The next day, I moved into Baek Ihyeok’s house. Even if we weren’t filing the marriage registration right away, he seemed to want me learning the household’s atmosphere early and kept under his control so I wouldn’t cause any other problems.
I rode for a good while in the car of Baek Ihyeok’s personal secretary, who’d come to collect me first thing in the morning. We drove from our house on the outer edge of Seoul into what people call prime real estate, and then the car stopped.
Right in front of us stretched a wall so high I wouldn’t have dared even try to climb it, running around the property in a clean line. From that wall alone I could tell this was wealth beyond comparison with the rich households I used to tutor at.
A camera mounted on the wall blinked as though scanning the car, and then the gate opened. The car slid inside.
“When you go in, there will be a member of the household management staff. She’ll show you to your room and go over everything you need to know.”
“So Mr. Baek isn’t here right now?”
“The Director is attending to business at this hour.”
So he does work. Considering that arrogant bearing of his, I’d have guessed he dumped the work on his subordinates and sat around smoking.
The car went down the underground parking ramp that came into view as soon as the gate opened. Now that I looked, this apparently wasn’t the front gate but a vehicle gate at the side or the back.
It was less a house you went into than one you made an entrance into. There wasn’t a single skid mark in the underground garage. I’d seen plenty of well off people in my life, but a house on this level was a first.
I’m not about to suddenly wake up, am I? With one abrupt situation after another, I still felt dazed and unmoored from reality.
“Whoa... who lives here?”
I asked the secretary, who’d parked perfectly on the first try. Baek Ihyeok’s personal secretary, the one in the round glasses, was the man who’d been holding the umbrella over him the day we first met.
He pushed his glasses up with a click out of habit and looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“This is the Director’s private residence.”
Meaning Baek Ihyeok lives here alone? In a house this huge?
I’d expected it, but this was a whole other world from mine.
I’d better work even harder.
“Oh, I can get out myself.”
The secretary got out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear door for me as though it were the natural thing to do, so I hurried out and shut it myself. He gave me a brief look, then offered a piece of advice as he started walking.
“It would be better for you to get used to it. It helps the Director as well.”
“Oh, right. I’ll do that from now on.”
He probably meant I shouldn’t behave in ways that made me look like an easy mark to anyone watching.
Despite what I’d said, though, I hovered around the trunk. My few belongings were loaded in there and the secretary showed no sign of taking them out, like he intended to simply walk off.
“The staff will bring your luggage up later.”
I looked back at the trunk, dripping with reluctance, but with the secretary waiting for me without so much as a twitch, I had no choice but to go to him.
My luggage amounted to nothing more than two well used paper bags, and it wasn’t valuable enough to earn me another pointed look.
As I followed the secretary across the wide garage, only the lonely sound of our footsteps echoed.
Around the time the silence started to feel normal, the secretary spoke.
“You’ll be living with the Director from now on. Is there nothing you’d like to ask?”
“About Mr. Baek? Well, nothing in particular for now...?”
The secretary was silent for a moment. Wondering if there was something I ought to know, I looked at him, and just then the elevator arrived. But even with the doors open, he didn’t get in.
“This may be overstepping a little, but there is something I’d like to ask of you.”
His tone was noticeably softer than a moment ago. The elevator doors slid shut without carrying anyone, and the garage’s motion sensor lights flickered once.
“Go ahead.”
Something about the atmosphere made me tense, and all the chaebol family storylines I’d seen in countless dramas went sliding through my head.
If he wants to ask a favor... then it’s got to be smuggling out confidential documents behind Baek Ihyeok’s back? Reporting his every move? Or if not that, then...
“The Director does not eat properly. And yet he takes a great many medications, and he has insomnia on top of it. Which is to say, it would not be strange if his health failed at any moment.”
It fell outside every answer I’d predicted. It was unexpected enough that Baek Ihyeok’s situation was such a mess, and the secretary calmly informing me of it felt oddly unfamiliar. I’d assumed he was a machine, but I caught a trace of humanity in him.
“And so?”
“Could you help the Director eat at least one proper meal a day?”
Baek Ihyeok, who’d looked so difficult, popped into my head. Come to think of it, the contract had said something about me doing the cooking myself. But don’t chaebol families like this have separate people who handle all the cooking and cleaning?
“I will pay you one million won per meal.”
“Of course I’ll do it.”
I’m the one who signed a contract to take all that on. I bit down on the bait at once and put on an amiable smile.
“Should I help with the insomnia too?”
“That won’t be necessary. He can sleep at least a little once he takes his medication.”
“Ah, what a shame.”
“Pardon?”
“I said it must be very hard on Ihyeok.”
I switched tracks fast. Luckily the secretary didn’t seem to catch it; he pushed his glasses up and pressed the elevator button.
“Then I’ll leave it in your hands.”
“It’s hardly a favor.”
A million won every time I get him to eat? If I played it right, it was a prime opportunity to make three million won a day. I had to bite my lower lip again to hold back the laugh trying to force its way out.
