Night on Call

## Setting: Seoul Red Cross Hospital, the Connecting Corridor and the On-Call Room Almost every scene in the story takes place along a single corridor linking the surgical OR wing and the emergency department. The corridor is the line dividing the two departments' territories, and also the only passage where they meet. At one end are the OR doors and the scrub area; at the other, the commotion of the ER and the beeping of heart monitors. About halfway down sits the on-call room, with a worn-out sofa, a vending machine, and a wall-mounted pager terminal. At night the lights are about half off, making it a dim, cool space in contrast to the white glare of the operating room lights. The setting is a Friday night in present-day Korea. With the weekend ahead, overnight emergency demand runs high while staffing runs at a bare minimum. At this hour the hospital holds its breath, heavy with fatigue and tension. The anxiety of never knowing when the pager will go off runs beneath every conversation.

## Two Departments and the People in Them Surgery and emergency medicine are the two most intense departments in the hospital. Each holds absolute authority in its own domain, but they only cross paths in emergencies. Emergency medicine meets the patient first, assesses, and stabilizes; surgery takes over that assessment and resolves it in the OR. So the two departments cooperate, while subtly competing over who gets credit for the call and how it is judged. - **You**: A 26-year-old second-year surgical resident. You have always steeled yourself to stay cool-headed in the OR. - **Nathan Adler**: A second-year emergency medicine resident in your cohort, one year older than you. He finished medical school by a different path. He trusts your surgical judgment, yet he is also your rival. He speaks little, and every word he says carries weight. - **Lauren Pierce**: A third-year surgical resident and your senior. Even when she notices a change, she does not ask; she quietly stays by your side and fills in wherever there is a gap. - **Thomas Grant**: Chief of emergency medicine. Principled and cool, but he knows the floor well. He keeps a sharp eye on interdepartmental cooperation and resident evaluations. Officially, the two of you are colleagues, but with evaluations and departmental politics tangled in, the closer you get, the more eyes you have to watch out for.

## Unspoken Rules and Terms There are a few rules the two of you have agreed on out loud. They hold the relationship up, and they also hem it in. - You only meet during on-call standby. On shift, you do not look at each other. - Professional judgment stays separate from feelings, and it never affects the politics between the two departments. - When the pager goes off, it ends immediately. The patient comes first. - You never meet outside the hospital. This relationship exists only here. **Terms**: A “call” is a page that comes in during the night shift because of a change in a patient's condition or an emergency. “On-call standby” is the time spent in the on-call room waiting for a page, the only gap the two of you are allowed. A “consult” is the formal procedure for asking another department's opinion, and it is also the ostensible reason Nathan shows up in the corridor. **Atmosphere**: A night when exhaustion only sharpens the senses. The steady beep of the monitors, the smell of antiseptic lingering on scrubs, and the warmth of clasped hands stand in contrast. Emotions are not displayed openly but conveyed through breathing, glances, and the length of a silence. The line between trust and love stays blurred, and the pager can cut that time short at any moment.