The echo of the shattered metal tray was still vibrating through the VIP corridor when Se-na stepped through the open door of Room 802.
Inside, the room was in total ruin. An IV pole had been upended, spilling saline across the hardwood floor. Monitors beeped frantically, their leads torn free and dangling like dead vines. Standing in the center of it all, clutching his hospital gown against his chest with a blood-soaked bandage showing beneath the fabric, was Do Ra-ik.
He looked wild. His dark hair was matted with sweat, his hollow eyes burning with a terrifying, incandescent rage.
"WHO SAID TO SAVE ME?!" he roared again, his voice cracking violently as he grabbed a ceramic vase from the bedside table, ready to hurl it at Dr. Choi, who was ducking behind a medical cart. "I SIGNED IT! I SIGNED THE DNR! YOU HAD NO RIGHT!"
Se-na didn't stop to think. She didn't calculate the professional risks, nor did she consider the ethics board already sharpening their knives for her.
She walked straight through the puddle of saline, still barefoot, stepped over a fallen monitor, and closed the distance between them.
Ra-ik raised his arm to throw the vase, and Se-na met him.
THRASH!
The sound cracked through the room like a pistol shot.
Ra-ik's head snapped to the side. The ceramic vase slipped from his numb fingers, crashing onto the floor. There was silence, absolute, suffocating silence that fell over Room 802. Dr. Choi froze in the doorway, his mouth half-open in utter horror. The two attending nurses gasped in unison.
Ra-ik stood frozen, his hand slowly coming up to touch his stinging cheek. He slowly turned his head back to look at her.
For the first time, their eyes met in the physical world.
Se-na's heart hammered against her ribs as she stared into those dark, exhausted eyes. She recognized every line in his face, every drop of bitterness in his gaze. She had inhabited those eyes. She had looked out at the glittering city from a hundred stories up through those exact pupils.
"Does that sting?" Se-na asked, her voice dropping into an icy, unyielding register that cut through the room like a scalpel. She took a sharp step forward, poking her index finger hard against his bloodied chest bandage. "Does your cheek hurt, Do Ra-ik? Answer me! Does a simple slap sting?!"
Ra-ik stumbled backward half an inch, blinking in utter shock. "You..." he rasped, his eyes narrowing as a flicker of phantom recognition flashed behind his gaze. "Who... who the hell are you…"
"Didn't it hurt more when you threw yourself off a hundred-story building?!" Se-na shouted, shoving her finger into his sternum again, forcing him back toward the bed. Her eyes blazed with a raw, terrifying fury that surpassed even his own. "When every muscle, every cell, every single nerve in your body was screaming and begging you to hold on, you didn't care to fight! You didn't fight to live like you're fighting right now to throw a pathetic temper tantrum!"
"I didn't ask…" Ra-ik tried to growl, his voice trembling, but Se-na didn't give him room to breathe.
"Shut up!" she barked, pushing him back yet again. "NOR DID I!!! You selfish, reckless bastard! You think you were the only one terrified on that ledge? You think you were the only one suffering when you let go?!"
She was breathing heavily, her fists clenching so hard her short nails bit into her palms. In that moment, Se-na wasn't just a doctor reprimanding a hysterical patient. She was the victim standing in front of her tormentor. She was the soul that had been dragged down into the dark against her will, the person who had begged inside his mind for him to stop while he turned a deaf ear and plummeted into the void.
Ra-ik stared at her, his mouth slightly open, completely stunned into silence by the sheer magnitude of her rage and the uncanny, impossible weight of her words.
"You didn't fight then, so don't you dare act like a brave warrior now," Se-na hissed, her voice trembling withheld-back rage. She turned her head slightly toward the doorway without breaking her glare on him. "Dr. Choi! Nurses! What are you standing there gaping for? Do your jobs and stabilize him!"
Dr. Choi snapped out of his trance. "Hold him! Sedative, now!"
Three orderlies and two nurses burst into the room with a pre-filled syringe. The orderlies tackled Ra-ik from behind, forcing his weakened, unresisting body back onto the mattress. Ra-ik didn't even fight them this time; his dark, bewildered eyes remained locked on Se-na, searching her face frantically as if trying to decipher a ghost.
A nurse pressed a vial of Lorazepam into the Y-port of his IV line.
Within seconds, the violent tremors in Ra-ik's limbs began to subside. His heavy breathing slowed into a drug-induced rhythm. As his eyelids fluttered shut, his gaze remained fixed on Se-na—filled not with anger anymore, but with a deep, burning, unanswered question—before he finally slipped into unconsciousness.
