Imagawa Ori’s brows were knitted into a deep “river” character as she continued wrestling with a pile of German-language materials.
The professor had given her a one-month deadline.
It sounded like a long time.
But for her, who still had to juggle clinical work, surgeries, night shifts, and her “side job,” there simply wasn’t enough time.
Most importantly, she was stuck.
Using Kirschner wires to reconstruct ligament tension was one thing. Turning it into a tightly reasoned paper in academic language, combined with biomechanical principles, was another matter entirely.
The wastepaper basket was already overflowing with the drafts she had scrapped.
Just as she was worrying over it, a shadow suddenly fell over her.
“What do you want?”
Imagawa Ori looked up and saw that the person who had come was Kiryu Kazusuke. Her gaze turned hostile.
“I’m busy. I don’t have time to listen to your nonsense.”
If this were any other time, she would have told this resident to get lost already.
But she was simply too exhausted. Last night, she had accompanied Nakamori Sachiko drinking until the early hours, and now she barely even had the strength to curse at anyone.
“Dr. Imagawa.”
Kiryu Kazusuke was not scared off by her cold expression. Instead, he pulled over a nearby chair and sat down directly across from her.
That posture of sitting as an equal made Imagawa Ori pause slightly.
In front of a senior doctor, residents usually stood unless they were given permission to sit.
This guy was getting more and more out of line.
If he did not give her a reasonable explanation, or if he had not come to apologize and obediently receive orders to work...
Then she did not mind letting this resident learn what workplace bullying meant.
Kiryu Kazusuke glanced at the books on her desk. “Regarding that paper on Suzuki Shinya’s surgery, it seems you’ve run into some difficulties?”
Imagawa Ori snorted coldly. “What does that have to do with you?”
Kiryu Kazusuke raised the document in his hand. “It really has nothing to do with me? You don’t need my help?”
Imagawa Ori lifted her chin slightly. “What is that?”
As she spoke, she subconsciously leaned back against the chair and folded her arms across her chest.
It was a person’s habitual defensive posture.
Kiryu Kazusuke held the document forward a little. “A summary of Suzuki Shinya’s surgery, along with some personal views on the theory of ligament tension reconstruction.”
Imagawa Ori subconsciously licked her lips.
At a glance, it was only three pages. There was not even a cover page, just a few sheets stapled together.
But that did not matter.
The key was the bold title on the front page—“Microscopic Stress Release and Articular Surface Remodeling: A Clinical Report on Multi-Point Kirschner Wire Tension Array Technique.”
This was the theory she had constructed countless times in her mind, yet had never been able to form into a complete closed loop!
Imagawa Ori did not doubt Kiryu Kazusuke’s ability.
On Suzuki Shinya’s operating table, the absolute command he had displayed over anatomical structures could not possibly have been luck.
Since he could perform it, he could naturally write it.
“Give it to me.”
Imagawa Ori reached out directly, her movement fast, even somewhat eager.
As long as she got this, she could report back to the professor sooner and free herself from this damned paper hell.
However, Kiryu Kazusuke turned his wrist lightly.
Imagawa Ori grabbed at empty air, her body leaning forward slightly and losing balance a little from using too much force.
“What is this? Are you messing with me?”
She raised her head, her face darkening.
Kiryu Kazusuke lifted the document a little higher, keeping it at a distance where she could almost reach it, yet could not quite take it.
“Dr. Imagawa, I told you before. I don’t accept unequal exploitation.”
“You want this?”
“Fine.”
“But I have a few conditions.”
At this point, he stopped speaking and smiled.
Imagawa Ori leaned back into her chair again and folded her arms across her chest.
She was a pragmatic person.
Since the other party wanted to negotiate, then they could negotiate.
“Let’s hear it first.”
She crossed one leg over the other, recovering the proper bearing of a senior doctor.
“Do you want money, or authorship?”
“If it’s authorship, I can try to argue with the professor and get you moved from third author to second author, but that will be difficult, because that fatty Mizutani will definitely want to stick his foot in.”
“If it’s money, one hundred thousand... no, fifty thousand. That’s the limit.”
Imagawa Ori put the ugly words up front.
“That won’t do.” Kiryu Kazusuke rejected her flatly. “The first condition is that I want second-author credit. Exclusively.”
In today’s Japanese medical world, the first author was absolutely a single-person position. There was no such thing as co-first authors.
He was only providing the theoretical framework. The concrete literature review, data organization, chart creation, and even the final submission and revisions afterward were all the hard labor Imagawa Ori would have to do.
