That conversation was the start of the “employment contract” between them. Eunwon studied and built his credentials to become his secretary, while also working to carve out the presumptuous feelings he held for him.
He etched into his bones the fact that he was merely a servant kept at his side out of necessity, and tried not to harbor vain hopes.
He’d even tried dating other people to that end. It fizzled out without ever really becoming anything…
For two years he’d thought he’d done his best without crossing the line. But was the useless secretary who knew nothing really that worthless after all?
Now even this relationship, held together by debt and employment, seemed to be reaching its end. Letting out a stifled sigh, Eunwon recalled the rest of the conversation with PurPle.
PP: But hearing you talk… I don’t know why, but I don’t think your CEO-hyung hates you…? PP: It doesn’t feel like bullying — more like unusually overprotective behavior. Maybe he doesn’t want to give you hard work because he’s cherished you since you were little? Even if it’s true he ordered no one to give you work, we don’t know his intentions yet.
In the old days, Eunwon might have held onto that kind of hope. But now he knew. Hoping like that was itself a miserable delusion. PurPle could say that only because it didn’t know that Muyoung thought of Eunwon as an “irritating charity case.”
Me: lol no. It’s not that. Never… PP: Never? Me: Yeah, never… PP: Hmm… well, if you, the person involved, say so, then I guess. PP: So what are you going to do now? If you don’t want to sue, and you don’t want to go confront him — are you just going to keep being bullied like this? Me: I… Me: …I Me: I think I should just… do what the CEO wants. Then the CEO and the other seniors can be comfortable like before.
…
Me: And… besides that, there’s another reason I think it’s really over now…
With that, feeling both uncomfortable and utterly exhausted, Eunwon had deleted the conversation. Then he’d lain still for a long while, thinking this and that, before opening his laptop and doing what he had to do. The result was now in his jacket’s inside pocket.
Cha Muyoung, away on a business trip to the US, was returning this afternoon. Word was he’d come straight from the airport to the office, so the resignation letter in his breast pocket would be delivered to Cha Muyoung within hours.
He didn’t know why someone would cut a week-long trip short by three days and come to the office instead of going straight home from the airport. He hadn’t been told — probably another form of the ostracism… But it didn’t matter anymore.
Because he’d be quitting soon.
The thought of finding a new job was frightening and daunting, but if it was the best path for everyone, it couldn’t be helped.
What kind of face would he make when handed the resignation? Would he smile, relieved? Just imagining it made his lips jut out with misery. Trying to steady his weakened heart, he fumbled in his pocket — and in his flustered fumbling, dropped something entirely different.
*Roll roll roll roll…*
The “Kiss-Me Choo-Choo Stick — deep strawberry scent…”
The lip balm he’d gotten from Kim Seoyeon was rolling back to its original owner. It slipped past Eunwon’s fingertips, rolled swiftly, and only stopped when it tapped against Kim Seoyeon’s shoe.
“Eunwon.”
Kim Seoyeon picked up the lip balm and called to the flustered Eunwon. Glancing at the CEO’s office door and around them, she suggested in a very small, careful voice.
“Want to go grab coffee, like old times?”
“Uh… yeah, sounds good…”
“Don’t bring your wallet. My treat.”
She spoke firmly as she stood, and Eunwon followed her with a weak, hollow laugh. It was his first warm conversation with anyone in two weeks. It felt a little awkward, arriving just as he’d decided to quit, but he was grateful to Kim Seoyeon for reaching out first.
But the two never even got to start their long-awaited coffee time. Because of an unexpected guest already seated at the first-floor café.
“Oh my, oh my my my! It’s Eunwon! Our Eunwon!”
“Uh… auntie, I mean, Director. Hello.”
“Heavens. What a lovely surprise!”
The person who came over beaming and swept Eunwon into a hug was none other than Muyoung’s mother, Yoon Heejin.
With her characteristic liveliness, she exchanged warm hellos and introductions with Kim Seoyeon in an instant, then flew to the counter and ordered drinks and desserts for the entire secretarial office.
“Everything from here to here, all to go, please.”
After paying for the fearsome order that practically cleared out the display case, Yoon Heejin turned to Eunwon with a smile.
“This is so like me. Why didn’t I think to send up snacks for our secretaries sooner? It’s exactly the time of day you’d be craving something sweet. I read it online. They say three o’clock is the most boring hour for office workers.”
