An Unfamiliar Jealousy
Jealousy is far less dignified than people think. In movies and novels, it usually shows up with a certain elegance. A quiet flicker in the eyes, a slightly sharper edge to the voice, or pretending to be more indifferent than usual. But real jealousy is much more shabby and childish. The reason isn’t even clear, yet nerves suddenly stand on end. A completely ordinary scene twists the mood. Questions arise that even the person asking them can’t fully understand.
Kang Chi-yeol was experiencing this very late, and with an unpleasant degree of precision.
Over the past few days, the atmosphere in the alley had begun to shift little by little. Chiyeolhan Chicken was nearly ready for its grand opening. The sign was in place, the kitchen organized, the chicken delivery schedule and sauce ratios largely stabilized. Even before welcoming customers, the shop had already started absorbing human scents—frying oil, detergent, the paper smell of new packing boxes, and the restless body heat unique to someone on the verge of opening.
In contrast, the shop next door—Do-hee-ne Ppalgan Mat, whose sign still wasn’t properly hung—had accelerated in its own way. At first it seemed like quiet preparation, but at some point, outside workers began coming and going. Menu board samples arrived from the print shop. The hardware store owner came to measure shelf lengths. Someone stopped by to look at a refrigerated display case. And just yesterday, a man had spent a long time inside discussing the kitchen layout with her.
The moment he first saw that scene, Kang Chi-yeol felt a completely unfamiliar kind of sediment rising inside him.
The man was tall and wore a thin beige jacket over a black shirt. His face wasn’t strikingly handsome, but he gave the impression of someone who naturally took center stage in front of people. His gestures weren’t large, and he didn’t raise his voice, yet he had an odd presence. Above all, when Lee Do-hee spoke with him, she seemed to talk a little more than usual.
The two of them looked over menu board mockups together, stepped into the back kitchen, then came out again to point at the walls while discussing something. That was all. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t standing too close. It was clearly just a business consultation. And yet, watching the scene made Kang Chi-yeol’s stomach churn for no good reason.
At first, he couldn’t admit the reason to himself.
It’s probably the menu company.
Could be an interior specialist.
Or maybe an acquaintance from her old company.
Anyone preparing to open a shop naturally has people coming and going.
His head organized it that way, but for some reason his eyes kept drifting over there. While wiping the glass door. While editing delivery app text. While handling chicken. His gaze moved first, and only afterward did he catch himself. That was what annoyed him most—his eyes moving before his own will could stop them.
“Have I lost my mind?”
Kang Chi-yeol turned toward the kitchen and muttered under his breath. This wasn’t like him. Whoever Lee Do-hee talked to had nothing to do with him. What was the problem with the shop owner next door meeting people while preparing her business? If anything, it would be stranger if she didn’t. And yet the discomfort remained. Emotions were always slower than common sense, and far messier.
He deliberately slammed the range hood shut louder than necessary, moved the sauce containers, and wiped down the worktable. If his hands were busy, his eyes would wander less. But that day, the method didn’t work very well. When a person’s heart tilts in one direction, simply moving the body doesn’t fix everything.
Around lunchtime, when Jo A-ra entered the shop, Kang Chi-yeol was quieter than usual. The moment she opened the door, her face showed she had read the air.
“Why is it so quiet in here?”
“It’s always quiet.”
“No, today it’s the quiet of someone who’s… sulking.”
Kang Chi-yeol didn’t stop folding the chicken packing boxes. “Who’s sulking?”
“Then why do you keep looking next door?”
At those words, his fingertips paused for the briefest moment. Jo A-ra was the kind of person who never missed even the shortest silence.
“You saw?” When Chi-yeol asked back, A-ra laughed with an incredulous expression.
“You were staring so obviously. It would be weirder if I hadn’t noticed.”
“I wasn’t staring obviously.”
“You looked three times while pretending to wipe the glass door, once more while organizing the sauce containers, and earlier you actually froze while holding a packing box.”
Kang Chi-yeol finally set the box down. “Why do you observe people so closely?”
“It’s like an occupational habit.”
“Is that the occupational habit of a mukbang YouTuber?”
“No. It’s my Kang Chi-yeol observation habit.”
Kang Chi-yeol let out a long sigh. Really, in front of this person, almost any attempt to hide things was useless.
Jo A-ra casually sat at the counter and glanced outside. Then she said, very lightly, “A guy came to the shop next door.”
He didn’t know why those words grated on him so much. A guy came. It was just a description, yet it somehow sounded like she was unnecessarily emphasizing the fact.
“He must be here for work,” Kang Chi-yeol answered far too quickly.
A-ra slowly lifted the corners of her mouth as she listened. “Who said he wasn’t?”
“Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one you’re making right now.”
“Oh, you mean the face that says, ‘It’s so funny that the boss is making excuses first’?”
Kang Chi-yeol’s expression turned serious. Jo A-ra laughed even harder, as if that made it more entertaining.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Are you jealous, by any chance?”
