Greed (3)
Until just moments ago, Hyein had been shedding big, fat tears, but the instant she saw the man and woman walking away, her expression turned cold.
“H-hello...”
The awkward greeting from the design department underclassmen.
The two juniors who had come with So-hee, chattering away cheerfully just a little earlier, were now reading the room.
Since this was not some other department but a famous dating couple within the same major, they could tell immediately what had just happened.
Of course, So-hee had realized it too, which was why she had reacted so fast and dragged Seung-hyun away.
“Yeah.”
Hyein brushed past them without properly greeting them, radiating the icy chill of Siberia.
Even from her heavy steps, the face twisted with fury, and the lips bitten so hard they looked ready to bleed, anyone could tell how angry she was.
After walking barely a hundred meters, she yanked open the passenger-side door of a luxury sedan parked by the roadside.
The man sitting in the driver’s seat looked a little tired, his sharp profile almost sculpted.
It was Kim In-hyuk.
“You’re the one who said to meet, so why are you so late?”
His expression was flat.
It was not the look of a man gazing at his lovely girlfriend.
Hyein had known for a while that the way In-hyuk looked at her had changed.
She knew the breakup was drawing closer and closer, but she had thought there was nothing she could do about it.
But the moment she realized the reason his feelings had changed was a junior from the same department, something buried deep inside her felt as though it might burst open.
“I was meeting someone for a moment.”
So Hyein was struggling.
Kim In-hyuk absolutely could not abandon her.
“Who?”
She knew he wasn’t really curious.
He was only asking because he had nothing else to say, but Hyein had said it specifically to provoke that reaction.
“Seung-hyun oppa.”
See? Just like that.
His eyes had already hardened, glaring at her.
Hyein felt a strange little thrill at the sight.
“Who? Jung Seung-hyun?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to meet.”
“Who? Seung-hyun wanted to meet you?”
“Yeah.”
In-hyuk let out a snort.
“Hah, give me a break. He wanted to meet you? That bastard, you? What for? Did he want to borrow money or something?”
“No, nothing like that. He just said he wanted to see how I’d been doing after all this time...”
“What a load of crap...”
“Are you really going to talk about Seung-hyun oppa after seeing me for the first time in three days? Let’s go eat something good.”
Hyein deliberately changed the subject.
She meant to make him even more jealous by changing the topic, but In-hyuk just glared at her and turned his head away.
The moment her heart sank, just before Hyein could say anything,
“Let’s break up.”
“What?”
“I said let’s break up. Honestly, you know I hate that bastard Jung Seung-hyun, so if you’re still going around meeting him, doesn’t that mean you’re already so sick of me you can barely stand it?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“If it isn’t that, then what else could it be? You know better than anyone how much I hate that bastard.”
“I’m serious, it’s not like that.”
“Enough. I’m just uncomfortable being with you now. Let’s stop.”
Hyein glared at In-hyuk as though flames were flickering in her eyes.
Just from her gaze alone, one could feel a fury fierce enough to devour him on the spot.
But she said nothing more and quietly got out of the car.
Bang.
As soon as the door shut, the car sped away as if it had been waiting for that moment.
Watching it go, Hyein trembled with rage.
“You son of a bitch... That bastard!”
She shouted until the street itself seemed to shake, not caring who heard her, then muttered under her breath.
“You think I’m just going to let you walk away? Hmph. You’re mine.”
Even though everything she had planned had collapsed, her steps as she walked away did not waver at all.
*
“Why did you do that?”
Seung-hyun, who had come to a pasta place not far from campus for a late lunch, asked So-hee as she twirled pasta around her fork.
She smiled sweetly, stuffed a bite into her mouth, and chewed happily for a while before finally answering.
“Because he was mean. So I got revenge for you.”
“Why would you get revenge for me? If anyone should do it, it’s me.”
“Men usually aren’t very good at that sort of thing. So I did it for you.”
