Not Alone Anymore
Not alone anymore. Chapter 61. Still holding Jin Yeoreum’s hand, I dragged her straight to Two Bear Entertainment as if I were kidnapping her. I had a plan of sorts and had considered the aftermath, but even I had to admit it was a reckless move. Honestly, while hauling her toward Two Bear, I fully expected the entire staff to push back hard. Taking such a major decision without any consultation or discussion wasn’t exactly proper employee behavior. Yet their reaction was far milder than I’d imagined.
“Have you eaten?” Cheon A-ram asked Jin Yeoreum and me first.
“…No, I was planning to eat the in-flight meal.”
“Then let’s go eat first. I know a good place.”
She took us to the same gukbap restaurant where Yoo Gaeul used to work part-time. Since she insisted we had to eat together, she also brought along Gaeul and Gyeoul, who had been getting ready to head back to the dorm.
“Yeoreum, try adding some of this radish kimchi broth. It makes it so much better.”
“….”
Cheon A-ram said this and poured the cloudy radish broth into Jin Yeoreum’s gukbap before she could even answer.
“Yeoreum, you should try the seasoning paste too. Without it, it’s not really gukbap.”
“….”
This time Yoo Gaeul launched into a passionate speech about the virtues of seasoning paste and dumped a generous amount into Yeoreum’s bowl. Again, no permission was asked. Jin Yeoreum could only watch helplessly as her once-pristine white broth turned into something resembling a dirty rag.
“I actually prefer it plain…”
“Come on, just try it. You’ll see the difference.”
“I tried it once before and didn’t really like it.”
“That’s because you went to the wrong place. This spot is where Gaeul used to work part-time—it’s the real deal!”
“That’s right! Like the owner said, I worked here so I know. Everything except the boiled pork is genuinely excellent!”
“….”
I tactfully looked away and enjoyed my pure, unadulterated gukbap. These people had no taste. One should savor the broth’s natural flavor. While I turned my head and slurped my soup, Jin Yeoreum elegantly lifted a spoonful of her now-tattered gukbap to her lips. Then, with a slight frown, she spoke.
“…Why is this actually good?”
Another one had fallen.
***
While Gaeul, Yeoreum, and Gyeoul chatted at one table with drinks, Cheon A-ram, Seo Suyeon, and I sat at a corner table hidden behind a partition and poured ourselves shots of soju.
“Kyah, that aspartame taste. It wipes away all the greasiness.”
“Boss, you shouldn’t drink soju on an empty stomach. It’s bad for you.”
“Suyeon, you’re right, but the boiled pork here is so bland I can’t bring myself to eat it. …I should’ve listened to Gaeul instead of the kitchen staff.”
They were deliberately avoiding the topic of Yeoreum and sticking to casual small talk. It was their way of being considerate. I stopped running from their kindness and spoke up.
“I didn’t think you would accept this so easily.”
“In what sense? I already gave permission over the phone regarding Yeoreum’s recruitment.”
This wasn’t something that could be settled so lightly. Even bringing in Gaeul had caused such an uproar before we finally got approval. Jin Yeoreum would cause far more trouble.
“I’ll speak plainly. No matter how outstanding Jin Yeoreum’s individual abilities are, the benefits she brings will never outweigh the damage from the negative image she carries.”
That was something even someone with S-rank in all three major stats—vocals, dance, and appearance—could never overcome.
“I’m concerned you might be underestimating the situation. Do you truly understand the risks Yeoreum will bring?”
Cheon A-ram smiled slyly.
“Hey, Team Leader Seon, I’ve studied the art of kingship too. I know exactly what kind of risk one person can pose. Believe it or not, I’m a third-generation chaebol. You know my grandfather, Cheon Tae-cheon, was the chairman of Cheonhwa Group, right? Plus, I even got a doctorate in a related field because I was supposed to take a role at SS from birth. So don’t treat me like an amateur.”
“I apologize for the rude question. But I must be rude once more. Then why are you allowing all of this?”
