Chapter 151
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 151
That was the thing about work.
If you couldn’t finish your assigned tasks, you couldn’t rest even after leaving the office.
Back home, Dokyun hammered away at his laptop, muttering a string of curses under his breath.
Fuck.
It was Jeong Myeong-dae again. Just as he was about to leave for the day, Myeong-dae had gone and caused trouble.
How the fuck… with the client… that fucking idiot… fuck.
The situation was so infuriating that the word ‘fuck’ punctuated his every thought.
The worst junior colleague in history, Mr. Jeong Myeong-dae, had struck again. With the client meeting just a day away, he had managed to lose every single one of the necessary documents.
Naturally, cleaning up the mess had become his responsibility, and this was the result: fiddling with paperwork even after coming home.
As fury churned within him, Dokyun had a thought that felt less like a guess and more like a prophecy.
A prophecy that he might just stab Myeong-dae with a knife one of these days.
As he was sighing and working on the documents, a voice spoke up.
“You should have just quit when you had the chance.”
It was Eun-seol. At her words, Dokyun turned his head toward her, where she had been sipping her drink beside him.
“…I know. I don’t know what kind of glory I’m chasing, slaving away like this.”
It was a complaint laced with a sigh. Eun-seol clicked her tongue at him, then her gaze fell on the document Dokyun was drafting, and she flinched.
“…A client meeting?”
“Ah, yes.”
Dokyun tilted his head at Eun-seol’s sudden change in expression and answered.
“The meeting’s tomorrow, but my junior lost all the paperwork. I guess I’ll have to pull an all-nighter.”
It was a true blessing that Eun-seol was the one here on a day like this. If it had been Eun-ah, he would have felt too guilty leaving her alone to focus on his work.
As Dokyun let out a deep sigh, thinking it was a silver lining in this mess, Eun-seol, who had been staring at the document with her lips pressed tight, finally spoke.
“Delete numbers 3 and 7.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, delete them.”
What is she talking about now? Dokyun tilted his head, and Eun-seol, meeting his gaze, gestured toward the laptop with her chin and continued.
“I know the company. Clauses 3 and 7. They’ll have a fit if they see those.”
“Huh? How do you know this company, Ms. Eun-seol?”
A question bloomed in Dokyun’s mind.
The contract he was drafting was for a deal with a company in the semiconductor industry, where he worked.
In other words, it had no connection to Eun-seol, who ran a department store.
His suspicion grew as he looked at her. Eun-seol remained silent for a moment before finally answering his unspoken question.
“…Their CEO is one of our VIPs. I’ve met him a few times.”
“Oh.”
“Move aside. I think I can help.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“Whatever. If you’re so grateful, go clean up the toys in the bedroom. Why haven’t you cleaned those up yet, anyway?”
Dokyun flinched. His body tensed at her words, and his mouth clamped shut.
The toys. She was talking about the adult toys scattered around the bedroom.
Faced with her reprimand, Dokyun couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘They’re things we use every day, so I couldn’t be bothered to clean them up.’
All he could do was get up and walk toward the bedroom. That was it.
*
“Well, I’m off.”
“Alright. Buy some more liquor on your way back. We’re almost out.”
“Ah, yes.”
Dokyun caught the card she tossed him. He watched Eun-seol turn and go back inside, then suddenly remembered the contract she had revised the night before.
When he had come out after cleaning the bedroom, the contract had been transformed into something so brilliant it deserved a round of applause.
He wasn't just saying that; it was so masterfully done that he wondered if an actual executive from that company had come and edited it.
That’s how contracts worked, wasn’t it? You had to pursue practical benefits while minimizing any potential emotional friction between the parties.
What Eun-seol had fixed were precisely those clauses that had the potential for ‘emotional friction.’
A VIP, she said?
It seemed she knew the company quite well. She had gone through the clauses he had hesitated over, advising him on what to cut and what to add.
So this is what connections are like.
He’d forgotten, since she’d only been showing her drunkard side lately, that she was the businesswoman who had built a department store from the ground up.
A small smile escaped him at the thought. I should pick up some snacks to go with the drinks on my way back, Dokyun thought as he turned to leave.
After a long drive, Dokyun arrived in the heart of the city.
The meeting was scheduled for early in the morning, so he had come straight to the location instead of going to the office first.
Dokyun entered a downtown café, ordered a coffee, and sat down to give the documents one last look.
“Sorry, I’m a little late.”
A voice came from behind him.
It was a woman’s voice, tinged with a slight smile.
Assuming it was the employee from the client company, Dokyun turned his head.
“Ah, it’s a pleasure to…”
He froze at the sight of the person before him.
“Long time no see?”
Reflected in his eyes was his ex-girlfriend from a time long past, Dan Ji-woo.
*
That was the thing about college.
When a bunch of youths in their early twenties, full of vigor and savoring their freedom, were all gathered in one place, sparks were bound to fly.
Kids, clumsily pretending to be adults, posturing to hide their own immaturity.
…He, too, had been one of those clumsy kids back then.
A kid from a hick town in the mountains of Gangwon Province. A kid who, after hearing he was pretty smart in his small-town school, had come to Seoul full of himself.
A foolish kid who pretended to worry about the future, pretended to work hard for his prospects, all while rationalizing that networking was a part of his resume and busying himself with having fun.
A kid who felt needlessly intimidated by genuinely mature people, yet comforted himself by trying to rationalize that, deep down, they were all just the same kind of bastards.
