Seoeun Needs to Take the Test Too (1)
The first time I slept with Lim Jiwoo, I don't even know how to put it.
Between the sheer fact that I'd done it with her, the HR Management App, and all the other women already occupying my thoughts — I was so worked up I basically dumped her at the motel and went home first.
Today, though, I actually slept in the same bed. We hadn't gone at it until morning like last time, so I'd gotten a pretty decent night's rest by the time I woke.
Shhhhhhhh—
"Nnh…"
I wondered why I'd come to so suddenly, and then I had it — Lim Jiwoo was showering in the ensuite bathroom. The water was probably what had pulled me out of sleep. I could even hear the scratchy sound of her brushing her teeth, which meant she hadn't been in there long.
In which case… now.
I awarded Lim Jiwoo three HR points, bringing her total to five.
"Five points… ah."
Just as I thought.
They'd said a new Notes slot unlocked every five points, and sure enough, beneath Note 3, a fourth field was sitting there with its cursor blinking, waiting for something to be written.
I already knew exactly what I wanted in Lim Jiwoo's fourth Note. I typed it in on the spot.
Fox-like wiles.
The truth about a fox act is that if you don't see it coming, you'll hand over your liver, your gallbladder, and everything else you've got. Once you do see it, though, it can only leave a bad taste. Oh — she was never interested in me. She was interested in something I had. My money. My standing. My friends.
But if you know the other person's entire fox act exists for one reason only — to pull your attention — the feeling flips. It feels good. Especially when the other person is Lim Jiwoo.
The woman who hoovers up every male gaze in a room, giving that eye-smile only to me, laying on the charm only for me, putting her hands only on me. That can only feel good.
Shhhhh…
Not long after I finished entering the fourth Note, the water in the bathroom cut off. Through the frosted door I could see Lim Jiwoo's silhouette, toweling herself dry.
I set the phone with the HR Management App down beside me, sat on the edge of the bed, and waited for her to come out.
"Ah, Woojin…"
A moment later she stepped out in nothing but a motel robe over her underwear, caught sight of me already up, and hesitated for a beat.
"You're awake?"
An eye-smile bloomed on her face as she came toward me.
Mid-shower, Lim Jiwoo had suddenly felt as though she'd been given points, and she slowed down on purpose. More precisely, it was the chain of thought those points set off.
"…How."
First of all. She couldn't say exactly how many points she'd received, but it felt like more than last time. Which meant… that idea she'd had on the bus to Anyang yesterday — the one about provoking Woojin — had been the right answer.
So look. She needed to provoke him so that he would take her roughly. Satisfy him that way, and she would earn even bigger scores. Which naturally meant she had to keep provoking him from here on out.
"Mm…"
Following that logic, Lim Jiwoo laid out another plan. First, once she finished showering and stepped out of the bathroom—
"Ah, Woojin…"
Seeing that he was already up, she put on a perfectly natural eye-smile and walked over.
"You're awake?"
She arrived in front of Woojin where he sat on the edge of the bed and, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, bent at the waist toward him, sweeping the hair that spilled forward behind her ear.
She let the robe fall open just enough to show the line of her cleavage. She offered him the shampoo-warm scent of a body that had just stepped out of the shower. She gave him that eye-smile with the face she knew perfectly well how to use. And then she rested a hand lightly on his knee.
Tap…
"You worked so hard last night, Woojin. I mean, I did too, but you especially went all out… aren't you tired? You must be starving. Go wash up and come eat with me. There's a place nearby that's supposed to have amazing pork cutlets. Let's go together."
One simple string of sentences, and she poured a dozen fox-wiles into it in a rush.
I know you worked hard — but you know I worked hard too, right? If you're tired, that means I am too. If you're hungry, obviously I am too. And I'm offering to go eat with you. Are you just going to sit there zoning out?
"Ah — yeah. I'll go wash up."
"Okay. Take your time in there. We've got plenty of time."
Woman-speak was a genuinely difficult language. We've got plenty of time could mean she had time to spare — or it could be irony, meaning they had none at all. Lim Jiwoo packed both meanings into the line, sent Woojin into the bathroom, and then—
"Hmmm…"
—sat herself down on the edge of the bed where he'd just been sitting, and started thinking through how she was going to handle him from here.
When I came out of the shower, Lim Jiwoo looked ready to leave — fully dressed in the clothes she'd worn here yesterday.
"You're out?"
Dressed like that, she came toward me with an eye-smile, as if she'd been waiting, and pointed at the chair in front of the vanity.
"Sit down. I'll dry your hair."
"Ah — thanks."
"It's nothing."
I sat, and she picked up the dryer and started working it through my hair, stroke by stroke.
Whiiiiiiir—!
Damn. She was really, genuinely good at this fox act. Even something as simple as drying my hair had her wiles tucked into every corner of it.
Her hands in my hair. When she dried my bangs, her chest pressed flush against my back. And in that position, every breath she took landed against my ear.
And then, on top of all that—
"You know, this kind of style would look good on you normally, Woojin."
"Yeah?"
"Mm, really. A look like yours is so much cleaner with the forehead showing like this. It's not that you look messy day to day or anything, but if we just worked on it a little more I think it'd be great. Here, look."
"Oh — you're right. I should start wearing it like this."
"But your hair right now isn't really the type that holds this kind of style. Let's go to a salon together sometime next week."
