Chapter Text
Woo Seulgi treated the first day of medical school like a war she’d already decided to win.
Her alarm went off at 5:30 a.m.
She was sitting up before the second vibration, feet on the floor, hand already reaching for the colour-coded planner on her nightstand. Today’s column was blocked out neatly in fine black pen:
- 06:00–07:00 — Gym
- 08:00–10:00 — “Normal Human Body” Intro Lecture (LH 3)
- 10:30–12:00 — Block Orientation
- 15:00–17:00 — Anatomy Lab Intro (Yeongeon Anatomy Building)
- 20:00–23:00 — Self-study (Library)
The sight of it calmed something tight in her chest. Plans didn’t leave. Plans didn’t die. Plans just sat on paper and waited for her to follow them. She showered quickly, pulled on a black hoodie and dark jeans, tied her hair up and then let the wolf-cut layers fall how they wanted. The scar on her right cheek was a pale line in the mirror. She didn’t look at it for long.
By 6:05, she was in the campus gym, hands wrapped, pounding combinations into the heavy bag. Jab, cross, hook, pivot. The familiar burn in her shoulders slid over the restless energy that had woken with her.
Medical school. Seoul National University.
It still didn’t feel real.
On the walk back, early sunlight spilt over Yeongeon campus, washing the buildings in pale gold. Groups of students in new hoodies and too-clean sneakers clustered under trees, taking photos in front of the big stone sign: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE.
Seulgi skirted them, earbuds in with nothing playing, just an excuse not to talk.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she reached the main courtyard.
Sumin 🎨: send pic
She stopped under a tree and sighed through her nose, then flipped the camera around.
Her own face stared back. Damp hair at the nape of her neck, hoodie half-zipped over a plain black t-shirt, backpack strap cutting diagonally across her chest. She raised the phone higher to cut out most of the scar and snapped anyway.
Seulgi: [photo]
Sumin 🎨: omg doctor woo
Sumin 🎨: u look scary hot
Sumin 🎨: all the freshmen will be in love with u by lunch
Seulgi: doubt it
The three dots flickered.
Sumin 🎨: for real tho im proud of u
Sumin 🎨: my girlfriend the genius med student 😤
Sumin 🎨: dinner tonight? my treat. i’ll bring leftover jjigae, mum made loads
Warmth pulsed, small and guilty, at the word mum. Sumin’s family always seemed to be making “loads” of something. Stew, side dishes, noise, space. When Seulgi thought of Sumin’s house, she thought of too many shoes at the door and someone always yelling affection from another room.
Safe. Crowded. Foreign.
She typed:
Seulgi: Anatomy finishes at 5
Seulgi: can come over after
Sumin 🎨: yessss
Sumin 🎨: i’ll tell my mum she’ll cry again
Seulgi’s chest tightened. Sumin’s mother had cried the first time she’d visited, too, arms wrapping around Seulgi before Seulgi could step out of her shoes. Something about “our third daughter” and “you must have been so lonely.” Sumin had rolled her eyes and laughed, and tugged Seulgi inside.
“She likes you,” she’d whispered later, in Sumin’s room crammed with canvases. “She thinks you’re hardworking and serious. That’s like… her ideal.”
Hardworking. Serious.
Those were things Seulgi knew how to be.
She didn’t know how to be a daughter. Or a girlfriend, really. But Sumin seemed content with what she did know, so Seulgi did her best to perform it: showing up, eating what was offered, letting herself be hugged, letting Sumin kiss her in quiet corners in the art building, texting back even when she didn’t know what to say.
Safe.
Predictable.
Much easier than whatever medical school was going to demand of her.
She slipped her phone back into her pocket and checked her watch.
7:05 a.m.
Fifty-five minutes until the first lecture.
Perfect.
Lecture Hall 3 was almost empty when she walked in.
Rows and rows of seats arced down toward the front, where three projectors hung like patient eyes waiting to blink awake. Sunlight pushed through high windows, catching dust motes spinning lazily.
Seulgi stood for a moment near the door, mapping the room. Front centre: too exposed. Back rows: too many distractions, too easy to slack.
Third row, dead centre, halfway down: optimal sight lines, minimal noise.
She took that seat, placing her backpack neatly at her feet. Laptop out, planner open, pen placed parallel to the notebook.
Her heart was beating a little faster than usual, but the rhythm of preparing soothed her. Open the learning portal. Pull up the block guide. Skim the week’s schedule again. Her eyes snagged on phrases like “cadaveric dissection begins Week 2” and “attendance compulsory.”
Under the table, her leg bounced once. She stilled it.
It was fine.
She’d seen worse things than cadavers.
Her phone buzzed again. A group chat name lit up: [Normal Human Body 1A].
Someone had already made a KakaoTalk chat for the class overnight. She’d joined because information was useful, but muted it because people weren’t.
[1A] Jiho: anyone in LH 3 yet??
[1A] Minji: im outside grabbing coffee, is it open?
[1A] Unknown: my stomach hurts im actually going to throw up
Seulgi’s mouth tugged up faintly. At least she wasn’t the only one whose nervous system had opinions.
By 7:30, the hall had begun to fill. Clusters of students filtered in, scanning for familiar middle school or high school faces, or sitting in nervous pairs and trios. The noise rose: overlapping conversations about dorms, textbooks, parents.
