The Cutting Edge

024

"Don't be too worried, I'm sure he'll be fine," Hyunwon said as he sped down the streets towards the hospital.

Beside him, Hyejin was staring straight ahead in a daze, her hands tightly clenching onto the edges of her blouse as her mind kept thinking of the worst scenarios that could happen. Her father had never been in good health and he frequently went in and out of hospitals for check-ups, but never before had she received a call from the hospital with news as serious as this. Although he had high cholesterol, the doctor had said that the risk of an acute heart attack was low, so there was no reason for something like this to be happening. Even though she grumbled from time to time about how her father always showed favouritism towards her older brother, he was still pretty much the closest family that she had and the thought of possibly losing him just like that scared her.

"They say that there's a high chance for a person to die from a sudden heart attack," she whispered. "There have been several cases in the news of people in their twenties just collapsing without warning because of it, and they were all still young and healthy. My father is already in his fifties and he's always had a bad cholesterol problem..."

Hyunwon reached over his free hand and took hold of hers, slowly prying her fingers apart so that she would stop wringing her own clothes. "There are even more people who survive these incidents, so stop being so pessimistic. It's not like you. We're almost at the hospital, once we're there we'll know what the situation is," he said, stepping on the acceleration.

Minutes later, the local hospital came into view and Hyejin leapt out of the car the minute it pulled to a stop in front of the hospital doors. Running up to the information counter at A&E, she frantically asked the nurse for her father's whereabouts, following the direction signs towards the emergency operating theatres.

Standing in front of the doors of the operating theatre, she looked up at the lit sign that told her that the surgery was still in progress.

She had been here before, a very long time ago. Back then, she had arrived home from school to find her mother collapsed on the ground—they called the ambulance and had her brought here, to this very same hospital. When they rolled into the operating theatre, she had just regained her consciousness. Hyejin remembered her mother holding onto her hand, saying, "Everything will be alright. Don't worry." But that was the last thing her mother ever said to her.

She hated the hospital. She hated this place.

As her legs began to buckle under her own weight, Hyejin felt someone catch hold of her from behind. "Sit down," Hyunwon said, leading her over to a row of chairs. He frowned when he saw how pale her face looked, asking, "Are you feeling unwell?" Placing a hand against her forehead, he checked whether or not she was running a temperature—thankfully the result was a negative.

Hyejin shook her head, her gaze still worriedly fixated upon the double doors. "My father will be alright, won't he?" she asked. The overpowering smell of antiseptic in the hallways was making her feel nauseous. She clutched onto Hyunwon's hand, using him to stabilise herself just so she wouldn't collapse.

Hyunwon didn't answer her question because he knew that anything thing he said would just be an empty promise—he had no means of guaranteeing that her father would be alright. Life was fragile and unpredictable that way. Instead, he just put an arm around her and patted her gently across the shoulder, just to let her know that she wasn't alone. That was as much as he could do for her right now.

Half an hour later, the light on the operating theatre sign went off and a nurse in scrubs emerged through the double doors.

Hyejin immediately got up on her feet and ran over to the nurse. "How is my father? Is he ok?" she asked.