“No, but why is it ‘why’ when the Director calls you to eat? Come to think of it, what were you trying to say yesterday too before I went out to eat lunch?”
“……”
“What was it?”
“I don’t like that you come and go as the Director calls you, Seungju.”
“What?”
“It bothers me.”
Seungju was speechless again. His mind got tangled up in an instant. Who doesn’t like being told to do this and that by someone? But it’s the company? He’s my superior? In the end, Seungju brought out what he thought was the most ridiculous among the reasons he’d guessed.
“Are you jealous?”
“……”
Muyeon had no answer. So that means yes.
“Ah… yes….”
Seungju leaned back against the backrest. His head tilted back with a thud. For this guy to say something so unable to distinguish between public and private. It was just a few minutes ago that he said Muyeon seemed a bit different.
He lost energy. Seungju silently looked out the window. He was annoyed that traffic was jammed, and annoyed at himself for being upset over something trivial. It was ridiculous that they fought over a funny reason less than a week after they started dating.
When the car finally entered the alley where Seungju lived, Muyeon opened his mouth.
“This is why I was trying not to say it.”
“…What?”
“You thought it was ridiculous, right?”
“A bit.”
“But it’s real.”
Seungju let out a deep sigh. At the end, laughter was attached as if helpless, as if resigned.
“Then say something to that person, Muyeon. Tell him to cut it out with being an old-fashioned authoritarian with his subordinates.”
“Hmm….”
The serious reaction is even funnier. Seungju shook his head. The car stopped in front of the officetel. Muyeon looked at Seungju gathering his bag. He slowly opened his mouth.
“You said it earlier, Seungju.”
“What did I say?”
“That if work wasn’t even fun, you would’ve quit already.”
Seungju nodded. Muyeon continued.
“I hate hearing you say you’ll quit.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. So,”
“……”
“I’ll find a way.”
Seungju had heard similar words from him not long ago. And Muyeon had brought an answer Seungju hadn’t even thought of. Seungju became a bit anxious.
While Seungju was at a loss for words, Muyeon leaned in. In the blink of an eye, their lips touched. The moment his tongue touched his lips, Seungju came to his senses. He was startled enough for his shoulders to flinch.
Their lips parted and Muyeon smiled. One couldn’t help but feel attracted to a man who shamelessly filled the gap without being fazed even when you got angry and acted prickly.
Feeling like he’d become an incredibly petty person, Seungju opened his mouth without knowing it.
“I’m… sorry.”
Muyeon smiled brightly, raising the corners of his mouth. His eyes sparkled.
“What does Seungju have to be sorry about?”
The prickly line in a soft voice was already familiar. But still, anyway, there was something about that smile.
***
Not missing family gatherings.
That was one of the conditions Baek Muyeon had exchanged for independence. No one expected him to, but for the past few months, Muyeon had kept that condition quite faithfully.
The reason wasn’t complicated. In Muyeon’s not-so-smooth independence process, that condition was something like an ultimatum his mother had put forth. If you just keep this, I’ll let you move out and live alone.
From the beginning, she was dead set against her son’s independence. So for her, it was a huge concession after a long, long, tedious bickering fight. Of course, naturally, her logic for opposing independence made much more sense than Muyeon’s pure whining. If he lives however he wants even while stuck at home, wouldn’t he become a completely unbridled wild horse if he lived alone?
And of course, Muyeon didn’t even listen to that with one ear. He protested. In the first place, instead of taking over an affiliate company as his father told him, he asked to be made independent, but if conditions are attached to that again, isn’t that pure unreasonableness? He said he’d change companies and move out of the house to build a new life, so why only interfere? If you keep coming out like this, I won’t take over the company either, and I’ll live as I please even more diligently than I have so far, so handle the stress of watching that well—that was the content.
Heo Seungju wasn’t the first person to realize that Muyeon spoke particularly rudely and that when he started being stubborn, he spouted sophistry that dirtied others’ moods. His family and of course all his relatives knew Muyeon’s such temperament all too well.
The problem was that neither his father nor his mother were particularly people to stop Muyeon’s temperament. Of course—he’s their youngest son who wouldn’t hurt even if put in their eyes. It was fortunate if they gave him a slight rebuke. In the end, in the same pattern as always, his older sisters stepped in to mediate, unable to stand it anymore.