“—my mum keeps telling everyone I’m going to be a doctor, I’m going to die—”
“—apparently the anatomy lab smells like chemicals and death—”
“—did you see the group chat? Someone already asked for last year’s exam papers—”
Seulgi rolled her eyes and tuned them out. She checked the time again. 7:54.
She’d planned to review the first chapter of the anatomy textbook during the dead time before class, but her eyes kept flicking to the door instead. A habit from the orphanage, maybe. Always know who’s coming and going.
At 7:58, a boy in a too-big white hoodie slipped into the seat behind her and started whisper-panicking to his friend about forgetting his charger. At 7:59, someone’s phone went off loudly with a trot ringtone, followed by frantic shushing.
At 7:59 and thirty seconds, the door banged open.
Heads turned automatically.
The girl who walked in didn’t hurry, despite the way the clock above the door ticked its disapproval. She moved like time bent around her.
Black jeans, black t-shirt, black leather jacket slung over one shoulder, even though it was late summer and the building wasn’t cold. Dark hair loosely tied, strands falling over her forehead, like she’d done it with one hand on her way in. Helmet dangling from her left hand; must have a motorcycle, Seulgi’s brain supplied, filing it away.
The murmur in the hall dipped, reshaped.
“Is that—”
“Yoo Group—”
“—No way, that’s her?”
So this was Yoo Jaeyi.
The “Princess of Korea” nickname had been floating around Kakao, half-joke, half awe. Seulgi had skimmed past it with little interest. Rich families didn’t concern her. They lived on a different planet.
Up close, though, the girl looked nothing like a human, more like a goddess who’s decided to spare time with the common folk as a courtesy. But she had faint marks under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept enough. Her mouth curled in a loose, amused line as she scanned the rows.
Her gaze slid over the front row, up a little, and landed dead on Seulgi.
Seulgi dropped her eyes back to her laptop.
Two seconds later:
“Seat taken?”
The voice came from her right, low and a little rough, like she’d been shouting over wind.
Seulgi looked up, stone-faced.
The girl stood beside the empty chair, helmet hooked on her fingers. Up close, she smelled faintly of cold air and something expensive and sharp; perfume Seulgi couldn’t name.
“There are a lot of empty seats”, Seulgi said.
“I want this one”, the girl said easily.
“Why?” Seulgi asked, already annoyed.
The girl’s lips quirked. “Centre, good view, not too close to the front where they spit when they talk.” She tipped her chin at the lecturer’s untouched podium. “And you look like you’re the type who doesn’t talk during class.”
Seulgi stared for a beat.
“You’re late,” she said instead.
The girl blinked. “It hasn’t started yet.”
“You’re still late,” Seulgi said. “You were supposed to be here at ten to. They said in the email.”
The girl’s smile ticked wider, as if she’d just been handed a toy. “You’re one of those,” she said.
“One of what?” Seulgi asked sharply.
“‘The email said,’” the girl mimicked lightly, but not cruelly. “Relax. I made it.”
“It’s basic respect,” Seulgi said. “For the professor.”
“And you’ve given him eight extra minutes of respect,” the girl said, glancing up at the clock. “You’re clearly ahead of me. So we’re balanced.”
“Seat’s taken,” Seulgi said flatly. “My friend is sitting there.”
She didn’t technically know if Sumin would make it to this lecture; fine arts had its own schedule, but the lie slid out neatly.
The girl hummed. She looked at the empty chair. She looked at Seulgi. Then she set her helmet down on the floor.
“No, it’s not,” she said, and sat.
Seulgi’s jaw tightened. “Can you not understand Korean?”
“Can you not understand that I’m already sitting?” the girl replied, crossing one ankle over the other under the desk. Her leather jacket creaked faintly as she shoved it off her shoulder and onto the back of the chair. “You’re very territorial for someone who doesn’t own the furniture.”
“You could sit anywhere else,” Seulgi said. “You chose here to be annoying.”
“I chose here because it’s a good seat,” the girl said. Then she smiled, slow and sharp. “The annoying part is just a bonus.”
Seulgi stared at her, irritation fizzing under her skin. “Do you always talk this much?”
“Depends who’s sitting next to me,” the girl said. “Some people are boring.”
“Then go sit with them,” Seulgi said.
The girl laughed under her breath.
The sound dug under Seulgi’s skin in a way she immediately resented. Too warm. Too alive.
“Yoo Jaeyi,” she said, like she was giving an autograph rather than an introduction.
“I didn’t ask,” Seulgi said.
“You were obviously dying to know,” Jaeyi replied.
“I wasn’t,” Seulgi said, but her face felt too warm.
“Oh, but I know you, Woo Seulgi,” Jaeyi said.
Seulgi narrowed her eyes. “How.”
“Top of the intake from your high school,” Jaeyi recited without looking away. “Full scholarship. Perfect entrance scores. Normally sits alone. Always early. Lives in the library.”
Information from the group chat. Or the admissions gossip. It made sense. Seulgi knew there’d been talk; she just didn’t usually hear it repeated to her face.
She didn’t like it.
“You’re creepy,” she said.
“You’re famous,” Jaeyi countered. “I like to know my competition.”
Before Seulgi could form something cutting enough in response, the professor walked in from the side door. The hall fell abruptly quiet.
