#the trauma code

your body moves on muscle memory alone — wipe the counter, rinse the mug, refill the pot before anyone has to ask. you’ve learned the rhythm of exhaustion so well it feels like a second heartbeat. the bell above the door jingles every so often, but mostly it’s quiet. a refuge for insomniacs. a holding room for people who don’t want to go home yet.

the trauma center looms across the street, all glass and white light and sirens that scream even when they don’t mean to. ambulances come and go like punctuation marks. you’ve stopped flinching when they pass.

the door opens again. he doesn’t rush in. he never does.

he pauses just inside, like he needs a second to remember where he is — or who he’s supposed to be outside those hospital walls. his shoulders are slumped beneath wrinkled scrubs, stained faintly at the hem. his hands hang loose at his sides, fingers flexing once, twice, like they’re still expecting instructions.

you notice things like that. it’s part of the job. or maybe it’s just you.

he chooses the same booth he always does, back against the wall, eyes automatically tracking exits before he even sits down. habit. training. survival. you don’t comment on it. you just grab a mug before he has to ask.

“usual?” you say, already pouring.

he looks up at you, startled — like he forgot he’s known here. his eyes are tired in a way sleep won’t fix. bruised around the edges. he nods.

“yeah,” he says. his voice is rough, scraped raw by hours of shouting over monitors and machines. “thanks.”

you slide the mug across the counter once it’s ready. two sugars tonight. you don’t mention that you noticed. he doesn’t ask how you knew.

tonight, when he reaches for his wallet, his id slips free — plastic clattering softly against the table. he stills, then exhales and lets it lie there instead of rushing to grab it.

yang jae-won, it reads. the photo is too formal, the expression too controlled to belong to the man sitting in your booth now. you don’t comment. you just nudge the card back toward him with the tip of your finger.

“jae-won,” you say, testing the weight of it.

he blinks, surprised again, then gives a faint, almost embarrassed smile. “yeah.”

the café settles, wrapping around the two of you like a held breath.

you don’t talk much at first. that’s the unspoken rule here. words cost energy, and everyone who comes in after midnight is already overdrawn. he stares into his coffee like it might explain something to him if he looks long enough. you wipe the counter again, even though it’s already clean.

after a while, he exhales. long. shaky. like he’s been holding it in since before he walked through the door.

“do you ever feel,” he starts, then stops. clears his throat. “— never mind.”

you don’t push. you just shrug lightly, like unfinished sentences are normal here. like they’re allowed.

“coffee’s better when it cools a little,” you say instead. “less bitter.”

he snorts softly, surprised by the sound of himself. “figures.”

silence returns — but it’s different now. less sharp. less lonely.

outside, an ambulance screams past, red lights washing over the café windows. jae-won flinches anyway. his jaw tightens. his hand curls around the mug like it’s an anchor.

you watch him when he’s not looking. he drinks the coffee slowly, deliberately, like he’s afraid of what happens when it’s gone. when there’s nothing left to justify sitting still. you recognize that fear. you live in it.

when he finally stands to leave, he hesitates again — just for a second. like he might say something important. instead, he nods once.

“see you,” jae-won says, already turning away.

“yeah,” you nod back. “see you.”

the door closes behind him, the bell ringing softly in his wake. across the street, the trauma center waits. and you stay right where you are, keeping the lights on.

─────

conversation is optional here.

some nights, jae-won fills the space with nothing at all — comments that don’t ask to be remembered. the weather turning too fast for the season. traffic on the bridge. the way the coffee here tastes sweeter than the hospital’s, less burnt, like someone made it for a person instead of a shift. you listen with half an ear and a full presence, nodding at the right moments, smiling when he tries to be almost funny.

other nights, he doesn’t speak.

he sits in his booth, shoulders slumped, gaze unfocused, like his mind is still across the street counting heartbeats that aren’t his anymore. you don’t rush him. you don’t ask what he saw or who he lost. you just keep the pot fresh, the lights steady, the world small enough to survive for an hour.

you learn that sitting with him is a kind of care. that unraveling doesn’t always look dramatic — sometimes it’s just the way his hands shake when he reaches for the mug, or how he stares too long at nothing at all. you learn when to approach and when to leave him alone, when silence is a kindness instead of an absence.

