📍 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.
Stethoscope
8 Oct
By Asuka
For Mr Ahn, a stuffy nose and a sore throat usually warranted an immediate stethoscope examination while he sat shirtless on the bed, grinning at the doctor who would fuss about like a displeased critic finding flaws with a performance.
One morning before the sun woke up, Mr Ahn made the mistake of coughing and sniffling too boisterously.
For Dr Yeon, this was an alarm more effective than any store bought contraption and it demanded his full dedication.
He had bounced up like the living dead and clawed off Mr Ahn’s cotton shirt with ease, the victim being the willing sort.
Eyes still heavily lidded, Dr Yeon stumbled to the sleek ebony wardrobe in their large bedroom to retrieve the stethoscope from the first drawer where he kept a full diagnostic kit, as well as a hospital-grade defibrillator with paddles that he had tried teaching Mr Ahn how to use.
That particular teaching session had taken all night, with an ill-behaved student who fiddled with his seonsaengnim’s pants as he spoke.
At some point Dr Yeon had given up and snapped, “Looks like you need some discipline.” This sparked a fire that only fizzled out at dawn, the defibrillator paddles being made to display creative techniques unheard of in the medical world.
Dr Yeon had made sure to sanitize it before lovingly storing it back in the drawer.
But it did not occur to him that, after all the trouble, Mr Ahn still did not know how to use it. He then took a double espresso and trudged off to Yeon Clinic, exhausted right at the start of the day.
From top to bottom, drawers one to five were originally for Mr Ahn’s t-shirts, jeans, underwear, socks, and toys in that order. But he had cleared them out to make space for Dr Yeon’s neuroses.
He loved and accepted these eccentricities, and thought they were unbearably cute at times.
He knew they showed how much Dr Yeon cared.
And so it was the pride of his life to see his cupboards crammed full of pills, liquids, swabs, bandages, and all manner of surgical tools.
Of course, he never told this to Dr Yeon, who thought keeping a house as well-stocked as a clinic was the most sensible thing in the world.
Consequently, Mr Ahn’s clothing sat in neatly folded stacks above and beside the drawers.
These were of a different size from Dr Yeon’s, so they were mostly laundered at different times.
Dr Yeon’s clothes were much more modest in number, with him being generally un-charmed by fashion trends.
He wore what Mr Ahn bought for him; his handsome dyed hair was due to Mr Ahn pushing him to a good stylist. If left alone, he would have reused the mushroom-bowl cut from high school forever.
Their underwear and socks, though, were piled into two little baskets, one for each type, with no separation of ownership.
As for the socks, only the eagle-eyed trainee at Yeon Clinic had noticed the same patterns interchanged between Mr Ahn and Dr Yeon on different days, and she had started to theorize that they shared a home, besides socks and body fluid.
But she was not yet sure enough of her conclusions to spread them to the rest of the Yeonnies.
There was no space left in the wardrobe for the toys, a rainbow spread of rings and rubbers.
So they were heaped openly and obscenely in a large dish of delft blue porcelain placed on the work desk, right next to Mr Ahn’s interior designs and contracts.
“Can you please keep them somewhere more private?”
Dr Yeon had nagged.
“Well I can hide this one in you tonight, if you wish,”
Mr Ahn had replied, fishing out and waving an impressive truncheon modeled more likely on horses than men.
“I don’t know why you bought that. It’s two inches more than yours, I’d die.”
“It gives me inspiration for my designs. Doesn’t it have the same colour as the tiles I recommend? That’s why I leave all of those on my desk.”
“Don’t let your clients find out please, they’d die.”
The impromptu examination lasted more than ten minutes as Dr Yeon repeated several rounds of close listening, constantly second-guessing himself.
His hair was bedraggled and tangled like Cupid’s, and his warm scent enveloped Mr Ahn as he circled around him like a harried, fretting cherub, checking on Suho’s heart and lungs from the front and the back.
His auscultations were conducted to perfection at medical school, but when it came to Mr Ahn, some part of Dr Yeon’s mind mercilessly reminded him of confident high school plans gone wrong.
He remembered how his strategy to handle Gilsu and his gang had ended in near failure, with Suho bloodied and battered; the sun could have set on his fight career then, with his brain concussed and his left forearm fractured.
But Suho had recovered, vital and beaming and invincible, and their friendship took flight, soaring with the same qualities.
