How to Tame a Bad-tempered Professor
Chapter 3 - Take it off

Chapter 3: Take it off

TL: Sisona

“What are you doing?”

Seung-hee asked incredulously as Na-young suddenly hid her face behind her back.

Na-young buried her face in Seung-hee’s back, fighting the urge to cry.

“What should I do, Seung-hee?”

“Why?”

Despite leaving the man alone in a hotel room to focus on her residency at the hospital, that man turned out to be her supervising professor and appeared at the hospital.

It seemed like she was being punished for selfishly acting without the man’s consent.

But this was too much!

***

Arriving at the lab assigned to him, Tae-hyuk sat on the sofa, casually throwing his long legs on the table.

The elite dressed in a doctor’s gown transformed instantly into a carefree rogue.

Tae-hyuk leaned his head against the wall and lazily closed his eyes.

Hospital duty was a familiar routine for him, but he was still adjusting to the jet lag, feeling tired despite not doing much.

Actually, he was still caught up in the remnants of last night.

He had met a woman, and his night was completely filled with her.

Everything was perfect.

Until she ran away while he was asleep.

He was angry at himself for just sleeping soundly, not guessing that the woman who didn’t even share her name could leave like that.

Tae-hyuk reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, shiny object he had kept inside.

A woman’s earring, small enough to be easily lost.

The woman, whose name, age, or address he didn’t know, had disappeared, leaving behind just one earring.

Looking at the earring, Tae-hyuk grabbed his phone with his other hand and called Cha Hyun.

“I need you to find someone for me.”

-Am I a detective agency?

“The woman I mentioned yesterday.”

Cha Hyun, too, was curious about the identity of the woman who had left Tae-hyuk twice.

-What’s her name?

“I don’t know.”

-What? Then what do you know about this woman?

“I really want to find her, please help me.”

-You should ask Santa Claus for that.

Cha Hyun hung up the phone in annoyance, but Tae-hyuk knew he would help. As a film director who met many people all over the country, Cha Hyun was adept at finding people.

And Tae-hyuk had to focus on his hospital duties and didn’t have time to look for her himself.

He decided not to be impatient.

Believing that if it was meant to be, they would surely meet again.

***

“Achoo!”

Na-young coughed loudly on purpose.

That way, it wouldn’t be awkward for her to wear a mask.

Her colleagues’ eyes were drawn to her, looking very different than usual.

“Dr. Moon, didn’t you used to not wear glasses?”

Not caring about looking unattractive, she also wore very thick horn-rimmed glasses.

Na-young pushed up the horn-rimmed frames nonchalantly.

“Ah! My eyes have gotten worse lately.”

“You should wear prettier glasses then. Those don’t suit you, Dr. Moon.”

Regardless of what her senior said, Na-young didn’t care.

She was disguised to avoid being recognized by Professor Choi Tae-hyuk.

She let down her hair, which she usually kept neatly tied up for convenience at work, to cover her face as much as possible.

She was desperate to hide her identity from Professor Choi Tae-hyuk.

In yesterday’s large meeting room, there were so many doctors in the same gowns that he probably didn’t notice her, but avoiding him during rounds was impossible.

Her heart rate increased at the thought of facing Professor Choi Tae-hyuk soon.

Oh Lord! Buddha! Allah!

Na-young, an atheist, prayed to every conceivable deity.

Please, don’t let Professor Choi Tae-hyuk recognize her.

Unlike her desire to avoid him, others were sharing rumors and looking forward to Professor Choi Tae-hyuk’s appearance.

His natural good looks alone garnered him the attention of others. Add to that his exceptional skills, and to the residents, it was as if a hero had arrived.

At exactly 7:50 AM, when the morning rounds were about to start, Professor Choi Tae-hyuk made his entrance.

The man, striding down the hallway bathed in the morning sunlight pouring through the windows, was magnified in her eyes.

With his arrival, her heart seemed to stop for a moment, then started beating rapidly again, her mouth going dry.

