T/N: Sorry for the delay!
There were so many kinds of food it made your head spin, all laid out appetizingly. He’d vaguely imagined sweet-and-sour pork and gimbap and the like.
Of course, there were sweet-and-sour pork and gimbap, but a good number of the dishes on display were things he was seeing for the first time.
Giyun chose and piled on his plate the things that looked familiar. He hadn’t even made it around a single station and his plate was already full.
The meal began in an easy, free atmosphere. Everything he’d taken tasted good. With every lift of his chopsticks, Giyun was moved on the inside.
So this is what they mean by meat juices. Is this the umami I’ve only ever heard about? In the riot of varied flavors, he was like a baby tasting sugar for the first time, unable to get a grip. He’d thought he wasn’t a greedy eater, but maybe it was simply that he’d rarely had food worth craving.
It had only been a few hours since he sat at the table in the break room over a coffee and vowed not to get addicted to this kind of luxury and now look at him. If he could, he wanted to chuck the civil-service prep and get hired at Seungjo’s company.
“Where should we go next month?”
“How about here? A new dining bar opened in Hangangjin—my friend went and recommended it. Lots of big tables, too.”
“Oh, sounds good.”
Even while at a team dinner, Assistant Manager Kim was talking about what to eat at the next team dinner. The teammates, perfectly in sync with her, chimed in excitedly.
“I’ve gained five kilos since I joined. There’s so much food at the company, it’s a problem.”
“Sometimes it feels like the boss is fattening us up.”
“Our boss was famous for being big-hearted back in school, too.”
Busily chewing, Giyun pricked up his ears when the boss came up. The last thing Assistant Manager Kim said was not immediately clear to him.
“In school?”
“Oh, I’m an alum. Junior in his department.”
“…Wow.”
“Why? There are a few of us in the office besides me.”
Hearing this for the first time, his eyes went wide. You could find out what school Seungjo went to just by typing his name in a portal.
“When I was graduating, I was agonizing. Did I get a master’s for nothing? For a humanities major, is there really no use unless it’s for exams? Do I have to go abroad, and what if even that leads nowhere? And right then a senior reached out. I was so shocked.”
“Ah…”
“At first, I hesitated a little, but coming was the right call. It suits me, it’s rewarding, and the compensation is solid.”
A university junior, huh. Which meant Assistant Manager Kim had at minimum a master’s from Hanguk University.
He laughed at himself for having, just a moment ago, thought he wanted to become an employee here. He should wish for things within reach. He was only a high-school graduate.
He had to remember that this brief luxury he was enjoying was all something from luck. In the end, for him there was nothing but the exam. Study hard and pass. Any way he looked at it, that was the only answer.
Just as he was renewing his resolve in his heart, Park Sang-bin waved off what Assistant Manager Kim had said.
“Reward for performance is only natural. Do you know how well the books we make sell?”
Assistant Manager Kim snorted back.
“They sell, sure. But let’s be honest, are the high sales numbers because of us? They sell that much because the boss’s lectures do so well.”
“That’s true, but… we get a lot of praise for the textbooks too, after how hard we worked on them. A lot of predicted questions hit the mark, too.”
“We did pour our guts into them to a vomit-inducing degree. People should recognize the boss’s perfectionism.”
She shook her head as if she didn’t even want to think about it.
“Was it a hundred thousand copies of the basic text just last year?”
“Yeah. Enrollment’s up over last year, so it’ll go higher this year, right?”
“Higher. I hear the CSAT team next door set a new record this time, too.”
“Well, and the number of titles is up over last year.”
“We missed last month’s team dinner because of that new-title deadline, remember?”
“Forget dinner. I almost died. At this rate I wanted to ask for beds in the office.”
They lamented, then felt proud, then shuddered like they were getting the creeps. Silently swallowing his food, Giyun worked to follow the flow of conversation in his head.
A hundred thousand copies of the basic text in a year. For him, textbook income would be just a side income. His basic text cost 40,000 won. Then the sales for a single basic text in a year would be… Just a simple calculation: 40,000 won times a hundred thousand…
Under the table, he folded his fingers as he counted, but when the amount climbed beyond what he could imagine, he gave up. Instead, he recalled what the man had said when he’d pushed the money back at him in the office.
