The Battle for Control (1)
By the time I made it home after going at it with Lim Jiwoo until morning, Thursday had already arrived. Thursday and Friday were a kind of leave the company had granted us—a reward vacation, more or less, for every employee who'd both prepared for and sat through the new-hire orientation.
I never once stepped outside during that short break. I just sat there with the HR Management App, studying it.
How to use it.
Who to use it on.
When to use it.
And then, at home, I pulled her up.
I'd bumped Lim Jiwoo's HR score up by a full two points.
I'd considered going all-out from the start—jacking it up by five and unlocking another Remarks slot—but three Remarks had already been more than enough fun. I didn't feel the need just yet. If anything, holding back left me looking forward to next time.
Which was why, that following Monday, every step I took into the office was shamelessly confident. Like a man walking in on his last day—someone who no longer had a scrap of attachment left to this place.
"Hi, Woojin-ssi~"
"Good morning, Assistant Manager."
"Hey~"
"Morning, everyone."
I walked in with a bright, easy smile and took my seat.
"Hmm…"
Greetings done, I let my eyes wander the room at a leisurely pace.
"Good morning, everyone~"
I watched Lim Jiwoo walk in, a smile tugging at my mouth.
She spotted me, flinched—just barely—then recovered with one of those eye-smiles of hers.
"…Good morning to you too, Woojin-ssi."
"Morning."
What she'd done for me was, in essence, a tribute paid on the pretext of a promotion. The fact that she could still smile like that anyway was probably… well. That had to be a side effect of her Promotion Desire sitting at High.
Set it too low and she'd despise the man she'd been with the other night. Leave it at a moderate level and she wouldn't be desperate enough to matter. Cranking it all the way to Very High wouldn't be the worst idea—except other people had eyes, which made that a problem of an entirely different kind.
High was the compromise. The sweet spot I'd settled on after turning it over every which way.
"Um, Woojin-ssi."
"Yes?"
"So…"
Jiwoo set her bag down at her desk, then drifted over and dropped her voice. Not so rude it was like telling me to go fuck myself. Not looking down on me like she was about to dump her work in my lap. Not so flustered she made the whole thing more awkward for herself. Just that. Exactly that.
"About the next exam… when would be a good time for you?"
"The next exam? You're already thinking about that?"
"Well, the sooner I get promoted, the better."
And after all that, what she was really asking was when we were going to do it again.
I liked the sound of that coming out of her mouth. Unfortunately for her—
"I'll let you know whenever I happen to have time."
"Huh?"
"This isn't some casual thing. It's an exam that ties directly to your promotion. Since when does the examinee get to pick the date? That's the proctor's call."
"Ah…"
This sly little fox.
Anyone else might have taken the bait—might have found themselves booking the earliest date they could without even realizing she'd steered them into it. Which was almost certainly the point. A fight for the upper hand, in so many words.
"Once I've got a date locked in, I'll be in touch."
"Mmmmh… okay. But please set it as soon as you can."
"Yeah, yeah. I got it."
The disappointment was there, but she seemed to understand who held the cards. Jiwoo flashed that signature eye-smile of hers and asked me—again—to lock in the next appointment as fast as possible.
And that, I hadn't expected. Even if you framed it as a tribute she had to pay, handing over her first time should have been genuinely humiliating. And yet here she was, not the least bit sour about it—looking forward to the next round, even. Which put me in a pretty good mood, too, unti—
"Assistant Manager, what were you talking about with Assistant Manager Lim?"
"Sorry?"
—until a male colleague who'd been watching the two of us from nearby sidled up. Unlike me, who'd despised getting work dumped on me by Jiwoo, this junior treated it like some kind of reward.
"Did something… happen with Assistant Manager Lim at orientation?"
"Happen?"
"No, it's just, you two suddenly seem close. I figured maybe you hit it off at OT or something."
He flicked a glance at Jiwoo, who'd already gone back to her desk, and eyed the space between us with open wariness.
But did this guy even know?
"Close… I mean, not really. We were in contact the whole month because of orientation, and then once we got there I ended up talking with her a lot, hanging around. That's all it is. Nothing going on."
"Ah…"
Him, of course—and from here on out, Lim Jiwoo wasn't going to open her heart to any man but me.
The junior gave me one of those yeah, figures looks, laughed awkwardly, and retreated to his own desk. It was the kind of situation that should have left a bad taste, but Jiwoo's presence was such a force of nature that I couldn't even bring myself to care.
"Good morning, Team Leader."
"Morning, Team Leader!"
"Hello!"
I was still turning that over when Han Minah appeared—one of the HR Management App's designated targets.
And as if the day weren't already going my way.
Ping.
A text from yet another target. My mood improved even further.
I'd get back to Dayeon in a minute.
"Good morning, Team Leader."
"Ah, Woojin-ssi. Good morning."
Han Minah, Team Leader of Planning Department Team 1, dipped her head at me with a smile so warm it made the person looking at her feel better just for seeing it, then settled into her own seat. Thoroughly, visibly pleased.
I sat back down and watched her boot up her computer. Hair gathered in a loose tie just at the nape of her neck. A face you could call puppy-like if you wanted—though "angelic" was closer to the truth, the kind of soft, smiling features that felt like being wrapped in a blanket. A figure even more dramatically curved than Jiwoo's.
She should have been every bit as popular as Jiwoo, and yet Minah's popularity lagged behind in this odd, noticeable way. Which made sense. Han Minah was a married woman.
"Hmm…"
She'd gotten married last fall. Six months in. Still a newlywed, barely.
