Let's Not Fall In Love

Chapter 2

Dara crawled groggily out of bed at 6:00am in the morning the following day. She dragged her feet towards the percolator. Scooped a fresh batch of ground coffee beans and turned it on. She slumped on top of the kitchen counter, drew her hoodie up to cover her face and dozed off. She was due for a 36hour shift at the hospital later and she was not looking forward to it.

Twenty minutes later the smell of fried bacon assaulted her consciousness. She opened one eye and saw GD preparing breakfast.

"You're the best flatmate ever." She declared.

"And you're the worst." He answered readily. "You have drool all over your face. Wipe it off."

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir." She searched her pockets for something to wipe her face.

"I can't imagine how you could take care of your patients at the hospital when you could barely take care of yourself."

"That's why I have you. You take care of me so I can take care of them. Think of it as your service for God and country." Without looking up he threw a damp face towel right at her face in response.

"Yeh! GD! Is this even clean?" She gingerly held the damp rag between her thumb and index finger.

"I think so." He paused and grinned widely. "It was before I used it to wipe the countertop."

"Yah!" She yelled at him.

"Nah. I prepared that when I was grossed out by the sight of your drool pooling on the counter."

She yelled at him again but nevertheless used the towel to wipe her face clean. She grabbed two mugs from the rack and poured coffee for both of them. She added creamer on one and on the other she added one teaspoon of sugar. She pushed the latter towards him.

"You won't be going home tonight?" He confirmed with her.

"Nope. I won't see you until tomorrow."

They ate their breakfast in comfortable silence afterwards. They finished simultaneously and like everyday for the past ten years they did the dishes together. She did the washing up while he did the rinsing.

It was their usual morning ritual. Whoever wakes up first preps the coffee. By default the other one cooks. Normally, Dara hates to put effort in cooking so no matter how tired she is she would force herself to get up early.

Then they both eat and then wash the dishes. They have really busy schedules that breakfast is the only time that they could usually spend with each other so eating breakfast together has become an unspoken sacred rule for the two friends.

*** *** ***

It was a busy day at the emergency room. A mass vehicular accident happened and four of the ten individuals involved were brought to their hospital. Two of them were in a critical condition and had to be brought straight to the OR. Dara wasn't part of the trauma team but she still had to help out because as usual they were still understaffed.
She was suturing a superficial head wound when she noted a subtle change in the ER nurses. They were straightening their clothes and adjusting their hair.

After a little while she overheard one of them dramatically say, "Oh my God, guys. I think I have finally found the father of my future children." And another one said, "Thank you, Lord for giving me my Christmas gift early."

She couldn't help but smile as she tightened the knot on the suture. She's quite used to hearing those sentiments on the occasions when she's out with the boys or as she sometimes call them GD and his four minions but it was the first time that she heard those statements in the hospital.

At least even if the ER patient traffic reached toxic levels earlier, the staff were able to get some form of stress relief. Luck must still be smiling on them since they were still able to get a glimpse of some eye candy. Contrary to popular belief as portrayed by Grey's Anatomy, hospitals rarely have their own share of McDreamy or McSteamy.
She continued with her wound care. She packed the wound and discarded the used sharps and disposables. Then she advised the patient and his companion on how to do the wound care on their own, scheduled them for a follow up and wrote off a prescription.

"Park! Are you done? Do you think you could spare a few minutes for lunch?" A voice called out to her. She inwardly groaned. It's the Minion King himself.

The nurses oohed and teasingly wiggled their eyebrows at her. "Hephephep! Stop! Before you get any wild ideas. The guy's my best friend. I used to wipe his snot for him when he was a snivelling skinny kid."

"We weren't saying anything, doc." They snickered at her.

"I'll borrow her from you, lovely ladies, for a short while," he winked at the tittering nurses before he got hold of her arm and pulled her outside. Muffled squeals followed them out of the treatment area.

"Why are you here, Mr. Kwon?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Because I want to have lunch with my bestfriend."

"I don't eat bullshit for lunch, Kwon."

"No. Seriously. I visited one of our clients here. I think he had an operation done here last year for his heart. He's admitted now for an executive checkup. So since it's lunchtime and I'm in the area I thought why not have lunch together."

"I can't leave the hospital premises. You okay with trying our hospital canteen food? It's nothing spectacular but it's edible so don't expect much."

"It's okay. If I can stomach your burnt cooking I can eat anything."

She glared at him. She can cook. It's just that she gets distracted easily so she tends to forget that she's cooking. "Yah!"

The two friends bickered comfortably to the hospital canteen. After her lunch, Dara saw GD off at the carpark and she walked briskly back to the ER, a smile unconsciously on her lips.

She recieved some more teasing from the ER staff but waved their comments off.

"You've got it all wrong, guys. That guy and I aren't ever going to be a couple. It would be like incest." She shuddered in disgust at the idea.

Nurse Jenny smiled and said, "You'll never know, Doc."

"Hey, enough about me. Get back to work. Jenny, please check the IV rate of the patient on bed 9. I'm giving him a fast drip of 500ml. Please regulate it to 125ml/hr after and standby a side drip of LR in case he vomits again. And please follow up his referral to peds. I already informed the adolescent pedia res on duty but she hasn't seen him yet."

"Aye, Aye, Captain." Jenny gave her a friendly salute before walking off to carry out the orders.