📍 Working-Class Mr. Ahn’s Unscheduled Visits to Dr. Yeon’s Clinic continues…
⚠️ Just a casual warning – if you’re following along with Asuka and Jen’s fictional arc and delusion interior series, consider yourself warned. Everything under my fanfiction tab is totally fictional. There’s no need to get overly serious about any of it.
Dark Arc
A: And I saw Elaine’s perfect comments, so perceptive and beautifully phrased. I’m in full agreement with her.
J: Asuka, my week-long holiday is coming to an end sob…
I imagine all us wage slaves are probably tearful right now with just one day of vacation left haha
Thanks to you, I feel like I received premium massage therapy from a real professional at a 5-star hotel in Bangkok.
All your Yeon Clinic omnibus soups are delicious, but this installment was so good I want to print it out and keep it in my wallet as a substitute for headache pills when work stress is about to make me explode
A: I suspect the dark arc—already testing some base sauces heh heh—will be quite a serving.
J: If the Yeon Clinic saga goes all the way to space, I’ll follow no matter what – oxygen mask not required hahaha
Hearing that your dark arc is laying its foundation makes my heart tingle with excitement.
As an interior specialist and bricklayer adding local color haha if my talent (?) can be of any help at all, I’d love to roll up my sleeves and pour my whole heart into building this house.
Just as much as the bright, fun, and comedic omnibus, your dark cocoa-colored dark arc absolutely suits my taste (a little devil’s tail wagging wickedly again hu hu hu)
A: Oh…the image of Mr Ahn shirtless in grey sweatpants is quite often in my mind hahaha
J: Yeah, Mr Ahn being shirtless is probably because he runs hot
So when he’s at home on his second floor, even with the curtains open, he’d take his shirt off first.
Then I’d be so happy as his neighbor, right? *** giggle ***
Those sweatpants have an elastic waistband that stretches nicely, and sometimes, when tipsy Dr Yeon gets a bit drunk with those big eyes unfocused, I have this delightful fantasy of him placing both hands on either side of that elastic band and pulling it down smoothly *** cackle ***
Then Suho would say “Si-eun-ssi, can you give me some warning before you come in?” all embarrassed hehehe
A shameless malingerer
A: I’m sure Mr Ahn loves the fussing and the checkups. What a shameless malingerer.
J: Knowing Mr Ahn’s faking it but still thinking ‘just in case’ Dr Yeon rummages for the stethoscope in the drawer, puts it in both ears, and lifts Suho’s shirt -that gesture is spinning 360 degrees in my head.
He’d tell Suho ‘I don’t have hands free right now, so hold the hem of your shirt in your mouth’ while scolding this chronic malingering patient in a pretend-stern tone, right?
(Making a grumpy voice while gently placing the stethoscope on Suho’s back. It’s been stored in the drawer for a long time, so the metal part might be cold… When it comes to Suho, Si-eun is too tender. He completely melts like cotton candy)
(That recent drawing by the artist – it’s like they looked into our minds with a microscope haha I’ll attach the pic here, check it out)
A: But In deluluverse, seeing Suho sleep brings him so much peace.
J: When Suho receives his test paper, he writes his name right away and immediately gets ready to sleep.
In the original Ep1, if you had to pick an iconic scene, it’s Si-eun slapping his own cheeks several times trying to wake himself from the drugs, right?
When the first slap echoes, the ‘Ahn’ kid sitting right in front turns around startled to look at Si-eun, and those eyes seemed to say ‘who is this Thorai?’ bewildered yet sparkling.
Really, Si-eun is extraordinary…
I think I’ll still be continuing this delulu saga about this work even a year from now hahahaha And yeah, I’m reminded of that scene from the previous soup where Dr Yeon uses ‘blue light therapy’ to actually put Suho to sleep when he’s pretending to sleep.
That soup itself was such a perfect omnibus.
A: He couldn’t resist. Dr Yeon had to administer hard punishment immediately.
J: In the original, it wasn’t depicted as much as Si-eun or Beomseok, but it makes no sense that Suho wouldn’t long for parental affection…
Of course his devoted grandma gave him unconditional love without lacking anything…
Anyway, as always, our deluluverse is another matter hahaha
Just as you expressed in this soup, they’ve known each other for 13 years (and have been having physical conversations regularly since becoming adults…), yet there are still expressions of Si-eun that Suho doesn’t know. Similarly, I theorise that among Suho’s habits that Si-eun didn’t know before adulthood, ‘acting spoiled’ exists somewhere in our delulu arc haha
Especially when Dr Yeon, with cult-level surgical skills, grips surgical tools or forceps in his right hand, Suho suddenly becomes a well-behaved child and gets docile.
