Now, the three of them were ride-or-die brothers, and they promised they would back him up.
The next morning, as soon as he sobered up and opened his eyes, Dong-gu found his future mother-in-law staring at him with a very deep look in her eyes. He was so scared he jumped out of bed immediately.
And just as expected, his worst fear came true. Ha-neul was incredibly angry.
He totally thought the younger brother and the uncle would speak up for him, but it turned out he had been far too naive. The uncle washed his hands of the whole thing, saying it was Dong-gu's own fault for demanding to drink, so who could have stopped him, and then quickly changed the subject by handing Dong-gu's cash envelope over to his niece.
As for the younger brother, he quickly grabbed a handful of seaweed rice balls and stuffed Dong-gu's mouth full so that he couldn't even explain himself.
The smooth teamwork of those two made Dong-gu feel deeply betrayed. So he decided to drop the whole brotherly loyalty thing, spilling all the beans about how he had been kidnapped by the two of them yesterday and forced to drink alcohol. He also exposed them for promising to back him up and then, the moment they turned around, selling him out without any mercy.
Right as he finished speaking, Ha-neul immediately steered the car into a sharp U-turn. Dong-gu panicked, totally convinced she was going home to settle the score with her relatives. If so, his future life as a son-in-law would be completely over.
Who knew Ha-neul just wanted to find a shortcut to get to work faster? She told him to stop using other people as an excuse. At the end of the day, it was because he couldn't control himself that he drank so much.
Looking at her deep eyes, but hearing her cold words, Dong-gu couldn't help but blurt out, "How can you look so cute even when you're scolding me?" which made Ha-neul blush out of embarrassment.
Through their chat, Dong-gu found out that Ha-neul had never gotten to go on a field trip during her school days. So he came up with an idea to give her a very special gift.
The next day, Ha-neul carried a stack of packages into the office. When he found out they were gifts she had put a lot of effort into preparing for him, Dong-gu was thrilled, hurriedly opening the first box like he was doing a blind box unboxing.
But the first gift felt a bit off. It was an academic book on orthopedics. Ha-neul bragged that she had to work extremely hard to hunt it down at the flea market. Dong-gu forced a smile and said he loved it, then nervously opened the second box, because she said he would like this one even more.
As soon as he opened it, the smile on his face froze.
Later that day, Dong-gu was wearing a supremely goofy dog-head surgical cap, making everyone in the operating room unable to hold back their laughter. It turned out this was Ha-neul's second gift. She even demanded that after reading that book, he had to write her a reflection paper.
Dong-gu couldn't take it anymore and asked her straight up, "Are you using gifts as an excuse to get revenge on me?"
Seeing Ha-neul about to pout and take the gifts back, he quickly changed his tone and said he was only joking.
Actually, Ha-neul felt a bit disappointed to see that his gifts to her were just a teddy bear and some hotteok. But Dong-gu had secretly prepared a much bigger gift: a field trip, to make up for the one she never had as a child.
He took her to pick out new clothes, but because the outfits were a bit too revealing, Ha-neul kept feeling shy.
The next morning, before heading out, Ha-neul saw Dong-gu busy making seaweed rice rolls at home himself. She told him to just buy them from a shop to save time, but he brushed her off right away, because these were love rice rolls made by his own two hands. He even fed her a bite to try, making Ha-neul praise him non-stop, which gave him the chance to stick his nose in the air with pride.
The two of them wore their new clothes and hopped on the tour bus. To make the trip feel real, Dong-gu told her to pretend the passengers on the bus were her classmates. Ha-neul got into character extremely fast. When he pointed at a group of high schoolers nearby and called them their classmates, she worriedly said that acting like that made her feel guilty, because the kids were so young.
He quickly comforted her. "It's fine. We both have baby faces anyway."
And so the girl who had just been complaining about feeling guilty was now wearing a rented school uniform alongside Dong-gu, happily taking check-in photos all over the tourist spots.
Right after setting up the tent, Ha-neul's stomach started growling non-stop. She demanded to grill meat right away, but Dong-gu said the food was on the way. Right at that moment, her best friend Hong-ran and Dr. Dae-young showed up with bags of food.
Dong-gu explained that going on a field trip had to be with friends to be any fun. The only thing he didn't get was why his best friend Dae-young was hanging out with his girlfriend's best friend. Those two frantically explained themselves, exposing the fact that lately they had been secretly seeing each other to help out with their kids. Even though Hong-ran insisted it was just a supportive relationship, Ha-neul still gave them a don't-even-try-to-fool-me look.
During the barbecue, Ha-neul got curious about the two men's friendship. Through Dae-young's stories, their past slowly unfolded.
It turned out Dae-young had failed the national exam multiple times, until he met Dong-gu. Thanks to his help and encouragement, Dae-young finally passed and became a doctor. To Dae-young, Dong-gu was like a little brother, a friend, and even like a big brother. Even during his internship, Dong-gu was always there to encourage him through his toughest times.
But life took a twisted turn. Actually, the two men's relationship wasn't always peaches and cream.
The story was that back then, the hospital needed to send a resident doctor to volunteer way out in Africa. No one wanted to take this grueling job, because if the professor assigned it, that spot would definitely land on Dae-young. At that time, Dae-young hadn't been married for long. So Dong-gu planned to sacrifice himself and go in his friend's place.
However, Dae-young unexpectedly volunteered to go, saying he didn't want to miss the chance to train himself.
Dong-gu was deeply touched, and just as he patted his shoulder to praise him, bad luck struck. Dae-young stepped on a plastic bag, lost his balance, and rolled straight from the second floor down to the first, injuring his arm and losing his spot to go to Africa.
Dong-gu had to go instead, and thanks to that exact trip, his career took off like a kite catching the wind, turning him into the most sought-after star doctor in South Korea.