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‘I guess I’ll have to ask my mother about this. There are more than one or two men in the Cha family.’
The taste is bitter.
I feel like smoking.
“Hey, kid. If you keep biting your lip like that, you’ll bleed.”
The owner, Mr. Cheolgu, who was sitting next to me, ruffled my hair.
“If you want to cry, you can cry. I’ll just let you go today.”
“It’s okay. If crying could have saved Mom’s life, I would have cried out loud a long time ago. But crying doesn’t solve anything.”
I wonder if it would be better to solve it in another way.
“So, sir, can you lend me some money?”
“Money? Is it because of the hospital bills?”
“No. I have something to ask you right now.”
Originally, a request had to be accompanied by sincerity.
I brought my mother’s bag, but I only had 9,850 won in it.
“What do you mean? A favor?”
“I want to give the person in charge a big thumbs up.”
“······.”
Mr. Cheolgu blinked his eyes.
Every time that happened, the cigarette he was holding, out of habit, would shake up and down.
This guy really doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
“Rather than comforting yourself by saying, ‘Do your best and leave the rest to heaven,’ or praying to all kinds of gods, this is much easier, faster, and more certain.”
I rubbed my fingers and smiled.
“What better lubricant can there be to smooth the course of life’s affairs?”
Bam.
Mr. Cheolgu dropped the cigarette he was holding.
“In that sense, lend me some money… Ugh!”
Mr. Cheolgu grabbed my cheeks and stretched them sideways without any mercy.
“Eugyagyaak······!”
“Where did you hear the talk of bribing someone?”
“Gyaaaaat······!”
I rubbed my cold cheeks and backed away as far as I could.
“At the hospital, the doctor in charge is God and Buddha. In whose hands is my mother’s life in danger?”
“Okay.”
“If you can buy sincerity and sincerity with money, you should buy it. The aftereffects of coal gas are terrible.”
Mr. Cheol-gu sighs longer than I do while my mother is in the intensive care unit.
“Is this something a seven-year-old kid should say?”
“Then, I thought I’d ask you to refrain from secondhand smoke in front of the little kid who’s addicted to coal gas?”
I picked up the cigarette that Mr. Cheolgu had dropped and blew on it, blowing away the dust.
Mr. Cheol-gu, who looked exactly like a bear, coughed.
“I was just biting.”
Bam.
Just then the intensive care unit door opened and a doctor came out.
We both jumped up at the same time.
The doctor said.
“It would have been dangerous if we had been just 10 minutes late.”
“Ah······! Thank you, teacher! Thank you so much for saving my mother!”
I bowed and expressed my gratitude.
When I turned around, someone was holding my shoulder tightly, and there was Mr. Cheolgu smiling brightly.
“Look at that. I told you that your mother would be okay, that she would be fine.”
I nodded vigorously.
My heart was pounding as if it was going to burst.
The doctor spoke with a very tired face.
“Our hospital has the latest hyperbaric chamber facilities and the best medical staff······.”
The doctor spoke at length and then looked us over with sharp eyes.
I’m wrapped in a hospital blanket, barefoot and wearing only underwear in the middle of winter.
Mr. Cheol-gu was wearing a worn-out flight jacket over his tracksuit and some tattered sneakers.
The doctor’s words became increasingly colder.
“Please go to the general affairs department and submit the medical expenses. Then we will move the patient to a general ward right away.”
How many minutes has it been since my mother was admitted to the intensive care unit?
One corner of my mouth trembled on its own.
‘Are you going to rush into hyperbaric oxygen therapy just because you don’t seem to have any money?’
In fact, the only treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning is the administration of 100% pure oxygen under high pressure.
So, we treat it by leaving it in an oxygen concentration of 4 atm for 1 to 2 hours.
But hyperbaric oxygen therapy also costs money.
Perhaps, people like us who are shabby may have run away without even being able to pay that amount.
This area was a factory complex, and the pockets of the factory workers were usually as light as a feather.
As long as you don’t die, that’s fine.
Then the hospital can claim that it was not a medical accident or medical malpractice.
Ultimately, the aftereffects are the patient’s responsibility.
‘It would be a problem if my mother suffered from the aftereffects of carbon monoxide poisoning.’
Once a brain is damaged, it is difficult to regain its function.
The reason carbon monoxide poisoning is so scary is because the binding affinity for hemoglobin in red blood cells is about 200 times stronger than that for oxygen.
When the carbon monoxide blood saturation level reaches 55-57%, paralysis and nerve cell death begin, and when it exceeds 60%, death occurs due to lack of oxygen.
My mother was so suffocated that she lost consciousness.
It can’t be thrown out like this.
‘I can’t back down since it’s about my mother’s aftereffects.’
it’s a shame.
That I’m just a seven year old kid.
That I have no money, no status, no power, and not even military force that I can use right now.
‘The most certain and simple thing is to put pressure on the person in charge’s higher-ups. Right now, I don’t have the ability, power, or connections to do that.’
