Morning Meeting Begins (Other World Arc)
"What is this?! What's going on, Manager Choi Dajeong?!"
Team Leader Ayeong stared at Choi Dajeong in shock after her sudden scream.
"Bl—blood… on the meeting materials…"
Ah.
Only then did I realize that blood from my hand had dripped onto Choi Dajeong's meeting packet. I'd been so frantically preparing everything that I hadn't even checked.
"I'm sorry. I cut my finger while getting the materials ready. Some of the blood must have gotten on them."
Choi Dajeong jabbed a finger at the bloodstained papers and snapped at me, her voice sharp as a blade.
"Are you serious right now, Sihyun? You didn't even check whether there was blood on the meeting materials or not? Ugh, this is disgusting. What are you standing around for?! Get that out of here and throw it away already!"
"I'm sorry. I was just so busy preparing everything by myself that—"
Team Leader Ayeong cut in.
"What is that supposed to mean? Yuri was preparing for the meeting with you. Why would you say you did it alone? Someone listening might think we dump all the work on Sihyun."
That bitch Seo Yuri's fox brain was already spinning at full speed.
"Oh, of course, Team Leader. Honestly, even when I try to look out for him as a fellow junior, he always acts like he did all the hard work by himself. Seriously, how can a man be like that? Team Leader, you're already not feeling well today, and Sihyun just has to scrape your nerves raw."
"No, that's not—"
"What do you mean, no?!"
Team Leader Ayeong snatched up the meeting packet in front of her and hurled it straight at me.
The staple binding tore free, and sheets of A4 paper went flying into the air.
"Ah, for fuck's sake. I go easy on you because you're a new hire, and this is how far you try to climb? You think this company is a joke, Sihyun? You think this is some university group project?! Goddamn it. I try not to lose my temper, but how am I supposed to hold it in?! Get out of my sight. Get out! The meeting ends here. One new hire and the whole office atmosphere is a disaster. A complete disaster!"
Team Leader Ayeong shot up from her seat.
She swept past me—standing there like a scarecrow, unable to say a word—and returned to her desk with a look of pure ice.
That bitch Seo Yuri scurried after her.
"Sihyun, clean up the conference room, would you? I need to go calm the Team Leader down. She seems really furious because of you. Ugh, I guess I have to smooth things over again."
Assistant Manager Miyoung tossed a remark over her shoulder as she left the room.
"You know, Sihyun, you look perfectly fine on the outside, so why is everything you touch such a mess? Get your head on straight and live properly, okay?"
Choi Dajeong was still so revolted by the bloodstained materials that she shuddered and fled the conference room as fast as she could.
And of course Kim Mihui couldn't resist pouring gasoline on a burning house.
"Honestly, Sihyun. With that much spine, how are you ever going to function as a man? Short, got nothing going for you, and no ability either. Tsk. Pitiful. Just pitiful. What did your parents ever do to deserve this? Not that it's any of my business to worry about."
Those fucking bitches.
I wanted to tear every last one of them apart.
Tears came.
I wasn't supposed to cry.
Crying meant losing to those bitches.
But the tears poured down anyway, beyond any control.
"Hhk… hhhk…"
Assistant Manager Seonghyeon came over and clapped a hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me.
"Those absolute fucking bitches. A guy gets hurt working his ass off and starts bleeding, and instead of worrying or offering a single word of comfort—god, those crazy bitches. Those whores are never going to die a clean death. Sihyun, go to the infirmary and get that finger treated. Looks like it hurt like hell. I'll clean up the conference room, so don't worry about it. Come on. Don't cry. Get it looked at quick—if it gets infected, it lasts longer than you'd think. I cut myself on paper a ton when I first started here. I know how it goes."
"Assistant Manager… I really want to quit. I'm so fucking wronged and so goddamn frustrated…"
"I know, Sihyun. I know exactly how you feel. You think I haven't wanted to quit this shitty company a hundred times myself? Fucking hell. But neither of us can just walk out, right? We've each got our reasons."
Haa…
It was suffocating.
A hard lump of something sat heavy in my chest.
If only my mother hadn't been so happy she cried when I bought her that cheap bag with my first paycheck.
If only my father hadn't been so proud that I'd landed a job in times this hard.
I really would have quit this fucking, piece-of-shit company.
I would have…
I left the conference room with no strength left in me and trudged toward the infirmary.
Whether I was walking of my own will, or simply being dragged along by legs that moved on their own—even I couldn't tell.
Morning Meeting — Other World Arc
The morning meeting felt strangely unfamiliar.
I'd just had one last Friday morning, and yet…
What felt unfamiliar wasn't the meeting itself. It was the world that had changed around me.
I walked into the conference room with Assistant Manager Seonghyeon.
Only Seo Yuri was there so far, busily photocopying and sorting the meeting materials.
"Still prepping the materials, Yuri? The morning meeting starts at ten, right?"
Seo Yuri lit up at the sight of me.
"Oh, perfect timing, Sihyun. I'm a little short-handed—could you help me out? You're free right now anyway, aren't you?"
"Ah. Busy, are we?"
The bitch's ass was on fire, so of course she asked for help like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Never mind how she'd completely ignored me when I asked for help back in the original world.
Fine. A coworker was swamped. Helping out was the decent thing to do, right?
"Alright then. I'll connect the projector for you. Where's the file?"
"Really? It's right next to that computer. I was actually stuck because I don't know how to hook up the projector. Having a coworker like you around is such a relief, honestly."
So the moment the gender roles flipped and her position changed, this piece of shit started buttering me up.
She might not have been good at much else, but reading a room? That she was lightning-fast at.
