Yeon Haejeong waved his hand dismissively, then paused before his next words. He tapped the capped fountain pen against his desk a few times, his expression momentarily pensive as he slowly opened his mouth.
“……Well. Anyone looking for me while I was gone. …Were there?”
“How could there not be.”
“Yeah? Who?”
Secretary Ju pushed her glasses up again and checked the tablet PC filled with schedules and notes, reciting a list of those who had come looking for him in his absence.
“The Vice Chairman. The Senior Managing Director. The director of the research lab. Team Leader Shin from HR. Team Leader Jeong from Sales Team 1. Oh, and an executive director from Dowon Industries who came saying he was an acquaintance of the Managing Director. And also….”
“Alright, enough, enough!”
Yeon Haejeong cut her off irritably as a string of irrelevant names kept coming. At his signal to stop, Secretary Ju immediately fell silent.
“That’s enough, you can go.”
Yeon Haejeong waved his hand again, dismissing her. Secretary Ju gave a brief bow and exited the office.
He had half-expected her to question his absence, but it seemed that wasn’t the case either. Since he’d been pretending not to notice, there had been no reaching out. Not even a message — the fact that someone could go days without coming into the office and not even be curious was proof of just how ruthless that person was. Always playing the picture of gentleness, acting so innocent, yet when it came down to it, even after everything they’d done pressed against each other, he was a master at dismissing it as a mistake and acting like it meant nothing.
Yeon Haejeong fumed alone, but as Munyeong’s final image suddenly surfaced in his mind, his expression gradually darkened. Those truly wounded eyes, those clear, trembling pupils — they kept flickering at the edges of his vision. He abruptly turned his chair to face the opposite direction and sat quietly, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city below.
It just won’t go away, goddamn it.
The afterimage refused to die no matter what he did, and it had been putting Yeon Haejeong through hell for days now. He’d been living recklessly, just like he used to in America — drinking, playing, indulging until he was sick of it — yet every time he opened his eyes, every time he woke from sleep, it came back. It clung to him as if he’d been cursed, refusing to let go.
Just then, the sound of a vacuum cleaner drifted in from beyond the office. At the faint mechanical hum that barely grazed his ears, Yeon Haejeong instinctively bolted upright and rushed out of the office. The low drone of the vacuum — faint but unmistakable — was coming from Director Hwang’s office. Given the nature of the office, with its blinds left up making the interior fully visible from outside, he could see straight into Director Hwang’s space from where he stood.
Director Hwang was pointing and lecturing the cleaning staff operating the vacuum, business as usual, and Yeon Haejeong, watching from a distance, automatically assumed the person on the receiving end was Im Munyeong — and so he started moving, almost at a run. Slowly, the face of the cleaning staff member who had been hidden in the blind spot began to come into view.
The height was similar, but everything else was different. The profile, the hairstyle, the way they stood — all of it was different.
…Huh.
Why isn’t it him.
Yeon Haejeong’s expression stiffened gradually as he took a step back. Then, with a somewhat dazed look, he blinked several times in succession. At that exact moment, Secretary Ju stepped out of the secretarial office to attend to some work, and their eyes met.
“…Are you leaving already?”
Secretary Ju flinched slightly at the sight of Yeon Haejeong standing outside the office and asked carefully. He hadn’t even been in for a full hour yet. But Yeon Haejeong was lost in thought, as if his mind had gone somewhere else entirely. Just as Secretary Ju registered that something was off about his state, he suddenly spoke.
“…Where’s Im Munyeong?”
The abrupt question made Secretary Ju knit her brows slightly.
“Pardon…? Im Munyeong… Oh, Munyeong.”
Secretary Ju finally grasped the meaning and turned the question over in her mind. Then she followed his gaze to where it was directed. A cleaning staff member wearing the same uniform as Munyeong came into her line of sight. In that instant, a look of realization crossed her face, and she let out a quiet, soft sigh.
“Ah…. You didn’t know.”
She muttered it almost to herself, and Yeon Haejeong, having heard every word, fixed her with a questioning look.
“He left not long ago.”
“…What?”
“He said something had come up and he was quitting—”
“Who gave him permission?”
“Pardon?”
“Ha. Fucking hell, does whatever he wants. Does he not know he handles my work too?”
