Only after liberally spraying a large amount of disinfectant on my arm and the surrounding area did Cha Juheon seem satisfied and put the disinfectant back in his bag. He showed no interest in who the man talking to me was and acted as if no one else but me existed in this place. In short, he was thoroughly ignoring Gyuho hyung right now.
“Eunwoo-ssi.”
“Yes?”
“You should’ve gotten more nutritional shots during this time instead. What will you do if you catch some illness from being stuck close to just anyone like this? Didn’t I tell you repeatedly to avoid dirty and filthy things as much as possible?”
Cha Juheon nagged as always while staring at my arm that hyung had grabbed. Narrowing his eyes as he looked at my arm, he reached out and started patting around my arm as if dusting it off. He blatantly brushed off only the spot hyung had held, as if something dirty had gotten on it. Wow, I’ve never seen someone like this before. Incredibly elegant yet rude.
The words and actions he was showing now were undeniably rude no matter who looked at them. Because it showed blatant disregard for the other person. Absurdly, Cha Juheon was even performing that rude behavior politely and gracefully. He thoroughly ignored hyung in this space with great haughtiness.
“Ah, Executive Director…”
“Oh my, it’s gotten too late. You must be hungry, so let’s go quickly. You’re someone who eats a lot these days anyway, so it’s a big problem to miss a meal.”
The expression on Cha Juheon’s face as he frowned and said it was a big problem to miss a meal was very serious. Regret floated in his expression as if he had missed something very important. What’s so important about eating one meal late in this situation?
“Huh? It’s not that big of a problem… But wait, how do you know I eat a lot?”
I knew it was an inappropriate thing to say for the situation, but even knowing that, I had no choice but to ask courageously. Because I was really curious… I was really curious. How does the Executive Director know what and how much I eat to say something like that?
“Well, it’s because I’m not unaware of how much food ingredients go into that house. What you eat well and don’t eat well, how much you eat per meal—these are all things I need to know. Because you can’t have any health problems. You didn’t think I wouldn’t check something so important, did you?”
“…Yes.”
Not at all. I never imagined he would take this much interest in me. I just thought the Chairman took care of everything in my daily life. But apparently that wasn’t the case. Cha Juheon had been checking everything I ate one by one without letting anything slip by.
Probably not just food, but quietly observing other parts of my daily life too. It was a moment when I realized once again how important this baby was to them, and how serious they were about the contract. The tension that had loosened somewhat tightened up again.
“Now that you know, let’s go quickly.”
Cha Juheon moved locations as if pushing my back, like someone who didn’t want to stay there even for a moment. As we left that place with somewhat quick steps, I heard a voice I had forgotten about from behind.
“Hey, Eunwoo! I don’t know what’s going on, but anyway, Gyuho’s getting out soon, so let’s meet up together if we can see each other again!”
Whether he gets out or not, I have absolutely no intention of meeting Gyuho again. Still, ending things vaguely like this felt unsettling and wrong, so I wanted to finish with a proper goodbye. But I couldn’t even do that, unable to overcome the strength of Cha Juheon’s hand firmly holding and fixing my body in place.
I forcibly turned my head halfway and could see hyung looking this way with a flustered expression, but that was it. I ended the meeting without being able to say goodbye after all.
Even in the car on the way back, Cha Juheon didn’t say much. He didn’t ask me who that man was or why I was with him. So I couldn’t ask him what I was curious about either.
I wanted to ask why he acted that way, why he took me away like that. Cha Juheon, though usually prickly, was someone with basic manners and didn’t act rudely toward others. So today’s incident was truly puzzling. But as long as Cha Juheon didn’t speak first, I couldn’t ask either.
It’s more comfortable to just interpret and think about it myself. That he just disliked me being stuck close to a stranger whose identity I didn’t even know, because of that pathologically clean personality of his. Because he doesn’t like strangers and unfamiliar things. Also, whatever the reason, I was fortunate in a way to have escaped from that situation thanks to him.
“Is there anything you want to eat? You’ve been outside too long, so how about getting takeout? It would be better to go home and eat comfortably. Because you can’t strain yourself.”
He spoke with a quite resolute expression.
“I don’t really care, but you haven’t eaten either, Executive Director. Are you going home?”
“No. I’m going back to the company.”
“What? Then your meal… what time is it now…”
At his answer that he was going back to the company, my gaze naturally turned to the clock. Though Cha Juheon wouldn’t be eating with me anyway, I was concerned. Even though it was a personal checkup, the main schedule was my regular examination anyway. He deliberately made time in the morning and moved with me because of that, so I couldn’t help but feel concerned that he was skipping a meal to go to work.
