TSIS 4

Chapter 4

Danbi stared blankly at Doyoung with unfocused eyes before finally managing to speak.

“Sunbae…”

Doyoung merely raised an eyebrow in response.

“I’m starting to think…”

“……”

“Maybe you got mixed up with some bad friends while you were in America.”

Doyoung’s face crumpled in an instant.

“Whenever I watch foreign dramas, people are always so free-spirited and wild, getting into all sorts of trouble and stuff… But you’re not like that, right, Sunbae?”

She looked genuinely concerned.

Doyoung was at a loss for words and could only let out a hollow laugh.

“Please tell me you’re not.”

Why was she being so persistent about this?

Danbi stubbornly followed his gaze with a determined look in her eyes, as though she wouldn’t be able to rest until she heard his answer.

“…I’m not.”

“Then that’s good.”

She took hold of Doyoung’s bathrobe and carefully closed the front for him.

She even retied the loose knot, which had barely been holding together, pulling it tight. The skin that had been subtly exposed disappeared beneath the bathrobe.

“Pasta okay?”

Danbi opened the cabinet beneath the sink and took out a pot to boil the noodles.

Because she crouched down on her knees, she unintentionally shoved Doyoung backward with her rear.

“Huh? Ah, yeah. Pasta… sounds good.”

Doyoung stepped back awkwardly and rubbed the nape of his neck, which was still damp.

The whole situation was so absurd—and so funny—that he had to suppress a laugh after being suddenly suspected of being some delinquent young man.

He could feel the heat spreading all the way to the tips of his ears.

Of course. This bizarre train of thought was so Hong Danbi.

“But, Sunbae.”

“…Yeah.”

“You used to refuse to even eat at the same table as me, but now you’re eating with me.”

The question Danbi tossed out with a bright grin struck Doyoung squarely in the heart.

Throughout their contract marriage, he had worked desperately to maintain a certain distance from Danbi.

Once the contract period ended, he would have no choice but to go abroad to study under pressure from his family. He didn’t even know when he would return.

Doyoung smiled bitterly and murmured quietly.

“After living somewhere far from home, I realized I missed having people around.”

The truth was, it wasn’t people he had missed.

It was Hong Danbi.

The words he couldn’t bring himself to say were forced down his throat.

Sunlight leaking through the window gently pried Danbi’s eyelids open.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so deeply and peacefully.

After spending so long in a motel with a tiny window barely larger than her palm, the flood of sunlight felt strange yet wonderfully pleasant.

“Mmm… What time is it?”

Then she suddenly remembered.

It was Monday.

Danbi hurriedly grabbed her phone and checked the time.

Thankfully, it was only 7:10 a.m. She still had plenty of time before work.

With a sigh of relief, Danbi sat up.

The moment she opened the bedroom door to head for the bathroom, the delicious aroma of food seeped into her nose.

“You’re awake?”

Doyoung’s voice drifted in from the kitchen.

Danbi froze from head to toe.

“Go wash up. You need to eat breakfast and get to work.”

His gentle voice sounded so out of place on a Monday morning that she felt as though she were dreaming.

Danbi rubbed her eyes firmly with her palms before blinking several times.

First things first, she hurried to the bathroom, washed her face, and came out to the kitchen.

The kitchen island was covered with a surprisingly impressive spread of brunch dishes.

“Did you… make all of this, Sunbae?”

Doyoung brewed a cup of coffee and set it down in front of Danbi.

Then he sat across from her and lifted his own cup.

“What’s with that anxious look?”

Just as he said, Danbi’s eyes were darting around restlessly.

She kept looking back and forth between the food on the table and Doyoung, desperately trying to figure out what was going on.

“Sunbae, I’m really okay…”

Danbi gave him an apologetic look and tried to decline the breakfast.

Doyoung’s brow furrowed slightly.

Oblivious to the subtle change in his expression, Danbi continued.

