Step 1. Strike while the iron is hot.
“Thanks, have a good one!”
Screeeech. Stepping off the bus, I wiped the back of my hand across a forehead that was perfectly dry, not a drop of sweat on it. I’d thought about taking a taxi, but to save every won I could, I’d transferred buses twice instead.
The second I landed, I pulled out my phone to check the time. 2:08 in the afternoon.
With a small sound of awe, I looked up at the huge, towering building right in front of me.
“Whoa. I think this one’s bigger than ours?”
Then again, this place was the genuine article, a group that traded places with the very top in all of Korea, so of course it was.
I tried counting how many floors it had, but the sunlight was so blinding I gave up. Anyway, once your mind is made up, agonizing over it only slows you down.
HS.
I stared at the enormous letters mounted up on the building, then nodded with determination burning in my eyes.
Here goes!
“Hello. I’m here to see, um, Managing Director Cha...”
The moment I stepped into the lobby I headed straight for the information desk and opened my mouth. I couldn’t remember his first name, so I fudged it, but luckily the staff member caught on right away and asked me kindly,
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. Not exactly, but,”
“I’m sorry, but without a scheduled visit it’s difficult to arrange a meeting.”
She was as firm as she was kind.
I’d expected this much, so I pressed on without flinching.
“Um, I’m Dan Hanbyeol, the son of the chairman of DB Foods. There’s something I came to tell him in person, so could you at least pass the message along?”
“Oh. ...Sorry?”
Apparently plenty of people showed up out of the blue like this, because the staff member, who had been settling comfortably into letting my words slide right past her, froze and lifted her head. She looked at my face, blinked a couple of times, then swallowed hard with the expression of someone who’d just realized something.
The sight of her standing there with her mouth open, lost for words, made me self-conscious, so I pressed a hand to my cheek, pretending to fix my bangs for no real reason.
I smoothed out my expression and tugged the corners of my mouth up as harmlessly as I could manage. I’d practiced the whole way here anyway, so fierce face or not, my smile was the one thing I had some confidence in.
When I put on my most docile look, she fumbled for a second before getting the words out.
“Yes, yes. Then, um.”
“...”
“...He’s been out of the office often lately, so I can’t confirm right away whether he’s in the building. Let me try contacting upstairs, so would you mind waiting just a moment?”
“Sure. Take your time!”
Mission 1, clear.
At the positive answer I smiled brightly and nodded. It wasn’t a guarantee, sure, but not getting turned away at the door was already something.
‘Which means at least she doesn’t have anything against me!’
I’d braced myself, since I’d done more than enough to get myself blacklisted at the entrance of just about anywhere. I was letting out a small sigh of relief when the staff member came over and guided me somewhere.
“The managing director says he’ll see you. His secretary will come down to escort you shortly, so please wait here for a moment.”
And so I stood quietly in front of the elevators for a few minutes.
Around the time restlessness had me tapping the floor with my toes, a man in glasses came up and spoke to me. Neatly combed hair, and an easygoing air about him overall.
“Are you Dan Hanbyeol?”
“Oh, oh. Yes!”
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Song Minseok, personal secretary to Managing Director Cha Jueon.”
He offered a business card with both hands and such courtesy that I ended up receiving the little slip of paper with both of mine too.
After that I followed Minseok onto the elevator and into a room beside what looked like the secretarial office. I nodded a light thanks to Minseok as he held the door, then scanned the inside: a comfortable-looking sofa, a table, soft lighting, that sort of thing.
“...?”
But the one person who should actually have been there was nowhere in sight, and just as I started glancing around,
“The managing director is currently handling important business. Since it’s difficult for him to see you immediately, we’ve arranged for you to wait in the reception room. He’ll come himself once he’s finished.”
“Ah...”
Fair enough. I’d shown up without so much as a phone call to meet someone at that rank, so I accepted it.
When I nodded to show I understood, he gestured for me to sit on the sofa and went on,
“Would coffee be all right?”
“Um, would you happen to have green tea? I can’t drink coffee...”
Because, well, it tastes awful.
A little embarrassed, I watched his reaction and thought it over. Why do people drink water steeped from ground-up burnt beans that tastes bitter?
‘There are so many delicious things in this world. Why that, of all things?’
Anyway. A little while later the secretary set some simple cookies and green tea on the table, told me to make myself comfortable, and left the reception room.
Alone in the room, I waited obediently for the man to show up.
Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes.
An hour.
“...Is he that busy?”
Having nothing better to do, I’d been staring blankly out the window, and now I smacked my lips for no particular reason.
And it was only after another hour passed in that exact state that I knew for sure.
“Oh ho...”
This feels an awful lot like a power play.
No wonder they’d let me in so easily. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to go smoothly after all, and I let out a deep sigh.
‘So the idea is, get tired of waiting and leave on your own? That sort of thing?’