“Good morning,” he said into the mic, smooth and practised. “Welcome to Seoul National University College of Medicine. I’m Professor Kim, and I’ll be coordinating the Normal Human Body block.”
Seulgi pulled her hands back from where they’d been unconsciously curling into fists. She flipped to a blank page in her notebook and uncapped her pen.
To her right, she sensed rather than saw Jaeyi slouch back in her seat, long legs stretching out. No laptop. No notebook. No pen.
Of course.
Professor Kim began the overview. Course objectives. Assessment distribution. The attendance policy that made three girls in the back groan under their breath.
Seulgi wrote in quick, precise strokes, bullet-pointing each important line, copying percentages, circling terms like “hurdle requirement” and “must pass.” The act of turning spoken categories into written lines soothed her, like watching chaos arrange into order.
Beside her, Jaeyi was very still.
Seulgi glanced sideways once, irritated and curious despite herself.
Jaeyi was leaning back, eyes fixed on the slide, expression unreadable. No fidgeting, no whispering, no checking her phone. Just quiet attention.
A studious posture. Not what Seulgi had expected.
She looked away again quickly when those dark eyes flicked sideways and caught her in the act.
“So,” Professor Kim said, clicking to a new slide. A diagram of a human skeleton appeared, crisp and white against blue. “For the practical component, you will be in the anatomy lab twice a week. You will work in assigned pairs at each dissection table. Pairs are determined by lecture seating, that is, by row. We prefer you start learning to work with the people around you now.”
A low ripple of murmurs.
“For now,” he continued, “the pairings are fixed for the block.”
Seulgi’s spine went cold.
Of course. Of course.
She turned her head slowly.
So did Jaeyi.
Their gazes collided.
“Looks like we’re stuck together,” Jaeyi murmured, lips curving in a not-quite smile.
Seulgi stared at her with pure, unfiltered horror.
“This is your fault,” she said.
“How is this my fault?” Jaeyi whispered back. “You stole my perfect seat vibe and attracted me with it.”
“I was here first,” Seulgi hissed.
“And now I’m here too,” Jaeyi said. “That’s called destiny.”
“That’s called poor planning by the administration,” Seulgi muttered.
“Shh,” hissed someone behind them.
Seulgi turned back to the front, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
Fixed partners.
For the entire block.
With her.
She wrote the words PAIRINGS FIXED! Harder than necessary, the pen digging deep into the paper.
Orientation blurred after that.
There was a campus tour where some extroverted student leaders pointed out the library, the cafeteria, the simulation labs, and the hospital bridge. There were jokes about “this will be your second home!” and “sleep is for other majors!” that made half the group laugh and the other half pale.
Through it all, Seulgi felt distinctly aware of the presence at her elbow.
Yoo Jaeyi.
She didn’t try to make friends with anyone else. She didn’t join the buzzing little clusters of “Where are you from?” and “Which high school?” Instead, she drifted alongside Seulgi like an annoying satellite, hands in her pockets, eyes flicking everywhere.
“You don’t have to walk with me,” Seulgi muttered once, when they ended up side by side near the back of the group.
“I’m not,” Jaeyi said. “You just keep walking in the best place to see everything. Stop hogging the optimal observational position.”
“That’s not a thing,” Seulgi said.
“It is now,” Jaeyi replied.
Seulgi increased her pace until she was near the front. Two minutes later, somehow, Jaeyi was there too, leaning on a pillar, looking amused.
By the time the noon break rolled around, Seulgi’s jaw hurt from clenching.
Her phone buzzed as the crowd dispersed for lunch.
Sumin 🎨: break yet??
Seulgi exhaled. Relief slid in: familiar letters on a screen.
Seulgi: Yeah
Seulgi: 1 hr
Sumin 🎨: come to art building courtyard!!
Sumin 🎨: i wanna see u in ur med kid natural habitat
Seulgi hesitated. It was a ten-minute walk. She had planned to spend the break in the library skimming the lab manual.
She looked up.
Across the courtyard, Jaeyi was buying a coffee from a vending machine, leaning one shoulder against the wall as she punched the buttons. Two guys nearby were clearly trying to work up the courage to talk to her. She ignored them with effortless disinterest.
As if she sensed the look, her eyes slid across the courtyard and met Seulgi’s.
Seulgi broke the gaze immediately and typed:
Seulgi: omw
The art building courtyard felt like a different universe.
Where the med side was all clean lines and glass and hushed footsteps, this half of campus was messy in a way that somehow worked. Murals bloomed across concrete walls. A half-finished sculpture sat in the middle of the courtyard, draped in a tarp. Students sprawled on the grass with sketchbooks and coffee cups, laughing too loudly.
Sumin spotted her instantly, waving with both arms like they were on a variety show.
“Seul!” she yelled. “Future Dr Woo! Over here!”
A few heads turned. Seulgi forced herself not to flinch and crossed the courtyard.
Sumin was in paint-splattered overalls with one strap undone, a ball cap backwards over her long hair. She grinned like the sun and launched immediately into a hug.
Seulgi froze for half a second, then wrapped her arms around Sumin’s waist automatically. Sumin was smaller, warm, and familiar. She smelled like acrylic and tangerines.
“You look so serious,” Sumin said, pulling back to study her face. “Did they already give you a corpse or something?”
“Not until next week,” Seulgi said. “We just had orientation.”
