SLEEPERS. | ✔️

1-04

Hoseok was staring at his papers, circular glasses almost sliding off his nose, when the door opened with a loud bang and chatter punctured the air. He turned his head to peek over the cubicle partitions, only to be greeted by two other people whom he assumed were junior residents too.

One of them had chocolate brown hair while the other strolled in with his blonde hair bouncing with every step. The blonde glanced around the room, catching sight of Hoseok.

"Oh! Hey! You must be the new junior resident of the West Wing!" he exclaimed excitedly as he walked over to the other to greet the curious newcomer.

"That'd be me," he replied.

"I'm Kim Taehyung and this is Jeon Jungkook." the blonde pointed to his friend, who bowed in greeting.

"I'm Hoseok. Jung Hoseok."

"Nice to meet you, Hoseok."

Hoseok awkwardly stuck his hand out in an attempt to get a handshake.

Taehyung grinned and took his hand, shaking it.

"My desk is right there, in case you need someone to talk to." he motioned to a corner desk near to Hoseok's.

He mumbled a silent "Thanks." and got back to work while the two took their seats with their own stacks of papers.

It then dawned on Hoseok that the two colleagues he just met worked in the East Wing, but he didn't know what department they were in. He voiced his questions.

"Oh, I'm in Cardiology and Kook's in ER."

"With Dr Kim? Seokjin?"

"Yeah," that was the first time Hoseok heard the chocolate haired boy speak.
A thought floated its way into Hoseok's mind.

"He hangs around Namjoon a lot, doesn't he?"

"You know him? Dr Kim?" Jungkook turned from his laptop to properly face Hoseok, the wheels on his chair swerving.

At this point, Hoseok realised how their names were so confusing.

"Yeah, he's my boss."

"Oh. Yeah, he does. He talks to Dr Kim a lot."

The door swung open again, less forcefully this time. Said Dr Kim appeared at the doorway, poking his head in.

"I see you've met the others. Come on, Dr Jung. We have to do rounds."

Hoseok got up from his chair, as he bade farewell to his new colleagues.

"How are they?" his mentor asked the moment they closed the door.

"They're...nice. They're nice." the junior resident shrugged. He'd barely known them, and he had no idea what to say.

They had arrived at the exit of the East Wing, which doubled as the entrance to the West. Namjoon tapped his keycard again, Hoseok walking next to him to join him in watching the glass doors slide open.

The West Wing, Hoseok came to realise, was much emptier than the East. There were actual conversations going on in the other wing, always a gurney somewhere, wheeling a patient with a ruptured blood vessel, always an ER doctor somewhere, treating some patient.
People were always busy there.

It was like the atmosphere shifted drastically when Hoseok stepped into the West Wing. As if it were colder there. And it was true, honestly. The warmth of people rushing here and there was replaced by guards standing still at every corner and patients being carried around in handcuffs.

He wanted to know what it was like to work in the East.

"How did you end up here, Namjoon?" he decided to ask. His mentor had seemed strangely calm in every situation, and Hoseok wondered why a person like Namjoon ended up in the criminal's wing.

"Honestly, I don't know. One day I'm working in the East, just calmly helping with the Radiology sector, and then I'm told that a new department is opening in the new wing and they want me there. Guess it helped that I studied criminology."

"Why do you ask? Already existential about the department?" he asked worriedly. He had hopes that he'd finally have a stable junior resident.

"No, no, nothing like that. It's just that- you seem like such an East Wing doctor, y'know? I'm just wondering why you're in this wing."

"Sometimes I wonder too."

"Alright, this is room 028, patient's name is Park Jimin. You're going to interview him," said Namjoon, once they stopped in front of a room far away from 039. Hoseok was passed a clipboard that his mentor had been holding, and he studied the papers for the patient. He'd seen the file before when doing paperwork and keying in data.

"This one killed four, separate intervals, said he didn't do it, and that the other him did it. We suspect it's Borderline Personality Disorder. You have to get the other guy to speak to you, or we won't get the truth."

Hoseok began to accept, at this point, that he really was dealing with mentally ill killers at a hospital. He'd seen how people can look innocent and be so dark underneath it all.