Hey, this is now the first chapter. Every life has got to start somewhere...Hwoarang's starts at a small hospital in Inchon, South Korea. I tried to keep the super forced detail out. Tell me what you think of the change!
C C is appreciated.
Nurse Kim Hyun Hae punched in her password to her apartment door and immediately threw her coat onto a brown folding chair in her apartment, shaken. She had almost lost her. Almost lost her! The events of the day reeled through her mind, a movie fractured by pumping fear and adrenaline. She had almost lost a baby. A tiny fragile life. It almost slipped away right through her fingers. The guilty agents still shook from the ordeal.
She was a decent looking young woman. Maybe around twenty-five years old. Still, that was young. Her husband was with her. Or was it her brother? Or her cousin? The nurse couldn't remember. All she cared was that the little baby was already about to come out of her when they reeled her into the delivery room. The woman was screaming. My god, it was bloody murder. But the nurse had dealt with the screamers before.
"Please, calm down. Don't worry. You and your child will be well taken care of." The nurse's percussive Korean rolled smoothly and calmingly out of her mouth. It was ignored by the panicking woman. She was twenty-five—still too young. The soon-to-be new mother was shoved roughly onto the bed with the baby crowning. Time was racing past them. The baby was about to come. The pandemonium in the room was deafening. Nurse Kim Hyun Hae worked silently under the yelling husband or brother or cousin and the panicking young woman. Thundering footsteps everywhere. The metal bed-frame clanking and groaning. The angry horns of the Inchon traffic outside. It was a long time since she had been a midwife. A bead of sweat rolled down the nurse's temple.
And in one beautiful moment, the baby was out. For a split second, a strange, otherworldly calm filled the room. The baby was out! And it was a girl. A beautiful baby girl. The new mother and the man locked eyes for a second, exchanging relief. But something was wrong. The beautiful baby girl was not crying. As deeply as the baby's birth sent warm relief through the nurse, the baby's silence sent bone-chilling cold flooding into her chest.
The woman was screaming again.
That's when events started getting fuzzy. True panic buzzed through her brain. Whirls of color…red blood, white bed sheets, silver metal…black, black eyes. The nurse now turned to the instinctual medical training that had been so ingrained in her. She grabbed tools, massaged the baby, wiped off blood, listened to heart wrenching screams and then…a baby's cry rang through the panic, clear as a trumpet call through an orchestra's symphony. The girl was squirming in the nurse's hands, her pained cries like an angel's touch on the people in the room. She was a beautiful baby girl.
The nurse massaged her hands, willing them with her mind to stop shaking. To distract herself from the fright, she looked around at her new apartment. It was decent apartment. Maybe a little small, but decent enough for a nurse's wages. The vinyl floors were a bit worn, but clean. Her walls a bit yellowed but not peeling. She could barely move around in her bathroom, but who needed that anyway? This was a result of years and years of saving up money. But she appreciated it all the same. As the dull hadeiro colors of her apartment swam in front of her eyes, she became lost in thought.
Whatever happened to that boy, her first delivery as a nurse? What happened to his mother? No husband ever came to the hospital inquiring about her. But that boy…what had happened to him? Again…memories ticked past in her mind.
He was a beautiful baby boy. Maybe a little small, but a beautiful baby boy nonetheless. He weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces. He had a surprisingly developed veil of black hair on his little head. He was brilliantly red and healthy-looking. He was as squirmy as the baby next to him. Maybe even squirmier. He sure loved to move around and kick his little legs. His mother must have had hell with that little fighter in her stomach. But the clear plastic tubes in his body hindered him…and she could hear it. His crying was more heart-wrenching than any other baby around him. Nurse Kim Hyun Hae frowned as she looked down at her first delivery. Why was there such a piteous tone in the cry of a baby just born? He sounded as if he had already seen a thousand ills of the world…something about his wailing—it was already sad.
"Nurse Kim."
