The Enemy's CEO Asked to Lean on My Back for Five Minutes

Kang Soohyun was standing there in a gray knit dress — the same one she had worn at Sseolmul. Her hair was tangled, and the skin beneath her eyes had gone dark. It was the face of a woman who had not slept in four days.

This morning's newspaper hung from her hand, the culture section spread open. It was crumpled, creased all over from being folded and unfolded again and again.

"Why are you here."

Her voice was hoarse.

"To make you jujube tea."

I drew a plastic bag from my bag. Ten dried jujubes, taken from the cupboard at Sseolmul.

"You said you didn't even know how to light a stove."

Kang Soohyun's kitchen looked like a model home. The counters were marble, the range was German, and a set of pots that had never once been used ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still sat in the cupboard with the packaging unopened. I opened the refrigerator. Six bottles of water. That was all.

"……For ten years?"

"I've been here four years. Four."

She stood in the kitchen doorway and did not come in, as if the room belonged to someone else.

"Come here."

"……"

"I'll show you how to light it."

She took one step in, then another, and stopped in front of the range. I stood behind her, took her hand, and set it on the ignition knob.

Her hand was cold, the way it had been during the footbath at Sseolmul. There was no watch on her left wrist. In its place was a white band — ten years of sunlight stopped by a watch, a strip so pale it looked as if she were wearing a white bracelet.

I drew my thumb along the inside of that white band, right where the pulse beat.

Kang Soohyun's breath stopped.

"I took the watch off three days ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ago. I didn't want to look at the date of the board meeting."

"It's white here."

"No one has touched it in ten years. Because of the watch."

"Press, and turn. Until it clicks."

Her fingers pressed the knob and turned it. Click.

A blue flame rose.

Kang Soohyun drew a breath and looked at it. Thirty-nine years old, and the face of someone lighting a fire for the first time.

"……It's on."

"Yes."

"It was this easy?"

"Yes."

She said it without taking her eyes off the flame.

"For ten years I was afraid of this. I thought if I turned it on, I wouldn't know how to turn it off."

My hand was still over hers. She didn't pull away. She turned her palm instead and threaded her fingers between mine.

From behind, the nape of her neck showed beneath the disordered hair. A thirty-nine-year-old's nape — pale, soft, with a single fine line creased into it.

Expensive perfume, and coffee. She hadn't showered in four days, so the perfume had worn thin, and under it was the smell of skin.

Over her shoulder I could see down inside the knit collar. A single thin bralette, no wire, and breasts that had settled heavy, shifting inside the knit every time she breathed.

In the light of the burner, two weighted tips rose faintly against the fabric.

She eased back, only a little. The full, ripe curve of her backside came within a breath of my thigh.

One layer of knit grazed me. She knew it. Her breath stopped, and she neither drew away nor came any closer.

"Seo Jihu."

"Yes."

"Don't stand behind me."

"……I'm sorry."

"No."

She was looking at the flame. Her voice shook.

Kang Soohyun did not lean. She turned the flame down instead, to low, the way I had shown her.

While the jujubes boiled, Chaewon made a circuit of the apartment. A hotel manager's habit. A room inspection.

She stopped at the master bedroom door and called me over.

The bed was neat. Too neat. Not a single dent in the pillow, and the corners of the duvet were folded the way a hotel folds them. Chaewon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ran her palm over the cover. Dust came away on her hand.

"This bed hasn't been used in a long time."

"Then where does she sleep?"

Chaewon pointed toward the living room. A blanket lay crumpled at one end of the sofa. One cushion had sunk deep. On the floor beside it, a laptop and a cup of coffee gone cold.

"……The sofa. Some people can't sleep if they lie down, so they sleep sitting up. You see it with long-stay hotel guests."

Chaewon picked up the blanket. She started to fold it square, then stopped, and spread it back over the sofa as it was.

"I won't fold it today. Someone's sleeping here."

While the jujubes boiled, the four of us sat on the living-room sofa — me, Chaewon, Daon, and Kang Soohyun. It was a wide room. The sofa was the only piece of furniture in it.

"……The board meeting is Wednesday at ten."

"I know."