Using my hair as an excuse, she even locked in the next appointment. The whole fox act flowed so naturally that even knowing full well she was a fox, I caught myself going huh and just listening.
When I'd first decided what to do with Lim Jiwoo, I'd planned to lock her Promotion Desire at Very High and leave it there. Watching the senior who'd spent years dumping her entire workload on me grovel at my feet had seemed like a reliable, renewable source of sadistic satisfaction.
But maybe it was because the other person was Lim Jiwoo…
"There. All done. How is it? Looks good, right?"
"It does. Thanks, sunbae."
"Mmhmm, don't mention it. You're hungry, right? Come on, let's go, Woojin."
Leaving it at a moderately High level was probably the better call. Crank it to Very High and you got that distinctive tension people had when they were sitting for an HR evaluation — they started creaking like a broken robot.
But thinking about Note 4 — the setting where she loitered around trying to pull my attention — keeping things a little loose like this was the right move. And if you factored in how Note 4 linked up with Note 3, even more so.
She'd hover around me and manufacture chances to be alone together. Once we were alone, she'd provoke me. And while she was provoking me, she'd get overpowered — or thoroughly put in her place.
I'd built myself a pretty satisfying little cycle. We left the motel room and went to eat the pork cutlets she'd mentioned.
And then, when it was time to head home.
"Sunbae, I'll take you back."
"What?"
"You've got to get all the way to Seoul. I'll drive you."
"Oh… I feel so bad, I don't know what to do. Of course I'd love to ask, but I'm worried you'll be tired… especially after last night."
Wow. That fox face of hers really was a universal weapon. The way she could blend apology and gratitude into something that sounded that earnest was almost impressive.
And then, on top of it—
"Then, Woojin — I mentioned it earlier, right? Let's go to the salon soon. I'll take care of it for you."
Cunningly. Getting me to drive her home. The next appointment with me. The debt to me that followed from all of it. Having acquired every last piece, Lim Jiwoo climbed into my car heading for her place.
Monday.
"Good morning, Assistant Manager."
"Morning, Seoeun."
Woojin had come in fairly early himself, but Min Seoeun had arrived far earlier still, and she dipped her head in a crisp bow. Whether it was the week he'd spent walking her through the company's work finally paying off, Seoeun spent the entire morning faithfully carrying out everything he'd taught her.
She was so reliable that—
"Woojin, can I talk to you for a second?"
Around half past ten, when Lim Jiwoo called him over saying she wanted a word, he figured he could leave what he was doing with Seoeun and get up from his desk…
"Mmh, it won't take that long."
"Ah… okay."
…or so he thought. Instead, Lim Jiwoo sat him right back down.
And then—
Tap—
She folded her arms across the top of the partition and settled her chin neatly on top of them.
"We talked about it yesterday. About going to the salon. I was wondering when would be a good time."
"Ah…"
Lim Jiwoo's voice was neither loud nor quiet. Just the volume of someone speaking normally to the people around her. And the people around her right now were Woojin, Min Seoeun, and Jung Minsu — the male junior who'd suspected something between Lim Jiwoo and Woojin once before. Three of them.
Woojin, as the other party in the conversation, was a given. But Seoeun and Jung Minsu were listening too, both of them pretending very hard that they weren't.
"I'll let you know separately when I have time."
"Hmm? Wouldn't it be better to go as soon as we can?"
"It would, sure. But my schedule's a little messy."
"Why… are you really busy on weekends?"
"It's less that I'm busy and more that I've got a lot of places to be."
"Mmmmmm…"
A slight furrow of the brow. Her lips pushed out. Her head tipped just a little to one side. Jung Minsu forgot entirely that he was supposed to be sneaking a look and just stared, openly, at that bewitching face of hers.
"…Alright, I got it. April's almost here anyway, and it's going to start getting hot. Getting your hair done sooner rather than later would feel nicer and cooler for you too."
"Yeah, that's true. I'll try to make time."
"Okay. Contact me when you have some."
Lim Jiwoo left a last little coquettish eye-smile hanging in the air and drifted back to her own desk.
What is this? What the hell is this? They said they were nothing… but from that conversation they met yesterday, and they're meeting again this weekend?
"…Assistant Manager."
"Yes, Seoeun?"
"Did you, by any chance, meet with Assistant Manager Lim Jiwoo yesterday?"
Fortunate, if you could call it that. Before Jung Minsu had to embarrass himself by asking, the newly joined junior put the question to Woojin herself.
"Yes, I met her yesterday. She'd been saying for a while that she wanted to buy me a meal for working hard during the new-hire orientation. We met up yesterday and had dinner."
Is there more? Did they really just eat and that was it? Then what was all that just now about hair and a salon?
Jung Minsu waited, certain Seoeun would ask about that too. Unfortunately—
"Hmm…"
—Seoeun only furrowed her brow a little and sank into some private, concentrated thought.
And when lunchtime came.
"Let's go eat, Seoeun."
"Yes, understood."
Min Seoeun took her place at Woojin's side like a loyal dog guarding its master.
A sidelong glance.
Watching Woojin check something on his phone, Seoeun set her mind to it for certain.
Quickly. She needed to give her Master time to receive her repayment — as soon as possible. That way…
"Seoeun, what do you feel like eating?"
…she could protect her Master from that fox.