Hyun-woo
The days blurred.
I moved through them like a ghost, present but never really there. I attended lectures, took notes, memorized pathways of nerves and arteries, but none of it felt real. My body was just a vessel, my mind detached, floating somewhere between exhaustion and indifference.
I was alive in the strictest definition of the word.
Nothing more.
3:12 AM.
The dorm was silent.
I sat at my desk, staring at the same page I had been reading for over an hour. The words didn't sink in. My highlighter hovered above the text, frozen mid-motion, waiting for my brain to process something-anything.
It didn't.
I exhaled, a slow, tired breath that felt like it barely left my lungs.
Outside, the wind howled through the gaps in the window frame, rattling the glass. It was raining-thin streaks of water sliding down the pane, distorting the view of the campus below.
I pressed my fingers to my temples. My head ached. My stomach churned from too much caffeine, too many nights spent surviving on nothing but deadlines and obligation.
I didn't remember the last time I had eaten a proper meal.
Didn't care, either.
I wasn't hungry.
I was just tired.
6:45 AM.
Another morning. Another day I didn't have the energy to face.
The mirror reflected a stranger.
Pale skin. Hair sticking up in every direction, no matter how much I tried to fix it. The dark circles beneath my eyes had deepened, smudged like bruises.
I pressed my hand against the sink, steadying
myself.
I had a full day ahead.
Lectures. Labs. Studying.
Pretending I was okay.
I forced my limbs to move, forced myself to shower, forced myself into clean clothes.
It felt like dressing a corpse.
10:00 AM.
The lecture hall was freezing. My fingers were stiff around my pen, my handwriting messier than usual.
The professor spoke, words filling the space between us, but I only caught fragments.
Neurotransmitters. Synaptic transmission. Dopamine.
Dopamine. The "reward" chemical. The thing that was supposed to make people feel happy. Motivated. Alive.
I wondered what it felt like to have enough of it.
I wondered if I ever had.
1:30 PM.
Lunch was a granola bar and another cup of bitter coffee.
I ate while flipping through flashcards, my eyes scanning words without absorbing them. The cafeteria buzzed with noise-people talking, laughing, existing.
I sat alone.
Didn't mind it.
Didn't want it any other way.
7:00 PM.
Back in my dorm.
Books open. Notes scattered.
I was too tired to study. Too exhausted to function. But stopping wasn't an option.
So I kept going.
Even if it was killing me.
---
The air in my dorm was stale. The window was cracked open, but the night breeze did nothing to clear the heaviness that clung to the room. My desk was a mess of open textbooks, half-written notes, and empty coffee cups. The clock on the wall read 11:47 PM.
Another day wasted.
Or maybe not wasted. I had studied, technically. Read through countless pages, drilled myself on mnemonics, memorized things I was too exhausted to care about. But it all felt pointless. Like I was stuffing information into a brain that no longer wanted to hold it.
I leaned back in my chair, rubbing a hand down my face. My body ached. My eyes burned.
And then my phone rang.
I flinched. The sudden sound cut through the silence like a scalpel.
For a second, I just stared at the screen. The name flashing across it. The number I had been avoiding for weeks.
Father.
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
I considered letting it ring. Letting the call go unanswered like I had so many others.
But I knew better.
I picked up.
"Hello."
There was no warmth in my voice. No attempt to sound anything but what I was-tired.
"Kim Hyun-woo," my father's voice came, clipped and impersonal. "You've been ignoring my calls."
A statement. Not a question. Not concern.
I exhaled through my nose, pressing my fingers to my temple. "I've been busy."
A pause. Then, a scoff. "Too busy to answer your father?"
Too busy to sleep. Too busy to eat. Too busy to feel like a human being. But none of that mattered, did it?
"I'm studying," I said instead.
"Good," my father replied. "You should be."
That was it. That was all he cared about.
Not how I was. Not if I was eating, if I was sleeping, if I was falling apart under the weight of this endless cycle of exhaustion and expectation.
Just that I was studying. That I was still pushing forward, no matter how much it hurt. That I was still performing.
