Yandere Rampage! (1)
I came back to the office hand in hand with Riyeon.
We let go once we hit the elevator, but she still looked reluctant to part with it. I felt the same way, so I tapped the back of her hand with my fingers, teasing her. She smiled with her eyes and bit her lower lip. That alone was enough to smother the dark, hair-trigger rage that had filled me up during the morning status meeting. On any other Monday I would have stayed low-pressure all day. Being able to bounce back this fast was a gift.
Come to think of it, when exactly had every Monday turned into the day I lost my mind? Was it after that good-looking Team Leader figured out I almost never raised my voice at him? If so, that was pretty infuriating. I had been trying to treat him with a team leader's dignity even if he was incompetent—and if he was going to look down on people for that, the whole attitude needed to be ripped out and rebuilt from the ground up.
That was how I would have handled it as a fresh graduate. I had actually done it several times—charged straight in and quit. Nothing changed. All that happened was my career kept getting smashed into shorter and shorter fragments. I rose up against injustice, took the law as sword and shield, and still I was the one who left while the sycophants who had done wrong stayed put, negotiating their raises with their mouths and collecting pay for doing nothing.
I had changed a lot, too. A slave ought to act like a slave. No matter how much I alone got worked up and screamed that something was illegal, no one upstairs ever listened. Then one little crack would get exposed, an accident would hit, and the whole sandcastle would come down in a clatter. When that happened, managers like the Team Leader never took the fall alone. The whole associated team got hit, their performance reviews hit rock bottom, and they were swapped out for new blood. That was what a company was. Small and mid-sized firms and startups were the worst. Mid-tier and large corporations were similar, with the one difference that they papered over the ugly parts with money.
So the conclusion was this. Look even a little carefully and every company had dust in the corners, and that dust could be piled up black and thick. And if an individual tried to fight it, there was no dramatic reverse, no justice served. That only happened if you were the CEO's son. And usually, if you were the CEO's son or daughter, you were also a core pillar of that same dusty corruption. You know the type—never even shows up to work, but has their kid or wife listed as a representative director and paid a monthly salary. It happened more often than you would think. As someone who had run into it head-on more than three times, I was done. I would play dumb, compromise roughly, and skim whatever blind money I could. Justice was dead. Justice did not have money. Long before the Constitution of the Republic of Korea was ever written, money had already climbed above justice.
Even so, what I had told Riyeon at lunch was sincere. If she ever got screwed over and I could not save her, I would leave too. She was my one exception. Beyond that, I did not care how anything went.
All afternoon, the Team Leader never came back to his desk. That guy always left for lunch right on the minute and came back late. Usually he was out cackling and gossiping with the women on the team—and today, of all days, he was supposedly out on a field visit. What Riyeon had said last week stuck with me: when the Team Leader was out, he half-assed his work and left early before quitting time. I had mellowed a lot and was inclined to let things slide with some flexibility, but with a pile of items that needed review and approval, this was a problem.
What is that supposed to mean, Riyeon. If even you start saying things like that, what am I supposed to do.
It was work Riyeon could have handled alone. It was not that hard. But the same way the Management Support team dumped everything on me whenever something came up, any task that looked hard to shove onto me got shoved onto her. So Riyeon worked hard enough to stay late on her own when she needed to, while the other women on the team chatted and played around until they clocked out on the dot. Even now they were looping brand sale posts and cat shorts among themselves, cooing, "So cute~!" over and over. The fact that people who sat around jerking off and people who spun their wheels all day could pull roughly the same salary made the bitterness rise so hard I wanted to kill someone. I was in no position to scold Riyeon for having a foul mouth. Honestly, I had no idea how many tens of thousands of times I had muttered to myself that I wanted to cave every one of those bastards' skulls in. Including the Team Leader.
I was staring straight at them over the partition and they still did not notice, still cackling. It made me think about how best to throw this whole job in the trash.
Were those people so loaded that they could loaf around like that? If they had more money than a woman who ran a two-bay elevator parking tower, I sincerely wanted to know why they were even showing up to work. With the job market this bad, they should have been yielding their seats to young people who actually wanted to work hard.
"Haa…."
I let out one long breath and posted a message in the logistics center managers' messenger room. The year was almost over, so every site team needed to check who still had not done their health checkup and send me the list. Deadline: the day after tomorrow, Wednesday. If you did not set a deadline, people simply did not do the work. Of course, some people still would not even with one. Then I would have to raise hell. What else.