"The branch manager wants a new proposal. A plan for how Haeun survives without Daeseong, and without Yeoun-ri."

"……There is no such plan."

"Then we make one."

"In two days?"

"At the bank, being told to come back with a revised proposal in two days — I did that every day when I was new."

Kang Soohyun looked at me. Daon looked at Kang Soohyun. Chaewon poured the tea.

"……Ma'am."

Daon said it, and for the first time in six years the voice was not a subordinate's.

"There's one Haeun development that actually turns a profit. The one I planned. The one you shelved because you said the scale was too small."

"……The regional lodging linkage project."

"Yes. Instead of a resort, you bundle the village lodgings and handle the bookings and the operations for them. A tenth of the investment."

Kang Soohyun went still.

"……You want to do that in Yeoun-ri?"

"Yes. Sseolmul would be the first franchise."

Daon looked at me. I nodded. So did Chaewon.

Kang Soohyun said nothing for a long time. From the kitchen, the smell of boiling jujube tea drifted into the living room.

"……We'll have to write through the night."

"Yes."

"All of you will have to sleep in Seoul before you go."

"Yes."

Kang Soohyun stood, went to the kitchen, and turned the flame off herself. Click.

Then she poured jujube tea into four cups. Clumsily. One of them overflowed.

"……Fifteen cents a cup, isn't it."

She held a cup out. The corner of her mouth had lifted. Not by one millimeter. By three.

"Today, I'm paying."

Three in the morning. The dining table on the thirty-fourth floor in Hannam-dong.

Kang Soohyun and I had not closed our eyes since Monday evening. Only the date had rolled over into Tuesday.

Two laptops faced each other, hers on one side, mine on the other. Between them a pot of jujube tea had gone cold — the third pot, and one she had boiled herself.

Chaewon and Daon were asleep in the guest room. They had held out until one and then collapsed. Daon had turned over every planning file from her years at Haeun, and Chaewon every cost sheet for running a lodging.

"……At a twelve-percent franchise fee, the village lodgings won't come in."

"Then what percent."

"Eight. But we bundle it with booking-site management and a supply of cleaning staff. Run the numbers the way they work at Sseolmul — one manager's monthly pay comes out of the cleaning contract — and joining is the better deal."

"There's a manager's salary? There?"

"There isn't."

"Then the math is wrong."

"I mean the other lodgings. Those ones pay a wage."

Kang Soohyun stopped. Then she laughed — a three-in-the-morning laugh, and it made a sound. For the first time.

"Your manager works unpaid?"

"All of them do."

"……Isn't that illegal?"

"The manager says it's fine, since we provide room and board. My sister says it's fraud."

Kang Soohyun dropped her forehead onto the table. Her shoulders shook. She was laughing.

Three-thirty. Kang Soohyun rolled her neck, and it cracked.

"My shoulder won't turn."

"That's ten years of it."

"A footbath isn't going to fix this."

"No."

She looked at me, drew one breath, and turned the chair so her back was to me.

"I'm not taking back what I said about not standing behind me. Five minutes. An exception."

I stood behind her and set both hands on her shoulders. Through the knit dress the muscle was hard as stone, and the flesh laid over it was soft.

I pressed my thumbs into the inside of her shoulder blades. Her head dropped forward. Between the disordered hair, the white nape showed.

The knit collar slipped to one side. Behind her right shoulder was a faded pink mark, the shape of petals — some of them still clear, some of them worn away.

"……A rose. When I was twenty-three."

She said it with her head bowed.

"After I became CEO I started having it lasered off, and then I stopped. It hurt."

"You don't have to erase it."

"I know. That's why I stopped. Saying it was because it hurt was less embarrassing."

"Haah."

The same sound as during the footbath. This time she didn't cover her mouth.

I moved my hands up to her nape, and on to the spot behind her ear. When I pressed the thin skin there in slow circles, her shoulder flinched up, then settled back down little by little.

Through the knit, her breasts rose and fell hard with her breath. From above, a deep cleft showed inside the collar.

Nothing but the thin bralette. She had said that once the suit came off, the wire was the first thing to go. The heavy tips pushed the knit up in two points.

