The Korean medicine clinic he followed Baek Sehee to was a more ordinary place than expected. Even though it was a weekday afternoon, there were quite a few people waiting at the clinic located on the third floor of a shopping building. Leaving behind the subtle smell of herbal medicine and the noise from a cable channel health information program, Seungyeon looked around.
“Wait a moment, Seungyeon.”
Baek Sehee, who gestured for the patient to sit down, headed to the counter. While she was talking with the nurse, Seungyeon glanced at the director’s office. Right next to the door hung the director’s credentials and name.
[Director Yoon Taerim
Korea University College of Korean Medicine Graduate
Full Member of the Korean Association of Korean Medicine Former) Mirae Yuon Hospital Korean Medicine Department Head]
Academic activities followed after that. Among them, what caught Seungyeon’s attention was the words ‘Mirae Yuon Hospital.’ It was also the name of the hospital he had just been discharged from, and more than anything…
[※Core Check! Mirae Yuon Hospital is truly a major large-scale hospital with 5 domestic branches. Yoon Ilguk, the director of Mirae Yuon Hospital, is an icon of self-made success and the spouse of Myeong Heemin, director of Yujeong Art Gallery.]
A status window that appeared out of nowhere smoothly provided information he didn’t even want to know. Did Mirae Yuon Hospital have some relationship to Baek Seungyeon’s life? No, it would be strange even if there was a relationship. He didn’t even ask, so why is it telling him on its own? If it has nothing to do, it should tell him lottery numbers instead.
“Seungyeon, what should we do? I have to go now, so I don’t think I can wait until you finish your examination…”
Baek Sehee, who returned after completing registration, smiled awkwardly. Seungyeon, who had been internally nagging the status window to give him lottery numbers and pension lottery numbers, smiled back at her with a nonchalant face.
“No, I’m the one who followed you. Don’t worry and go back first, noona. I’ll get examined here and then leave.”
“Still…”
“I’m not a child. I was going to tell you to go back first anyway.”
Seungyeon abruptly pushed Baek Sehee’s back. While Baek Sehee, who had been pushed all the way to the entrance, was at a loss, Seungyeon waved his hand vigorously.
“I’ll contact you. You go in quickly too, noona.”
After stubbornly seeing her off all the way to the elevator, Seungyeon took a deep breath while renewing his determination. From now on was important. At the Korean medicine clinic after noona left, Seungyeon sat on the sofa and shook his legs anxiously.
Coming here and sending noona away both had a plan. Judging from the truth surrounding the herbal medicine, the only way Seungyeon could intervene was right here, this place.
Actually, the herbal medicine was nothing. Would a child be lost just from taking some herbal medicine! This was just dramatic license, an absurd setting. Even if it were possible, it wasn’t the case this time. The herbal medicine and Baek Sehee were both completely innocent.
In the first place, Tae Mujin’s wife had never been pregnant. Since she couldn’t give birth to a child that didn’t exist, they just used Baek Sehee and made up the herbal medicine excuse. However, Baek Sehee, who had no way of knowing that fact, firmly believed that Tae Mujin’s wife had a miscarriage because of the herbal medicine she brought.
Recalling up to that point, Seungyeon rubbed between his brows firmly. Just how much of a sucker did they think that kind Baek Sehee was to pull something like this? When he watched it in the drama, he passed over it thinking it was a necessary device for the plot and flow, but when it hit him as reality, his blood pressure shot up. As expected, you have to experience things yourself to know.
Anyway, to escape from this conspiracy, he needed evidence to flip the situation. The Korean medicine doctor who directly made the medicine was perfect evidence and a witness who couldn’t make excuses. Although he was a character who disappeared after taking money from Tae Mujin and never appeared again, that was before Seungyeon possessed this body. For Baek Sehee’s sake, he somehow had to persuade the Korean medicine doctor and make him his ally.
‘The problem is how to persuade him…’
He wasn’t a chaebol like Tae Mujin, and it was virtually impossible for Seungyeon, who was only full of debt, to sway that Korean medicine doctor with money. If not money, what could he use to persuade him? All he had was his body. Even that body wasn’t intact with a cast on it because of some penalty thing. His anxious eyes scanned the name ‘Yoon Taerim’ hanging on the director’s office wall.
Wasn’t there some good method? Should he just casually get acquainted now and come back later? All he could think of was vague threats like ‘I know what kind of thing you’re going to do.’ Not only was it not very threatening, but it was also perfect for being misunderstood as a strange person.
Seungyeon, who was scanning the credentials written under Yoon Taerim, whispered very quietly as if grasping at straws.
“Status window…?”
