CHAPTER 8
The next day, Hye-joo tried to keep her eyes fixed on her computer monitor.
At the end of her line of sight was Muhyuk, who was focused on his work.
‘……Is he really keeping work and his personal life separate?’
‘Even though he was at my house with me just a few hours ago.’
‘Get ready and I’ll see you at work.’
Early that morning, Muhyuk had said that to the half-asleep Hye-joo before leaving her house, and after arriving at work, he acted as though he were seeing her for the first time since the company dinner, just like Ji-yoon and Yeon-soo.
‘I was wondering if I should thank him for yesterday, but I guess I don’t have to.’
It wasn’t as though she felt hurt or empty, but she kept finding herself bothered by it.
Without realizing it, Hye-joo repeatedly stole glances at him.
Then, Muhyuk’s monitor came into her field of vision.
An online real estate agency website was open on one side of his large monitor.
“……Huh?”
Hye-joo let out the sound involuntarily and looked at Muhyuk with a startled expression.
“Um…… are you looking for a place?”
“Yes, I thought I’d look around.”
He was looking for a place like that?!
Hye-joo desperately tried to maintain a calm expression.
“The website you’re looking at right now doesn’t have very good reviews.”
“What about a place like this?”
At Muhyuk’s question, Hye-joo fell into thought.
‘That definitely looks like a typical fake listing.’
‘The pictures make it look spacious and wide-open because they were taken with a wide-angle lens, but in reality…….’
On top of that, the deposit and monthly rent were ridiculously low.
Unless the price had deliberately been entered incorrectly, there was no way a place like this actually existed.
“That website is notorious for having pictures that look completely different from the actual places.”
At that moment, Hye-joo’s meddlesome side suddenly came out.
She glanced at Muhyuk once, then shifted her gaze back to his monitor and continued.
“You do know that you have to go and see the place in person, even if it looks big and nice in the pictures, right?”
“Really?”
“I didn’t know that.”
Watching him answer so calmly, as if he were talking about someone else’s business, Hye-joo let out a hollow laugh.
“You didn’t know?”
“Is this your first time looking for a place?”
“Well, you could say that.”
“I thought this place looked good, so I was thinking of transferring the deposit first.”
“Transfer the deposit first?”
“Why?”
“Isn’t it first come, first served with places like this?”
“It’s hard to find a place with such a good price and good facilities.”
“I can’t find anything else like it.”
“A place in this condition is…….”
“You can’t do that!”
“I don’t really understand why I can’t.”
Ah, this was so frustrating.
Faced with Muhyuk’s attitude of genuinely seeming unable to understand, Hye-joo eventually even pointed at him as she raised her voice.
“There’s something called a wide-angle lens on cameras, you know?”
“If you take a picture with one, you can make a miniature house that’s barely big enough to fit in your palm look like a twenty-pyeong apartment.”
“And you’re saying you’ll pay the deposit just by looking at pictures without even visiting the place?”
Hye-joo vented her frustration as though this were her own problem, then stood up.
Muhyuk stared at her for a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and asked again.
“So why can’t I?”
“It could really be this house, you know.”
“Maybe the landlord won the lottery and is feeling generous.”
“Or maybe they want to give back to society by offering it at such a low price.”
Hye-joo’s voice was getting louder and louder.
“Of course it’s—!”
Oh, no.
She could feel the sharp gazes of the people around them.
She hurriedly shut her mouth, leaned toward Muhyuk, and whispered.
“Let’s talk in the break room for a moment.”
Muhyuk nodded at Hye-joo’s suggestion and got up from his chair.
Hye-joo entered the break room first and waited for Muhyuk while fiddling with the coffee pot.
Soon, the break room door opened again, and Muhyuk stepped inside.
As soon as the door closed, Hye-joo spoke.
“I’m saying there’s a problem with the website itself.”
“Do you know how many fake-listing reports that site gets?”
“I don’t.”
“Just know that there are a lot.”
“Have you talked to a real estate agent?”
“A licensed realtor, I mean.”
“No?”
“Why not?”
Muhyuk hesitated for a moment.
It was a brief silence, as though he were calculating something.
“Because the agent’s fee is a little burdensome?”
Hye-joo let out another hollow laugh.
So was he seriously planning to deal directly with the landlord just because he didn’t want to pay the agent’s fee?
“Are you saying you’re going to make a direct deal with someone without even knowing whether they’re actually the landlord?”
“Is that not allowed?”
“Don’t you know how rampant real estate fraud is these days?”
Hye-joo continued with a frown.
“It’s the same with monthly rentals.”
“You see it on the news all the time—people pretending to be landlords and stealing deposits and everything else.”
“Ah, fraud.”
Muhyuk’s tone changed ever so slightly, but Hye-joo didn’t notice.
“So if you look for a place on your own and lose your deposit, which do you think you’ll regret more?”
“The agent’s fee or the deposit?”
“Exactly.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
He remained so calm, as though they were discussing someone else’s problem, that Hye-joo shook her head.
She had no idea where to even begin explaining things to him.
He was a man who somehow required effort from her from beginning to end.
She couldn’t tell whether the competent version of him she had seen before was fake, or whether this version of him was fake.
“But…….”
After a brief silence, Muhyuk spoke.
“Then what should I do?”