and somewhere in those long, quiet nights, he starts to notice you too.

the way you’re always on your feet. how you never sigh, never groan, never say you’re tired, even when it’s written all over the slump of your shoulders and the careful way you move. he notices that you never complain — not about the hours, not about the customers, not about anything at all.

he notices things others don’t. the way you inhale sharply when you stretch your arms above your head, like the motion costs more than you expect it to. the split second where your face tightens before you smooth it away. most people miss it. he doesn’t. he’s trained to see pain before it announces itself.

he notices your hands, too. how they’re steady when you’re moving slowly, careful and precise — but how they tremble when you stack dishes too fast, porcelain clicking together in a rhythm that’s just a little off. he looks away when you catch him watching, jaw tightening like he’s filed the observation somewhere dangerous.

one night, without comment, he leaves a small packet on the counter when he pays. electrolytes. lemon-flavored. the kind handed out in emergency rooms to people who swear they’re fine.

“just in case,” jae-won says, too casually.

you raise an eyebrow, oblivious. “in case of what?”

he shrugs. “long nights.”

you take it anyway. slip it into your pocket like it’s nothing. as if it doesn’t mean he’s thinking about you when you’re not looking at him.

after that, it becomes a quiet pattern. a granola bar. a second packet. water instead of coffee when you forget to drink it yourself. he never frames it as concern. never crosses the invisible line he keeps drawing and redrawing between who he is at work and who he’s allowed to be here.

and you let him have that fiction.

you pretend not to notice the way his eyes track your movements, the way they would in a trauma bay. pretend not to recognize the careful distance he keeps, the restraint in his hands, the way he’s practicing medicine even when he’s off the clock.

some truths are easier to carry when they’re left unspoken.

─────

jae-won tells you one night the café is nearly empty, the hour soft and stretched thin around the edges.

“i work across the street,” he says, like it’s nothing. like you haven’t known that part already. then, after a pause that feels deliberate, “i’m an er surgeon.”

you blink once. then you laugh.

“wow,” you say, deadpan. “that feels wildly overqualified for ordering coffee at three in the morning.”

the corner of his mouth twitches, relief flashing across his face before he schools it back into something quieter. “i like the coffee,” he says. “low stakes.”

you slide him a plate without ceremony. he eats like someone who hasn’t realized how hungry he is until it’s too late.

it happens later, when you’re closing. when fatigue makes your hands clumsy and the knife slips instead of obeys. it’s barely anything — a thin, sharp sting across your finger, bright red welling faster than you expect.

you hiss softly. he’s on his feet before you can even turn around.

“yah —” he starts, already reaching for you. then he stops. his hands hover inches from yours, fingers splayed like he’s about to scrub in. his jaw locks. something shuttered drops behind his eyes. for a heartbeat, the air between you tightens.

“i —” he swallows. steps back. “i can’t.”

you look at him, confused. “it’s just a cut.”

“hospital policy,” he says too quickly, the words tumbling over each other. “i’m not — i shouldn’t.”

you shrug it off, grab a paper towel, wrap it tight. you don’t press him. you don’t ask why his hands were shaking or why his eyes never left your finger until the bleeding stopped.

you don’t know yet that it isn’t policy holding him back. it’s fear. because caring about patients is something he knows how to survive.

caring about you is not.

─────

your double shifts turn into triples so quietly it feels almost polite.

you stop counting hours and start counting tasks instead — tables cleared, mugs refilled, floors mopped before dawn stains the windows gray. sleep becomes something you plan for but never quite reach, a distant idea you keep promising yourself you’ll get back to once things settle down. they never do.

pain becomes background noise. a low throb behind your eyes. a tightness in your back that flares when you bend and fades when you don’t think about it too hard. you learn how to move around it, how to pretend your body is just another thing that needs managing.

he sees it anyway.

“you should rest,” he says one night, voice softer than usual. concern tucked carefully beneath restraint. he’s not wearing his scrubs tonight, but the weight of the job still hangs off him, invisible and heavy.

“i will,” you say immediately, reflexive. “after just one more shift.”

he watches you the way he watches monitors — like he’s waiting for something to spike. his jaw tightens, just barely. he nods once, accepting the lie because he doesn’t know how not to.

neither of you believes you. because he says the same thing to himself. because endurance is the only language you’ve both ever been fluent in. because stopping feels more dangerous than continuing.

outside, the trauma center glows through the night, tireless and unforgiving. inside the café, you keep moving. and somewhere deep down, your body is already counting the cost.

