We're Just Friends, Aren't We?
After washing up with Park Eunseo, we ate the braised chicken I'd ordered ahead of time. And then… we went at it like crazy all over again.
By the time we were done, the clock had slipped just past midnight.
On a normal night I would have been thinking I needed to get to sleep and wake up for work — but luckily the motel was right near the office. We actually had more than enough time to sleep in a little later than usual, so Eunseo and I just lay there talking for a while.
The first topic was, inevitably…
"You're a real pervert, you know that?"
The outdoor sex we'd had together.
Eunseo glared at me with deadpan eyes from the very start, laying the blame squarely on me.
So I hit back.
"You liked it too."
"……."
The you're just as bad logic shut her right up.
But I wanted an actual answer, so I pressed.
"Didn't you?"
"…If you don't shut that mouth of yours, I will tear off your lower half!"
I'd only been teasing her a little, but Eunseo fired back with some ridiculous drama-line impression that made me laugh out loud.
And with that laugh, I found myself redefining what Park Eunseo and I actually were.
"But isn't there something to that?"
"Something to what?"
"I mean, honestly… we're just friends, right?"
"Yeah. Friends."
Friends.
People argue endlessly about whether men and women can really be friends, but Eunseo simply, cleanly acknowledged that she and I were friends.
I didn't feel any particular regret in that acknowledgment.
After all — she was on the Office Romance Management list, and as a special management target, I was certain she wouldn't go running off after some other guy first.
Unless I left first, or I was the one who dumped her…
"…Mmh, chup… haahp, hwoooup, tsup… chuup, tsup—."
…there was no way Park Eunseo would ever leave my side first.
Absolutely none.
"So Eunseo-ssi just goes around kissing her friends like that?"
"Friends are friends, but… we're partners too. Skinship like this is whatever. It's not like I do this with other guys. I only do it because it's you."
Even after that short, sudden kiss ended as demurely as it had begun, Park Eunseo treated me as someone special — just as she was my special management target.
I let myself feel satisfied with that.
"Because we're friends, and because we're partners… don't you think we can just try stuff like this whenever?"
"Ah… yeah. I've never really thought about it, but I guess it would be kind of weird to say something like that to a boyfriend."
"Honestly, same for me."
"You too?"
"If anything, more than you — not less."
Park Eunseo was mischievous. And not just mischievous — mischievously pretty on top of it.
How a man saw Park Eunseo on a bed probably differed from guy to guy.
The Eunseo who mischievously licked my neck first.
The Eunseo who mischievously climbed on top of me.
The Eunseo who mischievously took my cock in her mouth.
But me —
I liked that Eunseo too, sure. What I liked even more was the Eunseo who, even after I'd pumped her pussy full of cum, still mischievously begged me for more.
And on top of that —
The Eunseo who still begged so mischievously even when I spanked her ass, yanked her hair, or bound both her hands.
But tastes like that…
"Right? Spanking your ass, pulling your hair… even from my side, I only get away with that because it's you."
"Mmm… yeah, that makes sense. Girls who hate that stuff really, really hate it."
"So. I figured you probably had something like that too."
"Mine's a little different."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Ah — what you said is part of it too. Honestly, it's not exactly something you'd go around bragging about. I only ask for it comfortably, and talk about it, because it's you."
And then Eunseo smiled that mischievous smile again and did something mischievous — poking me right in the cheek.
"But there's that, and also… honestly, because of you, I've gotten to see and experience and feel new stuff like that. So there's something good about it too."
And she even threw in this mischievous little line on top.
"Honestly, doing it outside was something I'd only ever seen in porn. And I figured it was only possible because it was porn. But you just casually go for it like it's nothing, so it's kind of… cool, Choi Jichan-ssi?"
"Falling for me?"
"Oh my! You're so cool!"
Eunseo covered her mouth with both hands and put on the most exaggerated performance imaginable.
People usually call that kind of thing clowning around — if anyone else had done it I would have looked away, but when Eunseo pulled that crap it just came off as mischievous.
No wonder so many guy friends kept circling around her.
"…Do you still get messages from other guy friends these days?"
"Sometimes. They text about grabbing a meal or drinks, but I don't really feel like it so I brush them off. Obviously they want to meet one-on-one, and it's way too transparent."
"Like they're trying to make something happen no matter what?"
"Yeah. So… unless it's a group thing, if they ask to meet just the two of us, I just shut it down."
That was probably because she was a special management target too.
On top of that, no other man even registered in her eyes — only I looked cool to Park Eunseo, thanks to this relationship of ours.
After that we talked about this and that a little longer, and I got some pretty useful information out of Eunseo.
"Oh right — you know about your team leader, yeah?"
"I know."
"You know the president is absolutely furious right now?"
"He would be. It's embezzlement. Ah… so the team leader's definitely done for, then?"
"Legal's already locked down the evidence. Word is they're going to flip the whole thing soon."
They were moving insanely fast.
"Feels like it's going pretty smoothly?"
"This part I only heard secondhand. You went over there a little while ago, right?"
"Over there? Ah…."
She meant Yuseong Industries.
"Yeah. I went."
"With someone from the Finance Department, right?"
"Yeah."
"This is what I'm curious about — while you were there, did you and that Finance person single anyone out together?"
"Uh… not so much singling them out as there was someone who felt off. I figured we needed to look into that person more carefully."
