“Oh, rookie. You’re here?”
As Ji Yeonwoo arrived at work in the morning, Eun-ja greeted her with a wave. Yeonwoo bowed her head to the uncharacteristically warm welcome.
“Good morning.”
“Yup. Yeah. Oh, it’s a beautiful morning. The birds are chirping and the bugs are blowing their noses.”
Yeonwoo let out a small laugh at Eun-ja’s description of the buzzing insects. Eun-ja, unusually full of energy today, hummed a bit of a trot song before stepping closer.
“Hey, you know.”
“Ah, yes?”
Yeonwoo turned around. Eun-ja scanned her surroundings before saying in a low, conspiratorial voice:
“I finished my homework.”
Eun-ja whispered as she handed over the notebook she had been clutching. Yeonwoo took it, flipping through the first page, then the next, before skipping toward the end.
“You’ve already finished all of this?”
Yeonwoo’s eyes widened at the sight of nearly half a notebook filled with meticulously written Hangul practice. Feeling a bit shy, Eun-ja shrugged her shoulders.
“It was fun once I started, so I just kept going—one more page, then another.”
“It must have taken quite a long time. Did you even sleep?”
“Yup. Maybe an hour or two?”
“Wow…”
Yeonwoo couldn’t help but admire her passion. The thick, dark letters were slightly crooked from how hard she had pressed the pen, and Yeonwoo smiled softly.
“Why are you laughing? Is it wrong?”
“No. It’s just that you did so well.”
The effort of a student learning the alphabet so late in life was truly remarkable. Seeing Eun-ja’s pure enthusiasm—having forgotten about sleep and even the pain in her worn-out wrists—made Yeonwoo’s chest ache.
Encouraged by the praise, Eun-ja continued with renewed vigor.
“Those little square boxes were so tiny, I tried really hard not to write outside the lines. My eyes were going blurry toward the end, it was a real struggle. But seriously, I did well, right?”
“Yes. You did very well. You’ll be moving through the material in no time.”
“Oh my. I wonder if Han Seok-bong is going to come looking for me to be friends at this rate.”
Eun-ja looked thrilled as she took back the notebook. Watching her—as proud as a child who had just finished having her homework checked by a teacher—Yeonwoo parted her lips.
“I’ll have to give you even more homework today.”
“Oh, no, no. I can’t keep up if you give me any more, I’ll be exhausted.”
“You’re doing so well, I have no choice. I’ll have to give you a lot. And you’ll have to take a test, too.”
“A teeeest? Oh my, you’re really trying to be the death of me, aren’t you?”
Despite her protests, Eun-ja kept smiling. Yeonwoo took the notebook back, opened it, and used a ballpoint pen to mark the final page as ‘Homework Checked.’
「100 points!」
A flower seemed to bloom on Eun-ja’s face as she stared at the perfect score. She looked as if she owned the world, then carefully tucked the notebook into the cloth bag she always carried.
Just then, the door opened, and Manager Moon poked his head in.
“What are you all doing? The Managing Director is coming to work, you know?”
“Oh my. Got it, sir.”
When they heard that Seongheon had left Yunseondang, Eun-ja and Yeonwoo stepped out of the main building. Seongheon, who had skipped breakfast, appeared a moment later.
The staff lined up neatly. Yeonwoo, the youngest, stood at the very end, waiting with her hands clasped.
As Seongheon approached, carrying his briefcase, Manager Moon bowed halfway. The others followed suit, and Yeonwoo lowered her waist accordingly.
“Have a good day at work, and please be safe, Managing Director.”
It was a standard greeting. At the end of Manager Moon’s words, the staff chanted in unison, wishing him a safe trip.
He would pass by them now. Without a word, he would usually just offer a small gesture of acknowledgment.
With her back slightly hunched and her eyes cast downward, Yeonwoo waited. That night—that very night—the feeling of his hand stroking her lower back was still vivid. It was as if the warmth from his fingertips remained, still tender. Her ears burned, so she kept her head down to avoid meeting his eyes.
Seongheon’s footsteps, which usually would have passed them by, stopped. When the rhythmic sound of his dress shoes abruptly ceased, all the staff lifted their gazes.
Manager Moon raised an eyebrow. He wondered if it was a signal, or if it meant he would eat after all, and his mind began to race.
The staff stared, bewildered. Then, Seongheon stood straight with a refined posture, as if offering a formal salutation.
He bowed for a moment, and just as they thought he was done, he lifted his head and added:
“Take care of your health, and have a safe day.”
