The Lewd Girl's Cheerful Lunch Break
Someone else's happy lunch hour was another person's battlefield.
Around noon, when the crowd surged toward the lunch counters, we were busy dealing with the customers who had just walked in.
“Thank you. Enjoy your meal!”
The long line of orders had finally wrapped up. I could see Da-jeong’s face brighten a little as she looked toward the counter.
Jeong Da-jeong, twenty-one years old—three years younger than me.
She had been hired the day our aunt retired from being the cafe manager to become a full-time housewife. My aunt had mentioned that I should keep an eye on her, but I didn’t listen. I figured hiring an extra part-timer would be a waste when Da-jeong was already so capable. After all, I had heard plenty of stories about how hard it was to find someone who actually worked well.
And the results had been a miracle.
The cafe’s revenue had been climbing steadily for two straight months after opening. It was the kind of success I never imagined possible for a manager like me, who could barely make coffee beyond mixed instant packets.
At the same time, a deadly problem had appeared alongside it.
In this tiny twenty-five-pyeong cafe, I realized that without Da-jeong, nothing ran properly.
I knew almost nothing about running a cafe myself, while she handled everything inside it with alarming efficiency. The person I could see was only her, yet every time she moved, she somehow finished two or three people’s worth of work and wiped the sweat from her brow.
‘Jeong-hyeon. Just a warning from your aunt—if Da-jeong ever says she’s quitting, this cafe will never close. So keep watching her like your aunt said?’
‘I get it. But what if it does close?’
‘Then you can go back to your old job. Just remember to file the household registration papers by then. It means our family is producing another human who can’t even manage basic social life or human decency.’
I was lucky.
At least I hadn’t ruined the mental health of a pretty, kind-hearted, hard-working female employee or turned a thriving cafe into a wreck.
Unfortunately, I had failed miserably to win her affection.
Except for that first day’s lunch rush, I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Da-jeong.”
“Why?”
“Today’s lunch is…”
“No, why are you asking all of a sudden? I’m about to die from being busy.”
“Well… since you’ve been working so hard… I thought I’d treat you to something nice.”
“Haa. What are you even trying to do by cornering someone who’s busy? Manager-nim, if you’re going to say unnecessary things, you might as well go home early. I can handle everything alone, and having a manager who can’t do the job just gets in the way.”
Strange. After the first day, distance had slowly built between us until now we were just cold acquaintances.
Every time I spoke to her, her usual warm smile in front of others turned into an icy glare.
Each time, a dark thought hidden deep in my chest crawled forward like a slow tide. This had happened more than once.
Still, I had kept this uncomfortable relationship because I knew she was originally a cute girl who smiled easily in front of people. That was why I remembered how kind she had been to me on the opening day, even for just one day.
The sharp attitude she had shown afterward was just disappointing.
She had no trouble talking normally to other customers, but with me it felt like something was missing.
……What was I even thinking?
For the manager, as long as she did her job well, it didn’t matter.
And besides, as long as it wasn’t personal, she answered questions properly and handled everything cleanly.
Lost in these bitter thoughts, I moved around and suddenly it was lunch time again.
“Then I’ll go out.”
“Enjoy your lunch.”
“Okay. Enjoy your meal too, Manager-nim.”
I watched Da-jeong leave the hall and stepped into the corner table. I took the sandwich and milk I had left in the fridge and sat down.
This was the happy lunch hour every day I was alone in the cafe.
I logged into the web novel platform to check today’s chapter comments while I thought about the next plot. This was my short escape into being a writer.
“Oh, you saw it right away. You’re pretty early.”
[SJ1057: Author-nim~ I’m so happy you wrote it so well today!]
A rare reader who had followed *How to Violate Them* from the very beginning.
Most of the comments left by this reader were simple things like “well written” or “can’t wait for tomorrow.”
If it were another novel, I could have ignored it, but with mine it meant real praise.
I was already writing pretty hardcore adult content, so when my reader occasionally dropped an emoji of a bunny with its head hanging low and a comment like ‘I hope it’ll be good tomorrow…’, it became another goal of mine.
After all, the moment I decided to include a buildup scene, a ghost bunny would suddenly appear. And even when I finished the scene and the panties were soaked, my reader would leave a comment saying they were satisfied.
That meant our kink points matched perfectly.
Sometimes I wondered what kind of person this reader was—someone who would read my novel at exactly eleven o’clock in the morning and show genuine satisfaction.
I even had dark fantasies about that sometimes.
Of course, I was still spending most of my time with Da-jeong, but that was just my job.
The images of Baek Ah-in from my novel and Da-jeong were eerily similar.
As I reread the chapter and planned the next part, Da-jeong’s figure would appear in my head more than once.
The part-time worker who had always acted cocky toward me, the moment the cafe door locked behind her and she was dragged to the corner and devoured like a dog.
Like Baek Ah-in under the male lead Lee Tae-hyun, writhing underneath him.
My real-time imagination of training Da-jeong was terrifying.
Of course, it was just a fantasy.
Because of how dark my thoughts were—used only when writing the novel—I was just imagining things and getting aroused, nothing more. In the real world, doing anything like that would put me in chains. I had to be careful, very careful.
I set my phone down for a second, took a bite of the sandwich and sipped the milk. Then I looked up when Da-jeong called my name.
“You’re back already?”
“Yeah. There wasn’t much to do today. But, Manager-nim.”
“Hm?”
“That… doesn’t it look weird to other people?”
“……”
I immediately flipped my phone screen face down and pressed my forehead to the table.
Crazy. What the hell was I doing?
Had I been so distracted by customers that I left my mental guard down…?
I hadn’t even noticed Da-jeong had come back. I was still staring at the web novel window with the nude illustration of Baek Ah-in from a few days ago.
It was an illustration of her sitting on the male lead’s personal toilet, with a caption on her thighs that read “To the toilet dedicated to Lee Tae-hyun only.”
“Manager-nim… you’re still… reading it…?”
The word “still” made my body jolt.
“Just wondering. Is it really that hard to hold back?”
“Ah, no. I was just… killing time. S-sorry… I didn’t know you were back.”
Da-jeong lowered her phone and sat across from me after nodding slightly.
“No need to apologize. I already knew you were obsessed with that perverted novel about forcing women to submit the moment I started working here two months ago.”
Her words felt like they were carving into my chest.
“I’ve been working here for almost two months and you haven’t said a word about firing me, so I guess you and reality can separate properly. Honestly, I get chills every time I feel your strange gaze on me.”
At any moment, if she said one more thing, my fist would clench until it hurt.
“Well, that’s just my opinion. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Adults can watch erotic things, right? It’s not normal to watch them in public… but don’t force yourself to read if you don’t want to. I don’t mind whether you read my novel or watch my videos alone with me. I don’t care at all.”
“……Eh?”
What? The conversation was getting strangely weird.
“I don’t care if you don’t care about me. You don’t have to worry about what I think either.”
It sounded absurd, but it was exactly what she said.