The Author NTR Drifted (4)
I was the kind of guy who'd lived pretty pessimistically right up through college, but you could say I gradually got better once I entered the working world.
Like I mentioned before, I'd developed this habit of hunting for a ray of hope in the middle of despair—or maybe just trying to steal one—and even though I was fundamentally gloomy, I'd also equipped myself with the mindset of just going with the flow and living life enjoyably, right?
But keeping up that attitude requires a surprisingly important element.
Knowing your place.
I don't expect some high salary based on my career experience, and I'm not dreaming of starting my own business and getting rich later either. Just live ordinarily, not too lacking, staying within the margin of error of medium difficulty life. Moderate knowledge, moderate laziness, moderate diligence, plus an ordinary face to match—don't stick out too much, don't get greedy, just enjoy what I can enjoy on my own without bothering anyone else.
How great is that?
The best part of living this way is that even the tiniest unexpected stroke of luck can make you genuinely happy and grateful.
"Unnie, two pork bone hangover soups over here!"
For example: a lunch like this one, with a beauty.
"I'll have the soft tofu…"
"This is a pork bone hangover soup place."
"Yes."
Her soft tofu stew got shot down flat, but when they'd handed me the menu choice back at the office I hadn't listened properly, so I had no room to complain. The real problem was that I actually had nothing to say to Riyeon either.
As the sole HR manager, Gam Injae could handle grievance counseling and icebreakers without breaking a sweat—but that was only during work hours, with labor-related content. This was lunch. Private time. And in private time, Injae was a total nerd. Even when I threw out a carefully considered joke, my delivery reeked of nerd from the first syllable and left no room for anyone to laugh. The only topic I could even try was Even After Knowing Everything of You, but we'd already covered every inch of that last night while drinking.
Apparently that wasn't the case for Riyeon.
"Before the food comes out, let's talk about the Mizuki Drug Bulgogi Incident."
"Pffft! *hack*!"
"Are you okay?"
She'd casually dropped the word "drugs" in a restaurant packed with people, and I sprayed the water I'd been drinking. Thankfully none of it hit Riyeon. As I covered my mouth and coughed, she nonchalantly pulled out several napkins and wiped the table.
"I'll wipe it."
"I'm done. It got on your clothes too. Stay still."
A beauty casually wiping my collar for me. What was this? Wasn't the distance way too close? More than that—why wipe the table first and then my clothes? I was grateful, but in a subtly weird way. My heart was pounding, but it was only because she was pretty. I didn't think I'd delude myself into believing she liked me just because she'd wiped my shirt.
"Why bring up the Mizuki thing again… Didn't we air it all out yesterday?"
"How do you air that out in one day? It won't leave my head. Whether I'm looking at community posts roasting that whore Jeonhannan bastard or IF story fanfics, this feeling of my insides turning pitch black—you know it, right?"
"I know. I know it well."
"It's driving me crazy, you know? That Jeonhannan whore bastard went and did the Mizuki drug bulgogi gangbang crap."
It was driving me crazy too. Hearing words like "whore" and "gangbang" come out of a woman's mouth in a packed hangover soup place in broad daylight was making my head spin.
"Your language is pretty extreme…"
"Was I wrong? Mizuki's lower half is totally ruined now, so what."
Stop her. I had to stop that mouth. Anything was fine—I had to change the subject for the sake of social survival.
"You know this is completely different from your office image?"
"What image? That I'm rude? That's right, isn't it? I'm rude?"
"No, not that."
I had zero intention of honestly saying "yeah, you're super fucking rude" and then sitting through an awkward meal with the person across from me. This wasn't just ending with lunch—Riyeon sat next to me, so I was hoping that building a slightly, just a tiny bit more intimate relationship than before might make company life a little smoother going forward. So speak carefully. As an HR manager, let's grease the wheels a little.
"It's the first time I've heard you talk this lively. At the office you're quiet because you're focused on work."
"Ah…"
Riyeon seemed embarrassed and took a sip of water.
"It's just because I don't have anyone I'm close with…"
You're not close with me either.
"And even if I did, it's not like the atmosphere is one where you can just blab about Knowing Everything. Plus it got hit with an NTR Drift, so talking about it publicly is awkward too."
"That's true, but don't any of your friends read Knowing Everything? Texting with friends between work to manage your mental health or something?"
"I don't have friends."
"Friends who read Knowing Everything?"
"Just friends in general."
Oh, damn.
"So at this point, the person I'm closest to is you, Injae-ssi."
Dangerous. This beauty had zero sense of distance. If I wasn't careful, I was going to get the wrong idea. No matter how many times I emphasized it, knowing your place was essential if you wanted to take it easy and enjoy life.
"I don't have friends either."
"Then am I the person you're closest to too, Injae-ssi?"
"No, I have acquaintances, so."
"Liar."
Even her shocked expression was pretty. Pretty as she looked while shocked, I took a light hit on my end. Even without friends, you can still have acquaintances, right?
"Then do you talk about Knowing Everything with those people?"
