Boss, It's My First Time Being Your Resident - Chapter 56

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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 56. First Assist

Ha Tae-heon opened the front door.
The apartment, which he had not entered in a long time, felt cold and devoid of warmth.

He needed to rest, even briefly, before leaving for work at dawn, but independent of his exhaustion, his mind remained disturbingly lucid.

Was it the anticipation of a major surgery that kept his thoughts so turbulent?

Ha Tae-heon sank deep into the sofa.

From the moment he first saw A-gang until now, all the images flashed before him like a lantern slide show.
Her bright, glistening eyes looking up at him as she gasped that she couldn’t breathe—they remained vivid.

She had been so beautiful. Achingly beautiful.

Just before she broke into tears, he’d lost his restraint and kissed her.

He should have told her first. That it was him.

This emotion was unfamiliar to him.

It had been, undeniably, an unideal moment—instinct surpassing reason.

It was something his former self would never have done.

He had always believed that he would never put pen to paper unless the answer was right, yet he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t control himself now.

When had it started?
Curiosity had been born.

Perhaps from that day he’d seen her in earnest conversation with a man who looked like a knight at Cheonghwa Mountain Baegun Temple.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her—the way she poured out sincere desperation through a harmless, artless face that belied the gravity of their exchange.

Curiosity had curdled into discomfort in an instant.

She grated on him unbearably.

Her clumsy gestures, her slow manner of speech, her unguarded smile. Her thoughts were far too easy to read.
Every last thing about her needled at him.

Discomfort had transformed into anticipation in an instant.

Was there anyone else in the world so transparent, pouring everything into a single glance?

And that small dimple on her right cheek—how honest could it be?

He couldn’t look away. Dangerously so.

It was an emotion he had never experienced once in his entire life.

Absurdly endearing.
Ridiculously cute, impossibly beautiful.

The moment his heartbeat became tangible to him, he finally understood.
That there was no going back now.

Ha Tae-heon rose and opened the desk drawer in his room.

Deep inside the drawer lay a light blue surgical cap, a gift for A-gang.

He had bought it on impulse, thinking it would suit her well, never expecting the day would actually come when he’d give it to her.

Would it look good on her? He found himself curious.

As Ha Tae-heon gazed quietly at the cap, his eyes naturally shifted to the faded red string bracelet lying beside it.

A faint smile spread across Ha Tae-heon’s lips.

Ju Jun-won.
In his high school years, that friend had been a shaft of light in his otherwise ashen world.

He had handed it over as if it were a priceless treasure, saying his younger sister had made it with her own hands, boasting that nothing else like it existed in the world.

Contrary to Jun-won’s instruction to wear it only at truly important moments, for it had been made with luck woven into it, Ha Tae-heon had the habit of fingering it every time he faced major surgery. The bracelet had frayed so much that the threads were loosening and beginning to pill.

Perhaps he had wanted to lean on Jun-won’s encouragement.

“Want to be friends? Real recognizes real, you know.”

Jun-won in the small frame on the desk still smiled mischievously.

That day, too, had been a brilliant spring like today.

That weekend when Jun-won had dragged him through the Sein University campus, talking about wanting to become a doctor and save lives someday.
A photograph taken against the medical building, with cherry blossoms falling like snow.

The angle was off, so Jun-won’s face was half-hidden in the frame, but the memory of him striking a pose with a cheeky expression made Ha Tae-heon let out a quiet laugh.

Everything felt like it had happened yesterday.

Jun-won. In the end, I came to that university.
Next year, I’ll become a professor at the place you dreamed of so much, just as I’m finishing my fellowship.

But in this photograph, I remain in that spring when I lost you. May 19th.

Ha Tae-heon murmured these words to the Jun-won who could not answer, and smiled bitterly.

It was one of those nights when a particular face weighed especially heavy on his heart.

***

“Dad! We went to a restaurant, not a motel!”

A-gang broke into an anxious sweat as she scrambled to explain.
But her father’s interrogation showed no signs of letting up.

“That’s obviously a motel—how could that possibly be a restaurant!”
“I didn’t know, really. We just had lunch at the Live Cafe.”
“What?! A Live Cafe, of all places?”

Her father’s eyebrows shot up sharply.

“That Ha Tae-heon character—bring him here right now so I can meet him!”

He seemed to have completely disregarded her explanation about the restaurant.

