Love Me Once Again

Sixteen

- Present -

"Lee Hyo-ri?"

I froze.

It was a name that I hadn't heard in a while except from Grandma. But these days, I had 'trained' her to call me Hanna, too.

Why do you want to have a new name, she had asked. I told her, new name equals to new start, fresh beginning.

I don't know why, but the memory of singing A Whole New World on stage in front of the whole school during the grad party flashed across my eyes.

Should I turn around and smile and say he got the wrong person or should I turn around and smile and say hi, long time no see?

I turned around slowly, my turn still frantically decide which path to take.

"Hi," I found myself saying. "It's been a while." Damn, path number two, I was inclined towards one.

I think he was also trying his luck. Maybe he wasn't hundred percent sure that I could be her. He looked equally surprised at my reaction. He didn't immediately react except to stare.

Just then, my phone rang.

"Sorry," I said to him as I picked up the call. It was from the nurse station that patient Kim Dong-gi needed help.

"I'll be right over. What's his BP?" I asked and at the same time, I bowed slightly to him, indicating that I had to go. He continued to stare at me in disbelief.

When I returned to the nurse station, the nurse who called me, came up to me.

"You saved me," I told her.

"Huh?" She was puzzled.

"Never mind," I chuckled.

Then she told me Dr Cho was attending to Kim Dong-gi already.

Okay, I nodded. I had to go to my lecture already anyway. So I made my way to the LT, and thinking about some old memories along the way.

* * *

"You are very distracted today," Mandy said.

We were having an early dinner together.

"Dr Lee - Dr Jeong -"

The junior doctors and residents who walked past, greeted us.

We acknowledged with a smile and a nod. It was basic etiquette to greet the seniors. Just like when I saw the senior Profs. Prof Seo walked past and he said hi. From the first time I saw him, he had worked to a position of senior professor. He had been my motivation and inspiration for me to become a cardiologist when he operated on Grandma almost twenty years ago. And back then, I told him I was going to be like him. I haven't reach a full Prof yet, but I was an associate Prof, nearly there.

"I heard you have a VIP," he teased me.

I groaned.

Really, having a VIP patient was a fun joke among the doctors. We just loved to tease each other. Who says doctors can't have fun? When you put us together, we can be as crazy as college teens.

"He'll be discharged soon," I told him.

"He's very handsome," Mandy chipped in.

"You've seen him?" I asked in surprise.

"On TV."

Prof Seo chuckled while I rolled my eyes.

Another group of residents walked past and greeted us. We nodded.

"Anyway, Yoojin is asking when you will be free for dinner. She wants to cook your favourite sundubu for you again," he said. Prof Seo and his wife Yoojin often invite me to their house for meals. Because secretly they were trying to match make me and their son Taehyun. Taehyun was a year my senior and he was a neurologist. But Taehyun oppa and I were just friends. We had no chemistry between us. And I suspected he had someone he already liked.