“And?” Sumin bounced on her toes. “Is it scary? Exciting? Are the professors strict? Are your classmates annoying?”
One of those questions had an immediate answer, and her brain tried to throw up a black-leather image, but she shoved it aside.
“It’s… a lot of information,” Seulgi said. “The schedule is tight. We have lab twice a week. The exams—”
“You’ll crush them,” Sumin cut in, rolling her eyes affectionately. “You probably wrote half the exam questions in high school.”
“That’s not how exams work,” Seulgi muttered.
Sumin hooked their arms together and steered her toward a bench. “My mum woke me up at six to make seaweed soup for you,” she said. “She said ‘doctors need strength’ and then made me carry a pot like a pack mule.”
“You don’t have to keep bringing me food,” Seulgi said, even as her stomach tightened in anticipation. She’d had a protein shake and a banana since five; the idea of actual soup was painfully appealing.
“Yes, I do,” Sumin said firmly. “Someone has to feed you properly. You live on coffee and chicken breast.”
“That’s food,” Seulgi said.
“That’s a punishment,” Sumin replied, plopping the still-warm container into her hands. “Eat. Or my mum will cry.”
There it was again, that twist of guilt. Seulgi opened the lid. Steam and sesame rose up, along with a smell that hit her somewhere deep in the chest, where memories of institutional kimchi and watered-down soup lived.
She swallowed.
“Tell her thank you,” she said quietly.
“I do,” Sumin replied. “Every time. And then she goes on about how you’re such a good girl and so disciplined, and she wishes my brother were like you.”
Seulgi didn’t know what to do with that, so she concentrated on eating. The soup was hot, rich, and full of beef and seaweed. She could feel it warming her all the way down.
Sumin swung her legs idly. “So. Any interesting people in your class?” she asked casually.
Seulgi’s spoon paused. A flash of leather, a helmet, a lazy smile.
“No,” she said immediately.
Sumin raised an eyebrow, amused. “That fast, huh?”
“They’re all stressed,” Seulgi said. “And loud.”
“That’s just jealousy because the art kids are cooler,” Sumin said solemnly. “I heard a rumour, though.”
“About what?” Seulgi asked.
“Some chaebol princess in your year,” Sumin said, eyes sparkling. “My classmate who works at a café near the hospital said there’s a Yoo Group daughter starting med this year, and she rides a motorcycle and skips lines and everyone’s obsessed with her.”
Seulgi’s grip tightened involuntarily on the spoon.
“She’s not skipping lines,” she said. “People just move.”
Sumin blinked. “Ohhh. So you have seen her.”
“I didn’t say that,” Seulgi said quickly.
“You didn’t have to,” Sumin laughed. “Is she pretty?”
Seulgi remembered the way the whole lecture hall had seemed to tilt when Jaeyi walked in. The way conversations had dipped and then reshaped around her without her doing anything except exist.
She also remembered the way she’d brushed off Seulgi’s “you’re late” like it was irrelevant.
“Annoying,” Seulgi said.
“So… pretty,” Sumin translated cheerfully.
“I didn’t say that,” Seulgi repeated, ears warming.
Sumin nudged her shoulder. “Don’t worry, doctor. I won’t get jealous of some rich girl in leather.”
“I’m not—” Seulgi began.
Sumin grinned. “I know. You’re too busy marrying your textbooks.” She leaned in closer, voice dropping slightly. “Just don’t work yourself into the grave, okay? You actually looked kind of grey last exam season.”
I was fine, Seulgi wanted to say. I passed. That was the point.
But Sumin’s eyes were soft and earnest, so she forced a nod. “I’ll be careful,” she said.
“Good.” Sumin pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, right under the scar. “Now finish the soup. You need calories to fight corpses later.”
“They don’t fight back,” Seulgi muttered.
“Still,” Sumin said. “Beating anatomy is like beating a boss level. You need buffs.”
Seulgi snorted quietly despite herself.
For forty minutes, the world shrank to soup and paint and Sumin’s chatter about a new sculpture assignment and how her baby nephew had decided he only liked one cartoon song and played it on repeat until the whole family wanted to die. Safe. Predictable.
When Seulgi headed back across campus, she felt steadier. More prepared.
She could handle this.
Even if “this” included one extremely irritating motorcycle chaebol.
The anatomy building smelled like chemicals and something metallic that clung to the back of the throat.
Seulgi inhaled slowly through her nose as she stepped inside, letting the smell settle. Formaldehyde. Disinfectant. The faint hint of something that wasn’t quite meat and wasn’t quite plastic.
Around her, first-years shuffled in quieter than they’d been all day, eyes too big, voices hushed. The double doors to the main lab room were closed, opaque glass hiding what lay beyond.
A TA in a lab coat ticked names off a list. “You’ll find your table by your lecture row,” she said. “Numbers on the end. Don’t crowd the doors. And don’t touch anything until you’re told to.”
“Imagine if they made us walk in alone,” someone whispered behind Seulgi. “One by one.”
“Shut up,” their friend hissed.
Seulgi flexed her fingers at her sides. She wasn’t afraid. Just… alert.
“Wow,” a familiar voice said next to her. “Smells like death and hand sanitiser.”
She didn’t have to turn to know who it was.
“Go away,” she said anyway.
“I can’t,” Jaeyi replied, sounding irritatingly cheerful. “We’re partners. Remember? Destiny.”