Please!

Hoping not to be caught.

If it were possible, she wanted to turn around and run away right then.

Professor Choi Tae-hyuk, walking down the hallway as if on a runway, basking in everyone’s attention, stopped in front of the residents. Everyone looked up at him with tense eyes.

Normally, professors are beings to be respected and looked up to, but with Professor Choi’s tall stature, it was natural to look up to him.

Only Na-young kept her head deeply bowed, afraid of revealing her face.

This made her stand out even more, but Tae-hyuk, paying no attention to the resident wearing a mask, briefly addressed everyone.

“Let’s start the rounds.”

Since it was his first time meeting the patients he would be taking care of after returning to Korea, his attention was solely on them.

Therefore, he deliberately avoided paying attention to anything other than the patients.

Na-young, trembling with anxiety since morning, had no need to hide.

The rounds needed to be conducted swiftly, as there were numerous patients to check within a set time.

Patients seeing the new professor for the first time also observed him with curious eyes.

His overly glamorous appearance for a doctor led some to doubt his skills.

However, his imposing aura deterred anyone from daring to question his competence right to his face.

“This patient will undergo a hepatectomy for liver cancer.”

Dong-gun, the chief, briefed Professor Choi in detail about the patient’s condition and the changes that had occurred over the day.

Na-young, a first-year resident, should have been diligently recording the contents of the rounds, but she wrote almost nothing today, too busy watching Professor Choi.

Professor Choi Tae-hyuk didn’t let the first day slide by casually.

“What are the patient’s CBC (complete blood count) levels?”

When Professor Choi asked for more details, Chief Dong-gun naturally looked her way.

It was Na-young’s patient.

Normally, she would have immediately recited the figures, but now, frozen like a statue under Professor Choi’s penetrating gaze, she couldn’t say a word.

Their eyes met directly, just like in the club.

Instead of the pounding music, now her heart was beating wildly.

Overwhelmed with the fear that he might recognize her, she couldn’t open her mouth.

As her silence grew longer, everyone’s gaze became uneasy.

“Dr. Moon. The CBC levels.”

Dong-gun prompted her again, but Professor Choi Tae-hyuk’s frowning expression loomed larger in her eyes.

Her mind went completely blank.

“Are you wearing a mask because you’re sick?”

Finally, when Professor Choi inquired about her condition, Nam Ho-jin, a second-year resident, quickly explained on her behalf.

“Yes, she’s burning up with fever but still hanging in there.”

Exaggerating as was his habit.

Na-young, who had no intention of making up such a lie, couldn’t hide her flustered expression.

If it weren’t for Professor Choi Tae-hyuk’s cold stare right in front of her, she would have told the truth immediately.

Professor Choi Tae-hyuk did not check whether she was really burning up with fever, nor did he show sympathy for her alleged illness.

He just wanted to avoid wasting time and get her out of the way.

“Leave. You seem useless here.”

She was shocked to hear the word “useless,” a term she had never been called before.

Why am I useless?

Why!

The man who first introduced the model student, Moon Na-young, to deviance, had within a day also taught her about incompetence.

Was this a cursed connection or a fated one?

By the end of that day, Professor Choi Tae-hyuk, the legendary professor from the United States, had become known among the residents and interns as a venomous professor to be wary of.

After a busy day, the residents gathered and unanimously began to discuss the new professor’s cruelty.

It was as if they were sharing tales of an adventure.

“Wow! I thought I was going to get hit in the operating room. It wasn’t even a big mistake, just a slight loss of strength, but he was so harsh.”

“The chief was told off for tying knots too slowly and was ordered to practice a thousand times. Right in front of us, the chief’s dignity was completely shattered.”

“He didn’t spare the nurses either. He nearly killed someone for not following the medication order exactly. That nurse must still be crying.”

Everyone realized it in just one day.

The new professor was a real piece of work.

