Chapter 9. You Quit the Company Right Now
Yoonkyung turned on her laptop and habitually clicked on her inbox. When she saw an unread email at the top, she moved the mouse toward it. The sender was Kwonseong.
Yoonkyung hurriedly read through the email.
The first part contained an explanation about a new project that would begin next month.
She had already heard that a TF team had been formed for KD Health and would be coming over. For the past week, everyone had been busy preparing a private office for the manager and workstations for the TF team members, so there was no way she could have missed it.
“……Could Dahee be coming as the manager?”
Yoonkyung thought of Dahee, who had said they would be seeing each other often from now on. Until that moment, Yoonkyung had never once imagined that Dohyun would be coming as the project manager.
“Manager, where are you? I just got to work, and there’s an email from Kwonseong. It looks like it was sent to all the employees. No, but what do they mean by managing attendance? Ah, I don’t know. Hurry up and come see this.”
When Yoonkyung raised her head, she saw a female employee from the PR team beyond the partition, holding her phone and complaining irritably.
It wasn’t just her. The other employees who had arrived at work also seemed bewildered by the email from Kwonseong, and raised voices could be heard from all around the office.
As Yoonkyung read through the email again, she saw that it stated Kwonseong would be managing employee attendance, including fingerprint recognition for clocking in and out and standardized lunch hours. She swallowed a sigh.
Since when had these basic things become something that needed to be managed? It was truly pathetic.
It also stated that meetings with the team leaders, and entire-team meetings if necessary, would be held. There was an additional task requiring everyone to organize their current duties and submit them before coming to work next week.
Yoonkyung didn’t know who the new manager would be, but one thing was certain: whoever it was would be the complete opposite of the atmosphere here.
Someone would have to replace the person sitting in the CEO’s chair despite having neither affection for the company nor the ability to run it.
The employees would fiercely resist and hate it, but Yoonkyung was relieved that she was, at least, someone perfectly suited to what the company currently needed.
It was embarrassing enough that the subsidiary couldn’t manage itself and had to have someone from the parent company come directly to take control. Even at a moment like this, wasn’t the CEO sitting back and pretending none of it had anything to do with him?
“It might actually be for the bes—”
Yoonkyung’s mouth stopped mid-sentence as she read down the email. Her gaze froze as well.
The names of the person in charge and the members of the project TF team were listed.
Next to the words ‘Person in Overall Charge’, she saw Dohyun’s name.
Kwon Dohyun.
It was indeed his name.
But Dohyun’s name wasn’t the only thing that shocked Yoonkyung.
It was the name written directly beneath it.
<KD Health Marketing Team, Kang Yoonkyung>
Whether she read from left to right or right to left, it was clearly her team and her name. Thinking she had seen it wrong, she rubbed both eyes, but the name remained, blurry though it was.
A typo? Had someone pasted the wrong information?
There was no other explanation for why her name would be listed beneath theirs.
Yes. From the beginning, it made no sense.
“…….”
That was exactly right.
It had to make no sense.
“……Can an announcement email be wrong?”
The employees checking their emails also seemed to have noticed Yoonkyung’s name, because the whispering around the office grew louder than before.
Kang Yoonkyung.
The name displayed before her eyes, and the name being spoken by everyone around her, was undoubtedly hers.
“What on earth…….”
Yoonkyung’s phone vibrated just as she was feeling more confused than anyone else in the room.
It was an unknown number.
“Hello?”
Still wearing a serious expression as she reread the email, Yoonkyung answered the call.
—Have you arrived at work?
“Who is this?”
—This is Kwon Dohyun.
Startled, Yoonkyung hurriedly adjusted her grip on the phone. She almost dropped it.
“Wh-who?”
—I assume you heard me, so I won’t repeat myself.
How? No, why?
—Did you check the email?
“I-I did, but……”
—There’s no point forcing yourself to understand something that doesn’t make sense anyway. Just stay where you are.
That made even less sense.
“I……”
Yoonkyung was about to ask Dohyun about what had happened when she locked eyes with Jihyun, who entered through the door.
Unlike her usual relaxed demeanor, Jihyun looked extremely hurried.
Jihyun barely answered emails properly even during working hours. There was no way she had checked her email before even arriving at work.
“Kang Yoonkyung, look at me.”
Yoonkyung took in Jihyun in front of her and the female PR team employee standing far behind her. They certainly had been quick to spread this kind of news despite barely doing any work.
“I’m on the phone right now……”
“I don’t care who it is, so come with me!”
Worried that Dohyun might hear, Yoonkyung covered the phone with her hand.
—I’ve said what I needed to say, so I’ll hang up now.
Before Yoonkyung could answer him, the call ended. She hoped Dohyun hadn’t heard anything and got up from her seat.
Receiving countless stares as she followed Jihyun, Yoonkyung frowned the moment she entered the conference room because of the unpleasant smell coming from inside.
“What is that email about?”
They had told people not to eat in here. Seriously.
