Side Story 18: N-Nobody Noticed...?
It was a miserable Monday lunch hour, the sun beating down without a shred of mercy.
The Secretary's Office at Cheolwoong Group Headquarters.
"It's been a while since we even had time for a cup of coffee like this."
Under any ordinary circumstances they would have been buried under Chief Prosecutor Kim Sung-jin's indictment of the company.
"You're telling me. Almost a month, isn't it?"
For reasons no one could explain, the Chief Prosecutor had suddenly dropped the charges. Questions piled up like a mountain, but surely the Chairman had handled things behind the scenes.
"Every time something like this hits, I swear it takes years off my life. Maybe I should start thinking about quitting..."
For now, all they could do was focus on quietly cleaning up whatever aftershocks remained.
"There's no paradise waiting wherever you run. You'll suffer like a dog anywhere you go, so stay put. The pay's good and it actually does something for your career."
They had ridden out the big wave and clawed back a little breathing room, but the aftermath still hung over the office in a restless, unsettled haze.
Getting a grip on the mood in here matters too, as team leader.
Aftershocks were more dangerous than the earthquake itself. Settling a rattled team was part of the job.
"Don't get jerked around. Just do the work in front of you. The people upstairs will keep the center from falling apart."
"So that's the mindset that gets you to ten years here..."
"We're all just trying to eat."
It had been a full decade since he'd joined Cheolwoong Group. He'd clenched his teeth and thrown himself into the work — not only the actual job, but the thin-ice politics of the office as well — and clawed his way up this wild place on a fast track. The price had been a quality of inner life that hit a new floor with every passing year.
"Come to think of it, we haven't seen the Chief Secretary around at all lately. She seems even less visible now than when everything was at its worst..."
"She's been getting called into the Chairman's office more often."
If there was any fuel left for working in this goddamn company, it had been the sight of Lim Hyorin — the brilliant elite beauty who'd made Chief Secretary so young. That had been the one pleasure that made the place bearable.
"I've got a bad feeling about that..."
A gorgeous female secretary slipping in and out of a powerful chairman's office invited ugly thoughts whether you wanted them or not.
"I'm only saying this as a precaution. Don't go repeating useless talk like that to anyone but me."
It was the kind of scab you didn't pick.
"Of course not."
He'd warned his subordinate not to run his mouth about anything dangerous. That didn't stop the same thought from taking root in his own head.
Honestly, I can't help thinking it either...
Lately the Chairman's condition had been poor. At first he'd chalked it up to exhaustion — the company had been in genuine danger, after all.
The problem got solved almost a week ago, and somehow he looks even worse...
It was the classic look of a man being wrung dry by women.
The Chairman's greedy, I'll give him that. His wife's Seo Yura, and he's still putting his hands on someone else.
What had started as idle gossip calcified, little by little, into conviction.
A man looks best when he pours everything into one woman, stubborn and straight.
It was a shame to imagine the Chief Secretary reduced to the Chairman's affair. Fortunately, another amusement had presented itself of late.
"Ah, Eun-yul. Did you revise that report I asked for?"
"Y-yes...!"
The new girl. The freshly hired female employee.
She'd been dropped into the Secretary's Office at a timing that made no sense, so of course she had to be a parachute hire.
I just don't know who stuffed her in here.
What kind of person had the clout to plant a girl that young in the secretarial office of a conglomerate like this?
"You don't think she might be the Chairman's mistress, do you?"
Apparently he wasn't the only one curious about her backer.
"I just told you that kind of talk will get you killed."
Thoughts were thoughts. You didn't go manufacturing trouble. And he had no desire to wreck a brand-new reason for coming to work.
"But it fits, doesn't it? Eun-yul picks things up fast, but her social skills seem a little off, and her basic office work is about college-student level..."
She was wildly underqualified for a conglomerate secretary's office.
"She's pretty, and she's young on top of it. That's exactly what a Chairman's girl looks like, right?"
"Come on. Would the Chairman really take a risk that big?"
He'd told the man to watch his mouth. Human gossip, once it caught a tailwind, simply would not stop.
"Maybe he got some hormone shots in his twilight years. Lust boiling over at his age, huh?"
"..."
Something about hearing that sat wrong.
Hss. That can't be it.
She was small and pretty, with a faintly androgynous air that was exactly his type. He'd already marked her down in a quiet corner of his mind. If she'd come in on the Chairman's backing, that made things awkward.
It isn't the Chairman. And even if it is — a rising sun beats a setting one, doesn't it?
If it came to that, he'd just take her.
The Chairman's in no shape to keep track of every affair. And if the guess is true, he's the one in the wrong anyway.
Thirty-five years of a single-track life, eyes on nothing but the work.
I've earned my colleagues' trust. I can hold my head up as a decent member of society.
He allowed himself a sliver of private greed.
