Chapter 138
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 138
Over the next three days, Harim and Eun-ah’s relationship began to progress. That is to say, Eun-ah started to feel a sense of closeness to Harim.
“M-Ms. Harim.”
“Yes, President.”
“H-Here, have this…”
Harim tilted her head at the cookie Eun-ah shyly offered, then accepted it with a bright smile.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Y-Yeah… You’re always working so hard.”
Watching Eun-ah blush as she spoke, Harim felt a wave of awkwardness rise within her.
She’s so different.
She was so unlike the President Harim was used to serving that it felt alien.
Even though they had the exact same face, the disconnect from her behavior and style of dress was so jarring that I just couldn't see them as the same person, no matter how hard I tried.
Harim glanced down at the cookie Eun-ah had given her.
It was a cookie, neatly wrapped in plastic.
“Did you make this yourself?”
“Yesss…”
A small nod. Harim’s body flinched.
Don’t tell me…
Her eyes narrowed, glaring at the cookie.
Is there cilantro in it?
In a way, it was a natural suspicion. The President’s bizarre culinary tastes were impossible to be unaware of, so it was only natural for that thought to be the first to pop into her head.
Thus, rather than eating the cookie right away, Harim chose to put on a smile and tuck it away.
“My, what a precious gift. I’ll be sure to save it and eat it at home.”
“Hehe…”
That giggle sounded again.
Harim felt a warmth spread somewhere deep inside her and let out a small laugh of her own.
“Well then, shall we get back to work?”
“Yes, yesss…!”
Harim sat down and watched Eun-ah quietly as she began looking over the documents, her thoughts continuing.
When it came to processing work, she was truly astounding. Just as ‘the President’ had once told her, her level of thinking was far beyond the realm of an ordinary person.
This was a woman who looked like she’d never touched this kind of work in her life, yet if you gave her just a few keywords, she would assemble them on her own and produce conclusions you could never have imagined.
What’s more, every method she came up with resulted in a net benefit for the company.
Suddenly, a conversation Harim had with ‘the President’ came to mind.
-President, what if the core President isn’t good at her job? Won’t we all end up on the street?
-Don’t be ridiculous.
The President at the time had chuckled and dismissed her worries with her characteristic, confident tone.
-Her failing at anything that requires using her head? That’ll be the day the world actually ends.
Looking back now, they were words she could deeply empathize with.
As long as this core President was running the department store, it seemed unlikely she would ever be unemployed.
As her thoughts continued, a sigh escaped Harim’s lips.
Everything is great, but…
Yes, that part was great. There was just one problem: that blasted silly streak of hers.
Harim’s eyes narrowed as she watched Eun-ah, who had already finished a few more documents and was now starting to doodle on a blank sheet of paper.
She was giggling to herself while drawing a honeybee in the corner of a blank A4 sheet.
Judging by the nickname she’d heard so often, that honeybee had to represent the man who wasn’t currently here.
“Hehe…”
Like some young girl experiencing her first love…
…No, when you think about it, I guess it is her first love.
Seeing her grin like that, radiating the aura of a girl who’d fallen in love for the first time, drove me so crazy I felt like banging my head against the wall.
Harim suppressed her rising anger, forced a smile, and spoke to Eun-ah.
“You must like him a lot, huh?”
It was a comment meant to imply, Stop messing around and get back to work.
However.
“Y-Yes…! I like him the most in the whole w-world…!”
The response was another public display of affection that felt like a personal attack.
Harim felt her mind go blank and squeezed her eyes shut.
“I-I see…”
“Mhm… Mr. H-Honeybee is kind… and c-cool…”
Hehe. That giggle made the back of her neck tense up.
“And h-handsome…”
Harim watched Eun-ah color in the honeybee, her voice thick with shyness.
Ah, so that’s what they call love goggles.
President… I don’t think he’s all that…
The words remained unspoken.
The man was, well, decent-looking enough… but honestly, to hear such words from a woman who could probably charm famous actors if she wanted to, it could only be seen as a classic case of love goggles.
As she was lost in thought, it hit her.
