golden time
Chapter 151
Looking at Hana for a moment, Suhyuk smiled at her.
She did not say anything, just looked at him.
“Please give me a bottle of soju!” shouted a customer.
“Yeah…” Hana replied as if she were murmuring.
Standing up from his seat faster than her, he took out a bottle of soju and put it down on the customer’s table.
He came back to his seat, asking her, “Won’t you go with me?”
At his repeated asking, she opened her mouth,
“What about dinner? Did you eat?”
Suhyuk smiled, shaking his head.
“Wait a minute.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bowl of rice and soup for him.
Steam rolled up from the bowl filled with delicious toppings of vegetable and meat.
“Thanks.”
Suhyuk began eating quietly. Everytime he touched the food, he looked at her with a smile.
They were looking at each other without saying any words.
They could sense each other’s feeling without talking.
They knew that they went through all sorts of ups and downs along the way in their relations.h.i.+p.
They were standing face to face with each other all the time, but could not come closer to each other because of an invisible wall between them.
Suhyuk always felt a sense of guiltiness that he hurt her father’s legs, which made him feel at the same time that Hana, his daughter, was like a heavy wall standing before him.
“Let me pay the bill,” said a customer.
“Sure, I’ll come,” said Hana.
When she was about to stand up, her father stopped her shoulder, saying,
“Let me take care of it. Didn’t Suhyuk say he wanted another bottle of soju?”
“Oh, you’re right…”
Hana’s father moved to the counter, and she offered a cup of soju to Suhyuk.
Suhyuk drank it in a gulp, with a pleasant smile.
“Let me offer you soju, aunt!”
“Call me an aunt again?”
Narrowing her eyes she received a cup of soju from him.
Looking at them with a satisfactory look, Hana’s father nodded his head slowly.
After all they were supposed to be united like that.
He just felt nervous all along that their relations.h.i.+p would be estranged because of him.
“Check, please,” said the last customer.
After he got paid, Hana’s father said at the entrance door,
“Let me go home first, Hana, as I’m a bit tired today. So, clean up for me.”
“Are you going, sir?”
When Suhyuk approached him, he waved his hand.
“I’m going to take a taxi from near here, so don’t see me off.”
Then he looked at Hana, asking her to shut the door without fail.
Now Suhyuk and Hana were left alone in the restaurant.
At that moment their eyes met simultaneously.
“Why, why?”
She tried to avoid some sort of awkward situation by raising her voice and began cleaning the table.
At that moment Suhyuk pulled her wrist toward him gently.
Her eyes became wide. She could not say anything.
She could feel his warmth entirely.
Suhyuk’s soft voice went into her ear.
“Sorry. I’ve kept you waiting for so long.”
Held in his arms, she closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.
He smelled something pleasant from her trembling hair.
She snuggled into his arms as if she was hugging a soft pillow.
***
The next day.
Suhyuk got on a car to give a briefing session on stem cells at the request of the Korean Doctors a.s.sociation.
As many doctors around the country were gathering for the event, the hall was huge.
Walking up to the podium, he moistened his dry throat with some natural spring water.
Then a text message appeared on his cellphone.
It was a message from Hana.
With a slight smile he looked around at the large audience. The noisy audience became quiet soon, with doctors seating one by one.
Some photographers began clicking shutters.
Suhyuk tapped on the microphone with one finger. Everybody became silent in just a moment.
“h.e.l.lo, my name is Lee Suhyuk.”
The sound of clapping hands spread like waves into the hall.
When the sound became quiet, he opened his mouth,
“Thanks so much for coming to this place. Let me start now.”
The doctors’ eyes were glittering at his lecture.
How could any doctor who resolved the mystery of stem cells reveal to the outside world so easily like that?
His research had a such a great potential in terms of its commercial value.
He could make a zillion out of it.
However, Dr. Lee Suhyuk now standing before the podium gave out all his research.
The audience listened to him carefully for about two hours.
“Now let me take your questions.”
One doctor raised his hand.
Suhyuk said, nodding at him, “Please go ahead.”
“How do you feel now that you’re soon going to receive the n.o.bel Prize?”
The audience made a satisfactory look at him.
At the unexpected question Suhyuk said briefly, “I feel good.”
As soon as he replied, various questions were thrown here and there by many doctors.
Some sort of scholastic conversation was exchanged between them, at which the cameramen shook their heads, unable to understand them.
“No more questions?”
Answering all their questions, Suhyuk cast his eyes toward the audience.
There were none.
Actually Suhyuk spent as much time answering the questions as he did on the briefing.
