Munyeong looked at the manager curiously as he stood holding his ground, then quietly stepped to the side. The manager moved to stand in front of him again. Hm? Wondering if he had something to say, Munyeong looked back at him — and the manager hesitated for a long while with a troubled expression, worrying at his lips. Caught off guard by the hesitation, Munyeong asked carefully.
“Do you… have something you wanted to say….”
“I’m sorry for earlier.”
The moment Munyeong asked, the manager delivered a sincere, full-force apology. Caught off guard, Munyeong stumbled back a step.
“Excuse me…?”
“I just… assumed you were someone doing odd jobs.”
“……”
“There are so many people of high standing who attend to the Baekil family… I didn’t realize you were someone serving the Senior Managing Director. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no. Please don’t apologize….”
“Representative Chu places great importance on the TPO of the people around her as well, so I made assumptions.”
“Oh, yes….”
Well, his appearance right now was admittedly quite rough. Washed-out cotton pants, a cap that was past shabby and practically falling apart, and even his t-shirt had the collar stretched all out of shape.
“And I also wanted to say — truly, thank you.”
“Not at all….”
“I didn’t think you’d speak up for me. You really saved me. I’m so grateful.”
At another polite, heartfelt expression of gratitude, Munyeong didn’t know what to do with himself and ended up bowing back in return.
“Oh, no. If anything, it was because of me that—”
“I’d like to buy you a meal sometime, as a way of saying thank you….”
“Pardon?”
“Would you be willing to give me your number?”
At the out-of-nowhere turn, Munyeong stared blankly at the phone the manager held out to him. He’d never been in a situation like this before, and his sense of reality wasn’t cooperating enough to produce an answer quickly.
“If it’s uncomfortable….”
“Oh, no. It’s not uncomfortable….”
“I’ll take you somewhere good. If the Senior Managing Director had actually gone through with telling Representative Chu earlier, I really… I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
Recalling what had just happened, the manager’s face went pale again for a brief moment — but he quickly composed himself with a few dry blinks.
“You’re my savior. Please let me buy you at least one meal. As a thank-you, and as an apology.”
The words were so genuine there was no way to refuse, and Munyeong finally reached out and took the phone.
And pressed in the numbers, one by one, in a bit of a daze.
There weren’t many numbers saved in Munyeong’s contacts. The number of a previous employer, or the owner of the placement agency who occasionally found him work, and two or three elderly coworkers. He had only one friend his own age. There had been nowhere to get close to anyone, and he wasn’t the type people sought out to befriend, so no one had ever really come to him. Once, long ago, he’d run into someone his age who had grown up with him at the orphanage. At a late-night warehouse shift job.
They’d recognized each other’s situations as not so different from their own right away — but Munyeong had been glad to see him. Even if there had been no good memories at the orphanage, they had shared a childhood together. It couldn’t become a fond memory, but that place had been his beginning and his growing-up years, so he couldn’t bring himself to feel only bitterness toward it. Not toward the people from back then, or the place itself. But that person hadn’t felt the same — the moment he saw Munyeong, his face had creased with something like displeasure. The instant Munyeong saw that expression, his hand, already half-raised in greeting, stopped on its own, and the smile starting to form at the corner of his mouth faltered. The boy pretended not to know him. Turned his head as if their eyes hadn’t met, and disappeared in the opposite direction.
They hadn’t been on particularly bad terms at the orphanage, hadn’t ever fought — and yet he’d been turned away like something unwanted. Munyeong couldn’t know the exact reason, but he understood it in a way, so all that was left was a quiet bitterness. He got it — that two people born without parents, who had aged out of the same orphanage, weren’t really so different from each other. And that neither of them would want to run into a person tied to a time that had held nothing good.
“That’s my number. Save it. I’ll reach out later.”
It had been so long since he’d saved a new number that Munyeong felt a little dazed, hand hovering, as he carefully asked,
“Um… could I ask your name….”
He had to ask because he didn’t know what name to save it under. The manager let out a short sigh.
“Oh right. We never introduced ourselves. I’m Choi Geonwoo. Thirty-two.”
“Ah. Yes. I’m Im… Mun— no, Im Sunyeong.”
He was about to say his real name, but the moment Haejeong emerged from the bedroom and came into view, Munyeong caught himself and changed it.
“Got it. Sunyeong. I’ll be in touch.”
He was wearing glasses, but his smile was warm and open. He looked young for thirty-two, and the way he’d bounced back from what had just happened without missing a beat was, in its own way, impressive. Watching that, it struck Munyeong — everyone is doing their best to get through life. No one has it easy. He’s not the only one struggling.
“Yes… Geonwoo.”
Munyeong bowed his head and watched the manager’s retreating back as he walked briskly toward Haejeong.
The manager was all composure and professionalism now, as if the easy smile of a moment ago had never happened, attending to Haejeong with a businesslike face and manner. Haejeong had the fitted outfit on and was rolling his arms and legs around checking the range of movement. Apparently satisfied, he gave a blank nod — and the manager finally let out a quiet breath of relief, allowing himself a thin, professional smile.
“Ah.”
Haejeong, checking his reflection in the mirror, suddenly creased his brow as if something had just occurred to him. Every staff member’s nerves snapped to attention at the reaction.
“That one.”
And he pointed at Munyeong, who was still standing blankly in front of the bathroom.
“Go find something that’ll fit him.”
The wardrobe staff immediately widened their eyes and began sizing Munyeong up on the spot. No one asked why — they all accepted the order like machines and got moving.
“Quickly. We don’t have time.”
Haejeong gave the brief instruction while checking the watch on his wrist — one he’d overheard the staff whispering was worth roughly the price of a domestic car. One of the staff came at him like a battle character blitzing through a game quest, tape measure already out.
“I’ll need to take your measurements.”
Two of them attached themselves to Munyeong and ran through the measurements at speed. Munyeong, whose processing ran a beat slow, stood there with a blank expression — lifting his arms when they said lift, lowering them when they said lower. He moved like a doll, still not fully grasping the situation, and stared dumbly over at Haejeong. But Haejeong spared not a single glance for Munyeong standing there looking utterly lost, and simply issued short commands to the other staff who were dragging their feet.
“Don’t walk. Run.”
Haejeong said it in a tone somewhere between bored and annoyed, crossed his legs on the sofa, and put a cigarette between his lips. Munyeong blinked slowly at nothing in particular, still not quite catching up. The fact that he’d been told to fetch clothes meant this wasn’t where his day ended. Why? He checked the time on his phone — it was creeping toward evening.
At this hour, it was time for his side job. Whenever he had spare time, he’d do delivery runs or help out at the neighborhood bar run by a owner he knew. It was about time to head out for one of the two. If he finished the side job and got to sleep before midnight, he could get four hours in.
“Excuse me….”
Haejeong had put on a foreign film with no subtitles and was pulling steadily at his cigarette — he didn’t even respond to the timid call. He had both legs up on the table in his neatly fitted outfit. And without a second thought, he poured himself a glass of whiskey from the set on the table and knocked it back. For someone about to attend a formal public event, his behavior was far too unrestrained, and the low, careless attitude didn’t match the sharp, put-together look at all.
“Excuse me…. Senior Managing Director….”
Munyeong just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Never in his life had a single day felt this long. More draining and exhausting than any labor he’d ever done.
“What.”
Haejeong answered carelessly, eyes still on the film.
“About the clothes… why are you having them get me….”
“What do you mean why. You going to the inauguration looking like that?”
“What? Why would I be going there….”
“Then what — I’ve been drinking, how am I supposed to drive.”
