Chapter 66

I spent a long time searching the house for Yang Hye-in. Met with nothing but silence from the staff, I finally accepted that she had quit, went back up to my room, and lay down on the bed.

Another servant would come eventually. That person wouldn't be Yang Hye-in, of course. Maybe they'd be warmer than her, maybe more cold and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠distant. If they were warm, they'd probably get replaced faster than she had been. If they were cold, they might last longer.

Now that I thought about it, Yang Hye-in had leaned toward the "cold and distant" type. Most of the time, she'd been strictly business, doing only her assigned tasks. It was only very recently that she'd started talking to me, giving answers I hadn't expected.

Yeah, she'd seemed far less composed than usual today. If finding the pills and the will was what had set her off, it made a kind of sense.

"......."

The large room was silent.

Truth be told, it had been silent for more than two months. The only time it had gotten a little noisy was these past few days, when my friends had come and gone.

Strange, when I thought about it. We'd only known each other for a little over a week.

Was this normal?

Well, I used to crowd into a friend's house with a bunch of other friends right at the start of a semester. Though, even then, I hadn't gone to the house of someone I'd met just a week ago. But then again, the way girls thought about things and the way guys thought about things might be a little different.

I tossed and turned in that silence for a long time. Night was still hours away, but I had nothing else to do anyway.

Without Yang Hye-in, I didn't know where my phone was, or my wallet. Someone must have been handed responsibility for those things, but among the staff currently in the house, not a single one would speak to me.

If I threatened them, they'd answer. But could you call that a conversation?

There was no one on my side inside this mansion.

The staff had just witnessed the highest-ranking person here, aside from me, the actual owner, get fired. They would only try harder to avoid losing their own jobs.

I didn't think everyone working here was paid as much as Yang Hye-in. But even so, they clearly received a very large sum of money to keep quiet.

They wouldn't want to give that up easily.

"......Should I just buy them off with money?"

The thought crossed my mind, but I dismissed it.

Rescuing someone crushed under a mountain of debt was the easy part. As Team Leader Han Ga-ram had said, there was a limit to how much an individual could borrow. Even if you maxed out every legitimate bank and then turned to loan sharks, it was the same.

For an individual to end up with tens of billions in debt; that wasn't something that happened easily.

That reminded me of a drama. A show that gathered up a crowd of people buried in debt and made them compete in deadly games for a prize of forty-something billion won.

Those people, whose lives had been ruined by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠debt, mostly owed hundreds of millions, maybe a few billion at most.

......Thinking about it that way suddenly made it all feel incredibly hollow.

Because that forty-something billion was money I could generate in less than a year.

Money makes money. Someone with a lot of money naturally ends up with even more.

That was why I didn't have to just stand there and watch the people around me go bankrupt under crushing debt.

But that was as far as it went. Just as a lot of money could rescue someone who had less, it was hard to use that same money to beat someone who might have even more.

Fighting Choi Na-kyung with all my trust assets combined would be stupid. I didn't know precisely what cards she was holding, and I couldn't be the one to start the fight.

If you fight with money, the side that runs out first loses.

......It would be a long, tedious fight.

*

I must have dozed off while lying in bed staring up at the ceiling.

Knock, knock, knock. Someone was knocking at the door.

I opened my eyes and immediately frowned. I'd apparently fallen asleep with the lights on. The glare pouring down from the ceiling hit me the moment my eyes opened.

How many hours had I slept? Well, it didn't really matter. I'd fallen asleep on a Saturday afternoon, and the next day was Sunday. Even if I'd slept an entire day, it would still be early afternoon on Sunday.

Still, judging by the darkness outside the window, Sunday hadn't arrived yet.

Then again, what would anyone say even if I slept through to Monday? I could miss a few days of school and still get a perfect attendance award at graduation. For all I knew, I might not show up for a single day and still receive a perfectly valid diploma. Thinking about it that way made me want to test it out, just once.

Though the disciplinary committee member would hit the ceiling.

Knock, knock, knock. Once again, someone was knocking at the door.

Was it a servant bringing dinner?

Even if the staff wouldn't speak to me first, they couldn't just starve me to death. Wasn't I a being who received Choi Na-kyung's "love," however twisted it was?

I wasn't... hungry.

I considered just sending them away, but decided I would eat. I'd worked hard to increase my food intake, and now I could eat a little more than I could two months ago. I couldn't let that carefully expanded stomach shrink back down. It'd be a waste.

I'd keep exercising once I went back to school. Though, right at this moment, I had no idea what stories would follow me to school next week.

Knock, knock, knock.

The person on the other side was really something. The fact that they just kept knocking so rigidly meant they probably didn't have the authority to enter this room.

Now that I thought about it, was Yang Hye-in the only person who'd had access to this room?

