The emergency room was chaos, but it was the familiar kind of chaos, the kind Sora understood. Nurses called out vitals, doctors barked orders, patients waited on gurneys with the stoic patience of people who had learned that the world didn't stop for anyone.
But tonight, Sora was on the other side of it. Tonight, she was the patient.
She sat on an exam table, her leg elevated, her knee and ankle throbbing in time with her heartbeat. A young resident was cleaning the wound on her knee, his movements careful, precise, but she could see the nerves in his hands, the way he kept glancing at her face like he expected her to tell him he was doing it wrong.
She would have, once. But tonight, she was too tired. Too distracted. Too aware of the man waiting somewhere in the hospital, the man with the blue eyes, the man who had carried her like she weighed nothing and looked at her like she was something worth seeing.
"You're lucky," the resident said, applying a butterfly bandage to the cut on her knee. "No stitches needed. The ankle is just a sprain. Two weeks with minimal movement, and you should be good as new."
Sora nodded. "I know. I'm a trauma surgeon."
The resident's face went pale. "Oh. I—I didn't—"
"It's fine. You're doing fine."
He must be new.
He relaxed slightly, finishing the bandage with more confidence. Sora watched him work, her mind elsewhere. She thought about the cafe, the woman's voice, Haneul's face on the bus. She thought about the car, the screech of tires, the moment she had closed her eyes and waited for the end.
She thought about blue eyes. About strong arms lifting her. About a voice that made her shiver and a face that made her forget how to breathe.
She was still thinking about him when the door burst open and Nurse Choi stormed in, Minjun close behind her.
"Park Sora." Nurse Choi's voice was sharp, the voice of a woman who had been terrified and was now channelling that terror into anger. "What in God's name were you thinking?"
"I'm fine—"
"You are not fine." Nurse Choi crossed her arms, her eyes blazing. "You stepped into traffic without looking. You could have been killed. Do you understand that? You could have been killed."
Sora looked down at her hands. They were scraped raw, the skin red and angry. She hadn't noticed until now.
"I wasn't paying attention," she said quietly.
"Clearly." Nurse Choi's voice softened, but only slightly. "What happened? What were you doing out there?"
Sora opened her mouth. Closed it. She couldn't tell them about the cafe. Couldn't tell them about the woman who had been in Haneul's bed, the words that had sliced through her like knives. Couldn't tell them that she had been so lost in her own pain that she had forgotten to look before crossing the street.
"I was tired," she said. "I wasn't looking."
Minjun stepped forward, his face creased with concern. "Sora—"
"Two weeks," she said, cutting him off. "That's what the resident said. Two weeks of minimal movement. I'm on leave."
"You need it," Nurse Choi said firmly. "You've been working yourself to death. Your body is telling you to stop. For once in your life, listen."
Sora nodded. She didn't have the energy to argue. And maybe, maybe they were right. Maybe she did need to stop. Maybe she needed to sit in her empty apartment and let herself feel all the things she had been running from. Maybe she needed to figure out who she was without the hospital, without Haneul, without sixteen years of a life that had been built on a lie.
But not tonight. Tonight, she was too tired for anything except the slow, steady rhythm of her own heartbeat.
She looked toward the door. He was out there somewhere, the man who had brought her here. She could feel it, a pull, a presence, something that made her skin prickle and her pulse quicken. She wondered if he was waiting. She wondered if he would leave without saying goodbye.
She wondered why that thought made her chest ache.
---
Jack stood in the corridor outside the emergency room, his phone pressed to his ear, his eyes fixed on the door where they had taken her.
"She's inside," he said. "They're treating her."
Leewon's voice crackled through the speaker. "And the car?"
"I stopped in time. She fell. Her knee and ankle are injured. Nothing serious."
"Good." A pause. "We have a problem at the club. Another fight. Same as last week. Men came in, started trouble, tried to start a riot. Security handled it, but we lost a few customers. The word is spreading that the club isn't safe."
Jack's jaw tightened. His father's work. Always his father's work. Small cuts, carefully placed, designed to bleed him dry one reputation at a time. The nightclubs were his legitimate front, his foothold in the world above ground, and Kim Minseok was determined to tear them down.
"Handle it," Jack said. "I'll come in later."
"Jack—"
"I said handle it." His voice was quiet, but Leewon knew better than to argue. "This is his work. He's trying to push me out before the vote. We knew this was coming."
Leewon was silent for a moment. "And the doctor?"
Jack looked at the door again. He could see her through the small window, sitting on the exam table, her face pale, her hair tangled, her hands scraped raw. She was talking to an older nurse and a man in scrubs, colleagues, he assumed. Friends. People who cared about her.
People who weren't him.
"She's mine," he said. "Handle the club. I'll be there when I can."
He hung up before Leewon could respond.
He stood in the corridor, his hands in his pockets, and watched her through the window. The nurse was scolding her, he could see it in the way she shook her finger, the way Sora's shoulders hunched. The man was hovering, worried, his hand on Sora's arm like he had the right to touch her.
Jack's fists clenched. He forced them to relax. Not yet. Not yet. She didn't know him. She didn't know what he was capable of, what he had done, what he would do for her. She looked at him and saw a stranger with blue eyes, nothing more.
