LOVE WILL FIND A WAY.

@orbjiae

jaewon finds a home in the cockpit of the ship, surprisingly easy given how hesitant he’d been for the whole thing in the first place, the way he’d never been sure until this very moment that he could really survive on a ship like this, with a destination like this. joining the resistance had never really been a big part of his life plan, it is merely a means to an end for him, and only something reaching limitedly into his future, not forever. he hadn’t wanted to join this place in the beginning anyway, only having come here for the necessity of having backup for when he mounts his own personal war against the first order, because no matter who else considered themselves part of this fight, jaewon has taken it personal, which makes it belong to him.

SQUADRON T-349 … // AND MEMES.

Once he’s told he can sit on her chair or anywhere, Jackson just moves to lean against her desk, holding the burnt hand out in front of him a little and following the woman with his eyes as she goes. She’s clearly not very pleased for whatever reason, but he can’t be bothered to figure out why, because he himself is not very pleased either and this is her job. She asks him next if he’s iced the area or at least poured cold water on it and his eyes focus on her with a small frown. There is nothing that this woman is saying to him that makes sense.

“No I didn’t,” he responds honestly. “It was a shorter way to come straight here than to first go find any water or ice.” He blinks a few times, clearly not knowing why this seems such an issue to her. “I figured you guys would have water here too. My bad.” His voice softens at the end of his sentence and he goes quiet as he watches her look back at him for a moment. And then she goes on to explain to him that she doesn’t normally treat patients and that’s not her job here. He’s not sure what is the job of the people in the med bay then, but doesn’t state that, instead he pushes himself up from her desk again.

“You should have told me straight away,” he says calmly, not even trying to go against her words. “I’ll go to someone else then. Who of these people does usually treat wounds like this?” It’s all stated in a very matter-of-fact kind of way, just like most things in his life just are, and he actually waits to get a reply from her so he can leave her to her original job again. Because he wouldn’t appreciate people coming to him with stuff that isn’t his job either.

"next time, do the basic first aid if you do know it.” she frowns, “it makes all the difference, you know. like, what if during the minutes you didn’t do the basic first aid it got infected by like a bacteria because you didn’t notice that you somehow touched infected or rusty metal--which mind you we probably have a lot on this ship! then BOOM!!! next thing you know you’re dead because the infection mutated into an unknown virus and you’re somehow already infecting all of us and and--” ji-ae takes a huge gulp of breath and she calms down for a moment. she looks sheepish, probably realizing how dumb her outburst might look like to him. “now we’re also dead. do the basic first aid first.” she leaves it at that.

she gets a bit distracted by his words and stops momentarily. “you shoved your burned arm in my face without any you know, prior notice and i’m a doctor. i have an oath to help people if they ask for help.” ji-ae tells him in a determined manner. “we have nurses around here that can help so maybe you can look for them next time? but you’re here now so i’m treating this, okay?”

she looks back at the burn and continues finishing applying the ointment. her hands are still shaky but not that shaky compared to when she first started treating it anymore and she’s almost embarrassed that a tiny burn like that could set off memories of the incident. she unrolls the bandages and wraps it around his arm. it’s not her best, but it’ll do.

Jackson looks at the woman for a moment longer, a hint of disbelief appearing on his features when she states it’s a burn and then just stands there looking at his hand like that is going to magically make it better. “Yes, I know it’s a burn. I’m not here for your medical opinion, I know a burn when I see one.” He states after a moment, a little agitated because this medical staff is not doing their job properly. Does anyone see him looking at a broken piece of technology and going ‘It’s broken’? No. Because that would be him being captain obvious and would not be helping anyone any further. Just like this woman is not helping him any further with her superfluous diagnosis.

“I’m here to get it treated. So if you could fix it so I can get back to work, that would be great.” He pauses a moment, looking around the med bay to make sure he is in the right place and isn’t getting frustrated with someone whose job is not at all to treat him, but turns his gaze back to the woman soon when he realises he is in fact in the right place. “Or are you not capable of treating burn wounds? Am I supposed to be in a different department for that?” He inquires, when the thought suddenly comes to mind. Perhaps he is indeed getting frustrated at the wrong person, after all. Once again he scans his surroundings, to see if anyone carries a tag that defines them as being the ‘burn specialist’ or something of the sort.

