Boyaru~ Use It and Get Life Imprisonment?
Lunch break was only an hour long.
I sprinted all the way to the post office.
“What the hell is this?”
The moment I arrived I tore open the envelope Assistant Manager Lee Miyoung had handed me. I still had to transfer the contents into a registered-mail box.
Riiip!
Inside were a pair of earrings and a ring. Cheap junk at a glance. Destination: China. No matter how I looked at it, this was not company property.
Ha. This fucking bitch. She’s returning something she bought on an overseas shopping spree.
It clicked instantly. The crazy woman had used me to ship her personal crap. Unbelievable.
Since I was already here I had no choice but to process it.
“That’ll be twenty-five thousand won.”
International shipping wasn’t cheap. I fired off a KakaoTalk message.
This bloodsucking leech of a woman. No wonder the company was circling the drain. Their coffee runs, their personal packages—everything got shoved onto the company ledger. They were draining the place dry.
Telling Team Leader Ayeong would only get me labeled a snitch; men who talk too much get crushed. Besides, Ayeong herself openly charged her private spending to the company account. Crabs stick with crabs.
I paid, pocketed the receipt, and checked my watch. Just running this errand had already eaten up the clock—12:40. Shit, I’m going to be late.
I had no choice but to grab a taxi back. Luckily I made it before one o’clock.
“Assistant Manager Miyoung.”
“Oh, Sihyun. Did you get the registered mail off okay?”
“Yes. Um… can I put the transportation cost on the company expenses?”
“Huh? What transportation cost?”
“The trip from the office out to Gyodae and back.”
“Don’t you have a car? Why would there be a transportation cost?”
“Excuse me? I don’t own a car.”
Miyoung looked down at me with open mockery.
“Sihyun. So you’ve been walking everywhere this whole time?”
“Yes. I can’t afford a car yet.”
“A man without a car? How do you even plan to date? Buy one already if you ever want a girlfriend.”
Why the fuck is this ajumma fretting over my dating life?
“And once you buy one you can give me rides too. We can carpool, right?”
Crazy bitch doesn’t even have a car herself, yet she says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Men must own cars; women don’t have to. And carpool? Absolute hell no. Sharing a commute with this ajumma already gave me the creeps—she’d just freeload the whole way.
Still, I couldn’t say that to her face.
“Ah… yes…”
“Honey, I like big interiors—something like a Carnival.”
Delusional ajumma. I wasn’t even thinking about buying a car and she was already daydreaming about riding shotgun.
“Anyway, about my transportation cost—”
“Transportation cost? How much could it possibly be? Just eat it as your personal expense.”
“I took a taxi back to the office.”
“A taxi? Are you out of your mind, Sihyun? Why a taxi when there’s subway and bus?”
“I was worried I wouldn’t make it back on time.”
“I don’t care. Handle it yourself. Company expenses aren’t there for your personal taxi fares. If you understand, stop talking about it.”
Ah, fuck. For real. Their coffee runs get charged to the company, but the errand boy’s taxi fare is his own problem? Peak double standard—romance when I do it, adultery when you do. I’m not some free meal ticket.
Fuck!
“No, Assistant Manager Miyoung. I didn’t spend that money on personal business. Honestly, I spent my entire lunch break running back and forth to Gyodae delivering your personal package. You should cover the fare.”
The moment I mentioned her personal package, Miyoung flinched and called over Department Head Han Jihye from International Sales.
“Jihye~ Our team’s youngest is glaring at me and talking back!”
“What? Who the hell talks back to our Miyoung unnie—and a junior at that?”
Jesus Christ. She’s not ten years old. The second she was losing she ran for the highest-ranking ally she could find. Lee Miyoung might only be a contract assistant manager on paper, but she’d been around forever and knew every senior in the building. No matter how justified I was, a regular employee picking a fight with a rising department head was suicide.
Han Jihye was young, but she was the company’s current golden girl. Word was she had the right people greased and would make executive director at the next reshuffle.
“No, Department Head, that’s not—”
“Not what? Are you going to apologize to Miyoung unnie or not?”
Miyoung folded her arms and looked down at me, suddenly full of fight now that her backup had arrived.
Ha. Should I just quit? I wanted to dump a whole bucket of curses on both bitches and walk out right then. But…
My parents had worked themselves to the bone just to put me through university. I bit down hard on my lip. If I became unemployed, how could I ever face them? They’d been so happy when I landed this job in this brutal market. I’d even promised Mom a Jeju trip for her birthday this month.
Ah, fuck.
“I’m sorry. Assistant Manager Miyoung. Department Head Han Jihye.”
