On the day Park Sang-mi’s final surgery was taking place.
Park Sang-mi was once again anesthetized and lying on the operating table.
Choi Moo-gyeol took out the skull fragment that had been stored in preservative solution with tweezers.
The sterilized titanium plate and screws were also ready.
Choi Moo-gyeol brought the cut-out skull to its original place and tried fitting it.
“Four screws will be enough.”
He placed a thin metal plate against the boundary of the cut skull and drove screws in to fix its position.
Whirr—.
A metallic substance is added to Park Sang-mi’s body. Of course, it will not be visible on the outside.
“Every time I do this, it feels like I’ve become a robot maker.”
“A robot maker?”
“Wouldn’t assembling a robot feel like this too?”
“…….”
Certainly, Choi Moo-gyeol’s jokes had parts that were hard for ordinary people to follow.
Whirr—. Vrrr—.
Four screws and the metal plate attached and fixed Park Sang-mi’s cut skull together.
And one more thing.
“It’s important to fill in these gaps.”
When cutting the skull for a craniotomy, the cross-section does not come off completely smooth.
Part of the bone crumbles into powder and falls away, and gaps are created then.
So even if you fit the cut-out part back exactly, some gaps inevitably form.
But it is not a problem because the doctor does not leave it empty.
If there is leftover bone powder, it is used, but when there is none, it is filled with a material called ‘bone cement.’
Because no one would want cold air to seep in through the gaps in the skull.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s hands blocked Park Sang-mi’s skull gaps as meticulously as possible.
So that the piece and the whole adhered firmly together and would not easily break under impact.
* * *
Even the final surgery ended well.
The day of Park Sang-mi’s discharge came.
While going through discharge procedures with her family, Park Sang-mi’s mother said.
“Should we at least greet the doctor who was in charge of the surgery?”
“Yes, how about buying some drinks and visiting him?”
At her parents’ words, Park Sang-mi said.
“Ah, as it happens, he stopped by the hospital room briefly last night. He said he came to check my condition.”
“Did he?”
“But he said never to come looking for him. He said he doesn’t need to receive greetings. He said his appointments are fully booked today, so he’ll be busy.”
Park Sang-mi’s father let out a small laugh and muttered.
“Somehow that’s just like him. He hated handshakes too.”
“Still, he performed a difficult surgery well, so I really want to greet him before we go……”
At her mother’s words, Park Sang-mi spoke as if she had remembered something.
“Ah, he also asked me to pass this along. If your parents try to come find me later, tell them that overcoming a surgery with only a forty percent success rate was possible because I, the patient, fought well, so they should praise their daughter a lot……”
Her mother’s eyes reddened slightly.
“That’s somehow a touching thing to say.”
“……I felt a little choked up too. And then he added that I should go eat something delicious with my parents.”
“He was a somewhat strange doctor…… but his skill really does seem excellent.”
“Yes, both the doctor who performed the surgery and our daughter, the patient, are truly admirable and we are grateful.”
“Yes, let’s go eat something delicious.”
* * *
When one family had thus regained peace.
Choi Moo-gyeol was preparing his own ceremony.
He set aside the patient’s medical record separately.
Like a serial killer with the habit of taking a trophy after killing a victim.
That trophy could be the victim’s underwear, could be a ring or earring, and could even be a part of the body.
Doctor Psychopath Choi Moo-gyeol takes the patient’s medical record.
Was it a trophy in his own way?
Of course, taking the original would cause problems, so he copies the original, returns it, and takes one copy.
[Medical Record]
[Patient Name: Park Sang-mi]
[Diagnosis: Traumatic Subdural Hemorrhage]
[Surgery Name: Craniotomy]
Choi Moo-gyeol stared intently at it.
As if he were inputting the contents of that medical record into his head.
After a moment, his hands began folding the copy elaborately.
The hand skill that performs difficult surgeries flawlessly and with ease.
The result folded with that skill was none other than……
A single paper frog.
Frogs traditionally are said to symbolize ‘fertility,’ ‘great fortune,’ ‘a new beginning,’ and so on.
Although Choi Moo-gyeol himself was a doctor with a personality incapable of empathizing with a patient’s sorrow or suffering.
He hoped that the patients who received his surgery would use it as a starting point to unfold a ‘new life.’
Only then would his surgery have meaning.
Choi Moo-gyeol took out a large glass jar hidden beneath his desk.
The glass jar was already full of paper frogs with letters wrapped around them like patterns.
Choi Moo-gyeol placed the folded paper frog into the glass jar.
“I’ll need to buy another jar.”
What began as putting one paper frog per patient had already filled one jar completely.
It was time to buy the next jar.
However, before he could even buy a new jar.
Because of one incident, Choi Moo-gyeol was unable to be promoted to professor at Hankook University Hospital and was dismissed.
What was the reason such an outstanding doctor was dismissed?
On the day he put his stethoscope, doctor’s gown, tumbler, mug and writing utensils, plaque, and so on into a white paper box with the name Choi Moo-gyeol written on it and left Hankook University Hospital.
He retraced in his head one by one how on earth the situation had come to this.
That recollection goes back to a very young childhood.
* * *
I am a psychopath.