“Then I a.s.sume that there are no further questions… Let me tell you about my own thoughts briefly then…”
Some of the doctors about to go to the restroom sat back down on their seats.
“As you know, the profession of a doctor is a very difficult job. Especially when you have a stream of emergency patients, it’s just common for you to give up your sleeping. But try to cheer up a little more. Patients are just powerless before doctors. At least during the time they visit the hospital, they don’t know anything about their body just like a child. They just rely on the doctors.”
Now occasional chattering among some doctors stopped when he said that.
Silence hung among them.
Suhyuk continued,
“When we doctors meet face to face with patients, we should be their parents. Just like the patient trusts and relies on us, we have a duty to treat them to the best that we could. If we treat them just like our parents or children even for a moment, they won’t forget us and come back. More patients coming, and as a result, more facilities and more medical staff will be needed.
If we think of the patients as our family members, such things will follow naturally. Because of this, we should be a part of their families.”
Looking around the audience quietly, Suhyuk said, “That’s it. Thank you!”
When he lowered his head, thunderous clapping hands broke the silence.
—–
The bulletin boards of Daehan Hospital homepage website was covered with all kind of tweets and replies about Suhyuk.
There were many patients who visited Daehan Hospital on purpose to get his treatment.
But they could not see him because he was already aboard the plane about to take off.
“This is the first time I am traveling abroad.”
Hana, seated in the first cla.s.s cabin, looked inside the plane.
She was comfortable but nervous because it was the first time she got on a plane.
Suhyuk, seated next to her, smiled. He felt the same when he got on board the plane bound for the United States for the first time.
“After you have some in-flight food, watch a movie and take a nap, and then you’ll have already arrived at the destination,” said Suhyuk.
Soon an in-flight announcement came out, “Now we’re leaving to receive the n.o.bel Prize.”
When Suhyuk and Hana were smiling at each other, the plane was taking off into the sky.
While they were heading for Stockholm, both of them received comfortable in-flight service.
It took them 13 hours to fly there.
When they arrived at the airport, it was early in the evening.
Probably it would be early in the morning in Korea.
Contrary to their expectation, there were no other pa.s.sengers or reporters at the airport.
Actually they arrived at the airport secretly at his request.
“Give me the baggage. Let me escort you to the hotel safely.”
A bodyguard wearing sungla.s.ses took Hana’s carrier bag and his baggage.
A total of four bodyguards were protecting Suhyuk and Hana.
When they got out of the exit, one of the bodyguards opened the door of a black limousine.
“Are you heading to the hotel right away?”
Thinking for a moment before getting in the sedan, Suhyuk opened his mouth after looking at Hana, “We’d like to have some fun before checking in.”
“Of course. We’ll drive you anywhere you want.”
At the bodyguard’s words, both of them got in the limousine.
Their sightseeing began.
—–
It was a lonesome rectangular room.
The only furniture there was a long table and two chairs.
There, two men were facing each other.
One of them was silent and the other one smiled while lookin at his smartphone.
He was Dongsu.
Some voice was coming out of his phone as if he was watching TV on it.
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Soon the n.o.bel Prize award ceremony began.
It was the moment Suhyuk’s face became known to every corner of the world.
Dongsu made a light smile at it.
Forming a V shape with his fingers after he wore a medal around his neck.
It was Suhyuk’s signature appearance.
Looking at it with a smile, Dongsu showed it to the man before his eyes.
“A wonderful guy, isn’t he?”
Gazing at it briefly, the man turned his eyes to Dongsu again.
“Treat me well. You’re making a mistake now,” said the man.
Dongsu just laughed it away, and stood up, unable to put up with him.
Approaching near the guy, Dongsu stroked his shoulder, saying,
“Unlawful firing and embezzlement of official funds, plus accounting fraud. You really stole lots of money!”
At Dongsu’s remarks, the guy gnashed his teeth hard enough to make a sound.
“And you committed stalking, too!”
The guy hired a man to stalk Hana, and forcibly contacted her everyday.
Out of desperation with his persistent hara.s.sing, Hana reported it to Dongsu.
“I want to talk with my lawyer.”
At his words Dongsu took his mouth to his ears, replying,
“Sure. But you had better give up getting out of here Insu. I didn’t like you from the high school days. And now I’ve become a prosecutor, man.”
Tapping him on the shoulder lightly, Dongsu looked at his cellphone on the table.
Suhyuk, walking down the podium after receiving the award, was holding Hana’s hands.
Dongsu made a smile at that.
“Don’t you think that they look great?”
Kim Insu gnashed his molars hard enough to break them.