↣ The Beginning
We are composed of 305 bones at birth that make up our human skeleton. Over time our bones fuse together, decreasing in quantity to 206. Most of these bones are in our hands and our feet: 26 in each foot and 27 in each hand.
By the time you were 9 years old, you could name every bone in the adult skeleton and all of the muscles in the anterior compartment of the forearm. You were fascinated by the human body, from the trillions of synaptic connections to the way a person's environment played a significant role in their psychosocial development.
Everything about a person fascinated you.
While other little girls looked towards the sky and marvelled at the sheer brilliance of the stars, you were nose deep into medical journals trying to understand their cogent philosophical dialogue. Why look at the stars and try to understand space when you could look at DNA and the constellations of our genetic make up?
At times, you wonder if you chose medicine because everything about it was magical and brilliant or, if, medicine chose you because it ran through your veins.
Only the Gods will know.
You were 15 years old when your neighbours came to you with money in trade for medical assistance for the first time. It may sound unusual given your age but living on the bad side of town, no one cared. You had skills, and your community couldn't afford health care anyway.
For a middle class family, the donations received were kindly accepted and suddenly your bookshelves were filled with gauze, antiseptics and various types of sterile suturing kits you'd bought online.
Word had begun to spread of your gifts through your neighbours' connections within the ghettos of your city; people with both empty and heavy wallets would pay you for your assistance. You were quick and you were quiet.
And then, something happened that changed the course of your entire life, almost as if it were fate.
It couldn't possibly be anything else.
* * *
"Y/N," a voice shouts, ripping open the front door. "Where the fuck are you? Get your ass over here and help me drag him in."
Taking off your glasses, you close your textbook and race towards the commotion at the front door. "What's going on?" you ask, scratching the back of your head. You round the corner of your lounge at the same time your white socks step into a puddle of crimson, soaking up blood.
"...what the hell?" you whisper, lifting your feet. Adrenaline begins to flood your body. A rush you'll never get used to. You stare a second too long at the blood before you raise your trembling voice. "What happened now?"
"Y/N," your father yells. "It's the senator's son, we need you over here right now." You reluctantly follow the trail of blood towards the kitchen. Two men in suits push you into the kitchen as your mother starts pulling towels and your supplies from the living room shelves.
"He was stabbed in the chest," the man behind you whimpers, ploughing his trembling fingers through his disheveled silver hair. "I can't go to the hospital. It will ruin my career and the elections are right around the corner, you must help me."
The hanging kitchen light sways above him, capturing the pale of his face, the lines across his forehead, the absolute distress of a stupid old man.
You watch his bloodshot eyes dart towards the disfigured body on your table. "Save my son Y/N, I'll do anything."
You wished you could say no. You wished you could go back up stairs and finish reading, you don't deserve to deal with this. Readjusting your glasses up the bridge of your nose, you sigh."Is your career more important than your son? I wont be able to do much with my supplies. You need to take him to a hospital."
"No!" he shouts, his hands tremble as they reach out for yours. "I love my son more than anything in this world. Please, I need your help. We're losing time. I took him all the way over here."
He sobs.
You feel dirty.
The clock ticks loudly in the kitchen.
"Fuck," you whisper, knowing you don't have much of a choice. "I'll give it a shot but if something happens, it's not my fault."
He nods desperately.
Taking a deep breath, you reach over the boy who is trying his hardest to breathe. Scanning your eyes down his body, you lift the tatters of his basketball shirt, revealing a gaping wound over his lungs.
It's enough to kick you into action.
"Okay sir, I'm going to need your credit card or a big piece of plastic," you turn to your mother as she passes you a pair of scissors. "I need tape, something strong. Dressing tape won't do it for the amount of blood coming from his other lacerations, maybe duct tape?"
Cutting straight through the boy's clothes, you expose his chest as the senator hands you his American Express card. "What are you going to do with it?" Wiping the sweat from your forehead, you place it on his abdomen as you quickly put on a pair of gloves.