“If I’d intended to collect that money, I wouldn’t have given it. It’s an amount I can do without; I don’t even remember how much it was.”
Anyway, he now understood that wasn’t an exaggeration but the plain truth.
“And to me, the time I’m wasting dealing with you right now is more precious than that money.”
Which meant that, too, had been the unvarnished truth…
“…”
His chewing slowed. Just moments before, he’d been devouring some kind of lamb-something in rapture. Now he couldn’t taste it at all. It was like chewing stiff, tough rubber. He forced what was in his mouth down his throat.
“Mr. Eun, eat a lot. Eat up and keep your strength up. You’ll pass next year for sure.”
Seeing him picking at his food, so different from the start, Assistant Manager Kim patted his shoulder encouragingly. She must have thought his exam stress had killed his appetite. Another employee backed her up.
“Yeah. Most of the students who worked as the boss’s TAs have gone on to do well. There’s a Jeong Yujin. He was top scorer in the general administration track last year and did an interview. He was as young as you, right?”
It sounded like comfort, but it only made him feel like he was going to get indigestion. If they’d had a top-scoring TA before and then ended up with the likes of him, of course it would frustrate Seungjo. He thought of how the man had pressed him… What was that 70 in English supposed to be?
Just then, Assistant Manager Kim corrected the employee.
“No, he was older than Mr. Eun. Yujin had already finished his military service. He was on a leave of absence. Sophomore, was it?”
“Oh, was that it?”
“He was a man…?”
Because of the name, he’d assumed female, but when he heard he’d done his military service, he asked again.
“Yeah. All the boss’s on-site TAs are men.”
The answer came back as if it were obvious. All his TAs were men… Come to think of it, including himself, all the on-site TAs he’d seen were men. He’d thought it was coincidence. Had he been hiring men on purpose?
“The first year he hired women too, but one of them went to see the boss and confessed to him.”
As if responding to his unspoken question, Assistant Manager Kim elaborated. At that reason he’d never imagined, his mouth fell open.
“So… what happened?”
“What could happen? She was fired on the spot.”
“…”
“Anyway, after that he hardly ever hires women as TAs. If weird rumors start just because they’re together, it’s a headache.”
“I see…” He murmured blankly.
A confession. How could she do that? He must have been flustered.
That wasn’t why he’d hired her. If you’re a TA, you’re supposed to do the work you’re paid to do…
One by one, the employees who’d emptied their plates stood to go get more. He followed them to the food stations. Even though people kept piling on generous helpings, the luxurious food was replenished without a break like a bottomless cornucopia.
It was another world. But maybe because his mood had sunk, even though there was still a world of things he hadn’t tried, his hand didn’t reach out like before.
The eat-and-drink-and-chatter-without-ceasing team dinner ended when the buffet’s closing time neared. Everyone had overeaten and the next day was a weekday, so a round two wasn’t even mentioned.
He took a bus back to the office. He’d assumed the dinner would end quickly and had left his things behind, and there was still work he hadn’t finished.
Inside, the office was pitch-dark. Everyone had gone home. The security system was active from the entrance. Tapping the access card the general affairs team had made for him, he returned to his seat, flipped the breaker back on, and booted the computer.
He intended to finish up and head right out, but his focus kept breaking as conversations from dinner floated back. He even found himself belatedly regretting the things he hadn’t eaten because he’d lost his appetite.
He might never get to go there again… On top of that, maybe it was a food coma, but drowsiness overtook him and his vision wavered. Like that, he made a typo while working, erased it, entered it again…
When he checked the clock again, the last bus had already gone.
“I’m screwed.”
He snapped to. Hastily sobered, he hurried to finish the task at hand. After he’d even sent the email, he looked around blankly. Now what. With only the desk lamp on, the gloomy office was so quiet it felt eerie.
He’d never taken a taxi even in broad daylight. The idea of paying the late-night surcharge to go all the way to Incheon in the dead of night was unthinkable by his standards. And there was a mock-exam class at seven in the morning. Just a few hours away.
“So I’ll just hold out a few hours.”
After some thought, he decided to stay and study in the office until the academy opened in the morning.
First, he worked through the English mock exam from today’s class. He got an 80. Still a score he couldn’t bring himself to tell Seungjo.
Maybe it was fortunate there was no chance to tell him. After carefully compiling his error notes, he started on the study he’d planned for the next day.