"That scholarship to Oxford wasn't given to you so you could slack off." said he.
I gritted my teeth. "I know."
"Then act like it."
I swallowed back the sharp, angry words that rose to my tongue. There was no point. He wasn't here to listen. He never was. "Is there anything else you needed?" I asked.
There was a brief pause before his voice returned, this time with a different edge.
"I wanted to remind you that, your cousin got into Oxford as well this year."
I blinked, grip tightening around the phone. Here it comes. "Okay?"
"He's doing well. Top of his class already."
I said nothing.
"You should reach out to him," he continued. "Maybe he can help you if you're struggling."
The words hit like a slap.
Struggling.
Not because med school was inherently grueling. Not because it was normal to feel like I was drowning under the workload.
But because if I was struggling, it meant I was weak. That I wasn't trying hard enough. That I was somehow less.
Because if I was struggling, it meant I was failing.
It meant I wasn't good enough.
I exhaled through my nose, my pulse a slow, simmering heat beneath my skin.
I could feel my pulse in my throat, a slow, simmering heat spreading through my chest.
"I don't need help," I said, voice tight.
"Then why haven't you been at the top?"
The words were sharp. Casual, but laced with quiet disappointment.
I felt my jaw lock. "It doesn't work like that."
"Of course it does," my father said, tone dismissive. "The best students rise to the top. The weak ones fall behind. That's how it's always been."
I clenched my free hand into a fist, nails digging into my palm.
I could hear the unspoken words underneath it all.
You're not at the top. So what does that make you?
I had nothing to say to that.
Nothing that would make a difference.
"I'm doing fine," I forced out.
"Fine isn't enough."
It never was.
Not when I was a child, bringing home grades that were "never quite good enough". Not when I was in high school, balancing perfect scores and sleepless nights just to keep up with the expectations that suffocated me.
And not now.
Not when I was here, at Oxford's medical school, working myself to the bone, barely holding myself together, drowning under the weight of everything-and still, it wasn't enough.
It would never be enough.
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing my voice to stay steady. "I have to go."
"Hyun-w-"
I hung up.
The silence after was suffocating.
I stared at my phone, at the screen that now read Call Ended. My hand was shaking. My heartbeat was in my ears, loud and uneven.
I swallowed hard, trying to push down the lump in my throat.
It didn't work.
I stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. The walls of my dorm felt too close, the air too thick, my thoughts too loud. I needed to move.
I shoved my phone onto the desk, grabbed my coat, and left.
12:15 AM.
The campus was nearly empty. Streetlights cast long shadows across the pavement, the wind biting against my skin as I walked without direction, hands shoved into my coat pockets.
I wasn't thinking.
I was feeling.
Angry.
Not the explosive kind of anger. Not the type that burned bright and fast and then flickered out.
This was something else.
Something deeper.
Something that had been simmering inside me for years, buried under layers of exhaustion and resignation.
My father's voice still echoed in my head.
"Fine isn't enough."
"The weak ones fall behind."
I gritted my teeth. My footsteps were sharp against the pavement. The cold air stung my skin.
I wasn't weak.
I wasn't.
Then why did I feel like I was breaking?
I don't know how long I walked.
By the time I stopped, my hands were numb from the cold, my breath visible in the night air. The campus buildings loomed around me, dark and silent.
I pressed my back against a stone wall, tilting my head up toward the sky.
The stars were faint, barely visible through the city's glow.
For a second, I let myself imagine another life.
One where I wasn't here. Where I wasn't trapped in this endless cycle of expectations and failure and exhaustion.
Where I wasn't Kim Hyun-woo, a future doctor, but just a person.
A person who could breathe.
A person who was allowed to be enough.
I closed my eyes.
But when I opened them, I was still here.
Still me.
And I still had to keep going.
Because stopping was never an option.
---
1:03 AM.
The cafeteria was almost empty.
Dim yellow lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows on the cracked tiles. The vending machines hummed in the corner, their glass reflecting the pale glow of the overhead bulbs. The air smelled of burnt coffee and something stale-bread, maybe, or the lingering scent of overcooked pasta from earlier in the night.
