Seoeun Needs to Take the Test Too (2)
Min Seoeun is pretty. Yeah—she's definitely on the pretty side.
But if you're talking about what really makes Min Seoeun charming…
"Seoeun, what do you feel like eating?"
"Would Chinese food be acceptable, sir?"
"Oh. There's a place nearby with seriously good beef brisket jjamppong. Let's go there."
"Understood."
That atmosphere.
The rigid, clipped formal speech.
The blank, locked-down face.
The perfectly squared-off stride.
She matched, down to the last detail, the image of the cold, razor-sharp female secretary-slash-bodyguard that showed up across every genre of media.
"Seoeun. You don't have to answer and talk that stiffly. Relax a little. How long are you going to keep using that military register?"
"I… apologize. It's stuck to my mouth at this point, so fixing it is a little…"
"Habit from training?"
"That is correct."
"Hmm. All right. Once we get a little closer, you'll loosen up too."
"I believe so as well."
And yet toward me she showed nothing but goodwill and fondness. Maybe that was the gap moe talking.
Anyway.
I went into a Chinese place near the office with Min Seoeun, ordered two bowls of beef brisket jjamppong, and sat down.
After a good meal, we each grabbed a coffee and headed back toward the company side by side.
Somewhere along the way, Min Seoeun kept… reading my face like a dog watching its owner for cues.
It wasn't that I was especially sharp and picked up on it.
The hesitant mouth.
The hands that kept starting and stopping.
The eyes that flicked toward me.
Her face alone stayed expressionless, but everything else about Min Seoeun kept broadcasting that she had something she wanted to say.
"Seoeun, what's going on?"
"Sir?"
"You look like you've got something to say. You've been like that this whole time."
"Uh… well…"
She wore the exact face of a dog that had been chewing a slipper and just got caught by its owner.
"…Assistant Manager. There is something I would like to tell you for a moment."
"Sure. What is it?"
"It is a little difficult to say here. Would it be possible for us to go somewhere quiet?"
"Let's take a small conference room."
"Thank you."
Having secured a chance to speak with me alone, Min Seoeun even let out a breath of relief.
We went back into the company building.
When we tried to step into the elevator up to the seventh floor, quite a few people were heading back from lunch the same as us.
We were going to have to squeeze in somehow.
"One moment—"
"Sorry, coming thr—sorry—"
"Ah, my foot…!"
What a mess.
Fortunately, Min Seoeun and I had been waiting earlier, so we managed to stake out a spot fairly deep inside.
Somehow I ended up farther in with my back to the wall, and Min Seoeun stood in front of me with her back turned, and it was almost like…
"……."
"……."
…damn, that was dog-like.
Not in a bad way, obviously.
Didn't everyone, at least once in their life, want to raise one big dog?
A golden retriever that got along with everyone.
An Afghan hound with a gorgeous golden coat.
A Saint Bernard bigger than an actual person.
And…
"…Are you all right, Assistant Manager?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"
"It is nothing."
A Doberman that snarled at everyone else but panted and poured out loyalty the second it was in front of me.
Min Seoeun stood in front of me like a Doberman, as if she were scanning for anyone who might threaten me.
Needless to say, in an ordinary company there was no way someone like that would—
Floor 6.
…exist. Or so I thought.
"……."
"……."
Ju Harin.
Whether she was headed somewhere else or not, Ju Harin stepped into the elevator on the sixth floor, startled when she saw me—then glared at me with genuine murder in her eyes.
And Min Seoeun, glaring right back at her, also snuck a glance at my face to check whether Ju Harin and I were enemies.
Ju Harin glared at me, but I… didn't treat her as a hostile force so much as the neighborhood "deer," so when I met her stare with an expression full of easy composure, Min Seoeun realized we weren't actually enemies and smoothed the crease between her brows.
Floor 7.
"Getting off—, excuse me, coming through, sorry—."
We got off on the seventh floor.
"…Assistant Manager."
"Yeah?"
"That person earlier… was she not the HR employee from before?"
"Ah."
Still. Even if I didn't register Ju Harin as an enemy, she was openly hostile, so Min Seoeun looked ready to stay on guard.
"That's right. The one who handed out the new-hire kits last time."
"Then why was she looking at you like that, sir?"
"No idea. Beats me."
"……."
"Come on. You said you had something to talk about, Seoeun."
"Ah. Yes. Understood."
Min Seoeun flicked a glance at the elevator heading up, then fell in beside me again and followed me into one of the small conference rooms on the seventh floor.
"Right. First time in a small conference room, isn't it, Seoeun?"
"That is correct."
"See the button here? That's the one. The in-meeting button. Press it and a light comes on at the door—signal that nobody should come in."
The second I told her—
Click.
Min Seoeun pressed the in-meeting button and secured a space for just the two of us.
And once we sat down—
"Assistant Manager. Would your schedule happen to be free this weekend?"
Min Seoeun cut straight to trying to claim my time.
Min Seoeun simply didn't show much on her face. It wasn't that she had no feelings.
In high school she had liked a boy.
During the open new-hire interviews she had been so nervous she thought she might actually die.
There had even been a time she'd seriously considered punching some sleazy guy who kept brushing up against her.
