Chapter 032: What Must Be Done (1)
The firefighters each wished Hee-soo a quick recovery before leaving the room.
The moment everyone had gone, Min-jeong entered.
"Oppa!"
She couldn't say anything more.
The moment she stepped through the door, she stopped there and began crying.
"I'm fine. Why are you crying so much?"
Other than her grandparents, Min-jeong had never seen someone close to her lying in a hospital.
Seeing Hee-soo lying weak and pale in a hospital bed seemed to overwhelm her emotions.
"Come here. Sit down."
Even after he said that, she couldn't easily move.
She stood there crying without even being able to look directly at Hee-soo.
The door carefully opened.
Jae-sik entered.
"Can I come in?"
"Yes. Senior Jae-sik. Come in."
Jae-sik carefully moved around Min-jeong and approached Hee-soo.
"Min-ah was really worried about you. She's too busy to come, so she asked me to pass along her regards. I forgot to tell you earlier."
"Please tell her thank you. Tell her I'm fine and she doesn't need to worry too much."
"Got it. Then I'm leaving."
Min-jeong had already come closer.
When Jae-sik turned around and suddenly found Min-jeong standing right there, he flinched in surprise.
He quickly moved around her and left.
After confirming that Jae-sik had gone, Min-jeong came beside Hee-soo and asked in a tearful voice,
"Who's Min-ah?"
"Min-ah? Ah. She's a paramedic at the fire station. We work together."
"What kind of relationship do you have?"
"We're coworkers."
"Does she like you?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you wouldn't. Someone as dense as you would never notice something like that."
Only then did Min-jeong look slightly relieved.
But her expression soon twisted again as she sat beside him.
"Oppa. Are you really going to keep doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Do you know how worried I was?"
"I'm sorry for worrying you."
Min-jeong's voice grew louder.
"Even after this, you still have to keep doing that job?"
"Can't you just quit?"
Hee-soo didn't want to continue a conversation that would never go anywhere.
He spoke with a tired expression.
"Min-jeong. I'm sorry, but I haven't fully recovered yet..."
At that moment, something seemed to snap inside Min-jeong's expression.
She stood without hesitation.
"Fine. Rest."
She walked out with an icy air around her.
Hee-soo let out a long sigh.
"Haah. How am I supposed to explain it to her?"
Hee-soo truly felt exhausted and lay back on the bed.
President Yoon and Chief Jang came back inside.
"Hee-soo. Min-jeong's expression looked terrible."
"Ah. I told her I was tired and wanted to rest."
"She didn't say anything else?"
"Just what she always says."
President Yoon quietly studied Hee-soo's face before smiling.
"Min-jeong worries about you a lot. You should understand her feelings too. While you were lying here, she came every day and cried while taking care of you."
"I think... I'm too selfish for that."
President Yoon smiled.
"You're just not ready yet. But don't take too long to become ready. No one knows whether Min-jeong will still be waiting in the same place when you finally are."
Hee-soo silently listened.
The media published stories about Hee-soo's heroics every day.
For five straight days, every major outlet had featured images of Hee-soo descending on the zip line and the burning building collapsing behind him.
The person most shocked by it was Yoon-hee, who had been there herself.
She still couldn't forget the final five firefighters descending the zip line.
Especially when Hee-soo came down and the building collapsed, making the zip line go slack.
She had screamed.
Of course, Yoon-hee had also been the first reporter to break the story.
Samhan Ilbo's channel had not only livestreamed the scene, it had also obtained the rescue team's bodycam footage and uploaded it exclusively to its own YouTube channel.
The media continued publishing major stories about the incident, especially the poor management of the disabled workers' facility and the fact that without the firefighters' actions, it could have become a massive disaster.
There was also heated debate over why the building had collapsed.
People also raised questions about the fact that three firefighters had been injured.
However, the fact that nobody had known ten disabled workers were still on the fifth floor had not been revealed.
The biggest reason the incident became such a major story, despite nobody dying, was Hee-soo's injury.
The footage of two firefighters practically using their bodies to catch the falling Hee-soo and save him was still circulating as Shorts, gathering endless views and comments.
Instead of visiting Hee-soo, Yoon-hee went to see Senior Firefighter Kim In-gyu, who had suffered the most serious injuries.
Of course, Yoon-hee also wanted to visit Hee-soo.
But every media outlet was focused on him, so she felt uncomfortable going there herself.
She greeted Senior Firefighter Kim, who was lying in bed with casts covering much of his body.
"Senior Firefighter Kim, how are you feeling?"
"Ah, I'm dying. By the way, were you okay that day? I didn't even have time to worry about you."
"Worry about yourself. I was standing somewhere safe taking videos."
"Still, thank you for putting out the footage."
"Why are you thanking me for that?"
"I'm grateful people are paying attention. Things seem pretty noisy these days."
"Of course they are. Firefighter Choi got hurt."
"True. If people like us get hurt, it doesn't even become news. Maybe we'd need to die first."
"Don't say something like that. Die? Don't even mention it."
Fortunately, Suseong had decided to cover all of Senior Firefighter Kim's hospital expenses until he fully recovered.
"I heard Suseong Group, the Suseong Medical Foundation, and Suseong's legal team are handling all your hospital expenses and the administrative procedures?"