His faith in himself and in the better nature of others restored, Si-eun then tried on his own to handle Beomseok, whose sanity and friendship with them had disintegrated, and that had ended with Suho clinically dead for several minutes, his future as a fighter kicked permanently to the curb.
In truth, it was barely Si-eun’s fault. He knew this, and had subjected the true perpetrators to a brutal array of blunt and sharp objects, except for Beomseok himself.
But Si-eun felt that he had set events in motion that had led to Suho’s coma. What if he had called the police to get Yeong-i back?
What if he had teamed up with Suho, and the police, and a whole bevy of teachers to rescue Yeong-i? Or what if, after that bastard Jeon Yeong-bin had broken his arm, he had come clean to Suho and they confronted Yeong-bin together?
These possibilities existed, alternate worlds where Suho graduated together with him from Byeoksan; there must have been at least one ‘what-if-?’ scenario that would not have brought tragedy upon Suho, and Si-eun had never forgiven himself for not finding it.
It had taken almost two years for Suho’s ghost to wend its way back to its broken shell, and Si-eun was determined to keep it inside even at the cost of his own life.
Overconfidence kills. Assumption is the mother of death, he recited grimly to himself as he started yet another round of lung checking.
“I swear you’re just trying to play with my nipples,” chimed Mr Ahn abruptly, startling Dr Yeon who was focused on the sounds of life behind Mr Ahn’s firm chest.
He jerked his head back and took the stethoscope out of his ringing ears.
“Suho, I really will whip you with this,”
Dr Yeon shook the stethoscope with theatrical intimidation.
“In that case, remember to place it back in the dish when you’re done,” replied Mr Ahn casually, gesturing to the cornucopia of toys on the desk, and leaving Dr Yeon speechless from the subtle insult.
But he was quietly glad for Mr Ahn’s interjection. His guardian had yanked him out of a spiraling whirlpool of self-doubt. He went again to the drawers to take out a reliable, old-school thermometer.
“Here, take your temperature at least thrice and find the average. Let me know what it is. Don’t hide if you have a fever, ok?” cautioned Dr Yeon, although he himself did not detect any raised temperature when he brushed against Mr Ahn’s skin.
Thermometer
“Don’t you want to take it for me?”
The stress had upset his stomach, so Dr Yeon needed to relieve himself.
“I’ve got to prepare for work,”
Dr Yeon answered as he shuffled to the bathroom.
Temperature taking was a fairly quick process, so Dr Yeon had braced himself for Mr Ahn bursting into the bathroom while he was either on the toilet seat or in the shower, as he had done countless times before.
He would wrench open the door and call out some frivolous inquiry loudly, such as whether Dr Yeon wanted his eggs scrambled or whether he wanted Spam or would he prefer burnt omelettes or should they go out to Macs or why was he taking so long or “Hyung’s coming in!”
When that didn’t happen, Dr Yeon deduced that Mr Ahn must have been very carefully checking the thermometer repeatedly.
The bathroom doors were never locked, not even when they were having the worst diarrhoea. This had been Dr Yeon’s insistence.
“There’s an increased chance of strokes happening in the toilet you know?” he had intoned matter-of-factly.
“Not to mention an increased risk of slipping and sustaining head injuries. Promise me you’ll never lock the doors?”
And his round eyes had widened so earnestly with pure concern, Mr Ahn had agreed without hesitation.
When Mr Ahn still didn’t come in while Dr Yeon was brushing his teeth, he called out, “Suho-ya, everything all right?”
Silence.
A little unnerved, he tried again, “Suho-ya? Ahn Suho?”
Silence, and not a trace of cooking going on in the kitchen.
“Suho?……SUHO?!”
“Si-eun-ah…” the reply was weak. “Help me…”
Dr Yeon spat out the toothpaste violently and dashed out, foam still lining his upper lip. ohno ohno ohno
And then he caught sight of Suho naked and lying on his side on the bed, face red as beets, breathing hard. His pants had fallen to the floor.
Fuck! It’s his heart! Nononono not before me, don’t go…
He reached Suho’s side quicker than he could blink, clad only in a bath towel.
“Hey! Hey!! Stay with me!! What’s wrong?”
His training kicked in. A palm went to Suho’s forehead, and two fingers went to a point on Suho’s neck under his jaw.
A little warm but not burning. Pulse elevated but not unstable. Face red, not white, not internal bleeding. Allergy?
