Chapter 42 – Online Star (1)

9 PM, a house somewhere in Gimpo.

Kim Soo-han who was starting his 7th year as an online streamer opened the door to an area decorated with soundproof booths and turned on the lights.

Equipment for transmission and computer games were revealed inside the room covered with thick sound-proofing material.

Turning on the computer and sitting down, he shook his hair which was still wet from his shower.

“I’m late, late.”

The system finished booting up a minute after being turned on.

The background of the game computer, chat window, and a camera screen featuring a boy next door were all gathered together and were transmitted through a broadcast platform called “Twitch.”

[Live ON AIR]

[Sukan’s Game World]

“Hello, everyone. Monday, November 19. I will start the broadcast now. Thank you for watching and welcome.”

Even before he finished his words, the comments of viewers who were connected to the chat window quickly poured onto the screen.

「Which game will you play today?」

「Late 5 minutes!」

「Sukan-hyun!!! I couldn’t watch your live stream yesterday so I went to watch the recap before coming over^^」

With several comments being pushed up on the screen in an instant, he saw a comment that could portray his experience as a streamer of 7 years.

「Hyung, your face looks a bit rounder these days. Aren’t you on a diet?」

“Grind what? Don’t use slang. It doesn’t sound good. And me, it’s because I didn’t put anything on my face. I don’t have a girlfriend so I have no reason to go out.”

「The man married to live streaming, Kim Sukan!」

“That’s right. I don’t have anything other than live streaming and you guys. But if I suck in my stomach like this, I also look ……..”

When he folded his arms and looked in the distance in an old-fashioned pose, the chat window was filled with “haha”.

「Hahahahaha. No, hahahahah this hyung did gain a bit of weight.」

「This person was the Jang Dong-gun of Gimpo once upon a time!」

[T/N: Jang Dong-gun is a famous actor in Korea.]

He encouraged commenting in order to lead to a pleasant atmosphere, but another related chat came up.

「If you don’t like slang, I’ll give you a gentle review. Your face seems like it’s having diarrhea.」

「diarrhea hahahahaha」

「Me too! Each of your facial features is strongly asserting themselves!」

「Your features are moving freely here and there to match the era of globalization^^」

“These punks are sticking whatever they want to my face. Just do it once, don’t hurt your brains.”

The chat window was filled with laughter.

Kim Suhan shook his clenched fist to get a reaction and increased the audience’s laughter.

Maybe because of the laughter at the beginning of the broadcast, the number of viewers increased suddenly. Almost 10,000. He became energetic at the idea that today’s broadcast would be popular again.

“The game we will play today is the one we talked about on Saturday, Battleland Practice.”

A popular game where 100 gamers were dropped on a virtual battlefield and fought until only one was left.

Although 3D shooting games made him nauseous, Kim Suhan could not give up on this competition.

The prize was one thing, viewers would also gather in droves. There wasn’t an opportunity to increase his popularity like this.

“Ok, let’s start the first round!”

Inside the monitor, Kim Suhan’s naked character ‘Sukan’ landed on the Battleland with a parachute.

Entering a brick house, he put on the clothes on the floor and picked up the pistol. As he was going to the next house, he met someone.

“What is that!”

Tangtang一!

[Sukan has died under Peeyu88’s fists.]

Even though he shot his pistol, his character fell under the attack of the other’s fists. Current rank 100. He became the last in a game where it was hard to fall to the bottom.

「Hahahahahahahahaha!! Such great skill!」

「Hyung. Can I say a few swear words?」

“No!”

Kim Suhan quickly explained that it was a misjudgment and started the matching for the next round.

This time, he killed one person and was killed by a player who came over after hearing that noise. There were fights in other areas so his current rank was 91.

“Arrrrgghhhh!”

「It’s alright, hyung. You were ranked top 1 in the biggest voice category. I saw it.」

「Awesome scream hahaha」

In the third game, he defended himself throughout the game while moving around the outskirts and died because he failed to arrive at the safe zone within the time limit.

「Solitary death? Dam hahaha this is why hyung is so fun to watch.」

“Don’t laugh. I’m gonna kick you out if you laugh from now on. I’ll ban you if you laugh!”

「Ha??ㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜ」

「Hyung! I died while I was laughingㅜㅠ」

The chat window was starting to be covered with tears.

