"Yes, I’m much better now. I promise it won’t affect my work today. I’m really sorry for being late…"
At the rehearsed-sounding recitation, Team Leader Jeong waved his hand with a flustered face.
"Huh? No, I’m not trying to hear that, I’m genuinely worried. The lateness is fine, you already contacted us in advance. It’s not like Secretary Seo does this all the time. Ahem… people can have days like that. What’s most important in our secretarial office is, well… Secretary Seo’s health and… happiness, as… he said…"
"…Pardon?"
Eunwon hadn’t properly caught Team Leader Jeong’s trailing words, uncharacteristically mumbling. After ‘what’s most important,’ it had been at the level of mumbling inside his mouth.
As Eunwon tilted his head and asked again, Team Leader Jeong seemed equally flustered, hastily pushing up his glasses and changing the subject.
"Ahem, anyway. Sit down. If you get tired working today, don’t overdo it and tell me right away."
"Yes, thank you. And I’m sorry."
"Ah, enough already!"
Team Leader Jeong, the knife-like FM type who always preached ‘a secretary’s basics are absolute punctuality!’, was letting lateness slide this kindly. Eunwon felt it would have been more comfortable to be scolded according to principle, like when other seniors had been late.
What could have happened in the office before he came?
Scratching the back of his neck at the situation he couldn’t even guess at, Eunwon put down his bag and sat.
Then suddenly, feeling a sharp gaze stabbing the back of his head, he flinched in surprise and hunched his shoulders, turning around.
But of course, there was no one where he turned. Behind him—his seat was the outermost one, with its back to the CEO’s office—there was only the firmly closed door, radiating an intense presence.
The large window beside the door had originally been made so the CEO’s office and the secretarial office could see each other, but it was meticulously covered with opaque film and blinds, no different from a wall.
And above all.
The owner of that room was a typical ‘afternoon person.’ He hated waking up early in the morning most of all, so he usually came to work leisurely, no earlier than 10 at the earliest.
So on a day with no scheduled appointments like today, there was no way that gaze could be felt from that side… so why did he feel so strange?
Fiddling with the goosebumps on his nape, Eunwon tilted his head. But the conclusion was simple. It was probably just his imagination.
He must be sensitive because he wasn’t feeling well, making him think all sorts of things. The gaze from thin air he’d suddenly felt, and the unfamiliar atmosphere of the secretarial office, all of it.
I hope I don’t catch a cold…
I’ll drink ssanghwa-tang today and sleep well. Missing the cozy bed he’d left not long ago, Eunwon pressed the computer power button.
No sooner had he done so than Kim Seoyeon’s face popped up abruptly from beyond the partition on his left.
"Are you sick, Seo-bi? Where? How? A lot?"
Even in a tiny whisper, the rapid-fire questions fortunately didn’t carry that strange unfamiliarity he’d felt from the other staff earlier. At Kim Seoyeon’s attitude, exactly the same as usual, Eunwon smiled with fresh relief.
"Just… a bit of a cold. I’m really fine now. Thanks for worrying."
"Really?"
Nodding, Kim Seoyeon disappeared as abruptly as she’d appeared. But as if the real conversation was starting now, the messenger chat window began blinking noisily.
Kim Seoyeon: So why were you late today, Seo-bi? I didn’t hear my alarm this morning ㅠㅠ Kim Seoyeon: Oh no, how’d that happen. Couldn’t sleep last night? Don’t tell me it’s that… because of the landlord? Ah, no, it’s nothing like that Kim Seoyeon: Ah, I was worried the landlord finally took some action Haha, I just slept really well ㅠㅠ lol The ‘landlord’ Kim Seoyeon was talking about wasn’t the building owner he paid monthly rent to, but the ‘ghost’ said to be attached to his house.
The house he lived in now was a rooftop of an old house, yet with the boiler, plumbing, insulation, and interior all luxuriously renovated to top condition—but with a deposit and monthly rent bizarrely cheap.
It was embarrassingly incomparable to monthly rentals of similar condition, so even as he signed the contract as if possessed, when he asked the agent about the question that kept coming to mind, the answer he heard was expected yet unbelievable.
—Well, you know… we have our reasons. Let’s just say there are reasons I can’t tell you.
…Could it be haunted…?
—Huh? Um… well, anyway. Don’t ask too much and just live there pretending you don’t know. Do you know how rare an opportunity like this is for other people?
Of course, just because they’d had that conversation didn’t mean Eunwon could back out. Then and now, an empty bank account was far scarier than a ghost.
A two-room place in this condition for the price of a goshiwon room under the Seoul sky. Even if it were occupied by the ghost’s grandfather, he’d have to grit his teeth and live there.
It wasn’t something to brag about, so he’d kept it secret from those around him, but Kim Seoyeon had somehow caught him in a slip of the tongue.
Kim Seoyeon, an occult maniac, had sparkled with interest hearing that story, and since then, whenever Eunwon looked even a little tired, she’d get scared on his behalf, asking if the ghost was tormenting him.
Though Eunwon himself, having lived there for two years, had truly become completely indifferent by now.