However, the status window had no reaction. The grandmother sitting next to him asked back, “What? Saengtaetang?” Seungyeon smiled awkwardly, saying it was nothing. Just in time, his name was called, so he could naturally escape from the grandmother’s puzzled gaze.
“Mr. Baek Seungyeon, please come into the examination room.”
Seungyeon quickly pushed open the examination room door. Backlight shone from the window on the opposite side, dazzling his eyes. Entering the examination room with a slightly furrowed brow, he bowed his head in greeting.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Mr. Baek Seungyeon. What brings you here today? Where does it hurt?”
The man wearing a white gown showed a friendly smile. On his left chest, the name ‘Yoon Taerim’ was embroidered in blue thread. The man looked much younger than Seungyeon expected. Was it because of the occupational characteristics of being a Korean medicine doctor? Seungyeon, who had imagined an elderly person, looked at the man with fresh eyes.
With an appearance that looked to be in his early thirties, he was quite large even while sitting. More than anything, his sparkling eyes, fine skin, and lips that were delicately and freshly flushed softly adorned the man’s atmosphere. How should he put it—the kind of feeling that if you told him what hurt, he’d somehow make it better?
‘Even so, he’s someone who took money and fled in the night.’
He didn’t know how much money Tae Mujin had handed over, but this man was the one who took that money and ran away. He forcibly lowered his gaze that was trying to become sharp on its own. Seungyeon showed his injured arm and opened his mouth.
“I recently injured my arm. I was wondering if there’s a way to heal faster.”
“Aha…”
Yoon Taerim smiled. After entering something on the computer, he held out his hand. At the words that he would check his pulse, Seungyeon stretched out the arm without the cast.
Yoon Taerim, who grabbed Seungyeon’s wrist, gestured to show the other side too. Because he held out both hands, Seungyeon’s body leaned closely toward the table.
“Could you bring your face a little closer?”
While holding both hands, Yoon Taerim asked gently. Wondering if this was how they normally did it when checking pulses, he raised his head without much suspicion. Yoon Taerim’s face, which had come right up close, was very burdensome, so Seungyeon blinked.
“Don’t avoid it.”
Thinking he meant not to avert his gaze, he opened his eyes as wide as possible. Yoon Taerim, who seemed to hold back laughter somehow, stared intently at Seungyeon’s face. After 30 seconds passed like that, and what felt like another 2 minutes, Seungyeon cautiously opened his mouth.
“Um… Doctor…?”
Was this how you were supposed to do examinations at Korean medicine clinics? It didn’t seem like it, but you never knew. It could be a special examination method unique to this place.
‘But can you really see something just by staring at someone’s face?’
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with an answer. When he was wondering if he should say something with a slightly confused feeling, Yoon Taerim suddenly brought his head closer. Their faces were close enough that their lips almost touched. Startled, Seungyeon pulled his head back. Just as he was about to escape, thinking this was a bit much, he spoke first.
“Haven’t we met before?”
“…What?”
“I think we have. The name was different so I was a bit uncertain, but the face definitely seems right… Back then, you were with Yeongbin. Don’t you remember?”
Seungyeon’s eyes shook roughly. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean. In the midst of it all, the name ‘Yeongbin’ was also familiar. When did he hear that name?
“You left first with Yeongbin. I was disappointed we couldn’t do much that day, but to meet again here.”
Under Yoon Taerim’s mischievous gaze, Seungyeon had a gut feeling that something was going seriously wrong. Whether he didn’t notice the confusedly shaking eyes, or was doing it on purpose even though he noticed, Yoon Taerim smiled and gently scratched Seungyeon’s palm with his fingernail.
“If you came here because you want to do it with me, can you wait a little until I finish work? Let’s go finish what we did that day.”
There weren’t many things Seungyeon could say in this situation. He would need to know what relationship Yeongbin and this man had, and why he was caught between them, to play along, but Seungyeon really didn’t know anything. His head spun from facing an unexpected past history at a place he’d come to solve his noona’s problem.
‘What the hell kind of things did that bastard Baek Seungyeon go around doing?’
If he was going to do it, at least write a work diary or something somewhere. How was it that there was no consideration at all for the person possessing the body?
Unlike his confused inner feelings, Seungyeon calmly lowered his eyes. In times like this when there were no answers and he didn’t know what was what, the best thing was to pass it off by saying you’re absolutely right. With the thought of just avoiding the immediate crisis in front of him, he answered as shamelessly as possible.
“How did you know I have nothing but time? Where should I wait, at a cafe nearby?”
He didn’t know what they were going to do, but anyway, he acted as cooperatively as possible, saying your thoughts are exactly my thoughts. While putting on the performance of his life, Seungyeon willingly clasped Yoon Taerim’s hand.
