Boss, It's My First Time Being Your Resident - Chapter 55

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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 55. Bomdalrae

“Mom, I’m sorry. I’ll call more often from now on.”

A-gang stepped into the house with her mother’s hand firmly clasped in hers.

“Calling? You should visit home more often!”
“For the next four years, that’ll be difficult…….”
“I’ll get you a place near the hospital.”
“Even if I rent a room, I won’t have time to go in unless I have days off — the on-call room is more convenient anyway.”

Except for showering.

Ever since Ha Tae-heon had mentioned the on-call room ghost, rushing straight to the shower the moment she clocked out and finishing within ten minutes had become an essential mission in her daily routine.

Just then.
That handsome face, so serious as it spelled out the rules, suddenly flooded her mind unbidden.

A-gang’s cheeks flushed crimson without warning, and she gave her head a startled shake.

“Good grief! No matter that I carried you in my own womb, there are some things I simply cannot understand!”
“I’ll come visit again on my next day off.”
“I’ve made wild leek soup and wild leek pancakes — your favorite. Go wash up and come down for dinner. They’re in season right now, so they’re especially delicious.”

Her mother bustled about, setting slippers neatly at A-gang’s feet as she spoke.

“I spent days thinking about what my darling daughter might want to eat after so long — good home cooking.”
“Thank you, Mom. Has Grandfather come back from Haeseong-ri yet, or is he still down there?”
“He’s been swamped with the Seoul Dae-gyo Construction Bidding Project. The bid date got postponed suddenly, so he hasn’t been sleeping properly these days. It’s his last great ambition as a businessman.”
“I hope it works out well…….”
“First, let’s wash the puppy.”

At her mother’s nod toward the servants, two employees immediately lifted the cage.

“Oh! No, I’ll do it. I got instructions about it at the shelter.”

“Here, give it to me. I know how to bathe a dog.”

Moon-ju, who had drawn near without notice, lifted the dog from the cage and cradled it in his arms.

***

“How can you just bring a dog home like this! Did I give you permission?”

The moment the study door opened, her father’s voice thundered out.

She’d planned to pay her respects before dinner, bringing the dog with her.

The freshly bathed puppy wafted a soft, fluffy shampoo scent.

Delighted by its lightened body, the dog wagged its tail with vigor and began gallivanting wildly through the study.

“Grandfather approved it, and…… Mom said you’d definitely like it too…….”

A-gang’s voice grew progressively smaller.

“Me? This pup the size of a calf?”

Her father pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up, eyeing the dog as if utterly aghast.

Yet somehow, despite the glacial indifference, the creature paid no mind.

Rather, it thrust its snout between her father’s legs and began sniffing, exploring his scent.

“Like it? Nonsense! Find it another home at once! Since Moon-ju likes dogs, send it there!”

Her father shoved the dog away and sank deep into the sofa.

As if it had been waiting for this moment, the dog rested its chin on her father’s knee and its large eyes sparkled.

The sharp, intimidating presence that had filled the study moments before dissolved into nothing as the creature opened its mouth wide in a bright, guileless grin, gazing up at her father like a puppy longing for the touch of a long-awaited master.

Her father, who had been in silent confrontation with the dog, slowly turned to face A-gang.

“So when exactly are you planning to bring home a suitable husband?”
“Dad, I’m barely in my first year of residency. Marriage is…… not something I’m thinking about yet.”
“That’s why you keep getting beaten at the hospital!!”

Suddenly, her father’s voice, sharp with anger, filled the study.

“Dad……?”

A-gang stared at him in shock.

“……How did you know?”

Her pupils trembled faintly.

The bruises on her back, hidden beneath her clothes, had not yet faded. Each breath brought a dull, aching pain. But this was supposed to be something no one could know.

Only a few nurses and patients had seen her struck by the pole a patient had wielded in the corridor.

She’d even brushed it off as her own carelessness — a fall.
So how could her father possibly…….

As the realization struck, bewilderment flickered across her father’s eyes.

“So why do you keep letting yourself get beaten like that!”

Her father cleared his throat awkwardly and hastily changed the subject.

“Like I said, either find yourself a solid man to protect you soon, or quit that warzone of a hospital right now! One or the other — you have to choose, I’m telling you.”

Her father pressed his brow, as if deeply frustrated.

“And this dog — it belonged to some gangster, didn’t it!”
“……How did you know that too, Dad?”

