Chapter 132

It had been tough back in Syria too.

But at least there, when there weren’t any battles, he could take a full day off.

Sure, some mercenaries got hurt during training—

But they were all professionals, so serious injuries were rare.

If anything, the training ended up building his stamina more than anything else.

That stamina was now being drained away in Korea.

Tougher than a warzone?

It sounded absurd.

“Professor, should we move on to the bladder now?”

Jaewon called out to Kang-hyuk, who had gone blank again.

Kang-hyuk barely pulled himself together and replied.

“Yeah, let’s do that. For now… the ureters look fine. That’s something.”

He nodded as he examined the ureters descending from both kidneys.

The urethra looked intact too.

A miracle, really.

If the urethra were damaged, it wasn’t just about reconstruction.

It could cause severe loss of sexual function.

Even if the kid didn’t yet understand what that meant—

The devastation he’d feel later would be unimaginable.

‘He said he would’ve rather died, didn’t he?’

Kang-hyuk recalled a mercenary who’d taken a bullet too close to a vital area and was left impotent.

A hardened veteran who not only took down enemies with cold precision but also saved isolated comrades—

To see that man sob so bitterly had been shocking, not just to Kang-hyuk, but to every mercenary who followed him, and even to the organization that had long employed and paid him a fortune—[Black Waters].

“Then should we start suturing right away?”

Jaewon spoke again to Kang-hyuk, who had paused once more.

His gaze turned to Gyeongwon, who gave a quick nod when their eyes met.

It was a silent sign of agreement that something felt off.

“Ah, yeah. Let’s close it up…”

Kang-hyuk sighed as he looked at the completely wrecked bladder.

They say the greatest blessings in life are “to eat well, sleep well, and relieve oneself well.”

Whoever said that—who knows—but it was surprisingly medical in nature.

In truth, most patients ended up dying because they failed at those three things.

And by that measure, this kid was an especially unfortunate patient.

Both his bowel and urinary functions had been destroyed.

“His… function will recover, right?”

Jaewon sounded just as worried.

The bladder, like the rectum, was a muscle-bound organ.

When it’s this seriously damaged, it often never regains full function.

That could mean a lifetime of incontinence—or worse, having to live with a catheter forever.

But then Kang-hyuk’s eyes lit up.

This was why he’d been conserving energy through the surgery.

He had no intention of letting the kid end up in such misery.

“It will recover. I’m the one suturing it. Gangster, give me 7-0 thread. Slave, pull only where I say and only with the strength I tell you to.”

“Huh…?”

“I’m suturing along the muscle fibers. That’ll minimize functional loss.”

If anyone else had said that, they’d have been laughed out of the OR.

Even if someone else overheard it, the reaction would’ve been the same.

But this was Kang-hyuk. And Jaewon was the one listening.

There was no laughing this off.

“I-I’ll assist to the best of my ability.”

That was all he could say.

“Thread.”

“Here it is.”

Jang-mi promptly handed over the suture tool with the ultra-thin 7-0 needle.

Kang-hyuk brought it toward the bladder but let out a low groan.

‘My leg… it hurts.’

It made sense—he’d been standing this entire time.

But anyone who’s performed surgery would find that odd.

Usually, when you’re operating, you don’t feel pain—no matter how awkward your posture is.

You don’t feel hunger. You don’t feel thirst.

At least not when you’re the one holding the scalpel.

“Chair. Get me a chair.”

“A chair…?”

“Yeah. This is a tricky one. Gyeongwon, lower the patient. Rookie, bring a chair.”

“Uh… yes, sir.”

It was the first time Kang-hyuk had ever made such a request.

But the OR always had surgical chairs ready.

For microsurgery, the more body parts you could anchor down, the better.

So the new nurse pushed out a chair that had been stuffed in the corner.

Jang-mi added disposable cloth covers to the back and armrests.

“Oof.”

Kang-hyuk let out a groan as he sat down.

“You okay?”

Only then did Jaewon realize something was off.

Kang-hyuk looked at his face and gave a baffled smile.

‘Still clueless, huh.’

Elevated heart rate, faster breaths, a faint fever—

Kang-hyuk wasn’t just unwell. He was sick.

If he had seen himself in a mirror, he would’ve immediately noticed something was wrong.

But Jaewon hadn’t picked up on it until now.

Even with the mask, it was a major oversight.

And it meant Kang-hyuk still had to keep pushing himself because the people he was training were still behind.

“I’m fine—for now.”

So Kang-hyuk gave a wry smile and picked the suture tool back up.

“For now? Wait…”

“Let’s finish first. Honestly, I’m exhausted. We can’t waste time.”

“O-okay. Got it.”

Hearing Kang-hyuk admit he was tired came as a shock.

