That Face of Yours
Slurp... Chomp chomp...
In the empty living room that had lost its owner, I ate mala xiangguo with Eom Chaewon. Coming over to someone else's place in the middle of the night was already abnormal enough, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined I'd end up having a meal alone with her here.
"Pffft..."
Ever since the meal started, Eom Chaewon had YouTube on and was giggling to herself nonstop. She'd eaten quietly at lunch, but this was her true nature, huh.
But. I. Am. Right. Here. Even if I was a boss who barely got treated like a human being, couldn't she at least throw me a word or two out of basic mealtime courtesy?
"Um... Chaewon? I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question, but..."
"There's a late-night surcharge on the taxi once I get home. This whole mess is because of you, Team Leader, so you'd better take responsibility."
"That's not— I'm not saying I won't drive you. I heard your mother is a housewife. Does your father run some kind of business?"
"He used to. He handed it over to someone else and just collects his share of the profits now."
Well, that kind of wealth explained how they could take out a loan of over a hundred million won for Chaewon's officetel and go on weekday trips to Nha Trang. Then Chaewon asked me a question in turn.
"What about your parents, Team Leader?"
"Me? Both of them have passed away. My father was a taxi driver, and my mother did all sorts of odd jobs to feed us kids..."
"Pwahaha! Wow, that's insane. That's hilarious, heeheehee!"
"..."
If you ask a question, shouldn't you at least pretend to listen to the answer? Chaewon burst into peals of laughter without even wiping the mala sauce from the corner of her mouth, as if something was that funny.
"So are you eating the side dishes your mother left for you?"
"Too much work. When am I supposed to dig them out one by one and put them on a plate? If I order delivery, I just eat and toss it."
"But delivery is pretty expensive, right? You and I make about the same salary..."
"Come to think of it, how much do you make, Team Leader?"
"M-me? Chaewon, even if we're on the same team, I can't just casually reveal private information like my salary..."
"Ugh, what kind of guy is this nitpicky? What, are you worried I'll spread it around if you tell me?"
"It's not that, but... I signed for thirty million this year."
"Wow... No wonder they call it a shit company. That's seriously cheap. When you were a kid, did you know you'd end up working like a dog past thirty for thirty million a year? No, of course not. If you'd known, you wouldn't have lived like that."
"..."
Of course I wouldn't have done that crazy shit if I'd known it would turn out like this. But even if all of that was true, wasn't she being a little too honest?
"Th-then how much are you making this year, Chaewon?"
"Are you crazy? Why do you care about someone else's salary?"
"What the— You asked me to tell you! Then of course you should reveal yours too..."
"Ugh, just be a big man about it and let it go. Why are you being so petty? You got bullied a lot as a kid, didn't you?"
"No! I've lost a lot of my social connections now, but when I was younger I had friends I hung out with..."
"You probably didn't even realize you were being bullied. Kids with no social awareness like you always end up like that."
"..."
That was going too far... It wasn't even true to begin with, so there was no need to keep defending myself. But setting that aside, her way of talking was seriously nasty.
"What... do you think goes through the minds of kids like that?"
Still, setting aside Chaewon's complete lack of manners, she was clearly far more fluent in the psychology of kids much younger than me. Surprisingly, one acquaintance who fit that description perfectly came to mind.
"Why are you asking that all of a sudden? You know better than anyone, don't you?"
"Not me—someone else. My niece, actually. She has absolutely zero presence among her friends. So much so that they don't even notice she's there when they're together. But she has no idea she's being ignored and just thinks she's hanging out with them."
Song Eunchae, of course. Eunju's group or Harin's group weren't deliberately freezing her out, I was sure. They just didn't feel any need to get close to her, and even if they wanted to, her total lack of presence meant no real relationship ever formed. Eunchae herself didn't care in the slightest. If anything, she thought she was the one doing them a favor by hanging out, always showing nothing but that bright, positive side. There had been that one time the formula broke, of course.