─────

it happens quietly. no drama. no warning. no cinematic pause where your body asks permission first.

one second you’re wiping down the counter, the familiar circle of the rag grounding you in something ordinary. the next, the room tilts — just a little at first, like the world is testing you. your vision narrows. sound pulls away, stretched thin and distant.

then the floor is rushing up to meet you. you don’t feel yourself fall. you feel hands. strong. certain. too fast to belong to anyone but him. jae-won catches you before your head hits the tile, one arm braced behind your shoulders, the other at your waist, guiding you down like he’s done this a thousand times — because he has.

“yah. yah — stay with me.” his voice cuts through the fog, sharp with focus, with fear. he’s already assessing, already counting, already running through protocols faster than you can think.

and then he freezes. because he realizes where you are. the café. the counter. the floor, that still smells faintly of bleach and old coffee. not a trauma bay. not a monitored bed. not a place where he has authority or answers or backup.

across the street, the hospital hums on, oblivious. you’re not his patient. you’re not his choice. now, the distance between here and there feels impossibly wide — and he’s kneeling on the wrong side of it, holding you anyway.

he carries you across the street on his back.

you’re unconscious, limp against him, your cheek pressed to the worn fabric of his jacket. your breath is shallow but steady — he checks it anyway, again and again, counting like prayer beads as he moves. the night air is cold, sharp in his lungs. the traffic light turns red. he doesn’t stop.

anyone watching would think he looks calm. efficient. a doctor transporting someone who needs help. they wouldn’t see the way his hands shake where they grip your legs. or how his jaw locks so hard it aches. or how every instinct in his body is screaming mine, mine, mine in a way he’s never let himself feel before.

the hospital doors slide open with a familiar sigh.

inside, everything snaps into place. gurneys. fluorescent lights. the antiseptic sting that means rules, order, permission. voices rise around him, already asking questions he knows how to answer. he starts to speak on instinct — age, symptoms, onset — his words clean and precise.

then he stops. right at the threshold. he doesn’t take another step.

“i need another attending,” jae-won says instead, voice tight but steady. “now.”

someone looks surprised. someone else nods and moves. hands reach for you, lifting you from his back onto a gurney. for a split second, his fingers linger at your shoulder, reluctant to let go.

he gives your case to someone else. he lists your symptoms without once saying your name. he keeps his voice clinical because if he doesn’t, it will break. he steps back as they wheel you away, forcing himself to stay where he is, on this side of the glass, on this side of the line he has never crossed.

this is the first life he has ever stepped away from. it feels like tearing something vital out of his chest.

he stands there long after you’re gone, hands empty, heart pounding, surrounded by a place that has always obeyed him — and suddenly doesn’t. he’s saved strangers bleeding out on stretchers. he’s held hearts in his hands and told families the worst thing they will ever hear.

none of it prepared him for this. 

when you wake, the world comes back in pieces. beeping. white light. the weight of a blanket tucked too carefully around you. your throat is dry. your body feels like it’s been rung out and left to drip.

you turn your head, slow and weak.

“—jae-won?” you whisper. your voice cracks. “where’s… jae-won?”

the nurse smiles gently. “you’re safe,” she says. “try to rest.”

but you ask again anyway. because even half-conscious, even drained to the bone, you know exactly who you’re looking for.

and across the hall, just out of sight, he’s leaning against the wall with his eyes closed — counting his breaths, trying not to fall apart — unaware that the first thing you did was ask for him.

