Morning buzz had taken over the corridors of Qingmei Medical Center. Nurses rushed past, clipboards in hand, doctors walked with determined steps, and yet somehow, inside the locker room, there was chaos of a very different kind.
"Give it back, Yufei! I'm not playing!" Meilin snapped, lunging toward her friend who had her diary held up high like a trophy.
Fang Yufei grinned wickedly, effortlessly dodging her. "Aww… who's 'Doctor Ice' in this entry? 'The way his eyes sparkled while stitching the wound…'? So poetic, Meilin."
Meilin's face flushed scarlet. "I will literally kill you with a scalpel."
Just then, the door banged open and Yichen stepped in. He paused at the scene Yufei standing on the bench holding a pink diary above her head, Meilin mid-jump, and both of them turning to freeze as he entered.
"You all always this productive before rounds?" he asked dryly.
Meilin snatched her diary from a distracted Yufei and turned her back to him, pretending to organize her bag. Yufei smirked and whispered, "Doctor Ice has entered," before leaving Meilin fuming and Yichen raising an eyebrow slightly.
"Be in the ER in 10 minutes. And maybe less teenage drama next time," he said, already turning away.
As soon as the door shut, Meilin groaned into her hands. "I want to bury myself in the ICU."
Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, Gao Rui sat sipping his black coffee, completely unfazed by the noise around him. Yufei slid into the seat across from him, holding a plate of dumplings.
"You should try smiling once in a while," she said, popping one in her mouth.
"I smile when there's something worth smiling at," he replied without looking up.
"So basically never?"
He gave her a look, but she just chuckled and leaned back. "You and Dr. Yichen are in some kind of contest for 'Most Broody Physician of the Year,' huh?"
Rui didn't reply, but a faint twitch at the corner of his lips gave him away.
In the ER, Meilin had managed to focus for a good half hour, until Yichen handed her a suture kit.
"You're closing this one," he said. The patient had a deep laceration on his arm from a bike accident.
Meilin gulped. She'd stitched before, but not with him watching her every move like a hawk.
"Any shaking and I take over," he warned, arms crossed.
"Why don't you just say 'don't mess it up' like a normal person?" she mumbled.
He gave her a look. "That was the polite version."
As she worked, her fingers trembled slightly. Yichen leaned closer, voice low but firm. "Relax. You're good at this when you stop trying to impress anyone."
"I'm not trying to impress you," she whispered back, jaw tight.
"Good. Because I'm not that easily impressed."
Meilin scowled, but her hand steadied. When she tied the final stitch, Yichen gave a small nod.
"Not bad."
"Wow. Praise from the great Doctor Zhao? Should I frame that?"
"You should. It might be the only one you get today."
She rolled her eyes but couldn't stop the small smile tugging at her lips as he turned away.
Later in the day, the team gathered in the staff room for lunch. Yufei was already halfway through her dumplings when she noticed Meilin staring into space.
"Uh-oh. Someone's replaying the suture moment in her head again."
"I am not!"
"She is," Yufei said loudly to everyone.
Rui, from the side, muttered without looking up, "I'd be more concerned if she actually managed to focus for once."
"Excuse me? I am extremely focused," Meilin said indignantly.
"On Zhao Yichen's face, maybe," Yufei added.
Zhao Yichen entered the room just in time to catch the tail end of that sentence. Everyone went quiet.
"What about my face?" he asked calmly.
Meilin looked like she'd been hit by a defibrillator. "Nothing! Just medical anatomy. Eyes, nose, normal things. Nothing… inappropriate."
He blinked, then walked past her. "That's the most confusing diagnosis I've heard all day."
Yufei burst into laughter. "You two are the definition of slow-burn disaster."
That afternoon, the interns were assigned to take vitals in the general ward. While Meilin worked, a little girl named Linlin tugged her coat.
"Jiejie, are you a princess doctor?"
Meilin knelt beside her. "Princess doctor?"
"You have pretty hair and you look like the ones in my fairy tale book," Linlin said seriously.
Meilin laughed. "Well, I don't have a crown, but I do fix boo-boos. That counts, right?"
Linlin smiled and nodded.
Just then, Yichen appeared, checking the girl's chart. "Meilin, did you double-check the meds?"
"Yes," Meilin said confidently, handing him the notes.
As he glanced through them, Linlin looked up at him.
"Are you the prince doctor?"
Meilin coughed to hide her laugh.
Yichen glanced at the child. "I don't know about prince, but I'm definitely not from a fairy tale."
"Then you're the grumpy one," Linlin said with conviction.
Even Rui, standing by the door, let out a rare chuckle.
Evening rolled in, and the hospital was quieter than usual. Meilin sat on the rooftop, watching the city lights flicker. Yichen found her there, holding two cups of tea.
"I figured you'd be hiding here," he said, handing her one.
She took it with a small smile. "I'm not hiding. I'm reflecting."
"On what? Your stitching? Or your fairy tale diagnosis?"
"On how weird this place makes me feel sometimes," she admitted, surprising even herself with the honesty.
Yichen leaned against the railing, sipping his tea. "This place makes all of us feel weird. It's normal."
"I thought I'd come here and be this super-cool doctor who never messes up and never gets distracted. Turns out I'm just a walking embarrassment."
"You're not an embarrassment," he said quietly.
She looked at him, startled.
He shrugged. "You're loud. You argue too much. But you care. That's rare."
Meilin blinked. "Wow. You are full of surprises today."
"Don't get used to it," he muttered.
She grinned and looked back at the skyline. "Still not impressed, though?"
He turned slightly toward her. "You're getting there."