Wait, it’s not my place to meddle in someone else’s love life.
Harim once again remembered her station and shook her head.
Her gaze drifted blankly toward the ceiling.
Ah… I want to date someone, too.
Suddenly, the thought crossed her mind: What if I die old and alone?
*
The very next day, Harim felt her head spin at the festival of lovey-dovey nonsense unfolding before her eyes.
The two of them were sitting close together on the office sofa, trying on sample animal-ear headbands for an upcoming event.
“M-Mr. Honeybee, you’re so cute…!”
“Aw, hearing that from you is making me blush, Eun-ah.”
“Hehe…”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see, but their voices still reached her ears. She tried to block her ears, but their laughter seeped through, making her blood boil.
She had thought if she just left them alone, they would eventually cool down, but it was time to admit it.
Those two… they won’t stop on their own!
She had to do something. This wasn’t about trying to break them up.
The time had come to take measures to ensure they couldn’t act like this, at least not during work hours, not in front of her.
This wasn’t just for her own sake. They were dragging out work that the original President would have finished in a day into a two-day affair because they were too busy being cute with each other.
Going by her abilities alone, this was a woman who could have finished everything in half a day. But she was so distracted by her little romance that the work had piled up significantly.
Harim glared at the two of them, her eyes wide.
She had to devise a plan.
Her mind raced, pulling up countless methods and discarding them just as quickly.
Drive a wedge between them? No, that’s going too far… Drop hints to get the man to leave? But then the President will just get gloomy…
Her thoughts moved rapidly.
After a moment, Harim came up with a rather decent idea.
What about this…?
A smile crept onto her lips.
Harim quickly suppressed her grin, stood up from her seat, and spoke.
“Alright, it’s time to work now. Mr. Dokyun, would you mind stepping out for a bit?”
“Ah, yes. See you in a bit, Eun-ah.”
“Ah, uhh…”
Eun-ah’s eyes welled up with tears.
Dokyun, giving a troubled smile, planted a kiss on Eun-ah’s forehead. Harim squeezed her eyes shut at the ‘mwah’ sound and only opened them after Dokyun had left.
In her line of sight was Eun-ah, her lower lip stuck out in a prominent pout.
Harim let out a disbelieving scoff, then composed herself and approached Eun-ah’s side.
“President, here are the documents that need your approval today.”
“Ah, yesss…”
She looked utterly pitiful as she listlessly flipped through the papers.
It seemed like she was only skimming them, but… her eyes were still darting around busily, so it seemed Harim’s concern was misplaced.
Harim watched Eun-ah work for a moment before carefully speaking.
“You two seem to have a wonderful relationship.”
“Yesss?”
“You and Mr. Dokyun.”
The moment she spoke, Eun-ah’s face turned beet red.
“Y-Yeah…” she mumbled in reply.
Steeling herself once again, Harim continued, her tone now laced with worry.
“But… I’m a little concerned.”
“A-About what?”
“You know how it is, right? The more passionately a love burns, the faster it burns out… I’m sure it won’t happen, but I can’t help but worry a little.”
Thump.
Eun-ah’s body trembled. Her pupils shook as if an earthquake had struck.
After a moment of anxiety, Eun-ah spoke to Harim in a tearful voice.
“N-No, that can’t be… Th-That can’t happen…”
Watching her, Harim smiled inwardly. She moved closer to Eun-ah and continued in a suggestive tone.
“That’s why, President. How about you try playing a little push-and-pull?”
Push-and-pull.
That was the method Harim had come up with.
To teach her to spend a little time apart rather than always clinging to him.
In a way, it was deceitful, but she felt no guilt. Wasn’t this a good thing for Eun-ah, too?
That’s right! See? I’m even helping her show off her other charms! Where else would she find a subordinate as good as me?
It was a thought process that bordered on pure self-justification, but to Harim, that wasn’t important.
Right now, the only thing on Harim’s mind was her desire to separate the pair of cockroaches who were constantly clinging to each other and disturbing her peace.
She wasn’t worried that Eun-ah wouldn’t fall for it.
