“Is something wrong?”
The moment he asked, he remembered that Yoon Haegang had thrown a similar question at him not long ago and he hadn’t actually answered a word of it.
“Oh! It’s just, I caught a nice smell coming from somewhere and went looking for it. Turns out it was those roses over there.”
Seojin gestured awkwardly at the wall with a small laugh. Yoon Haegang seemed to glance that way too, but he lost interest almost instantly and started walking again.
Then, when they reached the office, Yoon Haegang said something unexpected.
“Go on up. I’ve got somewhere else to be.”
“Where are you headed?”
Seojin had asked without much thought, and Yoon Haegang’s answer stopped him cold.
“JS Gallery.”
Of all the places... A sigh escaped him on its own. JS Gallery was exactly where Shin Seyoung had suddenly been called in to cover a shift, wasn’t it?
Wow... so this is the point where the sub top and the main bottom really start getting tangled up together.
From here on he’d have to keep his wits about him so he didn’t get swept up in the two of them.
“Have a safe trip, sir.”
He made the promise to himself quietly and bowed his head. Yoon Haegang, already blowing smoke out of his mouth, waved a hand a couple of times and strode off.
When he got up to the office, Manager Kim was there — back at some point without Seojin noticing. Maybe because he was the easier of the two to be around, the afternoon passed a lot more comfortably than the morning had.
And then, just past four thirty in the afternoon:
“Seojin! The boss isn’t here, so go on home for the day.”
“Right now?”
“Yep. It’s Friday. Go have a nice cozy time with your daughter and I’ll see you Monday!”
Manager Kim waved cheerfully at him.
“Have a good weekend with your family too, Manager. I’ll just finish sorting this out and then head off.”
Buoyed by the idea of leaving early, Seojin said it brightly — and got back a voice that had sunk right to the floor.
“Seojin.”
“Yes?”
He looked up to find Manager Kim wearing a lonely sort of expression.
“I’m a goose dad. My wife and kids are all in the States.”
“Ah...”
Now that he mentioned it, the rumpled clothes and the perpetually tired face did give off the unmistakable air of a man living on his own.
“If you don’t mind, would you like to have dinner at our place tonight?”
Seojin asked it gently, his chest gone tight with sympathy. They were going to eat dinner anyway, and setting out one more spoon wouldn’t change a thing.
“Huh?! C-can I? Really?”
“Yes, of course.”
The moment Seojin nodded, Manager Kim’s face lit up like a fluorescent lamp flicking on.
He’d worried Euni might find Manager Kim intimidating, but that turned out to be needless.
Of course, the fact that the man stopped at a mart and showed up loaded with presents and snacks to win the kid over was a big part of why it went so well.
“Ohh... Seojin, you’re seriously good at cooking. Bulgogi that isn’t tough like this, all tender, and the sauce savory with just the right hint of sweetness — it’s been forever since I tasted anything like it!”
Manager Kim rattled off his praise so fast Seojin wondered whether he was breathing at all in between. The way he grabbed bulgogi, onion, scallion, and enoki mushrooms all in one go with his chopsticks and shoved them in his mouth seemed to strike Euni as quite the spectacle.
“Wowww...”
The child’s mouth fell wide open with rice still in it. That was cute too, and Seojin smiled, pleased.
“I’m glad you like it. Please, help yourself.”
“Oh, I will. I’m honestly touched — it’s been way too long since I had a proper home-cooked meal. And a spread like this, and it tastes this good...”
Manager Kim heaped on compliments to the point of embarrassment, then smacked his lips.
“Say, it feels like something’s missing like this — you got any beer? Just one can would really hit the spot.”
Even after clearing a bowl or two of rice he still looked like he was short of something, and he asked for a drink while sneaking glances at Euni, as if checking her reaction.
“Beer! Euni’ll get it!”
But Euni, as if she’d been waiting for exactly those words, went racing off to the fridge in delight. Manager Kim turned to Seojin with a completely dumbfounded look.
Feeling oddly mortified, Seojin scratched his cheek and quietly looked away.
“So you’re a drinker too, Seojin.”
The man made such a fuss about it, like he’d discovered a comrade, that Seojin’s earlobes only burned hotter. A can of beer was set down in front of him, and then the rising mood shattered when Manager Kim’s phone rang.
“Huh? It’s the boss?”
It was a call that went past unwelcome and straight into ominous.
“Yeah, yeah, those documents? You want them delivered right now?”
