What Don't I Know?
A smile that had shed its razor-sharp edge.
The unselfish laugh of a man felt refreshingly clean.
A dry cough escaped her narrowed throat for no reason she could name. Dajeong turned her head away.
Why are you suddenly laughing like that… Keep your distance.
“I’ll be heading inside now.”
She spun around in a rush, her slippers nearly sliding off her heels.
What if I trip right in front of that man? With that ridiculous worry, Dajeong hurried into the building.
The cigarette had long since burned down to the filter.
Still, Taekyung remained standing there. After the small woman scurried out of sight, time itself seemed to stop.
He needed to sort through the unfamiliar situations tangled in his mind with clean precision.
In truth, it was the first time he had witnessed a large-scale emergency up close.
The paramedics and medical staff moved with processes forged through long-earned trust, holding their own even amid the chaos. Their fierce determination to save even one more life was extraordinary.
He found himself re-examining the complacent belief he had held until now—that life and death were the will of the absolute, so there was no point in struggling.
In that moment, Jang Taekyung himself had been the most useless person on the scene.
Clearing the flower pot that blocked Yu Dajeong’s path, opening a VIP room—those were the only things he could do.
For the first time in his life, he learned there were domains in which he was powerless.
‘The surgical ward is off-limits to outsiders…!’
Was the head of this organization truly nothing more than an outsider, just as Yu Dajeong had said? A faint sense of self-reproach stirred in him then.
Through the sticky summer breeze drifted the faint scent he had caught from Dajeong earlier.
Startled, Taekyung turned. And there she stood, fussing with her hair—as if by some impossible coincidence.
Even under the pale streetlight, her hands and face, thickly smeared with blood, stood out vividly.
…Did something go wrong? Is she going to cry again? He watched with idle curiosity.
A moment later he saw the woman whose large eyes gently curved as she smiled, and he felt both relief and sheer absurdity.
What could possibly be good about looking like that.
It was from then that a subtle ache began to throb in the center of Taekyung’s chest.
He felt foul, yet somehow pleased. It was an unpleasant stimulus, yet it carried a quiet addictiveness that made him turn it over again and again.
Was a woman drenched in blood his type?
Sinister thoughts kept rising unbidden. It seemed it would be fine to make that small, innocent face cry.
Of course he could make her cry for work whenever he wished from now on—but not for that. For a slightly more secret reason.
…I’ve clearly lost my mind because I haven’t held a woman in far too long.
Taekyung smirked, slowly shook his head, and finally moved his locked legs.
He found himself pathetic for the mad thoughts he’d been entertaining. Yet he didn’t dislike them.
As if watching someone else’s affair, as if merely observing, he kept letting out soft, dry laughs.
This, too, was a phenomenon he had never known before.
The next day. Seohan Hospital’s main conference room.
“A brat who isn’t even forty, ordering grown adults around like that.”
Crowded around the long table, the doctors each vented their grievances.
“Clinics, lectures—grabbing busy people for some random meeting the first time we meet?”
By order of the foundation’s representative director, department heads and the working-level physicians beneath them had been summoned.
The heads piled on complaints about Taekyung’s abrupt call.
Because he had skipped any inauguration ceremony, this was their first face-to-face encounter with him.
“Director, are you just going to let him run wild like that? If he’s the foundation representative, shouldn’t he stay quiet and keep his hands off the hospital?”
“Exactly! What does a guy who only ever ran companies know about a medical institution?”
“Honestly…”
Ahem, ahem. The hospital director cleared his throat and exchanged a glance with the vice director.
“It’s still early. Let’s just watch for now.”
Having already tasted Taekyung’s temperament, they were careful not to add more fuel.
Then the conference room door slammed open.
“Is everyone here?”
Thud, thud. All eyes locked onto the tall man who strode in with absolute confidence.
Hair neatly swept back. Deep-set eyes beneath it. Handsome features, broad shoulders, a solid tailored suit.
The moment Taekyung entered, even the air seemed to settle. Overwhelmed by his presence, people rose from their seats without realizing it.
Taekyung casually claimed the highest seat the director had been occupying.
“Sit.”
With every short word a cold, blue energy radiated outward.
Even those who had been muttering about brats fell silent.
“I’m Jang Taekyung, representative director of the Hanju Foundation. However.”
His gaze sweeping over the attendees hardened.
“What’s with the people standing in the back? Sit down. There are plenty of chairs.”
The sudden order left the chief residents—including Dajeong—thoroughly flustered.
