He’d been lying sprawled across the black leather sofa — its cushions sunken deep from years of use — lazily staring up at the textured ceiling. The office, which would normally be noisy with dumb jokes and banter, was strangely quiet. For some reason everyone was treading on thin ice, watching his every mood. But even with all their effort, his mood had gone sour anyway. For no particular reason.
“Hey, Gamja. You not going to clean? Open the windows all the way! Dust things off! Hm?”
“Yes!”
Gang spat out a scolding — do I have to actually say it every single time to get you moving? — and Gamja shot up and grabbed a broom.
“Are you kidding me! You’re raising dust! Can’t you sweep gently?!”
“Sorry!”
The way Gamja swept in circles around the sofa looked less like cleaning and more like a protest. Gang nagged about how you had to be clever about knocking dust around, how he wished Gamja handled a broom half as well as he handled tools — but even that got boring quickly and he shut up. Lying flat on his back in the same position, his lower back started to ache. He rolled over and curled into a fetal position — and somehow his mood wasn’t entirely bad.
“Should we knock off early and throw back some soju?”
“What? Really?”
The response didn’t come from Gamja holding the broom, but from the small-timers polishing tools in the corner.
“I’ll run out and get bottles right now!”
“Hyung’s the best!”
Watching them drop the tools they’d been carefully cradling and light up like that — his mood sank right back down.
“Aah — forget it. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”
He curled his lip into a smile and said it, and the guys picked up the tools they’d dropped and echoed back you’re right, hyung! Their downcast faces couldn’t hide the disappointment.
“Hyung. Cheer up. Bulgom and the guys are out there running their feet raw trying to find the perfume you asked for.”
“I’m in a good mood?”
Mangchi offered a freshly made instant coffee while eyeing Gang cautiously. But it was the truth. Strangely enough, his mood had flipped in the span of a single second. Literally just moments ago he’d been fully prepared to drink himself stupid — not anymore, but still.
He’d always known he had mood swings — he’d chalked it up to just his nature — but these past few days even he had to admit the frequency was getting out of hand.
He sat up properly on the sofa and accepted the paper cup being held out to him. He’d been lying down too long and his head felt thick and heavy.
“Do you know anything more about the scent you’re looking for?”
“I told you, I don’t. Is this coffee a bribe to ask me that?”
He twisted his stiff neck back and forth, and quick-witted Mangchi immediately began working on his shoulders with practiced hands. The relief spread instantly. Gang let all the tension drain out of his body and sipped the coffee.
“Mm, this is good. You made it well.”
There really were no clues at all. No brand, no memory of what the bottle looked like. Honestly, at this point even the scent itself had blurred and muddled in his memory, making it hard to describe with any accuracy. As for notes and accords and all that — a layman like him had no idea about any of it. He’d only learned what little he knew because people kept bringing him reference materials. He thought of all the ones who’d shouted themselves hoarse saying that scents change over time and vary from person to person — how were they supposed to find it like this. Should’ve given them one more hit.
“Hyung! Even so — if all you say is it’s a scent that gets you going, even we can’t find it, no matter who we are.”
“If a scent gets me going, what else am I supposed to call it but a scent that gets me going?”
He tipped the rest of the coffee down his throat in one go and crumpled the paper cup, tossing it over the back of the sofa.
“Gamja, sweep over here too.”
He shoved Mangchi, who kept bothering him from the side, off the sofa with a foot and lay back down in the same position as before.
Exactly one week had passed since he’d declared the breakup in what was arguably the most mortifying display of his life. The bruises fading on his knees and arms were proof of it. The marks on his nape that had been mottled and vivid had faded to where you’d have to look closely to notice them at all.
At first the guys had made a fuss when they saw the bite marks, asking if he’d made up — but after he hit a few of them and the bruises lightened in color, they’d quieted down.
Funny enough, he’d said goodbye to his relationship with Jaeho, but couldn’t bring himself to actually quit the job.
Of course there was nowhere to go, no one to go to…… and he had next to no savings. Because of that he’d had no choice but to eat and sleep at the office.
Right up until a few days ago he’d been tense, half-expecting Jaeho to throw him out of the office — but nothing had happened. Truly nothing. Not a single thing.
Damn it…… how has there been not one word of contact?! He’d almost have preferred if the man had come to this office and kicked him out himself — at least then it wouldn’t be this infuriating.
He pressed his lips together tight and drummed his heels against the sofa in a fit.
“What are you looking at. I’m saving you the trouble of dusting over here.”
He snapped at Gamja, who happened to be sweeping past him.
Even so! He was the one who’d said let’s break up. Even so! He was the one who’d bolted out of the house right then and there. Even so! He was the one who’d turned his phone off.
