Chapter 105 |
Kwon Yeonhee was quite the talker.
If there was a gathering, she was the one organizing it, and if trapped in a room, she’d be the first to break the silence. She naturally enjoyed socializing and chatting with others.
However, because of this, Kwon Yeonhee was also cautious. Having readily approached others since childhood, she knew her goodwill could sometimes backfire. In elementary school, she’d tried to befriend a quiet classmate by introducing her own friends, but it had caused conflict.
Therefore, the most important thing to Kwon Yeonhee was not crossing the line.
“…Manager, you seem to like children more than I thought.”
Perhaps because of this, the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come out easily.
“Me? Like children? Why do you think that?”
“Don’t play dumb… We all saw you just now, soothing and calming that child. You were quite skilled.”
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“You always deflect like this.”
She could feel the corners of my mouth stiffening from the forced smile. For Kwon Yeonhee, who was usually cheerful and simple-minded, it was an unfamiliar situation. Her expression wouldn’t soften as it usually did.
She brought up her conversation with Assistant Manager Jung Inho, trying to change the subject.
“Come to think of it… do you have any nieces or nephews?”
“All of a sudden?”
“Well, um. If you searched online, it said you had siblings who were married.”
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“What? Which good-for-nothing guy searched for something like that?”
“Heh….”
She decided not to mention that the ‘good-for-nothing’ guy was Jung Inho.
Even if the information was available online, no one would be pleased to know someone had gone out of their way to search for it. At times like this, it was better to vaguely say she heard it somewhere.
Manager Lee Jaehun, who had been looking at Kwon Yeonhee with a sour expression as she gave a hollow laugh, soon opened his mouth.
“I have three. One from my older sister, two from my older brother.”
“Oh…”
Kwon Yeonhee was surprised and asked back.
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“Wait, are you the youngest, Manager? The youngest of three?”
“…Do you really have to put it that way?”
“Oh, uh, oh. I see, ah…”
Thinking about it, it wasn’t something she couldn’t have known. The resourceful Kwon Yeonhee knew what kind of business Manager Lee Jaehun’s family ran, that his eldest sister inherited the family business, and that his older brother worked for a subsidiary.
However, she hadn’t thought of putting all this information together. Until now, Manager Lee Jaehun was just a stuffy older superior from another department, and their companies weren’t closely related. To be exact, she simply hadn’t been that interested.
“Wow, but, no. I’m really surprised… You’re the youngest?”
“Are you going to keep harping on the youngest thing? I’m over forty now, you know, over forty.”
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“Ah, yes, yes. Sorry.”
Kwon Yeonhee stifled a laugh, finding his furrowed brows amusing. If she had seen that face at work, she would have run away, but now, it only lightened the atmosphere.
“Then, by any chance, Manager… do you have any thoughts of getting married? The rest of your family is already married.”
“Not really, no marriage plans.”
He brushed his hand over his mouth as if to cover it and continued.
“Isn’t marriage about that? Not finding someone who makes your heart flutter, but someone who makes you comfortable… That kind of thing. Marrying someone you’re compatible with.”
“That’s a surprisingly sound mindset.”
“Starting to get cheeky, aren’t you, Employee Kwon?”
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“…….”
“…I wonder what I’m even talking about in the middle of the night…”
Manager Lee Jaehun clicked his tongue.
“You need to find someone who can withstand you at your worst, whether it’s a relationship or anything else.”
“…At my worst?”
“When you only see someone at their best, you don’t really know them. You have to see them when they’ve hit rock bottom, when they’ve lost everything. Confession is when you think you can endure that.”
“Oh…”
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Kwon Yeonhee looked at Lee Jaehun with a strange expression.
“That doesn’t sound like something an unmarried person would say, Manager.”
“So, is that all you have to say, huh? Is that it?”
“Ah! Sorry…!”
