“Oh my, oh my! And then?”
“I told him absolutely not and blocked him, obviously. But then the customer tried to shove his way in!”
“Oh my, oh my!”
Auntie tapped the dining table lightly and covered her mouth with one hand. I snapped one of the biscuits I’d brought out for the two of us in half and kept going, delighted.
“But the really funny part is, when I blocked him, the guy actually tried to climb over the counter.”
We were chatting away over coffee and biscuits. Our faces reflected in the gleaming table of the dining room we’d cleaned together. All of it was skill I’d honed working for a cleaning agency.
Auntie and I had gotten close in under an hour. She was gentler than I’d expected. Judging by how she’d secretly wiped away tears when I talked about my life while helping with the work, and how she’d given me heartfelt advice, she seemed to have a great deal of warmth in her.
It went so far that she took both my hands and squeezed them, telling me not to be stiff and call her Manager but to comfortably call her Auntie instead. Once the stiff form of address changed, we grew closer at an accelerating rate, and Auntie told me about all sorts of things with a liveliness that made her first impression impossible to recall.
“You can’t imagine how surprised I was when the second young master said he’d found someone to marry.”
“Ahaha, I was a little surpri...”
Oops. I’d almost mentioned the contract without thinking.
“...surprised, too. I had no idea he’d suddenly ask me to marry him.”
Well, it wasn’t a lie.
“The madam was the same, but the chairman was especially pleased.”
The family evidently hadn’t the faintest idea there was a contract between Baek Ihyeok and me.
“He’s already thrilled just on the basis of your trait, and once he sees you, Mr. Seongha, he’ll tell you to hold the wedding immediately. As pretty and personable as you are.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I gave the smile Auntie had just praised as pretty.
“So do Ihyeok’s other siblings know about me as well?”
“...The young master will tell them soon enough.”
Which meant they didn’t know I existed yet.
“I’ve got a call. Excuse me.”
Auntie picked up her phone and stood. She seemed to be avoiding the subject of the siblings somehow, but it was true that her phone was ringing.
“I’ll leave right away.”
When I got up along with her, Auntie hung up and made a regretful face.
“It looks like I need to head to the chairman’s residence.”
“Get there safely.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Auntie left not by the elevator the secretary and I had come through, but through the entrance that led out to the garden.
Once she was gone, the house, quiet enough already, felt utterly still. I wiped my hands roughly on the white apron I’d put on to help with the work and headed for the living room.
And then I sprawled straight out on the sofa. There’s nobody here anyway, so sprawling this much should be fine, right? The energy I’d been drawing hard on since morning had run flat.
“Mmm...”
I woke from the light doze some tens of minutes later. Basking in the sunlight still coming through the windows, I stretched, and my shoulders cracked.
Stretching my neck, I got up off the sofa. When I went into the corridor, the soft indirect lighting was on.
I thought I heard someone. Did I mishear?
Then, covering a yawn with my hand as I set off to get some water, something felt off. When I whipped my head back toward the corridor, the elevator’s indicator panel at the far end caught my eye.
The elevator was up on the third floor.
Auntie and I had used the stairs all day, and the elevator had only been used to come up to the first floor. After that, Baek Ihyeok’s secretary had gone down to the basement, so the elevator should have been sitting in the basement.
Staff weren’t allowed to use the elevator unless they’d been specially permitted, so... did Baek Ihyeok come home?
Leaving the elevator alone, I crept up the stairs to the third floor. It was most likely Baek Ihyeok, but I was preparing for the off chance that it wasn’t.
Rustle. Clunk.
And then a sound came from beyond the third floor study. It sounded like someone rifling through a set of drawers.
Pressing my ear to the study door, which hadn’t been shut properly, I opened it slowly. Inside, I braced myself to come face to face with a masked intruder at any second.
But.
“...Oh.”
The scene I witnessed the moment the door opened was a little, well, a lot different from what I’d imagined.
Inside, a woman was standing in front of Baek Ihyeok’s desk. A woman with straight black hair falling a little past her shoulders. She’d been holding up a white paper bag and examining it under the light, and at the sound of someone there she turned toward me too.
“Who are you?”
My tension eased a little. At my question, the woman, who radiated wealth at a glance, swept her hair back over her shoulder and set the paper bag on the desk with a tap. Then she pulled open one of the desk’s drawers without hesitation.
“Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m...”
“Well, I can guess. What on earth got into him?”