Of course she had emotions—so of course she could guess and understand other people's, too.
Last week.
When Woojin walked Min Seoeun home, he had made his interest in her unmistakably clear.
That interest wasn't… fondness, exactly. To put it more bluntly: lust.
"The weekend? This weekend?"
"Yes. If your schedule allows it, Assistant Manager, I would like to have a meal together."
"Food's fine, obviously. Our places aren't that far apart anyway. Dropping by to buy you a meal isn't hard."
He had only admitted to having lust, though.
After that, Min Seoeun never once got a chance to "repay" him—never a chance for him to try working that lust out on her.
If anything, Woojin's side felt like it was drawing a hard line against anything like that.
Even now.
"If you want to eat, just say so. Don't make it awkward. Didn't I tell you last time? You're not just some junior to me—you're my direct subordinate."
"You did."
"Asking me to buy you food isn't some huge request. You don't need to come all the way into a small conference room and get this serious about it. Talk about stuff like this casually."
What Min Seoeun was doing right now could even be read as a kind of flirting.
But Woojin drew the line again—he would only play the pure senior buying a junior a meal.
She hadn't even asked him to buy her food. She had asked to eat together.
At this rate, even if they met on the weekend, she could already see them eating and then simply parting ways.
"…Then, Assistant Manager. After the meal, do you have somewhere else you need to be?"
"Somewhere?"
"From what I overheard earlier when you were speaking with Assistant Manager Lim Jiwoo, you sounded quite busy, so I was curious whether you had other plans."
"Ah, that… if I cut to the point, I don't really have any plans as such. Why my schedule?"
"After we eat, I would also like to come over to your place."
She just said it outright.
"…Huh?"
"I would like to visit your home, Assistant Manager."
"My place? You, Seoeun? Why? Why would you suddenly come over to my place?"
"Is it not allowed?"
"…Seoeun. Just in case—and I mean really just in case—I'm asking. You know what you're saying right now, right?"
"I believe it is the content you are thinking of, Assistant Manager."
"And what am I thinking right now?"
"That you would sleep with me, I would imagine."
"……."
Looking thoroughly flustered, Woojin stalled for a moment.
"…Why? Why all of a sudden?"
"Over the past week I have received an enormous amount of help from you, Assistant Manager. I would like to offer something in return."
"No, I mean—Seoeun, are you saying that what you're talking about counts as repayment?"
"That is correct. If it is insufficient…"
"It's not that it's insufficient, it's that…"
Woojin covered his face with both hands.
When he lowered them a moment later, his expression was strangely complicated.
"…No."
"Why not?"
"What kind of thing is that to say. Saying you'll sleep with your senior because you're grateful when you've only known him a week—what is that supposed to mean. I understand how you feel, Seoeun. But that isn't it. No."
"……."
Woojin clearly had lust.
Because of that lust, he had shown interest in her body.
Min Seoeun had tried to relieve Woojin's lust.
And when he refused the only repayment she could offer right now, Min Seoeun wore the face of someone whose full bowl of rice had just been snatched away right in front of her.
Why… why won't you understand how I feel?
"…Seoeun. Let's be clear about this."
"Yes, Assistant Manager."
"You don't… like me or anything, right?"
"That does not appear to be the case yet."
"What do you mean, 'yet'?"
"I do not know about later, but not now. Right now, the desire to repay you is much stronger."
Yeah. She really was a little impatient.
I'd expected Min Seoeun's reaction to come fast, but not this fast—I had to pull every trick I had just to keep the grin from slipping out.
"No. Still no."
"……."
"Just so there's no misunderstanding—it's not because you're unattractive, Seoeun. Or because I'm somehow… insecure as a man. It's not that."
"Then may I hear the reason?"
"Because I don't really know what kind of woman you are yet."
"…Me, sir?"
In that case…
"Before that, let me tell you a little about myself."
"Yes."
"Once I start, I go at it quite a lot. All night, basically. Didn't you say last time you'd never dated a guy? Then I'm guessing you've never done it either."
"…Regrettably, I have not."
"See? I'm saying this because I don't think you'd last."
"……."
I gave her a light brush of guilt, and I saw Min Seoeun clench her teeth.
"Instead—how about we run a little test?"
"What kind of test, sir?"
But the second I offered her a chance, her eyes went wide.
"I'll see how long you can hold out. If it looks like you can take a fair amount, then I'll do what you want. I'll take care of you."
And the word choice, even then.
Not that he'd do it with her—that he'd do it for her.
As a woman it might have sounded a little humiliating, but Min Seoeun still had to take whatever she could get.
"Understood. Then when would the test…"
"Ah—this needs a bit of equipment, so today's hard. Roughly… we'll start around Wednesday or Thursday."
"Would it be possible to know what the test involves?"
"That's a secret."
"…Understood."
With a grim, determined face, she showed she fully intended to pass my test.
I was looking forward to it.
What kind of face Min Seoeun would make when she had to hold out with a vibrator in her panties.
With no idea what I was hoping for, Min Seoeun—
"Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I will do my utmost so that I can repay you, Assistant Manager."
—bowed her head with the finest words a "new hire" could offer.