Couldn’t Director Kang find some way to contact him no matter what? Isn’t the person who did wrong supposed to get down on their knees and beg, by any means necessary? He had no idea why he was the one burning with anxiety when someone else was the one at fault.
Of course, even if there was contact, he wouldn’t answer — but that’s just how the heart worked. Even a token attempt to hold him back would’ve at least given him something to scoff at. This felt like getting the answer: yes, let’s end it just like this. And that stung.
“Hyung, are you crying?”
“I’m not, goddammit!”
He really wasn’t. Up to that point he genuinely hadn’t shed a single tear — but there’s just something about that, isn’t there. When your eyes are only slightly wet and someone beside you goes it’s okay, it’s okay, don’t cry, don’t cry — and suddenly the tears just break.
“Huu-ahhh—”
“You little — why’d you make hyung cry, what’s wrong with you!”
The guys who had scattered to all corners of the office, trying not to agitate him, all came scurrying over and gathered around him. From a certain angle it looked a bit like a group beating.
In their own way, trying to offer comfort, they threw out awkward jokes, patted his back with clumsy hands. Cheeky lot.
Even so, the tears wouldn’t stop.
“Goooodddamn it, hic, it’s really over—!”
He was wailing in a cracked voice, grabbing at the collar of whoever happened to be in reach — when:
“What, what happened?”
Bulgom came back, loaded down with shopping bags. The moment he opened the office door and stepped inside, the smell of all sorts of mixed perfumes hit the nose. Proof he’d been working hard. Of course, none of that mattered to anyone right now.
“Hey, someone grab Bulgom!”
“Huh? Why grab me?”
Bulgom looked back and forth between the guys standing around and the tears streaming down Gang’s cheeks with a dumb expression, but no one answered him.
“Hyung, would you be so kind as to sit quietly and let yourself be tied up?”
Gamja, face set with resolve, and several large men behind him rushed him at the same time — and even Bulgom with all his strength was no match. He was shoved down into the office chair, and under his weight, one of the wheels popped off and rolled under the sofa. Before he knew it he was bound up tight with rope, looking utterly baffled by the situation.
“What the! At least tell me why before you tie me up!”
Before long, the glass table in front of the sofa had been cleared away and Bulgom’s chair scraped and squealed its way to a stop in front of Gang. It wasn’t Gang who was kicking the chair and shouting.
“Tell me right now that it isn’t true!”
“Where’d you get that filthy rumor from!”
“Hear, hear!”
“Apologize to hyung this instant!”
Gang, who had stopped grabbing at collars, slumped back on the sofa and wiped his tears with the back of his hand, watching the whole scene unfold.
Not just Gamja and Mangchi — every single person in the office was bearing down on Bulgom. Under the fierce pressure that made bringing one person down look like nothing, Bulgom had gone pale and his lips kept twitching open and shut. The silence dragged — and one by one the guys picked up the carefully polished tools they’d been so proud of — and then:
“It, it might have been my mistake! Hyung. About Director Kang, if we could just investigate again—.”
“What did you just say?”
The guy standing next to Gang handed him a hammer, which he took. Bulgom sucked in a sharp hiiik of a breath. Gang pressed the head of the hammer into the cracked, weathered leather sofa and spoke.
“Don’t tell me you lied to me again in the follow-up investigation I had you run.”
The day after the perfume incident had sent him into a spiral. First thing after arriving at the office, he’d called everyone in and said it plainly. He’d ended things with Director Kang, and anyone spineless enough to take Director Kang’s side and deceive him going forward could get out. Of course, not a single person left. After that, he’d given Bulgom orders to run one more background check on Director Kang — he’d given him the chance because the man had gotten down on his knees and sworn he’d never betray him again.
“As if I would, hyung! I just wanted to give you more accurate information, that’s all!”
Bulgom kept rolling his eyes around desperately looking for allies. Gang nodded toward the guys standing behind Bulgom, and the chair was pushed closer. Missing a wheel or not, brute force brought it right up in no time. Their knees touched, then their legs tangled together. Gang pressed the face of the hammer against Bulgom’s cheek and held it there.
“What information? That Director Kang has a fiancée? And that the fiancée is a superior omega?”
Right. The reason Gang’s emotions were swinging this wildly up and down. The reason he couldn’t hold back the irritation and the rage at every turn, shouting one moment and bursting into tears and snot the next — it wasn’t simply because of a single unfamiliar perfume scent.
“Oh! Or is it that information — that he’d started seeing the superior omega not long after he and I got together?”
It wasn’t just that he’d been cheating with some beta. It was the miserable, wretched fact that Kang Jaeho had a fiancée — a superior omega — all along.
