This Bastard! Has He Completely Lost His Mind?
Just as everyone had feared, Choi Juim—now the project PM—swaggered around the office like it was his personal kingdom. Manager Yoon was absent due to the so-called "urgent matter" he'd mentioned earlier, and with Department Head Seong also tied up in meetings, Choi Juim's arrogance shot through the roof.
Woojin hadn't made any mistakes. He hadn't been slacking off either. Choi Juim simply wanted to tear him down in front of their colleagues to feed his own inflated sense of superiority.
"I can't even focus because of Assistant Manager Choi. It's driving me crazy."
"Tell me about it. Ever since he became PM, it's like he can't see anything else. I'm seriously considering quitting."
Thanks to Choi Juim's rampage, team morale had hit rock bottom, and naturally, the project's progress was in shambles. With the deadline right around the corner, they were sitting at barely seventy percent completion. Only then did Choi Juim finally sense the danger and scramble to jump into the actual work—but it was already too late.
Manager Yoon, who had promised to join them for the final push, was nowhere to be seen. In that hopeless situation, the team members couldn't pick up the pace. Their hearts had already left the project; there was no way they could finish the remaining thirty percent in a single week.
While Choi Juim paced around anxiously, blaming everyone else, Woojin stepped up. He comforted the exhausted team members and volunteered to take on all the overtime himself. This was the moment his skills—honed through handling every menial task Choi Juim had dumped on him—truly shone. His work efficiency was overwhelmingly superior, beyond any comparison to Choi Juim's.
Staring at his monitor, Woojin let out a small, private chuckle.
Well, at least that was useful for something.
As Woojin emerged as the team's savior, cutting remarks that stabbed at Choi Juim's ears began echoing throughout the office.
"Honestly, doesn't Kim Woojin seem way more like a PM than Assistant Manager Choi?"
"Right? It's like their positions are swapped. Looking at how they work, Woojin seems miles ahead."
Choi Juim, who happened to overhear those words, felt his inferiority complex surge to the breaking point. It wasn't enough that Woojin was dating Seo Ihwa—the woman hailed as the company's ultimate goddess. Now this bastard was even threatening his authority. The sight of him made Choi Juim's blood boil with murderous resentment.
...
Late at night, when everyone else had gone home and only silence remained in the empty office, Choi Juim approached Woojin, who was working overtime alone.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"Get up."
Woojin looked up, seemingly startled by the sudden command. But deep in his chest, an instinctive warning whispered to him.
Today's the day.
"What's the matter? I still have documents left to handle..."
"When your superior tells you to stand, you stand quietly! Who the hell do you think you are, talking back?!"
Choi Juim shouted at the top of his lungs. Woojin rose from his seat without a word. In that instant, the tip of Choi Juim's dress shoe slammed viciously into Woojin's shin.
"Ugh...!"
A dull thud rang out as Woojin groaned, clutching his leg. Still unsatisfied, Choi Juim lunged forward as if to grab him by the collar and spat through gritted teeth.
"Does it feel good, pretending to be the nice guy, the hard worker, while secretly enjoying all that praise? Instead of wasting time on that crap, why don't you just do your damn job properly! You incompetent piece of shit!"
Woojin slowly straightened up and asked in a dry tone, "Assistant Manager, I genuinely don't understand what has you so angry."
"You're the type who gets off on people praising you behind your back, aren't you? Right?"
Woojin tilted his head with what looked like genuine confusion. "Huh? Really? That's the first I've heard of it. I had no idea anyone was complimenting me behind my back..."
That innocent, clueless expression finally snapped Choi Juim's last thread of sanity. The fleeting doubt—Was I imagining it all?—flooded his face with humiliation.
Then, a cold sneer curled at the corner of Woojin's mouth.
"People usually call that 'inferiority complex.'"
Woojin lifted his gaze and looked down at Choi Juim with blatant contempt.
"That's the illness you're suffering from right now, Assistant Manager."
Choi Juim's face flushed tomato-red in an instant. He let out something close to a scream as he violently grabbed Woojin by the collar and yanked him up.
"What the fuck did you just say, you bastard? I've been going easy on you, and now you think you can treat your superior like shit?!"
"When exactly have you ever gone easy on me? If you didn't like something, you'd drag me up to the rooftop to choke on your cigarette smoke. Or you'd tell those cowardly lies to Employee Seo. Why is that? Were you really that jealous of me?"
Struck right at his core, Choi Juim's eyes twitched violently. The fact that the "mere intern" he'd been so jealous of had seen straight through him drove him completely insane.
In the end, Choi Juim crossed the line. He shoved Woojin backward with the hand still gripping his collar, then swung his fist and struck him across the cheek.
With a loud smack, Woojin's head snapped to the side. For a split second, Choi Juim froze, realizing he'd gone too far—but the poison in his veins quickly took over, and he screamed even louder.
"Bastards like you—socially inept, pathetic losers—need to get beaten once in a while to come to your senses! You probably got your ass kicked all the time back in school too, didn't you?"
Blood trickled from Woojin's split lip. But instead of showing any pain, he let out a short burst of laughter.
He swept his bangs back, licked the blood from his torn lip, and spoke in a calm, measured voice.
"Seriously... You really don't know your place until the very end, do you?"
Completely consumed by the provocation, Choi Juim grabbed Woojin's collar again and shook him violently.
"This bastard! Has he completely lost his mind?!"