"Ah. I heard. Working with someone powerful is pretty nice at times like this. Hahaha."
Despite his injuries, he was smiling brightly.
"I want to investigate this case properly and write an article about it. Is that okay?"
"Hahaha. So Reporter Jo came to ask my permission for an article. Ah! Ow."
The moment he laughed, his broken ribs seemed to hurt.
He immediately stopped laughing.
"Don't laugh. You'll hurt yourself. Anyway, that's only something I mentioned since I'm here. I came because I wanted to see if you were okay."
"It's fine. I'm still young. I'll recover."
"All right. Rest. I'll get going. I'll see you again after you're discharged."
"You're planning to stay that long? They said it'll take around six months."
"I'll come back to interview you then."
"That sounds good."
"Okay. Get some rest."
She also reported that Suseong Group's massive team of lawyers, jokingly called "Suseong Law Firm," would handle Senior Firefighter Kim's recognition as an injury suffered in the line of duty.
Public opinion toward Suseong continued improving.
Photographer Jang asked Yoon-hee,
"Is it okay for us to keep writing articles that help Suseong this much?"
"We're only reporting facts. If the facts make them look good, doesn't that just mean that's the truth?"
"That's true. It's not like we're reporting things in a one-sided way."
Photographer Jang studied Yoon-hee's expression.
"What? Things aren't going the way you expected? Do you still think there's something suspicious?"
"No. I heard from the doctors that Firefighter Choi was in a coma for three days. And you heard everyone there too. They all keep saying that everyone on that roof survived because of Firefighter Choi."
"Ah. So you're worried about him?"
"What good does my worrying do? Besides, Suseong Hospital's best medical staff are taking care of him. What could happen?"
"Right. That's the important part. But are we going to keep investigating him?"
Yoon-hee's expression darkened slightly.
"That's the problem. I thought there would be some dark secret, but it doesn't look like there is one at all."
"Exactly. From what I can see, he really does seem to be working as a firefighter for a sincere reason."
"That's what I mean. My original direction for this investigation was pretty wrong."
"So what do we do? End it here?"
Yoon-hee shook her head.
"The story isn't finished yet. Even if we stop, we should stop after completing the story."
"What story?"
"I don't know yet. I still don't know what the ending of that story will be."
"This isn't going to turn into a song of praise for him, right?"
Yoon-hee smiled.
"Of course not. I'm still a reporter."
Hee-soo returned to work on the sixth day.
The rescue team, paramedics, and suppression teams all welcomed him.
What Hee-soo had done wasn't simply rescue the victims.
If they had failed to rescue those people, other suppression teams would have been forced to enter the building no matter how dangerous it was.
Dobong Rescue Team had only succeeded because they were wearing equipment on a completely different level.
If rescue teams wearing ordinary equipment had entered, there was no doubt that the environment would have been impossible for them to endure.
There would inevitably have been casualties.
Even with the newest equipment deployed against the burning metal powder, suppression had been extremely difficult.
There was no doubt it would have taken a very long time to control the fire.
The building collapsed much earlier than expected.
Within a short time, around fifty fire vehicles had been mobilized from Gangbuk, Dobong, Nowon, Seongbuk, Uijeongbu, Pocheon, and Yangju.
Three rescue teams alone had responded.
Four chemical fire trucks poured extinguishing agents onto the building.
Even then, they failed to put out the fire.
In the end, they had to wait for the building to collapse and burn itself out.
If other teams had entered the building, it could have become a massive disaster.
Thanks to Yoon-hee's reporting, the actions of Dobong Fire Station's rescue team became widely known.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety decided to recommend them for a Prime Minister's Commendation.
Someone from the public relations team came downstairs looking for Hee-soo.
"Firefighter Choi. The chief wants to see you."
"Me?"
He wasn't pleased.
What is he going to complain about this time?
Still, Hee-soo believed that as long as he belonged to an organization, it was better not to openly defy the hierarchy.
So he went to the chief's office without complaint.
Unexpectedly, the chief greeted him with a smile.
"Firefighter Choi. Come in. Sit here."
"Yes."
He sat on the sofa.
Soon, the door opened and coffee was brought in.
The chief offered Hee-soo a cup.
"It probably doesn't taste as good as what you normally drink, but think of it as something to wet your lips."
"Yes."
Hee-soo lifted the cup and smelled it.
The coffee was clearly something the chief had put some thought into.
"It smells good."
"Really? There's a coffee shop I visit often. I had them bring it from there."
"Thank you."
Hee-soo took a sip and put the cup down.
The chief leaned toward him.
"How did you know there were victims on the fifth floor?"
It was an unexpected question.
Why is he suddenly curious about that?
Hee-soo answered without showing any surprise.
"We found them while searching the floor."
The chief shook his head.
"Then let me ask again. Why didn't you search the sixth and seventh floors?"
"Because we needed to survive too. There wasn't enough time to search. We assumed another team would come and handle it. There were ten victims on the fifth floor. We didn't have time to worry about other floors."
The chief stared sharply at Hee-soo.
"Listening to the radio traffic from the command room, it sounded as though you were directing everything. That includes skipping the first, second, and third floors and concentrating on the fourth and fifth."
