Chapter : 05
“What the…?”
Hyun-jun was wondering what was going on when the glass door opened again with a clatter, and Jo Dong-min came walking out with a smile on his face. He called out Lee Seo-yoon’s name loudly, grinning like a lunatic. Judging from how red and flushed his face was, he seemed drunk.
Did that bastard drink at work? Surely he isn’t acting like this while sober. At least, not if there’s a functioning brain inside that head of his.
No, wait. This was a man who had sex with a married woman at the company. Someone like him was perfectly capable of acting like this with a completely sober mind.
Hyun-jun didn’t care about his employees’ private lives, but seeing Dong-min repeatedly hanging around right in front of him was strangely irritating.
Hyun-jun narrowed his eyes and watched Lee Seo-yoon and Jo Dong-min, who was following behind her.
Seo-yoon hurriedly got into a taxi, while Dong-min pointed at the departing taxi and shouted a barrage of curses at it.
A short laugh escaped Hyun-jun.
It was like watching a trashy drama unfold in real time when you could already see exactly how the story was going to end.
Dong-min, despite being the one who had cheated, must have completely lost his mind and thrown a fit about how he couldn’t break up with her, leaving Seo-yoon being dragged around by him.
Hah.
Hyun-jun let out a murky breath and gave a faint laugh. He tapped the ground a few times with the toe of his dress shoe, then crushed the cigarette between his lips and tossed it into a trash can.
He then tilted his stiff neck from side to side a couple of times and walked toward Dong-min.
While planning the establishment of the Overseas Business Division and thinking about which employees to put on the task force, the first face that had come to mind was, ironically, Lee Seo-yoon’s.
Not Lee Seo-yoon, who spoke fluent English at a near-native level.
Nor Lee Seo-yoon, who had given a meticulous and flawless presentation in the conference room.
It was Lee Seo-yoon, trembling and fighting back tears in the darkness.
Hyun-jun narrowed his brows in irritation and gave a low laugh.
Hadn’t she asked him to pretend he hadn’t seen anything?
Then she should have stayed out of his sight.
She shouldn’t have irritated him.
Hyun-jun continued walking.
He could see Dong-min staring at the road where the taxi had disappeared, swaying drunkenly.
With about three steps left between them, Hyun-jun stopped and called out to him.
“Assistant Manager Jo Dong-min.”
Dong-min turned his head sharply, as if wondering who was calling him, but the moment his eyes met Hyun-jun’s, his body flinched.
“Huh? Ah, E-Executive Director, hello.”
A foul smell of alcohol wafted from Dong-min as he bent at the waist and then straightened up.
Hyun-jun frowned.
“We seem to be seeing each other quite often.”
Dong-min gave an ambiguous smile.
“Is that so?”
“I heard some vulgar cursing while I was passing by, so I came over. I wondered what kind of lunatic it was, and it turned out Assistant Manager Jo Dong-min was swearing at a female employee in front of the company.”
“What? Ah, no, it’s just that I, I had a little too much to drink, so my voice got a little loud…”
“Were you just cursing at Assistant Manager Lee Seo-yoon?”
Hyun-jun interrupted him, tapping the ground with his foot as though he didn’t even want to listen to him.
“No, sir. Y-you must have seen it wrong.”
“No? What do you mean, no?”
Dong-min’s eyes widened.
Hyun-jun stared down at him.
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
Whether from fear or drunkenness, Jo Dong-min suddenly began hiccupping, his shoulders jerking with every hiccup. He covered his mouth with one hand and staggered around.
It was a pathetic sight.
“Answer me.”
“Huh?”
“I said answer me.”
Overwhelmed by Hyun-jun’s presence, Dong-min shrank his shoulders.
Even then, he continued hiccupping repeatedly, his body jerking with each one.
What a fucking mess.
Fatigue and irritation surged through Hyun-jun all at once.
He sighed, stepped closer, and looked down at Dong-min with cold eyes devoid of any trace of amusement.
“I-I think, hic, I was very drunk, hic, and I, I may have made a mistake, hic.”
“Assistant Manager Jo Dong-min.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t do things at the company that you’re not supposed to do.”
“What?”
“Let’s behave according to common sense.”
Dong-min’s already-red face became as bright as if it were burning.
Apparently, he had plenty to feel guilty about. His pitch-black pupils shook nervously.
“Executive Director, hic, what, what do you mean…”
“I believe I told you not to make me say it twice.”
At Hyun-jun’s icy voice, Dong-min tried to part his parched lips, but could only blink several times before lowering his head.
He nodded several times with his head bowed, then firmly pressed his lips together.
“It isn’t difficult, is it?”
“…Yes, hic. I understand.”
Every time Dong-min opened his mouth, the strong smell of alcohol unpleasantly assaulted Hyun-jun’s nose.
Hyun-jun simply walked past him.
From behind, he could hear Dong-min’s pathetic hiccupping.
It was a tiring and unpleasant night.
The next morning, Seo-yoon arrived at work an hour earlier than usual and sat alone in the empty office, staring blankly at her monitor.
She gazed at the completely black screen for a while before pressing the power button on her laptop.
