Doctor Han Soyeon stared at the young man as he stretched his back and groaned.

The doctor struggled to conceal her admiration and irritation for Kim Jung Hee as he completed the task she had been struggling with for the previous 20 minutes in less than two minutes.

Soyeon had always prided herself on being a part of the working class, despite achieving the highest regional position in the People Party at the age of 30. In her youth, she worked double or even triple jobs just to provide for her family. And she is always proud of that. No matter what heights she reaches now, she is always the young peasant girl who is used to manual labor.

Sooyeon has no problem getting her hands dirty.

That is why, when his government-issued Zunma vehicle got a flat tire in the middle of Guanzu town, she didn’t need to call anyone to replace the tire. Of course, Soyeon has never replaced a tire in a car before in her life, but how hard can it be?

She believes she can do it herself, and that is all that matters.

The changing process for tire replacement is simple enough, provided that she has all the necessary tools, which she did. Soyeon simply needed to unscrew the bolts in the wheels, lift the car with a jack, replace the tires with a new one, reattach the bolts again, then lower the vehicle so that you can finally tighten the screw in the bolt. And then you're done.

Dr. Han was able to unscrew the bolts from the flat tire. Pump the jack until it raises the vehicle, and then she was successful in taking off the damaged tire. She was in the process of reattaching the new tire when she started having problems.

At 32, Soyeon is still a physically fit woman, but for some reason she is not able to lift the tire, sync it with the bolt hole opening, and then use the wrench to tighten the bolt while balancing the tire. She’d struggle to shoot the bolt into the hole while balancing the rest of the tire so she could put it in place. She has been struggling with it for more than 20 minutes now without getting nearer her goal when she heard a curious young man behind her.

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“Doctor Han? Is that you? What are you doing here? ” Jung said, walking near her in the abandoned street.

Doctor Han Soyeon wiped the sweat off her forehead. “Kim Jung Hee? Is that you? What are you doing here? ”

“I just got off from work,” he said, not noticing the irony that he just said that to one of his employers. “More importantly, what happened to your car? ”

When Jung got nearer, he took everything in a glance and understood the situation immediately. “Oh.”

With a quick and firm hand, Jung pushed his boss to the side and smoothly grabbed the wrench in Soyeon’s hand. Then he went to work. Jung distracted her with questions about work in the clinic and how her family was doing. Soyeon wanted to protest, but Jung effortlessly silenced her with his easy competence and assurance, and within 2 minutes he fixed the flat tire.

Soyeon wanted to gape at him. Apparently, how she lifted the car with the jack was slightly off-angle and made it harder to sync the bolts in. Jung, while telling a funny story about one of their previous patients, nonchalantly lifted the freaking side of the car and then adjusted the jack before gently returning them back to their support. Then he slapped the goddamn tire, and it smacked into place like a puzzle piece. Soyeon could have sworn the bolts were simply thrown into their holes, and with a twist, they were all tightly bolted in. Jung lowered the car, dumped the jacks back in the compartment, and just in time to finish his story with a punch line.

“You are pretty handy with cars,” Soyeon observed, a little bit miffed by the whole situation.

Jung Hee scratched the back of his head with that happy, oh shucks look. "I've been helping out the mechanics in my dad’s cooperative since I was 13. I kind of learned a thing or two about cars,” he said.

The truth was, Jung was horrified when he saw the doctor replace her own tires. He watched a good doctor perform an emergency cesarean section on a pregnant woman with expertise she could only have derived from years of experience. And the thought of damaging that hand for something trivial like changing her tires gives Jung some nightmares. The doctor is needed by the fatherland, and more specifically, the doctor is needed by his town.

“Maybe next time you should ask someone else to do crap like this for you,” Jung said a bit balefully, his disapproval showing.

The doctor just smirked. “I’m a very decisive person, Jung,” she said. “Once I decide to do something, I learn what I can about the subject, and then I act on my decision. It's in my nature.”

They had a few more small talks, and then it was time for her to leave. “Drop by the house more often if you have the time,” she said with a smile.

“I will, Doctor-nim,” Jung answered. “Have a safe trip.” Jung knew the doctor’s apartment is actually on top of the clinic itself, and it is just a couple of blocks away from here, so she should be safe.

In the meantime, he still has to cross seven mountains. A circling owl in the sky hooted several times irritably. “Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” he muttered as he started walking back home.

A few weeks later, Jung Hee is representing his school for the all-Korean national math contest. And days after that is the senior's final exam.

And days after that will be graduation day.