"……Behind the ear is cheating."

"It's connected to the shoulder."

"I know. It's still cheating."

In the chair she pressed her thighs tight together. The knit dress bunched and rode up between them.

"Five minutes are up."

"Yes."

I took my hands away. She stayed as she was for a long while, head bowed.

"……This doesn't add up. Not something like this."

Four in the morning. The proposal had become thirty-two pages.

Kang Soohyun turned the last page and stopped.

"Does this make your list of twelve successful proposals? By your standard."

"I don't know. We'll have to try it and see."

"Is a banker allowed to say that?"

"Former."

She closed the laptop and looked at me from across the table. A four-in-the-morning face — no makeup, eyes red, hair a mess.

"……I'm sleepy."

"What?"

"I'm sleepy. At this hour. For ten years my eyes were wide open at this time of night."

She stood, came around the table, and sat in the chair beside me. Then she rested her head on my shoulder.

"I told you not to stand behind me. Because I'd want to lean."

"Yes."

"I didn't say anything about sitting beside me."

Her hair smelled of perfume, thinned because she hadn't showered in four days. Under it, the smell of skin. The smell of jujube tea.

Her full body leaned into my side. Through the knit dress, the weight of one breast settled on my arm — a curve that had come to rest at its ease. At thirty-nine, even the way a body leaned had weight.

As she leaned, her soft belly pressed warm against my side. She felt it and drew back a little. I could see her holding her breath, trying to pull her stomach in.

"……Breathe."

"I am breathing."

"You're holding it. Because of your stomach."

She turned her gaze toward the sea. For the first time, the thirty-nine-year-old CEO avoided another person's eyes. Then she slowly let the breath out, and the soft belly came back to rest against my side.

"Seo Jihu."

"Yes."

"After the board meeting."

She said it with her eyes closed.

Five minutes later, her breathing lengthened. No footbath this time.

Six in the morning. I packed my bag.

"……Where are you going?"

Daon had come out of the guest room, her face puffy with sleep.

"Yeoun-ri."

"What? The board meeting is tomorrow."

"Today is Tuesday."

Daon stopped. Then she understood.

"Haram."

"I promised I'd go back."

"It's four hours. You go, you sleep, you come back at dawn tomorrow — you'll barely make a ten o'clock meeting."

"Yes."

Daon looked at me and sighed.

"Would've been nice if you'd been like this six years ago."

"Sorry?"

"Keeping promises. Were you always this stupidly strict about them?"

"……A banker doesn't miss a repayment date."

Daon laughed. Then she looked at Kang Soohyun, asleep on the sofa under a blanket. She had been asleep for six hours.

"Go. I'll wake the CEO. Chaewon and I will finish polishing the proposal."

Eight in the morning. My phone rang on the express bus. It was Yuna.

Eleven in the morning. The bus stop in Yeoun-ri.

When I stepped off the bus, Haram was standing there with a surfboard tucked under her arm and a candy in her mouth.

"You actually came."

"It's Tuesday."

"Board meeting's tomorrow, isn't it. Daon texted me."

Haram took the candy out of her mouth. Her lips parted, then closed again — the face of someone who had started to say something and couldn't.

Then she planted the board in the sand, jumped, and hung from my neck. Her small body came into my arms whole. Both legs wrapped my waist, the way they had that first day in the sea.

"Fuck, banker."

She buried her face against my neck.

"My uncle never broke a promise. Not once. Coffee every morning. Even when he was too sick to get out of bed, he had someone bring me coffee."

"……"

"You're the same. It pisses me the fuck off."

Haram's voice was wet.

That night, the second floor of the surf shop.

Two more ropes had been added to the hammock — thick marine rope, lashed tight to the ceiling beams.

"……When did you put these up?"

"Last week. The day after that rainy Tuesday."

Haram climbed into the hammock first, wearing nothing but my running shirt. The hammock swayed, but this time it didn't flip.

"I tested it. Two sacks of rice. Two hundred and twenty pounds."

"With rice sacks?"

"Yeah. Heavier than you. This time you won't fall."

Haram pulled the shirt off. On the hammock, in one motion.