The woman blinked her sharp eyes slowly and lifted her head. She tossed a notebook onto the desk with a thud, folded her arms, and came to stand in front of me. At roughly my eye level, she raised one well groomed eyebrow.
“So my brother went and hired a housekeeper?”
Her pale face was clean enough that not even pores showed. Winding a few strands of her fine textured hair around her index finger, she picked my face apart with a keen eye.
“He’s such a nightmare that Auntie’s the only one who can barely stand to come, and now suddenly a housekeeper?”
“Uh... what are you doing?”
Something made me nervous and I curled my fists. Normally I’d have come back harder, but with her pressed in close and studying me like she was doing biology homework, I couldn’t move. Maybe it was because I’d recognized who the woman in front of me was.
She was Baek Ihyeok’s younger sister, Baek Irang. Features oddly similar to his. The spitting image of the face I’d seen online last night.
I endured her stare without breathing, and when it started to feel like it would never end, I hauled the corners of my mouth up awkwardly and took a step back.
“I’m sorry for startling you like that. This greeting is late, but I’m not a housekeeper, I’m...”
Hold on.
But what am I supposed to introduce myself as? She said the siblings don’t know I exist yet, so is it okay for me to just tell her on my own?
While I was chewing over whether there’d been a clause in the contract about this, Baek Irang, taking my silence however she took it, gave a light snort.
“Fine, fine. Domestic helper. Happy?”
“Um, that’s not what I...”
I started to tell her the truth and then dropped it. If I said I wasn’t a domestic helper, I had nothing to follow it up with. And I could hardly announce that I was her brother’s groom to be without Baek Ihyeok’s permission.
Maybe there’s a reason Baek Ihyeok’s siblings aren’t supposed to know I exist yet. Their parents haven’t told them either, after all.
Looking into those black eyes, I picked out something a domestic helper might say.
“I’m sorry. I heard a noise and thought Mr. Baek had come home.”
“Mr. Baek?”
Baek Irang’s eyebrows jumped like she’d heard something she shouldn’t have. Only then did it cross my mind that an ordinary domestic helper would use a different form of address. Fortunately, though, she misunderstood on her own, and misunderstood well.
“My brother must treat you pretty well. Well, sure. I can see why.”
Arms still folded, Baek Irang looked me up and down.
“Either way, I’m not glad to see you. I came in after I watched Auntie leave. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”
Something raised the hair on my arms. I didn’t know much about Baek Irang, but maybe it was the look in her eyes. A gaze I couldn’t decide whether to call charismatic or cold swept down over me, taking my measure.
That look was the very image of her brother’s. Baek Ihyeok’s carried more weight to it, though.
I swallowed hard.
“...What were you doing in here? If there’s something you’re looking for, you can tell me...”
“Can’t you tell by looking? I’m looking for leverage.”
“Sorry?”
Baek Irang looked calmly around the room as she spoke.
“I said I’m looking for my brother’s weak spot. Well, I didn’t turn up anything worth mentioning this time either, but that’s fine. I’m going to find it, guaranteed.”
Baek Irang smiled coldly.
“Tell my brother if you want. I don’t care.”
She was bold to the point of having no manners to speak of, calling to mind the spoiled third generation chaebol brats you only saw in dramas. Siblings were siblings; she felt lighter than Baek Ihyeok, but the essence looked identical.
How is it that both siblings are... this far from sane?
While I was deliberating over a suitable reply, I let the shoulders I’d tensed with nerves drop.
“But there’s a security camera at the entrance, so wouldn’t he already know?”
“Are you an idiot? You think my brother sits around watching that stuff? You really must have just gotten here.”
Now that she said it, she was right. Someone as high up as an executive director wasn’t going to be watching his home security feed.
Then I need to tell Baek Ihyeok his sister was here as fast as possible. The contract clause about immediately reporting any point of contact with a person affiliated with BN Group prowled around my head.
After going back and forth, I settled on leaving Baek Irang behind and getting out of the study for now.
“I’ll excuse myself, then. Please make yourself comfortable before you go.”
Whether she found Baek Ihyeok’s weak spot or not, contacting him was the first priority. So I wrapped up the conversation and tried to get out of there, except.
“Where are you going?”
Baek Irang seized my arm.
“Since it’s come to this, let’s go cool our heads together.”
“What? Um, hold on a second!”
And then she went and dragged me out of the study without any explanation!
“W-Where are you planning to go?”
“Good things are meant to be shared between deeeeply devoted siblings, aren’t they? Right?”