Everything had been far too shocking.
The fact that Jo Dong-min was having an affair with Manager Oh Cho-hee.
The fact that she was the person caught between the two of them.
And the fact that Dong-min refused to break up with her.
“I cheated on you. Not with Manager Oh.”
Whenever that chilling voice echoed in her head like a hallucination, goosebumps rose across her arms.
She hadn’t known.
She truly hadn’t known anything.
As the time for everyone to arrive at work approached, her heart began pounding.
Manager Oh Cho-hee would be arriving soon.
The thought of having to sit right beside her and work all day made Seo-yoon shudder.
Manager Oh doesn’t know about this, does she?
If she finds out…
Even thinking about it made it difficult to breathe.
She had a feeling something terrible was going to happen.
She wanted to get out of this filthy relationship as quickly as possible.
The way to end this situation.
The way to wipe everything clean.
There was only one thing that came to mind.
Resigning.
She couldn’t think of anything else.
She was a fourth-year professional, and her career mattered to Seo-yoon.
It had only been four months since she transferred to Dowon Soft. If she resigned now, those four months of experience—less than a year—would become practically useless.
It felt terribly unfair, but she didn’t have the confidence to continue working at the company while having to deal with Jo Dong-min and Manager Oh Cho-hee.
Seo-yoon squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
If she could simply resign and put an end to everything cleanly, perhaps that would be the better choice.
She had just decided that she shouldn’t think about it anymore and should hurry up and prepare to find another job when an email icon appeared at the bottom of her monitor.
It was an email from Manager Han Ki-yeol of the Strategic Planning Division’s secretarial office.
The email explained that a task force would be formed ahead of the establishment of the Overseas Business Division, and Executive Director Do Hyun-jun had been copied on it.
The email proposed that Seo-yoon join the task force and consider transferring to the Overseas Business Division once it was officially established.
She skimmed through the schedule for individual interviews with the candidates before closing the email.
She was considering resigning anyway, so what use was any of this?
Whether they formed a task force or not, whether they established the Overseas Business Division or not, none of it had anything to do with her.
After returning from an external appointment, Hyun-jun entered his office carrying a thick stack of résumés.
Thump.
He tossed them onto his desk and sat down.
He had already reviewed them once and selected several résumés he had marked in yellow.
He flipped through them one by one before opening Lee Seo-yoon’s résumé.
Judging from her outstanding English skills, he had naturally assumed that she must have lived abroad.
But her experience consisted of only one year during elementary school and one year as an exchange student in college.
Perhaps her parents were Korean immigrants, or perhaps she had received intensive early English education.
Even so, the English Seo-yoon spoke was so natural that even Hyun-jun, who had lived in the United States for more than ten years, couldn’t detect the slightest foreignness in it.
Korea University, majoring in Business Administration, with a minor in Journalism and Mass Communication.
One year as an exchange student at the University of Chicago.
GPA: 4.35.
Three-month internship at JN Consulting.
Three years and one month in the Public Relations Department of LN Electronics.
TOEIC score: 985.
TOEIC Speaking Level 8.
37th-generation university student PR supporter for the Gyeonggi Provincial Council.
9th-generation university student volunteer group member for LN Electronics.
Two awards in public relations content competitions.
It was an insanely packed résumé, enough to make him wonder whether she had ever stopped to breathe.
It looked like she had squeezed out the absolute maximum possible from four years of experience.
There were people like that sometimes.
People who ran forward without ever looking back, as if they were being chased by something.
But Seo-yoon hadn’t seemed to have that kind of desperation.
She had always been a neat and composed woman.
Now, however, the image of her trembling and fighting back tears remained like an afterimage, superimposed over everything else.
Knock, knock.
A knock came from the door.
Hyun-jun raised his wrist and checked the time.
Five o’clock.
One hour remained until the end of the workday.
“Come in.”
“Hello, Executive Director.”
The person who opened the door and entered was Lee Seo-yoon.
Hyun-jun gave a small nod and rose from his seat.
He picked up the document envelope he had placed on one side of his desk and walked toward the sofa.
“Have a seat.”
“Yes.”
Seo-yoon answered briefly and sat on the sofa.
Hyun-jun sat at the head of the sofa and looked at her.
She was wearing a sky-blue blouse with a rounded collar and black slacks. Her hair was tied up in a neat bun. A few wisps of fine hair had fallen loose around the back of her pale, slender neck.
Hyun-jun looked at Seo-yoon for a moment before giving her a gentle smile.
“Have you thought about it? About joining the Overseas Business Division’s task force?”
“I haven’t had a chance to think about it yet. It was such a sudden proposal…”
“I understand. Since it involves transferring to another division, you’ll need some time to think about it. Your work won’t be all that different.”
Hyun-jun handed the document envelope he had been holding to Seo-yoon.
“These are the contract terms I’m offering you. Take a look, and if there are any conditions you’d like to change, let me know.”
Seo-yoon accepted the envelope, hesitated, and then looked up.
“Conditions I’d like?”
Looking into her clear, trembling brown eyes, Hyun-jun gave a faint smile.
“Yes. Anything is fine. Just tell me.”
