Chapter 1. He Was a Troublemaker
“THAT guy, that guy—he’s completely insane!”
The trauma center of Sein University Hospital was in an uproar from early morning.
“I told you! I told you saving them just means they come back demanding their things packed up and handed over! People change the moment they come in and the moment they leave, don’t they!”
“Professor, please calm down!”
“Ha Tae-heon is burning my insides black—completely burning them to ash!”
Professor Ma repeated himself over and over, as if he’d lost control of his words.
Ha Tae-heon. That merciless bastard.
No matter how specialized trauma surgery was, he always insisted you had to leave at least a trace of mercy at your fingertips.
A surgeon had to be conservative—so both the doctor and the hospital could survive. He’d drilled that into their ears until they rang.
“How could you think of stabbing someone in the side with a stationery knife? No matter how urgent it was!”
“And what about the stainless-steel straw you just shoved in?!”
“Professor, isn’t Tae-heon just a bit out of his mind?”
His colleagues chimed in beside the raging Professor Ma, each adding their own mocking remarks.
“Ha Tae-heon! Say something! Aren’t you even a little frustrated right now?”
“……”
Ha Tae-heon, who had lifted the dressing to examine the patient’s wound, calmly finished his final progress note while looking at the monitor.
“No, it’s not like that, Tae-heon. What did you do wrong? You saved a dying man, and now what—an ethics violation? A lawsuit?!”
“So we should just be gentle! Gentle!”
“If you had even a bit of mercy in your hands, the future would be peaceful.”
Eundo, one of his colleagues, muttered under his breath while watching Tae-heon silently take off his gown.
“You dragged a man back from the river of death by the collar, and this is the thanks you get? There’s a limit to ingratitude! I’m not even asking for gratitude!”
The trauma center showed no sign of calming down, with Professor Ma switching between rage, laughter, and tears in a chaotic performance.
“Tae-heon, please, let’s just live long and thin, okay?”
“……”
“I want to hide behind a pillar in the Sein lobby and live quietly—so quietly—until I retire. That’s my only wish! Help me out!”
“……”
“Let me get married next year!”
Professor Ma roared, brushing back his curly hair.
“How are you going to hide behind a pillar with that build? You look like a bandit boss.”
At Eundo’s muttered comment, Professor Ma’s sharp glare flashed. Eundo flinched and quickly shut his mouth.
“Our Sein ace—no, our boss, Ha Tae-heon! Without you, we’re all—”
“I’ll see you in a month.”
Tae-heon spoke indifferently as he packed up his scattered belongings.
“Hey! What are we supposed to do without you for a month?! Don’t go!”
“……”
“Haeon! Haeon?! Our honey, don’t go… Boss, don’t abandon us!”
Without a trace of hesitation, Ha Tae-heon slung his bag over his shoulder and walked out of the trauma center, leaving Professor Ma’s desperate cries behind him.
It had been nearly six months since he completed his orthopedic surgery (OS) residency and chose trauma surgery (TS) as his subspecialty.
It was a summer day filled with brilliant sunlight over a blue coastline.
On a rare day off, he had gone scuba diving deep into the sea.
While submerged, he spotted a man struggling after crashing violently into a rock and quickly dragged him up to the surface.
Hooof—huff—
The man coughed violently and sprayed seawater all over Tae-heon’s face. Tae-heon exhaled deeply, brushing his hair back with a patient expression.
The man, who had suffered a deep laceration in his side, kept spitting water before eventually losing consciousness.
A fractured rib had punctured one lung, which had collapsed and could no longer function.
“Knife! Over here—quick!”
Tae-heon urgently reached out toward the crowd gathering around them.
“Hurry! The patient is dying!”
If they waited for emergency services, it would take at least five minutes.
And he knew the man would die before the ambulance even reached the beach.
If he could just relieve the air trapped in the chest… he could breathe again.
His fingers traced down the man’s ribs in urgency, stopping at the fifth rib.
Without hesitation, he made an incision and inserted a tube.
The problem was that the “knife” he used came from a bystander’s stationery kit, and the tube was a stainless-steel straw from a tumbler.
Emergency treatment for traumatic pneumothorax—ten minutes of chest compression and decompression.
And what came in return was a one-month suspension of his medical license.
It had been expected.
Fully anticipated.
So this meant nothing.
Nothing at all.
“Sweetie! You either quit being a doctor or bring home a proper son-in-law—pick one!”
Chairman Joo Beom-min, the comedic failure of Korea’s No. 1 conglomerate Onel Group, had begun his speech again.