Kim Seoyeon: If anything weird happens, tell me right away. I know a really good shaman I get my fortune told by every year, I’ll connect you right away Earlier this year I casually asked and got scolded for letting you move into a place like that ㅠㅠ They say you have to suppress that kind of thing before the ghost gets rowdy. Exorcism is ultimately a battle of wills. It’s really nothing. To the point where I wonder if I worried for nothing haha
Of course…
It wasn’t that there had truly been ‘nothing’ at all.
Eunwon briefly recalled the ‘presence’ he’d faintly sensed while lying ill yesterday. Even as he slept like the dead, barely able to open his eyes, in that hazy state he’d felt someone’s touch and voice.
But rather than scary, it had been kind and warm.
He smiled wryly, thinking the ghost must have found him pitiful, lying ill alone after going through such a thing.
Kim Seoyeon, finally losing interest in the ghost story, changed the subject.
Kim Seoyeon: Oh right. I was actually going to tell you this first. Want to know why the team leader was acting weird earlier? Gasp, yes Kim Seoyeon: The reason is… It’s because… You have already, just now, completed your commute…. …haha.
"Huh…"
Eunwon, who had been checking the newly updated weekly schedule while glancing at the messenger, let out an audible sound at Kim Seoyeon’s message. He hurriedly covered his mouth with his palm so the sound wouldn’t leak beyond the partition. It was that shocking.
That CEO’s office wasn’t an empty CEO’s office.
Turning his creaking neck to look back, light he hadn’t noticed before was seeping from inside the closed door.
The back of his head tingled. Thinking that the strange sensation he’d felt from that direction might have been not someone’s gaze or an illusion but the presence of the person inside, he got goosebumps.
Kim Seoyeon: Shocking, right… Actually I was late today too because of the subway breakdown. I ran like crazy and got in at 9:02… and he was already at work even then… Why did he come in early out of the blue today ㅠㅠ Seo-bi and I aren’t usually the type to be late ㅠㅠㅠㅠ First time being late and it’s so unfair ㅠㅠㅠㅠ Usually we’re the first ones in, watering the plants… tidying supplies, buying coffee… why ㅠㅠㅠㅠ why today of all days ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
Reading Kim Seoyeon’s messages, Eunwon also let out a low sigh. Now he understood the office’s awkward atmosphere.
Of all days.
For two people in the secretarial office to be late on the day the CEO came to work early for once. And one of them the youngest. And he wasn’t even at the cute level of 2 minutes like Kim Seoyeon, but a major lateness of well over 30 minutes… The thought that he’d caused the team tremendous trouble made his stomach start to ache from stress. What should he do in a situation like this?
He bit his nails anxiously.
Do you know why he came in early… did you hear anything? Kim Seoyeon: That’s what makes it creepier. Officially nothing’s going on, hmm… I think… maybe something personal came up,,, just my own guess? Something personal? Kim Seoyeon: Like a change of heart, or some decision he’s made. Something like that. Kim Seoyeon: Did Deputy Kang tell you anything over the weekend, Seo-bi? Huh, wait? You were there together on Friday, so you’d know better?
At the single word ‘Friday,’ his heart dropped with a thud.
What happened on Friday? I just delivered the tablet and left right away, I don’t know anything… I didn’t even see the CEO. Feeling his palms grow damp, Eunwon carefully pressed the keyboard. He had to hold his breath for fear a hiccup would escape if he moved carelessly.
Kim Seoyeon: Ah, so you really don’t know Then you didn’t know about Sunday’s schedule being canceled either? The one Deputy Kang covered for you because you were sick. Completely canceled. So don’t go repaying a debt to Deputy Kang you don’t even owe! The CEO canceled Sunday’s schedule? I didn’t know…
Kim Seoyeon: Sunday was what it was. On Friday he suddenly vanished from the event venue too. He was sitting fine, then right before the briefing he evaporated. Deputy Kang thought he went to the restroom and waited, but he never came back,,,,, crazy, right? There was supposed to be a simple meeting with the organizers. Deputy Kang was flustered, and only when meeting time came did he get a text saying just go home. Kim Seoyeon: On Sunday, Deputy Kang called in advance to pass on the news that you were sick, Eunwon, and he said to cancel the schedule and just rest. Yesterday he didn’t even come to work…….
Our CEO is pretty sensitive and prickly, but he’s perfect when it comes to work. He’s not the type to act out like this. So I’m just guessing on my own.
Something… personal must have come up…? Or maybe he’s made some important life decision?
That’s all I know, anyway.
Kim Seoyeon: The bad thing about desk jobs ㅠㅠ Having to hear about everything that happens outside secondhand.
Though she seemed to know too much for that. Thanks to her, Eunwon, who had known nothing, mulled over what he’d just heard one by one.
Friday, went into the event venue then evaporated. Sunday, a sudden cancellation right before the schedule. Yesterday, absent, and today, early arrival…
An ominous premonition crept up. On Friday, when the heat cycle had suddenly hit, at that place, the CEO they served—Cha Mu—had been there too.
…No way.
Eunwon shook his head hard, muttering "No, that can’t be. Absolutely not," and hurriedly brushed the thought away. And to add conviction to that denial, he urgently dredged up the memories of that day and began tracing them.
***
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