Yoonkyung sighed and opened the window.
“I asked what the email is about!”
“If you heard about it from someone else, you should check properly. If you saw it yourself, then you already know what you saw.”
“Why you? You’re not even from Kwonseong, so why are you on that list?”
Exactly.
More than anyone else, Yoonkyung herself wanted to know the reason.
“You met Oppa at the company, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Do I have to tell you, Ms. Gwak Jihyun, every time I meet someone?”
“Then why were you together at the hotel? What did the two of you have to talk about? Don’t tell me you went up to him pretending to know him? You didn’t force yourself on someone who lost his memories by telling him who you are……”
Thinking she wasn’t worth arguing with, Yoonkyung tried to leave the conference room, but Jihyun blocked her path.
“Why aren’t you answering? Is it true? Did you really do that?!”
“What are you going to do if it is true, and what are you going to do if it isn’t?”
“You!”
Despite Jihyun’s outburst, Yoonkyung remained expressionless and kept her boundaries.
More accurately, she drew a line between them rather than merely maintaining one, but either way, it didn’t matter.
“Meeting Director Kwon was a coincidence.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Can’t you?”
“……What?”
“You look anxious.”
“Quit the company right now.”
Yoonkyung stared at Jihyun in disbelief.
“I’ll ask my brother, Ji-cheol, to find you another job, so quit the company right now.”
“I can’t do that. I have an agreement.”
“I’ll pay you. It’s because of the money you receive from Dad, isn’t it? I’ll give it to you.”
“Who are you to give me money, Ms. Gwak Jihyun?”
“Why does it matter who you receive it from? You need money, don’t you? That’s why I’m offering to give it to you.”
“That money is compensation I earn by working honestly, too.”
From the beginning, she didn’t want even a single won from Jihyun.
“Why don’t you just honestly admit that you’re making excuses because you want to stay by Dohyun Oppa’s side?”
“…….”
“Why are you looking at me like that? What? Do you want to say that I stole something that belonged to you?”
Jihyun’s unreasonable behavior was especially severe today.
“Back down while I’m still asking nicely. I’m telling you this because I’m thinking about you. You don’t want to see your mother begging either, do you? Your mother would do anything for me and my brother. Should I tell her? Wouldn’t that be painful for you?”
“If that’s the life she chose, then she should take responsibility for it herself.”
“You said your father has no hope anyway.”
Jihyun sneered at Yoonkyung’s back as she tried to leave.
“That’s what your mother told me.”
Yoonkyung slowly turned her head and looked at Jihyun.
Yoonkyung knew why Jihyun was provoking her.
She knew exactly what kind of reaction Jihyun wanted.
That was precisely why she refused to show any emotion in front of her.
“Even if that’s true, I’ll do everything I can.”
Even for the sake of this girl who desperately wanted her to be unhappy, Yoonkyung could never allow herself to become unhappy.
“And you seem to have forgotten, but I don’t have a mother. She died three years ago.”
Yoonkyung turned her body toward Jihyun.
“If that’s how you want to look at it, then Ms. Gwak Jihyun has a lot to be grateful to me for. I’m staying at this company to earn money for my father’s hospital bills, which means you’re able to maintain your loveless engagement at least because of that.”
“……What?”
“Oh. I suppose you’ve never been loved by him in the first place, so you don’t even know what it feels like not to be loved.”
Had she hit the mark?
Yoonkyung openly sneered at Jihyun’s face, which had turned bright red.
“The money I receive from your father is legitimate compensation for working at this company. If there were nothing for me to gain in the first place, I wouldn’t have any reason to work at a company like this or put up with everything and let it slide.”
“You—”
“Why do you think I’ve been letting you and your family get away with erasing every trace of me, including me, in case he ever regains his memories?”
“How dare you say you’re letting us get away with anything!”
Jihyun became furious at Yoonkyung’s words and raised her voice.
“Oppa can’t remember you anyway. The fact that he hasn’t remembered a single thing about you for three years proves it!”
“What about memories with you that never existed in the first place? Do those have any meaning?”
“Are you ignoring three years of time?”
“Even after using all that time, all you’ve gained is an empty shell named Kwon Dohyun.”
“At least I have that! You don’t even have that!”
“So, are you satisfied?”
Yoonkyung asked because she knew a greedy person like Jihyun could never be satisfied.
“At least I’m saying this as someone who has known Kwon Dohyun longer than you have. If you’ve gone to all sorts of lengths to earn the right to stay beside him, then you’d better come to your senses as soon as possible before you’re abandoned and end up crying.”
Just from the way Dohyun had treated Jihyun in front of the hotel, Yoonkyung could tell that everything Jihyun had been boasting about every day—that he had contacted her—was a lie.
“Just like Ms. Gwak Jihyun, I also want to know why I’m on the TF team list. Since the person in charge is your fiancé, why don’t you ask him for me? And please share his answer with me.”
Yoonkyung brushed past Jihyun’s shoulder and left the conference room.