Woojin no longer held back. With icy eyes, he struck Choi Juim's wrist, forcing him to release the grip.
"Let go, would you? That actually hurts a little."
Startled by Woojin's firm stance, Choi Juim faltered and took a step back. Woojin flashed a sly smile and drove each fact home like a nail into Choi Juim's chest.
"It's not right to act like this just because someone has what you don't. If you're so bitter that I'm close with Employee Seo and receiving praise from others, then maybe you should examine your own abilities as a superior instead of messing with a key team member like me. This is extremely uncomfortable, Assistant Manager."
"You...!"
Watching Choi Juim tremble, utterly speechless, Woojin burst into loud laughter. Then he casually sat back down in his seat and delivered the final blow.
"So what now, Assistant Manager? It's all on the CCTV. You hitting me."
"Don't make me laugh! There's no CCTV in the office!"
Blocking Choi Juim's shriek with a pitying shake of his head, Woojin continued, "Not in the office, no. But why don't you check exactly where you cornered and hit me?"
Choi Juim frantically looked to the side. The spot where Woojin had been shoved was a blind spot right between the open doors—perfectly visible from the hallway. And the CCTV camera mounted on the hallway ceiling was aimed directly at them.
Only then did Choi Juim realize his own destruction. His knees buckled. His hands shook violently as he stared at Woojin, his eyes filled with pure terror.
Woojin let out a short sigh, as if the sight was truly pathetic.
"You know better than anyone how much the people in this company despise you, don't you? Your treatment from now on is something you brought on yourself."
Woojin gathered his things without a shred of hesitation and stood up. Just before stepping out the door, he added one final remark that would completely shatter Choi Juim's soul.
"Oh, and by the way—that's exactly why Ihwa keeps rejecting you so brutally every single time."
Once outside the company building, Woojin breathed in the cold night air and gently touched the cheek where Choi Juim had struck him. Even without a mirror, he knew it must be swollen bright red.
"Doesn't hurt at all... Compared to that, anyway."
He recalled the time Ihwa had slapped him. Compared to the heart-wrenching pain he'd felt then, Choi Juim's punch was nothing more than an itch.
Woojin let out a short sigh, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number.
—Calling me in the middle of the night. How annoying.
As expected, it was Manager Yoon's voice. It carried clear exhaustion, but Woojin paid it no mind and got straight to the point.
"It's taken care of. Now it's your turn, Manager."
—Efficient as always. Understood. Leave the rest to me starting tomorrow.
Just as Yoon was about to hang up, a question suddenly occurred to Woojin, and he stopped him.
"Ah, Manager. By the way, what exactly were you doing during our project?"
A low chuckle came from the other end of the line.
—You think I was just playing around?
"No, that's not what I meant... I was under the impression there weren't any truly urgent matters for our company right now. I thought Department Head Seong was already handling all the practical work."
At Woojin's sharp question, Manager Yoon let out a dry laugh and answered.
—I was cleaning up the mess from that godforsaken project. That bastard Choi Juim made such a disaster of everything. It's been absolute hell trying to salvage it. And I can't exactly report the truth to the higher-ups either.
The realization that even Manager Yoon had been a victim of the nuisance Choi Juim had created finally drew a laugh from Woojin.
He'd thought the man was just unpleasant, but apparently he was a walking catastrophe on a professional level too.
"You've been through a lot, Manager. I'll see you tomorrow, then."
After hanging up, Woojin looked up at the night sky. The work defects Choi Juim had caused, the CCTV footage that had just been recorded, and Manager Yoon's cleanup report. He could already picture the living hell that would unfold for Choi Juim tomorrow morning.
—Three days later.
The moment he arrived at the office, the atmosphere felt off. People were clustered everywhere, whispering excitedly. It reminded Woojin of the commotion back when Ihwa had first joined the company.
Now that he was sick to death of other people's attention, Woojin ignored the noise and quietly sat down at his desk.
Then one of the female employees approached him with an excited expression.
"Woojin! Woojin! Have you heard the news?"
"...Yes? What news?"
"The Head of Division from Haerim is coming himself!"
Haerim Group. One of the top three conglomerates in South Korea. While Daehyeop wasn't a small company by any means, it still looked utterly insignificant next to Haerim. The fact that a mid-sized firm like Daehyeop had risen to its current position was only possible thanks to Haerim's keen eye and investment.
Since Woojin already knew why the man was coming, his reaction was lukewarm. The woman didn't seem to care about his indifference and continued with flushed cheeks.
"But they say the Head of Division is incredibly handsome in person! The whole office is in chaos over it."
At that moment, Ihwa—who had been silently flipping through documents beside them—let out a short, scornful laugh and cut in.
"Pfft. What's so handsome about him? He looks like he was never fully finished growing."
Caught off guard by the unexpected venom, the woman laughed awkwardly and replied, "Your standards are really high, Ihwa... Everyone says he's so good-looking that people are crowding the hallway just to catch a glimpse."
Right then, the office door swung open with firm authority.
Sudden silence fell over the room. As if on cue, every employee stood up from their seats and stared toward the entrance.
The man who entered, cutting through the heavy air, carried an overwhelming presence.
It was Haerim's young Head of Division—Seo Taek.
His gaze slowly swept across the office before stopping at one particular spot.
On Woojin, standing tall and confident.
And on Ihwa, sitting with her chin propped on her hand, looking thoroughly annoyed by the entire situation.
A subtle smile formed on Seo Taek's lips.