These days, heat advisories were issued day after day. With the air-conditioning off, the office had become stifling long ago, but he didn’t turn it on. It wasn’t a cramped space like his home, and in this wide office he was alone.
No matter how he looked at it, running the AC would be a waste. He felt sweat running down his back, but he was used to this level of heat and could stand it. From time to time, when he got too hot, he pinched the collar of his T-shirt and flapped it to cool his sweat.
A little after three a.m., fatigue began to press in. After some thought, he decided to close his eyes for a moment. If he forced an all-nighter and made a mistake during class, that would be a problem.
He turned off the lamp and lay face-down on the desk. Except for the white and green exit signs glowing faintly in the distance, everything was dark. His consciousness, too, slowly sank into the dark.
In his dream he held an English exam paper with a score of 40. Forty? Wasn’t it an 80? Had his score undergone meiosis?
Before he could resolve his question, a large shadow fell across his back. He turned—and froze.
Seungjo was looking down coldly at his shabby exam paper. Cold sweat ran down his spine.
“Forty. Is this a joke?”
“Sir, you’re misunderstanding. This is…”
“Why not just say you bubbled everything at random.”
What could he say that would lessen the man’s dislike. He wasn’t even hoping for approval. Without the presence of mind to sort truth from falsehood, he just nodded that the man was right.
“Yes, I bubbled. I guessed on all of them.”
“What is this, an axe.”
Apparently it not the right answer. What came back was a retort as sharp as a hatchet.
To get forty on twenty four-choice items by blindly guessing was a strange talent, but he didn’t show a flicker of awe. Far from it, his gaze grew even colder.
“How can you not even keep up with half of Yujin.”
He even brought up the name of the TA who’d supposedly been top scorer in general administration last year. Amid this, if he said he felt vaguely hurt that he was “Mr. Eun Giyun” while Jeong Yujin was “Yujin-ie,” would that mean he was hopeless? It would be one thing if Jeong Yujin were an elementary schooler; hadn’t they said he was even older than him?
As if to say it was too early to be upset over petty things, he continued with a matter-of-fact bombshell.
“You’re so pathetic I can’t possibly keep you.”
“Sir, if I lose this job, it’ll be hard for me to live.”
“Not my concern. You should have done better when you had the chance.”
Before his torrent of barbs, Giyun clung in desperation. It was a sad dream for its peculiar realism. Even in a dream he was stuck as the pitiful subordinate.
“You get scores like that because you watch instructors like Shin Woomin.”
“I had my reasons for changing English instructors several times.”
“What reasons?”
“That’s…!”
Even in a dream, it was an answer he couldn’t give. His mouth, which had been pleading without pause, clamped shut like a shell.
Then, as if to prod him, a flash of lightning cracked. A sudden change in brightness.
All at once, the pitch-dark office blazed with light. The space brightened in an instant. Thanks to that, his consciousness, which had been mired in a baseless nightmare, was hauled back to reality by the scruff of the neck.
Even awake, the glare made it hard to open his eyes. After several hard blinks, his vision finally cleared—and landed on an unexpected figure. He blinked again.
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“…Am I still dreaming?”
Seeing a neat furrow form between his brows, Giyun came back to himself a beat late.
“This is reality. Don’t speak casually.”
“Gasp! Sorry.”
He shot to his feet, brought his hands together, and bowed at the waist. The expression with which Seungjo observed the greeting was still cool. It was exactly the face that had looked at him in the dream. Maybe the dream he’d just had was prophetic.
“I was so startled… What brings you here?”
“I came to work. Who should be startled… Why are you surprised.”
Ah, right. This was his company, and of course he…
“At this hour?”
Inadvertently checking the time, he was startled all over again.
“Is there a problem.”
“No, none.”
His answer came quickly, but what he had wasn’t a problem so much as a question. It wasn’t even four a.m. Starting work at this hour—what time did this man’s day begin. How diligent did a person have to be…
And even his outfit was perfect. Hair neatly swept back to show a high forehead; a fine jacket over a snow-white dress shirt, as if heat were someone else’s problem even in midsummer.
In a good sense or a bad one, there seemed to be not a speck of ordinary human warmth to him. They said Joseon scholars rose at three in the morning, before the rooster crowed, and put on formal attire; perhaps in a past life he’d been one.
