A Surge of Confidence
The Genie's words only deepened my confusion. So what was this gynophobia of mine, really?
I asked him to explain in more detail, but the bastard groaned that all this talking had worn him out and he needed his sleep, and with that he went quiet inside my head. Still as willful as ever, that one.
With the Genie asleep, I lay there alone and thought it through. By his account, the important thing wasn't the gynophobia itself—that was merely my defense mechanism, and the real problem lived somewhere else entirely. Come to think of it, the doctor I'd seen years ago had said something much the same. Then what, exactly, was the real problem?
Leaning on Gayoon as an excuse no longer held water; just like everyone said, a very long time had in fact passed. It had been a full fifteen years, after all. And yet even after fifteen years, the betrayal I'd felt that day still hadn't faded. Who wouldn't feel the same, though? To see the woman you truly loved—the woman you loved more than anything—surrounded by another man, no, by men, swinging her hips all on her own and savoring every second of it... anyone would feel betrayed by that.
Anyone who has known the despair of watching their happiest moment crumble to pieces would understand. That betrayal, that humiliation, that contempt, that crushing despondency... those emotions that words could never fully hold...
I even toyed with the idea of spending my last wish to be sent back to that day, that very moment. But the Genie would flatly refuse, of course, then croak something about how I'd squandered a wish and simply sit back, snickering at my despair...
In the end, I reached one conclusion: the true root of my gynophobia wasn't the gynophobia itself. It was the memory of that day.
Because I didn't want to be hurt again. Because I couldn't bear to be hurt again, I'd chosen instead to write off women as a whole. That way, at the very least, my pride would stay intact. It had started small—dodging Gayoon's calls—then spread little by little until I was avoiding every woman alive, and somewhere along the way I had single-handedly conjured up a disease that didn't actually exist. And then I'd gone and lived inside it for fifteen years. That was the conclusion I came to.
And once I'd settled on it, everything snapped into focus and my mind turned sharp and clear.
Now, at last, my goal was taking shape.
Oh Eunmi. Nam Jihyun. Kim Seonju.
Those three women weren't what mattered. In the end, they were nothing more than the road I intended to walk.
The Monday commute, with everything now laid bare, felt unlike any other. In a subway car packed in tight as sardines, I used to go scrambling away, whimpering under my breath, the instant it looked like a woman might drift my way. But this morning I held my ground, standing as if nothing had changed—whether a man or a woman settled in beside me, it simply didn't matter.
And just like that—as if it had all been a lie—the sickening vertigo was gone, and so was the sweat that used to pour off me like rain. I simply stood there with my hand on the rail, calm as could be.
After getting off the subway, on the walk to the office, I made a point of stopping at a café run by a woman.
"What's selling best these days?"
"Do you have your beans delivered?"
"Rough morning already, huh? You've got your hands full."
I flagged the owner down and lobbed out one trivial, pointless question after another. A line at a time, every syllable carefully enunciated, my eyes locked dead on her face.
Busy to the point of dropping dead, she still seemed equal parts baffled and incredulous that some strange man was pestering her with idle chatter at this hour, but she played along and answered all the same. There was no heart threatening to burst from my chest, no collapsing in a dead faint where I stood. Nothing of the sort.
"Thank you. Hang in there."
On my way out with the iced Americano in hand, I found myself laughing before I knew it. So it had been this easy all along? Gynophobia was something that could be shaken off this simply? And I'd been lugging it around for fifteen years?
Laughter bubbled up at my own idiocy, impossible to hold back.
"Ha... ha ha... hahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!"
There I stood in the middle of the street, laughing like a lunatic. Passersby steered a wide berth around me as if they'd seen every brand of freak the world had to offer, yet still couldn't help turning their heads to gawk.
I stood at the edge of the road laughing for a good long while before finally setting off for the office again. As the building drew near, familiar faces from the company nodded their greetings, and I nodded back with a smile of my own.
Stepping into the building, I spotted Eunmi. She was standing near the security gate at the entrance, chatting with Nam Jihyun from Customer Service. Once again she wore a skirt that clung to every curve, that white t-shirt I'd seen her in a handful of times before, her hair tied back in a ponytail.
In figure-hugging fashion that flaunted every line of her body, the gazes of the male office workers passing through the lobby slid toward her all on their own.
No denying it—that bitch had raw lust to spare... A face already overflowing with sultry allure, a body slim yet voluptuous, wrapped in clothes that clung like that. There was no way eyes weren't going to find her. They had no other choice.