Ten minutes later, Se-na stood outside in the quiet corridor, her knuckles still red. Dr. Choi was pacing beside her, rubbing his temples furiously.
Are you insane, Dr. Maeng?!" Dr. Choi hissed under his breath. "Twice?! You hit him twice?! First in the ER and now in front of the entire floor staff?!"
"He was pulling his central line and endangering the staff," Se-na said flatly, though her own fingers were trembling behind her. "And what was he screaming about? A DNR?"
Dr. Choi let out a heavy sigh, adjusting his glasses. "Yes. His legal team had a Do Not Resuscitate order on file with the legal department. It came through right as he was being brought in by the paramedics."
"Then why … resuscitate!!!?" Se-na asked, her brow furrowing. "If he had a valid DNR, the hospital would never have allowed us to bypass it."
"You didn't look in your senses at that time and you are asking me this question??? With the way you were acting when if we told you... you wouldn't back away would you?"
"i…." but Choi cut her, before she could say anything, "Also … Because it wasn't valid," he revealed, leaning in closer. "The legal board threw it out thirty minutes after he arrived. The DNR was submitted six months ago by Do Hyun-joo's legal proxies not by Ra-ik himself. Furthermore, because he was brought in with acute traumatic injuries and blood loss under circumstances suggesting third-party endangerment, the emergency medical doctrine overrode it. Ra-ik was deemed incapacitated, and the document was flagged for fraud and duress. Legally, his DNR was null and void the moment he crossed our threshold."
Se-na swallowed hard. Null and void. Ra-ik had built his entire surrender around that piece of paper, believing he had bought his escape only for the system to force him back to life anyway.
"Regardless of his DNR," Dr. Choi added grimly, looking at her with genuine pity, "you have bigger problems now, Dr. Maeng. Director Kang wants you in the board room. Immediately."
The Ethics Committee chamber was cold, sterile, and designed to intimidate.
Se-na stood at the center of the dark wood floor, facing a crescent table where five senior board members, including Director Kang, sat with her personnel file open before them.
"Dr. Maeng Se-na," Director Kang began, his voice echoing off the paneled walls. "Your record at this hospital has been exemplary. You are, without a doubt, one of the finest cardiac surgeons this institution has ever produced. Which makes this hearing all the more painful."
He gestured to the tablet in front of him. "We have reviewed the incident reports from the ER, as well as the security footage from Room 802 earlier today. On two separate occasions, you physically assaulted a patient in critical condition."
"I restored a heart rhythm during an acute arrest," Se-na said steadily, keeping her chin up. "And I stabilized an uncooperative patient who was tearing out his own arterial line."
"By slapping him!" a board member snapped. "Dr. Maeng, this is a flagrant violation of medical protocols, patient rights, and fundamental decorum! If the public or the media hears that Chief Surgeon Maeng Se-na physically strikes comatose and recovering patients, the reputation of this hospital will be ruined!"
"The family specifically Mr. Do Hyun-joo is already threatening a massive lawsuit," Director Kang added gravely. "We cannot sweep this under the rug, Maeng Se-na. Your actions were reckless, unprofessional, and violent."
Silence settled over the room. Se-na didn't offer another defense. In the world of medicine, she knew the rules: once the board decided you were a liability, no number of saved lives could clear your name.
Director Kang cleared his throat and read from the official verdict paper.
"Effective immediately, Dr. Maeng Se-na is assessed a formal disciplinary fine of fifty million won, to be docked from your hospital equity.
Se-na didn't flinch at the money. But Director Kang wasn't finished.
"Furthermore," Kang continued, his voice cold and definitive, "your surgical privileges are suspended indefinitely until further notice. You are strictly forbidden from setting foot inside any Operating Theater, scrub room, or surgical bay within this facility until a full psychological evaluation is completed. You are stripped of your active cases."
The words hit Se-na like a physical blow.
No operating theater!
For Maeng Se-na, the surgical suite wasn't just a workplace it was her entire identity, her sanctuary, the only place where she held absolute control over life and death. Stripping her of her scalpel was no different than locking her in a cage.
"Do you understand the ruling, Dr. Maeng?" Director Kang asked.
Se-na stood tall, her hands clenched tightly at her sides until her knuckles turned white.
"I understand," she said softly.
She turned and walked out of the board room, the heavy doors closing behind her with the finality of a prison vault.
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