In the end, Kwon Yeonhee got flicked on the forehead, just like intern Noh Yeonseok had before, but at least her previously dejected mood had lifted, so she just kept her mouth shut. It didn’t even hurt that much; she was just exaggerating.
Rubbing her forehead, which didn’t actually hurt, she cautiously asked,
“…Then, Manager, did you have something like that?”
“Like what?”
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“First love… or something like that.”
“…….”
Lee Jaehun’s gaze sank slightly.
“…I did.”
And in the blink of an eye, it returned to normal.
Seeing that, Kwon Yeonhee suddenly thought,
‘…Did I make a mistake?’
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She had asked the question because Lee Jaehun, while talking about worst-case scenarios, seemed to be thinking of someone. But thinking about it, it wasn’t a particularly good conversation starter. She didn’t know what such love stories meant to Lee Jaehun, who clearly couldn’t be at ease.
Regardless of her reaction, Manager Lee Jaehun put on a playful expression and asked,
“So, Employee Kwon, do you have any interesting love stories? Anything to share to pass the time?”
“…Well, compared to me…”
So she swallowed her question.
“Wouldn’t you find Ms. Mina’s stories more exciting? Witnessing a younger man’s heart-fluttering love challenge with your own eyes…! I didn’t expect Mr. Yeonseok to have a bold side.”
“Him? Really? When did that happen? No way.”
“Oh, no, why don’t you trust your own intern, Manager? He’ll get hurt, he’s already fragile enough as it is. He keeps watching you cautiously. How much have you been making him work?”
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“Well, it’s nothing new… And what’s with your tone towards your manager, huh?”
After that, they chatted idly for a long time.
Manager Lee Jaehun leaned against a tree, and Kwon Yeonhee sat on a large rock. Since the sky was dark, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed.
But to Kwon Yeonhee, it felt like quite a long time.
‘…I want to apologize…’
She couldn’t figure out when to bring it up.
Of course, Kwon Yeonhee wasn’t someone who was reluctant to apologize. She believed that all humans had flaws and could fix them. She never found apologies, which allowed her to compensate for her shortcomings, unpleasant or beneath her.
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However, this was the first time she had done something so wrong that she needed to apologize.
“…….”
For turning her back on someone who risked his life to protect her.
At the time, she couldn’t think straight. Of course, she should have been worried when someone coughed up blood, but Manager Lee at that moment felt inhuman. Since he wasn’t human, it felt like it didn’t matter if he coughed up blood.
So she ran away, leaving him behind. She clearly saw him fending off the monsters, she knew he’d been injured for that reason before. Kwon Yeonhee ran away because she was scared of Manager Lee Jaehun, who wasn’t even a monster.
If she were a human being, she shouldn’t have done that.
“…I…”
Just as she was about to speak,
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“Do you really need to do that?”
“…Yes?”
“Saying sorry.”
“…….”
“That’s what you wanted to say, right?”
Lee Jaehun spoke.
“Why?”
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Why?
“…”
Why are you apologizing?
Why was he the one asking why she was apologizing?
“…But….”
“Is it really necessary?”
“…….”
“…I don’t quite understand.”
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Lee Jaehun stepped closer to Kwon Yeonhee, who had her lips tightly pressed together.
He gazed at her sitting on the rock with one blood-stained leg folded, and Kwon Yeonhee suddenly remembered the first time she saw the dog-like monster. He was in the same posture as when he had comforted her as she sobbed after seeing the monster.
Then he spoke.
“You all seem to be misunderstanding something.”
“…What?”
“I’m stronger and more fearless than you think.”
His voice was mechanical and weary.
“I’m not small, weak, and soft like you guys.”
Feeling unjustly accused, she retorted.
“We’re not that… small, weak, or soft either.”
“No, you’ll cry if you’re betrayed.”
“…….”
“If I abandon you, if I disappear without a word. If I’m bleeding profusely or have a broken limb, you’ll scream. And then, if one of you dⁱㅌs, you’ll go crazy, because you’re weak.”
