out of the pristine white uniform, sunhee usually spent her days off in her apartment. a meal for herself prepared, the laundry awaiting to be folded as she played one more game. and that was her definition of a day well spent. she didnât really go out, didnât really have a lot of friends in her adult life. most of the friends she had now were from work, sometimes a friend from university would invite her for a drink which sheâd gladly agree to but she wasnât in touch with anyone from high school anymore.
sometimes, she made friends with hospital patients too.
everyone that came in and out of the hospital that went under her caring supervision had to tell their own unique stories. and often did sunhee find herself in the receiving end of those stories. there was once an eighty year old woman who never married, instead she travelled the world and saw places. she was quite eccentric, telling sunhee to not let people tell her what to do. and she found it oddly soothing how she gave an advice sunhee needed without asking for it.
at twenty-five, everyone was already expecting her to settle down and get married. her mother was pressuring her to meet a man, often setting her up with the sons of her business partners but sunhee didnât want to get married. sunhee didnât even want a man.
this was her best kept secret.
nobody knew, not even her mother nor the person from high school she used to call her best friend. and she was fine with it, fine with living within her bubble and not acting upon the attraction she felt for other women.
in her point of view, she wasnât obligated to tell anyone about this. and anyway, she was far too busy involved in her job to pursue anyone. she was beginning to think that it was much better this way. the rest of the nurses saw her as this high, upstanding woman, reliable and everyone could look up to her. she was only twenty five but she had already made her way to the top of the ward. it was nice, having responsibility, but she didnât have time for herself these days.
so a day off spent differently was something she needed. and this was all thanks to a friend she met in the hospital. one of the many people she met while doing her profession, and despite her being among the many, she wasnât someone forgettable nor was she someone that didnât stand out.
more than anything, sunhee pained for the younger kids the ward. they should have spent their childhood running around, playing with their friends and going to school. she found that same feeling when she met seohyun.
seohyun should have been out in a university, learning everything she ever wanted and pursuing whatever higher education she wanted to. or perhaps travelling the world and seeing its wonders. but instead she was stuck inside the white hospital room. maybe it was fate or luck that brought them together, but a perfect timing of sunhee seeing her play games brought them closer together.
they both loved games, and they bonded over that. sunhee brought her consoles sometimes, slipped it into seohyunâs hands to let her kill time. it was the reason why she was out and about, in a pretty dress and flat shoes on a saturday afternoon. she sat by a bench, smoothing out her skirt and eyes glued to her phone. she sent her friend a message, telling her she had arrived at their meeting place.
for some reason, this oddly felt like a date. she was both excited and nervous, seeing seohyun for the first time out of the hospital gown