After finishing his short greeting, Seongheon turned and walked away, leaving the staff stunned.
An employee standing next to Eun-ja poked her arm.
“Eun-ja unni, what did the Managing Director just say?”
Eun-ja watched his retreating back for a moment before speaking up.
“Didn’t he say goodbye? That we should stay healthy and have a safe day? Something like that, right?”
“To who?”
“Beats me. Did he say it to our ancestors? Was he having strange dreams?”
It was the first time Seongheon had ever responded to their formal greetings. The fact that he had done so with such extreme politeness left everyone feeling like something unsettled was in the air.
“What are you doing? Get moving. You aren’t going to send the food to the site?”
“We’re going now.”
As Manager Moon urged the dazed staff, they began to scurry about. Yeonwoo moved with them, caught in the shuffle.
Yeonwoo, who had briefly made eye contact with Seongheon at the end of his greeting, was burning red to the tips of her ears.
*
She felt light-headed all day long. Yeonwoo found this lingering emotion unfamiliar.
From start to finish, she couldn’t stop thinking about Seongheon. Perhaps it was natural. When she thought about it, although she had rejected his confession, there wasn’t a single shred of ‘dislike’ in her heart.
He was a person who was difficult and terrifying in a way that differed from Cha Yoonseok. He lived in a different world, someone who could never mix with her, like oil and water.
There were many times she had looked at him and felt a crushing sense of distance. He was an adult man in a way she couldn’t fully fathom, and it seemed as though he held all the logic of the world in the palm of his hand.
She had thought there was nothing that could shock her or make her cry. Unlike herself—who had no skills for life and was always flustered—Seongheon was always prepared for everything. He possessed an overwhelming superiority that made others feel small.
‘Take good care of yourself, overcome everything, and when you’re ready, let’s talk.’
She paused while wiping a dish with a dry towel and lifted her head.
‘Because then, I will go to you, Ji Yeonwoo, with all my might.’
She had lost count of how many times she had replayed his words.
Reminiscing over his voice, which spread like a hallucination, Yeonwoo went back to wiping the plates. She polished a steaming plate with great care, then sighed without realizing it.
It was such a strange thing. She had clearly expressed her refusal, and she had thought he had accepted it easily, but looking back, he had left a knot tied as if he were waiting.
Her heart began to pound. Trying to hide her emotions, Yeonwoo bit her lip.
……Yesterday, that night.
The moment she heard him say he would come with all his might, she felt her unstable heart calm down completely. Somewhere inside, she felt a lingering sense of joy that he hadn’t accepted her rejection at face value but had left room for possibility.
“No. No.”
Yeonwoo muttered as if to cut off the thought. Did this even make sense?
More than joy or relief, she felt a sudden, profound fear. The world was full of unbelievable things, and she felt strongly that Seongheon’s confession was just one of them.
That adult man, whose every action seemed calculated; who seemed to know everything in the world—perhaps he just needed a woman to soothe his loneliness for a while. Perhaps he wanted to spend time in this isolated Domyeongjae where he could vent his emotions and desires.
Thinking that way made her feel more at ease. She was convinced that this was a more plausible theory. Her heart leaned toward the idea that it was manufactured greed rather than the confession of an adult man who had offered his pure love.
“I’m going crazy…”
But.
‘Because then, I will go to you, Ji Yeonwoo, with all my might.’
Could he have been that tender while hiding his true intentions? Surely, he couldn’t have used such artifice with that voice and those fingertips.
She no longer cared about her own feelings; her focus was entirely on whether Seongheon’s heart was genuine or not. Even while thinking she never wanted to be deceived by the world again, she still obsessed over it.
Wanting his touch to be genuine was an excessive contradiction.
While she was wiping the dishes, unable to handle her own wavering heart, Manager Moon approached.
“Almost done?”
“Yes? Oh, yes. I’m almost finished.”
As Yeonwoo put down the polished dish and reached for a new one, Manager Moon, who had been watching silently, lifted his chin.
“I’m going to the market now.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’m going to go by myself today, so just stay here. You don’t need anything, do you?”
“Me? I suppose not, but…”
‘Because then, I will go to you, Ji Yeonwoo, with all my might.’
Yeonwoo swallowed hard.
“Um, Manager.”
Manager Moon, who was preparing to leave, cast a side-glance at her. Yeonwoo hesitated for a moment before parting her lips.
“Could you… take me with you?”
“You need something? Tteokbokki?”
“Oh, that’s not it.”
Yeonwoo looked at Manager Moon, as if she had finally made up her mind.
“I’m thinking of getting a phone.”