“…Manager, you’d cry too if one of us dⁱㅌd….”
“I would.”
Then he said,
“But, that’s all. It won’t leave any meaningful scar.”
“…….”
“It’s my fault that your deaths don’t scar me, at least here. It can never be your fault.”
Right?
Manager Lee Jaehun, saying so, wore an expression that strangely suited the formal language he occasionally used.
Cool like an elevator, worn and etched from constant movement. There was a chaos within him that Kwon Yeonhee’s meager experience couldn’t possibly express. It was something so complex that she could never have imagined it could all be contained within one person.
He truly pitied them, and was curious because he didn’t understand them.
“But I’m already like this.”
“…….”
“There’s already someone living like this, and it just so happens to be me, standing in front of you. Why don’t you think of properly utilizing someone who’s so desperate to keep you all alive?”
Utilize.
“…That….”
He definitely said ‘utilize’.
Referring to himself.
“That… It shouldn’t be like that.”
He was treating himself like an object.
“It shouldn’t be like that….”
“…….”
“Why do you say that, why?”
They never once thought of him as an object, a doll to suffer on their behalf. None of them were cruel enough to curse a perfectly healthy person to suffer more.
All of them wanted to say thank you and sorry.
“Why do you want us… to hate you, Manager?”
But he always tried to distance himself from them.
She’d been thinking it was strange. Manager Lee Jaehun often wore an expression completely different from his usual demeanor, and there was an undeniable sense of dissonance in his words. Kwon Yeonhee had realized long ago that he was a different person from the ‘Lee Jaehun’ that she knew.
But that conclusion only confused her further.
“You deliberately say mean things, act irritated, come back looking like a zombie, and then laugh like it’s nothing…. That’s, that’s not right. Why do you say that?”
“…….”
“You never tell us, you never say anything. Like where you got hurt, how much it hurts, why you had to do it. When I see you sometimes talking with Mr. Jung Inho, I know. I know there are things you guys know that we don’t. That we don’t have the right to know.”
“Are you angry?”
“Yes, I’m really angry. You don’t seem to see us as adults, Manager. No, you don’t seem to see us as people. You always treat us like glass about to break.”
She shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t be getting angry like this in front of the person who got hurt because of her, looking into the eyes of the person she had turned her back on.
Something that wasn’t a sigh, a sob, or rage crawled out from her churning ⁱnsⁱdㅌs.
“…How many times do we have to say that you’re not a bad person…?”
Do I really have to tell you that you’re not an object, but a person?
“It really shouldn’t be like this….”
“I’m sorry.”
“…….”
“So, I’m the bad guy, aren’t I?”
She couldn’t say anything.
Yes, actually. Anger was expressed by someone who did something right, and apologies were offered by someone who did wrong. In order for Kwon Yeonhee, who expressed anger, to not be the bad guy, Lee Jaehun had to be the villain.
Because of her, things turned out that way.
“I apologize for leading things to this point without telling you anything. It’s clearly my fault, you have every right to be angry. I momentarily forgot how difficult it is to experience information disparity as a team member.”
“…That’s not it….”
“I’ve been here before.”
“…….”
“I’ve been to this world.”
Her breath caught on her throat.
“Many times. With people other than you.”
“…Uh…”
“So I know a little more. That’s why I can step up more readily. It’s not that I get hurt on your behalf because you’re incompetent, it’s because it’s better for me to get hurt. Because I suffer less, hurt less, and can survive better than you.”
“…….”
“This is the most efficient way, so of course I stepped forward.”
It was absurd.
“So you don’t need to apologize.”
“…….”
“…But if you still feel sorry, I’ll gratefully accept your feelings.”
So.
“…I…”
She didn’t know exactly what was wrong.
“Really, I…”
“Yes.”
“…I really didn’t know it was like that….”
“…….”
“…….”
So much was wrong that she couldn’t even apologize.
In the end, she couldn’t fix anything.