The question was direct. So direct that Kang Chi-yeol couldn’t immediately deny it.
Jealousy. He hadn’t realized the word suited him so poorly. At least, Kang Chi-yeol had always thought he wasn’t the protagonist of that kind of story. Even when he liked someone, it usually ended with quiet observation from afar. And even if feelings developed, a competitive situation never really formed. So jealousy? He had believed that was something more proactive, somewhat shameless people did—people who didn’t hide their emotions.
Yet what was this sticky, childish feeling rising inside him right now? The urge to know who that man was for no reason. The way it bothered him why the man had come. The way his stomach twisted simply because Lee Do-hee seemed to talk a little more than usual.
Kang Chi-yeol finally said in a low voice, “No.”
Jo A-ra shot back almost immediately. “Then that’s a relief.”
That only irritated him more. In a voice mixed with annoyance, Chi-yeol said, “It’s just… a little bothersome, that’s all.”
“What is? The guy?”
“No. The shop next door preparing for business.”
“Oh.”
“Why ‘oh’ again?”
“It really is jealousy.”
“I said it’s not.”
“If it’s not, why narrow it down specifically to ‘preparing for business’? You could have just said ‘that guy.’”
This time, Kang Chi-yeol truly couldn’t answer. Because he knew it himself. How pathetic the defense he had just made was. He had phrased it that way only because saying the entire situation surrounding Do-hee bothered him would sound more mature. In reality, it was much simpler.
Who is that man?
That was the core of it.
Jo A-ra rested her chin on her hand, looked out the window, and said, “It does look like work talk.”
The remark was unexpected. Kang Chi-yeol asked reflexively, “What does?”
“The two of them. The distance they’re standing, their expressions. It doesn’t have the air of people who are dating.”
Kang Chi-yeol almost focused even harder on them before catching himself and pulling his gaze away, afraid of being noticed. A-ra’s words were comforting, yet at the same time more miserable. He felt ridiculous for feeling relieved that it didn’t look like they were dating.
“You notice even things like that?”
“Yes. Meanwhile, Boss, you’re so busy pretending not to notice that it’s even more obvious.”
That was true too. Kang Chi-yeol offered no further rebuttal.
Outside the window, Lee Do-hee and the man seemed to be reviewing the menu mockup and discussing something. When the man pointed at the paper, Do-hee shook her head, said something else, and the man thought for a moment before nodding again. The flow strangely bothered him. Not because it was intimate, but because their rhythm matched so well. Even though the conversation wasn’t long, it wrapped up quickly. It had the rhythm of people who had worked together for a long time.
Watching them, Kang Chi-yeol grew inexplicably more restless. He knew that in that area, he was slow. He thought a lot, had standards, but his decisions were always half a beat late. On the other hand, Lee Do-hee was clearly a fast person. Precise, without excess, someone who quickly grasped the core of work. Seeing her converse so naturally with that man made him feel even more dull and unsophisticated by comparison.
“This is driving me crazy,” Kang Chi-yeol muttered again, quietly.
Jo A-ra immediately responded, “You like her.”
“It’s not that I like her.”
“Then what?”
He closed his mouth for a moment. It wasn’t that he liked her. He wanted to believe it wasn’t yet. It was just that he kept noticing her, that her words about looking at his chicken stayed in his mind, that the short time they spent together at the print shop lingered strangely long, and that whenever Lee Do-hee said anything, he found himself unconsciously turning her words over and over. Whatever name you gave that feeling, it was certainly not comfortable.
Around three in the afternoon, the man left. Lee Do-hee didn’t walk him all the way to the end of the alley; she simply exchanged a brief greeting in front of her shop. That actually made Kang Chi-yeol feel more frustrated. He had no way of knowing whether it was a genuine work relationship, a long acquaintance, or a simple vendor. The more ambiguous it was, the more a person imagined. Even though it was an incredibly tiring and inefficient thing to do.
After the man left, Lee Do-hee didn’t go back inside right away. She stood in front of the shop and flipped through the menu mockups again. The edges of the paper fluttered slightly in the wind. Then she unconsciously lifted her head, and this time her eyes met Kang Chi-yeol’s directly.
This time, he couldn’t avoid her gaze. For several seconds, they simply looked at each other. In that moment, Do-hee first lifted the mockup in her hand slightly.
“Would you take a quick look at this?”
Kang Chi-yeol opened the door without thinking. Jo A-ra immediately crossed her arms, her face turning into one of pure spectatorship.
Lee Do-hee held out the menu mockups and asked, “Which one looks less complicated to you?”
The question was purely practical. Kang Chi-yeol took the papers. One version had slightly larger, simpler text. The other had a similar layout but included more small explanations. He alternated between the two sheets and answered immediately.
“This one.”
“Why?”
“At first glance, the one that catches the eye less is better. Too many explanations actually make people not read it.”
Lee Do-hee nodded. “That’s what I thought too.”