In a room full of legendary professors, for a resident to take a seat? It was something they had never even dreamed of since pre-med days.
“Are you servants attending the department heads? Sit. It’s distracting.”
The man who saw through the rigid formalities and shattered them without a second thought fixed his gaze on Dajeong.
The instant she met those dark eyes, Dajeong let her own gaze slide away.
“I dislike repeating myself. How many more times do I have to say it?”
The director gave a subtle signal with his eyes. Only then did the residents awkwardly take their seats.
“We’re all busy, so I’ll skip the greetings. Straight to the point.”
From the man’s slightly lifted chin, innate arrogance flowed with elegant ease.
“Improving the hospital’s operating profit. For the time being, that is your highest priority.”
Operating profit? Why us?
At the unfamiliar directive the doctors tilted their heads.
“…Since when did doctors have to care about that sort of thing?”
Lee Suhui, seated beside Dajeong, whispered, unable to hold back her curiosity.
“Do you mean medical profit?”
A firm voice cut through from the far end of the table.
Taekyung’s eyes narrowed.
“A hospital is not an ordinary company. The term medical profit is more appropriate than operating profit.”
Park Hyeonwoo. Thoracic surgery fellow. Grandparents, parents, and relatives all medical school professors—a pure medical spoon from a long-standing dynasty.
Taekyung remembered the name from the roster. He gave a slight nod for the man to continue.
“Doctors pursue only the health of their patients, not profit. And a hospital is not a profit-driven commercial enterprise.”
At Park Hyeonwoo’s principled statement, the other professors offered quiet support with their eyes.
“Ah. Of course. The patient’s health comes first. You’re right.”
Thud. Resting a hand on the table, Taekyung leaned his large frame forward, as if trying to mask irritation.
“But a hospital doesn’t dig money out of the ground either. Do you perform magic with thin air to treat people? Treating patients requires capital. If you keep running deficits, how exactly do you plan to treat anyone?”
“Business? A hospital is not a business entity.”
Park Hyeonwoo seized on the word.
“Work carried out with a defined purpose and plan. That is the definition of business. Thoracic surgeon Park Hyeonwoo.”
“…”
Taekyung’s lips twisted into a dangerous curve.
Everyone watching the clash held their breath.
“Aren’t you even a little ashamed that the results of everyone here working so hard, measured by profit margin, come out lower than the hospital parking lot?”
The doctors’ murmuring swelled.
“Still! How can you compare it to a parking lot?!”
“This is exactly why conglomerates shouldn’t run hospitals.”
Emboldened by Park Hyeonwoo, fierce pushback erupted from every side.
It made no dent in Taekyung, who stood as immovable as a mountain.
“Doctors doing something so vulgar! There’s a limit to how much you can damage your dignity.”
“That’s right. The representative has only just arrived, so he clearly doesn’t know much!”
“…Doesn’t know much. Me.”
The orthopedic department head who had spoken clamped his mouth shut with a gasp. The atmosphere had turned dangerously unstable.
“What don’t I know?”
At the calmly descending low voice, the murmuring cut off at once.
Even Dajeong, seated far in the back, could feel the freezing blue of Taekyung’s anger.
“After a sales rep visited not long ago, you replaced perfectly good medical equipment with a new unit costing three hundred forty million won—and that your son went on a language study abroad—do I not know that?”
“Th-that’s…!”
The orthopedic head shrank back without recovering an inch of ground.
“Neurosurgery, family medicine, plastic surgery heads. Do I not know you frequent Chungju F Golf Club? You seem to hold more memberships than I do, and I actually run businesses.”
“Ahem, ahem!”
“There’s also the ophthalmology head who shoved a paper squeezed out of residents under his own name into a journal, got caught, and was thoroughly humiliated.”
Under the sudden barrage the doctors sat stunned. Some, feeling the sting of guilt, busied themselves avoiding his gaze.
“Frequently late for rounds. Seeing outpatients after drinks under the excuse of a lunch gathering. Even a certain divorced department head who texts nurses every night.”
“…”
“So—once more. What is it that I don’t know?”
While the atmosphere was thoroughly upended, Taekyung himself grew extremely calm.
However—
“That isn’t the essence. What is the real business Hanju Group intends to pursue with Seohan Hospital?”
The moment Park Hyeonwoo’s pointed thrust landed, the man’s eyes flashed with open threat.
Dajeong unconsciously rubbed her shoulders, which had gone cold.