Not a chance.
I snorted through my nose and let my posture go slack. Fine. Bring it on.
Waiting was my specialty. Without this much spite in me, how could I have pined aw— urk...
Pardon me.
Without this much spite in me, how could I possibly have carried a one-sided love for five whole years!
“The secretary hasn’t looked in here once since, anyway, so I may as well get comfortable and review.”
Step 1 was nothing more than a warm-up for everything to come. With the single-minded resolve to carry out my chosen method as flawlessly as possible, I stretched right out on the sofa.
I’ll wait ten hours, a hundred hours, whatever it takes. Having stoked my fighting spirit, I turned on my phone screen.
Then I started hopping between the various blue and yellow web content sites, working through the titles I’d bookmarked in advance, one by one, reading closely.
Going by the titles alone, the picks looked random, like there was no telling what was going through my head, but every one of them had a reason behind it. I ran my eyes down the list I’d built and hit one small snag.
“But how am I supposed to say this one out loud? Gwang-kko-me? Toe-bi-da?”
No, okay, fine, say the rest of them get a pass.
But what in the world is up with the inverted word order?
How much time slipped by after that?
“Huh?”
I’d been sprawled across the reception room sofa reading webtoons and web novels until the sky outside turned red. I’d even kicked off my shoes and made myself as comfortable as if I were in my own bedroom, and then the screen suddenly wouldn’t load the next episode, so I checked my balance. Zero won.
No way. I topped up a whole thirty thousand won.
I definitely saw 28,400 won sitting in there just a minute ago!
This was a conspiracy. It felt like catching a karaoke owner in the act, nibbling a minute at a time off your remaining play time during peak hours.
“Seriously, what the... ow!”
I was shifting myself upright, indignant, when a sudden sting in my eye made me shriek. I couldn’t even open it properly. An eyelash had gotten in there.
Nothing, absolutely nothing goes my way, and it’s so unfair, and I hate it. Waaah! Mom, it hurts...!
After a long stretch of whimpering and wrestling with it, I finally managed to fish the eyelash out. The second the pain faded I steadied my breathing, but by then both eyes were bright red and I’d cried hard enough to leave my whole face damp.
Just as I was wiping the tears away, limp and wrung out.
“Dan Hanbyeol.”
Some eight-foot ghost opened the door and walked in.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
“Um, Director. It’s already been four hours... should I tell him to go home now?”
Jueon, whose eyes had been fixed on his tablet, looked up at Minseok’s words. Was it that late already?
Only then did those flat, unreadable eyes take in the window and the red creeping across it. Jueon pressed his lips together and leaned back, letting his shoulders settle against the chair. The truth was, it wasn’t as though he’d left the kid sitting there for no reason at all.
An unscheduled visit, and from a caller of distinctly poor quality.
He’d been about to refuse on the spot and send him away, but the sight of him in that hospital room the day before came back to him, so he’d told them to show him to the reception room instead. He’d seen more than enough people whose insides didn’t match their outsides, to the point of being sick of it, but someone different in the opposite direction was a first, and that stirred up a little interest.
If it was nothing important, he’d get tired of waiting after an hour or two and go home; and if it wasn’t that, then going by the temperament everyone talked about, he’d kick up a fuss and lose his temper. Either way, it would tell him whether the rumors were true. Besides, since there hadn’t been a peep out of him all this time, Jueon had assumed he’d given up and left ages ago.
...And he’s still out there waiting.
He spun the pen in his hand once, then got to his feet.
“Oh. You’re going now?”
“Yes.”
He dismissed his secretary and set off. Down the corridor he went, to the reception room with its glass treated so no one could see in from outside, and pushed the door halfway open.
And in that instant.
“Hic, hhhk...!”
He found himself looking at someone’s back, shoulders hitching, crying his heart out. Thrown, Jueon shut the door again before he knew what he was doing. It had only been a split second, but what he’d glimpsed through the gap was a disaster.
A face swollen and sodden with tears, the kind that takes at least half an hour of solid crying.
He must have been clumsily scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, because the lids were puffed up so badly he couldn’t even open them properly. Through the loosely shut door, the sound of sobbing leaked out.
“Hu-huuuh.”
“...”
“Mom, Dad...!”
That voice, calling for his parents, was every bit as pitiful as his face had looked young, and only then did Jueon realize he’d made a mistake. However bad the rumors were, it wasn’t exactly admirable behavior to pull on someone that much younger than himself.
In a word, he’d overdone it.
...Then again, the kid’s already crying, so there’s nothing to be done about it now.
“...”
In the end, Jueon waited until Hanbyeol’s crying died down, then carefully opened the door.
“...Hhkk!”
A pair of flushed, wet eyes landed on him.
Inwardly, I let out a sound of pure awe.
Whoa.
‘That face is insane...!’