Manager Kim rubbed at his neck, looking put on the spot. Without meaning to, Seojin’s eyes went to the digital clock mounted on the wall.
Eight in the evening. Not exactly late.
Still, ordering around a man who’s already clocked out.
This was precisely the kind of thing that got Yoon Haegang labeled a yandere top with no grasp of common sense.
“Haa... I know General Manager Choi is a fussy one. You’re the one who has it rough, sir, yes, yes. Of course. If you call, I go.”
So the one who needed the documents wasn’t Yoon Haegang after all. Seojin withdrew the judgment he’d passed a moment earlier.
Apparently even Yoon Haegang, who looked like the most arrogant man alive, knew how to accommodate an executive from a conglomerate. Then again, self-made or not, he wasn’t at the level where he could stand shoulder to shoulder with a big-corporation board member.
Though starting out as a thug with nothing and putting up an entire respectable information-firm building in Gangnam was, honestly, an achievement worth acknowledging.
The problem being that he bragged about that impressive building-owner title straight to Shin Seyoung’s face and only lost points for it.
These days, owning a building was a monstrously attractive selling point — but sadly, he wasn’t the main top. A line that would’ve landed as flirting if the main top tossed it out carelessly became nothing but posturing coming from Yoon Haegang, the sub top. Thinking about it, Seojin felt strangely sorry for him all over again.
“Um, but boss. As you know, I don’t have a car.”
Folding up the thoughts in his head, Seojin looked up at the sound of little feet pattering toward him. Euni came running over, freshly washed and glowing.
“Daddy, read Euni a storybook!”
“Did you brush your teeth and wash your face?”
“Yes!”
The way she answered, so bright and brave, was too precious for words, and while he was stroking her cheek he caught Manager Kim’s eye over the phone call. The man was looking at her like she was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen, which made Seojin think he probably had a daughter of his own.
“All right. Go get the storybook Euni wants to read.”
At that the child ran off to her room, thrilled. Her pink slippers went flop-flop-flop against the floor, which was just unbearably cute.
“Ah, yes. Of course. That’s something I should be handling myself. Yes, but — you’re saying I have to get it there within twenty minutes?”
Manager Kim’s eyes rolled around the room, at a loss.
“Daddy! Euni wants this one! Read this one!”
Euni was holding out a storybook with a baby chick on the cover.
“Aigoo, yes, sir, understood. I’m over at Seojin’s place right now, so if I really hurry I should just make it. Sorry? Yes... Seojin’s house. That’s right, yes. Why? What do you mean, no?”
Manager Kim pulled the phone away from his ear and tilted his head, looking ready to cry.
“Why does he keep asking whether I’m at Seojin’s place? Ah! That’s not the important part right now!”
Then, as if the urgency had caught up with him, he shot up out of his seat.
“Seojin, I’ve got to run! The boss wants me to bring him some important documents. Haa... I don’t know if I’ll even be able to catch a taxi.”
It was Friday evening. Peak hour for passengers, and this was a residential neighborhood where taxis rarely came by, and calling one through an app was no guarantee either.
Seojin thought about it for a moment, then looked down at Euni.
“Euni, how about we skip the storybook tonight and go for a drive with Daddy instead?”
“A drive?”
Euni’s eyes sparkled even brighter than before. The second Seojin nodded, she spun around and bolted for her room.
“Manager Kim, you’ll never get a taxi at this hour. Let me drive you.”
“Seojin, you have a car?”
Manager Kim stared at him, visibly startled.
“I do.”
Seojin answered like it was nothing and glanced around the apartment. In the original novel there was a bit about the secretary fleeing in the car he kept parked at home, so it had to be sitting somewhere in the garage.
He opened the drawer of the living room cabinet nearest him. Sure enough, a smart key lay there, neat as you please.
Seriously, noona. You went all out.
Seojin spotted the emblem stamped on the key and snorted out a laugh.
“Daddy! Euni’s all ready!”
Euni had reappeared in the meantime, changed into her going-out clothes. The promise of a drive must have had her fluttering, because both her cheeks were flushed pink.
Seojin had volunteered to come along purely because Manager Kim looked so stuck, and only now did he think to ask where they were going.
Manager Kim’s face said he’d forgotten that part too.
“You know Bukak Skyway? Just head for the JS Gallery up there. About fifteen minutes by car from here? Twenty if the traffic’s bad.”
“Goose dad” : a father who stays home working while his wife and children live abroad for the kids’ education, seeing them only on rare visits.
