Barefoot Into the Demon King's Castle
There was no way I could walk into the Demon King's castle barefoot, after all.
Lee Suho came up to me and asked, in a tone like he was scolding me.
"Noona, why are you barefoot? I told them to have shoes made to fit you, too??"
"Hm? I'm about to drive — I can't exactly do that in heels, can I..?"
"Really? Then where did you put your shoes?"
"Hold on.."
I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned over toward the passenger seat to search, but they weren't there.
"Where did they go.."
Did Ms. Yeji stash them in there because they kept getting under her feet?
—BANG!
Just as I lifted my hips to dig a little deeper, half-sucked into the passenger-side footwell, the driver's door suddenly slammed shut with a thunderous crack.
"Hey?! Why are you slamming my door around?!"
"I...! Haah... forget it."
"Like hell 'forget it'! You're going to break my car door clean off!"
For reasons I couldn't begin to fathom, Suho's cheeks had flared scarlet and Ms. Yeji was snickering beside us — none of which made any sense — but I was too busy being furious at Suho for manhandling a car that had cost me several months' worth of paychecks.
"Uh... okay. That part I'm sorry for... but still, Noona, you're a little..."
"What about me? Trying to pin this on me again?"
"...No. I'm sorry."
"There. See how easy it is to just apologize? Don't let it happen again."
"Understood, Noona."
It was an old car I'd bought secondhand to begin with, so it wasn't the end of the world — but it stung all the same.
Having gently talked down Suho, who kept trying to wedge excuses in between his apologies, I searched the car high and low, but the heels were simply gone.
Then, just as I opened the door, resolving to ask Ms. Yeji instead, there they were — the very heels I'd been hunting for, sitting right outside it.
"Actually, I had them the whole time... I wanted to watch you two film your little sitcom."
"What? Thanks to you, Ms. Yeji, my car door nearly got smashed to pieces..."
"Well, I'm sure you enjoyed the show regardless, CEO?"
I had no idea what Ms. Yeji was getting at, but at her words Suho shook his head, crouched down slightly in front of me, and looked up into my face.
"No idea what you mean... Noona, give me your left foot first. I'll put them on for you."
"What is with this kid? I'll put them on myself. Just pick them up for me."
I bent forward a little to grab the heels off the ground, but Suho pressed a light hand to my forehead and stopped me.
"Why..?"
"There's a reason for everything. Foot first, please."
I flinched hard when his hand closed firmly around the foot I'd tentatively extended, but I swallowed and stared back at him as if nothing had happened.
After receiving his touch as he eased the heel onto my foot the way one might handle some priceless treasure, I adopted a whatever-will-be-will-be attitude and held out my right foot as well.
"Thanks.."
"Don't mention it. Come on, out you get, Noona."
I took his offered hand and stepped out of the car.
Going straight from bare feet to heels, I wobbled — as if the sure-footed stride I'd had earlier, escorting Ms. Yeji into the elevator, had been nothing but a dream — and I leaned into Suho, half toppling into his arms.
"Ah — sorry! Heavy, isn't it? Sorry, sorry. I'm just not used to it yet."
"Hm... no. Um... stand up straight, please."
I patted the shoulder of a visibly unimpressed Suho, slipped my hand free of his, and tried to walk slowly toward the building — but my feet, apparently, hadn't gotten the memo.
Perhaps I looked as unsteady as I felt, because Suho, standing at my left, braced my waist with his arm and clasped my right hand firmly in his.
"Noona. Let's just walk in like this."
"Mm-hmm. But doesn't this make it awkward to walk? Doesn't your arm hurt?"
"Then shall we just hold hands instead?"
"S... sure."
The arm resting against my back trembled in the strangest way, and a feeling I couldn't place — half grating, half ticklish — kept nagging at me.
When I asked whether he wasn't the uncomfortable one, he thankfully suggested we switch to just holding hands, and I couldn't have been more grateful.
He seemed about to do exactly as I'd asked, so I clamped my left hand around the arm that was slithering free like a snake climbing a tree.
I must have gripped too hard, because his hand flinched — and when I stole a curious glance at him, a smile was blooming all over his face.
He was obviously up to something.
"What are you plotting now? What's your angle, smirking to yourself like that?"
"Nothing at all. You're going to post an announcement, right? I figured the laptop was the most urgent thing, so I had your old landlord send it over. The internet's already hooked up... That's all right, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
The laptop was all I needed. All my old drafts and files were on it anyway, so there was nothing else I required.
The moment we stepped into the lobby, several people seated at the front desk rose to their feet and stared at us.
"Noona, one moment."
Leaving Ms. Yeji and me behind, Suho went ahead to the front desk and murmured something or other under his breath.
Why is that boy so full of secrets? I can't make out a word he's saying.
"Oh my! It was real? How wonderful!!"
"Kyaa!! Congratulations~"
I had no clue what he'd told them, but the two women who appeared to be front-desk staff were clapping and cheering their heads off.
What is with them..?
"Do you know what's gotten into them, Ms. Yeji?"