"Interesting. Tell me more."
"She's in high school now. She was an idol trainee back in elementary school, but she quit..."
"Ah! I get it. She went around bragging about being a trainee with zero social awareness and got properly wrecked by the other kids, huh."
"Huh? So you're saying she got bullied? But there are tons of kids who are trainees. Just for that reason..."
"You really don't get it, Team Leader. Girls have this tendency to bury anyone prettier or more successful than them no matter what. I know because I went through it in school myself."
"Really? You tried to become a celebrity too, Chaewon?"
That was surprising. Of course, Chaewon had more than enough looks to actually try for a career in entertainment. But looking at her usual personality—cool to the point of being completely tactless—I couldn't believe she'd ever act out a character in front of other people.
"Celebrity, my ass... I'm pretty good at singing, okay? So I was in the choir in elementary school and even went to the national competition a few times."
"You sang children's songs? That actually sounds incredibly cute... Wait a second! Don't tell me Chaewon's personality turned into this complete mess because of trauma from back then..."
"What? What did you just say, Team Leader?"
"..."
My true thoughts had slipped out without me realizing. Chaewon was glaring at me, her eyebrows twitching.
Glug glug glug... I sat up properly and poured her some cola.
"I'm not the kind of kid who just takes that kind of thing lying down, okay? Who the hell did they think they were, trying to mess with me? I mobilized every connection I had and completely buried them at school. After that, they never tried anything again."
"R-right. I'm glad you didn't have to go through something like that, Chaewon. In that case, that kid..."
Someone like Chaewon, who would never take a loss anywhere she went, was one thing—but sweet, gentle Eunchae would have had no choice but to just sit there and take it. Poor thing...
Vroooom~
And so I was driving Chaewon back to her place again. I still had no idea why I'd come all the way to Gaepo-dong only to do a dog-training run all the way back to Yeongdeungpo.
"Oh, right! Come to think of it, I went to the amusement park with my daughter on Sunday. It was thanks to you, Chaewon, and I never even said thank you."
But I still hadn't updated her on the most important piece of information. Chaewon shot me a suspicious look and asked back.
"Why are you thanking me?"
"Huh? Well... Actually, that day I talked with your mother a bit and realized something. So I gave my daughter the tickets and told her to go with a friend, but she said she wanted to go with me instead?"
"Oh, come on... You were going to go just the two of you anyway, so why didn't you call me?"
"..."
That again? First of all, I couldn't call her a kindergartener—she was Harin—and setting that aside, why was she talking like it was only natural that I was responsible for her weekend entertainment?
"Well... I didn't call because I figured you'd be busy, Chaewon. You've got a lot of plans on the weekends, right?"
"A lot of plans, my ass. I spent the whole weekend watching Netflix until my back was killing me. So what rides did you go on?"
"Sultan's Wrath and a bunch of other stuff..."
"You don't even know how to have fun and you go to Goldeworld? If you didn't know, you could've at least asked me. The kid was bored out of her mind, wasn't she?"
"Not at all. She seemed to really love coming with me."
"Sure, sure~ Whatever you say. Does your daughter want to do anything other than amusement parks? Does she like HWP? Hasn't she said she wants to go to a concert or anything?"
"Uh... What's HWP? Some kind of singer, I guess..."
"Oh, come on... You're that old and you don't even know HWP? What have you even been doing? What do you do when you go home? Your phone wasn't bought just for making calls, you know. Do you watch weird videos or something? Are you and your buddies spreading disgusting deepfakes? Wow, you're actually insane!? Were you doing that with me?"
"Th-there's no way I'd do that!? Haah... Chaewon, I've been wondering for a while—why do you hate me so much? I've gotten pretty used to being ignored, but with you it feels like it's on another level."
Especially today. I'd been thinking of confronting her about it at some point, but there was never going to be a better day than this.
"You're seriously asking because you don't know?"
"...?"