"And that person turned out to be the one."
…I had my own instincts, sure, but it looked like An Jihye's gut feeling wasn't something you could just ignore either.
"They've already got everything they need to catch him, so now it's just a matter of cutting out what needs cutting and cleaning up what needs cleaning. That's how they're thinking about it."
"Mm… okay. So you don't know who's coming in as the next team leader either?"
"From what I've heard, they're bringing someone in from outside… but I'm not sure."
The department head had said the exact same thing as Park Eunseo.
If the most senior department head in the company and a secretary-office employee like Eunseo were saying the same thing, you could basically treat it as confirmed.
I was sitting there alone, trying to picture the company atmosphere going forward, when Eunseo brought up Chu Yeonju.
"What about Chu Yeonju sunbaenim? You two seem pretty close these days."
"Ah, sunbaenim?"
"Yeah. You said you two text sometimes. She mentioned you a little while ago."
"What did she say?"
"Mm… just nice things. That she relies on you a lot, so if I ever have a hard time I should talk to you too."
And from there the topic flowed naturally into…
"By the way, didn't you have a junior named Yeonwoo-ssi?"
"Ah… yeah, I did."
Just like the relationship between us and Chu Yeonju, she was bringing up the relationship between me and my direct junior.
Of course, Seon Yeonwoo wasn't technically my direct junior.
But in our company's tradition, the senior who looked after you right after you joined and the junior they took care of were called a direct pair.
"There's nothing going on between you and Yeonwoo-ssi, is there?"
"What do you mean, 'going on'?"
"What do you think I mean? Something like what's going on with you and me right now."
"What kind of…."
This kid had clearly been watching way too much porn.
"What am I supposed to do with a third-generation chaebol heiress? If it ends badly I'll end up stuffed in a drum barrel."
"But if it goes well, it's a total life upgrade. Then you just buy me one fried chicken."
"You've lost your mind. Seriously."
Eunseo giggled and held up a fist at me.
"Make sure it works out and buy me that chicken."
And then we woke up.
Eunseo and I changed into the fresh clothes we'd packed that morning on the way to work and headed in.
We were being careful about it, too — we didn't walk into the company together. I dropped Eunseo off a little ways from the building and went in separately.
The moment I stepped into the office, Isuyen — first to arrive again today, as always — greeted me.
"Sunbaenim, good morning."
"Did you get through yesterday's work okay?"
"Yes. Were you really busy yesterday, or…."
"No — thanks to you organizing everything so well before you left, nothing got stuck at all."
"Ah, that's a relief."
…Come to think of it.
Just like Seon Yeonwoo had been my "direct" junior, Isuyen was my "direct" junior too.
In other words, the two of them were the same cohort.
"Hey… Suyen-ssi."
"Yes, sunbaenim."
"Do you and Yeonwoo-ssi keep in touch much?"
"Mmm… no, we don't really have any reason to contact each other privately. It's just, well…."
"Because it's awkward?"
"There's a little of that, yes."
It wasn't like they were automatically close just because they were the same year.
Look at Park Eunseo and Park Humin — they were the same cohort too, but there was a bit of distance between them.
In their case the distance came from being a man and a woman. With Seon Yeonwoo and Isuyen, it was something more… worldly than that.
"Still, Yeonwoo-ssi works hard and all. Even if you're not close, when you exchange work messages, little random conversations can start to slip in, right?"
"Random conversations like what?"
"Can you prioritize this, it's urgent — thanks for covering for my mistake — do you know how to do this — that kind of thing."
"Ah."
Office workers, especially ones who deal with each other directly a lot, end up saying those things all the time.
In a way, they probably fly back and forth even more than actual "work" talk.
"Sometimes Yeonwoo-ssi and I end up having conversations like that… and the thing is, you know how image works."
"Mm… yeah."
"But Yeonwoo-ssi works in a way that's completely different from that image."
"Meaning she's good at it?"
"Yes. You can really tell she does it well, and she works hard."
"Hmm…."
I wanted to ask Isuyen more, but other teammates kept filtering in one after another, and it got awkward to keep having a private conversation.
Well then — time to work.
I wouldn't exactly call it thanks to that, but once I buried myself in the workload again and let time pass…
"Uuuuugh…."
"Good work today, sunbaenim. I'll be heading out a bit early."
"…Yeah. Good work."
A little past six-thirty, I was suddenly the only one left in the office.
I tipped my head back against the chair's headrest.
Looking down at the monitor with just my eyes, I still had a good five pages of files left to process.
"…Shit. This is fucking miserable."
"Pardon?"
"……."
…Not miserable. I was fucked.
"You weren't answering at all, so I came myself."
"…Hey, Yeonwoo-ssi."
"Yes."
Seon Yeonwoo was looking at me with a smile that suited her baby face perfectly.
"…Sorry, but let's do dinner tomorrow. I've got way too much to finish today."
"Mmmmm…."
"I'm really sorry. I was so busy today I even forgot to message you ahead of time."
That was on me.
I should have texted her in advance, but I'd genuinely been too swamped to find the time.
But Seon Yeonwoo just said,
"Even so, sunbaenim, you still have to eat, don't you?"
"I mean… I should eat, yeah."
"I'll go outside and grab you a lunch box or something."
"……."
…She smiled at me with a smile that somehow looked dangerous, offering to buy me dinner.