March 3rd, 2003—right after the entrance ceremony.
The fluorescent lights on the third floor of the research building buzzed faintly.
The first smell that hit me was a mix of alcohol, dust, and the stale paper scent seeping out of old thesis binders.
“Research is family.”
That was the first thing Professor Han Do-yoon said to me.
A sharp jawline, glasses that caught the light at every angle, and a habit of cutting off anyone with,
“Get to the point.”
It was my first time meeting my advisor, yet he already looked like someone who had ruled this space for years.
He handed me a blue bankbook.
My name was printed on it.
“Your stipend will go in here.
Withdrawals are on my end. I’ll manage it well.
It’s for the convenience of the lab.”
I nodded on instinct.
How many new graduate students could refuse a professor on their very first day?
The bankbook was in my hand—
but the official seal stayed in his drawer.
Back then, I didn’t understand what that meant.
Or maybe… I understood, and pretended not to.
At the end of our first meeting, he added:
“If you work hard, opportunities will come. Let’s live like a family.”
It sounded like a welcome.
But something about it felt like a warning.
A month after joining the lab, I had already adapted.
I learned chores, memorized experiment workflows,
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
and sorted senior students’ data without questioning it.
Around that time, an unfamiliar physician visited the lab.
He wasn’t wearing a white coat—just a casual shirt.
As soon as he sat on the sofa, he slid a thick envelope onto the table.
“A small gesture. I look forward to working with you.”
My mind went blank.
I didn’t need to see inside the envelope to know what it contained.
“Ah—no, I can’t accept that,” I stammered.
The professor’s eyes flashed with a brief, amused contempt.
“He’s still na?ve,” he said—half laugh, half ridicule.
“You see, in research—”
He lifted the envelope.
“Money has to move for anything to move.”
The physician nodded silently.
The envelope disappeared into the professor’s desk drawer.
I watched it happen.
And said nothing.
That night, I sat alone in the corner of the lab, sorting unfamiliar patient data.
The professor called it “training to gain real-world experience.”
Training or exploitation—
I could no longer tell the difference.
It was past midnight when the thirty-page draft finally took shape on my laptop.
After I saved the file, the screen dimmed—
and the reflection staring back at me felt strangely unfamiliar.
Was this really training?
Or… was it exploitation?
On my way back to the dorm, I stopped by the stationery shop on the edge of campus and bought a small notebook—
palm-sized, black cover.
I hardly ever kept records.
But tonight, I felt like I had to.
Sitting at my dorm desk, I opened to the first page.
April xx, 2003 — First ghostwriting request
? Envelope incident — refused. Noted professor’s expression.
? Advisor’s remark: “Research is family.”
? Reconfirmed bankbook management structure.
My handwriting was small and shaky,
but my hand didn’t stop moving.
Would this record protect me?
Or was I simply transferring my anxiety onto paper?
I didn’t know then.
I couldn’t have known that this tiny notebook would grow into a record spanning twenty years.
A breeze from the window flipped one more page—
a blank sheet, an unwritten future.
Quietly, I added one more line:
[Memory fades. Records remain.]
And that night, somewhere deep inside,
I felt it—a vague, heavy sense that something was wrong with this lab.
A feeling that would become the preview of everything I was about to face.
But back then, I had no idea.
One day, this notebook would help save someone else’s life.
Every small detail—every timestamp, gesture, and sentence—will matter later.
This chapter may feel quiet, but it plants the seed of everything that follows.
Early support on RoyalRoad helps the novel reach more readers.
the moment Min-ah realizes the “family” she entered isn’t a family at all.
More soon.