I sat at the farthest table, my textbook open but untouched.
I had walked around campus for hours after the call. My legs ached from the cold, my fingers still stiff from the bite of the wind. But I hadn't wanted to return to my dorm.
The walls there felt too tight, like they were closing in on me.
So I ended up here.
One of the few places on campus that didn't expect anything from me.
My coffee had gone cold. I wrapped my hands around the cup anyway, feeling the ghost of warmth against my skin.
My brain was fried.
I should've gone to bed. I should've at least tried.
But I knew how that would end.
Me, lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling, too tired to move but too awake to sleep.
So I stayed here, drowning in medical notes and caffeine, pretending that this-this exhaustion, this emptiness-was normal.
Maybe it was.
Maybe this was what becoming a doctor meant.
The door creaked open.
I didn't look up. People came and went, even at this hour-other students desperate for caffeine, security guards making their rounds, janitors dragging mop buckets across the floor.
But then I heard it.
A quiet sigh.
Not just tired-bone-deep exhaustion. The kind that settled into your body and made a home there.
I glanced up.
She stood near the counter, her posture slouched but not sloppy, her fingers curled loosely around a cup of coffee. The dim light overhead cast shadows under her eyes, dark and heavy, as if she hadn't slept in days.
She probably hadn't.
Her hair was tied back in a loose bun, but a few strands had escaped, falling messily against her cheek. She looked exactly like how I felt-worn out, drained, barely functioning.
Another ghost wandering through the campus at ungodly hours.
Her gaze flickered across the room, scanning the empty seats.
Then, as if coming to the same conclusion I had earlier-that there was nowhere else to be but here-she walked to a table near mine and sat down.
She didn't greet me.
I didn't greet her.
Neither of us expected conversation.
Neither of us wanted it.
The only sound between us was the quiet scratch of a pen against paper, the occasional rustle of notes being flipped through.
Two strangers, drowning in the same exhaustion, sharing the same silence.
And somehow, for the first time that night, I didn't feel completely alone.
We didn't acknowledge each other. Not yet.
She was just another med student, lost in her own world of stress and sleepless nights. And I was just another body in this cold, dimly lit cafeteria.
We didn't share names.
Didn't even make eye contact.
But we sat there, side by side, separated by two tables and a hundred unspoken thoughts, flipping through pages that blurred together.
And for some reason, that was enough.
For now.
---
The cafeteria remained still, save for the occasional hum of the vending machines and the distant clatter of someone washing dishes in the kitchen. The fluorescent lights buzzed softly, flickering every few minutes like they were on the verge of giving up.
The girl hadn't moved much.
Neither had I.
I was still pretending to study, eyes skimming over the same paragraph for the fifth time without actually absorbing anything. My highlighter rested between my fingers, uncapped, but I hadn't marked a single word.
The exhaustion wasn't just in my bones anymore-it was in my head, in my skin, in the very air I breathed.
The aftershock of my father's voice still lingered. "Fine isn't enough. The weak ones fall behind."
I tightened my grip on the pen until my knuckles turned white.
Across from me, she let out a slow breath, shifting slightly in her chair. The sound broke through my thoughts, grounding me back in reality.
I glanced up.
Her hair had slipped from the loose bun at the back of her head, stray strands falling over her cheek as she scribbled something in her notes. The bags under her eyes looked worse up close-deep, smudged shadows that made her look like she hadn't slept in days.
I wasn't sure why I was paying attention.
Maybe because she was the only other person here, and my brain needed something, anything, to latch onto other than my own spiraling thoughts.
Or maybe because she looked just as wrecked as I felt.
I exhaled and looked away.
Minutes passed. Maybe an hour.
Neither of us spoke.
It wasn't uncomfortable. Just... there.
The kind of silence that settled between people who didn't have the energy to break it.
Every now and then, I'd hear the soft scratch of her pen, the quiet tap of her fingers against her cup, the shifting of paper as she flipped to a new page.
Little, meaningless sounds.
But they were better than the ones in my head.