I cannot properly feel emotions.
It means I have difficulty understanding others’ emotions.
I can be seen as a being lacking empathy.
It is not an innate personality.
Because I was not like this from birth.
After suffering damage to the frontal lobe due to a certain incident, I became like this.
So it can be said to be a case somewhat different in nature from a congenital psychopath.
Medically speaking, acquired psychopathy.
If translated as ‘acquired antisocial personality disorder,’ that would be appropriate.
That’s right.
I am a human who has acquired a personality that cannot properly feel emotions.
* * *
When Choi Moo-gyeol was an elementary school student.
All classes had ended, and he was on his way home, chatting lightly with friends.
He was the first to spot a puppy roaming the street.
“Hey, look over there. There’s a cute puppy.”
“What is it. Is it a Pomeranian?”
“Looking at the protruding forehead and thick fur, I think it’s a Pomeranian. Huh?”
“Why are you surprised?”
“It seems to limp on one hind leg when it walks.”
“Really? It’s a disabled dog.”
“Hey, that’s a bit harsh. It might just be limping temporarily because it’s injured.”
“Anyway, it was clearly abandoned by its owner because of that leg disability…… Mmph! Mmph mmph!”
Choi Moo-gyeol covered his friend Lee Dong-gyu’s frivolous mouth with his fern-like hands.
“Be careful with your words.”
“Mmph, ptoo ptoo—. Anyway, dogs can’t understand human speech, right?”
Lee Dong-gyu brushed off Choi Moo-gyeol’s hand and spat out.
“I heard that even if animals can’t understand human words, they understand the emotions contained in them?”
“You’re lying.”
“It’s true.”
“Who says so?”
“I saw it on the internet.”
Choi Moo-gyeol looked at the Pomeranian and thought.
What kind of bad owner abandoned it?
To think it was rummaging through street garbage bags, searching for something to eat.
A puppy with no owner and even limping—its appearance looked quite pitiful.
He took out one of the Chunjangsa sausages in his pocket.
It was something he had specially saved to eat as a snack, but if it could become a meal for a starving puppy, then so be it.
“Puppy. Come here.”
He peeled half the wrapper and waved it, but the Pomeranian only glanced at him and did not approach.
It seemed to fear people.
Was it because of the wound of having been abandoned?
Lee Dong-gyu, having lost interest, said.
“Moo-gyeol, let’s just go. Give the sausage to me instead.”
“No thanks. Buy your own with your money.”
“Wow, racism, no, human discrimination is daebak. Are you discriminating against me because I’m a person, not a puppy?”
“Then should I treat you like a puppy from now on? Without discrimination?”
“……Ugh.”
Choi Moo-gyeol, having once again silenced his friend’s mouth with a piercing remark, calmly and patiently held out the sausage and approached the puppy.
So as not to startle it and make it run away, he crouched and crept slowly.
Did the emotion get through?
The Pomeranian, which had kept a certain distance, finally began to approach little by little, licking its pink tongue.
Was it because the instinct drawn to the delicious smell was greater than the fear of people?
“Good.”
The Pomeranian, now before his eyes before he knew it, put its mouth to the sausage.
Smack smack nom nom smack smack.
The puppy moved its small snout and chewed the sausage eagerly.
“Tch, it is cute.”
“Right? I told you.”
At Lee Dong-gyu’s acknowledgment, Choi Moo-gyeol smiled contentedly.
A moment later.
The Pomeranian, having devoured the sausage in the blink of an eye, licked its tongue as if asking for more.
“If I took this one home, there’d be chaos, right?”
It was the moment Choi Moo-gyeol, feeling regretful, stroked that round forehead for a while and stood up.
Thud!
Screech—!
“W-what!”
A passenger car passing through the alley failed to see Choi Moo-gyeol, who happened to be in its blind spot, and struck him.
Vroom—.
The elementary school student’s light body was lifted into the air.
“M-Moo-gyeol! Moo-gyeol……!”
The voice of Lee Dong-gyu, who had been right next to him, felt faintly distant.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s consciousness gradually sank deeper.
A short, short elementary school life that was not even long.
Choi Moo-gyeol saw the flashing panorama of that short life.
* * *
The operating room door opened, and the doctor in charge came out.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s surgery was over.
For his parents, it had been a hellishly long time.
Their two hands, clenched tightly in prayer, had turned pale white.
How desperately must they have prayed that their child would not go wrong, to have been clenching both hands so tightly that blood could not circulate?
“Is our Moo-gyeol okay!?”
“Did the surgery end well?”
The neurosurgeon was silent for a moment, then opened his mouth heavily. The parents’ anxious gazes looked as if they would bore through the doctor’s face.
“The critical point has been passed. The surgery ended well, and there will be no threat to his life.”
“Ah, thank you!”
“Thank you truly, Doctor!”
“However……”
The expressions of the two, which had brightened at the words that the surgery ended well, darkened again at the word ‘however.’
“However……?”
“Is there some problem?”
“It seems there was a strong impact to Moo-gyeol’s forehead area when he was hit by the car. Part of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was damaged. To save Moo-gyeol’s life, we had to resect part of the necrotic tissue.”