─────

jae-won doesn’t move immediately. he opens his eyes just enough to see the gurney, the monitors, the nurses moving with practiced efficiency. you’re there, breathing, alive — but not in his hands. not his responsibility to fix anymore.

his chest tightens. he swallows against the lump in his throat, afraid that if he breathes too hard, he’ll collapse. all the years of training, all the crises he’s managed, none of it prepared him for this — for caring about someone he cannot protect the way he’s sworn to protect lives.

he steps closer, but not too close. he can’t touch you yet — not here, not like this. he stays at the edge, just far enough to keep from collapsing into panic, just close enough to feel your presence like it’s a tether keeping him steady.

you turn your head toward him again, weakly, and your lips part, silent words hovering in the space between. “i…”

he leans down slightly, voice low, almost hoarse. “shh. don’t talk. just rest. you’re safe.”

safe. the word feels hollow. you want to tell him he’s the only thing keeping you tethered to anything that feels like normal. but your throat is raw, your limbs heavy, and the exhaustion wins. you settle back against the pillow, eyelids fluttering closed.

he watches. every shallow breath, every twitch of your fingers. he feels helpless in a way that terrifies him more than any emergency he’s faced. he wants to do something — anything — to fix the imbalance, to take the pain from you, to be your savior like he is for everyone else.

but there’s nothing he can do. nothing.

and in that nothing, he finds himself noticing small things he’s never noticed before — the way your hair falls over your forehead, the faint rise and fall of your chest, the way your hand twitches when you dream.

he wants to memorize every inch of you. he wants to promise, silently, that he won’t ever leave your side like this again. the shift passes. nurses come and go. machines beep in rhythm. the world continues outside the room. and still, he stays — leaning against the wall, watching, counting breaths, anchoring himself to the one person he can’t fix but cannot abandon.

for the first time, jae-won understands that some lives are never just cases. some people are never just patients. some people… are everything.

he doesn’t realize he’s moving until he’s already at your bedside. the chair scrapes softly against the floor as he pulls it closer, careful not to wake you. he sits like he’s afraid the wrong movement might shatter something — hands resting uselessly in his lap, shoulders still tense with restraint. for once, there is no chart in front of him. no vitals to read. no problem to solve.

just you.

your breathing evens out as sleep takes you again, deeper this time. the lines of strain in your face soften, exhaustion finally loosening its grip. he watches the rise and fall of your chest like it’s the only proof he needs that the world hasn’t ended.

he reaches out before he can stop himself. his fingers hover — hesitate — then settle lightly against the edge of the blanket near your hand. he doesn’t touch skin. he tells himself that makes it safe. that it doesn’t cross the line he’s spent his entire career respecting.

still, his thumb curls faintly, like it wants to anchor there.

“i’m here,” he whispers, so quietly it barely exists. not for you — you’re asleep again — but for himself. a promise he’s not sure that he knows how to keep yet.

time stretches. nurses come in and out, giving him polite looks but no objections. they know the difference between a doctor who’s hovering out of habit and one who’s staying because leaving would break him. no one asks him to go.

at some point, your fingers twitch beneath the blanket. his breath catches. your hand shifts, weak but deliberate, searching. he stiffens — then relaxes when your fingers brush the edge of the blanket, curling into the fabric where his hand rests. it’s unconscious, probably. muscle memory reaching for something familiar.

he lets it happen. carefully, deliberately, he moves his hand closer — just enough that your fingers can curl around his pinky through the blanket. the contact is barely there, but it’s everything. his throat tightens, eyes burning as he stares at the ceiling and wills himself not to fall apart.

he’s held hearts in his hands. this feels heavier.

when you stir again, it’s slow. drowsy. your lashes flutter, and you frown faintly like the light is too bright, the world too loud.

“jae-won?” you murmur, unsure this time. testing.

he leans forward instantly. “i’m here.”

your eyes find him, unfocused but relieved. you blink hard, like you’re making sure he’s real.

“you didn’t… leave,” you say.

he shakes his head, a small, firm motion. “no.”

your grip tightens weakly on the blanket. on him. 

“good,” you whisper, already fading again.

the word lands in his chest and stays there. he sits with you until the sky outside the narrow hospital window begins to pale, until the worst of the fear eases into something gentler — something that feels dangerously like hope.

for the first time in a long while, jae-won lets himself stay.

─────

you recover slowly.

physically, yes — the numbers improve, the dizziness fades, the doctors stop using careful tones when they talk about you. your strength returns in increments so small they’re easy to miss. standing without swaying. walking the length of the hall. sleeping through the night without waking to your own heartbeat in your ears.

but emotionally, something has shifted.

you notice it in the quiet moments, when the café no longer feels like a place you can hide inside. when rest feels unfamiliar, undeserved. when you wake, reaching for the edge of the bed like you’re checking whether the ground is still there.

jae-won visits when he can. never in scrubs. never as your doctor. he sits in the same chair every time, hands folded, posture careful — like he’s still afraid of crossing a line that no longer exists. he brings you water. books he thinks you might like. he never stays too long.

one afternoon, as he’s getting ready to leave, he stops at the door.

