I Got a Job
I got a job.
Café Luminous.
The manager swallowed hard. Min Seonye was screaming into her phone with the force of a volcano erupting.
“Han Yuri, you fucking bitch!!!”
“You dare snatch Sihyun away from me!?”
“He was going to quit anyway? What kind of bullshit is that!”
“What—!? Ask the manager……?”
The manager, who had been eavesdropping on the call, squeezed his eyes shut. He never should have taken Yuri’s money. Even if he could go back in time, though—
If you don’t want this café wrecked like yesterday, shut up and do what I say. I’m not even asking you to do it for free, am I?
—he had no confidence he could refuse that crazy woman’s threats. The manager had been stuck in a no-win situation. Die early yesterday, or die late today. Those were the only two choices left. Which meant he could only dread the future that would arrive the moment Seonye finished her call and came looking for him.
Kwaang—!
As expected, his bad feeling proved right. With a crash that nearly shattered the table, Seonye flung her phone to the floor. It was an expensive latest model, but she didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
Tak-tak……
The sound of her high heels striking the tile sent a chill down the manager’s spine. It sounded like the footsteps of a reaper. He almost dove under the counter on pure reflex, but managed to hold himself back and pretend to tidy the counter instead.
However—
“Ma. na. ger.”
The ice-cold voice from behind him had no intention of letting him pretend. Forced to turn his head, he found himself staring straight into Seonye’s face, her red eyes gleaming with murderous light. It was a complete one-eighty from the way she usually looked when Sihyun was working at the café.
“Hiiiik—!”
The manager flinched and shrank his shoulders without meaning to.
“Y-yes! You called, Boss?!”
“……I believe I told you not to call me that.”
Sharp irritation edged Seonye’s voice. It didn’t really matter right now since Sihyun wasn’t in the café, but the manager had just stabbed her in the back after she had already decided to give him a massive bonus later. From her perspective, there was no way she wouldn’t be angry.
“Hiiiik—! I’m sorry—!”
“Haa…….”
Seonye let out a sigh as if he wasn’t even worth dealing with any longer. Han Yuri, that psycho bitch, had threatened him, so of course this middle-aged man hadn’t had a choice. With that resigned thought, she reined her emotions back in and asked in a calm voice,
“You haven’t processed the loss of Sihyun’s four major insurances yet, have you?”
“Y-yes, that’s right! I haven’t processed it yet!”
The manager nodded so hard his head nearly came off, answering in a voice that was almost on the verge of tears. Only then did Seonye’s expression brighten a little. That smile, however, was extremely—
“Good. That’s enough. If you’d already gone that far…….”
—something about it was vicious, and the words she swallowed were clearly something terrifying. The manager hiccupped in pure terror without meaning to.
“Hic—!”
Leaving him like that, Seonye turned and headed for the café entrance.
“Fine, Han Yuri. Let’s see which one of us wins this. We’ll go all the way.”
She muttered it in a voice too soft for anyone to hear.
“Sihyun is mine.”
In those red eyes of hers as she spoke, quiet but unmistakable rage and obsession burned like flames.
Meanwhile, Sihyun—who had not the faintest idea what the two women were about to start over him again—walked straight out of the café and headed home. He collected Seojin and took her to the hospital.
“Sihyun, Mom’s fine, really.”
“Ah, stop being stubborn and come on!”
There was a small tussle, but in the end Sihyun succeeded in getting Seojin to the hospital. After the examination they set a surgery date and left the consultation room.
“Sihyun, Mom really is fine, so we don’t need the surgery…….”
“Forget it. I already paid.”
“What?”
Seojin’s eyes went round.
“Where did you get that kind of money…….”
“You think I’ve been working for free all this time?”
“No, Sihyun. I know how hard you’ve worked day and night. But this is too much money. Mom’s not an idiot.”
“No, Mom is an idiot…….”
Sihyun muttered under his breath, remembering how Seojin had collapsed after pushing herself too hard trying to clean up a mess he had caused in the past. Seeing the complicated look on her son’s face, Seojin gently took his arm with worry-filled eyes and asked,
“My boy…… be honest with me. You didn’t take out a loan or go to loan sharks, did you?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then did you steal some—”
“Ah, for real—!”
Even though Sihyun shouted in pure injustice, Seojin refused to drop her suspicious stare.
“Then explain properly.”
“Aargh, seriously…….”
As Sihyun floundered over how to put it, Yuri’s face suddenly flashed through his mind. He hesitated a moment, then reluctantly opened his mouth.
“Yesterday…… that woman who came with me.”
“Woman? You mean Miss Yuri? Your girlfriend?”
“No, I keep telling you she’s not my girlfriend—!”