“Doctor? My baby shouldn’t be doing something like that!”
“Dad!”
“Sweetie, I’ve told you—those are 3D jobs where commoners ruin their bodies working themselves to death!”
Even her name felt wrong.
Joo… A-gang.
A-gang.
No, just “A-gang.”
The only granddaughter of Chairman Joo Young-chun, a legend in the business world.
The late-born only daughter of parents who married in love and waited fifteen years before finally having her.
Her grandfather had named her A-gang, hoping she would grow up strong and never get sick.
But being called “baby” all her life until graduating medical school… honestly—
Ugh.
A-gang shuddered.
“You’ve done your internship. That’s enough. Don’t go into residency—come work at the company!”
“I can’t do that!”
“Then bring me a polite, obedient son-in-law who will stay by your side and behave nicely, and introduce him to your grandfather!”
There was only one condition.
The Onel family’s son-in-law had to be gentle, well-mannered, and as harmless as a lamb.
That was her father’s absolute rule.
He was proud that he would never arrange a political marriage for his precious daughter.
Those were for lesser families trying to climb higher.
True elites didn’t need such things.
“Baby, just sit at the table your father prepared and eat neatly for the rest of your life! Why would you crawl into such a battlefield?”
“Dad, I have my own dreams!”
“Dreams? What dreams? Becoming a surgeon? What are you even going to do with that! Only people obsessed with money do things like that—ugh.”
Chairman Joo removed his brown horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed his brow.
An old movie flickered chaotically across the massive screen covering one wall of his office.
“I wasn’t born to live like a doll! I have things I want to do too!”
He’s the one secretly buried in film production because he didn’t want to live a life like this.
So why can’t he understand her?
“I want to be like my brother…”
The words she could never say in front of her father lingered in her mouth.
Since her older brother’s death, his name had become an unspoken taboo in the house.
“This life is meant to be enjoyed, A-gang. Every day should be lived like a masterpiece! You are one of the chosen among fifty million Koreans!”
“I’m leaving.”
Before her father could finish, A-gang dragged her small suitcase out of the office. She didn’t want to hear it anymore.
Sixty seconds.
That was how long it took the high-speed elevator to descend from the 88th floor of Onel Tower to the first floor.
And another sixty seconds was all it took for her to decide she would leave Onel family and survive on her own.
The peak so high it seemed to pierce the clouds.
No one would ever imagine that the heir of Onel Group lived in a house like this.
People said it was a life anyone would dream of—but why did it feel like nothing but a headache?
She walked straight through the back exit into a narrow alley.
A small clothing shop stood there.
As she stared blankly at a mannequin on the street, the shop owner grabbed her hand.
“Sis! Welcome! We only have one set left in your size—the baby pink tracksuit!”
“Baby… pink is a bit…”
“What, you don’t like baby pink? It suits you! I’ll give you a discount of 3,000 won! But only if you pay cash?”
“I’ll just take ivory.”
Baby, baby, baby.
The word alone was starting to feel like a neurosis trigger.
Without hesitation, she stripped off her 3-million-won dress and 18-million-won coat and tossed them into a donation bin.
It was time to break out of the glass greenhouse.
A quiet mountain temple covered in snow was as peaceful as it could be.
“You said you’re a first-year resident?”
The monk raised his brow slightly, slowly turning prayer beads one by one.
“Yes, I start next week. I came to clear my head.”
“You came to the right place. Even in a busy world, simple temple food is needed sometimes.”
“I’ll learn a lot here.”
A-gang bowed politely, and the monk smiled warmly.
“Our temple gets visitors from gangsters who wield knives to judges who wield gavels. There’s no better place to set down worldly burdens. Rest here for a few days.”
Gangsters?
The monk’s strange words didn’t fully register.
Instead, the silence, peace, and stillness felt infinitely precious.
Steam rose gently from the lotus-leaf tea in front of her.
She took a deep breath.
Just two days ago, she had been rushing through hospital corridors—but it already felt like a distant dream.
Then—
“Monk.”
A deep voice echoed as the wooden door creaked open.
A tall man entered the reception room, bowing deeply.
Had it snowed again in the meantime?
Dressed in a white shirt and black slacks, he held a coat in his hand and silently brushed snow from his collar.
A sharply defined jawline, tightly closed lips.
The moment he lifted his gaze—
Their eyes met in midair.
“……”
The air shifted instantly.
A strange temperature layered itself over the space between them.
And amidst the flood of question marks in her mind, three words surfaced.
Trouble.
That man was trouble.
