Our Contract Ends Today
Two sharp smacks sliced through the rain and rang out.
The sting of Seo Ihwa’s palm lingered on Kim Woojin’s cheek, while indifferent raindrops danced across the fallen umbrella at their feet. In the brief silence that followed, Woojin felt his heart plummet.
What is this? Did she find out? How…?
He pulled himself together and picked up the umbrella rolling across the ground. His cheek burned so fiercely that sensation had begun to dull, yet instinct made him tilt the umbrella over Seo Ihwa’s head.
“I’m sorry. It was only once. I swear.”
His apology carried equal parts resentment and guilt. But Seo Ihwa’s eyes remained frozen, cold as ice. She glared at him through the wet strands of hair clinging to her cheeks and spat her words like venom.
“Only once? How am I supposed to believe that? For all I know, you were smoking behind my back the whole time, just like Employee Yoo said.”
“It really was just once.”
Woojin’s voice rose slightly. What answered him was cold silence, followed by another vicious slap.
Slap—!
As his head snapped sideways, Seo Ihwa’s low, seething voice drove into his ear.
“You son of a bitch… Where the hell do you get off lying to me? You smoked with Choi Juim on the rooftop, didn’t you?”
“…What?”
Woojin froze, the stupid sound slipping out before he could stop it. His mind went completely white. Yesterday, for the first time in four years, he had borrowed a cigarette from Jimin and taken exactly three puffs. Smoking with Choi Juim on the rooftop? This was blatant fabrication.
From Employee Yoo to Choi Juim, the ridiculous web of misunderstandings wrapped around him finally snapped what remained of Woojin’s patience. Irritation surged upward, and he let out a long, rough sigh.
That sigh became the worst possible mistake.
Seo Ihwa interpreted it as annoyance and the resignation of a man whose lies had been exposed.
“What are you sighing for, like you’ve done something to be proud of?”
“…It’s a misunderstanding. Yesterday I got drunk for the first time in ages and lost my mind for a second. I only took three—”
“So you did smoke!!!”
Her scream was so loud it seemed to rattle the entire bus stop. Woojin lost all words. She had always been cynical, emotions locked away behind layers of ice. Seeing Seo Ihwa trembling violently in the pouring rain, screaming like this, felt not only unfamiliar but downright grotesque.
A crushing wave of exhaustion washed over him. Being toyed with by someone’s malicious prank, then paying for it by getting slapped by the person closest to him in this contract. The gazes and interest of others began to feel sickeningly repulsive.
“I did smoke. I’m sorry for hiding it. But I swear on my life I did not smoke with Choi Juim. Not that bastard.”
“……”
Seo Ihwa suddenly fell silent. The quiet gripped Woojin with the premonition that it might mean the end of their relationship or the contract itself, so he shouted again.
“You don’t believe me? I told you I didn’t smoke with him! Not with that guy!”
“No, I believe you. That you didn’t smoke with him. But that’s not the point. The point is that you lied to me and smoked behind my back. Either way, the fact that you lied to my face doesn’t change.”
Her words sounded like a final verdict.
After that, neither of them spoke another word as they walked toward the bus stop. They moved side by side through the rain-soaked streets, yet the distance between them stretched wider and wider, beyond repair. The only thing filling that growing chasm was the sound of rain.
Seo Ihwa stared down at the palm she had struck him with. It still burned. Hotter than that, though, was the sense of betrayal.
People had always put on masks for her. They looked into her eyes to admire her beauty, whispered sweet nothings while coveting her background. But she had thought he was different.
On the day her body had been wracked with fever, even when she shoved him away, he had gone out and bought medicine, staying by her side. So she had begun to open the smallest corner of her heart, just the tiniest sliver.
In the end, he was the same as all the rest.
In front of her he had pretended to hate the smell of cigarettes, acting all innocent, while behind her back he must have been blowing smoke and laughing.
The cigarette itself had never mattered. The problem was that he had deceived her. Those casual, light lies he had tossed out so easily. They had piled up, turning the unease she had tried to ignore into cold certainty.
All the expectations she had held for him collapsed in the most disgusting way in that moment. She felt so pathetic for trying to trust him that the air beneath the umbrella he held over her felt suffocatingly vile.
She should never have seen him as anything more than a business partner from the start.
What the rainwater washed away was not his lies, but the clumsy sincerity she had begun to lift toward him.