Her father looked ready to mobilize his entire secretarial team for a background check on exactly who this “Ha Tae-heon” was.

“He’s just a senior I know.”
“If you know him, he should be Senior Ha, not something-hyung!”
“Well, he’s not my younger sibling, is he?”
“Ju A-gang!”
“Dad, I’m really starving. Let’s eat!”

A-gang pretended to clutch her stomach, then latched onto her father’s arm, hooking her hand through his.

***

At last—her first First Assist.
The morning she had been waiting for was dawning.

Even before the deep blue of early dawn had fully lifted, A-gang hurried out of the house.

Thanks to her forcing herself to sleep as Ha Tae-heon had advised—to rest well the night before major surgery—her body felt much lighter than after that grueling night she’d spent in the on-call room.

The ointment he had carefully applied seemed to be working; even the soreness in her fingers had faded considerably.

Her body was blessedly light, but why did her heart feel so heavy?

The memory of yesterday wouldn’t leave her mind.

Focus.
Today, you have to concentrate entirely on Tawan.

A-gang interlaced her fingers, stretched her arms forward, and took her place before the scrub station outside the Operating Room.

She began meticulously scrubbing from her fingernails to her elbows with a brush coated in brown Betadine.

“First Assist!”

A-gang jumped at the low, resonant voice.

“Senior.”

It was Ha Tae-heon.

Having just brought the patient into the operating room, he emerged from the A Loset Corridor in blue scrubs and approached her, walking with measured strides.

A-gang looked up at him intently.

His hair, trimmed shorter than yesterday, made his profile even sharper.
The cool, refined features revealed below seemed like a carefully chiseled sculpture, sharper and more austere than ever today.

“Sleep well?”

His voice was casual.
As always, a characteristic cynicism lay beneath the surface indifference.

Like someone who had forgotten all about yesterday’s events.

If there was a difference, it was the hint of tenderness that seemed to have been added.

“Yes! Did you finish the early shoot well?”

Rising on her toes to peer through the small window, A-gang could see the operating room was already set with sterilized camera covers and the film crew in surgical gowns.

They must have already captured Ha Tae-heon’s every movement from the morning briefing through the staff conference, and the rest of the day would likely be the same.

“Yeah.”

A brief answer.
Their gazes met in the empty air between them.

“Senior, then I’ll go in first to prepare——”

Unable to bear the awkwardness, A-gang lifted her wet hands high and was about to step into the operating room when—

Ha Tae-heon pulled something from his pocket and thrust it toward her.

“A gift.”

A-gang’s eyes widened in surprise.

“A gift?”
“To commemorate your first assist.”

A-gang slowly lowered her raised hands and carefully received what he offered.

It was a cute light blue surgical cap.

“I need to scrub again. Sorry.”

Ha Tae-heon laughed softly.

At the edge of the cap, embroidered in small cursive letters, were the words “Agang Ju”.

How did he know she liked light blue?

And when, in the midst of his relentless schedule, had he prepared something like this?

A barely containable excitement spread across A-gang’s face.

“Thank you, Senior. I didn’t prepare anything for you……”

A-gang pressed her lower lip between her teeth to hide her smile, which threatened to break free.

“Just do a good assist.”
“Yes……”
“Why do you sound so listless? Nervous?”
“I’m just tense.”
“No other reason?”

Ha Tae-heon pressed A-gang’s averted gaze, insisting on eye contact.

“No!”

A-gang hurriedly waved both hands in denial.

“It’s nervousness! It’s definitely just nerves. There’s absolutely, really! No other reason.”

A-gang quickly pulled her mask up to just below her eyes.

She was terrified that all the shameful thoughts churning in her mind would be read across her flushed face.

She was grateful beyond measure that the mask could hide her reddened cheeks.

“I was hoping, though.”

Ha Tae-heon raised both hands high and let out a brief laugh, then kicked the sink valve with his knee.

Cool water gushed out steadily.

With the sound of the water, all trace of playfulness vanished from Ha Tae-heon’s expression.

The laughter that had lingered in his eyes moments before disappeared entirely, replaced by the cold, composed gaze of an attending surgeon.

A-gang carefully stepped closer and removed her cap, replacing it with the light blue surgical cap he had given her.

Then, standing beside him, she washed her hands in quiet concentration.

Her first First Assist.

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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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