A-gang’s eyes filled with questions.
There was no way her father could know the hospital’s internal affairs so thoroughly.

“There are ways to know these things.”
“Surely you didn’t have someone planted in the hospital?”

A chill settled over A-gang’s face.

“In any case! Make a decision before this year ends! If you’re going to keep working at the hospital, at least meet the man I’ll arrange for you!”

Her father shifted his gaze to the dog, adjusting his glasses to hide his discomfiture.

“Ugh! Why does this thing keep pestering me!”

The more he pushed the dog away, the more it deployed its outsized charm, burrowing into his lap.

Her father held his hands stiffly up in the air, but he was no match for it.

That’s when it happened.

The dog’s large front paw brushed lightly against the remote control on the table.

In an instant, a boy’s voice rang out, and the massive screen covering one wall of the study blazed to life, an image flooding across it.

A voice she knew well.

A-gang slowly turned her head.

— Dad, Dad! Why does the kid keep going on and on about wild leeks? What are wild leeks anyway? Tell me!

On the screen, a young version of her older brother was playing, grinning like sunlight.

Her brother, whom she could never meet again — existing now only in memory.

Her father, startled, quickly pushed the dog away, but it was already too late.

After her brother’s brief recording ended, the image transitioned to a short film featuring unknown actors.

In a dim school bathroom, a vivid scene of school bullying unfolded — someone being relentlessly cornered.

A-gang understood instinctively.
This was a recreation of her brother’s final moments.

It had seemed like any other day.

Because recounting those moments even in memory was agony beyond imagination, the entire family had tacitly agreed never to speak of it — a forbidden subject.

“…….”

Only now did A-gang truly understand.

A-gang wiped her welling tears before her father could notice.

“Dad, I want to watch your film too. Don’t watch it alone — watch it with me.”
“…….”
“I miss my brother…… so much.”

A-gang forced a smile through the bitterness rising in her throat.

“……I thought you’d already overcome all of it. I thought, since you’re an adult, that you’d let time carry it all away. I never realized you were fighting this battle alone.”

“A-gang. When a parent has to bury a child who dies first, it doesn’t mean forgetting. I lived not knowing that the phrase Seoha Jitong — which I thought was someone else’s tragedy — would become my own.”

“I’m sorry…… I didn’t understand your heart…….”

The four syllables — Seoha Jitong — pierced A-gang’s chest with bitter cold. When a child dies before the parent, the parent weeps so much that their eyes go blind.

Perhaps that was why her father wore horn-rimmed glasses.

The moment A-gang gently placed her hand over her father’s.

The dog, which had been leaning against her father’s opposite knee, began desperately licking away his wet cheeks.
As if trying to wipe away the father’s profound sorrow.

“This mutt!”

Her father burst out loud.

“Dad, give the dog a name — to celebrate the first kiss you two have shared.”

A-gang spoke brightly, trying to lift the heavy mood.

“I won’t! Why should I name this wretched dog!”
“Please. The dog is waiting for your answer.”

By now, the dog had rested its chin on her father’s knee, its tail gently wagging — as if truly awaiting its new name.

Her father, gazing intently into the dog’s bright, eager eyes, finally spoke.

“Bomdalrae.”
“Pardon?”
“Bomdalrae. Spring Ramp.”

A-gang’s heart sank.

Spring Ramp had been her brother’s favorite flower as a child.

The image of her brother grinning brightly each spring as he planted seeds in the garden with their father rose vividly in her mind.

— Honey! A-gang! What are you doing? Come down and eat!

Her mother’s cheerful voice echoed from beyond the door.

“Dad, let’s go down for dinner together.”

It was just as A-gang reached for the dog’s leash that she set her mobile phone on the table.

Ding.
A cheerful chime, and a message suddenly appeared on the screen.

[Ha Tae-heon
You get home okay? If you did, text me back.]

By an odd coincidence, her father’s eyes landed on the message first.

Her father slowly picked up the phone, his expression perplexed.

“Ha Tae-heon?”

Her father’s brow darkened in an instant.

“You have another brother I didn’t know about?”
“Dad! Give me my phone!”

A-gang reached for it urgently, but she was already a step too late.

Her father’s index finger moved swiftly across the screen, and it was already deep in the photo gallery.

Then her father’s voice, tinged with shock, echoed through the study.

“Daughter! You go to motels?”

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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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