"So I just connect this file to the projector, right? Easy enough."
"Ah—yes, yes."
Seo Yuri answered absently, stapling packets in a frantic blur.
I'd thought Seo Yuri was a calculating bitch. Turns out she was a total airhead?
Daring to hand the materials off to someone and look the other way?
I couldn't keep the smile from tugging at the corners of my mouth.
First, I swapped the projector's video output and input connections the wrong way around.
Then I made a few simple little edits to her PowerPoint.
Oh? Suddenly remembering something urgent, are we?
The devil Yu Sihyun whispered in my ear.
"Yuri, something urgent just came up—sorry. You finish the rest. Assistant Manager, hurry. Come on, we need to go."
"Huh? Uh…"
Assistant Manager Seonghyeon, who'd been helping her sort materials, followed me out of the conference room with a blank look on his face.
The two people who'd been helping her suddenly walked out, and Seo Yuri's face crumpled like toilet paper.
It was a beautiful sight.
That crumpled face of hers, you fucking bitch.
Looking forward to seeing a lot more of it.
"Hey! Assistant Manager, you can't just leave the work you were helping Sihyun with unfinished! You can't just walk out like that—!"
"I don't know. Something urgent came up, I told you. You handle the rest yourself, Yuri. It was your job to begin with, not ours."
"No—because of you, Assistant Manager, the materials I had perfectly organized are all scattered now! Ah, for fuck's sake!!! If you were going to do this, you shouldn't have offered to help in the first place!!!!"
Scream all you want, you crazy bitch. Nobody's listening.
She had to be absolutely seething right about now.
Nothing pissed a person off more than someone who made a big show of helping and then bailed halfway through.
If Seonghyeon and I had never touched a thing from the start, she probably would have finished the materials on time.
But now?
The carefully budgeted timing she'd planned to hit the meeting deadline with was completely wrecked.
The moment she assumed we'd naturally help her all the way through—
That bitch was already caught in my trap.
The materials she'd been organizing were a mess thanks to Seonghyeon's "help."
And the projector?
She'd waste a long time hunting for the error before she figured out why no image was coming out of the beam.
Because that bitch had sat through over a hundred morning meetings and never once touched the projector herself.
That kind of grunt work had always been my job.
"Sihyun, what urgent thing came up?"
Seonghyeon still looked completely lost.
"Ah, Assistant Manager. We need a cup of coffee before we go into that meeting. We have to stare at those lunatics' faces for a full hour—how are we supposed to stay sane without caffeine? What could possibly be more urgent than that?"
Seonghyeon clicked his tongue.
"You little devil. You did that on purpose to screw with that bitch Yuri, didn't you?"
"Assistant Manager, someone might overhear and get the wrong idea. I just wanted coffee, that's all. Come on, let's drink up and get back to the conference room before ten. If we're late, that period-cranky bitch Team Leader Ayeong might throw the meeting materials in my face again—who knows?"
"Alright, alright. You're buying the coffee, though, right?"
"Ah, our Assistant Manager Seonghyeon, who has a sister-in-law from a chaebol family—why so cheap over one cup of coffee? You're really killing your own cool points here."
Seonghyeon glanced around and clapped a hand over my mouth in a hurry.
"Hey, you idiot! What if someone hears you?! Ugh. You don't even have to say it—I'll buy, I'll buy. I was just messing with you. Like I'd actually make you pay."
He checked that no one was nearby, then dropped his voice.
"But seriously, Assistant Manager. I'm genuinely curious. Why do you keep working at a company full of these crazy bitches? With your sister-in-law's connections, you could transfer somewhere high up whenever you wanted."
"Kid, there's a reason for that. You think I'd be crazy enough to spend three years among these lunatics if there wasn't?"
"We've still got a little time before the meeting. Can't you tell me? I'm really curious. I honestly don't get it."
Seonghyeon fed coins into the machine and pulled two cups of instant coffee.
He handed one to me.
"It's like this. When I proposed to my wife, I made a promise to my father-in-law. I swore I'd support her with my own two hands—no help from him, no matter what. These days my in-laws accept me as their son-in-law, sure. But do you have any idea how hard they opposed us at the start? Honestly, my wife must have been under some kind of spell to fall for a guy like me and marry me. How else does an ordinary man like me end up with a beauty from a chaebol family?"
Hearing it put that way, it made sense.
He'd gotten their blessing by swearing he'd never accept a scrap of help.
And now that he was on good terms with his father-in-law, waltzing in and saying, Please parachute me into a nice position at your company, Father—the Seonghyeon I knew would never allow himself to do that.
"Come on, Assistant Manager. Have a little more confidence. I'm not just saying this. I've never met a man more responsible or more impressive than you. Without you, how do you think I would have lasted this long among those lunatics? If I were a woman, I would have fallen for you hard—just like your wife did."
Seonghyeon laughed good-naturedly and needled me.
"Hey, you little—! If it were the old sharp-tongued Yu Sihyun saying that, fine. But hearing it from a Sihyun who looks this pretty, like a girl, is kind of creepy. Wait. Is that why you keep clinging to me? I've already got my hands full with one wife. From now on, you're banned from approaching me, Sihyun."
"Oh, come on! Assistant Manager, I was speaking figuratively. I like women, okay? I can't say anything around you, seriously."
"I'm kidding, kidding. More importantly—time to head into the conference room."
"Yes, yes. Our chaebol-family son-in-law, Assistant Manager. I'll walk a little farther back so I don't dare touch that noble body only your wife is allowed to handle~"
At last—the first battle against those crazy fucking bitches that I'd been waiting for.
The morning meeting had begun.