Better than my father's voice, better than the suffocating weight of expectations pressing against my skull.
I took a sip of my coffee, grimacing when the bitter, cold liquid hit my tongue.
Disgusting.
I didn't know why I kept drinking it.
I set the cup down with a soft thud.
Her pen stopped moving.
For a second, I thought she was going to say something.
But she didn't.
She just went back to writing, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath.
I hesitated, watching her for a beat longer than I should have.
Then I turned back to my notes, forcing my eyes to focus.
The silence stretched on.
And somehow, I was okay with it.
---
The cafeteria was long behind me. The girl, too.
We hadn't spoken. Not even a glance exchanged. Just two exhausted bodies in the same space, drowning under the same weight.
That night had blurred into the next morning, and then the next.
Now, I was back in the same cycle.
Wake up. Drag myself through classes. Study until my brain was nothing but static. Sleep-if I could even call it that. Repeat.
The days melted together, an endless, suffocating loop.
And somewhere in between, I saw my cousin, Baek Hanuel.
I hadn't spoken to him since he arrived at Oxford.
I didn't go out of my way to see him, and he didn't go out of his way to find me. Maybe that was for the best.
But today, I ran into him by accident, after a grueling anatomy lecture.
The hallway was crowded with students shuffling out, some talking in hushed voices, others dragging themselves toward their next class. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, adding to the dull ache behind my eyes.
And then I saw him. He looked fine.
Better than fine, actually. He had that effortless ease, that natural confidence that made people like him.
It pissed me off.
He wasn't suffering the way I was.
He wasn't drowning.
He stood near the lockers, leaning casually against the wall as he spoke to another classmate. His posture was relaxed, his expression easy, like he belonged here. Like this wasn't killing him the way it was killing me.
Or maybe he was just better at hiding it.
For a brief second, I considered walking past him.
But his gaze flickered up, landing on me.
There was a split second of recognition before he nodded.
"Hyung."
His voice was polite, neutral. Just a simple greeting, nothing more.
I stopped.
It wasn't like I had anywhere urgent to be. My next class wasn't for another twenty minutes, and I had no energy to pretend I didn't see him.
He gave me a once-over.
"You look tired," he commented.
Yeah, no shit.
I let out a low, humorless breath. "That's what happens in here."
His lips twitched-almost a smirk, almost not. "Yeah, but you look worse than usual."
I didn't respond.
Because he was right.
I could feel it-the exhaustion crawling under my skin, the weight of my father's voice still pressing against my skull. I hadn't really slept since that call.
Not that it mattered.
I shifted my bag higher on my shoulder. "How's your first year?"
A simple question. One that I already knew the answer to.
"Not bad," he said. "Busy, obviously, but nothing unexpected."
Nothing unexpected.
Of course.
He was always like this. The kind of person who made everything seem effortless, even if it wasn't. The kind who could blend in, adapt, figure things out faster than most.
Unlike me.
Unlike whatever the hell I had become.
I glanced at the classmate he had been talking to-a girl, first-year, from what I could tell. She was watching us with mild interest, her textbook clutched to her chest.
I didn't know her name. Didn't care to.
My cousin must've sensed the shift in my expression because he let out a small chuckle. "You don't change, do you?"
I frowned. "What?"
He shook his head. "Never mind." Then, after a beat, "You don't have to avoid me, you know. We're family."
Something bitter curled in my chest.
Family.
Sure.
The same family that measured our worth by achievements. The same family that only called when they wanted to check if I was still living up to expectations.
I forced a smile that didn't reach my eyes. "I'm not avoiding you."
He didn't argue. Just hummed, like he didn't quite believe me but wasn't going to push it.
His classmate glanced between us before clearing her throat. "We should get going," she murmured.
My cousin gave me a parting nod. "Take care, hyung."
I didn't say it back.
I just watched him leave, his easy confidence standing in sharp contrast to the exhaustion weighing me down.
He looked like he belonged here.
Like this wasn't slowly eating him alive.
I turned away before the bitterness settled too deep.
Another day.
Another battle.
And I was already losing.