‘Did you expect Mom couldn’t do anything to you? If you don’t listen when I’m being nice, I’ll take back all the cars I gave you.’
Cornered into a situation where his cars would be taken and his path to independence blocked, there was no reason not to keep the condition he’d accepted.
Of course, there were other reasons too. First, living alone was much more satisfying than Muyeon had thought. Thinking of it as the price, participating in family gatherings wasn’t a difficult thing. And living apart from his family for the first time in his life, he felt affectionate emotions too.
So Muyeon received great praise this time too for not missing the meal gathering that doubled as celebrating his great-aunt’s birthday. Our Muyeon takes care of family like this, he must have really matured.
Since starting to live out, or more precisely, in the few months since he started faithfully attending a place called a company, Muyeon realized he received praise for really not-even-reason-like reasons. But his nature was too shameless to be grateful while not knowing what to do with himself over that.
So he nodded and said:
“I have something to tell you today.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“I’ll take over the company.”
Oh my, Muyeon’s mother said joyfully, covering her mouth with both hands. His father was briefly surprised, then burst into satisfied laughter. His older sister put on a serious face, and his younger sister looked Muyeon up and down and said:
“What should we do, unnie? He really seems to have come to his senses.”
“Or did he turn around 180 degrees?”
“You girls have nothing you can’t say to your brother. Muyeon, you thought well. Oh my, how wonderful.”
Muyeon’s mother truly delighted and patted Muyeon’s arm. His great-aunt at the next table turned to look at her and asked what was going on. In the meantime, his younger sister’s brother-in-law nodded at Muyeon. Brother-in-law, you really thought well.
Soon the hotel banquet room where the extended family was sitting became noisy. Vitality suddenly arose in the quiet tea time after the meal was all finished. Muyeon grinned at his family pouring out praise surrounding him.
Muyeon had several friends he’d known since childhood with similar circumstances. Inheriting the family business was like an unavoidable duty for a life that was affluent to the point of overflowing. There were guys who found it frustrating and guys who thought it was natural. But there weren’t many guys who received all kinds of praise just by obediently answering they’d fulfill their duty.
Muyeon only recently learned that it’s not natural for praise to follow when you’ve only done something trivial. But this wasn’t a problem Muyeon could do anything about. Isn’t it that his parents are praising him entirely because they want to? What can you do? Being born as such a son in such a house. And being born with the nature to utilize that a hundred times over. So when his younger sister opened her mouth again, Muyeon’s answer was already prepared.
“Why did you suddenly change your mind?”
“Company work is fun.”
His father who heard those words had a happy smile. Rather than company work being fun, there’s a person who makes company work fun. Since he hadn’t lied at all, Muyeon didn’t feel even a bit of guilty conscience.
“Amazing, really.”
“People do change, I guess.”
“They say when a person suddenly does something they didn’t do, you should be suspicious….”
Of course, he didn’t bat an eye at his sisters’ lines that hit the nail on the head either.
What followed was swift. Muyeon’s father—that is, Vision Factory’s president and Baekseong Group’s actual owner—brought up words as if prepared. I’m sorry to say but the Planning Division Director will be given a good opportunity at another affiliate… Listening to his father’s various stories starting with that with one ear and letting it flow out the other, Muyeon nodded. In the first place, when Muyeon came up to Planning Division, the reason he pushed out the current director but didn’t take the director title instead was simply because it was bothersome.
If he readily took on the director position, his feet would be completely tied to the big picture of company operations his father was drawing. Even when he’d transferred departments, he’d thought he’d look at the company’s circumstances and pull out his feet at an appropriate time. After successfully seducing a certain someone from Planning Division’s Planning Team 6, that is.
That plan had been completely revised as of now, but Muyeon didn’t particularly care. Because taking over his father’s company wasn’t particularly a difficult thing, and he’d realized that doing what his parents wanted wasn’t bad either.
And above all, Muyeon thought of Heo Seungju’s face genuinely delighting at just one evaluation system. It was interesting that he could make Seungju’s line blur with such a simple thing.
Of course, even Muyeon doesn’t yet know what it will mean to take on this company that makes Seungju shudder just hearing about it all at once. But Muyeon was confident in doing whatever, and above all, he liked that direction.
The direction toward a new life and a new existence, that is.
Making a big decision for someone—that itself is something suitable for a new daily life. Muyeon nodded slightly, satisfied with the feeling of really having matured.