It was during that clumsy time, right after he’d been discharged from the military and felt like the world was his, that Dokyun had met her.
There was no grand event that led to them dating.
It all started at a class MT in the spring. They just happened to be sitting next to each other.
Aided by alcohol, they had naturally struck up a conversation, naturally grown closer, and naturally started dating. That was the kind of relationship it was.
Throughout their time together, he had found himself affirming things with an ‘I see,’ rather than questioning them with a ‘Why?’
Emotion took precedence over reason; he accepted things rather than trying to understand them.
It was simply because he liked her. Because the smile directed at him and the soft hand he held for the first time in his life churned his insides and made his head spin. Like so many others, he’d had that kind of clumsy first love.
And so, for a period of about three years—a length of time one could hardly call short, even as a joke—Dokyun didn’t really know her. And she didn’t really know him.
That was why they broke up.
She had cited his online community activities as the reason, but Dokyun knew better now.
Neither of them had been in love with the other. They had been in love with themselves, standing in the midst of their youth.
And so, the longer the relationship went on, the more exhausted they became.
That relationship would have ended one way or another, even if she had never found out about his online activities.
Now, it was a memory he could talk about with a smile, but…
So this is how it turns out.
Fate, in its own cruel way, was shoving that clumsy past right back in his face.
Well, when he thought about it, a reunion like this wasn't so strange.
They had been in the same department at the same university. The career paths available were all more or less the same, so it was possible for their different roads to cross like this eventually.
Dokyun looked at his ex-girlfriend, Ji-woo, who was sitting across from him, sipping her coffee.
“You got old.”
“Look who’s talking.”
The sharp banter began as soon as she sat down. It was a familiar feeling after a long time.
It had been almost seven years since he’d last seen her face.
The fresh, youthful vibe was gone. She now exuded a more mature air, having settled into the working world.
It felt a little like looking at a different person, but some things hadn’t changed. The sharp bob haircut, her tall stature for a woman, the fierce first impression she gave—those were the same.
Dokyun felt a strange mix of emotions seeing her after so long, but he quickly brushed them aside with a small smile and pushed the documents he had prepared across the table.
“Wow, straight to business? You’re cold.”
“What do you expect? We’re here for work, so we should start with work.”
Dokyun replied, his tone full of amusement.
It was a meeting with a person who stirred up nostalgia, but that was all. Too much time had passed to dredge up any lingering feelings of affection.
Besides, he had someone he loved now, which was why he could be so calm upon seeing her again.
At Dokyun’s response, Ji-woo looked at him for a moment before turning her gaze to the documents.
She accepted his point quickly, even as she chided him.
This, too, was something that hadn’t changed about her, and it was probably why the two of them, despite not knowing each other well, had been able to date for so long.
Both he and she were people who could be ruthlessly pragmatic when it came to their interests.
“Wow, you did a good job for once. This might get approved right away.”
Ji-woo remarked as she read through the documents.
At her words, Dokyun felt another surge of gratitude for Eun-seol, who had revised them, and replied.
“Well, thaaanks for the compliment.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Ji-woo shrugged and gathered the documents. “Well, we’ve got some time. Want to grab a bite before we head in?”
“Aren’t you going to the office?”
“I’m out of the office for once. This is the perfect time to slack off.”
“Well then… you know a good place? I don’t know this area well.”
“Is a baekban place okay?”
“Sure, baekban it is.”
The conversation flowed quickly. There was no reason to get emotional or put up walls.
They were strangers now, each going their own way, so a meeting like this could be handled smoothly.
Dokyun gathered his things from the table and stood up.
“Alright, lead the way. Let’s see how great this place is.”
“Oh, listen to you.”
He replied with a laugh, and a playful smile spread across Dokyun’s own lips.
*
“I’m back.”
“Good work.”
Dokyun returned home and handed the liquor to Eun-seol as he spoke.
“Ah, thank you for today. Thanks to you, everything went well.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Dokyun chuckled at the sight of Eun-seol immediately opening the bottle she’d just received. He took off his bag and continued.
“Oh, at the client meeting today.”
“Hm?”
“My ex-girlfriend showed up. Turns out she works there.”
His voice was still full of amusement. At his words, Eun-seol stopped dead in her tracks and stared at Dokyun.
“…Is that so?”
“Yeah. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
Eun-seol’s eyes narrowed.
A red alert went off in her head.
Feeling the warning lights in her mind flash like crazy, Eun-seol stared at the chuckling Dokyun.
“Hm, yes. How strange.”
“Oh, right. I bought some snacks. Do you want some now?”
“Get them ready. I’m just going to my room for a second.”
“Okay.”
Eun-seol hurried to her room, a cold sweat trickling down her back.
From Dokyun’s perspective, he thought he could laugh it off since he was talking to Eun-seol, but there was something he had overlooked.
Eun-seol was Eun-ah’s alternate personality.
Which meant that anything Eun-ah hadn’t experienced, Eun-seol hadn’t experienced either.
In other words, Eun-seol had no dating experience. She had learned about romance from books.
Furthermore, most of the books Eun-seol read were either works of philosophy or classic literature where infidelity was a staple plot device.
Eun-seol rushed into her room and pulled out the notebook hidden in a corner, the one used for communication between the personalities.
Scribbling furiously with the pen, Eun-seol had a single thought.
—State of Emergency.
This was a moment that called for collective intelligence.