The Trauma Center: Golden Hour
Ju Ji-hoon
The Name He Kept
Baek Kang-hyuk was a man of few words. Silence, to him, was armor. It was precision. It was apology.
Some called him cold. Others said he was cruel. But he knew better. Some patients didn’t have time for explanation. Only for action.
That day, too, he said nothing. The pulse of the patient slipping away under the ambulance lights, and Baek simply turned, walked toward the operating room, and opened the door without a word. To speak was to persuade. But he had no time to persuade anyone—not death, not himself.
“If I don’t do it, no one will.” He repeated it quietly in his head, the way a soldier loads a rifle. With hands covered in blood, he pieced together what life had nearly given up. He didn’t wince. If saving meant breaking, then let him break.
There were days he didn’t learn the names of the lives he saved. There were nights when he closed the eyes of strangers who had no one else left. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t cry. Emotions were a luxury he couldn’t afford. Time never waited long enough for feelings.
He used to smile. Once. There was a time when life existed outside the hospital— a night breeze through an open window, laughter clinking against beer glasses, songs hummed under soft lighting. But eventually, everything personal became background noise. Function overtook feeling. The heart learned to keep quiet even when it ached.
He lost people too. Family he stopped calling, friends who stopped trying. He forgot the last time he ate a warm meal with someone. The hospital swallowed him whole, and he didn’t resist.
They saw arrogance. They missed the desperation. They saw stubbornness. They missed the pain. He was always alone—but his solitude kept others alive. And that was enough.
He never said, “Why me?” Never asked, “Why does it always have to be me bleeding inside?” He just moved. One more door, one more emergency, one more soul slipping through his fingers. And he reached, every time.
His colleagues knew. That his silences weren’t empty. That every “I’m fine” he uttered was packed with sleepless nights and uncried tears.
One night, he stayed behind in an empty operating room. Not out of duty—but because he didn’t know where else to go. He sat in a chair, blood drying on his sleeves, and stared at nothing. And then, without a word, he stepped outside. No longer a doctor. No longer a savior. Just a man, trying to remember who he was before all this.
He remembered a child he couldn’t save. Tiny hands, a heart that stopped too soon. He remembered his own hands shaking. And then stilling. He never cried again after that. Out of penance. Out of fear that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Not everyone understood Baek Kang-hyuk. But one did—a colleague who saw past the silence. She once said, “You’re not okay.” He said nothing. Just nodded. And that nod was the only confession he’d ever made.
He sometimes stands before a mirror now. The wrinkles, the calluses, the hollowed cheeks— they tell the story for him. Of what he’s lost. Of what he’s carried. He looks himself in the eye and whispers, “But I’m still here.”
And then, the question returns: “Am I still saving them, if I keep losing me?” There’s no answer. Only the quiet echo of that question in a hallway he’s walked a hundred times. He opens the door again. Not expecting anything. Just doing what needs to be done. Because sometimes the one who keeps others breathing is the one closest to collapse.
He remembers the silence of post-op corridors, long after everyone else has gone home. The vending machine buzzing in the corner, the click of his shoes on the tile. Each sound a reminder that he's still moving, still needed, still there. Some days, that’s the only thing keeping him going—the simple fact of being needed.
He dreams, sometimes. Of a small apartment, of warm food and someone waiting. He wakes up before the dream ends. He never lets it finish. Maybe he's afraid that finishing it will make him want it too much. Maybe he's afraid that once he tastes peace, he won’t come back.
But he always does come back. Every morning, before the sun rises, before the world even begins to stir. Baek Kang-hyuk is already inside, scrubbing in. Preparing not just to save someone else, but to survive another day inside himself.
He was strong. Not because he was whole. But because he kept going, even in pieces.
Baek Kang-hyuk lives like that. Not through words, but through choices. Not with ease, but with relentless purpose. And in that silence, he cries louder than anyone else.