“I’m already imposing on you by staying here. If I start accepting meals from you too, I’ll feel terribly uncomfortable.”

“Have you ever considered that refusing someone’s kindness might make them uncomfortable instead?”

“Ah, well…”

Only then did Danbi notice Doyoung’s stiff expression.

Flustered, she waved her hands and hurriedly sat down.

“I’ll eat! Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”

A moment later, she sneaked a sideways glance at Doyoung before cautiously speaking.

“By any chance… aren’t you planning to feed me this and then kick me out?”

Doyoung was cutting his French toast into pieces with a fork and knife when he glanced at Danbi.

“Want me to write up a contract?”

“What kind of contract?”

“A contract stating that I won’t kick you out until you leave of your own accord.”

Danbi shuddered from head to toe.

“No, it’s okay. I’m honestly sick to death of contracts.”

She had no desire to be tied to Moon Doyoung by another written agreement.

As if a contract marriage wasn’t enough, now she was supposed to have a contract for living together?

The memory of the fatal mistake she had made by casually stamping her seal on the contract some con artist had shoved in front of her made her head spin.

Danbi shook her head vigorously and obediently stuffed the food Doyoung had placed on her plate into her mouth.

A sweet flavor filled her mouth.

Not only did it look delicious, but the texture was every bit as good as something served at a trendy brunch café.

“Did you go to culinary school in America?”

“No way.”

Doyoung smiled, his eyes crinkling softly as he looked at Danbi, who had asked the question with her eyes wide.

Danbi’s cheeks flushed pink.

She wasn’t used to starting her mornings with someone else.

“Good morning, Assistant Manager! I printed out the sales analysis materials you asked for last week and left them on your desk.”

Danbi was the very picture of a new employee.

The kind of rookie who arrived thirty minutes earlier than everyone else and was always the last to leave.

No one had even needed to ask her.

“I’ll do anything, just give me something to work on,” had practically become her catchphrase.

She was immensely proud of having joined the Strategic Planning Team, a department that only recruited new employees with particularly impressive qualifications.

The sense of accomplishment that came from being one of the chosen few was indescribable.

“You didn’t have to go through all that trouble. You could’ve just emailed it to me.”

Heejin, Danbi’s mentor, had just walked into the office and replied with a bright smile.

“I wasn’t sure which would be easier for you to review, so I printed it out. I also sent the file to your email.”

“Thanks. Thanks to you, I’ve got less work to do.”

“Please feel free to put me to work anytime.”

Danbi ingratiated herself shamelessly with Heejin, grinning from ear to ear.

Usually, new employees were treated like decorative plants, left standing around because they supposedly couldn’t do anything yet.

But Heejin carefully taught Danbi everything from the ground up and gradually entrusted her with actual tasks.

As she increasingly felt like she was becoming a useful member of the team, Danbi’s eyes seemed to sparkle brighter and brighter.

“Our baby Danbi! Have a good weekend?”

Except for Team Leader Park, who was constantly pestering her at all hours of the day, her company life was practically perfect.

Team Leader Park slowly scanned Danbi from head to toe with a sticky, unpleasant gaze.

She wanted nothing more than to wipe away the disgust she felt, but for now, playing along was simply part of surviving in the workplace.

“Of course. Did you have a good weekend too, Team Leader?”

“No. I was completely drained because I couldn’t see my Danbi.”

He’s old, that’s why, you bastard.

Danbi muttered a string of curses under her breath and forced the corners of her mouth upward.

“What did you do over the weekend that you’re looking so radiant today? Did you meet your boyfriend?”

He was fishing, making his intentions painfully obvious.

The shallow attempt made her skin crawl.

Danbi simply smiled without saying anything.

“You look like you’ve had all your energy sucked out of you. Don’t you think so, Assistant Manager Ji?”

Assistant Manager Ji Kanghyun’s face stiffened when Team Leader Park singled him out.

