The Benchmark
Men have a world of their own that women never know, and women have a world of their own that men never know.
It has been that way since the dawn of humanity. Even now—when the old human benchmarks of wealth and power have given way to something far more primal, individual physique and raw violence, and the once-equal standing between men and women has regressed into something primitive—their world remains a kind men simply cannot approach.
Or, more precisely, a kind I had no desire to approach at all.
“You—what did you just say? U-ugly?”
“Oh my, if someone’s ugly you just call them ugly. What else are you supposed to say?”
“Look at her playing dumb. She’s the ugliest one here—first to flash her tits and hand over everything else.”
“That’s why Oppa Jitae looks after her out of pity. But she actually thinks it’s because he’s fallen for her? Hilarious.”
Two packs of women had split to either side of me and Do Wangu. Every last one of them was draped in luxury brands that no longer meant a thing, their unwashed skin buried under thick layers of makeup.
“Crazy bitch. Like she’s so pretty herself.”
“Right. That little slut acting all cute around Oppa Wangu makes me sick every time I see it.”
“…What the fuck did you just say, you bitches?”
I pressed hard at the throbbing vein between my brows, watching the women already reaching for each other’s hair, then shot a look at Do Wangu, who was snickering beside me.
“Aren’t you going to stop them?”
“Why would I? This is how we figure out who gets to follow you. I told you to pick one already.”
“What am I supposed to do if none of them appeal to me?”
I frowned, swept another glance over the brawling women, and shook my head.
“No matter how I look at it, that Peking-opera makeup just isn’t it.”
“Take them back to the school and wash them first. Their real faces are decent enough.”
“Whatever. Did you guys all mess with them?”
“Nah. There’s one who doesn’t even need to shake her tits next to a guy—she lives off the suckers who bring her food just for looking at her.”
“…There’s a woman like that even in this situation?”
“Her face alone is enough to satisfy the guys… She came in recently. But objectively, your sister-in-law is still prettier.”
He’d said her chest was more the point than her face, so I scanned the crowd, but no one with that kind of size stood out.
“Where is she?”
“Yeah, where is she? Hey, Kwon Jitae. Where’s that girl? Seo Yuna.”
“…Uh, well.”
Kwon Jitae avoided Do Wangu’s eyes, hemmed and hawed, then edged closer and whispered.
“The combat team guys are holding her forcibly. Trying to hide her so she doesn’t catch Sijun-hyung’s eye at all…”
“What? Ha.”
Do Wangu let out a hollow laugh. A thick vein rose on his forehead with an audible pop as he turned on Kwon Jitae.
“So you’re saying they treated my words like dog shit? Those fuckers?”
“…Uh, um.”
“You weren’t in on it, right?”
“N-no, absolutely not!”
“Then lead the way. Where are those bastards?”
“Probably hiding in the second-floor lounge, looking down. Yuna’s that outstanding…”
“Outstanding my ass. If I said give her to Lee Sijun, you give her. Fuck. Who the hell questions my decisions?”
With the face of a pissed-off gorilla, he snorted a sharp breath, glared savagely up toward the second floor, and headed straight for the escalator. I glanced over at Na Sehee.
She had been watching the women still clawing at each other with an unreadable expression. When our eyes met she simply shrugged.
She didn’t seem to be in a bad mood. Maybe the shopping had worked off her stress.
Done. Maid recruitment?
“….”
Apparently she thought these women were candidates for her personal maids.
The mindset was so dizzying I didn’t even bother answering—just shook my head and started after Do Wangu, who was already barking at me to hurry up.
“Ah, over there…!”
The women spotted me moving and scrambled to follow. I tossed them a single line.
“You all just keep fighting. I’ll be right back.”
After days of clean bare faces at the school, looking at these women with makeup that would make even Sehee cry like ghosts left my eyes feeling dry.
And thinking that, I kind of understood why Sehee treated them like maids…
…Because they feel like her inferior versions?
I snickered at the random thought and headed up to the second floor.
Special treatment had been familiar to her since childhood.
Yuna! Need anything?
Hey. Seo Yuna! Found this on the way.
No, I didn’t buy it for you or anything. I just… wanted to give it to you…
And the jealousy that came with it had been just as familiar.
Hilarious. Really. Like she’s so pretty.