"Don't ask, just watch," placing the card over his wound, you look up at the man. "I'm going to need you to hold this. Apply some pressure okay?" He immediately rushes over, holding the card to his boy's chest as you observe his neck for any enlarged neck veins or tracheal deviation. Your mother passes you slithers of tape as you tape three sides of the card securely, leaving the side facing towards his chin free. "Ma, I need you to watch his breathing and his trachea. If it shifts to one side, you tell me immediately."
"Will do. Does your father need to grab anything from the closet?" she asks, side eyeing the senator cautiously. "Any drugs?"
"Do we have any strong pain relief left?" Raking your eyes down the bloodied boy, you turn back to your father. "Pa, if you can't find any, grab some fentanyl and you know that little purple box I have in the closet that's got the label 'Chest Tube Tray' on it? I need you to grab it too."
"Where is your please?" He snaps, cocking his brows at you. "Don't forget your manners Y/N."
"Go and grab the life saving equipment I just listed PLEASE," you grit your teeth, turning back to the sobbing father in front of you. "Sir, you should sit down. Exhausting yourself out isn't going to help this situation. He's going to need you when he wakes up-"
"What does the card do? Is he going to be okay?" He interrupts, pacing around the room. "That fucker came out of nowhere and my boy, my boy pushed me out of the way and took the knife."
"He's brave but also stupid. Very stupid. Does stupid run in your family?"
Your mother coughs her disapproval.
You clear your throat. "This card, it will act like a chest seal and burp the air out-" you turn and grab the suturing kits behind you, "-and if this doesn't work I'm going to have do needle decompression to deflate the build of air around his lungs. I want to avoid tension pneumothorax as much as possible and to be completely honest with you sir, if that happens... I can't... I'm not confident that I can help him," you stare up into his glistening red eyes and with the most serious expression you could muster, you whisper. "Sir, I'm only 15."
"No, no no no," he sobs, covering his face with his hands. "Fuck no, this can't be happening. No, please child," he cries, removing his hands from his face as he grabs for your shoulders, shaking you with every ounce of energy he seems to have. "I don't care how old you are. We've heard about your talent and I know you can do it. If there is anyone out here who can save him, it's you. Save my boy Y/N, you must save him."
You gulp nervously, trembling beneath his hands. "I'll t-try my best Mr. Park."
"Please, please save him."
He whispers it over and over and over again and you knew he was no longer speaking to you but to whatever God that was listening. It was all up to the universe now, whether this boy continued to exist in a world where his own blood prioritised reputation and gold, over him.
You were certain that once he woke, the senator would no longer have a son who'd protect him but instead, a son who learnt way too early in life, that the only person he should protect, is himself.
It was a strange night for you, caught in between the life and death of another, but a lucrative step towards your successful future. You had saved the senator's son that night, and unknowingly saved yourself.
It was a gamble, one you hadn't completely thought out at the time. The senator built your life from gold after saving him, imagine what he was capable of doing if you hadn't.
The thought still scares you.
People really can't be trusted.
By the time you were 18 you held every trick in the book for knife lacerations, overdoses, and gunshot wounds. You had a fair amount of money that secured your independence and you wanted wholeheartedly to be a doctor, where you could put your abilities to a better use.
And with support from the senator, that is what you aimed to be.
Even if it meant suturing lacerations in a pair of Louis Vuitton Madeleine pumps and red lipstick on the night of your high school graduation ball. Living a normal life, or at least one with aspects of normalcy, wasn't a luxury you could have with dreams as big as yours.
So, as you walked through the doors of the Jeffersonian Medical School wearing a grey knitted sweater, blue boyfriend jeans and a pair of white sneakers with your head held high, your heart raced at the thought of walking back out six years later with an MB ChB and a white coat.
You just never expected to meet Kim Taehyung along the way.