How Disgusting
Woojin swallowed hard, his trembling hand hovering over the screen as he clicked on Yu’s message.
This woman is really…
He was on the verge of letting out a hollow laugh at the absurdity when Ihwa leaned over, trying to sneak a glance at his monitor. Woojin slammed the window shut on instinct, looking exactly like a son caught playing games at dawn by his mother.
Ihwa’s eyebrows twitched with confusion. Woojin forced a smile, pretending nothing was wrong, but the stiff expression had no chance of fooling her.
Lunchtime found them sitting across from each other in the cafeteria. Ihwa viciously stabbed a piece of meat with her fork, her glare never leaving Woojin’s face. Even while chewing, her eyes stayed locked on him.
God… I can’t even tell if the food is going down my throat or up my nose.
The suffocating silence and piercing stare finally became too much. Woojin spoke first.
“Why… why are you looking at me like that?”
“Why?” Her tone was utterly crooked—a clear warning that she was deeply displeased.
“You keep staring—”
“You made me keep staring, earlier,” Ihwa cut him off sharply. “You said it was spam.”
“Who jumps like that and hides their phone over a spam text?”
Woojin finally raised the white flag. Explaining everything seemed far less exhausting than enduring that icy gaze any longer.
He told her the whole story—what had happened on the rooftop with Yu and the situation from the day before. When he finished, Ihwa gave his head a light smack, her expression one of pure exasperation.
“If that was all it was, you should’ve just said so when I asked. Idiot. Moron.”
“I didn’t expect you to interrogate me like this. I was trying to handle it myself.”
Ihwa puffed her cheeks, clearly unsatisfied with his answer, and stared at him. Then she tapped the table with her fingertip and added, “From now on, tell me everything. No secrets.”
Her tone and expression carried a strangely pouty edge. Before he could stop himself, Woojin asked, “Are you… upset with me?”
The surprise attack made Ihwa’s eyes fly wide open. In an instant, her ears burned crimson. She fumbled for words, lips moving soundlessly, then gulped down water and burst out, “N-no! Why would I be?!”
“If you’re not, then you’re not. Why are you panicking like this? You’re scaring me too.”
Ihwa fanned her flushed face, trying to cool herself down.
Toward the end of lunch, Woojin called Yu up to the rooftop. When she arrived, she glanced nervously at Ihwa before asking, “Employee Seo, did Woojin tell you everything? About how he’s cheating?”
Ihwa’s voice was like ice. “It wasn’t cheating.”
“It was! That was definitely cheating! You’re being gaslit right now!”
Woojin cut off Yu’s wild delusion in one stroke. “That woman is my friend’s fiancée and my high school classmate.”
“Show me proof!”
Yu’s stubborn refusal made Woojin’s temples throb. Aigoo, I’m going to die before my time at this rate.
While he clutched the back of his neck, Ihwa stepped forward.
“Isn’t it for me—his girlfriend—to decide whether it’s cheating or not? I don’t understand on what authority you keep inserting yourself into our relationship, Ms. Yu.”
Flustered by Ihwa’s frigid demeanor, Yu shouted back. “I’m doing this because I’m worried about you! Why won’t you understand how I feel?”
“If you’re truly worried about me, then stop. I’ve already confirmed it wasn’t cheating.”
Ihwa’s decisive words left Yu speechless.
In truth, Yu’s obsession had a different root. She had approached after hearing that Ihwa was the greatest beauty at Daehyeop, only to have her pride wounded by the cold reception. She envied the men who looked only at Ihwa, plotted to isolate her by driving a wedge between her and Woojin, and intended to seize that empty spot for herself to claim their attention.
But Ihwa was not the type to be shaken by such shallow schemes.
As Ihwa turned to leave the rooftop, slipping her arm through Woojin’s and leaving the pale-faced Yu behind, Yu hurled a final, calculated blow.
“Then do you know that Woojin smokes?! I saw that too!”
Ihwa’s steps halted abruptly. The hand gripping Woojin’s arm slowly tightened.
Woojin instinctively glanced back, glaring at Yu as he muttered under his breath, “That woman really knows how to stir up trouble…”
The air around Ihwa seemed to plummet below freezing. When Woojin turned to look at her, the old, contemptuous gaze that once regarded him as an insect had returned. Irritation, fury, and betrayal swirled together, choking the rooftop in heavy silence.
Ihwa spoke first. “Is it true?”
Just those three words, yet Woojin felt like prey standing before a massive predator. Move even an inch and he would be devoured. Offer a clumsy excuse and he would truly be killed. From her reaction on the rooftop with Choi Juim last time, it was obvious Ihwa loathed cigarettes.