“With the realtor’s fee and the deposit, the initial cost is higher than I expected.”
“As you know, I’m a young newcomer to society without a single penny to my name.”
For a moment, it looked like he smiled.
Or had she imagined it?
Hye-joo tilted her head, then pushed the thought aside and began thinking.
Yet strangely, he didn’t look like he was asking her for help.
He didn’t particularly look like someone who had a solution, either.
‘Does he really have no money?’
‘That car that day, and the hotel…….’
‘No, let’s not think about that day for now.’
“Newcomers to society are all like that.”
“But if you really know this little about these things, you’ll actually get scammed.”
“Then what should I do?”
“What do you mean, what should you do?”
“Then, should we live together?”
“……What?”
What on earth was this man talking about?
“Live together?”
“You mean me and Kang Sun-woo?”
Hye-joo pointed at Muhyuk, then pointed her thumb toward her own chest and let out a disbelieving laugh.
Muhyuk simply nodded quietly.
“No matter how much I think about it, that seems to be the only way.”
“Whatever I try, you don’t seem to like it.”
“I’ll just help you find a place.”
“I can at least do that.”
“But what’s your budget?”
“No matter how desperate he was, asking a woman he barely knew to live together was ridiculous.”
“Did people normally say things like that so easily?”
Hye-joo folded her fingers one by one as she calculated things in her head.
“So what should I do?”
There was something strangely unsettling about the subtle smile on his face.
Hye-joo scratched between her brows with a worried expression.
“We might be able to find an inexpensive place.”
“Where have you been staying until now?”
At that moment, Muhyuk looked briefly flustered, as though thinking about something, before slowly opening his mouth.
“A, motel.”
“……A motel?”
“Then have you been staying at a motel without a place of your own since you joined the company?”
“Yes, well.”
Concern and worry gradually spread across Hye-joo’s face.
‘So he’s been staying alone at a motel all this time?’
‘Has he been going back to a motel every day to shower, sleep, and then come to work?’
‘So that’s why he left so early this morning…….’
‘He must have showered there, gotten ready, and even changed his clothes…….’
She even began to feel sorry for him.
She herself had once been so broke that she had survived an entire day on triangle kimbap.
‘Does he have a family?’
She felt that asking might only make things awkward, so Hye-joo changed the subject.
“Let’s just look for a place together first.”
“There has to be some way, right?”
“I’m sure we’ll find something.”
Muhyuk stared intently into Hye-joo’s eyes with an expression that looked as though he had just found an opening.
“What about that place?”
“Is it really not possible?”
“What place?”
“The house we went to yesterday.”
The house they went to yesterday?
A brief silence passed.
If he meant the place she had gone with this man yesterday, then…….
“Don’t tell me you mean my house?”
“Yes.”
The answer came back so naturally that Hye-joo blinked.
Why was this man saying that as though it were the most obvious thing in the world?
“Are you saying you want to stay there for a few days?”
Muhyuk looked at Hye-joo with an expression that was neither a yes nor a no.
‘What?’
‘Is he actually serious?’
At that moment, Muhyuk took one step closer.
Hye-joo, startled, took half a step back, but it didn’t change anything.
Muhyuk leaned his body toward Hye-joo.
‘He’s really this tall.’
Up close, his solid body seemed enormous, like a wall.
His broad, firm shoulders made Hye-joo imagine something she absolutely shouldn’t be imagining.
She hurriedly lowered her gaze.
“……Why?”
“At that house.”
Muhyuk’s voice dropped low.
His deep voice was so pleasant that it made her ears tingle.
Hye-joo’s heart began beating irregularly, as though it had lost its rhythm.
“There must be another room.”
“I think a place like that would be fine.”
Just as her toes were about to curl from the tension, she realized it.
‘Ah! Another room.’
‘He meant the same building, not the same house.’
Now that she finally understood the situation, Hye-joo remained silent for a moment.
She erased everything she had just imagined from her mind.
She had definitely erased it all, so why was she feeling so hot?
‘It’s because there’s no window in the break room.’
‘Yeah, that must be it.’
“……You mean another unit in our villa?”
Instead of answering, Muhyuk gave a small, amused laugh.
“……Wh-why are you laughing?”
“No.”
Muhyuk still didn’t take his eyes off Hye-joo.
Rather, Hye-joo only fidgeted with her fingers as she tried to avoid his gaze.
“I’ll ask the landlord for you.”
“I’m sure there’s an empty unit somewhere…….”
Before Hye-joo could finish speaking, her hand was suddenly caught.
As he gently rubbed her hand, Hye-joo drew in a deep breath.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be another unit, though.”
“……What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Muhyuk released the hand he had been holding.
He still didn’t take his eyes off her.
‘Did that man just smile?’
‘Ah, seriously.’
Her heart, which had been pounding wildly just moments ago, was annoyingly betraying her.
Hye-joo huffed and took a deep breath.
Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to look directly into his eyes.
“Gwon Hye-joo.”
Hearing her own name called so suddenly, Hye-joo stared at Muhyuk in surprise.
“What if someone hears us…….”
“Sunbae-nim.”
He’s doing this on purpose.
He’s definitely doing it on purpose.
Just as Hye-joo was about to scold him, Muhyuk suddenly moved closer and whispered beside her ear.
“I don’t have anywhere to go today.”