“Okay, okay. Anyway, what about Miss Yuri. Don’t tell me you borrowed money from her?”
“No, it’s not that…….”
Sihyun hesitated over how to cover it. Explaining that he had become a chaebol woman’s bodyguard felt a little much. Starting from how he met Yuri, there were all sorts of things he really didn’t want to spill. Especially when he thought of Dongchul and the Daeho Clan thugs, his mouth refused to open even more.
Just then—
Weeeing—
A phone notification suddenly went off.
“Mom, give me a second, I need to check my phone.”
Hoping to buy even a little more time to think, Sihyun opened his phone right away and found a single text message that was obviously from Yuri, no matter how she had gotten his number.
The message listed the work start time and a detailed address. One thing stood out among them.
Y Asset
It was the name of a company he had never seen before. He had no idea what kind of company it was, but Sihyun decided to treat it as an opportunity.
“That woman introduced me. I got hired there as a security officer. The surgery money is just an advance on my salary…….”
He held the phone screen out to Seojin.
“Oh my……!”
Seojin slowly read through every word of the text.
“Our Sihyun finally got a proper job?”
“Y-yeah…….”
Sihyun nodded awkwardly. At her son’s answer, Seojin smiled brightly and clasped her hands together. Her eyes grew a little moist. She had worried so much watching her son work part-time jobs without even sleeping properly, never mind going to college, all to support her. The fact that he had landed a job at a company that looked decent finally let her feel a little relieved.
“Congratulations, Sihyun! You did so well!”
“Y-yeah…… thanks…….”
She gently stroked her son’s hand, full of joy. Facing that look on his mother’s face, Sihyun forced a smile while crushing down the guilt rising inside him.
“This is all thanks to Miss Yuri, right? Tell her to come again next time. We’ll treat her properly then!”
“Y-yeah…… okay…….”
“Good, good. And while you’re at it, try dating her for real!”
“Ah, can we stop with that already—!”
“Oh my, look at you getting shy~ Hoho.”
“Aargh, seriously—!”
Sihyun’s face burned red as he grumbled under Seojin’s endless teasing, but seeing his mother smile so brightly for the first time in ages made him give up and just shut his mouth. That single smile alone made all the hardship he had endured feel a little bit repaid. After all, he had finally solved the surgery problem that Seojin had been carrying for so long.
A certain group was secretly watching that warm mother-and-son scene from hiding.
“Kim Sihyun, you son of a bitch…….”
Even though he hadn’t been hit directly even once, Taesu had slammed the back of his head on the floor when he blacked out, so he had ended up at the hospital with the injured underlings. He ground his teeth hard enough to break them.
“Taesu, just hold it in…….”
One of them grabbed his shoulder and tried to stop him. Taesu roughly shook the hand off and snarled.
“Hold what in, you dumbass! Did you forget what kind of shit we went through because of that bastard?!”
That day, Taesu and his crew had been dragged off by the organization members and then beaten half to death. They had thought they could score big points with the big brothers, but instead they had only been utterly humiliated.
“Hey. I knew it. We gotta start by fucking up that bastard’s mom.”
“What? No, even so, that’s a bit…….”
“Fuck, so we’re just gonna let this slide?”
“That’s…….”
The underlings couldn’t bring themselves to answer and only exchanged glances, fidgeting.
Right then—
Puk—!
“Aaagh! Which bastard was that!?”
Taesu grabbed the back of his head and roared.
“Well now…… which bastard would it be if not me?”
“Huk! D-Dongchul hyungnim……? Mmph!”
“Can’t shut that damn mouth of yours? This your living room or something? In a hospital you keep quiet! Keep it quiet!”
Dongchul had appeared out of nowhere and clamped a hand over Taesu’s mouth.
“Mmph mmph!!”
Under Dongchul’s monstrous grip strength—
“Gurgle…….”
—Taesu foamed at the mouth and passed out cold.
“Well damn, filthy bastard. Making a whole scene in a hospital. This punk’s a real headache~”
Dongchul pulled his hand off Taesu’s mouth like it was dirty and dusted it off in the air.
“Kids, grab this bastard and drag him out already.”
“Y-yes! Understood!”
The underlings scrambled at his order and hauled the unconscious Taesu away, practically dragging him across the floor.
Once Taesu and the underlings were gone, Dongchul turned his head and glanced at Sihyun and Seojin.
“Well now…… so that’s why he’s so pretty. Takes after his mother, huh?”
He watched the mother and son with mild interest for a moment, then turned away.
“The debt for cracking my fist…… you’d better come pay that properly next time~”
With that muttered remark and a meaningful smile, he strolled out of the hospital at a leisurely pace.