"I have a guess or two, but I'm sure the CEO will explain himself?"
"Seriously? Am I the only one out of the loop..? Ugh, my ankle's killing me."
"Just bear with it a little longer. I'll look for a pair of slippers to lend you once we're upstairs."
My ankle throbbed fiercely — probably from all that lopsided leaning on Suho.
Suho came walking back slowly from the front desk with something in hand and held it out to me. It looked like a name tag, the same make as the employee ID I'd seen Ms. Yeji wearing at the company entrance, so I took it for a visitor's pass.
Deciding to examine it later, I hung it loosely around my neck and once again walked slowly along, leaning on the hand he quietly offered.
When the front-desk staff rose and bowed politely to me, I nodded in return — and Lee Suho, who had been quietly watching me do it, spoke up once more.
"Noona. You're not even going to check what that is?"
"It's a visitor's pass, obviously. Come on, let's hurry — Ms. Yeji says she'll get my slippers ready!"
"Really? That's good to hear."
Once we were inside the elevator, Suho tapped his card just beneath the button panel and pressed 15.
"Why are we going all the way up there?"
"Wouldn't it be better for you to sit down in my office first?"
"Fair. Can't argue with that."
The rising elevator felt fast and yet, somehow, unexpectedly slow. Realizing that the car, only just now passing the sixth floor, was still a long way from our destination, I lifted the visitor's pass he'd given me to have a proper look at it.
The photo on the name tag seemed to be one Ms. Yeji had taken back at Suho's place under the pretense of capturing my outfit — me, in the very clothes I had on now, wearing a dazed expression. This was not what I'd imagined a visitor's pass looked like.
Hold on. This isn't a visitor's pass...
"Hey. Lee Suho."
My head, which had been bowed to study the thing, swung toward the source of the problem.
"Yes? Ah — ah. Yes."
Lee Suho, who until that moment had been watching nothing but the climbing floor numbers, glanced over at my call and answered with the air of a man who knew exactly what was coming.
"Something's off about what this says, isn't it?"
Turning my visitor's pass — no, my employee ID — over in his hands as though genuinely baffled, Lee Suho looked me dead in the eye and asked,
"No, it came out perfectly. I told them to rush it as much as they could and double-checked it any number of times. What's wrong with it?"
This little punk knows exactly what the problem is and is playing dumb.
"What? Hey — why is this an employee ID and not a visitor's pass?!"
"So you can come and go as you please, Noona. You're not thinking of running away, so I'm going to let you free-range. I also just told the front desk to link your car registration to your employee profile."
"Hey... hey! You...! Haah..."
— Fifteenth floor.
— The doors are opening.
I tried to press him further, but the familiar elevator announcement — some noona's recorded voice — cut me off. There was no telling who might be waiting on the other side.
Unable to finish what I'd meant to say, I heaved a sigh and clamped my mouth shut, at which point Suho extended his hand.
"After you, Noona."
The instant I reached for his hand, a strange sense of déjà vu washed over me. Getting out of the car. Getting out of the elevator. Lee Suho, stepping down first and offering his hand — it all felt like something I'd seen somewhere before.
"Aren't you getting off? The door's about to close."
"Huh? Oh — okay..."
I took the hand Lee Suho held out and stepped off. I didn't actually need to take it, but leaving it hanging there seemed cruel... There was no other meaning to it. None at all.
"Noona."
"Wha—?!"
Suho, who had steered me — lost in my own little world for who knows how long — to a stop in front of a door, called out to me.
"Wh... what?"
He studied my startled face — I must have looked like a kid caught red-handed mid-prank — then opened the door.
"Here. From now on, whenever you have reason to come to the company, Noona, this is where you come."
To anyone with eyes, the nameplate on the desk was announcing loud and clear that this was no place for me. Written in dazzling multicolored letters on jet-black stone, it seemed to glare at me, eyes bulging, for daring to set foot here.
Frozen by that silent rebuke, I stood rooted just inside the doorway — but Lee Suho kept right on pulling me forward by the hand.
Wouldn't "Demon King Suho" suit him better than "CEO Suho"..?
Still entertaining such idle thoughts, I let his hand lead me into the room — and was greeted by an office that was, unexpectedly, not all that luxurious.
The study was crammed with books on life and genetics that I doubted anyone actually read, and dozens of what looked like work files were stored there — telling me that even if this place hadn't existed for long, it had already weathered a great deal.
"Hmm... your taste in interior design is a total bust, isn't it?"
"Then the noona with such a great eye can decorate my place and this office too. Problem solved."
"Um... the house, maybe, but this doesn't exactly seem like somewhere I'm allowed to lay a finger on?"
I'd meant it as a teasing joke, but flustered by how instantly he fired back, I waved my hands in refusal — and still the Demon King had no intention of letting me go.
"So you will be doing the house, then. Wonderful."
Ah. I tried to rein it in again. And got reeled right back in.
Blame it on lingering in this place, steeped to the brim in demonic energy — it had thrown off my judgment. I like to think I have a decent eye for these things; I should have just insisted my hands were another matter entirely...