This job where the content of the broadcast came from the stories from the moments of commotion, criticism and cheers for his gameplay.

Others might think he was a jobless shut-in who slept during the day and was up at night, but Kim Suhan enjoyed his life.

He banged on his keyboard and blamed the equipment. He poured out his anger.

Some viewers had fun. Others felt sorry for him.

It was around the climax of the broadcast.

The ninth match.

Expecting to rise through the ranks with quite a few kills, the viewers held their breath this time.

Kim Suhan, who was carefully moving his character in the bushes, tried to pull the trigger with his mouse as soon as the enemy appeared.

“Huh?”

But his finger stopped still without shooting a single bullet. The character on the screen died under the enemy’s bullets while looking puzzled.

“……Argh. Suddenly my arm.”

「Is it your arm’s fault this time? Where did you buy that arm?」

“That’s weird. It feels like it’s cramping…….”

Kim Suhan, whose body became rigid, banged his head on the keyboard without finishing his words.

The conversation continued without rest in the chat window.

「Look at him put on a show at his embarrassmentㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ」

「No, it re-re a l ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ!!」

「This hyung, his immersive acting is the best among the streamers, the best.」

「You watched everyone on YouTube?」

But as Kim Suhan didn’t show any changes, the atmosphere in the chat started to change.

「Did he really faint?」

「No way…….」

「????????」

「Someone call 119!!」

* * *

10 AM, Chief Ha Sang Joong’s office.

Dowook, who was carefully looking at the A4 papers spread on the sofa table, picked them out.

“How about here?”

Chief Ha snorted when he received a paper printed with photos and information about Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA.

“You’re saying you want to go to Johns Hopkins for your staff training”.

“There’s no reason why I can’t.”

“There’s plenty of reasons you can’t. If you apply under the name of the hospital, one of the top 3 hospitals in the US will accept you no problem.”

“They say this hospital isn’t one of the top 3 anymore.”

“Even if it’s one of the top 40, brat!”

After yelling, Chief Ha pushed the documents containing prominent US hospitals such as MD Anderson, Memorial Sloan, and Mayo Clinic with one hand. And he took an old book from the bookshelf and threw it onto the table.

“The only option you can choose is this.”

It was a pamphlet about a hospital located in a small city in the central United States.

“This is the hospital we have a sisterhood with. Colorado Springs.”

Dowook, who’d been rummaging through the pamphlet, frowned.

“Not even 10,000 patients come through in a year. How many among them would come for neurosurgery?”

“What about it? You’re just going for a month of training and you’re acting as if you’re going on an exchange program. You just have to take a quick look at the American surgeon culture.”

“So you’re telling me to go on a tour for a month? Rather than that, it’s better to stay here and receive more patients.”

Chief Ha snatched the pamphlet away and spoke as if he was in a foul mood.

“If you want to.”

“Ok, I’ll do it that way.”

The list of places for his training which he had put a lot of thought into since dawn, got scattered on the floor. Dowook, who’d been watching it, stood up.

“I’m leaving. You don’t need me for anything else, right?”

“I don’t!”

Chief Ha, who’d shouted proudly, hurriedly lowered the finger he’d raised toward the ceiling as he remembered a patient he wanted to send to the aces of neurosurgery in Myeong Sae Hospital.

“There isn’t, but Dr. Park. By the way.”

“Why is your voice so kind suddenly?”

“A case came in. It’s a cerebral aneurysm.”

“Is it ruptured?”

“No, unruptured.”

Dowook turned his back without a care.

“You know Prof. Choi doesn’t even look at simple surgeries.”

“You brat. This isn’t a trifling case. And you can squeeze it in the period you are performing the surgery. You said Choi Hoo doesn’t care about that?”

Seeing that he begged this much, it was clear this patient was someone he was acquainted with. Sensing a weakness, Dowook grabbed it right away.

“John Hopkins.”

“Even if you want to go there, it isn’t logically possible to go there.”

“You have a lot of connections in the medical association. Your student wants to look at some advanced surgical culture, but you can’t even use them?”

“Whew…….”

After a moment of struggle, Chief Ha nodded his head.

“I’ll look into it. Even if it’s not John Hopkins, at least at that level. In return…….”

“In return?”

“10 patients that I request from now on. You’ll go in for surgery without asking or complaining about it.”

“What, it’s fine if it’s 3.”

“3, don’t you have a conscience…… 7.”

