Boss, It's My First Time Being Your Resident - Chapter 64

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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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Chapter 64. Karma

The evening was draped in soft moonlight.

Along the stone-wall path that encircled the hospital grounds, where a massive ginkgo tree three hundred years old stood sentinel, the pale green of spring had settled like a whispered promise.

When the breeze stirred, the crisp scent of spring mingled with the sweet fragrance of A-gang’s shampoo, drifting softly against Ha Tae-heon’s senses.

It was fresh enough to wash away, in a single breath, the acrid smell of disinfectant that had clung to him all day in the Emergency Room.

It had been a day like a storm.
A daily life that alternated dozens of times between freezing waters and boiling ones, swinging between zero degrees and a hundred.

A place where emergency patients—gasping as though their breath might leave them at any moment—would crash in like waves, only for silence to descend afterwards, deceptive as a calm sea after a tempest has passed.

With gratitude for another day safely weathered, Ha Tae-heon walked along the stone-wall path, hand in hand with A-gang.

“Is there something on your mind?”

Ha Tae-heon asked gently, having noticed A-gang’s hesitation long ago.

Transparent A-gang wore everything on her face.

As he recalled how she had been circling him these past days, watching his expression carefully, Ha Tae-heon let out a soft laugh.

There seemed to be a mountain of things to say, no doubt because they’d been so frantically busy these days that they’d barely had time to talk properly.

She must have deliberated a thousand times over which words to speak first.

“Senior, why did you become a doctor?”

A-gang opened her mouth carefully.

“Is that what you’ve been worrying over all this time?”
“You seem like someone born to be a doctor, Senior. Your skill, your solid heart, everything…….”
“Me?”

At her unexpected words, Ha Tae-heon let out a hollow laugh.

Perhaps it was that single phrase.
Ha Tae-heon’s thoughts touched upon a distant past.

“Tae-heon. You are born to wield a blade for all your days, but you must use that blade only to save lives.”

The figure of Jin Hyeon, solemnly clasping his hands while imparting these words, appeared vivid before his eyes.

Jin Hyeon—Ha Tae-heon’s teacher and something akin to a second father.
He had once been a renowned young surgeon, the youngest professor of his kind, celebrated for his skill.

It was twenty-five years ago.

A catastrophic structural collapse had occurred at the apartment redevelopment site his father was pushing through recklessly, caused by lax safety management, and countless workers had been injured in the disaster.

Amid the chaos, Jin Hyeon had fought desperately to save the flood of wounded flowing into the Emergency Room.

But his father, blinded by greed, and the current Director of Sein University Hospital—Jin Hyeon’s former colleague—struck a deal.

And to minimize the scale of the accident, they falsified the deaths of three workers who had suffered multiple organ damage from the fall, reframing them as a medical malpractice resulting from Jin Hyeon’s mishandling of the surgical procedure.

Because of that affair, Jin Hyeon ultimately set down his scalpel.
And without hesitation, he left the secular world and took the path of ordination.

“Come eat, you fool. You mustn’t let your belly go empty.”

Whenever the season turned and spring arrived, Ha Tae-heon would visit Baekun Temple where Jin Hyeon dwelled.

Perhaps because Jin Hyeon took pity on the boy who lacked even the courage to ask forgiveness on his father’s behalf and could only hover at the edges, the monk always welcomed him warmly without fail.

And whenever Ha Tae-heon descended from the mountain temple to leave, Jin Hyeon would silently pack generous portions of lotus leaf rice for him to take along.

Joon-won left the world, and Ha Tae-heon withdrew from school.

Himself—powerless to protect Joon-won; a school that neglected the bullies for lack of evidence; Joon-won’s parents, who never once showed their faces, shrouded in mystery;

a media that remained inexplicably silent; and his father, ruthlessly building his company by any means necessary.

He had despaired.

The world was filthy.
A filthy world where the wicked mocked and trampled the weak.

He had neither the ability to avenge his friend’s unjust death nor the power to stop his father’s crimes.

Self-recrimination choked him every night.

Did he even deserve to torment himself like this?
At all?

Perhaps he too was merely the child of a wicked man with tainted blood flowing through his veins.

He lived a dissolute life—reeking of alcohol and tobacco, mingling with disreputable crowds, having surrendered all hope.

