2008 ↠ Third Year

After the fourth AM shift, you had completely adopted a doctor's mindset, or what you'd hoped to be a doctor's mindset. Pulled out of general medicine in a fuck up in student rotation, you were taken down to the Emergency Department and it was the first time you truly felt like you deserved to wear your white coat.

You made a difference.

"This is Mr. Lee, a 56 year old gentleman. He was found lying in a pool of blood by his wife outside his place of residence. His management believe he fell of the ladder while cleaning windows -no witnesses unfortunately-" Namjoon, helps the nurse secure the blood pressure cuff around the patient's arm. "-His daughter had told the paramedic on the phone that she thought he was having a seizure," Dr. Kim says, his glistening brown eyes dart back into yours. "He's been in and out of consciousness in the ambulance on the way too."

"Isn't that a pathognomonic indication of a hemorrhage?" he nods in response. "What are his vitals like?" you ask, your heart suddenly rushing into your throat as he tilts his head towards the monitor for you to check yourself.

Sweeping your eyes over the monitor, you furiously bite your lips as you read an increase in systolic blood pressure, a decrease in heart rate and respiration. "It's cushing's triad." You whisper.

"What was that Y/N?" he asks, cocking a brow. "What did you just say?"

You return your gaze back to him. "Dr. Kim, I think it's cushing's triad."

Pulling your pupil torch out of your pocket, you pull open the patient's eyelids to shine the light at his dilated pupils as your attending physician orders the nurses to phone the neurosurgeon on call for emergency brain surgery.

"So tell me, what are you thinking Y/N? I know this is a lot to take in right now but do the trauma assessment acronym and come up with a diagnosis please," he says, returning to your side. You take a deep breath as you gaze at the unconscious man. What weren't you thinking?

The third year of medical school was the first real taste of what you were in for and what you worked so hard to achieve. Asphalt tasting coffees and cafeteria egg sandwiches were your staple meals, you were absolutely sure you were malnourished and deficient of the essentials, but what health student wasn't.

Returning his gaze, you gulp the bundle of nerves and clench your fists with determination. You were confident, and you were going to act like it. "Dr. Kim, we need to take him to theatre as soon as possible."

Dr. Kim stares at you, blinking curiously at his wide eyed student. "And why is that? What's his diagnosis?" he asks, unsure of your current thought process and clinical forethought but holding hope that you were smart.

You hold your wrist against your forehead in disbelief that the patient had even made it this far and Dr. Kim sinks in relief before you even open your mouth. "He has a subarachnoid hemorrhage and a ruptured aneurysm with elevated intracranial pressure."

"It's definitely a possibility," He crosses his arms over his chest as he nods, "I think you might be onto something Y/N, we won't know exactly until further tests have been done."

"Let's get to it then," You smile triumphantly as you place a hand over the bounding pulse in your wrist. "I hope we can save him."

"We can sure try," He smiles at you, placing his hands on his hips. "You know, I haven't met a student like you before, you're so...."

"Tired?" you laugh, taking off your gloves. "Brain muddled?"

"No," he grins, "Focused. You're focused. All you must do is study, no friends? No boyfriend?"

"I have a friend ...a boy ...friend that is a friend and a boy," You blink away the images of Taehyung from the back of your eyelids as you blush an inappropriate shade of crimson. "I want to be the best for my patients."

"Of course."

From that day onwards, it was a never ending cycle of 12 hour shifts working beside Dr. Kim in the Emergency Department, exhaustion and falling asleep on notes you should be revising. Waking up, exercising, taking a shot of coffee and doing it all over again. You missed your family. You missed real food. And strangely, you missed the man you had been avoiding lately, Taehyung.

But this year wasn't about him.

It was about you.

You had fallen in love with Emergency Medicine.

And along the way, Kim Taehyung had fallen in love with you.