“It’s not destiny,” Seulgi snapped. “It’s statistical misfortune.”
“That’s a big phrase for ‘you like me,’” Jaeyi said.
“I don’t,” Seulgi said.
“Sure,” Jaeyi said. “Then it’s just misfortune. For you.” She tilted her head, studying the doors. “You’ve been here before, right?”
Seulgi frowned. “No.”
“You just look like you know exactly what’s going to happen,” Jaeyi said.
“I read the lab manual,” Seulgi said.
“Of course you did,” Jaeyi murmured.
The TA opened the doors. “Table numbers are on the ends,” she called. “Four students per cadaver, two main pairs per table. Goggles, gloves, and coats inside. No food, no drinks, no phones out.”
The lab was colder, the air thick with preservative. Long metal tables stretched in rows, each one occupied by a stiff shape under a white sheet. Overhead lights were harsh and clear, leaving nowhere for shadows to hide.
Seulgi’s throat worked once, but her feet didn’t falter.
Third row from the front. Table three.
Two other students were already there: the boy from behind her in the lecture hall, and a girl with her hair in a high ponytail and a pinched expression.
They both looked relieved when Seulgi approached.
“Oh, Woo Seulgi, right?” the boy said. “I’m Jiho. This is Sera.”
“Hi,” Sera said nervously. “I’m… I’m glad we’re with someone competent.”
Seulgi blinked. “…You don’t know that I’m competent.”
“I saw your name on the scholarship thing,” she said. “And you were taking notes like crazy. You look like you know what you’re doing.”
Seulgi didn’t know how to respond to that, so she nodded once. “Let’s just work properly,” she said.
“And have fun,” a voice added as Jaeyi appeared at her shoulder, shrugging into a lab coat. “Don’t forget fun.”
Sera stiffened. “Um. Are you…?”
“Yoo Jaeyi,” she said easily. “I’m with her.” She jerked her head at Seulgi.
In more ways than one, someone in the back of Seulgi’s mind muttered acidly. She shut it down.
Jiho went slightly wide-eyed. “You’re the one with the motorcycle,” he blurted, then turned red. “I mean, uh, I saw you outside—”
“Yeah,” Jaeyi said, unbothered. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to drive it in here.”
Seulgi pulled on gloves, focusing on the snap of latex at her wrists. “We should read the instructions first,” she said.
“So serious,” Jaeyi muttered, but she leaned in to look as Professor Han’s voice carried through the lab.
“Welcome,” he said. “Today is not a full dissection. We’re beginning with orientation and surface anatomy. You’ll be working on identifying major bony landmarks on the limbs and torso, as well as learning proper handling and respect for the donors.”
Respect. That word, at least, made something in Seulgi still. She bowed her head slightly with the rest as the professor led a brief moment of silence.
These had been people.
People who had families. Or didn’t.
People who made choices.
He moved on to show them how to pull back a sheet, how to touch, how to speak. No jokes. No shouting. No phones. Every donor, a teacher.
“Today’s assignment,” he said, clicking the projector to a slide. A diagram appeared, labelled with lines and blanks. “On your table, you have a checklist. You are to identify and mark the following structures on the skin surface with the provided markers. Spine of scapula. Acromion. Iliac crest. Patella. Medial malleolus. Work in your pairs, but complete one sheet per table. We’ll be circulating. Any defacement or careless handling, and you’ll be asked to leave.”
He walked off.
Sera swallowed audibly. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. We can do this.”
Seulgi picked up the laminated sheet, scanning the list. Easy enough, conceptually. She’d seen these words a hundred times in diagrams already. Translating them to a real body was another thing.
“We should divide the body regions,” she said. “Upper limb, lower limb, torso. That’ll be faster.”
“Or we could just, you know, go in order,” Sera said weakly.
Jiho nodded. “I’m okay with legs. I play football.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Seulgi said, but not unkindly. “You take lower limb then.”
“I’ll do whatever needs doing,” Serai said.
“Cool,” Jaeyi said. “I’ll do vibes.”
Seulgi turned slowly. “You’ll do what?”
“Vibes,” Jaeyi repeated, entirely straight-faced. “Supervision. Encouragement. Maybe aesthetics.”
“We don’t need aesthetics,” Seulgi said. “We need you to work.”
“I am working,” Jaeyi said. “Look.” She sniffed and pulled a face. “I’m dealing with this smell emotionally. Very hard work.”
“Yoo Jaeyi,” Seulgi said, low. “This is twenty percent of our block grade.”
“So we can get eighty,” Jaeyi said. “Those are still winning numbers.”
Seulgi inhaled through her teeth. “You’re infuriating.”
“Thank you,” Jaeyi said.
“Look,” Sera cut in carefully, eyes wide. “Maybe Woo Seulgi can do the upper limb first? She seems to know where everything is.”
Seulgi nodded briskly. “Fine.”
She stepped to the head of the table, leaning over slightly. With gloved hands, she folded back the sheet carefully, exposing the upper body of the donor to the mid-thighs.
The skin was greyish, the chest caved slightly, ribs were faintly visible under stretched skin. Male, older, a faint surgical scar on the abdomen. Seulgi noted it, wondered absently what it had been for, and then pushed the curiosity aside. Later.
Focus.