Woojin clenched his teeth until they ached. His cheek felt like it was on fire. The wet shirt clung to his body, stealing his warmth, yet inside his chest it felt as though boiling oil had been poured in.
It was unfair. Just three puffs yesterday. One single mistake made while drunk for the first time in four years, and now he had become the most detestable person in the world to her.
What kind of garbage had Choi Juim fed her that she trusted that bastard’s words more than his own explanation? Had he really seemed that untrustworthy?
Only then did the strangeness of it hit him.
They were nothing more than a contract relationship. The woman who had always been coldly cynical, as if not a single drop of emotion existed between them, why was she crumbling so completely over a single cigarette? He couldn’t understand it at all.
The temperature in her eyes wasn’t something meant for a mere contract partner.
Looking at the cold line of her profile, he no longer felt like begging. He was tired of clinging to her and pleading to be believed.
If she wanted to misunderstand, let her.
But Choi Juim. The price for trying to sow discord between him and Seo Ihwa would be paid in full.
The mechanical voice shattered the heavy silence. Seo Ihwa rose from her soaked position. She didn’t even glance at Woojin. She simply stared past the curtain of rain at the approaching headlights and spoke in a voice as cold as the downpour.
The bus pulled up to the stop with the cold announcement. To Woojin, even that mechanical sound rang like a sharp crack.
“…Our contract ends today.”
The words Seo Ihwa hurled struck deeper and colder than the rain. Before stepping onto the bus, she paused. Then she looked back.
Between the wet strands of hair, her eyes held not a trace of lingering affection.
“And at the company, don’t act like you know me anymore.”
With that, she disappeared into the bus without hesitation. The doors closed. The bus pulled away.
Woojin remained frozen in place, unable to take a single step. The rain kept falling.
Only after a long time did his legs give out and he collapsed onto the bench. He dragged a hand down his drenched face. He couldn’t tell whether it was rain or sweat. A short, hollow laugh escaped him.
“Ha……”
So this is how it ends.
Seo Ihwa, doing everything her own way until the very last second.
. . .
The moment she sat down, Seo Ihwa lowered her head. Her mind was unbearably loud. Had she been too emotional? Had she thrown out the contract cancellation for nothing? Should she call him right now… No.
She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.
You son of a bitch.
The curse dissolved bitterly on her tongue. You were always like this. Hiding things from me, starting to speak and then stopping, eventually changing the subject with something else.
It’s not as if I have no secrets. There are things I cannot say.
Her hand unconsciously gripped her wrist. There was definitely guilt for the things she could not speak of. But what kind of tremendous secret did he possess that he felt the need to hide it so desperately?
When she actually heard them, his lies were always about trivial things. In the end, they were still lies.
When Employee Yoo had brought up the cigarette and she asked if it was true, instead of denying it, he had immediately scratched the back of his head. That habit. She knew it appeared every time he lied. She had already known in that instant, yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask him directly and had waited to hear the answer from someone else’s mouth.
The situation where she had to watch his mood disgusted her. She really was pathetic.
With her head still lowered, she clenched her fists until they shook. Irritation boiled over.
Selfish bastard.
-
Woojin opened his eyes before the alarm even sounded. He tried closing them again, but sleep refused to return.
Should I go in? The thought of taking a personal day flickered through his mind, but he quickly shook his head. Skipping work over one woman didn’t suit his personality.
In the end he swallowed a sigh and headed to the office.
At the door to the department, he paused with his hand on the handle.
It would be better if she wasn’t there.
Even he found the thought ridiculous. He opened the door. She wasn’t there.
Seo Ihwa’s seat sat empty.
He stared at it for a moment. Should he ask about it? He immediately shook his head. It was obvious what people would say: Aren’t you two dating? You don’t even know if she’s coming in today?
Lunchtime felt quieter than usual. Or rather, it felt like something vital was missing.
He set his spoon down and sat there blankly for a long time.
Why am I like this, seriously.
In the end he stood up and went to the rooftop. He cracked open a can of coffee and took a sip. The bitterness spread across his tongue, yet it sharpened his mind.
Seo Ihwa wasn’t here. That fact bothered him more than he expected. What bothered him even more was Choi Juim.
Woojin’s gaze slowly darkened.
Choi Juim. That man had to be dealt with, one way or another.
He crushed the empty can and tossed it into the trash before walking straight to Team Leader Yoon’s desk.
“Team Leader.”
Standing in front of him, Woojin spoke briefly.
“I have one favor to ask.”