Yu’s words had already lost all credibility, yet Ihwa was doubting him. The terror that admitting to smoking might end their contract on the spot crashed over him.
In the end, Woojin made a dangerous gamble.
“That friend smokes too. You saw it last time—I don’t smoke.”
“It smelled on you then.”
“That was because I was standing right next to Assistant Manager Choi. It’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.”
Ihwa still looked suspicious, but since work hours were ending, she simply said she understood and headed back to the office.
A short while later, once Woojin had left his seat for work, Ihwa immediately sent a message to Choi Juim.
Choi Juim’s heart slammed against his ribs when he read it. In that brief instant, he spiraled into delusions that leaped from marriage all the way to having children. Face flushed pink, he twisted with excitement as he entered the break room.
“What’s going on…? Employee Seo…?”
“I’ll ask directly. When you were harassing Employee Kim on the rooftop last time, did he smoke too?”
Choi Juim flinched at the word “harassing,” but quickly grasped the situation. Ihwa and Woojin were fighting about the smoking issue. To bury Woojin completely and tear the two apart, he chose to lie without hesitation.
“…Yeah. We smoked together that time.”
“Is that the truth? You’re not lying?”
Choi Juim felt a momentary pang of guilt but shook his head and drove the nail in deeper. “Of course. Kim does it all the time with Manager Yoon.”
Ihwa roughly swept her bangs aside and let out a deep sigh. It was the moment she became half-convinced that Woojin had lied to her.
Seizing the opportunity, Choi Juim slyly rested a hand on her shoulder and spoke in a greasy tone. “Why? Is the relationship not going well? Should oppa give you some advice?”
Ihwa’s eyes flashed with cold fury. She violently knocked his hand away and warned him.
“Remove your hand. This is textbook sexual harassment. I have zero interest in learning anything about relationships from you, so know your place. And I’ve been disgusted by the way you’ve been staring at me for a while now.”
Clicking her tongue, Ihwa stormed out of the break room with angry steps. Left alone, Choi Juim’s face twisted with rage.
How dare she humiliate me like this?
“Ha, unbelievable! Just because she has a pretty face and I was nice to her, she thinks she’s something special?”
He trembled, trying to calm his fury, but the fact that his heart still softened at the mere thought of her face only made him angrier. That anger naturally found its target in Woojin.
The alarm signaling the end of the workday rang, yet the office air felt many times heavier and damper than usual. All afternoon Woojin had instinctively sensed the strange tension between Ihwa beside him and Choi Juim, who kept stealing glances at her from across the room.
He had dismissed Choi Juim’s behavior as his usual sleazy self, but Ihwa’s silence was different. Woojin assumed she was simply in a bad mood because of Yu’s attempt to sow discord on the rooftop.
In reality, Ihwa’s heart had already been poisoned by Choi Juim’s vile lie. She had labeled Woojin a hypocritical man who could spout falsehoods without so much as blinking.
The moment work ended, Ihwa packed her things and fled the office as if escaping. Woojin hurriedly rose to follow, but Choi Juim blocked his path by tossing him a noticeably smaller stack of documents than usual.
“Kim, finish this before you leave.”
Normally he would have accepted it with gritted teeth. Today was different. A powerful instinct warned him that if he lost sight of Ihwa now, the misunderstanding might never be cleared.
Woojin stared at Choi Juim with resolute eyes. “I’m sorry. I have something truly important to take care of today.”
He sprinted toward the lobby, leaving Choi Juim standing there stunned. The moment he stepped outside, however, torrential rain greeted him. It poured as if the sky itself had split open—just like last time. A curse slipped from Woojin’s lips.
Nothing’s going right today.
He held his bag over his head and ran through the downpour toward the bus stop. In the distance he spotted Ihwa walking alone beneath an umbrella.
Forgetting his burning lungs, Woojin dashed forward and abruptly pushed himself under the shelter of her umbrella.
“Why did you leave without saying anything? I told you we’d go together.”
He smiled as brightly as he could manage—a slightly strained smile born from his desperate wish to melt the darkness on her face. Rainwater dripped from his shoulders, but he simply lowered his head to meet her eyes.
That was when it happened.
Slap—!
A sharp crack cut through the silent rain. Woojin’s head snapped helplessly to the side. Burning pain bloomed across his left cheek. A cold liquid—whether rain or tears, he couldn’t tell—trickled down his face.
Ihwa couldn’t pull back her trembling hand. Her eyes, filled with hatred and betrayal, bored into him.
“…How disgusting.”