When Dr Yeon says ‘lift your shirt,’ Suho goes ‘yessss(neeeee)’ and lifts it up past his chest so his nipples show, making it easy for Si-eun to auscultate.
Sitting on a table chair.
Shoulders pulled back, spine straight…
Then, as the auscultation goes on, little Suho gradually raises his head too, making the middle part of those grey sweatpants tent up like a peak…
and strict Teacher Yeon, as part of hard punishment, doesn’t wrap around little Suho but continues auscultating while only grazing the head with his palm…
(Suddenly humidity rises in the Yeon Clinic arc and it starts raining? Hahaha this auscultation interior design turned my holiday heart into a happy mess)
He still needs me
A: So whenever Suho comes pattering to Dr Yeon with some kind of phantom pain, I think it is highly possible that there is a secret part of Si-eun that breathes a sigh of relief.
“He’s still here. And he still needs me…”
J: With Suho’s personality, he probably wouldn’t have said things like ‘I like you because you’re you, Si-eun’ or ‘I love you because you’re you, Si-eun’
but in some ways, even Suho who’s quite dense about certain things probably notices that Si-eun has this trait of only raising his self-esteem when he’s perceived as ‘someone needed’ by others.
They’ve never discussed in detail that this stems from childhood trauma, but I have this brain-canon that Suho implicitly understands it.
Sometimes when Si-eun comes home late due to evening clinic hours, Suho who already finished all his interior work in the early afternoon comes home, cracks open a beer with some dried fish snacks, watches baseball and might get lost in thoughts like…
‘Even if you asked me for all my wealth and always acted needy with me, I’d love you so much… but Si-eun-ssi needs to confirm every moment that I need him to feel secure… what a fool…’
Nobody can stop these two otters who’ve been in love for 13 years haha
A: There is a lightness to Suho, a cheekiness and a playfulness that is so effervescent, it’s like he might just float away anytime.
Si-eun loves this side of Suho, but it feels hard to grasp, hard to control, hard to plan for. It is unpredictable, uncertain. What if he just left one day? Loss can come with no build-up, no portents.
J: I agree more than agree.
Suho has this quality even in the original, right?
Look at the position he occupies in the classroom.
He’s sitting far away from the class, straddling the very edge between the classroom and hallway.
Like a free spirit who could leave anytime.
Then as he gets closer to Si-eun and Beomseok, he gradually comes inside the classroom too (like that scene playing mobile games with Beomseok).
For Si-eun, Suho’s mischievous playful nature is cute and charming, but as you said, it’s also an unpredictable ‘variable’ that sometimes triggers low-key anxiety.
And math-type talents like Si-eun who need clear answers will never adapt to such variables their whole lives.
I remember him advising Baek-jin to ‘eliminate the variable first’
Since he can’t eliminate Suho, it’s not unreasonable to explicitly tell Suho in human language ‘please keep staying with me’
It’s such a Si-eun-like romantic interpretation.
A: (I might lift this into the dark arc haha)
J: I’m already imagining myself shedding tears of joy while reading your dark arc hahaha
A: Yep, I think that is in harmony with the idea that he just wears whatever Suho buys for him. I believe Artist-nim agrees. In her drawings I remember Suho picked out a bright yellow thing for Si-eun, who just accepted it hahaha
J: As long as it’s not like a metal rock band level of costume makeup with both third fingers up, giving the finger on the t-shirt,
Si-eun would obediently go ‘okay’ and wear whatever shirt Suho picked out and they’d go play by the Han River together.
Si-eun who has no particular hobby of traveling or activities like golf – his only hobby would be walking around the Han River with Suho.
Just ‘Suho’ himself is the hobby.
A: I highly suspect guys in the army have seen and experienced the depths of poor hygiene. Do you have guy friends who have gone through military service to confirm this?
J: In the deluluverse, we used the original’s sauce (like you, I’ve replayed that shower scene as many times as Suho showered in the staff bathroom hahaha) to establish that Suho is kinda clean-freak and Si-eun is sensitive about hygiene being a doctor, but I know in reality there are many guys who hate showering – too horrifying hahaha even without going all the way to the military.
I can’t believe people can endure not showering for a week
(if we don’t construct these delusion worlds, reality seems too harsh for girls…)
A: It’s such a simple line, but that scene was so well-acted. So rich with unspoken thoughts. Why are these boys so talented? I feel my acting is only good enough for malingering out of those damned drinking parties…
J: Your acting must have been loved by many people, too.