“Team Leader Seon, did you ask for her recruitment without any confidence in succeeding?”
That wasn’t it. I would definitely succeed.
“I’m confident we’ll succeed. I can elevate both Yeoreum and Two Bear to the very top. What I lack is confidence in persuading others.”
“Persuasion, huh… Want me to tell you why I was persuaded?”
Cheon A-ram looked at me and smiled warmly.
“Team Leader Seon, ever since I was very young, I’ve been able to smell other people’s true natures.”
She began to speak about the secret she had always kept hidden.
“I don’t know why, but my family was fine, so my early childhood wasn’t a problem. The trouble started when I began kindergarten. That’s when I started smelling the stench from other children, teachers, and parents. I’d throw up, faint, have trouble breathing, and get taken away in ambulances… Heh, it wasn’t easy for a kid who hadn’t even lost all her baby teeth.”
It was a story I had only heard in fragments before, one she had never shared in detail.
“After that, I managed by avoiding people as much as possible, but as a member of the Cheon family, there were unavoidable social obligations. Every time I had to meet someone, I’d end up vomiting or fainting. My childhood was just a repetition of that.”
I had vaguely imagined she lived that kind of life, but it was harsher than I’d expected.
“As I grew older, my thoughts started to twist. They went to extremes, and during a particularly bad case of middle-school syndrome, I had this thought.”
“What thought?”
“Wouldn’t it be better for the world if I got rid of all those people who smelled like that?”
“….”
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand. According to Cheon A-ram, the pain caused by the stench seemed truly vicious. But it was an extremely dangerous idea.
“Team Leader Seon, you know I used to be the HR manager at SS, right? So what do you think I did before that?”
“…I don’t know. What did you do?”
Cheon A-ram spoke in a grave voice, with no trace of intoxication.
“I killed people.”
She smiled bitterly at my inability to hide my shock.
“Well, I didn’t kill them directly by stabbing them with a knife or shooting them. But it’s still a clear fact.”
Seo Suyeon tried to defend her with a somewhat stiff expression.
“CEO Cheon, that’s—”
“Suyeon, let me finish first.”
Cheon A-ram held Seo Suyeon’s hand and shook her head before continuing.
“My mother saw that I had the same ability as my grandfather, Cheon Tae-cheon, and wanted to make me the successor to Cheonhwa. I don’t know if she didn’t realize the inheritance and succession were already settled with my father taking over SS, or if she simply had excessive expectations.”
After pouring herself another shot and downing it, Cheon A-ram went on.
“Anyway, because I got caught up in those expectations, the difficulty of my life shot up. She poured advanced knowledge on me—kingship, public administration, business administration, accounting, statistics, personnel management, languages—saying these were necessary for someone who would stand above others, even though I was still at an age where I should’ve been doing simple addition and subtraction. If I failed to keep up with the set progress, she’d punish me by making me stay next to people who smelled until I was on the verge of being taken to the emergency room. It was incredibly foolish.”
It was clearly abuse. The fact that it left no medical evidence made it even more malicious.
“But do you know what’s surprising?”
“…What is it?”
“Cheonhwa really did call for me. Even though the succession was already complete. Funny, isn’t it?”
Cheon A-ram burst into laughter as if it were genuinely amusing, but I couldn’t laugh. I had a feeling the next part of the story wouldn’t be pleasant.
“I don’t know if that ignorant teaching method actually worked or if my sense of smell played a big role. But one day, the main family told me to prove that ability of mine.”
While Seo Suyeon looked at her with pitying eyes, Cheon A-ram continued.
“So I ended up doing an audit at one of Cheonhwa’s subsidiaries. There, I found someone who smelled worse than anyone I’d ever encountered. With that same middle-school syndrome mindset I mentioned earlier.”
Seo Suyeon carefully poured more soju into her empty glass.
“He was the president of that company. The more I dug—corruption, bribery, assault for contracts, incitement to murder—the more spectacular his crimes became. At the time, I even felt this strange sense of mission, thinking that removing someone like him from society was the reason I’d been given this ability to smell.”