By contrast, Nam Jihyun—one of the targets on my list—had a charm of an entirely different flavor. She was petite next to Eunmi, probably barely over five feet if that. Small and dainty where Eunmi was statuesque, she came across as cute, her round face giving off a soft, gentle impression.
Whether out of a complex about her small stature or not, Jihyun was in towering high heels with platform soles—and as if determined to look even an inch taller, she'd paired them with a dress whose frilly, tiered hem fluttered far too high, ending around the middle of her thighs. It looked demure enough at a glance, but the skirt was cut so brief that the eye had no choice but to slide down her slender legs—and to start imagining the scenery hidden beneath all that frill.
The two women were rattling away in happy chatter, apparently delighted by whatever it was, and some pointless show-off streak and a spark of mischief fired off in me at once. I walked up to them.
"What's got you two so entertained first thing in the morning?"
I came up on them with an easy smile, and at the sight of me closing in, both women went wide-eyed.
"Huh?!"
"A-ah... h-hello there..."
Making Eunmi my personal sex slave was one thing, but I'd never once approached her directly at the office. Startled, apparently, by me suddenly playing the friendly colleague first thing in the morning, she'd forgotten her greeting entirely and stood there floundering.
Jihyun looked every bit as flustered at being addressed out of nowhere, managing her greeting from a stance that couldn't decide where to settle. Her tone, her posture—everything about her radiated wariness toward me.
"Aren't you heading in?"
Pretending not to notice their fluster, I pressed on with a smile.
"Ah... yes..."
Still thrown by my ambush, Eunmi replied halfheartedly.
"Here, take this."
Eunmi let the moment slide past her as I held out the iced Americano I'd been carrying to Jihyun instead. Flustered, she glanced back and forth between my face and Eunmi's a couple of times before hesitantly, reluctantly extending a hand to accept the cup.
"I bumped into a client this morning and they handed it over. But Americano on an empty stomach tears mine up, you know? Go ahead—drink it."
"Ah... yes... th-thank you..."
With a parting grin and a nod at the two of them, I turned toward the security gate.
"Team Leader, are you friendly with Eunmi and Jihyun?"
I walked into the office, traded greetings with the other team leaders who'd beaten me in, and was just about to take my seat when Choi Dae-ri asked.
"Why?"
"Oh, no reason... I just saw you talking with them on my way in, so..."
"What, I'm not allowed to talk to those two now?"
"N-no... that's not what I meant... it's just, I don't think I've ever actually seen you chatting with a female coworker before... And you even gave her coffee..."
At Choi Dae-ri's words, Seonju from my team, who'd been fixed on her monitor, turned her gaze and flicked a brief look at my face.
That insolent bitch...
Her own department's team leader walks in and all she does is sit there and toss him a nod—and now she has the nerve to glare at me on top of it. The sheer gall of that woman...
"Ahh, what, you were craving some coffee, Choi Dae-ri? Want me to run out and grab you one?"
"Oh, come on—you know full well what I meant..."
At my goofy little joke, Choi Dae-ri scratched his head and let out an awkward laugh.
"A while back Eunmi and I got stuck working the same overtime nights over the expense reports, and we got a little closer. It finally broke the ice. What's this, though? Are you jealous, Choi Dae-ri? Tsk—can't have a man with a girlfriend acting like that. If it were Park Dae-ri, maybe... heh."
"Oh, come on... jealous? Me? You just caught me off guard, that's all."
"Then you'd better brace yourself. There's plenty about me that'll surprise you."
"Still... you usually won't so much as say two words to the women around here..."
"Hey, Choi Dae-ri. I like women. At the office I just keep things as businesslike as I can so nothing pointless blows up. Enough with the nonsense—did you book the conference room for this afternoon or not?"
"Ah... yes... it's booked."
Perhaps I really did need to be a touch more careful. Drunk on the fact that my gynophobia had simply evaporated, I'd apparently gone and flaunted behavior I'd never once shown before, right out in the open. To anyone who didn't know the circumstances, I could only have looked as bizarre as I apparently had to Choi Dae-ri just now.
Going forward, it seemed I'd need to keep treading carefully around the office, just as I always had. One careless gesture inviting the wrong kind of misunderstanding, and my plans from here on out could stall before they ever got moving.
If I meant to have that sharp-tongued Seonju and the Customer Service cutie Jihyun alike panting like dogs beneath me, caution was still very much the order of the day.