Ah, it was so frustrating. Even if I wanted to cover my eyes and ears to this company life, it was so pathetic and irritating that it was not easy. I swallowed the anger and did other work. At least being able to talk to Riyeon over chat kept me from getting as visibly worked up as before.
I worked through the HR tasks one by one on my own. Every item I checked off the list, time marched steadily on. And so the great Monday exodus hour arrived.
I had put my whole soul into clearing every last thing on today's list, without even a gap to chat with Riyeon. I sent the message with a light heart, and she replied almost at once.
Mmm. Bantering with a beautiful woman was delicious. They say a man's lifespan increases when he looks at a big chest; in a similar vein, private conversation with a beauty brought peace of mind and body. I did not know the mechanism. It just worked that way.
"See you tomorrow."
The other teammates said they had plans and would leave in another ten or twenty minutes. Were they insane? Plans—on a Monday? I squeezed into the stream of people clocking out on time and headed for Riyeon's parking tower. The wind made it feel colder, so the second she pulled the car out I climbed into the passenger seat.
"You worked hard, oppa."
"You too, Riyeon."
"You helped me, though."
"Just lean on the managers who miss the deadline for me."
"Mm-hmm, got it."
After that I completely collapsed. When I laid the back of my hand on my forehead it was hot with fever—not a cold or body aches, but heat from a brain that had been running without any cooling. Maybe go home, do a little home workout, shower, and sleep. I was so tired today I just wanted to pass out immediately.
"Oppa, today the Team Leader was so… and that bitch Mina, seriously…."
Riyeon wove skillfully through the side streets that were not jammed, talking hard about everything that had happened to her today—things from the hours when I had been too buried in work to respond properly. For reference, Mina was another Management Support teammate that both of us hated. A little stupid, zero situational awareness, but her face was passably pretty.
"It was so annoying… oppa?"
"Yeah… yeah…."
"You must be sleepy."
"Yeah…."
Ugh, I should not be doing this. When Riyeon was talking to me I needed to keep my eyes open and actively engage. My eyelids were too heavy. She had even turned on the seat heater for the passenger side—warm and drowsy.
"Oppa?"
"……."
"You're cute when you fall asleep."
"Yeah…."
I felt her take my hand.
"This is enough for now. Close your eyes a little, oppa."
"Nn…."
I could not even answer properly anymore.
"Oppa~ wake up. We're here."
"Yeah…."
"Oppa~ oppa?"
"Yeah…."
"Oppa!"
Only after she smacked my shoulder with a thump did I startle and open my eyes. God, I just wanted to close them again. That was how wiped out I was today. The heater's sticky warmth had not been playing around.
"You look really tired, oppa. Go in and wash up and sleep."
"Augh… I should do a little home workout first…."
"Don't push it. Just go sleep."
"Yeah…."
I stretched a little in the tight space, then grabbed the door handle.
"I'm going, Riyeon."
Looking out the window, it really was right in front of my place.
"This won't work. I seriously need to wash up and sleep right away. I might not be able to keep chatting. Sorry."
"It's fine. You're just tired. What can you do."
"Thanks."
I was so grateful for the understanding that I stroked her hair, then pushed the car door.
Click.
It did not open. I pulled the handle again. There was no catch-and-release feeling of a lock giving at all.
"Riyeon, the door's locked?"
"……."
"Riyeon, open it."
"……."
"Riyeon?"
In that instant, my eyes met Riyeon's. More precisely, they met her gaze reflected in the window. Focusless, clean pupils were fixed on me. Her face was blank. It felt so much like a ghost staring that the goosebumps rose.
"Riyeon, the doo—"
Click.
Do not misunderstand. That was not the sound of a door unlocking. That was the sound of Riyeon fastening my seatbelt again.
The Genesis reversed in one smooth motion.
"Riyeon?!"
"Oppa."
She was driving without looking at the road, her gaze locked on me.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"Oppa."
Damp moisture seeped into Riyeon's voice.
"Oppa, why didn't you keep your promise?"
"What promise? Why—why? I genuinely don't know."
"You don't know? You don't know? You don't know? You don't know?!!!!!!!!"
The grind of teeth. As we entered the road, the taillights painted her face red, and the expression on it was grotesque.
"Oppa, this is really too much."
Barely holding back tears, Riyeon spoke to me.
"Yesterday you promised you'd pet me and kiss me at least once every single day."
"Riyeon, the front! Look at the front! The front!"
Whatever I said did not reach her ears at all. She only poured out her own grievance.
"Why didn't you kiss me today!!!!!!"
That was the first day I truly felt how heavy Riyeon's affection could be.