It's about time I started thinking about marriage, isn't it?
He walked over to Eun-yul, who was visibly wound tight.
"Nngh..."
"Need a hand?"
A light display of masculinity.
She flinched.
"Ah, I... that's..."
The comment about her social skills had been fair. That only made her cuter. She didn't look like she had much experience with men, either.
"The report that came back for revisions... I, um, I did it, but I feel like it's going to get rejected again..."
"Let me see."
He leaned in, making his presence felt. Relations between men and women started with forcing a woman to register you as a physical fact.
She even smells good.
While he was at it, he took stock of her body.
Chest is a little small — not nonexistent, though. Thin waist, and she's got hips on her. Classic slender.
The neat, fragile femininity of her suit was deeply pleasing.
Approved.
"If you just make these sentences a bit more direct, I think it'll land. The people upstairs care more about how you deliver something than what's actually in it, you'd be surprised."
"I-I see... Th-thank... you..."
The moment he got close, she cut the help short in a fluster, embarrassment written all over her. It was unfairly cute.
Heh. Adorable.
Her face had gone red and she'd shrunk into herself. Virgin. Confirmed.
"If you get stuck, say so right away. Even little things like this — don't hesitate."
He gave her shoulder a firm pat, to put some courage into her. She startled. And when he left, he left without a shred of lingering, the way a man should.
That ought to drift back to her tonight.
He glanced back. She was fidgeting, unable to sit still, and that only deepened his certainty.
This time... this time it might actually work.
The team leader walked away glowing, convinced his leadership had made an impression.
Eun-yul's inner world, however, had nothing whatsoever to do with that.
N-no way...
Squelch...♡
Nobody... nobody noticed...?
His heart was a second from bursting at the thought of being found out.
That much? I've really become that much of a bitch?
Eun-yul's true identity hardly needed saying. It was Jo Eunwoo, now an official female.
He got that close just now. And he still didn't clock it? That I'm a man...!
His mind had already left the building. On top of that, his heart was pounding for no good reason.♡
U-uugh... I'm going to lose it. I was so happy when they said I didn't have to work as a maid for a while...
This time the order had been to work as a female employee at his father's company.
M-Master...! I can't work, I was a shut-in loser from the start...!
The stress was already more than he could handle. And it was about to get worse.
"Eun-yul~"
"Hih— Y-yes...!"
Even walking the hallway was enough to draw strange men who looked at him and saw a woman.
"Why so tense? Relax. The busy stretch is over, haha."
He had to hide what he really was, fend off clueless men and their flirting, and still get the work done. The stress multiplied on the spot.
I-if I get caught here... it won't just end.
Unlike the mansion, where the people around him were relatively contained, this was the open battlefield of ordinary society. If it came out here that he was actually a man...
A hot throb hit the back of his skull at the mere thought. And at the same time...
I-if that happened... I'd get pinned on social media. The whole internet would roast me, and the humiliation photos would start going around...
That thrill. That sense of doing something forbidden.
"H-haaah...♡"
He was getting turned on for no reason at all.
"Eun-yul, could I ask you to copy these?"
"Y-yes...!"
He couldn't live in fantasy forever. If it actually happened, Master and his family would throw him away and he'd be completely cut off. He had to keep his head.
"Aren't those heavy? You're so slight."
"I'm fine... T-this much is nothing..."
Bzzzz—
"Hik?!♡"
"E-Eun-yul? They're that heavy?"
"Ahaha... sorry. I-I've been working out lately, muscle pain..."
"My, what kind of workout leaves you that sore?"
The scream had nothing to do with the copies. A vicious vibration had just driven up into his prostate from the inside.
Th-that's the signal to get to the bathroom. Now...!
"Hahaha... just some home workouts..;;"
"You really live diligently, Eun-yul. I should exercise too. Do you follow videos?"
I-I don't have time to chat right now...!
As if to hurry him, the vibration coiled around his lower body grew steadily more violent.
"I just watch this and that... I should go copy these now...!"
He headed for the copier near the empty office to deal with the request, but—
D-damn it...! I'm going to be late...!
However important the work was, Master's orders always came first.
Thud!
He dumped the papers onto the copier like he was throwing them and bolted for the designated floor's restroom.
D-did I look weird just now?
Even as he ran, worry about how he'd looked tangled through his head. The real problem, though, was physical.
Bzzzzzz—
"N-nngh...♡"
That crushing pressure from below.
He all but collapsed into the men's restroom, feeling as if his soul were being raped, and approached the one stall that was locked.
Knock, knock.
He tapped the door carefully.
Click.
The lock gave. The door eased open with a creak. He opened it with care, and—
"Oh~ you made it?"
What filled his eyes was Master... and Lim Hyorin, taking Master's load and squirting helplessly around him.
"Oooohk...!♡"
"C-Chief Secretary..."