“Spine of scapula,” she murmured. She pressed fingers along the back, feeling for the ridge of bone she’d seen on a hundred diagrams. There. Solid under her touch. The reality of it grounded her unexpectedly.
“This is it,” she said, tracing it with a finger for the others. “From acromion to medial border.”
“How can you tell?” Sera asked.
“You can feel it,” Seulgi said.
“Wow,” Jiho muttered. “That’s—”
“Okay, okay, show me,” Jaeyi said suddenly, stepping closer. “I want to feel it too.”
She reached out, her own gloved hand brushing Seulgi’s as she slid her fingers over the donor’s skin.
The contact was brief, through latex, but Seulgi’s nerves still misfired, a tiny jolt up her arm. She jerked her hand back automatically.
“Watch what you’re doing,” she snapped.
Jaeyi lifted her hands slightly. “Relax. I’m not going to steal your bone.”
“That’s not the point,” Seulgi said. “We’re supposed to be careful.”
“I am careful,” Jaeyi said. “I just don’t look like you when I’m doing it.”
“Like what?” Seulgi said flatly.
“Like you’re defusing a bomb,” Jaeyi said.
“That’s how you should treat it,” Seulgi shot back. “With respect.”
Something flickered across Jaeyi’s face for a half-second, offended? hurt? , but it smoothed over quickly.
“We’re on the same team, you know,” she said lightly. “If you get full marks and I fail, we both sink. So maybe don’t bite my head off while I’m trying to learn where the… scapula spine thing is.”
“Spine of scapula,” Seulgi corrected.
“Yeah. That,” Jaeyi said.
They went like that for the next twenty minutes.
Seulgi marked out bony points with almost clinical efficiency, calling them out, double-checking against the list. Sera trailed along with the marker, drawing small x’s where Seulgi indicated. Jiho struggled with the ankles, misidentifying the lateral malleolus once until Seulgi gently redirected his hand.
And then there was Jaeyi.
Sometimes she followed along properly, nodding when Seulgi explained how the acromion felt like a bump on the shoulder. Other times, she drifted, eyes roaming the lab, making dry comments under her breath.
“This guy must have hated the sun,” she murmured at one point, eyeing the pale chest. “I’ve seen corpses with more of a tan.”
Sera let out a shocked little giggle. Seulgi glared.
“Don’t call him ‘this guy,’” she said. “He’s a donor.”
“And donors weren’t guys?” Jaeyi said.
“That’s not what I—” Seulgi broke off, frustrated. “Use his donor number if you have to call him something.”
“Oh, come on, he doesn’t care,” Jaeyi said, voice lower. “He’s dead. If anything, he’d be happy we’re talking about him.”
“You don’t know that,” Seulgi said.
“And you do?” Jaeyi asked.
The argument simmered between them, distracting, fraying the edges of Seulgi’s focus. She tried to ignore it, to force her attention back to the list.
“Iliac crest,” she muttered. “We should mark that.”
She focused on the pelvis region, fingers pressing along the lateral hip where the curved ridge of bone lay under skin. She’d practised this one on herself in the mirror last night. It was easy.
“This is the top of the pelvis,” she told Sera, guiding her hand. “You can feel it like a shelf.”
“Like the place where low-waisted jeans fail,” Jaeyi said from the other side. “I know that one.”
“Can you just not?” Seulgi rolled her eyes.
“What? I’m contextualising,” Jaeyi said. “You’ll remember it now.”
“We’re wasting time,” Seulgi said. She glanced at the clock. “Class ends in twenty minutes, and we still haven’t done the lower limb properly. Jiho, are you done with the patella?”
“Uh,” Jiho said, faltering. “I think so?”
Seulgi moved down to check—and froze.
The marker crosses around the knee were scattered, not lined up over one clear point.
“You marked both sides,” she said.
“I thought… the whole thing was… patella area,” Jiho said, panicked. “I’ve only ever memorised pictures, sorry, sorry—”
“It’s fine,” Seulgi said automatically, even as frustration pulsed. “We can wipe and redo. We just need one point.”
“We’re going to run out of time,” Minji said, voice tight.
“Okay, okay,” Jaeyi said, reaching for the checklist. “Let’s just divide and conquer. Woo, you handle the legs with Jiho. I’ll do the torso with Sera. We’ll meet in the middle.”
“You don’t know where anything is,” Seulgi said bluntly.
“I know more than you think,” Jaeyi said. “And I have hands. I can feel bones. It’s not wizardry.”
“This is not the time to improvise,” Seulgi said. “If something is wrong on the sheet, it reflects on all of us.”
“And if we don’t finish, that also reflects on all of us,” Jaeyi shot back. “We’ll definitely fail if we do nothing. So move your overachiever ass and let me help.”
Sera made a strangled sound. “Guys, please-”
Professor Han’s footsteps echoed faintly somewhere down the row.
Seulgi’s pulse spiked. She hated being watched when she didn’t feel a hundred percent sure. She hated not being a hundred percent sure.
“Fine,” she snapped at last. “You take spine of scapula, acromion, and anterior superior iliac spine. Don’t mark anything unless Sera agrees it’s right.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jaeyi said, biting off the honorific like a tease.
“And if you’re not sure, call me,” Seulgi added.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Jaeyi muttered, but she turned to the upper body with a weirdly focused expression.
Seulgi forced herself to turn back to the lower limb, guiding Jiho’s hands: “Here. This is the patella. Only this. Ignore the tendon.”
