Second Overtime | JENSOO & CHAELISA

Chapter LXI

Jisoo left the hospital eighteen days after Chaerin tried to kill her.

The discharge papers called it clinical improvement. Jisoo called it a successful prison break. She had been practicing the line for three days, trying out different deliveries on every nurse who entered her room, and by now she had it polished to a fine, insufferable shine.

"You are being discharged," Irene said, folding the thick packet of aftercare instructions against her palm with the crisp, deliberate movements of someone who had read every word twice and memorized the important parts. "That is not the same as escaping. You're leaving because the doctors have determined you're stable enough to continue recovery at home."

"Sounds exactly like something a prison warden would say."

"You require twenty-four-hour supervision for the first week. You're on three different medications with staggered dosing schedules. You have neurological follow-ups every three days, an orthopedic consultation next Tuesday, and several months of physical rehabilitation ahead of you. You can't climb stairs. You can't stand unassisted. You can't—"

"So you admit I'm getting out."

Irene stopped mid-recitation. Her jaw tightened in a way that was intimately familiar to everyone who had ever argued with a Kim. "I admit that the hospital has decided keeping you here is more dangerous to staff morale than sending you home. Apparently, you've been asking the night nurses to smuggle in contraband snacks."

"The jello cups are a violation of the Geneva Convention."

"They're medically prescribed."

"They're an affront to human dignity."

Jisoo grinned from the wheelchair. The expression pulled at the healing wound near her temple, a curved pink scar that was slowly revealing itself as the shaved patch of hair grew back in dark, uneven bristles. The bruising around her eye had faded to a sickly yellow-green, the kind of color that looked worse than it felt. 

Her left leg was locked inside a hinged brace that ran from mid-thigh to just above her ankle, propped on the elevated footrest of the wheelchair. She wore a loose Black Mambas sweatshirt that Lisa had brought from home, it smelled faintly of fabric softener and the particular mustiness of a closet that hadn't been opened in weeks, and black shorts over the brace. One sneaker on her right foot. The other sneaker dangled from Lisa's fingers like a hostage.

"I still think you should let me carry you," Lisa said. She'd been making this argument since the nurse had first mentioned the wheelchair three days ago. "I could do it. I've been working out."

"You have the upper-body strength of a decorative houseplant."

"I dragged you across a basketball court that one time."

"You dropped me twice."

"The floor was slippery."

"It was dry."

"You were unusually dense that day. Muscle mass. Very heavy."

Rosé reached over and plucked the sneaker from Lisa's hand before she could throw it. "Perhaps we avoid physically assaulting the patient while standing directly beneath a sign that says Neurosurgery Ward."

"She started it."

"I'm in a wheelchair," Jisoo said, gesturing at her own lap with the expansive innocence of someone who was absolutely lying. "Legally, I'm incapable of starting anything. I'm a victim of circumstance."

Irene lowered the discharge packet and fixed Jisoo with a look that had, over the years, made grown men confess to crimes they hadn't committed. "Do not test how quickly I can wheel you back into your room and tell Doctor Cho you've had a sudden relapse."