Therefore, Kiryu Kazusuke had never thought of taking first author, and Imagawa Ori would likewise never agree.
Getting second author was not a bad deal.
Imagawa Ori said coldly, “Impossible.”
The corresponding author belonged to the professor.
Without Nishimura Sumika’s name, even if Imagawa Ori wrote the paper, the journal editor would merely glance at it before throwing it into the trash.
Send it for review?
That would only be out of respect for the professor.
The second author was often the person who “did nothing, but had to be listed because of their high status,” someone like Mizutani Mitsuma.
As for the other positions, they were dispensable.
“Then there’s nothing to discuss.”
Kiryu Kazusuke shook his head lightly, not intending to back down.
Having his name listed as second author was somewhat useful, but not especially so.
Then why did he ask for it?
The reason was simple. He could choose not to take it, but they could not refuse to give it.
Imagawa Ori’s slender brows drew together slightly, squeezing out a shallow crease. “If I don’t list Assistant Professor Mizutani, it will be very hard for me to explain.”
“That’s your problem.” The smile on Kiryu Kazusuke’s face did not change.
Imagawa Ori stared at him for a while.
To be honest, she did not want to list Mizutani Mitsuma either. That damn fatty had stolen plenty of VIP patients from her in the past.
“Fine. I’ll convince Professor Nishimura.” Imagawa Ori gritted her teeth and nodded, then added, “But if Assistant Professor Mizutani gives you trouble, you bear it yourself.”
“No problem.” Kiryu Kazusuke had no objection to that.
Then he raised two fingers. “The second condition.”
“For the next three months, whenever you are the primary surgeon, as long as I’m free, I go into the operating room.”
“And when I want to be first assistant, you cannot refuse.”
Hearing this demand, Imagawa Ori was somewhat surprised.
But it was not incomprehensible.
Most residents spent the whole year doing nothing more than retracting, suturing skin, and, if they were lucky, performing a simple appendectomy or debridement.
Want to be first assistant on major surgery?
Ability alone was not enough. You had to wait your turn and endure the hierarchy.
Three months meant that specialist trainees like Takigawa Takuhei would have to make way for him, a mere resident, throughout the next quarter.
This would make both of them targets in the department.
“Have you considered the consequences?”
Imagawa Ori narrowed her eyes slightly and looked at him.
In a university hospital, what mattered most was “harmony,” whether that meant maintaining cordial relations for mutual benefit or blending in with the crowd.
She was a specialist. Even if the doctors beneath her had complaints, they could only endure them.
But Kiryu Kazusuke was different.
If others wanted to target him, it would be all too easy.
“Dr. Imagawa only needs to agree.”
Of course Kiryu Kazusuke had considered the consequences. The seniors in the department would certainly be dissatisfied.
But so what?
As long as he did not give them an opportunity to make trouble for him, wouldn’t that be enough?
“No. Three months is too long.” Imagawa Ori still shook her head. “I’ll give you one month. During that time, I’ll arrange for you to enter the operating room as much as possible.”
“If we encounter an extremely complicated surgery, or if the professor is present, you’ll still have to step back to the second-assistant position.”
She was trying to bargain.
Since she could not completely refuse, she would reduce her own risk by compressing the other party’s room for profit.
“Dr. Imagawa, this isn’t a marketplace.”
But Kiryu Kazusuke looked completely unmoved. Otherwise, how could it be called extraction?
It made Imagawa Ori genuinely furious.
Did this guy think that with a few pages in his hand, he could have her in his grip?
He really could.
If she could publish this theory of “ligament tension reconstruction,” her position in academia would stabilize, and she might even have the chance to go to a major hospital in Tokyo...
There, there were more rich people.
And besides...
She remembered Suzuki Shinya’s perfect wrist reduction.
On the operating table, that feeling of the two of them being of one mind and cooperating seamlessly had indeed been a kind of pleasure.
Kiryu Kazusuke was also a smart man. After displaying his almost miraculous Kirschner wire technique last time, he had shown no arrogance or complacency whatsoever and had continued to keep to his place.
If a doctor gave him a chance, he went onto the table. If not, he did not mind.
A steady and capable resident like this was indeed easy to use.
“Fine.”
After weighing the pros and cons, Imagawa Ori squeezed those two words out from between her teeth.
Immediately after, her tone shifted—
“But!”
“I have a condition too. If you make a mistake on the operating table, even just once, then whether you get to be first assistant again will depend entirely on my mood.”
“This is my bottom line.”
Patients were not lab rats, and the operating table was not a practice field.