Kim Seoyeon returned to the office with another secretary who’d come down at her call, arms full of drinks and treats. She left behind a polite greeting for Yoon Heejin and an awkward glance for Eunwon.
“Eunwon, stay and chat with auntie for a bit, okay?” As she spoke, Yoon Heejin ordered an additional drink for Eunwon. She asked, *what does the baby want to drink?* — then, before Eunwon could even open his mouth, emphasized *something healthy, something warm.* In the end, what was placed in Eunwon’s hands across from Yoon Heejin was a warm chamomile tea.
Yoon Heejin gazed with affection-filled eyes at Eunwon as he slowly sipped the hot tea
“Huh? But the CEO is on a business trip right now.”
“I know, I know. I called earlier and he’s still on the plane, apparently. They said he won’t be at the office until after five, and just as I was wondering what to do, you came down at the perfect moment. What timing, you clever thing.”
“Then wouldn’t it be better for you to wait comfortably upstairs in the office—”
“No, no. Come to think of it, what’s the point? I’ve already sent that son of mine off to study abroad for years; I can live without seeing his face. Could you just pass these documents to your brother for me, sweetie?”
Eunwon, who had accepted the thick envelope of documents without quite realizing it, gathered it onto his lap and asked,
“Should I just deliver the documents?”
“Mm-hm. I’ll call him separately about what I have to say. I’m counting on you, baby?” Eunwon nodded quickly. What kind of documents could they be, for someone as busy as her—running an art museum and a cultural foundation—to come all this way in person? His curiosity lasted only a moment; before he could even ask, Yoon Heejin wrinkled her nose and launched into her complaints.
“Ugh, that son of mine, honestly, he never listens to a word his mother says. If he has no intention of dating or marrying on his own, then he should at least dutifully go to the blind dates the adults arrange for him, shouldn’t he?”
“Ah…”
“He won’t listen at all, so I have to shove it in his face like this before he’ll even pretend to hear me.” So that’s what the documents were. Blind date profiles.
Foolishly, his heart dropped to the floor with a thud. It wasn’t as if he still liked him, not really, but apparently some stupid, unshaken remnant of feeling was still inside him.
He forced a smile, and Yoon Heejin, taking it as a kind of sympathy, brightened and went on.
“So help your auntie out, Eunwon. Keep poking your brother from beside him, okay? Tell him he should hurry up and meet a pretty, respectable dominant omega lady and get married, hm?”
“…Ha ha.”
“Oh, I’m terrified he’ll really just grow old alone at this rate.”
“…”
“Your brother listens to you so, so well, Eunwon… you have to whisper in his ear for me, okay?”
“Marriage… I don’t think that’s something I should presume to mention…”
“Oh my, what are you saying, between you two? You’re practically brothers!” Eunwon just curved his eyes into a difficult smile and fiddled with the corner of the envelope. Yoon Heejin smiled as if she’d said all she needed to say, feeling refreshed.
She knew. She knew that the only person who could soften her foul-tempered, prickly son into something sweet and mellow was the pretty little bundle of luck sitting in front of her.
Just as always, she believed Eunwon would lead Muyoung down the right path this time too, and she left the café humming, her steps light.
Left alone after seeing Yoon Heejin off, Eunwon stared down at the envelope in his hand. Spring was just around the corner, but strangely his fingertips felt cold.
The resignation letter in his pocket, the envelope in his hand. They were only bundles of paper that couldn’t possibly have a temperature, yet they felt so cold, and so heavy. Gazing blankly into space as he waited for the elevator, a long, thin sigh escaped Eunwon’s lips.
“I’m just… nothing.”
His voice, repeating the words to himself like a vow, held no emotion at all. I’m nothing to him. As he repeated it again, Muyoung’s voice from long ago echoed in his ears like a hallucination.
“I’m just a pitiful charity case.”
His expression blank, Eunwon turned the words over dully, and a small resolve rose in his heart. Delivering these documents would be his last task as a secretary.
—
The moment he got into the car out of the airport, his phone vibrated. Checking the name on the screen, Muyoung frowned and ignored it three times, but at the persistently piling missed calls, he finally sighed and pressed the call button.
It was his mother, who lately had been disgustingly interfering in his private life with talk of blind dates and marriage. As expected.
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