@haebxtna ( ✧ continued )
She didn’t like it – just the thought of going back sends her to the same horrific feeling. Haebitna wasn’t a child scared of needles and blood – she had already spent 2 years in a medical field and had been exposed to various scenes, perhaps too much for her position as a student nurse back then that it ultimately caused her trauma. And she swore she’d never want to go back..
Given a choice, Haebitna would’ve just let her symptoms recover on its own, just like any ordinary viral colds or flu. But it was her voice, her only strength to pursue and finish her degree, and it isn’t something one should take granted. Terrified of the future consequences, and the effective scare of possible vocal nodules as the cause of her hoarseness, Haebitna was forced to go – along with a referral letter from the school administrator.
At 9:40am, she already arrived at Asan Medical Center. At 9:45am, she had filled up her form and was lined up for appointment. She was the 4th person to be seen by the doctor. At exactly 10:00am, the doctor arrived. At 10:33am, the third patient was summoned. A minute after, Haebitna was nowhere to be seen.
The stern broad shoulders and wide back of the doctor had rendered her senseless, her feet dragging itself out of the waiting area to somewhere away from these white coat-wearing people. Holding her record card on both hands, she sat at a corner, hugging her knees as her hands trembles slightly. She doesn’t know how long this fear would last, but at the moment, she just couldn’t bring herself to be in front of a doctor. Not now at the very least.
Absorbed in hiding herself, little she had known that one person caught sight of her sprint across the hallways and had actually followed her to her safe place.
“Why are you so scared of the doctor?”
A tall figure towered over her, his sudden appearance had her feet almost ready to jump and run. Haebitna lifted her face to see a man who, thankfully, wasn’t wearing a long white coat but instead a white uniform.
“I…. I ..am.. not.” Anxiety caused her words to be stuttered, his presence alone still had a chilling effect on her. She tried to defend herself but her answer was far convincing with the way she acted. He questioned her with his curiosity, perhaps concern, yet although his voice seemed calm yet stern, there will always be voices that will linger at the back of her mind that she couldn’t forget. The voices which were the root of this anxiety.
“I.. just can’t bring myself to see one.”
Fear is fiction, an alternate universe existing within a person, a parallel reality thriving in the absence of courage. But fiction can sometimes blur the boundary between imagination and reality; fiction can sometimes be quite scary. The nurse would know, after all, he was an avid reader of authors and their written fabrications; he was well acquainted with the extent of fantasy, a discerner of truth from hear-says and stories. He knows what it’s like to feel the claws of fear latching onto the blades of carelessly hunched shoulders; its little legs climbing up your back like a million tiny spiders; its whispers like hallucinations in your ear. It’s paralysing to say the least, but he’s been there before— he understands.
“ You are afraid, ” he corrects, his voice soft but firm. And then he gets on his knees and crouches down beside her. He pays no attention to the people walking by, their distant footsteps and chatter dissolving quickly into white noise dancing forgotten at the back of his mind. “ Not being able to bring yourself to see one— it’s not a specific doctor then, ” he observes. “ You can’t bring yourself to see any of them. Well there’s no difference from that and being scared, is there? You are afraid of the image of doctors, of their white coats and authority, you’re afraid of a distant memory associated with them and so here you are: you fled. ” Hanbyul speaks as if he sees right through her, but he’s really making assumptions and hoping to strike a chord or two. Because humans were somehow predictable, all, except him.
“ It’s okay to be afraid. ” The words are dropped like a verse from the bible, a gospel that should be preached to children in denial. It was a phrase that the male had very much yearned to hear back during his yesteryears, but no one had thought to tell him that and so he had to learn. But that is as far as he would go to build up a person’s courage, after all, the male had not been built for works of empathy, much less to encourage. Holding a hand out in curiosity, he sought to meet her anxious gaze. “ What’re you here for? ” he inquired, gesturing towards the record card trembling within her grasp, a deviant smile he soon lets curl at his lips. “ If you can’t bring yourself to see a doctor, why not consult with a nurse instead? We’re not entirely lacking in knowledge and skills, though I'm certain that the people dressed in white coats would love to argue otherwise. So what will it be? Will you come with me? ”