Outwardly I swallowed it. Inside, the injustice burned so hot tears pricked my eyes. Fuck it. Even if it’s filthy, I have to endure. Fuck. Just endure. Endure.
“You admit you were wrong? Where do you get off glaring and raising your voice?”
Miyoung’s arms stayed crossed, her voice dripping with victory. Fucking bitch looks like she’s having an orgasm.
“Oh my, Department Head Han, what brings you all the way to our department?”
Fox-faced Seo Yuri slid in. Lately she’d been desperate to network with the company’s rising star.
“Ah, Yuri. You need to manage your juniors better. The youngest talking back to Miyoung unnie, of all people.”
“Really, Department Head? Ugh, a cracked pot leaks outside too.”
What did she just say?
You dog-shit bitch! You fucking bitch! She was basically saying I was raised without manners. They say the sister-in-law who pretends to mediate is worse than the mother-in-law who hits you. I wanted to tear Seo Yuri apart right there.
“Sihyun.”
My face had gone scarlet and I was trembling with rage when Assistant Manager Seonghyeon put a hand on my shoulder.
“Let’s go grab a coffee for a minute.”
He steered me out of the office before I exploded. Seo Yuri still got the last word in.
“What’s wrong with Sihyun, seriously? Face all red—did I say anything untrue? Ridiculous. Right, Department Head~?”
Outside, the fresh air cooled the worst of the heat.
“Today’s been pure shit, right, Sihyun?”
“I really want to quit, Assistant Manager.”
“I know. I know exactly how you feel.”
“Fuck… I’d rather re-enlist and get worked to death than keep working with those bitches.”
“You think I haven’t wanted to walk out a hundred times? It never used to be this bad, but every year it gets harder to survive here.”
“You’ve put up with those crazy women for three whole years. I honestly respect you.”
Seonghyeon snorted and lightly punched my shoulder.
“Kid, I’m only still here because I can’t die yet. If I quit, who’s going to feed my little rabbit Hyejeong?”
Hyejeong was his daughter. I’d once gone to his place for a second round after getting completely wasted; the kid was sharp as a tack.
“What about your wife? You only ever talk about your daughter.”
“Don’t even start. Without Hyejeong I’d have moved out ages ago. Sometimes home is more hell than the office. That endless nagging… aigoo…”
If it was worse than this cursed company, what kind of life was Seonghyeon living? Fresh respect welled up.
“You know I sometimes deliberately stay late even after work’s finished, right?”
“I know, Assistant Manager. Sigh… nothing in this world is easy.”
“Exactly, Sihyun. Even a guy like me is still hanging on, so you hang on a little longer too. It’s been forever since I got a junior I actually like. If you leave, how am I supposed to survive alone with those lunatics? Save me, will you?”
“I understand. Without you I wouldn’t have lasted either.”
“I know. Back in my day there were still a few senior guys who’d cover for us against those crazy women. Then they hit retirement age, quit, and all left. Hoo…”
I sipped the vending-machine coffee.
“Anyway, Assistant Manager, shouldn’t we head back in? That period-crazed bitch Ayeong is about due.”
“Ah, right. Red day for her today. Let’s get inside before she starts foaming at the mouth.”
“Yes, Assistant Manager.”
Seonghyeon’s quiet support put my nearly shattered mental state back together. When we returned to the office everyone was acting as if nothing had happened, buried in their own work. That bitch Yuri had two browser windows open and was online shopping. Miyoung was reading a smut novel right out in the open—BL, no question. The title alone was lethal: Hypnotize Pretty Boys and Fuck Them All. Her face was flushed bright red; she was clearly deep in a sex scene. The red cheeks only made her look more like Chucky.
No major deadlines today. I opened my work window and a news tab side-by-side, ready to Alt-Tab at a second’s notice.
It was an article about the currently trending YouTuber Boya. Fuck, they’ll twist anything to file a lawsuit. Boya deserves punishment for the stealth ads, sure, but this is going way too far.
“Boyaru” was simply Boya’s signature opening line. Then some women’s-studies professor published a paper claiming the word was misogynistic.
The word “Boyaru” is a vulgar expression that disgustingly refers to the female reproductive organ. YouTuber Boya, who has openly used such language on her channel, deserves life imprisonment.
Three hundred pages long. Academia accepted it. Now Boya might actually end up in court.
With the feminists running wild, the most batshit things were becoming reality. By that logic, the word “bojagi” (wrapping cloth) contained both “bo” (pussy) and “jaji” (dick), so anyone who said “bojagi” should go to prison. And rock-paper-scissors? Did “bo” (paper) have to be abolished because it made people think of pussy? Then rock would always win.
Ha. Fuck. The world really has gone insane.