Convinced the world would never change, he resolved to follow his yakuza father into the criminal underworld and wandered the night streets in despair.

It was Jin Hyeon who found him as he deteriorated day by day.

“Tae-heon, no! Absolutely not!”

For the first time, the monk’s eyes—always so steely—flickered with raw anguish.

“Don’t try to stop me. I’m a creature with filthy blood. I’m beyond saving.”
“Tae-heon. You mustn’t let guilt consume your entire life.”
“It’s meaningless. There’s nothing I can do!”
“It is not meaningless.”

Jin Hyeon’s voice was firm, yet deep compassion resonated within it.

The monk gently clasped his hands and spoke with gentleness.

“I have already forgiven everything, Tae-heon. Now you must also lay down your guilt.”

That was the kind of man Jin Hyeon was.

A man who severed the cycle of vengeance through forgiveness.
A great-hearted elder who would extend his hand even to the son of his enemy.

“Aren’t you bitter, Teacher? How can I live an ordinary life? The world must want me to fall apart!”

At his anguished cry, Jin Hyeon gripped Ha Tae-heon’s shoulders firmly. Then he answered in a low, steady voice.

“Tae-heon. There is not only one path. If your father’s sin weighs so heavily upon you, then settle that karmic debt in his stead.”

From that moment onward.
That was when he began studying with grim determination to enter medical school.

And a year later, he received his medical school acceptance letter as though by miracle.

As Jin Hyeon had said, he wanted to repay to the world the debt his father had incurred.

More than a decade had passed since then—so why did it all feel as fresh as yesterday?

In a way, his present position was entirely due to Jin Hyeon’s grace.

“Why, Senior?”

A-gang still gazed at him with pure, waiting eyes.

Her clear gaze drew a bitter smile from Ha Tae-heon’s lips.

What should he tell her first?
That I’m not the good person you think, nor anything remarkable?

Just a coward who was fortunate enough to be dragged out of the darkness of the underworld?

Could an only daughter raised in such comfort and privilege really bear the weight of his bleak, miserable history?

“To settle my karma.”
“Karma?”

Ha Tae-heon added lightly, watching A-gang’s eyes widen in confusion.

“Well. It means living righteously. Something like that.”

Ha Tae-heon laughed self-deprecatingly.

“I see…….”
“Why did you want to become a doctor?”
“Actually… because of my brother.”

A-gang hesitated for a long moment before speaking heavily.

“It was his dream to be a doctor.”
“I once had a friend like that too. A friend whose dream was to be a doctor.”

Ha Tae-heon’s gaze grew distant.

How could he forget?
You, leading him eagerly across the campus, saying how much you wanted to go to medical school.
Joon-won, radiant with laughter beneath the pouring spring sunlight.

“Why past tense? What happened to that friend? Did he become a doctor?”
“No. Unfortunately.”
“Ah…….”
“He died. In high school. Electrocution.”
“…….”
“I wanted to save him. I would have stopped my own heart if it meant pulling him through, but I couldn’t. If I’d just arrived a moment sooner…….”

A-gang’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt.

Ha Tae-heon also stopped and stared at A-gang.

Between them settled the cool, damp air of a spring night.

He didn’t understand why.
The moment he looked into A-gang’s trembling eyes, Ha Tae-heon felt a phantom ache from the burn scar etched across his chest.

“That’s heavy, isn’t it? Here you are on a rare evening walk. I’m sorry.”

As if to dispel the awkward silence, Ha Tae-heon drew something from his pocket.

“My small reward. I heard from Eun-do—you did great work while I was away?”

It was a small cherry blossom-shaped sticker.

A-gang gently closed her hand around the sticker placed softly in her palm.

“Collect five, and I promised you a gift. Have you thought about what you’d like? Should we go get something delicious to eat? What do you want?”

Ha Tae-heon asked tenderly, studying A-gang.

“I don’t know so much about you. I say I care for you, but I don’t even know what food you like, what season you love, what moments make you happy. I know nothing of your preferences.”

Do I even deserve to care for you?
The confession laced with self-mockery hadn’t even finished.

A-gang lifted her head and met Ha Tae-heon’s eyes steadily.

“Not food. Nights.”
“…….”
“I want to spend nights with you, Senior. Just nights.”

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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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