He glanced at Danbi before answering in his characteristically dry tone.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No, take a good look. Come to think of it, Assistant Manager Ji, do you have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Then how about our Danbi? Let’s have some romance in our team, too. What’s with this gloomy atmosphere every day? The other teams are already buzzing with rumors of office romances.”

The words Shut the hell up rose all the way to the tip of Danbi’s tongue.

There wasn’t a single person who didn’t know that Team Leader Park, a married man with a wife and children, was constantly hitting on the younger women in the company in hopes of finding himself a young office girlfriend.

The rumor had already spread among Danbi’s fellow new hires.

Kanghyun seemed to find Team Leader Park’s pointless chatter first thing in the morning irritating. He let out a deep sigh and turned his attention back to his monitor.

“Come on, don’t be so boring. That’s your problem, Assistant Manager Ji. You’re young and full of energy, yet you’re buried in work all day. Who’s going to appreciate that? You need to know how to handle a woman’s heart gently if you want to get married and build a family. Happy wife, happy life. You know what I mean?”

The target of Team Leader Park’s harassment shifted from Danbi to Kanghyun.

As he said “handle a woman’s heart gently,” he accompanied the words with a revolting hand gesture.

Danbi secretly grimaced and pretended to focus intently on her work.

When Team Leader Park left to have his morning cigarette, a message appeared on Danbi’s messenger.

It was from Kanghyun.

“You owe me coffee.”

Danbi poked her head out and looked at Kanghyun through the partition.

Why do I owe you? she asked with her eyes.

He immediately understood her expression and began tapping away at his keyboard again.

“I disposed of the trash for you.”

The trash he was referring to was Team Leader Park.

Danbi stifled a laugh and quickly typed her reply.

“Let’s go to a café with Assistant Manager Heejin after lunch. My treat!”

She even added a cute little emoticon.

Danbi heard Kanghyun clear his throat.

After eating lunch at the company cafeteria, Danbi headed to the café on the first floor with Heejin and Kanghyun.

Along with drinks for the other two, she ordered herself a rich chocolate beverage to replenish her sugar levels and took a long gulp.

“I really don’t understand what’s wrong with Team Leader Park.”

At Heejin’s grumbling, Kanghyun calmly nodded.

“How long have you two Assistant Managers been working under Team Leader Park?”

“I don’t know. About six months?”

“I haven’t been in the Strategic Planning Team very long, and I’ve been here for over a year and a half.”

Danbi’s eyes lit up as she looked at Heejin with genuine admiration.

“How did you survive? I’m going crazy listening to Team Leader talk about finding a girlfriend every morning.”

“I put up with it for a few months, but once I got married, he completely shut up.”

“Oh, right. Assistant Manager Heejin, you’re married.”

“Everyone on our team is married except Assistant Manager Ji and you, Danbi.”

Danbi pressed her lips together and nodded.

Was getting married the answer if she wanted to avoid Team Leader Park’s attention?

“Just tell him the two of you are dating.”

At Heejin’s ingenious suggestion, Danbi couldn’t hide her embarrassment.

When she turned to Kanghyun, his face was bright red and he was deliberately avoiding her gaze.

“Wouldn’t that be better than letting Team Leader Park keep harassing both of you? The problem is that he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing is sexual harassment.”

“Even so, that might be a little…”

“Danbi, then how about I introduce you to someone? He’s a friend of my husband’s. He’s a good guy.”

“No, really. I don’t have time to date anyone right now.”

Danbi waved her hands and politely refused.

Not having time to date a man was merely an excuse.

The truth was that she had no intention of dating anyone.

She had felt that way ever since she fell in love with Doyoung.

Even more so after their contract marriage had been brought to a clean end.

Kanghyun, who had been listening closely to their conversation, wore a strangely troubled expression.

Only Heejin noticed the subtle shift in his emotions.

A knowing, rounded smile slowly appeared on her lips.

For a Monday with work piled up from the weekend, the day had gone surprisingly smoothly.