She whirled around to see a stony-faced Dr. Lee.
"Yes, doctor?"
"Did you discharge Ms. Yoon? The mother of baby number 768?"
Nurse Kim Hyun Hae hid a frown in her lips. This baby didn't deserve to be known as just a number. He was special…different.
"No, Doctor. She was lying in her bed when I left to check on her child."
"Are you sure, Nurse Kim?"
"Yes."
"But she is not in her room, or her ward. People are checking the rest of the hospital, but no luck yet."
Nurse Kim Hyun Hae frowned. Why didn't he sound as worried as he ought to be?
"Well, I wouldn't know what happened. I was on my rounds, doing my duties as you ordered, Doctor."
He sighed. He sounded almost as sad as baby number 768. Almost. He was still crying.
"Very well."
"Very well? Doctor, don't find me impertinent, but shouldn't you be a little more worried? This is your patient in your ward."
He gave her a stern look and Nurse Kim Hyun Hae recoiled a bit. Had she gone too far? But when he spoke, his voice wasn't raised or affected in anyway…it was just deeply, incredibly sad.
"The mother just…this is the first time such a thing has happened. She has no record of an emergency contact so the father can't be reached. She has just disappeared without taking her child."
Nurse Kim Hyun Hae was silent. Dr. Lee pulled a paper from his chest pocket.
"She scribbled this on a napkin and left it on her bedside table."
Nurse Kim Hyun Hae took it. The messy, hurried script was barely legible.
"Yoon…Jang Hyuk?"
"Yes."
Again, the doctor seemed deeply upset…defeated. So did Jang Hyuk.
"We will take care of him until he's weaned. Then we must send him to an orphanage."
Nurse Kim Hyun Hae looked up.
"Sir? That would be incredibly expensive. And we could send him in a few months; he won't be weaned for more than a year."
"We will take care of him until he's weaned."
The nurse was silenced by not his repeated sentence, but the incredible sorrow in his voice. The doctor had already seen much human horror…this must be the straw on the camel's back. He had treated domestic violence wounds, gunshots from gang violence, drunk-driving accident patients, battered children…but this was too much. His hopelessness in the human race was now concrete. So was the nurse's. How could a mother leave her baby like this? Why would the world be so cruel to an innocent little life? Poor baby Jang Hyuk…he had already caused so many lives grief. The nurse vowed to never have children of her own.
The Doctor turned away. This meeting had gone on long enough. He had other patients to treat and he couldn't be in a weak state for that. He coughed and straightened himself.
"Nurse, you will be moved up to the tenth floor."
"Sir, the physical therapy ward? But I am on midwife duty."
She was quelled by his suddenly hard look.
"Of course, sir."
Doctor Lee left briskly, leaving Nurse Kim Hyun Hae with her thoughts. He was actually doing her a favor. If she stayed here, she would be tempted to take care of the abandoned child. She would grow too close to him. What if his mother came back and this child was too attached to the nurse to leave? A nurse's salary wouldn't be able to support a baby anyway. And the orphanage would be more than willing to take him in. Reluctantly, she tore herself away from the looking glass.
Baby Jang Hyuk had stopped crying. That was the last time she'd see him. But the promise she made to herself and her hopelessness in humanity stayed with her long after one year old Jang Hyuk left for the orphanage. Her home remained childless and her hopes remained defeated.
A particularly long and piercing car horn jerked Nurse Kim Hyun Hae out of her reverie. It had been years and years since she had last thought of baby Jang Hyuk. Well, he wouldn't be a baby now. Well, since she was twenty-five years old when she had first delivered him…He would be in his early twenties by now. And after all of these years, he invaded her mind. She laughed quietly at her own foolishness. She had to stop herself from being such a sentimental old woman.
Nurse Hyun Hae rose to make herself a late dinner. Tomorrow, she'd be back on for the hospital. Hopefully, it was midwife duty.