The way Munyeong had gone completely still seemed to irritate the man, because he lifted his tilted head and creased his brow. The moment Munyeong saw the man’s face, he dropped his gaze. Not because of Sunggil’s warning not to look at the executives’ faces. But because it wasn’t an unfamiliar face — because it was a face he knew — his head turned downward on its own.
“Are you deaf…. Hey, can’t you hear me?”
That careless gaze, that arrogant tone, and that unsettlingly handsome face. Munyeong found himself involuntarily thinking of the man from his past.
Hey, Im Munyeong.
Then and now, that rough mouth was exactly the same.
“I’ll count to three.”
The corners of Munyeong’s eyes trembled faintly.
Know your place.
That cold voice had overpowered him. Had wounded him, torn him apart.
“Snap out of it. I’m already past two.”
He hadn’t changed at all. Still just as handsome, still just as cold.
Who the hell do you think you are, having feelings for someone like me.
Yeon Haejeong — cruel and heartless.
The first love carved into him like a scar, all this time.
**
Munyeong was numb to pain. That was only natural, having been an orphan since childhood. From an age before they could even form words, children without parents as their shield grew up constantly exposed to wounds that cut like blades and burned like fire. Abandoned to an orphanage at five, Munyeong had started working at six. Laundry, dishes, cleaning. The orphanage’s rule was that even the youngest children had to handle the necessities of daily life with their own hands.
The director of the orphanage wasn’t warm or angelic, but she wasn’t trash, either. She had simply built the most reasonable system she could to allow dozens of parentless children to live together. So Munyeong had just learned about the world faster than children with parents, and started working earlier. Young Munyeong did whatever he was told without complaint in that regimented orphanage. He had no grievances. Having the orphanage was better than not having it.
Perhaps because of that, Munyeong had few friends from an early age. He was relatively quiet and lacked the swagger typical of boys his age. In other words, he wasn’t much fun. On top of that, with no parents and no particularly outstanding talent, there were even fewer people around him. Loneliness was his closest companion, and pain was no different from a sibling.
On days when food supplies ran short, some children went without meals. Munyeong, who didn’t even know how to get angry and was therefore an easy target for the mean kids, always ended up without food on those days. The children who went hungry like him would spend the night with empty stomachs, filling up on tap water instead. Going without food wasn’t even something to feel wronged about. Even in a small place like an orphanage, the law of the jungle held — it was simply the natural order that the weak got beaten, went hungry, and lost.
Long before he was old enough to understand the world, Munyeong had grown up feeling that truth in his bones. So he started working part-time jobs quickly. He had no choice. The director’s wish was for him to grow into someone who could pay his own way, and since he had to become independent the moment he turned twenty, he needed to save every won he could.
His first part-time job was handing out flyers. No shop owner wanted to hire someone as young as a middle schooler, but he had to try every option he had. The jobs he barely managed to get were flyer distribution and cleaning a run-down shopping complex. He tried all sorts of things, but cleaning suited him best. He didn’t have to deal with people, no one interfered with him, and there was no need to read the room. It was hard on the body but easy on the mind. Having grown up constantly bumping up against others from the day he was born, he wanted to be entangled with other people as little as possible.
But the world outside the small society of the orphanage was far larger. Pettier, more vicious, and more capable of making a person miserable. There were plenty of employers who cheated him out of his pay, shop owners who tried to violate him sexually despite him being male and young, and times he’d been hit by customers for no reason at all while working. But he couldn’t fight back, couldn’t demand an explanation. The only person who could protect him was himself, and that self had to keep losing. It was a life of losing. That was the only way to keep living it.
It was in his third year of high school that Munyeong first met Yeon Haejeong. He had been in the thick of preparing for independence — a hectic period. The school he attended back then was the one on the outskirts of Seoul with the lowest university entrance rate and the worst reputation. It was precisely because it was that kind of school that Munyeong had managed to attend at all.
In a place crawling with rough students, Yeon Haejeong drew enormous attention the moment he appeared. Just from his appearance alone, Haejeong was clearly not the kind of student who belonged in a school like this. He was the only student there who radiated refinement from head to toe. The zip-up hoodie he wore under his uniform was a luxury brand sold only at department stores, easily over three million won, and the headsets he came in wearing every day were a different brand each time. Once, someone had tried to steal one and a police car had actually shown up. The teachers had tried to handle it internally within the school, but Haejeong was merciless. He refused to settle, and the student who had tried to steal from him had to face legal punishment.
