Boss, It's My First Time Being Your Resident - Chapter 16

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 16. Spring Tastes Like Citrus

A doctor never utters the phrase “I’ll do my best to save them” in front of a patient’s guardian.

Instead, they speak first of the worst possibilities that might unfold, so the family can prepare their hearts.

Because they know how heavy the weight of hope can be, and how sharp the arrow of accountability becomes when an early promise goes unkept.

Perhaps that’s why.
Most of the professors Ha Tae-heon had observed over the years were scrupulous about avoiding absolute guarantees.

Yet here and now, Ha Tae-heon was making an assurance to his patient—a promise.

And he was doing it in trauma surgery, where the line between life and death hung most precariously, as the attending physician of a critical case.
It was unexpected.

Ju A-gang stared at him with eyes as though seeing someone from another world entirely.

What in the world was Ha Tae-heon’s true nature?
Appearance: a slick thug.
Temperament: a prickly loner.
Nickname: the boss of the Trauma Center.

And then there was that adorable stethoscope and praise sticker—completely at odds with everything else about him.

Suddenly, she found herself curious about him.

***

One in the morning.

Ha Tae-heon had just finished emergency surgery on a traffic accident patient and was heading back to his quarters.

Thump, thump—his footsteps down the on-call room corridor came to an abrupt halt.

A fresh, citrusy fragrance suddenly wafted to the tip of his nose.
It was a startlingly bright scent of mandarin orange.

A smell that had no business clinging to him, covered as he was head to toe in blood and disinfectant.

As the accumulated fatigue washed away in the face of that vitamin-like, verdant fragrance, Ha Tae-heon’s gaze drifted toward it of its own accord.

A dim orange glow seeped through the slightly ajar door of the on-call room.

As though advertising her status as a fresh recruit.
The room inside was a small battleground.

A wide-open suitcase, clothes scattered in disarray.
Above them, medical textbooks splayed carelessly, their spines worn and pages frayed.

Quite the sight.

Ha Tae-heon let out a soft laugh.

His own first year as a resident physician overlaid itself in his mind—a time when he’d barely found moments to rest, let alone shower.

Sleep, meals, shower.

A year when he could choose only one.
Caught between impossible choices, he’d end up collapsing into bed with bread still in his mouth.

A small, pale face appeared between towering stacks of books and heaps of mandarin oranges.

Ju A-gang?

What was she doing here at this hour, with no shift scheduled?
A slender silhouette moved busily beneath the desk lamp’s glow.

Among men drenched in sweat and grime, A-gang stood apart, as though filtered through a different lens entirely—pristine.

Her soft skin seemed to swallow the lamplight and glow back white and luminous.

Like a white rabbit that had wandered into a den of predators.

Narrowing his eyes for a closer look, Ha Tae-heon saw she held a needle holder in one hand and forceps in the other, grappling determinedly with a single mandarin orange.

With her mouth stuffed full of mandarin segments and cheeks working thoughtfully, she was absorbed in suturing practice—much like a squirrel meticulously selecting acorns to hoard for winter.

Was she practicing in order to eat, or eating in order to practice?

Her plump cheeks moved busily with each burst of concentration.

It wasn’t uncommon for surgical residents to use all manner of materials for suturing practice.

Pig hearts, chicken wings, balloons, tomatoes—even corn kernels sometimes made their way onto the practice tray.

Using empty flower pots or empty water bottles to practice closure in tight spaces was routine.

But it was March. Spring.

And the sight of A-gang peeling a mandarin orange—where she’d even found one at this hour—into a starfish shape, then meticulously re-stitching the skin piece by piece, stayed with him.

Her slender fingers fluttered like butterflies across the orange.

He nearly stepped into the room several times while watching her clumsy struggle.
He had to deliberately hold back his right hand, which kept twitching with restless irritation, more than once.

When the practice didn’t go well, she’d bite her lip and her eyebrows would furrow into a steep arc, then gradually smooth out.

Her eyebrows were like watercolor—soft and pale, like spring willow leaves.

What was she concentrating so hard on?
A-gang’s gaze lingered on the instructional video on her laptop, then drifted back down to the orange.

‘She’ll prick herself,’ he thought. ‘Tsk.’

The instant he thought it—

Ow!
A small cry, and a bright drop of blood beaded at the tip of her finger.

