great worry. Fortunately the symptoms appeared inside the hospital, and the Head of Neurosurgery was standing right there, so they could act at once.”
“She can live…?”
“Not only can she live—they say she can recover completely, just as she was before the surgery.”
“Is that true? Can it really turn out that way? Really, without any lasting problems… can she be discharged?”
Knowing that survivors of cerebral hemorrhage often could not control their own bodies, Chu Suk-ja clutched Kim Seong-ho’s sleeve.
“The wife of the Dongseong Construction chairman collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage and is still bedridden at home. She cannot speak properly, and she cannot move her right arm or leg. And they truly said she will be fine?”
“Yes. The doctor guaranteed it, so please trust him and wait. I firmly believe Gyeong-eun will be all right.”
At his words her grip loosened.
“Yes. She has to get better. At such a young age… she has not even had children yet…”
Chu Suk-ja lowered her head, thinking of her daughter.
“Mother. Still, how fortunate that she collapsed in the hospital.”
Oh Min-yeong soothed her and sat close. Chu Suk-ja slowly nodded.
“Yes. It is truly fortunate… truly…”
“Imagine if she had collapsed while driving. Oh… that would have been a catastrophe. So do not worry too much. The doctor guaranteed it—let us trust him and wait.”
“Yes… Let’s do that.”
Chu Suk-ja leaned into Oh Min-yeong’s embrace and wept. Oh Min-yeong held her and stroked her back.
Kim Seong-ho found Oh Min-yeong’s sudden tenderness slightly strange, yet he set the oddity aside, thinking only of Lee Gyeong-eun fighting for her life beyond the operating-room doors.
He remained standing guard. After some time, members of the Ilhyeon family began to gather one by one outside the surgery suite.