Separate from her brilliant mind, it was obvious that the core President, likely due to her silly streak, didn’t know how to doubt what others told her.
At Harim’s words, Eun-ah blinked and asked a question.
“P-Push-and-pull…?”
“Yes! Push-and-pull.”
Seeing Eun-ah tilt her head in confusion, Harim quickly added an explanation.
“Instead of you always clinging to him, you make him the one who gets desperate for you! Now, just imagine it! You, President, sipping your coffee aloofly, not giving Mr. Dokyun a single glance! And there’s Mr. Dokyun, getting anxious and desperate, sneaking glances at you!”
Seeing Eun-ah’s mouth fall open with a blank expression, Harim continued with even more passion.
“After a while of that, Mr. Dokyun can’t stand you ignoring him anymore and starts clinging to you! Begging you to please look at him! That he can’t live without you!”
As she spoke, a blush began to bloom across Eun-ah’s face.
“Heeheehee…”
Her eyes were closed as if she were imagining the scene, her expression looking strangely lecherous.
Harim flinched but, thinking, Is this working?, she added more.
“A-And then! Mr. Dokyun says it with tears streaming down his face! ‘Eun-ah! I’ll be your slave if you’ll just look at me one time!’”
“S-Slave…!”
Suddenly, Eun-ah started squirming. Her face was as red as it could possibly get, and her throat bobbed as she gulped repeatedly.
Harim felt a jolt of fear at the sight, but she pushed down her rising anxiety and continued.
“Y-Yeah, like that! Just! You know?! Do this! And do that!”
As she said this and gave a thumbs-up, Eun-ah, whose eyes now held a dangerous glint, nodded her head.
“Y-Yeah…!”
She clenched both fists, hardening her resolve.
At that, Harim thought, Is this really the right way to go about this? but she pushed aside her unease and, with a feeling of Ah, screw it, she finished her speech.
“So… you see? President. This is the moment you must choose to push Mr. Dokyun away in order to conquer him!”
“C-Conquer…!”
For a second, Harim felt like she saw sparks fly from Eun-ah’s eyes.
“I-I’ll do my best…!”
She was full of motivation. Feeling that something was going terribly wrong, Harim could only respond with an awkward smile and a nod.
*
Much later, after work was finished, Dokyun returned to the office and saw two pairs of eyes on him. He smiled at Eun-ah and spoke.
“You worked hard today, too.”
“Y-Yeah! You too, you worked ha—.”
Thump.
Eun-ah, who had been about to start whining, stopped mid-sentence.
She glanced back and forth between Harim and Dokyun, then her expression hardened slightly. She let out a loud “Ahem!” and strode right past him.
After reaching the office door, she saw Dokyun standing there blankly with his head tilted. Her expression grew anxious for a moment before she cleared her throat again.
“A-Ahem…!”
Dokyun watched Eun-ah repeatedly glance his way while clearing her throat.
Ah, she wants to roleplay.
That was the thought that came to his mind.
Whenever she wanted to have a different kind of night in bed, she would always act inexplicably like this, so this time must be the same.
Having finished his analysis of Eun-ah’s behavior, Dokyun let out a small smile. He gave Harim a slight bow and then approached Eun-ah.
“Well, shall we go now?”
When Dokyun extended his hand with a smiling face, Eun-ah stared at it for a moment, the corners of her mouth twitching, before she took it.
“A-Ahem…!”
A belated cough.
Clasping Dokyun’s hand, Eun-ah looked back at Harim and gave her a thumbs-up behind her back.
As for Harim… all she could do was let out a hollow laugh.
A single thought filled her mind.
What the fuck kind of push-and-pull is that?
There were two things Harim had overlooked.
First, Eun-ah was a person who was so honest about her desires that she was utterly incapable of hiding her true feelings.
Second, when it came to Eun-ah’s behavioral patterns, Dokyun was the world’s foremost expert.
It was truly unfortunate for Harim… but in Dokyun’s eyes, Eun-ah’s behavior looked like nothing more than her being excited to roll around in bed.