Jaewon, who always whined about being tired and had earned the nickname “Whiny,” immediately focused on assisting.

Gyeongwon also nervously fiddled with the anesthesia machine.

If Kang-hyuk made a mistake, it could ruin the entire procedure.

‘Slave… I mean, Senior Yang is good, sure…’

But only relative to other departments and peers.

By objective standards, he was still incomplete as a trauma surgeon.

And by Kang-hyuk’s standards, he was still a rookie.

“Whew.”

No one knew that better than Kang-hyuk himself.

With a soft sigh, he began suturing the bladder.

It wasn’t a hard suture if you treated it like closing a wound.

The shape made it a bit tricky—

But a bladder drained of urine was flat.

Still, suturing torn muscle fibers along their lines was almost impossible.

‘I’ve sutured nerves on a boat… I can’t fail here.’

Kang-hyuk repeated that to himself as he moved his hands.

To minimize hand tremors, he sat in the chair, pressed his back to the rest—

Anchored his elbows on the armrests and even pressed his wrists to the boy’s abdomen.

That dramatically reduced the shaking.

Almost back to normal.

It was the perfect demonstration of the textbook principle: the more contact points, the better the microsurgery.

“Watch closely. You’ll need to do something similar later.”

Even in this struggle, Kang-hyuk didn’t forget to teach.

Jaewon knew how important that was.

So he didn’t even nod—just answered quietly.

“Yes, Professor.”

“I don’t expect you to see what I see.”

That was too much to ask.

Even the best surgeons he’d met while working with [Black Waters] couldn’t completely mimic Kang-hyuk.

Not even veteran military doctors from the strongest trauma units in the U.S. Marines.

If they couldn’t see what he saw, mimicking him perfectly was impossible.

But progress was still possible.

“Even if you can’t see the site, you can see my hands. Watch how I move.”

“Yes, yes, Professor. But…”

“But what.”

“This isn’t, like, your final advice or anything, right?”

“You little shit.”

“I mean… people do weird stuff before they die…”

Now that he mentioned it, it did feel a bit weird.

He’d been so exhausted he hadn’t noticed—

But Kang-hyuk was being strangely gentle.

“Enjoy it while it lasts. I’ll be tearing you a new one tomorrow.”

So he went back to his usual gruff tone.

Jaewon looked visibly relieved.

“Yup, that’s more like you, Professor.”

“So should I be flattered or pissed?”

“Uh, I mean… n-no, sir.”

He stopped himself from making a crack about Kang-hyuk’s personality.

Even at his gentlest, he was fiercer than most other departments’ [malignants]
(T/N: [Malignant] is a slang term referring to a toxic, harsh senior or colleague—like a cancer to work with.)

‘They say to beware of wounded tigers.’

So he held his tongue.

Luckily, Kang-hyuk was too focused on the surgery to pay attention.

Thwip.

Which made sense.

He was working a miracle—no, magic—with his hands.

Thwip.

Each motion pierced muscle fibers so fine they were nearly invisible—

And came out exactly at the matching ends that had been severed.

Ziip.

The tension brought the muscle fibers back into perfect alignment.

Even for Jaewon—who followed Kang-hyuk everywhere and attended every surgery—this was rare.

Even Kang-hyuk couldn’t maintain this level of concentration in every operation.

“Whew.”

His sighs punctuated the difficulty of what he was doing.

At times, his elegant movements would visibly stutter.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just taking a breather. Quit nagging.”

“It’s just… you said some unsettling stuff earlier…”

It had sounded like a final lesson or something.

And Jaewon still had a mountain of things to learn—it made him nervous.

“You little punk… stop chanting death spells. I’m just not feeling great.”

“Then that’s good to hear.”

“You brat…”

Kang-hyuk shook his head and resumed suturing.

The impossible task was already transitioning from the posterior to the anterior bladder.

Jaewon wasn’t just gawking in awe.

He’d realized something—

Kang-hyuk might not die here and now, but…

His lessons wouldn’t go on forever.

So he couldn’t afford to slack off.

‘The hands… he said to watch his hands.’

Jaewon knew he wasn’t remotely on Kang-hyuk’s level.

Trying to see what Kang-hyuk saw was too greedy.

But he could still observe the hands.

‘Ah… so like that there…’

‘And there like this…’

The more he focused—only on the hands—the more he saw things he hadn’t before.

It felt like a moment of clarity just barely out of reach.

Like something inside was about to crack open.

Then Kang-hyuk set the suture tool down.

More like dropped it, really.

“Done. The rest… you finish it.”

And with that, he pushed the chair back and stepped away from the table.

“M-me? All of it?”

“Yeah. You can handle it. I… I need to get some sleep.”