By the time she’d corrected the knee markings and moved down to the ankles, Sera called, “I think we’re done on top.”
Seulgi glanced over.
X’s dotted the donor’s shoulders and upper back. They looked plausible from a distance. But she couldn’t see the exact placement without walking around.
She glanced at the clock again.
Five minutes left.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s just finish the medial malleolus. Jiho, feel the inside of the ankle. The bony bump is closest to the midline. That one.”
They worked fast, almost frantically.
“Time,” the TA called eventually. “Markers down. Sheets on the end of the table, please. Professor Han will go through common mistakes with the group.”
Seulgi exhaled, a long, shaky breath. They’d done most of it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was—
“Table three.”
Professor Han’s voice, right beside them.
They all jerked their heads up.
He stood at the foot of their table, checklist in hand, brows drawn together. His gaze swept over the donor’s marked skin, then back to the sheet.
“Who is the primary scribe here?” he asked.
Sera’s hand shook as she half-raised it. “Um. Me. But they all told me where to—”
“And who,” he cut in mildly, “told you to mark the anterior superior iliac spine here?”
He tapped a cross near the lower abdomen. Not quite over the crest. Too medial.
Seulgi’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t done that one. She looked at the others automatically.
Serai flushed, opening her mouth.
“I did,” Jaeyi said, before she could speak.
Professor Han’s eyes slid to her. “On what basis?” he asked.
“I… felt the prominence,” she said. The confident drawl was gone; her voice sounded like she’d dragged it over gravel. “I thought that was it.”
“You thought,” he repeated. “Without checking with your pair?”
“I—” She glanced at Seulgi, then away. “We were running out of time.”
“And here,” he continued, walking around to the back of the donor. He ran gloved fingers over the marked “spine of scapula.” The x sat too low. “This is inferior to the actual spine. Again, who identified this?”
“Me,” Jaeyi said, quieter.
“I see,” he said.
Then he looked at Seulgi.
“Woo Seulgi, correct?”
She straightened automatically. “Yes, professor.”
“I saw your name on our entrance list,” he said. “Top scores. Good performance in the mock OSCE.” His gaze swept back over the donor’s limb markings. “I would have expected better table coordination from you.”
Heat flooded Seulgi’s face, hot and prickling.
“I—” she stuttered. “I identified some of the others—”
“I can see that the lower limb is more accurate,” Prof Kim interrupted. “But that is not the point. This is not an individual exercise. This is a team exercise. You pass or fail as a table.”
He looked at all four of them in turn.
“In clinical practice,” he said, voice calm but cutting, “poor communication and careless confirmation lead to catastrophic outcomes. If this were a patient and not a donor, some of these errors would have consequences. You cannot, under any circumstances, split tasks without verifying each other’s work.”
Sera stared at the floor, face burning. Jiho looked like he wanted to sink into the tiles. Even Jaeyi’s usual amusement was gone; her jaw was tight.
“I am not angry you made mistakes,” he continued. “You are first-years. You are expected to make mistakes. I am disappointed in how you made them. Distracted. Disorganised. Rushed at the end because you were not working together from the start.”
The words landed like blows, each one precise.
If he’d yelled, it would have been easier to shrug off. This was worse: calmly carved disappointment, public, in front of other tables that’d gone quiet.
Seulgi’s throat constricted.
“I expect significant improvement from this table next session,” he said. “If I see this level of teamwork again, I will separate you and mark it in your professionalism reports. Is that understood?”
“Yes, professor,” they chorused weakly.
He moved on.
The noise of the lab slowly rose again, but at table three, silence pressed down thick and heavy.
Jiho cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should’ve—”
“It’s not your fault,” Sera said quickly. “I should’ve double-checked—”
“It is all our fault,” Seulgi said, more sharply than she intended. They flinched. She closed her eyes for a second, inhaled. “We didn’t communicate well. That’s on all of us.” Her voice sounded flat in her own ears.
“Hey.” Jaeyi’s voice, softer than usual.
Seulgi ignored it, stripping off her gloves. Latex snapped, echoing louder than it should have.
“Woo—” Sera began.
“I need some air,” Seulgi muttered and turned on her heel.
The hallway outside was mercifully empty.
Seulgi leaned back against the cool wall for a moment, pressing her hands into it, eyes closing.
She’d known, intellectually, that she wouldn’t be perfect at everything the first time. She’d told herself that a hundred times. New environment. New tasks. It was fine.
And yet the weight of Professor Han’s “I would have expected better” sat like a stone in her gut.
Little orphan prodigy, shuffled from one adult’s expectations to another’s. Get top grades. Be the success story. Prove the orphanage produced something bright.
She’d built a fortress out of being good at things. Being reliable. Being the one no one had to worry about.
And on the first day of med school, in the first lab, in front of everyone, she’d been lumped in with “distracted, disorganised, rushed.”
Because of her.
The lab door creaked open.
“Hey.”
Seulgi’s eyes snapped open. She straightened automatically.
Of course.
“Go away,” she said.
Jaeyi let the door swing shut behind her, then leaned back against the wall a few feet away, mirroring Seulgi’s posture. The lab coat was unbuttoned now, hanging loose over her clothes. Her hair had escaped more from its tie, strands falling into her eyes.
For once, she wasn’t smiling.