"No, those guys are married so they don't have time to read manga."
"Then when it comes to Knowing Everything, I'm the closest?"
Correct. It was correct, but I didn't want to admit it easily. Here I was pondering how to tease a beauty with fierce eyes—maybe I was taking one step toward the life of a social butterfly. Ah, but Riyeon had said she was an outcast too, so it would just end as loners bonding. Nothing good to pick a fight over came to mind, so I quietly nodded. Then Riyeon's face brightened.
Cute.
It was pure admiration and praise. When she smiled, it was like there was just one pure, simple girl sitting there. Loners were usually like that. They basically had consideration for others and fundamental goodness. Dealing with people was just hard, and communication failed so their intentions got conveyed weirdly and made everything awkward.
"Your smiling face is different again."
"Ah, that's a line from the male lead Idoriya!"
It was the line from the scene where pure heroine Mizuki first gets butterflies for Idoriya. A scene of pure high school boy and girl blushing at each other—except the guy saying it now wasn't pure at all, and Riyeon was also a company drone worn down by corporate life. Riyeon, who'd been sparkling at our exclusive inside joke, slumped her shoulders again.
"So what. We never expected she'd grow up to be a girl doing drug orgies in college."
"You're only saying terrible things."
"It's the truth."
"It may be the truth, but just being right doesn't make it pleasant to hear."
"If you only listen to pleasant things you can't grow."
"But right now we're in a state of being hurt by that whore Jeonhannan?"
I'd casually said "whore" myself. Riyeon had said it first, so it should be fine. If she called me out I'd just gloss over it.
"We're hurt so we're angry, right? Whenever I get hurt I get thoroughly mad. Keep going until I'm too exhausted to be angry anymore."
"I try hard to suppress it somehow. Getting angry just hurts me, right?"
Riyeon was irritably picking the meat off the pork bone soup with her chopsticks and putting it back into the earthen pot. So she was the type who ate it with rice. For reference, I pick it off and eat it right away. I've been through too many cases of holding back and ending up with nothing but shit. Still, I was trying to spare my lungs and liver, so I'd quit smoking. Thanks to that I was spending days with my brain turning white, but thinking even that pain was entirely mine wasn't so bad. Pain was for enduring, after all. I just never expected them to top it with the Mizuki Drug Bulgogi Incident as a topping.
"Why is getting angry my loss? Isn't holding it in more of a loss?"
"If you get angry people look at you weird or treat you like a violent person."
"Let them. Who made you into that kind of person."
"Then even the people who didn't make me that way end up thinking of me that way."
"I can't do it. Before that my insides would burn up completely. And it's okay to get angry at that whore Jeonhannan bastard."
That was true. When drawing the 300-chapter commemorative art, the author had hurriedly posted it on SNS and made a huge fuss, but once public opinion went to absolute shit he went into hiding with a two-week hiatus instead of communicating. The publisher wasn't putting out any particular statement either. That was why Riyeon was coming out so fiercely angry.
"This isn't ordinary firewood—you'll be angry for days. Will you be okay, Riyeon-ssi?"
"Not days. I think it'll last at least a month."
We finished the pork bone hangover soup and left the restaurant. Naturally we bought two coffees and walked around the area. As we talked, our shoulders or arms occasionally bumped. Neither Riyeon nor I paid any attention to that and were heating up with small talk. It didn't even have to be related to Knowing Everything. Just talking itself untied something. It was something proven to actually work, so you could trust it.
"Then what do you do when you're angry, Injae-ssi? Especially the Mizuki drug bulgo… no, just call it Mizuki. When the Mizuki Incident blows up?"
"I try to forget it with something else."
"Something else?"
"There's that saying, right? A man who dumped you is forgotten with a new man."
In the male version, a woman is forgotten with a woman. A simple truth.
"I hate NTR though."
"It's meeting someone new after breaking up?"
"I haven't broken up with Knowing Everything yet. And I like pure love. That's why I've been a lifelong single until now."
Too much information value had just been input. Unfortunately no output came out for this. Even though she was this pretty, being a lifelong virgin made me suspect there was some serious defect. Difficult. So difficult. If it wasn't an obvious external defect like my ordinary face, you had to find the defect inside, which wasn't easy. But Riyeon was also someone who needed mental and wound healing. Just this once, I'd specially pass on my own method.
"It's first aid."
"First aid?"
I raised my index finger with a very serious expression.
"You watch some other romance work that either blows away all this bullshit with action or completely melts it with sweetness. In a way, it's like finding ointment to put on the wound?"
"Ohh—!"
Riyeon sparkled her eyes.
"But my number one pick is Knowing Everything though?"
Difficult. So difficult.
"Then I'll recommend one. How about watching that?"
"A recommendation…!"
Riyeon blankly opened her mouth. The more I got to know her, the more colorful her expressions were.
"It's the first time I've ever gotten a work recommendation from an otaku friend."
I was glad she seemed moved, but since when were we friends? And otaku ones at that?