He Wasn't the Man I Knew
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"Oh, for God's sake. I said I'm fine. Quit your sniveling already."
That was what I said—but the tears would not stop. This had nothing to do with becoming a woman. I was truly sorry. Out of pure stubbornness I had nearly gotten myself killed, and he had thrown his own body in the way. Because of that, he had gashes torn open across his head and shoulder. Watching the blood pour freely from those wounds, I could not help but fall apart.
And yet, even looking at me like that, Gangho acted as if it were nothing. Smeared in olive oil and blood, he stuck a cigarette between his lips with an air of bored irritation. It was hardly the moment to lecture him about the no-smoking policy on the sales floor. I dragged him by the arm into the office and started hunting for the first-aid kit that had to be stashed somewhere.
Even that I could not find—I was still the new hire. After finishing his cigarette, Gangho sighed, dug out the kit himself, tossed it to me, and began wiping the oil and blood from his body with a roll of paper towels. Still sniffling, I fumbled through the box for disinfectant and bandages and spoke up.
"Sit down. If we don't disinfect these wounds right away—"
"Wounds like this? Leave 'em alone and they heal just fine."
"No. You got doused in olive oil, too. It could get infected. We have to clean them."
"Seriously… what a pain. Fine. Whatever."
Saying that, Gangho flicked his cigarette into a paper cup nearby—and suddenly peeled off his shirt. Huh? Oh… right. His shoulder was torn open, so of course he would need to take it off for me to treat it. Then, as if telling me to do whatever I wanted, he sat with his back turned to me and lit another cigarette. And then… my mind went blank.
Man… smell…
I was thrown into confusion. The sight laid out before my eyes: Gangho's bare body. A solid frame, hard muscle packed into every contour, rising and falling in ridges. And the Irezumi tattooed across him stood out with stark clarity, blood and sweat and oil soaking into the carved lines of the ink.
I remembered this body. I had glimpsed it before through the narrow vent of the utility room—flaunted so brazenly in those stolen glances. A real male body, nothing like my own scrawny frame, now turned its back to me and filled my entire field of vision.
And from it came his scent. A body odor I could not put into words. The mingled smell of his sweat, olive oil, and blood felt like the musk of a hunter who had just finished taking down his prey and dressing the kill. And that scent dragged up the memory of another.
It was the same fierce male testosterone that had hit me when he saved me—when he wrapped himself around me and shoved that smell right under my nose. The moment that scent, something that by all rights should have been repulsive, flooded my face so intensely, my mind seemed to go drifting away into nothing.
Even that was more than I could handle. Back when I still had a male body of my own, nothing like this smell had ever come off me. Baby lotion—something clean and pleasant. That was how it was supposed to be. I had always been annoyed by the coworkers who reeked of that same unpleasant odor at the office.
So why was it different now? That smell did not bother me at all. If anything, it was stimulating. I still did not fully understand it, but the way people talk about the aroma of aged whiskey being intoxicating—this felt less like a simple smell and more like a thick, soul-captivating fragrance.
So it was hard to keep my head straight. Was that why the scolding came?
"Lady. You asleep?"
"Ah—yes. I mean—no. Just a second."
At Gangho's voice, glancing back at me over his shoulder, I startled and scrambled for the disinfectant, dabbing it onto his wounds. But then another scent joined the blend—the heavy reek of cigarette smoke—and the mixture was so sharp I could barely hold myself together.
I managed, somehow, to finish that dizzying first aid. At least the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Gangho took a drag on his cigarette, fiddling with the neatly applied bandage on his head, and said,
"That'll do. Figured you for the clumsy type, lady, but you're actually decent at this."
"Ah—yes. My kid was such a handful, so…"
Ah… I faltered mid-answer. It had come flooding back. Our son, Yujin—the boy I would have put in my eye without blinking. Always racing off wherever his curiosity led him, always getting hurt, always wailing until I soothed him and patched him up. That had been my daily routine. With my wife always busy with work, that job had always fallen to me.
I had been so worn down that for a while I had not even had the room to think of him. Was he doing all right? And the moment the thought surfaced, my chest ached. Not being able to see him was hard enough—but the fact that I was dredging up those memories here, like this, felt bitterly sad. Gangho watched me with a puzzled look.
Seeing that expression, I decided I did not want to talk about any of it. So I changed the subject.
"I've done what I can for first aid, but you really need to go to a hospital. I wonder if anywhere's open right now…"
"Drop it, lady. Over something this small? Hospital, my ass."
"But if you just leave it like that—"
"I said I'm fine. More importantly, let's get to work."