“……Ah, I assumed the two of you had already sorted that out between yourselves.”
Secretary Ju, unable to make sense of Yeon Haejeong’s heated reaction, responded in a flustered, bewildered tone. He’d thought Munyeong had just switched cleaning areas again on his own — but what? Quit? Who gave him permission?
Yeon Haejeong balled his hand into a fist and slammed it hard against the glass wall. Bang! The impact reverberated through the surrounding area, and Secretary Ju flinched, taking a few steps back from him.
“Fucking hell, who gave him permission…….”
Yeon Haejeong muttered darkly and immediately moved to leave. No — he was about to.
“…….”
He halted, standing frozen in place, his shoulders rising and falling. It was a subtle movement, but the roughness of his breath made it clear just how worked up he’d become in that instant. Standing in the middle of the lobby, Yeon Haejeong slowly uncurled the fist he’d clenched so tightly.
In that moment, he found himself questioning his own impulse to go after him right then and there. The moment he heard Munyeong had quit, it was as if something in his head short-circuited — rage boiling up all at once. He was furious, and at the same time, the thought that Munyeong had stepped outside the boundaries of his control sent a dizzying wave of panic through him. The chest-tightening anxiety and agitation severed his capacity for reason.
“……Ha.”
He let out a low, humorless laugh and dragged a hand roughly through his hair.
I’m really losing my mind.
Yeon Haejeong realized it in that moment.
That he had been making a complete fool of himself for days.
Because the truth was, he was already somewhere far beyond his own control. Which meant nothing he had done had made any difference. Whether it was curiosity, interest, or something else entirely — right now, he was being tossed around helplessly by Im Munyeong. There was no denying it. The state he was in was laughable even to himself.
Yeon Haejeong was the type to admit what needed to be admitted, even when his pride was cracking and the fury rose all the way to the tips of his hair. Though it had always taken a long time — and a great deal of patience from the other person — before he could reach that admission. He’d been a warped person from the very beginning, and as he grew up, the weight of his environment only made him more merciless.
He stepped out of the driver’s seat, cigarette in hand. He exhaled a long breath of smoke, like a sigh, and came to a stop in front of the rundown villa where Munyeong lived. He squinted, tilting his head back to look up at the floor where Im Munyeong would be. The conflict was written plainly across his face. He knew full well how much it cost his pride to show up like this, and yet here he was, choosing to do it anyway — and that made him furious at himself. The problem was he couldn’t stop himself regardless.
He flicked away the half-smoked cigarette and slowly climbed the stairs. The staircase was so cramped and narrow that an adult man’s foot barely fit on each step. It was a building he’d never have any reason to set foot in if it weren’t for Im Munyeong.
He reached the door and knocked carelessly — two listless taps.
“Hey.”
The blunt call came with it, but the inside of the apartment was silent.
“Hey, open up.”
Yeon Haejeong knocked again, his expression darkening with impatience. But still, the other person gave no response. Getting the feeling that Munyeong was deliberately hiding, Yeon Haejeong this time slammed the door with the side of his fist.
“Hey, you not gonna open it?!”
Just getting here had already put Yeon Haejeong through thousands of rounds of inner torment. He’d barely managed to make himself come, and to be met with complete silence — his temper flared and he actually kicked the door this time.
“I said open it. Huh?”
He’d assumed of course Munyeong would be there. He’d even imagined it — Munyeong looking up at him in surprise, those flustered eyes rolling around like a kid’s.
Bang! Bang!
“Fucking hell, if you don’t come out I’m just breaking the door down. I said it, didn’t I?!”
His shout thundered through the building’s interior. Just then — click — the sound of a door lock disengaging. A faint flush of anticipation rose to his face at the thought that it was finally opening. But the door that opened was the one next door.
“My goodness, the noise. There’s nobody home in that unit!”
The woman from next door stepped out and shot Yeon Haejeong a look as he stood there blankly. She seemed caught off guard by how perfectly put-together he looked despite the way he’d been carrying on like he was about to tear the building apart.
“Why not,” Yeon Haejeong asked flatly.
The woman looked briefly flustered and opened her mouth again.
“A while back, some shady thugs came around and caused a big scene.”