“You’re too nosy.”
“Tch.”
She stuck out her lips, then went right back to inhaling pasta.
Seung-hyun idly picked at the pasta in front of him for a moment, then asked curiously, “I heard In-hyuk’s been hanging around you?”
So-hee shrugged, then gave him a sidelong smile and asked back, “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? I’m asking because I wanted to know if it was true.”
“Are you jealous?”
Seung-hyun tilted his head and looked at her for a moment, wondering if all kids these days really talked like this, then made a sour face.
“I don’t know what kind of thoughts you’re having, but I’m not thinking about dating. I’m busy running a company right now.”
“Oh my, did I ask you out, oppa?”
“I’m just saying how I feel. Sorry if you misunderstood.”
“Tch.”
For the first time, irritation showed on her face.
She looked Seung-hyun over, taking in how his clothes hung on him, and asked, “I heard office workers dress pretty casually these days, but you keep wearing suits.”
“You haven’t seen me in a suit much, so it feels a little strange, doesn’t it? I hear companies are a lot more relaxed these days, but I’m the boss. I can’t exactly go around dressing casually. Does it suit me?”
“Yes... It suits you.”
“Really? That wasn’t an insult, was it?”
“Of course not. Definitely not. It really suits you.”
“Good. Thanks. But this is a pretty funny situation. I’d actually been meaning to meet you anyway.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Do you happen to have time from Friday the 17th through Sunday?”
“Uh... from Friday the 17th through Sunday?”
“Yeah. I actually don’t know you all that well, so I know it’s rude to ask you to do this out of the blue.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine.”
So-hee hurriedly waved her hands, but Seung-hyun kept going.
“Since I’m running a factory, things don’t always go the way I want them to, which makes things difficult. Of course, I’ll pay you for the day, so don’t worry about that. Would you happen to be free from Saturday the 17th for three days? It’s about two weeks from now.”
Perhaps sensing the sincerity in his tone, So-hee didn’t answer right away.
She rolled her eyes upward, thinking it over, then said, “What is it for?”
“Actually, we’ve been invited to take part in a furniture and interior design exhibition at COEX.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, but one booth staffer and I would be there, and with just two people it seems like we might be short-handed, so I thought it would help if you came to guide visitors.”
If he pulled company employees away for the exhibition, they would be short on people back at the factory.
They had already lost quite a few hands, and taking more of them for the expo would have been a stretch.
With someone as slender and beautiful as So-hee helping out, though, he thought it would be a huge advantage, which was why he had wanted to ask her in person. He had never imagined he’d run into Hyein first.
“Ah...”
“It won’t be complicated. I’ll handle all the technical explanations. You’d just need to memorize the company overview I give you, answer questions when people ask, and connect them to me.”
“So if you’re talking to a client, I’d stall for time and handle the simple answers?”
Seung-hyun’s eyes widened.
“You know your stuff. Yeah, exactly. Would that be okay?”
So-hee nodded and asked, “Until what time?”
“Probably around six.”
“Then dinner...”
“I’ll buy it, of course.”
A faint curve appeared at the corner of her mouth, then faded again as she said, “Okay. Just make sure you pay me properly.”
“Of course, of course. Naturally. Then come to COEX by ten on Saturday the 17th.”
“Okay.”
“Ah, and one more thing. Can I ask you something?”
So-hee tilted her head. “What is it?”
“Have you seen Kim In-hyuk again after that?”
So-hee knew their relationship was no ordinary matter, so she answered a little tensely, “No, not at all. Did In-hyuk oppa really make some huge mistake toward you?”
“...I’m still not sure.”
“Then you’re saying he might have made a mistake?”
He didn’t know how long he had spent thinking about it.
Whenever In-hyuk’s face surged up in his mind until it felt like his head would split, Seung-hyun forced himself to focus even harder on the company.
If he hadn’t, he would have gone straight to the school, grabbed the bastard by the collar, and asked how he knew about his father and the factory.