“5.”

“Damn. 5. In return, you can’t say no.”

The small dispute between teacher and student who knew each other for around 10 years reached a dramatic agreement.

“What kind of case is it?”

When Dowook asked, Chief Ha beckoned him over to the computer. Subsequently, a digital patient chart was opened.

“The patient was taken to the emergency room at Gimpo General Hospital last night. Their neurosurgeon transferred the patient to our hospital. I confirmed the transfer this morning.”

“If it’s Gimpo, we’re talking about the place of your junior, right?”

“Yeah. You’ll be shocked when you hear who this patient is.”

“The name’s written right here. Kim Suhan. Age is 32. He is a year younger than me.”

After thinking about it for a moment, Dowook asked.

“Who is Kim Suhan?”

“How can someone so young not know who Sukan is?”

“Sukan?”

Click. Chief Ha clicked his mouse to open Youtube and several videos came up in the search.

Among them, he clicked the one introduced as ‘Game Broadcast Full of Tension, Sukan TV.’

“He’s the most entertaining Live Streamer these days. He’s really entertaining while playing games. He’s hilarious.”

“You like games, chief?”

“Not playing, just watching. My daughter was watching, so I watched beside her once or twice during the weekend…. Oh. This wasn’t what I wanted to say. He’s a celebrity so take care of him properly. Give him a thorough examination. You know that the scariest type of fans are netizens, right?”

Dowook walked out of the manager’s office after printing out the chart and moved to the two-person ward area on the 11th floor.

A two-person ward was more expensive than a six-person or four-person room, so it was a place where those with a bit of money were hospitalized.

Dowook who’d been thinking, ‘How much could streaming on the Internet earn?’ when his stereotypical thinking was broken by the sound of Chief Ha’s yelling from earlier.

-He earns 5 times more than you, you punk. The number of starbursts in a day. Ah, these are donations. Anyway, do you know how much that is?

“What does it matter?.”

If a coil embolization was required, embolization with a microscope would be required and doing the surgery himself was sufficient.

Looking at the CT scan taken in the emergency room yesterday, it seemed to be a normal cerebrovascular problem. The chief must have pushed the case to him because the patient was famous at the request of an acquaintance.

Patient care that other staff could not imagine when they cooperated with Prof. Choi.

Whether this was something he should benefit from or be careful of, Dowook hadn’t decided yet.

‘I’ll try it once. And if Prof. Choi says something, I just won’t do it.’

While waiting for the elevator, he opened the video app on his phone. After searching for the channel Chief Ha watched a while ago, he saw the latest video.

The number of views was over 100,000. It was comparable to the bus driver’s video.

‘Huh?’

The title was sensational enough that he couldn’t help but click it.

[Sukan-hyung died while gaming!?]

It was the live stream video from yesterday. Clicking on it, it showed edited footage of how Sukan played normally and suddenly dropped his head on the desk.

‘Are you telling me he uploaded a video of him having a cerebral hemorrhage and sold it?’

He seemed to be a patient who was not ashamed of being made fun of at all.

Dowook paused as he was clicking his tongue at the people immersed in the peripheral fun on the broadcast.

“Did his arm get paralyzed?”

It was not a symptom mentioned in the chart. The fainting was diagnosed to be a part of the aneurysm.

He re-watched the video several times. Then, he discovered the patient’s eyelids shaking like a seizure.

“Hmmm…….”

Usually, a doctor couldn’t see what the patient looked like before they lost consciousness. But because of this patient’s job, a very clear high-quality video of it could be seen.

‘Vascular stenosis. Cerebral infarction. The possibility of an extensive aneurysm cannot be ruled out.’

If his arm truly was paralyzed, this was not a simple patient.

Dowook quickly moved to the 11th floor.

Knock knock.

The moment he knocked and entered RM 1103, Dowook became bewildered.

-It’s true. The moment I woke up after passing out, the emergency center doctor said, ‘it’s because there’s bleeding in your head. It’s best to have a thorough physical exam at a big hospital.’

The patient, Kim Suhan, was in the midst of broadcasting with a small camera connected to his phone.

“Um…… sir?”

As he approached the patient and called out, a man in his early thirties with a warm look turned his head.

“As soon as I said it, a doctor from a big hospital is here, everyone!”

Dowook and Kim Suhan. A high-tension voice rang inside the hospital room with only two people.