Ssamyen One Shots

Your Honor, She's Bleeding Again [2/2]

They didn’t fight.

Not at first.

Yena had gotten the offer with barely two weeks’ notice: a one-year transfer to the hospital’s provincial branch in Gangwon. It was temporary, well technically. Good for experience. Better exposure. The kind of thing that would round out her residency beautifully.

Chaewon had blinked at the news, sitting at their usual table in the corner of the café with two case binders open between them.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “That’s… great.”

Yena nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

And then they sat there in silence, the kind that didn’t need to be filled with words to be understood.

The actual fight came two days later, when Chaewon came home late, again, and found Yena packing books into boxes.

“You’re packing already?” she asked, more sharply than she meant to.

“I leave in ten days,” Yena replied.

“You haven’t even finished your rotation here.”

“I want to be ready—”

“You’re always ready. You’re never here.”

Yena paused. Turned. “That’s not fair.”

Chaewon hated that it wasn’t. But she said nothing.

So Yena tried again, softer this time. “Chaewon, it’s a year. Just one year.”

“And after that?”

“I come back.”

“You think it'll still feel the same after twelve months?”

Yena’s expression twisted, not with anger, but something worse. Something fragile.

“I’m hoping it does,” she said. “Because I want to come back to you.”

And just like that, Chaewon stopped. Stared. Because that was the first time either of them had said anything close to that out loud.

The week before Yena left,

They made a pact.... no promises they couldn’t keep.

No dramatic send-offs. No late-night sob fests. No long-distance pressure to talk every hour. They’d take it day by day.

“Every other Sunday,” Yena said, as she placed a small calendar magnet on Chaewon’s fridge. “Video call. Non-negotiable.”

“Deal,” Chaewon said. “Every other Sunday.”

“And every second weekend,” Yena added, “when you’re free... you come visit. Or I come here.”

Chaewon hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

Neither of them said if we can. Only when.

It was enough.

The first Sunday without Yena,

The apartment was too quiet. Chaewon ate cereal standing at the counter, still in her blazer from court. The dog upstairs barked. The clock ticked louder than usual.