She acts like princess treatment is her birthright.
It had been fine through middle school. She had simply enjoyed hanging out with her friends.
But the moment her body started blooming, neither the boys nor the girls her age could hide their ulterior motives when they looked at her.
The boys’ eyes that flicked downward every time they talked. The girls’ jealousy that no amount of baggy clothes could smother.
Her lively personality and chatty way of speaking flipped completely after she entered high school.
In the end she shut her eyes and ears, poured everything into studying, and entered the university and major she had always wanted—at the top of her class.
She had thought she would finally be free to make friends and date.
What came back instead was desire and leering that only grew worse under the excuse of being a twenty-year-old adult, and jealousy and envy that swelled in exact proportion to that attention.
Ah. So that’s how it is.
Yuna had no choice but to understand.
The ordinary human relationships she had wanted so badly were something she would never be able to have.
She turned down every scout from the entertainment industry, hated the idea of strutting around as some kind of celebrity, and never even opened social media. None of it made a difference.
After that she decided she didn’t need friends or a boyfriend. She opened an SNS account purely for the money.
A few photos later the follower count exploded, ads poured in on their own, and the malicious messages arrived right on schedule.
She stared emptily at the full bank balance, then ordered chicken with her parents that night.
Yuna, honey. Don’t you need any luxury brands or anything?
Mom. I already told you I hate that stuff.
Still… having at least one would help you hold your head up around the other kids.
…No. I’m fine.
Instead she bought her parents expensive things by the armful. The two of them—ordinary small-business owners—had fretted over the cost, but even that had felt good, so she didn’t mind.
That was when she finally thought she had figured out how to live happily…
“Yuna! Run! Run, damn it!”
The world ended. Overnight. In an instant.
“Daaaad!”
She had screamed through a vision blurred by tears, but her father had given his life in place of her and her mother.
Thanks to him the two of them had miraculously made it home through the nightmare of a zombie-filled commute. They survived on one meal a day, but no rescue ever came—only more zombies gathering around the house with every passing day.
Then, on the exact one-week mark, the day that nightmare mummy showed itself again—
With no sign of improvement, Yuna and her mother made their decision. Dragging their ruined bodies and hearts, they gambled the single life they had left.
They had no courage at all to face the black-slavering teeth lunging at them, but they couldn’t just die like this either.
Somehow, step by step, they covered the few hundred meters to the department store. It took an entire day, but they finally arrived.
‘….’
There was no joy. Only despair and pain as she dropped to her knees in front of the main entrance and wept.
“Mom… Mom…”
A dog zombie had burst out of an alley. It was no bigger than her knee and half-starved, but the mother and daughter had been even hungrier and thinner. They never stood a chance.
Mom’s fine. Yuna, go. Hurry.
Go! Now! Go!
Until the people inside the department store dragged her in, Yuna had cried through the entire night.
In the end she had lost even the family she thought was everything.
There was no meaning left in living, no reason left to try.
And the men who still shoved their desire at her even when she was filthy and disheveled, the women who still showed their envy without fail—everything made her sick.
…I’m tired. Now. I just want it all to end.
In the second-floor lounge she had been half-dragged to because of the “nice view,” sitting still while men surrounded her, Yuna thought exactly that.
Our daughter really has a gift for cooking. How is this so good?
Haha. I think she’s better than her mother with decades of experience. Right, honey? …Honey? What do you mean by that? It was just a joke—aaagh!
Sniffle.
Whether the men beside her were talking or not, she paid them no mind. She wiped at her tears again and muttered under her breath.
“Still… there were so many dishes I wanted to cook…”
“Is that true?”
The voice that suddenly stabbed into her ear made her flinch and lift her head.
At the same time every man around her who had been swaggering and showing off shrank into silence.
They hurriedly cleared the path they had been using to wall her in, and two men walked through the gap.
“You’re really a culinary major?”
“That’s what I said. Even as a freshman she’s long since mastered every standard Korean, Chinese, and Japanese menu. Top of her department, I hear.”
“…Oh ho.”
Her eyes met those of the rude man speaking casually beside the department-store leader, Do Wangu.
“The real talent to entrust the kitchen to was right here all along.”
He approached with a full smile the way every man she had ever known did—
yet somehow that smile felt different from the ones around her.
Not lecherous so much as…
pleased?