It was ironic that the head was gone, yet there was no staff member to fill the vacancy. Maybe this was a deliberately engineered system of inconvenience. To show me, without a single word, "If you mouth off and lose a single employee, this is how uncomfortable and irrational things get"—that was a very Choi Na-kyung sort of idea, insidious and underhanded.

I'd only met her once so far, but wasn't first impressions a big deal? I'd just chalk this up to Choi Na-kyung reaping what she'd sown.

I got up from the bed and headed for the door. The knocking had stopped, but if the person had come to bring me a meal, they'd be waiting patiently outside.

Or maybe they'd just leave it in front of the door and go. Now that I thought about it, I didn't really know much about those people either.

I walked slowly to the door and opened it.

"What took you so long to open up?"

Shin So-hee, standing in the doorway, asked with a frown.

"......Huh?"

She was dressed in a matching sweatsuit, top and bottom, as if she was ready to dash out for a run at any second. It looked incredibly natural on her, but seeing her pop up here felt completely out of nowhere.

It should've been impossible for her to get in here unless I'd personally let her in.

"I'm coming in. My legs hurt from standing out there so long."

As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, Shin So-hee walked right past me and into the room.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on."

I shut the door and followed after her.

A storm of questions whirled through my head, and I didn't even know where to start.

Uh, so...

"How did you get in here?"

"Over the wall."

That's a crime!

Well, I supposed it wouldn't technically be a crime if I didn't press charges, but still, the wall here was fairly high. Different from the one behind the school. Not the sort of height you just scale with your bare hands.

And on top of that, Shin So-hee was carrying a big backpack. It looked stuffed full, bulging as if it was packed with gear.

"Oh, I used a ladder to get over. I had one at home."

...Did she just leave it there?

"Eh, if I buy another one later and stick it back, nobody'll notice."

"No, that's... is that what's important right now?"

As I mumbled in complete confusion, Shin So-hee just shrugged and set down the backpack she'd been carrying. The solid thud it made when it landed confirmed that it was, indeed, stuffed full.

The bag clearly broadcast her intention to stay here for days and nights.

"......You're planning to sleep over?"

"Huh? No?"

Shin So-hee tilted her head and answered my question as if I'd asked something strange.

"No?"

"I'm planning to live here for a while."

"......What?"

My expression went blank for a second.

"I said, I'm going to live here."

Shin So-hee repeated herself, her voice full of conviction. She spoke as if it were already a done deal.

"......Uh, so......."

I fumbled for words for a moment, then let out a long breath.

Well, knowing her personality, this was entirely possible.

She'd gotten a firsthand, skin-close look at the way I was living. She probably figured she had to help somehow. She wanted to help, wanted to break the hold of those grim feelings. That had to be why she'd secretly come all the way to my house like this.

"Well, I brought plenty of underwear, so no need to worry about that."

Shin So-hee nudged the bag on the floor with her toe as she spoke.

"No, that's not it. It seems like you don't understand the situation......"

The Chairwoman had seen the situation here firsthand and left. There was no way she'd let three people, Shin So-hee included, into this house. We might get away with hiding her for a day, but she couldn't prop a ladder against the wall and climb over every single day.

"Nope. I understand it perfectly well."

But Shin So-hee's answer blew far past my expectations.

"I heard your personal maid got fired."

"......Who'd you hear that from?"

"From that person herself. Yang Hye-in."

So that's where she'd disappeared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to. She'd been meeting with my friends. Had she asked them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to look after me, maybe?

......No. No way.

The will. The sleeping pills.

"Y—"

My eyes went wide and I opened my mouth, but Shin So-hee spoke before I could.

"So here's the thing. That 'personal maid' position—it's vacant right now, isn't it?"

Shin So-hee grinned at me, then continued.

"I've come for an interview. So? Think you might hire me?"

"Uh......"

My thoughts couldn't catch up with the speed of events unfolding in front of me.

"Uh, so—what did you say?"

That was all I could manage to ask in return.

"From what I hear."

Shin So-hee lifted her head and swept her gaze around my room.

"This house is 'your' house, right?"

It was. Technically, it was under Ye Sa-ra's name. And, at the moment, I was Ye Sa-ra.

"Then obviously, who gets to be here is your call, isn't it? Your opinion ought to carry more weight than whatever that chairwoman or whatever thinks. So that got me thinking."

Shin So-hee shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her sweatsuit, then leveled her gaze back at me.

And with a grin, she said,

"In that case—I thought, what if I convinced you to let me into this house as your person?"

There was no darkness in her expression. Not a trace.

"So? Any interest in hiring me?"

She asked me the question once more.

"Ah......."

I stood there blankly for a second, unable to give a proper reply.

"Yeah."

And then I nodded.

"Right?"

Shin So-hee answered and flashed me a grin.

"Oh, but by the way, how much are you going to pay me? Thinking about my plans, the pay would have to be pretty generous."

She instantly broached a starkly realistic subject.

"Ugh."

Seeing the instant 'fed up' look on my face, Shin So-hee let out a snicker.