“Are you in pain? Did you eat something just now? What’s the temperature on the thermometer? Can you move?”
“It’s not…I, I’m fine…no I’m not it’s stuck.”
He’s not making any sense. He’s becoming delirious.
Dr Yeon whirled around to the drawers and yanked out the defibrillator, preparing for the worst. His mind was spinning with worry and he could not form a diagnosis.
From where Suho lay, he could see Dr Yeon’s agitated flinging of the wardrobe doors.
The metal joints creaked in protest. He saw the red plastic body of the defibrillator emerging from the first drawer, and quickly said, “We don’t need that. I’m fine, I think.”
“Huh?” Dr Yeon panted out, his breath thick with synthetic mint not fully flushed from his mouth.
“Wait, wait, listen to hyung. I’m ok, I don’t think I have a fever, it’s not a heart attack or something I ate. It’s not a stroke. It’s just, I…the thermometer…erm…I can’t get it out.”
“What are you talking about? You swallowed the thermometer?”
Dr Yeon’s mind raced to the worst-case scenario. Poisoning.
“What? No, no. I…I was playing around and it went all the way in and I can’t get it out. I’m a little worried about moving. Can you help me… please?”
Suho pointed vaguely at a spot behind his thighs.
Dr Yeon stood stupefied, his mouth hung open in disbelief, topped with a moustache of toothpaste.
His auburn-dyed hair was still dark and straight with dampness, hiding his eyebrows and softening his shocked expression.
Just then, the towel finally unfastened itself, but Dr Yeon was clutching the defibrillator with both hands, and he let it fall around his ankles in a soft clump.
The two stark naked friends stared at each other.
Red-faced Suho was the first to smile. Sheepish and embarrassed, he chuckled out, “Sorry seonsaengnim, please don’t be mad. I won’t do it again. Can you help me take it out, please?”
Dr Yeon placed the defibrillator back in an adrenaline induced trance.
His chest heaved heavier and heavier, he squinted and rubbed both his temples with his fingers. He had a tirade pent up and it flew out hotly: “Yah Ahn Suho! What the fuck! Why…”
But his temper quickly deflated. His voice had started trembling and cracking and he couldn’t continue. He could never maintain enough anger at Suho.
He was rather annoyed but he was much more relieved, and also puzzled, and also wildly tickled.
As a result, his stony face, often unreadable to all but Suho, broke into a melange of colours that no one thought it could express.
He frowned, he laughed, and he started crying, all at the same time.
Suho watched the display with fascination.
There’s still so much to learn about him, thought Suho.
He wished he could take a picture of the scene, but he knew Dr Yeon would bark at him to stay still, and so he could only save it in his mind, already so full of his favorite frozen moments with Si-eun.
“You know, these cases are fairly common amongst guys aged 20 to 40. It’s usually with food like carrots, cucumbers, bananas. But sometimes also with things like remote controls. There was this guy who came in and told me he slipped and fell on a small shampoo bottle, so it got stuck,”
Dr Yeon said while in operation, to keep Suho distracted from the discomfort.
“Really? Hahaha what a moronic excuse,” laughed Suho.
“Shhh! Don’t talk, your abdomen is moving,” Dr Yeon warned.
He continued,
“I think most of the time it’s caused by a mixture of curiosity with mischief, but then these guys underestimate the difficulty of extracting their experiment because of the poor grip and the bad angle. I’m sure you’ll agree, Ahn Suho-ssi.”
Suho remained in hot silence, as instructed.
Although he had already informed his nurses he would be very late for work because of a high-level emergency, it didn’t take the savant more than 15 minutes to remove the thermometer, mucid with improper use.
Dr Yeon had done it with a pair of tenaculum forceps and a blinding torchlight.
He inspected the offending object closely for blood, a sign that Suho could have perforated his insides.
No bleeding, good. No fever either, apparently. Red face was due to shame, elevated pulse due to stress. So his cough is probably due to sinus back drip and his stuffy nose is likely due to dust. I should get him to remove the carpet.
“Are you still gonna use that?” asked Suho.
“It’s a mouth thermometer. I should really stuff it in your mouth right now,”
Dr Yeon threatened. But he went to the sink and washed it clean with clinical-grade antiseptic soap.
Then he dried it, exited the bathroom, and calmly placed it together with the toys on the desk.
Want to see where Scheherazade’s tale begins? → Click here to jump to Part 1