The tone and inflection were strong, but the words weren’t wrong. Still, it didn’t leave a bad feeling. After decades of being treated that way, there was no reason to suddenly get angry about it today.
“…I didn’t have anything else to do anyway… so it was fine.”
Munyeong replied with an awkward smile and a calm voice, and Haejeong fell silent again. Wondering if he’d said something wrong, he glanced over once more — only to find Munyeong looking back at him with an unreadable expression before quietly turning away to gaze out the window. In that moment, unbidden, memories of high school surfaced. Haejeong back then, looking at him like he was pitiful. And yet, himself — hopelessly fond of him anyway.
Haejeong said nothing more, but Munyeong didn’t mind. He simply turned the wheel as instructed. To go through the more congested routes, to take the long way around as Haejeong had told him to. He knew they should get there quickly, knew that was the right thing for Haejeong — but he chose the longer road, just as he’d been told. Because as Haejeong said, his role today was to attend to Haejeong, and obeying his employer was only natural.
There had been a time in school when he and Haejeong had been deskmates. They ended up sitting next to each other by chance, and the other students in class had mocked them both for it. The school’s biggest beggar sitting next to the school’s biggest rich kid. The nickname “beggar,” which had followed him since elementary school, had clung to him so persistently throughout his school years that it had almost started to feel familiar.
Still, there were moments when he felt guilty — like he was causing trouble for Haejeong simply by being his deskmate. The taunting must have been constant enough that even Haejeong, who rarely paid attention to anyone, asked about it once.
“How much of a beggar are you, exactly?”
Haejeong had asked with his arms crossed, genuinely curious, and the other students opened their mouths eagerly, as if they’d been waiting for just that.
“Oh, you haven’t been here long enough to know yet.”
“Right. I don’t even know your name.”
The blunt, unintentionally cutting reply made the face of the student who had been ready to gleefully spill everything twist into something uncomfortable.
“Ha. We’ve been in the same class for how long now.”
He swallowed the embarrassment and laughed awkwardly, but Haejeong had no intention of playing along — he just stared at the student with a flat, uninterested look. Reading that expression clearly — don’t waste my time — the student cleared his throat once and got to the point.
“He doesn’t have parents either. He lives in an orphanage.”
“An orphanage?”
“Apparently he picked his school uniform out of a clothing donation bin. There’s a rumor he starves so bad he eats food scraps at school. He always smells kind of musty too…”
Some of it was true. Some of it was exaggerated. It was true that he’d gotten his school uniform from a donation bin — those clothes were meant to go to underprivileged kids like him in the first place. School uniforms cost hundreds of thousands of won. How were orphans with no parents supposed to come up with that kind of money? The orphanage couldn’t afford to buy uniforms for all those children. There were days when several kids went hungry because even the food budget ran short.
Yes, he went hungry sometimes — that part was true. But eating food scraps was a lie. The delinquent types would occasionally pull that stunt when they were bored, shoving a tray of food waste in front of kids like him and telling them to eat it. He never did. But he got beaten for it.
“Anyway, you should ask the homeroom teacher to move your seat. You might end up getting hurt for no reason. What if something expensive goes missing?”
That student had known his face since elementary school. After all that time together, there wasn’t a shred of sympathy — just open, blunt condemnation. He’d never stolen anything from anyone, but he’d been suspected many times. For being poor. For having no parents. Kids like him were always an easy target.
“Ha.”
The student had said it out of apparent concern, but Haejeong suddenly burst out laughing mid-sentence. A laugh that was half-amused, half-contemptuous — and the students who couldn’t read the meaning behind it stared at him in confusion.
“No, it’s kind of funny.”
Meeting their questioning looks, Haejeong continued with that same derisive smile, as if genuinely amused.
“To me, you all look pretty much the same.”
“……”
“Beggars ranking themselves among beggars.”
At Haejeong’s offhand remark, the faces of every student in the class froze. The one who had been talking so gleefully — and all the ones nodding along beside him.
“Those shoes you’re wearing — they look fake.”
Haejeong glanced once at the student’s sneakers and continued.
“Can’t afford the real thing so you wear fakes — or can’t afford new clothes so you pick them out of a donation bin.”
“……”
“What’s so different about either.”
Word had already spread throughout the entire school that Haejeong came from a family wealthy enough to make ordinary students and parentless, starving orphans look about the same by comparison. So even with a remark that bold, not a single student stepped forward to argue back. The other student’s face cycled through shades of red and blue as he seethed — but he, too, couldn’t get a single word out.
The only one who laughed at those words was him alone. The unexpected things Haejeong had said were unlike anything he’d ever heard in his life. Maybe it was because it was the first time he’d been grouped together with ordinary kids — but Haejeong’s arrogant, haughty words landed like something close to comfort. Because every single day he had been living with the constant awareness of just how different he was from the ordinary children around him.
Haejeong always had cruel words and harsh words on his lips. Sometimes they were worse than what the kids who bullied him would say — and yet, the irony was that those cruel words were the ones that became comfort to him. Thinking about it like that, he realized he probably wasn’t a good person himself either. Even living the way he did, not wanting to live badly was his one and only creed. Among the older boys who had left the orphanage, many had ended up in prison because poverty had led them down the wrong path. In that sense, Haejeong had been something like a forbidden indulgence to him. The only twist his life would never have had on its own — a slightly special, different star. Someone like a different world entirely.
The long drive came to an end, the flood of old memories dissolving as Munyeong smoothly brought the car to a stop. To honor Haejeong’s words, he had wound through congested streets and taken every detour possible. Haejeong had been quiet the entire way, and matching that atmosphere, Munyeong hadn’t so much as drawn a deep breath.
“We’ve arrived.”
Munyeong spoke carefully toward Haejeong, who still had his eyes closed. After all this time dragging it out, he thought the inauguration ceremony might already be over.
Haejeong slowly opened his eyes and exhaled one long, deep sigh.
“What are you doing.”
“Pardon?”
“Get out.”
The moment he opened his eyes, Haejeong issued the command and threw the car door open, stepping out. Munyeong startled and got out as well — and Haejeong, who had been straightening his clothes, tilted his head.
“Lead the way.”
“…Pardon?”
“What.”
“Ah, no… why would I…”
“Did you think I spent money dressing up that sorry face of yours just to leave you buried in the car?”
Munyeong instinctively looked down at his own outfit. Extravagantly luxurious clothes — things he wouldn’t be able to afford to even glance at in his position. But unfairly, he had never asked for any of it.
“I didn’t ask to receive any of this…”
“So you’re going to face the people inside looking like you did before?”
“…I’m not really sure why I need to be there at all.”
“I told you. Today, you’re attending to me.”
“But why would I need to…”
“Aren’t you an employee of our company? Every employee of our company is my subordinate.”
“……”
“Is it acceptable for a subordinate to defy their superior like this? Can’t you imagine what happens when someone defies a superior of my standing?”
Could a lowly part-time janitor really be considered a proper company employee? No one else would ever treat him that way — and yet here was Haejeong, making that absurd argument and extending that treatment to him. It was laughable.
“…I’m not fit to attend to you, Senior Managing Director.”
“I know. So stop talking back and move.”
“…Senior Managing Director.”
“God, you really never stop talking.”
He couldn’t summon the nerve to actually walk in there, so he hesitated — and Haejeong’s expression grew more and more severe.
“I won’t say it a third time. Move.”