But he knew better.
Any reckless show of strength without real power would be crushed by society’s hammer of law and sent plummeting.
If he wanted revenge, if he wanted the truth, then he would need power. Nothing less would do.
“Anyway, thanks for agreeing. And thanks for earlier too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I was going to let it slide this time, but it really was satisfying in the end.”
At his strange wording, So-hee tilted her head.
“This time? When else was there a case like this?”
Just then, Seung-hyun felt his phone vibrate with a new message.
‘Huh?’
Seeing that it was from the factory manager, he checked it to see what had happened.
‘!!!’
Seung-hyun’s expression turned to one of utter disbelief as he read the message.
So-hee, wondering what on earth it was, asked, “What is it? Something happen?”
“Huh? Oh, no.”
He shook his head, then sat thinking with a grave expression before smoothing his face out again. Setting down the fork he had been holding, he spoke as casually as ever.
“I dated a girl for about six months after I got out of the military and before I returned to school. She was really cute. The way she talked, the way she laughed... But then by chance I saw her phone and realized there was another guy. The usual kind of two-timing. So I broke up with her, naturally. She apologized and said even if we were going to break up, I should at least meet her face to face so she could say it properly.”
The story was more serious than So-hee had expected, and her fork paused in midair.
Seung-hyun went on.
“So I met her. But somehow, once I realized all the cuteness she’d had just made me lose interest, she didn’t look cute at all anymore. I thought, oh, it’s really over now. She cried and clung to me, but I told her coldly that it was over and walked out. Then I happened to run into a girl I only knew by face outside a cafe.”
So-hee’s expression stiffened at the unexpected turn.
“The second she understood the situation, she came right over, linked her arm through mine, and told me to buy her a drink. So the girl who had been crying and begging me not to leave let me go just like that. She was just standing there, tears dripping down her face.”
So-hee swallowed hard and asked, “Could it be... the woman who asked you to buy her a drink was...”
“That’s right. Hyein. The girl who was my girlfriend until she started sneaking around with In-hyuk.”
“...”
“When I first sat down with her and had a drink, she was all bright smiles and curiosity toward me. Just like you... She was so pretty I fell for her at first sight.”
“Oppa...”
“She was chattering away about how unbelievable it was that a woman with a boyfriend could cheat, and I was thinking to myself, ‘Yeah, this is the kind of woman I should have met...’ But that wasn’t how it turned out.
I’m not saying you’re going to end up exactly like Hyein. It just felt like deja vu. Honestly, I came out because I wanted to ask a little about In-hyuk, but I didn’t expect him to react like that.
Anyway... unfortunately, I’m a little busy. The factory won’t collapse without me, but there are plenty of things I need to handle. Next time, I’ll buy our model something more expensive.”
After saying that, Seung-hyun stood up and took something from inside his jacket, placing it on the table.
“Ah, this is a gift. A Starbucks card would probably suit you better, but this isn’t the kind of thing I give to just anyone. See you next time.”
Before she could say anything, Seung-hyun handed her a 100,000-won shoe gift certificate he had bought for a business meeting, smiled sweetly, and disappeared.
“...”
Left alone, So-hee stared down at the pasta in front of her with unreadable eyes.
Then her phone vibrated.
[You like perfume, right? How about this one? I think it would suit you.]
It was a message sent along with a photo of a luxury-brand perfume.
“So that’s how he hooked my sister, too.”
So-hee let out a small laugh, turned her phone face down, and didn’t bother replying.
Then she quietly finished the rest of her pasta.
As though she were alone in the restaurant, and as though nothing at all had happened.
Meanwhile, Seung-hyun walked briskly away, his face hardened.
He was thinking of the message from Factory Manager Park Han-soo.
[Boss, Team Leader Jo Han-gyeol has died. It looks like suicide.]
As he replayed the message in his mind, Seung-hyun’s expression grew more and more distorted.