Snap! A sharp sound smacked his ear. The scholar from his past life flicked his thumb and middle finger right before his eyes.
Startled, he jerked his head up; his gaze, which had been absently traveling up and down the man’s attire, snapped into focus.
“Let’s stop getting host and guest reversed.”
With a single stroke, he hauled Giyun back from his wandering thoughts.
“I asked why you’re here at this hour.”
“I had work left and was doing it… and I dozed off.”
“That’s odd. I’ve never given on-site TAs such a heavy workload.”
He tilted his head as if genuinely puzzled.
“Is there really that much work or is it that your efficiency is low.”
The choices he offered personally were the difference between hinting at his incompetence and laying it bare. Whichever he chose, he was calling himself an idiot.
“No matter how busy things get, I don’t make employees pull all-nighters. Why are you spending the night here on your own.”
If he said he’d gone to something called a team dinner and started work late, he’d probably get, Who are you to tag along to that?
With a perfectionist like this man, who started his day in a suit at four in the morning, it might be impossible from the start to make him understand an ordinary person’s circumstances.
“I did try to go home, but somehow I missed the bus, and it got too late…”
“And?”
“There’s a morning class in a bit, so I thought it’d be efficient to just stay here at the office.”
“Why not sleep rough in front of the academy. That’s probably the most efficient in terms of time.”
His expression was cool and his tone calm, so it almost sounded like useful advice. Thanks to that, he didn’t immediately realize it was sarcasm.
“Other people don’t commute from home because they’re idiots who don’t understand efficiency.”
They go home because they want to rest. But for him, this place felt cozier.
“This place was built for work, not sleep. Do you eat your meals in the bathroom.”
He had done dishes in the bathroom, more than once. When he lived in a goshiwon without a shared kitchen. When the sink pipes froze and burst in winter…
Of course, what the man was curious about wasn’t his shabby personal history. Instead of answering honestly, he gathered his things with a downcast face and grabbed his bag.
“Sorry. I’ll go somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?”
“An internet café nearby…”
“Is my class a joke to you?”
At the unexpected remark, his eyes went wide.
“So you can kill time there till morning, then walk into the classroom with bloodshot eyes and reeking of cigarettes?”
“Then…”
Did he actually mean for him to sleep rough?
Seeing him roll his eyes, face endlessly distressed, Seungjo let out a low sigh.
“If you’re going to be shameless anyway, lie down properly. What is this? It’s all curled up and flattened on a desk.”
He knew the lounge had a massage chair, big recliner sofas, and blankets. They wouldn’t wear out if he lay there a while, but as the man said, he didn’t have the nerve; even if no one saw, he didn’t want to be the kind of person who stretched out and ate and slept in the man’s company.
“And why is it so hot in here. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to turn on the AC.”
“I do, but… the electricity bill…”
“Are you the one paying it.”
A flicker of incredulity crossed his handsome face.
“Not exactly, but…”
“Don’t act like an owner when you’re a part-timer. We’re not some small outfit that needs to worry about building management fees.”
“…Yes.”
Somehow the more he answered, the more he seemed to rub him the wrong way. He bowed his head, learning anew that the best thing was to just shut up.
Looking down at his drooping crown, Seungjo took the bag from his hand and tossed it onto a chair.
“Follow me.”
He turned his back and walked ahead. Not knowing why, Giyun followed.
The closer they got to the destination down the dark hall, the bigger his question grew. He’d brought him to the CEO’s office. It looked extremely large for one person, but in any case, it was Seungjo’s private office. He’d always wondered what it looked like inside, but he hadn’t imagined he’d see it today—much less with the man himself.
Leaving the bewildered boy, he went straight along the inner wall. There was another door, blended harmoniously into the wall. When he opened it, a little bedroom appeared, with a small bathroom beyond. In other words, a sleeping space for overnight work.
He’d heard from Assistant Manager Kim that bringing in beds to the office didn’t qualify as employee welfare by the CEO’s philosophy, and thus there was no nap room in the company.
It seemed he didn’t apply that philosophy to himself—this clearly looked like a sleeping room for his exclusive use. Realizing the rumor that he didn’t even go home because of work was true gave him a faint shock. Well, if a person came in at four in the morning, of course…
“No matter how busy we get, I don’t make employees pull all-nighters.”