Cheon A-ram downed the freshly poured shot.
“Since I couldn’t uncover everything through legal means alone, I used every resource available to me to expose his crimes. I believed it was the right thing to do. …And then he committed suicide.”
“If you’re expressing it as you having killed him, there’s no need to feel that much guilt—”
“No. I did kill him.”
Her hands began to tremble slightly as she told me this.
“At the time, I only thought he had escaped without receiving proper judgment. I believed I had carried out a flawless judgment. …But not long after, I started smelling the stench coming from myself. A truly, truly filthy stench.”
“….”
After a long silence, Cheon A-ram spoke again.
“I was half-mad. I had caused all that trouble to get rid of the smell, only to become someone who smelled myself. What a ridiculous irony. If Suyeon hadn’t helped me back then, I would’ve killed myself. One hundred percent.”
Seo Suyeon looked at Cheon A-ram with pity as she spoke so casually about it all.
“While staying at a temple deep in the mountains with Suyeon and trying to calm my mind, I thought, ‘Ah, how wonderful would it be if the world only had people like Suyeon? Then I’d truly be happy.’ But I thought that was an impossible dream. So I compromised and learned how to endure the smell as much as possible.”
Cheon A-ram gazed into the air as if looking at a distant dream.
“Still, that dream never disappeared. The dream that someday, if I started my own company, I would fill it only with kids like Suyeon.”
Then she looked straight at me.
“And then I met Team Leader Seon. I met Gyeoul. I met Gaeul. People who were truly to my taste. People who made even a slight stench feel charming… Team Leader Seon, you probably don’t realize how miraculous this is.”
Her violet eyes wavered like those of a fragile animal.
“But I forgot. I kept choosing based on the CEO’s perspective I’d learned—profit, value judgment. I forgot that I had already achieved my dream. And then Team Leader Seon reminded me of that.”
“…I’ve never done anything that great.”
“No. You did something truly great, Team Leader Seon.”
At her words, Seo Suyeon nodded.
“During Gaeul’s incident, do you know how frustrated I was? I wondered where such a pushover had come from… But then, it looked so beautiful to me.”
Cheon A-ram smiled brightly, as if all her previous anxiety had been fleeting.
“So what I wanted to say is this. The more Team Leader Seon pushes forward, the more I want to push forward too. Not as an obstacle to be persuaded, but as a reliable supporter. …I wanted to become a little more beautiful myself.”
“….”
“Does that answer your question, Team Leader Seon? This is why I support your opinion to recruit Yeoreum. My dream is to become the roof that shelters people like that.”
I felt an indescribable emotion and turned to Seo Suyeon.
“…Suyeon, are you okay with a company like this? We might go bankrupt one day and not even get paid.”
“It’s fine. My own thoughts have changed a little after watching you, Team Leader Seon.”
She was smiling faintly. It was the first time I had seen such an expression from her while working together.
“It would be embarrassing to say I went through as dramatic a change as CEO Cheon. It’s just a small change.”
Seo Suyeon downed a shot of soju and continued.
“I’ve lived for CEO Cheon, not for myself. Because that feeling was pure, CEO Cheon evaluated me highly. But now, I want to expand the range of people I care for.”
“…To what extent?”
“To everyone in our Two Bear family, including you, Team Leader Seon.”
“….”
Seo Suyeon and Cheon A-ram faced each other with genuine sincerity, as if there was no reason to hide anything. I slowly savored that sincerity. Then something seemed to bloom inside me.
“…Our Two Bear.”
Right after my regression, I had desperately wanted my own success. That feeling had changed a little.
“…Team Leader Seon?”
“What’s wrong, Team Leader Seon? Are you crying?”
Thud!
“Taeyang-nim is crying? No… If Taeyang-nim cries, I’ll start crying too. Sob.”
“Taeyang oppa is crying? Who the hell—”
“Gaeul unni, please calm down.”
I wanted to succeed together with these people, not alone.