Chaewon's expression changed. Instead of her usual look of looking down on something utterly insignificant, a blank, indifferent gaze took its place—as if her true nature was finally showing.
But how was I supposed to know? And why did she think I ought to know in the first place?
Was it that? Had Chaewon actually had feelings for me as a man, not just as a coworker, this whole time? There were people with that sadistic streak who bullied the ones they liked, right? Someone with a strong enough personality to reverse-bully the kids who'd tried to freeze her out could definitely be like that, couldn't she?
"I-I don't know?"
"That face of yours."
"What?"
"Ugh, I just don't like that face!"
"..."
Feelings for me, my ass... The primitive reason was just that she didn't like the way I looked. No matter how honest a person was, how could you say something like that to someone's face?
"S-so you're saying you hate me because I look unpleasant? Chaewon? I mean, I'm a modern person who can't escape lookism either, but discriminating against someone just for that..."
"It's not that you look unpleasant—you look way too young! Honestly, when you first showed up at the office, I was so happy thinking I was finally getting a junior under me. But they make a thirty-four-year-old the team leader? Wow, I was so pissed off I almost wrote my resignation letter on the spot. Do you have any idea how hard it was to hold back?"
"I-I wouldn't know... But that was all? No, that's even worse! I didn't ask to look like this! The medical term, I don't really know, but the doctors' slang for it is Saiyan Syndrome..."
"Oh, whatever! I really hate having to use formal speech and treat someone who looks like my little brother as the team leader, okay? So don't even dream of getting that kind of respect."
"..."
So that was it. Chaewon didn't even want to treat me like a team leader because I looked younger than her. But no matter how out-of-control an MZ she was, she couldn't openly defy the company hierarchy, so she'd been harassing me every way she could.
So what now? How on earth was I supposed to get our relationship back to normal?
"Haah... Chaewon, if there's something you want, just say it. I can't rip my face off and fix it right this second, so if you have complaints, let's go through them one by one and compromise. There's no team transfer coming anytime soon, and we can't live like this for a whole year."
"Yeah? Can you really take responsibility for that?"
"Of course. What do I need to do?"
Fortunately, Chaewon had prepared a solution of her own. Well, as the one who'd been stewing over it, she'd probably thought about all sorts of things while bingeing Netflix all weekend.
Then Chaewon spoke. A solution so Chaewon that I couldn't even dare to imagine it—no, a solution no MZ in existence could have come up with.
"Let's drop the honorifics."
"What?"
"I said let's drop the honorifics. In front of the other employees, I'll treat you like the team leader. But when it's just the two of us, at least let me breathe."
"..."
What... the hell... was she saying? No matter how much of an Eom Chaewon she was, how could she ask someone ten years older to drop honorifics with her?
"Haah... Chaewon? Don't you think that's a bit of an unreasonable request? I'm not particularly uptight, but as long as I was born in Korea, there's a bare minimum of etiquette that has to be kept..."
"So you don't want to? You want to live like this until we retire?"
"Haah..."
The Eom Chaewon I knew was the ultimate my-way-or-the-highway type who was completely immune to persuasion. Once she'd decided something, she would never change her mind.
So what? Did I really have to drop honorifics with Chaewon?
"Fine, whatever. If it makes you more comfortable, Chaewon, we'll do it that way. It's not like the two of us talk that much anyway..."
"You said we'd drop the honorifics?"
"F-fine, let's drop them. But you're not seriously planning to call me by my name, right? At the very least, keep calling me Team Leader for the title..."
"I'll think about it. Wouldn't it have been so much better if we'd done this from the start?"
Pat pat... As if her wish had finally been granted, Chaewon started stroking my head like I was some kind of pet dog. She wasn't just dropping honorifics—she was treating me like one of her friends entirely.
Well, what could I do? Hyunji and Yoona already thought of me as friend-tier anyway. Adding one more person to that list wasn't going to change anything.
At long last, I'd made my first friend in Seoul. And it was a coworker—Eom Chaewon, of all people.