“You’re breathing like you’re about to run ten kilometres,” she said quietly.
“I’m fine,” Seulgi said.
“You’re furious,” Jaeyi said. “At me.”
“Yes,” Seulgi said, not bothering to soften it.
“Fair,” Jaeyi said.
They stood there for a moment in awkward silence, the hum of the lab’s ventilation system faint through the door.
“I said it was my fault,” Jaeyi tried. “For the markings.”
“That doesn’t change that the whole table got dragged,” Seulgi said. “And that he expected me to stop it.”
“You didn’t have to take all of that on yourself,” Jaeyi said. “He made mistakes sound like your personal crime.”
“That’s because I was supposed to be in control,” Seulgi snapped, then bit the inside of her cheek. Too much. Too raw.
“In control of four strangers and one dead guy?” Jaeyi said. “On the first day?”
“You weren’t even trying,” Seulgi said, anger bubbling back up easily now, safer than the shame underneath. “You turned up late, you had no notes, you joked around, you treated the donor like a prop—”
“I did the work you told me to do,” Jaeyi said sharply. “And yeah, I messed some of it up. You think I’m happy about that?”
“You acted like you didn’t care,” Seulgi said.
“Just because I don’t have a colour-coded planner tattooed on my brain doesn’t mean I don’t care,” Jaeyi shot back. “I care. I just don’t show it the way you want me to, apparently.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault you can’t communicate,” Seulgi said.
“I didn’t say that,” Jaeyi said. She exhaled hard, running a hand through her hair. “This is exactly what he meant. We’re talking at each other, not to each other.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Seulgi said, chest tight. “I didn’t ask for you to sit next to me. I didn’t ask to be paired with you. I don’t want—”
“Me,” Jaeyi finished, voice cool. “You don’t want me anywhere near your perfect little path.”
“Yes,” Seulgi said. The word dropped heavily between them. “You’re too much. I don’t need too much right now.”
Something flickered in Jaeyi’s gaze. For a second, there was something like hurt there. Then it vanished, replaced by a hard, bright challenge.
“Newsflash, Woo,” she said, straightening. “You’re not in charge of everything. Not of the seating plan. Not of the pairings. Not of me.”
“I know that,” Seulgi said through her teeth.
“Do you?” Jaeyi asked. “Because you keep talking like I’m a defective instrument you have to fix.”
“I just want to do well,” Seulgi said. “Is that a crime?”
“No,” Jaeyi said. “But acting like everyone who doesn’t do things your way is dragging you down is kind of a dick move.”
“You dragged us down,” Seulgi bit out.
“And you were so busy panicking about being perfect, you didn’t notice until it was too late,” Jaeyi lashed back. “If you’d looked for two seconds instead of obsessing over the clock—”
“I was doing lower limb because you refused to admit you didn’t know what you were doing on top!” Seulgi snapped. “You keep pretending you’re above all this, that you don’t have to try—”
“Oh, I’m trying,” Jaeyi said. “You have no idea how hard I’m trying right now not to say something I can’t take back.”
“Say it,” Seulgi said, pulse pounding. “I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do,” Jaeyi said. “That’s the problem. You care so much about what these people think that the second someone points at you and says ‘not perfect,’ you implode.”
The words slammed into a place Seulgi didn’t let anyone touch.
Her hands curled into fists.
“Fuck you, Yoo Jaeyi,” she said, low and vicious. The words came out before she could filter them, raw as a scraped knee. “Unlike you, I worked hard to get here. I’m not Daddy’s princess who can just wing everything, and it’ll be fine. I cannot stand you, and I do not want to be around you.”
Jaeyi went very still.
For a heartbeat, her face was completely blank. Then something slow and dangerous slid into her eyes.
“Good,” she said softly. “Makes two of us.”
She pushed off the wall, shoulders squaring.
“Don’t worry, Woo,” she added, voice like glass. “You won’t have to be contaminated by my chaos for long. I’ll ask to switch tables. I’m sure the professors will be happy to separate us before we, you know, destroy the entire curriculum.”
“Fine,” Seulgi said.
“Fine,” Jaeyi echoed.
The lab door swung open just then as a couple of students spilled out, laughing too loudly.
Jaeyi stepped aside, letting them pass, then glanced back at Seulgi one last time.
For half a second, there was something almost vulnerable in her gaze, some crack in the armour. Then she smoothed it over with an infuriating little smirk.
“Try not to fail without me,” she said.
Then she walked away down the hallway, hands in her pockets, shoulders loose. As if none of it mattered. As if she didn’t care at all.
Seulgi watched her go, every muscle tight.
She hated her.
She hated her for sitting in her seat. For not trying hard enough. For somehow dragging Seulgi’s carefully organised first day into chaos.
But most of all, she hated the tiny, treacherous part of herself that had noticed the moment in the lab when Jaeyi stepped in front of Professor Han’s annoyance and said, “I did it” without hesitation.
She shoved that thought down, hard, into the same locked box where she kept other inconvenient feelings.
This was fine.
She’d talk to the coordinator. She’d ask to switch partners. She’d work twice as hard to make up for today.
Plans could be rewritten.
What she wouldn’t do ever again was give Yoo Jaeyi the power to shake her like this.
She straightened, pulled her shoulders back, and walked in the opposite direction without looking back.
If hatred was a starting point, then fine.
At least it was simple.