Tch.
‘I can’t help it. I have no choice but to give you all my money.’
These days, a bowl of Jajangmyeon costs 300 won.
Less than ten thousand won is an absurd amount of money to bribe a doctor with, but it would still be a show of good faith.
Because I’m just a seven year old kid.
The other person will take that into account and decide what to do.
‘If it’s a matter of necessity, I’ll give you a luxury watch. Right now, my mother comes first.’
But Mr. Cheolgu was faster than me.
The man took out a thousand-won bill from his wallet as soon as he could.
I was surprised to see the man’s ID stuck in his wallet.
‘No? You’re not some neighborhood slacker who habitually talks about spies?’
Mr. Cheol-gu slipped some money into the pocket of his doctor’s coat.
“Thank you for your hard work. I hope you will continue to take care of me in the future.”
“Ahem!”
The doctor coughed blatantly.
It meant that this money could not buy sincerity and sincerity.
‘You’re a very greedy gentleman. There’s nothing I can do. If you act like that, I’ll have no choice but to take out my ID card, sir.’
I snatched Mr. Cheolgu’s wallet.
The doctor spread out his wallet so that he could check the man’s ID.
“Is your name Park Cheol-gu? You’re an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Central Intelligence Agency, aka Central Intelligence Agency.
It was the predecessor of the National Intelligence Service in the 1980s and was the current president’s powerful sword.
An organization that holds domestic and international information in one hand and exercises power greater than that of the prosecution.
“You can read Korean too? Oh, you’re so smart.”
“I heard you’re busy catching spies these days. When a spy is reported, you go out right away?”
Mr. Cheolgu had an expression on his face as if he was asking why I was suddenly talking about spies.
But when I opened my eyes and asked, he answered meekly.
“yes.”
“What if a spy report comes in from the hospital?”
“First, we need to catch that spy bastard and beat him up, then we need to raid his back.”
“If that happens, even an innocent hospital will be turned upside down.”
“If there is no suspicion of espionage, you will be released immediately.”
It was said that once you get involved with a spy, you will end up in a dirty state.
The 70s was a time when the government cried out against communism and hunted down spies with a red-hot eye.
‘The protests of the powerless may be laughable, but the threats of the powerful are irritating. If the Central Intelligence Agency comes and starts digging, the hospital ledgers will be the first thing to be hidden. Who would like that?’
The high-pressure chamber is already in operation.
How about comparing the pain of having to figure out who caused this annoying situation to the trouble of administering more high-concentration oxygen?
It was definitely a scale that was tilted to one side.
I folded my wallet so that it made a thud sound.
“······.”
The doctor immediately corrected his posture and spoke in a serious voice.
“I think we need to extend the hyperbaric oxygen treatment time a little bit to avoid any aftereffects. I promise to do my best with the treatment.”
Then he took out the thousand won bill he had received earlier from his pocket and stuffed it back into the old man’s pocket.
“You shouldn’t make people who work for the government worry about such things. Medicine should be given to pharmacists, and patients should be given to doctors. This is the medical staff at Taesung Hospital. Please trust and leave it to them.”
The doctor opened the intensive care unit door and shouted a few more instructions.
“Check your blood oxygen level and add one more nutrient to the Ringer.”
“yes.”
“The patient is shivering because he’s cold. Wrap him in a few blankets quickly. He’ll be in trouble if he catches a cold.”
“yes.”
The quality of medical care changed immediately.
The landlady opened her eyes half-heartedly and looked down at me.
I shrugged.
“It’s definitely effective.”
How can I get my mother’s treatment without aftereffects by threatening her?
If bribery doesn’t work, you have to use threats.
* * *
We sat side by side in the same position and waited for my mother’s hyperbaric oxygen treatment to end.
Mr. Cheolgu crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the wall.
I took out the bankbook I had prepared earlier.
‘You’ve saved so frugally.’
It was very similar to the bankbook left behind by the deceased Kang-woo’s mother.
Some days it’s 120 won, some days it’s 90 won, and some days it’s 440 won.
My mother was saving up her pocket money like that.
The cover of the bankbook was written in neat handwriting.
< Our Jeonghyeok's college tuition>
In fact, I didn’t even graduate from elementary school, let alone college.
But my mother was saving up money to send me to college.
‘I wonder if Kang Woo felt this way when he looked at his mother’s bankbook?’
There is a huge difference between vaguely guessing what someone else is thinking and experiencing it for yourself.
For some reason, a corner of my heart started to ache.
‘When my mother passed away, this bankbook, notebook, and wristwatch were gone. That means someone stole them, including the jewelry box.’
It was bitter.
If you stole a high-end luxury watch because you wanted one, I would understand.
They even emptied my bank account, saying it was money.
‘There’s only one phone number written in the notebook, no name, no address, no anything.’
It’s a phone number I’ve seen a lot.
‘That was definitely the conglomerate chairman’s home phone number, wasn’t it?’
I think I know where this is.
< Use your connections> End
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