“i’m sorry,” he says quietly.

you look up from your bed. “for what?”

he hesitates, eyes dropping to the floor. “for not seeing it sooner. for not doing more. for —” his voice tightens. he exhales and shakes his head. “for a lot of things that don’t matter now.”

they do matter. you can hear it in the way his apology keeps expanding, like he’s been carrying it for years, just waiting for the right place to set it down.

“jae-won,” you say, firmer than you feel. “look at me.”

he does.

“you didn’t fail me,” you say. “you didn’t miss something you were supposed to fix.”

his mouth opens, then closes again.

“you’re allowed to be tired,” you continue. “you’re allowed to not hold everything together all the time.”

he swallows hard. the control he wears so naturally slips, just a little. enough for you to see what’s underneath — how much he’s been carrying alone. how much he’s never let himself set down.

“i don’t know how to do that,” he admits, barely audible.

you reach for his hand. this time, there’s no blanket between you.

“then don’t deflect,” you say gently. “just sit here. with me.”

he hesitates only a second before his fingers close around yours. he stays without apologizing for it.

you tell him, quietly but firmly, “i’m not fragile.”

he blinks, unprepared for the honesty in your voice. the way you say it isn’t a complaint, isn’t a request. it’s a statement. a declaration. one that cuts through all the caution he’s wrapped himself in, all the careful lines he’s drawn between himself and the world.

“i’m tired of pretending i’m fine,” you continue. the words feel heavy in the air, each one carrying months of exhaustion, isolation, and quiet endurance. “of smiling when everything hurts. of telling everyone else i’m okay so they don’t worry.”

he looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time, really seeing you. his throat tightens. he opens his mouth, then closes it, searching for the right words. finally, he exhales.

“i… i don’t know how to love anything i can’t fix,” he admits. his voice is rough, unpracticed, stripped bare. “i don’t know how to be here… for someone when i can’t solve it. i —”

you reach for him. he lets you. fingers intertwine. you don’t move to heal, to fix, to triage. you just exist, and let him exist with you.

“but,” he says slowly, almost as if he’s testing the words before he fully believes them, “i… i want to learn.”

you squeeze his hand.

“then learn with me,” you whisper.

and together, you do. no charts. no scrubs. no rules. just two people, both a little broken, both tired of carrying the world alone. both willing to see what it means to stay — not because you can fix everything, but because some things are worth staying for anyway.

for the first time, he lets himself stay. fully. and you let him.

and in that quiet understanding, the café across the street, the trauma center, the long nights — they all shrink down to just this. to the space between your hands, your shared breath, and the beginning of something that can’t be triaged.

─────

the café stays open.

the hours shift. the lights hum the same way they always have. coffee still burns if you leave it too long on the warmer. the pastry case refills and empties and refills again. outside, the trauma center continues to glow through the night, ambulances arriving and leaving like breaths taken and released. some things don’t change. 

you come back slowly. short shifts at first. s stool behind the counter when your legs get tired. your hands remember the work before your body fully trusts it again, but you let yourself stop when you need to. you let yourself drink water. you let yourself sit.

jae-won comes in later now. not because his shifts are easier, but because he lets himself finish them without running straight from one kind of survival to another. he still sits in the same booth, still keeps his back to the wall — but his shoulders are less rigid. his eyes don’t look so far away.

sometimes he talks. sometimes he doesn’t. sometimes he just watches you move behind the counter, like the simple fact that you’re here is something he’s still learning how to trust.

he doesn’t apologize anymore. when things are hard, he says they’re hard. when he’s tired, he lets it show. he reaches for your hand openly now, no hovering, no hesitation. when the café is quiet and the world feels small again, he stays.

there are nights when the sirens outside still make him flinch. nights when exhaustion sits heavy in both of you. nights when neither of you has the words. but you’ve learned that silence doesn’t mean absence. that sitting with someone can be its own kind of care.

the café holds you the way it always has — softly, without asking for explanations.