But she would see. Soon.
He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, and waited. Nurses passed him in the corridor, their steps slowing, their eyes lingering. A group of young doctors whispered as they walked by, their faces flushed, their giggles barely suppressed. A patient in a wheelchair stared openly, his mouth hanging open, until his wife elbowed him in the ribs.
Jack ignored all of them. His attention was fixed on the door, on the woman behind it, on the moment when she would come out and see him waiting.
He could wait. He had been waiting for months.
He could wait a little longer.
---
Inside the exam room, Sora was trying to ignore the way Nurse Choi was looking at her.
"That man," Nurse Choi said, her voice carefully casual. "The one who brought you in. He's still out there."
Sora's face heated. "I didn't notice."
"Of course you didn't." Nurse Choi's smile was knowing. "He's very handsome. Foreign type. Or maybe mixed. Those blue eyes—I haven't seen eyes like that since I was a girl in Busan. A sailor from somewhere up north. Broke my heart in three days flat."
"He's not—" Sora started, then stopped. What was she going to say? That he wasn't handsome? That she hadn't noticed his eyes? That she hadn't been thinking about him since the moment she opened her eyes on the pavement and saw him crouched beside her?
She had been thinking about nothing else.
"He looks like he stepped out of a movie," Minjun said, settling onto a stool beside her. "The kind of movie where the mysterious stranger sweeps the heroine off her feet and takes her to his castle in the Alps."
"It's not like that," Sora said. "He just helped me. He was being nice."
Nurse Choi snorted. "That man doesn't do anything just to be nice. I've been on this earth long enough to recognise a man who knows what he wants. And that man—" she nodded toward the door, "—he wants something."
"He doesn't even know me."
"He knows you enough to wait outside for an hour while you get patched up. He knows you enough to carry you to his car like you were made of glass. He knows you enough to look at you like you're the only woman in the room."
Sora opened her mouth to argue, but the words died in her throat. Because Nurse Choi was right. He had looked at her like that. On the pavement, in the car, even now, she could feel his gaze through the door, a weight on her skin, a presence she couldn't ignore.
She didn't know what to do with that. She had spent sixteen years with a man who had stopped looking at her entirely. And now a stranger, a stranger with blue eyes and a voice that made her shiver, was looking at her like she was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
She didn't know how to be looked at like that. She didn't know if she deserved it.
The door opened, and Jack stepped inside.
The room seemed to shrink. Sora was aware of Nurse Choi straightening, Minjun standing, the resident who had been bandaging her ankle suddenly very focused on his work. She was aware of her own heart, pounding in her chest, her breath, catching in her throat, her hands, gripping the edge of the exam table.
He looked at her first. His blue eyes swept over her, taking in the bandage on her knee, the wrap on her ankle, the scrapes on her palms. His jaw tightened, just slightly, and she saw something flash in his gaze, anger, maybe, or concern, or something else entirely.
Then he looked at Nurse Choi, at Minjun, and his face became a mask. Polite. Controlled. Impenetrable.
"How is she?" he asked. His voice was low, measured, the voice of a man who was used to asking questions and getting answers.
"Minor injuries," Nurse Choi said briskly. "She's lucky. Another few inches and it would have been much worse."
His eyes flickered to Sora again. "Lucky," he repeated. The word seemed to carry more weight than it should.
Minjun cleared his throat. "Well. We should probably get you home, Sora. But I have a shift starting in ten minutes, and Nurse Choi is on overnight—"
"You can't drive," Nurse Choi said, frowning. "And you can't take the subway with that ankle. We need to figure out a ride."
"I can call a taxi," Sora said quickly. "Or a ride service. It's fine. I don't want to be a burden."
"You're not a burden," Minjun said. "But I really can't leave. The trauma bay is short-staffed, and if I don't show up—"
"I can take her."
The words were quiet, but they cut through the room like a blade. Sora looked up, startled. Jack was watching her, his expression unreadable, his hands in his pockets.
"I have nothing else to do," he said. "It's no trouble."
"No," Sora said, too quickly. "No, that's—you've already done enough. I don't want to impose. I can call—"
"Nonsense," Nurse Choi interrupted, her voice firm. "That's very kind of you. And it would help us immensely. We're all stretched thin tonight, and Sora needs to get home and rest."
"Really, I can—"
"Thank you," Minjun said, clapping Jack on the shoulder like they were old friends. "We appreciate it. Don't we, Sora?"
She looked at Nurse Choi. At Minjun. At the smiles on their faces that were just a little too bright, a little too knowing. They were doing this on purpose. They were pushing her toward him, and they didn't even know who he was, what he was, what he might want from her.
Why are they doing this? I still haven't told them about Haneul.
Well, they have never liked him, always forcing him towards other men.
But maybe, maybe that was the problem. Maybe she wanted to be pushed. Maybe she wanted to sit in a car with a stranger who looked at her like she mattered. Maybe she wanted to feel something other than the hollow ache that had been living in her chest for months.
She looked at Jack. He was watching her, waiting, his blue eyes patient and still. He didn't push. He didn't pressure. He just stood there, a man who had offered to help and was waiting to see if she would let him.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. Thank you."
His lips curved. Just slightly. Just enough for her to see. "You're welcome."