“……”

She sat in a corner, silently listening to all these stories, still doubting if all of this was even real.

Nam Ho-jin, who wasn’t joining the conversation, turned to her and remarked.

“At least Dr. Moon had it better. Getting kicked out of the rounds was actually a favor.”

Na-young could only smirk at her colleagues who envied her situation.

She had intended to remember her encounter with him as a cinematic one-night event and diligently continue her residency.

But the moment he appeared before her and uttered the name Choi Tae-hyuk, it became impossible to do so.

A favor, really?

What a joke.

That perfect man from that night had now become nothing more than a bad-tempered professor.

***

Na-young steeled herself and went to the morning rounds.

Still hiding her face with a mask and glasses, she resolved not to freeze up and become mute like yesterday.

She was not a useless person.

She was undergoing her residency to become a necessary doctor in this hospital.

She didn’t want to hear such remarks again.

Today, at 7:50 AM, Professor Choi Tae-hyuk appeared on time.

The doctors, gathered for the rounds, looked at him with a noticeably different gaze than the day before.

“Let’s start the rounds.”

They looked at him, speaking normally, with uneasy eyes.

Any slight mistake, and it was clear that harsh criticism and insults would spew from his mouth.

Professor Choi Tae-hyuk was just a handsome and upright man with a terribly bad personality, well-concealed behind his appearance.

Beware, or you’ll be in big trouble!

Everyone thought the same and followed Professor Choi Tae-hyuk down the hospital corridor.

“ESR levels are 18, and the patient had a fever last night, so we checked the vital signs every 30 minutes. It has now dropped to 37 degrees Celsius.”

Na-young, as she had resolved, did not become mute in front of Professor Choi Tae-hyuk and properly briefed him on the patient’s condition.

The moment Tae-hyuk heard her voice, his gaze involuntarily turned towards her.

The voice was… familiar.

But with the mask on, he couldn’t see her face clearly.

Tae-hyuk dismissed his reaction to the similar voice as just overthinking about that woman from the night before.

There was no way the woman from that night could be in this hospital.

Especially not as a resident working under him.

It just didn’t make sense.

Tae-hyuk quickly shifted his gaze and continued the rounds.

“Who’s assisting in my surgery room today?”

The next challenge arose after successfully completing the rounds.

Since Na-young’s patient was undergoing surgery, she had to enter Professor Choi Tae-hyuk’s operating room.

Reluctantly, Na-young raised her hand.

Professor Choi Tae-hyuk gestured for her to come closer.

Na-young, wanting to keep her distance from him as much as possible, found herself unable to move even at his beckoning.

The other residents looked at her with anxious eyes, as if expecting Professor Choi Tae-hyuk’s reprimand at any moment.

But surprisingly, Professor Choi Tae-hyuk didn’t get angry.

Instead, he walked towards her.

Step by step.

As Professor Choi Tae-hyuk approached her, Na-young’s heartbeat accelerated, and her breathing became rapid.

She felt like she was about to have an arrhythmia.

She wanted to scream at him to not come closer.

Stop.

Professor Choi Tae-hyuk, stopping right in front of her, crossed his arms and looked down at her with a haughty expression.

“Do you still have a fever?”

Na-young shook her head.

If she said she was sick, she thought he might tell her not to enter the operating room.

That would be a loss for her.

“Answer me when I ask you something!”

As Professor Choi Tae-hyuk’s voice grew harsher, the residents around them became even tenser.

It was odd to see Moon Na-young, who was always smart and composed, shrink like this in front of Professor Choi Tae-hyuk.

“It’s just that…”

As her voice was barely audible, Tae-hyuk leaned closer, then paused when he caught the scent coming from her head.

This herbal fragrance.

It was definitely the scent he had smelled on that woman that night.

He knew that people could use the same shampoo, but the déjà vu he felt when he heard her voice earlier made him more sensitive.

Impulsively, he commanded.

“Take off your mask.”

*****

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