Please, just don’t let this be a dream. Since yesterday it had felt like I was discovering a lump of gold with every step I took, so none of it seemed real.
“There’s also something I’m to give you.”
I took a deep breath and stepped into the elevator, and the secretary handed something over.
It was the latest model phone, in black.
“The Director instructed me to tell you it’s the first gift he’s giving you.”
“Wow, I didn’t have one. Please tell him thank you.”
“I will. And...”
When I looked over at him trailing off, so unlike him, he gave a smile that was barely there at all.
“The Director would prefer that you not save any other numbers.”
“...In case I commit adultery?”
“I don’t believe that’s his reason.”
When the elevator doors opened, a spotless white toned corridor came into view. The secretary angled his shoulder slightly, as if telling me to step out first.
“The Director’s private number is already saved.”
“Right... hm. Understood.”
There was nothing in the contract about not saving other numbers. But apart from my parents I had no numbers to save in the first place, so it hardly mattered.
Stepping out of the elevator, I found paintings and wall pieces of incalculable value hanging on both walls of the corridor.
“Whoa...”
Even though this was still only a hallway, the sight left my mouth hanging open and me too busy gawking around like a bumpkin to do anything else.
This has to be Baek Ihyeok’s taste. The restrained, well ordered atmosphere was unexpected. Going by that arrogant attitude, I’d have thought slathering the front gate in gold wouldn’t have been enough for him.
I passed the paintings and ornaments and looked up at the ceiling. The indirect lighting set into it along the length of the corridor was soft.
“It’s been a while, Secretary.”
“Good afternoon.”
At last the corridor ended and opened into a wide space. I’d thought the ceilings in the hallway were high, but the space that revealed itself as I came out had ceilings so high I had to tip my head all the way back to see them. As high as they were, it was frankly astonishing that the elevator had a button for a third floor.
The space brought a hotel lounge to mind. It was a far more private sort of lobby, and the sofas in it were sparse, but there was something similar about it.
Money, money, money, everywhere.
There wasn’t a single spot that hadn’t been coated in restrained money.
“Is that the person you mentioned?”
“It is. I’ll leave him to you.”
I shut the mouth I hadn’t realized was hanging open. Up ahead, a middle aged woman and the secretary were exchanging greetings. She was probably the staff member the secretary had mentioned, the one who’d show me around.
My eyes met hers.
“Hm. I see.”
Her prickling gaze swept over me as if taking my measure. Judging by how deferentially the secretary treated her, she’d probably worked in this house for a good long while. The seasoned, immaculate air about her said the same.
“Just the basics he needs to know, if you would.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I’ll be going, then.”
“Take care.”
The secretary dipped his head to me as well, then went back down the corridor we’d come through.
“Mr. Min Seongha.”
“Hello. I’m in your hands.”
She wore a loose fitting gray dress, and from her appearance alone you might have mistaken her for the mistress of the house. Her hair, gathered into a net without a single strand out of place, was striking.
She fixed me with eyes intent on verifying something as I greeted her properly. I could see the resolve in them to find at least one flaw in me. Her voice and manner of speaking, however, were nothing but elegant and warm.
“Follow me.”
Following her through the lobby like space, we came to another long corridor. This time there were a couple of doors set into the walls on either side. And when we emerged from that corridor, my eyes went wide all over again.
A living room so wide and pleasant that the lounge like space didn’t even compare came into view. The sense of space was no joke. Three enormous arched windows were set into the wall that led out to the terrace, giving me the feeling I’d walked into some exhibition hall.
“You’ll need to learn the layout of the house quickly. You’re going to be the master of it now, after all.”
“Ah, right.”
Memorizing things like this and learning a job were something I was confident in. There wasn’t a part time job I hadn’t done.
“First let me show you to your bedroom, Mr. Seongha. Staff aren’t normally permitted to use this route, but I have to show you around today, so please bear with it.”
“Sounds good.”
“Go up to your room and rest today, and I’ll start teaching you the work tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.”
I nodded and pushed the sleeves covering my wrists up to my elbows.
Maybe because I’d given the same answer twice in a row, the woman walking ahead of me looked back. In response I gave her the smile that had always worked on any number of employers.
“By the way, what should I call you?”
“Whatever’s comfortable for you. The second young master calls me Auntie.”
“Hm... Then I’ll call you Manager. Would that be all right?”
Auntie’s eyes widened for a moment, but only for an instant. She turned her back as though she’d never made any expression at all.
“If that’s what’s comfortable for you, then do.”
The answer came without her so much as looking at me, but her tone had turned curiously lighter, like her mood had improved.
Winning over adults wasn’t difficult. The bosses at all the places I’d worked part time liked me enough that they were sorry to see me go and pressed extra money into my hand each time I left, and everywhere I went I heard, generously and often, that I was sharp and capable.
The source of all of it was a quick read on people, and with that alone I’d survived just fine anywhere.
And now it was time to survive in Baek Ihyeok’s house.
