Ik-jun finds Gyeo-ul eating two cups of ramyeon on the lounge after their liver transplant one afternoon. He gives her several candies he swiped from Jun-wan's cabinet. As usual, the resident has been hard at work and is eating as much as she can before she returns to her job. "What are you doing here eating that? Go to Jeong-won and eat something delicious with him."

She shakes her head and tries to fit as much noodles as she can inside her mouth. When she has carefully chewed on it, she says, "I have another surgery with Professor Lee."

"But you just got off mine," he scolds her, his thick eyebrows pulling together. Though he hates to witness her bending over backwards to accommodate everyone, he can't help but be proud of her for her wonderful work ethic. "Oh, our Gyeo-ul is working hard as usual. Don't forget to rest every now and then, okay?" She nods, taking his words into consideration. Ik-jun lightens the mood by cheekily opening the topic of her relationship with Jeong-won. "Is everything going well with you two?"

She smiles to herself. Ever since she started liking him, she has tried to hide her feelings from him, solely because she's afraid that it would make things awkward for them. Without intending to, she has realized that even after she knew their mutual affections for one another, she has carried her inclination to keep herself composed at all times when she's in front of him into their relationship. But she is trying very hard to be more open to him. And she can see that he is working on it, too.

"It's going really well, Professor," she utters, trying hard to hide her smile.

After he asked her about when she would like to get married, she was faced instantly with something that hadn't crossed her mind yet. She never had plans for the future; all she had was the vague outline of her life as a doctor and nothing more, but the universe had thrown her into an uncharted territory.

She never saw herself marrying anyone at this age; no, the most correct way to phrase it was that she was certain that she was never going to get married. The explanation was simple: she had no time to date and she couldn't put someone else before her obligation as a doctor. Her journey was driven by her desire to learn as much as she could and, hopefully, become a competent surgeon in the future.

But that was before he met Jeong-won. She never allowed herself to imagine it before, but lately, she figured that she didn't want any other ending to their love story other than the happily-ever-after that she read in books. She wanted to be with him for as long as she could; she wanted to wake up every single day with him at her side.

While the thoughts awakened that side of her, the reality of how love could easily enter and fad in someone's life heightened her measured nature. The fact was that first loves rarely last. And almost all marriages ended in divorce.

But she has to hope. She has to have faith on herself and her relationship.

If only love was as easy as cutting up a person's liver and transferring it to another, then, she will surely excel on it. Unlike the human body, love doesn't have established parts that people can easily avoid so as to not kill it. It has no physical manifestation that they can navigate through to help preserve it. Everything about it relies on the gut-feeling. If she had more experience, it would've helped, but she wouldn't have it any other way; he was the only one capable of catching her eye.

The pancreaticoduodenectomy has lasted for almost five hours since the patient was diagnosed at a late stage, but despite that, the surgery has gone well. Professor Kwon offers to buy her dinner, but she has to check on some of her patients.

She is luckily to not be on-call tonight, but there are still a lot of things to do. She enters the GS room and Jeong-won is there, wearing a pale blue button-down shirt beneath his coat. He smiles at her and hugs at her after she sat down in front of her computer. She wants to hug him back, but she wants to get everything done right away so they can both go home.

"That took a while," he tells her as he places himself at the seat next to her. "Let's go home."

She glances at him, her expression apologetic. "I still need to check on some of my patients before I leave." Her eyes scan the patients' charts; none of them had any complication, thankfully. "Why don't you go home? I don't think that I can get this done in an hour."

But he doesn't get up to leave. He merely watches her as she works.

"Professor Ahn," she firmly says as she updates on a patient's condition. "Go home. I'll see you tomorrow."

Her tone did it. He stands up, takes his briefcase, and heads towards the door. Before leaving, he tells her, "You are pushing yourself to the limit and I'm sure that you know that."

She closes her eyes as her throat tightens. She can feel her face warming up. "It's my job. I've seen you stay at the hospital longer. Why is that so different from what I'm doing now?"

He doesn't say anything, but based on his expression, her words hurt him. He leaves her there without another word to defend himself – he has left her with the punishing silence that made her weary. She feels the weight on her shoulders and it's crushing her chest into a million pieces. Before she could stop it, she's crying.

She has finished all her tasks by 12 A.M. By then, every single inch of her body aches; her eyes can barely open themselves as she left the hospital. After she has hailed a taxi, she sends Jeong-won a text; she didn't want to call him, because it was late and she didn't want to disturb his sleep.

"'Jeong-won'," she writes, "'I'm sorry. You were right. My back hurts so much and I can barely move my legs. I'll take it easy from now on. I'll see you tomorrow.'"

She has disregarded herself plenty of times before – she lost a lot of sleep, stood for hours on end during operations, she ran flights of stairs for the sake of the patient – her health is being deeply affected in her career of saving lives. She has not cared about her well-being unti someone started to care for her.

She arrives home to her dark apartment. Jung-woo has left soup to heat on the counter, but she has no appetite. She collapses on the couch. She's about to sleep there, but the doorbell buzzes, waking her. She pushes herself up.

"Who is it?" she whispers to the intercom.

"It's me." It's Jeong-won's voice filtered with the cheap microphone. Her eyes open, suddenly alert. Is she dreaming? Has she finally lost her mind?

She opens the door and finds him there in her hallway with a smile on his face. He pulls her in and opens the lights. He takes something from the plastic bag that he was carrying. He makes her sit on the couch and places a large pain relief patch in her shoulder. His fingers graze her sensitive neck, tickling her a bit.

"You have to take it easy," he tells her, his voice tender and sweet. "The whole hospital will crumble if you do." He leaves her for a second to prepare her the tteok-bokki he bought for her. He kisses her on the forehead and helps her walk towards the dining table.