And I think the way you learned to express emotions and use space through acting is completely melting into how you deploy this brilliant writing talent.
It’s truly an amazing talent, Asuka.
A: Yeah, he senses Si-eun has ‘gone inward’ again.
J: Every time Si-eun grows this ‘ingrown toenail’ in his heart, it’s Suho’s job to clip it.
A: Kind of like, “I am putting my penis in now.”
J: Hahaha it’s like a doctor’s occupational hazard, always like doctors do, so patients don’t get startled
‘I’m pinching with forceps now’
‘The endoscope is going in now’
that kind of dry, mechanical, robotic tone hahahaha
The tone would make Suho’s face flush even redder.
“Hey Si-eun-ssi, you’re not about to perform surgery, are you?”
(Face down on the bed, glancing sideways with a side-eye at Si-eun who’s layering his body on top)
A: Ear therms are definitely faster and easier. But Dr Yeon is of the idea that old school things work best. And he is extremely cautious when it comes to Mr Ahn’s health. There’s actual research that supports the use of these old stick thermometers.
J: That old thermometer never dreamed it would end up stuck in his naughty partner’s ‘hole’ contrary to Si-eun-ssi’s expectations hahahahahaha
A: Ah, is that very popular in korea? Dr Yeon is currently just using some generic mint thing. To him, it’s the frequency and timing of brushing and flossing that counts.
J: Bamboo salt toothpaste, yeah it’s famous in Korea. I use it when I want freshness but some people hate the smell.
Mint scent suits Si-eun well. Si-eun and Suho would always have the same toothpaste smell in their mouths.
A: I think he would hyperventilate, cancel all appointments on the spot, and fly off to the rescue.
J: So he cancels all appointments and rushes to the hospital where Suho’s admitted, and Suho, already with casts on his arm and leg, sees Si-eun bursting in pale-faced and gives an apologetic binggu (goofy) smile saying
‘Why’d you come all the way here leaving work? Look, I’m fine’
just like in the original when he gave a thumbs up saying ‘Discharged tomorrow!’
Suho had been hit in the head with a baseball bat hard enough to have a concussion… This guy… always pretending he’s fine… never wanting to see Si-eun crying…
A: Given the girth of the things they have played with, he believed he could stomach a thermometer with no problem. He was right, it was easy. Too easy.
J: One characteristic of our arc is that Si-eun also utilises his little Si-eun to the best of his abilities hahaha I enthusiastically agree that Suho would have tried various toys much larger than the thermometer for their quality time together hehe
A: Ahhh! From my private director’s notes, there was indeed a deleted scene where Suho says ‘I wanted to see you smile.’ It’s just that he didn’t expect it would go in so easily and be so hard to extract… But I didn’t include it in the end hahaha
J: Si-eun’s smile is so beautiful (even though when young Suho’d hide his feelings saying ‘I feel disgusted’) that Suho wanted to see Si-eun ‘burst out laughing’ but he didn’t know this greed would produce such unexpected results hahahaha
A: Then she recounted the case of the stuck shampoo bottle. The guy, in his early twenties, told her he had slipped and fallen onto it. She told me she had to try her very, very best to sound convinced and understanding so as not to insult the patient.
J: Hahahahaha does your culture have TV variety shows like ‘Believe It or Not!’?
These are the kinds of incidents that would appear on those shows hahahahaha
Your friend’s patience in becoming a plastic surgeon is admirable.
How hard it must have been to hide her facial expression oh god hahahaha
A: By comparison, Suho’s misuse of the oral thermometer is quite mild…
J: In this incident, Si-eun was the one who worked hard again, and when he pulled it out with forceps and flashlight, Suho probably became a burning potato wanting to fly to space.
Just thinking about it makes me laugh so much.
And after extracting the thermometer, watching Suho’s reddened face and chest rising and falling, then in doctor-like Si-eun-like fashion, inferring each phenomenon one by one,
‘red face is due to shame, pulse due to stress’ – and self-confirming Suho has no abnormalities was so Si-eun-like…
For this kid, there’s no such thing as roughly going ‘probably no problem?’ When it comes to his history, if the subject of that history is Suho.
J: Asuka, thank you for giving me this happy rain-like therapy during my holiday.
Don’t feel pressured to reply quickly. Arc designing has become our fun hobby, so let’s continue for the sake of fun 🙂
You’ll be busy until tomorrow, take care of your condition.
Wishing you a happy Monday with single malt.
Your Jen,
holding onto the tail end of the holiday
Want to see where Scheherazade’s tale begins? → Click here to jump to Part 1