“That’s fine. I can just eat something simple. Let’s think about Eunwoo-ssi’s meal. What will you eat?”
His attitude of repeatedly asking what I would eat was so serious it was almost laughable. Is there really a need to be that serious over just one meal? But his purpose was the baby in my belly, not me, so I understood. Because the baby grows well when I eat well.
“I’ll have a hamburger. I think just having a hamburger would be fine.”
“Ah, hamburger, just a moment.”
As soon as he heard my answer, Cha Juheon promptly picked up his phone and started searching for something.
“Hmm, I don’t eat hamburgers so I’m not very familiar, but there’s a handmade hamburger restaurant with good reviews around here.”
“A handmade hamburger restaurant?”
I wondered what he was doing—he’s looking for a handmade hamburger shop on his phone. The hamburger he’s looking for seems to be different from what I’m thinking. He’s probably not looking for a regular hamburger sold commercially, but one of those hamburgers that cost tens of thousands of won each.
“Executive Director, not that kind—just order delivery through a delivery app. It comes quickly, so don’t worry about it.”
“Delivery?”
Cha Juheon’s reaction to the word delivery was immediate. He stared at me intently with a distasteful expression, like someone who heard something wrong. It was an expression that contained the meaning of how troublesome I was being.
“Ordering from a delivery app is fast food.”
“Yes, that’s right. Hamburgers are usually fast food, aren’t they?”
Cha Juheon snorted and refuted my words.
“Ha, no. What kind of generalization is that… There are many hamburgers made healthily with good ingredients these days, so just wait a bit. Don’t think about that kind.”
Cha Juheon’s languid tone sounded like a provocation. It’s understandable to have this reaction since he’s clearly someone who’s lived without touching fast food. However, whether it was because I was hungry or because I was angry at his attitude that instantly turned my eating habits into something poor, this time I wanted to say something too.
“…Executive Director. What I want to eat isn’t a handmade hamburger from a restaurant, but a fast food hamburger.”
It was too timid a response for telling someone off, but anyway, I clearly said what I wanted to eat. Only by pointing it out clearly like this would he not think about feeding me something else.
“I understand you care about the baby, but it’s not something I eat often, so it won’t be bad for my health.”
When I didn’t give in to the end with a crawling voice, he turned to look at me from just looking at his phone.
“The doctor said I should eat what I want to eat…”
As if displeased that I pulled out the doctor card like a trump card, Cha Juheon’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ve never tried the hamburger Baek Eunwoo-ssi says he wants to eat, so I don’t know what taste difference there is. But there’s nothing bad about following my suggestion, right? Fast food can’t compare in terms of ingredients or freshness, so there’s nothing to lose.”
His words showed that he couldn’t understand me at all. But that was the same for me too. I’m not trying to calculate gains and losses over one meal. I just want to eat it because I want to eat it…
“I’ve also never tried the hamburger you mentioned, Executive Director, so I can’t say anything about it, but eating it occasionally isn’t bad for health at all. In fact, hamburgers aren’t even unhealthy food.”
“Of course I know hamburgers aren’t unhealthy food. People consume them frequently. That’s not what I mean—I’m saying if you’re going to eat it anyway, eat one made with slightly better ingredients. Wouldn’t that be better for the fetus too?”
He really cares terribly about his baby.
“I understand what you’re saying, Executive Director, but during pregnancy, not being stressed is better than food.”
“…What? Stress?”
“Ah? Yes…”
“Stress?”
Cha Juheon, who had been repeating the word stress, looked at me with the most intense emotion since we’d met. That expression was full of shock and astonishment. Why is he reacting so extremely? At the unexpectedly sharp reaction, I tensed up again.
“If you’re asking where I’m getting stressed from…”
“Ha, Baek Eunwoo-ssi is the first person to say they’re stressed because of me.”
“What?”
The first?
“No one has ever been stressed because of me. Not once until now. No one has ever said they were stressed. So why does only Baek Eunwoo-ssi react so sensitively? No one has ever reacted to my words like this.”
Is this person joking? But Cha Juheon had an expression that was truly dumbfounded, as if he really didn’t understand. I could feel our environmental differences from that reaction again. No, to put it bluntly, of course no one around him could say anything. Who in the world would dare complain about being stressed by the words of not just any superior, but an Executive Director and future chairman?
No matter how stressed they were, who would have the courage to say it out loud? Unless they were crazy, they’d swallow it inside.
I say what I want to say because I’m not an employee, but there’s no way employees could dare do that. To think he took those employees’ reactions as sincere—he really is like a prince. This is frustrating, really. I closed my eyes, ignoring Cha Juheon’s persistent question about why I was stressed.