Which meant that if anyone was pulling all-nighters, it was only him. At the belated realization, his face grew grave.
“As you said, my class is in a few hours.”
Just as he was wondering why on earth, he was showing him this place, he spoke.
“If you’re not going home, at least wash.”
He looked back at him, a faint crease at the corner of his eye.
“I’m sensitive to smells.”
“Smells…?”
“You smell of sweat, Mr. Eun. Did you not listen to the instructions at the start? If you walk into my class looking like that, I’ll throw you out.”
For a moment he went dumb. He scrubbed his body every day. Not tonight, granted. But even with nothing to spare, he never skipped a shower. And now, to his face: sweat smell.
He fought to steady a mind going distant and managed to answer.
“…I didn’t sweat.”
“Then what is this, spring water?”
A hand slipped without warning past the collar of his loose short-sleeved T-shirt.
“……!”
A big hand slid perfunctorily across his clammy back and the nape of his neck. At the unfamiliar touch, he hunched his neck tight. It happened so fast he had no chance to pull away. He was so startled his body just froze.
A strange sound almost escaped. He clapped a hand over his mouth. Right before his nose, he held out his palm, slick and shiny with sweat, as if to prove his point.
He wanted to cry. It seemed he wouldn’t be satisfied unless he showed him.
He didn’t even dare ask him to put it away. He couldn’t even properly lift his shrunken head. He only clutched the T-shirt collar as if to guard it. His lips trembled faintly. The skin where the man’s touch had lingered felt hot and tingly.
It had been a dry touch with no sexual intent. His hand was big, so when it swept the nape, it reached his back; his T-shirt was loose, so bare skin showed without resistance. It wasn’t as if the man had caressed him… but still…
Regardless of his visible agitation, still frowning and keeping his eyes on his sweaty palm, Seungjo walked to the bathroom and washed his hands at the sink.
Like an illustration in a proper hand-washing guide, thoroughly and without missing a spot. His motions felt fastidious, as if he were trying to shake something off.
He washed for a long time. Long enough that it felt like he was trying to put him down twice. After what felt like an excessive length of washing, he dried his hands with cool composure.
“It’s impressive you managed to fall asleep sweating that much.”
“…”
“If you’re hot, don’t stupidly tough it out. Turn on the AC. No one’s going to praise you for saving the office electricity bill that isn’t even yours. They’ll only think you’re a fool.”
“……”
“Wash. Dry your hair. Go catch some sleep on the lounge sofa or something. An office desk is for working, not for collapsing on like a vagrant.”
Unable to meet his eyes, he nodded hard. Afraid he’d reveal how red his face had gone, he hurried into the bathroom. As he locked the door tight, he heard a snort outside as if to say, He’s really doing the most. Soon he even closed the bedroom door and left, and all was completely quiet.
The bathroom was simple but had a shower. After a moment’s hesitation, he undressed. As the man had said, his body, worn out by the tropical night, was slick with sweat. Record heat continued outside; even if he had gone home, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have been able to sleep from the heat.
He stepped into the shower stall and shut the door. Warm water washed his body. He tried his best not to dwell on the fact that he was standing naked under the water in a space the man used personally. But the more he tried not to, the more heat rose in his body. It wasn’t as if the body wash had a warming function.
When he finished, he dried his hair thoroughly just as instructed and stepped out of the sleeping room. In the main office, looking as inhuman as ever, he barely glanced at him as he bid goodbye on his way out.
As if he weren’t the one who’d told him to wash; the little incident from moments ago seemed completely forgotten. He looked far too busy to remember trivialities. Which meant that giving meaning or attention to the fact that their skin had touched was something only he would do.
Quietly leaving the CEO’s office, he walked the long hall and carefully lay down on a lounge sofa, pulling a blanket over himself. He set his phone alarm and placed it by his head. His body was comfortable, but his heart thumped and he couldn’t sleep.
He ran a hand over his neck again. He’d washed clean and felt fresh, but the heat at his nape was rising again; he’d start sweating again at this rate: disaster. It felt like his thermoregulation center was broken.
It was strange. All he’d gotten from him were rebukes and scolding, and yet he’d felt so weird since before.
In the end, until morning came, he didn’t sleep a wink.
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