She already had someone, which meant that next to Jiwoo—who was officially single—her stock was always going to run a little cooler. And that was how it should be. Anything else would have been dangerous in an entirely different sense.
However.
…Couldn't I, though?
I had the HR Management App. Was there any reason I couldn't do something with Han Minah too?
I pulled up her page for a moment.
See?
I hadn't even touched her yet, and Han Minah's Promotion Desire was already sitting at a fairly high level. Register her as an Intensive Management Target and crank it up to Very High, and she'd start squirming the same way Jiwoo had on Wednesday.
But she was a married woman. Not just somebody's girlfriend—somebody's wife. That meant I had to approach with a little more care. So I decided I'd get more comfortable with the HR Management App first, and only then take a run at Han Minah.
In the meantime, I figured I'd have a conversation with Chae Dayeon, whom I'd already slotted in as an Intensive Management Target over the weekend.
I was supposed to be working, but then again, everybody dawdled a little right after clocking in. I stood up with the air of a man doing exactly that and headed for the Secretary Team.
An elevator ride down to another floor, a short walk—and there she was.
"Dayeon."
Chae Dayeon, built as small as a child, looked over at me.
"Yeah."
Her face was close to expressionless, and the little wave she gave me was so offhand it barely counted as a greeting.
I walked up to her with a smile, and her already-small frame felt even smaller up close. Jiwoo stood somewhere around five-seven; Dayeon was only about five-one. The contrast made her look tinier still.
On top of that—
"…You're staring at me in a really uncomfortable way, you know that?"
"No I'm not."
"Yeah, right."
Sly. Alluring. Coquettish. Jiwoo had been purpose-built for the eye-smile; Dayeon resembled her in a strange way and, at the same time, left a completely different impression. If Jiwoo was the fox-faced type that bewitched people, Dayeon was the cat-faced type that made people come to her. And not a sharp, mean kind of cat, either.
"You were thinking something weird about my height again, weren't you."
"I said I wasn't."
"That's exactly the face you make whenever you're about to say something about my height."
"Why don't you ever believe me."
"For real, you're not?"
"I'm not."
A drowsy, catlike face. A small frame, a small height. Features that still looked younger than her age. Put it all together and Chae Dayeon was a baby kitten—an akaengi, through and through. Baby kittens might be pure chaos by nature, but I couldn't quite bring myself to call the thing itself evil.
"So why the orientation thing?"
"It's not a whole thing. I overheard the CEO on a call just now and your name came up. Did you do something wrong?"
She shoved that already-young face right up into mine, worry written plainly across it.
"No. Nothing. If anything, the prep went well, and there's nothing for anyone to talk about after the fact… this is just a hunch, but he was probably about to praise me."
"Praise you for what?"
"That I wouldn't know… but we wrapped the whole thing without an incident, so maybe that's it? Nobody ever knows what's going to happen at a new-hire orientation."
"Well, yeah, but…"
"Plus it ran smoothly. I emceed the whole thing, so I probably stood out more."
But did Dayeon know? The CEO of KP Corporation was already an Intensive Management Target—a man who, whenever Dayeon happened to be nearby, had no choice but to praise me to whoever was listening. And that she herself was an Intensive Management Target. And that she was the next one I had my eye on, right after Jiwoo.
Of course she didn't.
Dayeon's face stayed close to expressionless.
"If that's all it is, then good, but… nothing else happened while you were there?"
"Not really. Nothing like that."
"Sheesh… so you just rested all by yourself."
"Of course I rested. I spent a whole month prepping for that thing."
"Still, though. You couldn't even text me once while you were off?"
She was sulking at me for not sending a single message during Thursday and Friday—the reward vacation.
"I just slept the whole time."
"How long were you even sleeping. The weekend was attached to it too. You slept through the weekend? No way that's true."
"I was around. Moderately."
The particular flavor of Dayeon's disappointment looked a lot like a kitten chewing out its butler for vanishing outdoors for two days and leaving the food bowl sitting empty. Her voice, like her frame and her face, was thin and high.
"…That's so mean. Seriously."
It even sounded like a baby kitten mewling.
That said—
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'll buy you lunch tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, not today?"
"Today's a little packed. I was off, so I've got stuff piled up. Tomorrow. I'll buy you lunch."
"Mmmmmkay…"
The second I filled her bowl to the brim, she started purring.
"Buy me something good."
"What do you want?"
"Just… meat."
"What kind of meat?"
"Pork belly."
"Got it. Let's hit the place right out front."
"Yeah. Text me tomorrow."
"Will do~"
Even the goodbye was the same. Dayeon gave me that expressionless, offhand little wave and disappeared back into her office.
I didn't head straight back to mine. I ducked into the restroom first and opened the HR Management App.
The profile I pulled up was, of course, Chae Dayeon's.
With Jiwoo, the whole point had been payback—using promotion as a pretext to push her around after everything I'd put up with. Dayeon was always going to feel completely different. We were orientation classmates who got along fine, and her reputation around the office wasn't bad either.
So instead of the hard, fast approach I'd taken with Jiwoo, what if I came at this one a little mellower?
She was a baby kitten, after all. The kind that started purring the second it saw its butler.
Of course, Dayeon would eventually start demanding harder tastes too, once I brought promotion into it. But the opening move, I thought, should be a slow one. Unhurried.
I'd turned the key on Chae Dayeon. That was enough for now.
"Hmm."
I left the restroom in an excellent mood and headed back to the office.
And then.
"Ah."
The moment I saw my inbox—stuffed to bursting—I was forcibly reminded of what a Monday after several days off actually meant.
"Oh, come on."