Haejeong was arrogant because he had so much, but perhaps because of that — or in spite of it — he was also bold and always carried himself without shame. His chin was always lifted, and students always made way for him when he walked by. More than the fact of his wealth, it was that attitude that elevated him further.
Munyeong watched Haejeong every day, stealing glances. He couldn’t help but look — Haejeong seemed to belong to a world so entirely different from his own. Even his posture, perfectly upright, made him look like the son of some noble family, and whenever Haejeong passed by without a thought, there was such a good smell that Munyeong would find himself turning his head to look after him without realizing it. On the days he caught that scent, he would always press his nose to his own clothes. Hoping that even if they didn’t smell good, at least they didn’t smell like garbage. But a place crammed with dozens of people couldn’t possibly smell nice, and the facility only allowed laundry once a week. He tried his best not to walk near Haejeong, but being in the same class meant that situation arose at least once every so often.
After class one day, as Munyeong was leaving the classroom, Haejeong happened to drop his wallet right in front of him. Munyeong reflexively picked it up and called out to Haejeong, who was walking ahead.
U, um….
It was their first exchange in the three months since Haejeong had transferred. He hadn’t even thought about speaking to him, but the words came out on instinct.
What.
Haejeong turned around coldly, both hands shoved crookedly into his uniform trouser pockets.
You… dropped this.
Munyeong said it while hiding the tremor in his voice as best he could. Haejeong stepped closer, one step and then another, to take back the wallet. Munyeong consciously held his breath. For some reason, he felt nervous. Just from Haejeong drawing near, just from those few words exchanged between them.
Haejeong silently snatched the wallet. And in that instant —
Ah, shit.
Haejeong covered his nose with his hand, his eyes scrunching with distaste.
What the fck is that smell.*
At the irritated tone, Munyeong buried his nose in his own uniform and took a sniff. A stale, musty smell drifted up. He had tried to manage it, but there was no helping the fact that the smell of a room full of ungroomed teenage boys soaked into everything.
S, sorry….
Munyeong apologized reflexively, and Haejeong turned away without even glancing at him. Then he dropped the wallet Munyeong had just handed him straight into the trash can without a second thought. Munyeong stared blankly at the spot where Haejeong had exited, and at the discarded wallet. He had thought he’d grown endlessly numb to pain, but that day, he was a little sad. Because that wallet, thrown away with a single touch of his hands, seemed so pitiful. Unable to move his feet, Munyeong stood there and stared at that wallet for a long moment.
That was his first conversation with Yeon Haejeong.
**
“Three. That’s it. Three. Hm?”
The voice, thick with displeasure, rang out — and only then did Munyeong’s frozen consciousness come back to him. He had never even dreamed of meeting him again here. But given the situation, he had to pull himself together fast. He couldn’t afford to sour the mood of a senior executive simply because he had just come face to face with his first love. He was just a janitor.
“…I’m sorry. I’ll go right away.”
Making honey water wasn’t part of his duties, but doing whatever was asked of him was the reality of his position. Munyeong headed to the kitchenette, where the staff hadn’t yet arrived for the day, and rummaged around. Is there even honey inside a company…? he wondered, but surprisingly, there was. The welfare provided for senior executives was on an entirely different level from what regular employees received. There was honey aged thirty years, jujube tea steeped for several years, and even a ginseng tea set that looked unmistakably premium just at a glance.
Munyeong prepared a cup of honey water — something he’d never made in his entire life — and carefully made his way to the senior managing director’s office with the mug in hand. Haejeong had his exhaustion-heavy body stretched out across the sofa, head tilted back. Munyeong knocked twice, stepped inside, set the cup in front of him, and quietly spoke.
“…Here you go.”
“Took you f*cking long enough.”
Haejeong muttered irritably and gulped down the scalding honey water in large swallows.
Oh— Munyeong tried to stop him — but Haejeong was faster.
“Ah, sht! Ugh — ah, fck, it’s so fcking hot, fck!”