“You missed a knot there. Do one more.”
“Ah, you scared me half to death!”

Ha Tae-heon stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame at an angle, as A-gang jumped and spun around in alarm.

“Word will spread through the hospital. With skills like that.”

Their eyes met in the empty air between them.

“Whoever practices suturing while filling the whole place with mandarin orange scent?”

A-gang, who’d been about to pop another segment into her mouth, made a small choking sound and patted her chest.

“It’s hardly child’s play.”

Ha Tae-heon shook his head with a disapproving tsk.

“I… I was just so hungry, so I ate while practicing…”

A-gang’s face flushed with embarrassment at the unexpected visit.

She jumped up quickly, closing the distance between them in an instant.

“You must be hungry too, right? These are really sweet!”

Suddenly, she thrust a mandarin segment right in front of his face.

Ha Tae-heon’s brow furrowed.

A single, meager orange segment dangled irritatingly before his lips.
The mandarin scent that suddenly caught his nose was far richer, far sweeter than before.

“Try it. I went to a lot of trouble to find these. Mandarins are all sold out this time of year.”

A-gang rose up on her tiptoes, her eyes sparkling as she urged him on.

Following her finger, Ha Tae-heon’s gaze fixed on her lips beyond the orange.

This absurd optical illusion where the orange and her lips overlapped.

Why on earth.
The same plump, soft shape to both—the orange and her lips.

The pulp that seemed to tickle his lips with that same fragrance, damp and almost within reach, felt suddenly like her glossy lower lip. If he bit it, would sweet juice spill?

His heart, which had seemed not to exist, tucked away in some far corner of his chest, suddenly began to pound with unpleasant speed.

The rhythm was startlingly vivid.

“Come on, open your mouth.”
“…….”
“Won’t you try one?”
“Am I a child? Are you going to feed me?”

As though realizing what she was doing, A-gang quickly dropped back to her heels and withdrew her hand.

Insane.
No sleep in the dead of night must be catching up with him—now he was seeing things.

His mind was too far gone to function properly.

Ha Tae-heon let out a hollow, self-mocking laugh.

A single mandarin orange. As though he’d witnessed something he shouldn’t have.

“Isn’t that practice material a bit too easy?”

He’d nearly lost the thread entirely.

“Oh, I just started with mandarins today. I used bigger ones for practice before.”
“If you’re going to do it, you might as well use Shine Muscat.”
“Shine Muscat? Those tiny ones?”

Ha Tae-heon spoke quietly as A-gang turned to him in disbelief.

“You’d end up hurting someone with those skills of yours.”
“Then… could you teach me, perhaps? Senior?”

In that instant, A-gang’s eyes sparkled with hope.

Ha Tae-heon straightened from the doorframe, quickly withdrawing his gaze from her.

“Don’t call me senior. You can’t even handle one mandarin, yet you expect to handle a patient?”

At his cool response, A-gang pouted.

“Don’t torment the poor mandarin. Go to bed.”

Ha Tae-heon snatched the orange from her hand, tossed out a curt remark, and left the corridor without a backward glance.

***

It was early morning, with brilliant sunlight streaming long across the floor.

The Trauma Center, swept clean by the storm of emergency cases, had settled back into its usual peaceful rhythm.

A-gang lingered before the glass doors of the Trauma Center, unable to bring herself to step inside.

Why was this threshold still so hard to cross today?

“What sin have you committed?”

A casual remark drifted to her ear. A low voice she recognized.

“What?”
“Why do you look so startled?”
“Ha-ha, Ha Tae-heon…?”

A-gang flinched at the sudden shock.

“What? Ha Tae-heon? Now you’re just calling me by my name?”
“N-no, that’s not, Ha, ha, Ha Tae-heon, se, se, se……”

Ha Tae-heon glanced over at A-gang, her lips moving soundlessly as her face flushed deep red in real time.
Then he let out a short laugh, as though finding it absurd.

Her head, her mouth, her body, her heart.
Around Ha Tae-heon, she moved like a broken wooden doll, all jerking limbs.

It was natural that the boss of the Trauma Center appeared in his own domain.

Yet facing him was like meeting the lord of hell itself—A-gang’s heart hammered wildly without reason or end.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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