One would think that a med bay worker can fix any injury, but then maybe that is him expecting too much. He knows nothing about human biology, after all, he’s not going to judge this woman for not knowing something that might just as well be rocket science.

ji-ae’s trance is broken when she hears his sharp words. normally she’d rise up to baits like those--proudly remind people she graduated top of her class at one of the best medical university the galaxy has to offer, but not today. she shakes her head in an effort to reign herself in. her problems and life should not affect her work. she takes a deep breath and stood up from her chair to get the things she’d need to treat the burn. 

“i can and i will treat it.” she replies, a bit monotonous as she walks to a nearby shelf with necessary medical supplies. “you can sit on my chair or anywhere really, just give me a minute. surely you can wait?” she gets the necessary ointment to help with the recovery process and a roll of bandage. she takes a deep breath, hiding her face from the man so that he won’t once again think she’s incompetent and then turns around to walk to him.

“did you ice the burned area before coming here? or at least poured cool water on it?” ji-ae asks as she gently grabs his arm to inspect the burned area. she can feel her hand starting to shaking so she better wrap this up fast. “next time do that first before going here,” she looks up at him to at least show him how inconvenient it was for her to do this and it was--it was inconvenient, not because it wasn’t part of her pay, she’d happily help anyone searching for help, but not burns. never burns.

It’s a stupid move, really, and he should have seen his mistake, but the truth is he was thinking about Antario too much. And what he gets in return is, of course, an injury. That’s all the thought of the woman seems to bring him anymore - pain. For some reason it turns him bitter, a sneer appearing on his face, which clears away almost as quickly as it appears. Antario has been there for him ever since the start. He doesn’t know where he would have ended up if not for her taking him in. Dead, probably, killed by the rest of the smugglers who had no use for a six year old boy. Still, he wishes she would stop making his life so miserable now. Not that there is anything much she can do about that, the only reason he’s hurting is because she died, after all. Valiantly, in battle, as she would have wanted to go, but that still doesn’t make the entire ordeal any easier for him.

Apparently the sadness he feels over her loss has now wriggled itself into every part of his life, even going as far as to make him bad at his work. And if there is something Jackson values more than Antario, it’s his work. Fixing things is what he does, tinkering with them, fumbling with them, doing whatever it takes to fix or improve something. So that he managed to jab his tool into the wrong part and cause a small short circuiting in the machine, that is something almost unimaginable. Especially because he has been working with these kind of speed boosters for as long as he can remember, so he knows their workings inside out. If only he had been paying attention, he would have seen how wrong his next move was going.

But alas, he hadn’t been paying attention, and so here he is, on his way to the med bay because of the burn he has sustained by his own failure. A small electric charge has rushed out of the machine and scorched the side of his hand. Not all too badly, he isn’t suffering from first degree burns, but he definitely needs some sort of ointment and a bandage wrap? He’s not quite sure exactly how to treat burn wounds - he’s hardly ever sustained any after all - but he presumes that’s exactly what the people in the med bay are supposed to know.

So he strides inside, coming to a halt two steps in and looking around to see where exactly he’s supposed to announce his presence. When he finds no exact way to go about this, Jackson just looks for the least busy looking person and heads over to them. “I need this treated,” is how he so very eloquently explains his problem, shoving his injured hand almost in the woman’s face so she would understand what he’s talking about. “Quickly so I can get back to work.” He hears Antario say something about politeness in his memory, so he clenches his teeth for a short moment before adding: “Please.”

it wasn’t the best day for ji-ae. 

aside from one of her rats biting her and messing up her research, the university finally sent in min-ji’s remaining possessions for her to go over through and it eludes the doctor how it took them months before they were able to do that. isn’t her university the best one out there? why wouldn’t they be able to do something as simple as send the things of a dead woman to her loved ones?

honestly, ji-ae just wants these things to be over with, take what she would be able to keep (or at least the things she would be able to bear to keep) and send the rest to her uncle. however, even though she wanted this to be over--it didn’t mean ji-ae was ready enough to look at min-ji’s possessions. the box beside her was the only thing left of min-ji in this world and the memory of the fire was still fresh in the doctor’s mind despite it being a while.

she stares at the box for a while, not because she doesn’t want to do her work but because she’s weighing her options. ji-ae wouldn’t be able to keep it for more than a week lest her uncle call her and ask if anything is wrong which ji-ae would answer by crying. if ji-ae would check it now though, she’d surely break down sobbing which is very unprofessional to do in a place of work--

ji-ae blinks as the box she was staring at was replaced by an arm. she quickly looks at the person who did that, her hands already on the box in case the man would take the box away from her.