Consulting Room No. 1, Pain Department, Third Municipal Hospital.
The long bench outside the room was packed, mostly with men, all waiting for Melissa Sutton to call their number.
A young guy in his twenties came out of the room grinning from ear to ear, looking way too hyped.
"Dr. Sutton really is gorgeous. Even with a mask on, her eyes are insane, like straight-up deadly. And her voice? So soft it practically melts people. Fits her name perfectly."
His friend asked, "So did Dr. Sutton prescribe you anything?"
The guy looked confused. "I told her my calf hurt, but she told me to go buy a box of anti-dampness herbal tea from the pharmacy outside and drink it for a while. What does getting rid of dampness have to do with calf pain?"
His friend snorted. "She meant your brain's waterlogged and needs draining."
"What kind of trash talk is that?"
"Go buy it already. If you wait any longer, that tiny little pain of yours is gonna heal on its own."
...
Melissa Sutton was irritated too.
She had already seen thirty patients that morning alone, and all kinds of random people kept registering for her clinic—hemorrhoid pain, urinary pain, stuff that clearly had nothing to do with her department.
If the hospital didn't require staff to keep up that polite smiling service act, she would've blown up already.
She had just barely sent the last patient away when another one walked in.
Melissa kept her eyes on the computer screen and didn't even look up. "Where does it hurt?"
A low, rough male voice answered, "The place that hurts is... kind of awkward."
Melissa took a slow breath, forcing down her temper. "From a doctor's point of view, every part of the human body is just tissue and organs. You don't need to feel embarrassed."
"Inner thigh."
Melissa's temper shot up on the spot.
These people were all here to mess with her, weren't they?
She was just about to snap when she turned her head and saw a broad-shouldered man sitting beside her.
He sat ramrod straight, proper as could be. Above the mask, his eyes were sharp and bright, fixed on her without blinking.
Melissa Sutton’s anger jammed right in her throat and died there on the spot.
She glanced at the computer screen again and finally made out the patient’s name: Ethan Greystone, thirty years old.
So it really was him.
"Ho-how did you get hurt?" Now it was Melissa who got nervous.
"Got cut by a suspect during an operation. My bad, wasn’t careful enough." Ethan answered plainly, not dodging it at all.
A trauma wound?
That really wasn’t even her department.
Still, it would’ve looked pretty awkward to send Ethan away, so she said, "Lie down on the bed over there. And… take off your pants. I need to examine the injury."
The man did exactly as told, but before anything else, he reached over and pulled the curtain shut.
Melissa stared at that blue curtain she yanked closed dozens of times every single day, and for some reason, it suddenly felt weirdly untouchable, like it was burning her fingers.
It took her a good while before she finally lifted the curtain and stepped inside.
The second her eyes met his, she felt like the air around them had frozen solid.
He was lying on the exam bed, legs parted, pants pushed down to his knees. He should have looked like a man completely at someone else’s mercy, like a fish on the chopping block. But his presence was way too strong. Hard, cold, overwhelming. Somehow it felt less like he was the one being examined and more like she was the one cornered.
In the end, he was the one who reminded her.
"Dr. Sutton, you can start now."
Melissa snapped back to herself and hurriedly lowered her gaze to check the wound.
The cut was high on his inner thigh, close to the groin. A knife wound, deep too. It had already been wrapped in gauze, but blood was still seeping through in thin reddish stains.
Because the injury was only about two centimeters away from the most sensitive part of him, she honestly had no idea where to put her eyes for a second.
Ethan, on the other hand, stayed absurdly calm. He even reminded her, almost casually, "Wasn’t it you doctors who say that in a doctor’s eyes, there are only organs?"
Melissa Sutton kept her tone steady and said, “It’s not like I’m looking at that. It might sting a little, so just bear with it, okay?”
She carefully unwound the gauze, then leaned in to check the wound bit by bit. After making sure no other nerves had been hit, she started disinfecting it for him.
Even though she was already being extra careful, her fingers still brushed that awkward spot now and then while cleaning it.
Neither of them spoke. The room went so quiet it almost felt frozen.