With that, Gangho flicked his cigarette into the paper cup again, stood up, and picked up the inventory list he had left on the desk. Huh? Why that? I asked, half in disbelief.
"What are you doing right now?"
"Can't you tell? Inventory check."
"But that's my—"
"Come on. How long are you gonna keep being stubborn? You planning to keep this up till morning? Gonna pull an all-nighter?"
"That's not what I—"
"Enough. Just get over here. I'll handle the count. You clean up the mess where everything spilled. Once you're done, help me with what I'm doing. We have to get this entered into the system before dawn. We're short on time. Move."
"Ah—yes. Yes, yes, yes."
Without even putting his shirt back on, he walked toward the back in nothing but his bare torso. This time, though, I was so thrown by the strangely responsible manager in front of me that I simply answered his orders and hurried after him. And we got straight to work.
It was strange. There was no sign of the twisted tyrant I knew—the one who messed around with the female staff in the supply room. Here was a diligent, capable manager, working for free for a subordinate who had caused an accident—no, working even after getting injured for her sake. That unfamiliar side of him made something flutter oddly in my chest.
I hurriedly wiped up the oil spilled across the floor and cleared away the broken glass bottles. Once I had roughly cleaned that up, I realized both of us were slick and gleaming with oil from head to toe. I would have liked to wash off if I could, but there was no time for that.
So I decided his work came first and joined him as he checked the inventory counts. He handed me the list and said,
"All right. I'll call them out, you write them down. Go!"
"Ah—yes."
And in an instant he was ticking through the stock in order, calling out quantities so fast my pen could barely keep up. The work that had had me hauling a ladder back and forth, climbing up and down over and over, he did like some kind of acrobat—hanging off the shelves, moving along them, checking things from precarious angles.
Worry rose in my chest, but I could not say anything about it. I was too busy scrambling to write it all down. The endless Sisyphus labor that had felt like it would never end for me, he finished in no time—and a few hours later, every last quantity of that massive inventory had been checked. Next came the system entry.
This part, at least, I had some confidence in.
"Huh? Lady, were you originally office staff? You're scary fast with the computer."
"Ah… yes. Something like that."
Even as a veteran on the floor, he seemed less sure of himself with the system work. When I pushed past his hesitation and took over, Gangho looked startled at my input speed. Seeing that, I felt a little relieved. Causing an accident, getting him hurt, and then being completely useless on top of it would have been the worst outcome of all.
So I focused harder, finishing the work as if my life depended on it. And thanks to that, by around six in the morning—before the rest of the staff came in—that mountain of inventory work that had felt so overwhelming was finally done.
"I've entered everything. Confirmed and closed out, too."
"Good work, lady."
He did not say much—just tossed out that short, simple word of praise and gave my head a couple of light pats. The tone was a little dismissive, but this was not the time to dwell on that. All that mattered was that the person I had feared and found so uncomfortable had acknowledged me—had praised me. And that made me happy.
And then I felt my body twitch strangely. What was this? Some hard-to-describe sensation crackled through me like a current. What the hell? I just got praised by some guy at work. Someone way younger than me, at that… Don't react weirdly. I was thinking that when I twitched again.
"Hah… still damp. Argh! Stings."
It was because he had put his oil-soaked shirt back on. And the way he winced when it touched the wound made the guilt and remorse crash over me all over again. So I stepped closer and said,
"Let's go to the hospital now. I'll cover the medical bills—"
"I said drop it, lady. What do you take me for? You think I'm refusing the hospital because I don't want to spend the money? I'm really fine."
"But…"
He said that, yet I still could not tear my eyes off the bandage I had stuck on his forehead. And maybe he noticed my stare, because he gave a short snort of a laugh and said,
"Tch. You really are a weird one, lady. I've got no particular bias when it comes to sticking it to those body-odor types, but I've never seen a case like yours."
"Excuse me? What is that even—and what do you mean, 'sticking it'?"
"Heh heh heh. There are things like that. Anyway, don't sweat what happened today."
"But…"
His words left me feeling oddly let down, and I lowered my head. It was a strange feeling. Only yesterday afternoon I had been avoiding him, terrified of running into him. And now I was feeling worry and regret toward that same person. Had that feeling gotten through to him? He smirked as he spoke.
"Well… if you're really that broken up about it, you can make it up to me some other way later."
"Huh? Ah… what should I do?"
He thought for a moment, then said,
"Buy me a meal. That'll cover it. I'm heading out. Good luck with the morning shift."
With that, he vanished without waiting for my answer. And for some reason, even through the fog of sleepiness, I stood there for a long time watching him disappear into the distance.