The moment those words fell, Kang Chi-yeol felt the knot that had been twisting in his stomach loosen just a little. The reason was simple. Lee Do-hee was asking for his opinion right now, and that opinion had matched hers. Childish or not, it couldn’t be helped. Whether it was jealousy or this kind of relief, in the end, the human heart moved from very simple places.
“You were talking about the same thing with the person who came earlier,” he said, as if throwing it out casually.
Lee Do-hee answered without much thought. “Ah, the designer.”
At that moment, Kang Chi-yeol struggled internally not to show his relief too obviously.
A designer. I see.
Of course that makes sense.
Why did I get so worked up over it alone?
Along with those thoughts came embarrassment toward himself. The fact that he had imagined all sorts of things just moments ago, only for the answer to be so ordinary, felt shameful. Completely unaware of the internal storm inside him, Lee Do-hee flipped to the next mockup.
“We used to work together.”
Kang Chi-yeol nodded, pretending to be even calmer. “Ah, I see.”
“Why?”
“No, it’s just… you two seemed to have good rhythm.”
Even as he said it, he wondered what kind of vague observation that was—not even a proper question. But unexpectedly, Lee Do-hee smiled a little.
“It’s because we’ve known each other a long time.”
Known each other a long time. The words were nothing special, yet they lingered. Kang Chi-yeol told himself inwardly, as if scolding himself: It’s because of work that they’ve known each other long. Don’t read into it. But the human heart, once calmed, immediately looks for another meaning.
So she works like that with people she’s known a long time.
Then I must still be very much an outsider.
Thoughts like that followed right behind. He really was a tiring person, he thought.
Lee Do-hee folded one of the menu boards and said, “Thank you. Your opinion helped organize it better, Boss.”
It could have been nothing more than a polite remark, but Kang Chi-yeol felt his mood lift a little again. Jo A-ra had been watching the entire exchange from behind. The moment Do-hee left, she spoke in a very small voice.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“You’re really transparent.”
“About what?”
“Your expression.”
Kang Chi-yeol tried to act indifferent. “What expression?”
“The one that looked instantly relieved when she said he was a designer.”
“Relieved? Hardly.”
“Your eyes look much more relaxed than they did a little while ago.”
At those words, Kang Chi-yeol couldn’t say anything. Wondering if it was true, he glanced briefly at his reflection in the glass door. It was indeed less crumpled than usual. The moment he realized that, he felt even more embarrassed.
Jo A-ra shook her head. “Jealousy really makes you act like a stranger to yourself.”
“I didn’t know I could be this childish either.”
“But the first time is always more childish.”
Oddly enough, those words felt like comfort. It was because it was the first time. He still didn’t even know the exact name of the emotion, couldn’t clearly distinguish how much was business-related tension and how much was personal concern. That didn’t make the feeling light. On the contrary, emotions that were hard to name tended to linger longer.
That evening, Kang Chi-yeol sat for a while on a chair in front of his shop. Once the sun set, the alley took on a completely different face than during the day. Sign lights turned on one by one, students crowded into the snack shop, the laundry closed its doors, and instead laughter flowed from the nearby pub.
The sign for Chiyeolhan Chicken was also lit. Even though it wasn’t open yet, seeing his shop with its sign glowing gave him a strange feeling. Unfamiliar, yet a little proud, and at the same time heavy-hearted. He rested his hands on his knees and looked at the shop next door.
Lee Do-hee was still inside. Sitting on a backless chair, reviewing the menu board again, checking something on her phone, occasionally tapping on a calculator. The sight was so familiar that Kang Chi-yeol suddenly let out a small laugh. It was unmistakably the face of someone in the middle of preparation. Anxious, calculating, revising, trying to make it better.
Because she was exactly the same.
The moment he realized that fact, the jealousy from earlier transformed into something slightly different. It wasn’t so much the fear of losing someone to another person, but rather the kind of awareness that came from constantly noticing someone standing on the same line. And the problem that that person happened to look quite impressive.
Kang Chi-yeol opened his notebook. Most of today’s tasks were already checked off. In the empty space below, after hesitating for a moment, he wrote:
Childishness / Relief / Embarrassment / And continued awareness
And even smaller beneath that: Is it worse because it’s Lee Do-hee next door?
After writing the sentence, a thought suddenly occurred to Kang Chi-yeol. What if that person wasn’t the one next door? If she were just a passing customer, or the owner of a shop in a different alley. He probably wouldn’t have noticed her this quickly. Being close was inherently dangerous. Because smells, lights, voices, footsteps—they all kept mixing together. She wasn’t someone he saw once a day and that was it. She was someone he could see the moment he opened the door. That shook emotions far more slowly, yet more deeply.
Before closing the notebook, he added one more tiny line.
Unfamiliar jealousy = a heart not yet acknowledged
He stared at the sentence for a long time afterward. In the end, he didn’t cross it out. He decided to leave it as it was for now.