DFLT 44

“…I am sorry.”

The car owner looked up at Heonyoung standing before him, flinched, then apologized in a polite tone and soon drove away. And so the commotion was settled.

Yeonoh, who had settled into Heonyoung’s commuter car for the first time in a while, adjusted the seat to his body and started driving. He had been a little worried that his skills might have gotten rusty since he had not had a chance to drive after leaving the Secretary’s Office, but his body remembered quickly as it was something he had repeated almost every day for three years. The car glided smoothly out of the parking garage.

“Um… Executive Director.”

“What is it.”

Usually when he called for Heonyoung, he would maintain his silence instead of answering. Assuming today would follow a similar pattern, Yeonoh waited for his silence to be brief, but for some reason, an answer came back.

“…Ah, um. Thank you. For yesterday, and for today as well.”

In the rearview mirror, Heonyoung seemed lost in thought, staring out the car window at the forest of buildings with an impassive expression. It couldn’t be that he couldn’t take his eyes off the sight of the uniform gray concrete buildings rising and falling because he found it fascinating. He was clearly immersed in his thoughts.

“I started my internship during my last semester of university.”

Just as he thought, he was wandering among the floating fragments of some memory. Yeonoh quietly waited for him to continue.

“Watching my superiors who couldn’t even remember what they had said or what instructions they had given, I promised myself I would never become a person like that.”

“……”

“And yet I did the exact same thing.”

A self-deprecating laugh followed the words that were exhaled like a sigh. Only then could Yeonoh understand the thought process of Heonyoung, who had apologized a moment ago for acting sensitively toward him.

Ah, Heonyoung was simply displeased that he had broken a firm rule he had set for himself. Yeonoh, who for a brief moment had mistakenly thought that Heonyoung had considered his feelings, let go of that expectation and answered calmly.

“Not at all. Thanks to you, I also learned a lot.”

Perhaps he had heard a satisfactory answer, as no more words came from Heonyoung.

Despite his sudden return to the Secretary’s Office, the team members welcomed him with all their hearts.

“Mr. Yeonoh! Why are you only just coming back!”

“It’s been so long, everyone. Haha.”

Filled with nothing but apologetic feelings for having left the team so suddenly, Yeonoh hesitantly exchanged greetings with the staff. In particular, Choi Jinseok, who had been transferred from another executive’s secretarial team because of Yeonoh’s absence, greeted Yeonoh with a whimper.

Yeonoh, who had been busy all morning with the handover of duties between the Secretary’s Office and the Management Support Office, was having coffee at a cafe after finishing lunch with Jinseok at the company cafeteria.

“I think you are really amazing, Mr. Yeonoh.”

“Oh, it is not something worth that much praise.”

“What do you mean, it’s not? All the materials you created have become the standard for the Secretary’s Office. I don’t know how one can be born with such sense.”

At the continuous praise, Yeonoh’s cheeks flared up, not knowing what to do with himself. As if something came to mind, Jinseok seemed to ponder for a moment, rolling his eyes in the air, before finally opening his mouth.

“Actually, I thought you would come back to the Secretary’s Office, Mr. Yeonoh. Though I didn’t know it would be this soon.”

“Pardon? Ah, really?”

“Well, how should I put it. It felt like the Executive Director’s day revolved entirely around you, Mr. Yeonoh.”

Yeonoh blinked slowly, trying his hardest to understand Jinseok’s words.

“I’m not sure if this is the right analogy, but it felt like the Executive Director was just breathing in the perfect world that you had built, Mr. Yeonoh? Haha.”

The more he listened, the more the explanation descended into a labyrinth. In order to not waste even a single second of Heonyoung’s time, he had to demonstrate extreme efficiency. Perhaps Heonyoung’s body had just grown accustomed to that lifestyle pattern.

“You already knew what and how much the Executive Director would need and had it prepared before he even asked, Mr. Yeonoh. Perhaps feeling your absence, the Executive Director made many requests of me. And I was surprised because the standard for that level of detail was quite high.”

“Ah….”

“I think you would do well wherever you go, Mr. Yeonoh. Still, you came back because you work well with the Executive Director, right?”

For the past three years, he had felt ambivalent every day. One day would be fulfilling with a sense of accomplishment for having achieved something, and the next he would be disheartened by a callous attitude that seemed to scoff at him as if it were no big deal.

But after realizing that this was Heonyoung’s default state, he had also gone through a kind of mental victory process of interpreting Heonyoung’s attitude in a more softened way.

After acknowledging his feelings for Heonyoung, his intention to purely want to take care of him was also not small. It had reached a point where it was distressing to see Heonyoung even blink his tired, dry eyes in between his stormy schedule. That was why when driving, he would deliberately hold his breath, and when turning the car, he learned how to rotate it smoothly so that not a single speck of dust would be disturbed.

So, the perfection of this work that everyone praised had its starting point in his one-sided love for Seo Heonyoung. Could I really have continued this work without loving Seo Heonyoung? He could not rashly answer yes to the question he posed to himself. Because loving Seo Heonyoung was his life’s calling.

Yeonoh, who returned to his desk after a short coffee break, was logging into his computer when he suddenly remembered what Heonyoung had said in passing that morning.

‘I started my internship during my last semester of university.’

What did Seo Heonyoung look like in his twenties? Only Ji Yeonoh, who had lost his mind from the alcohol he drank without knowing any better at the freshman welcoming party, would know. And that felt a little unfair.

From the moment the existence of Seo Heonyoung was fully established in his memory, he had consistently maintained a dry expression, and perhaps because of that, he couldn’t contain his curiosity, even while telling himself internally that he shouldn’t do this. Just one look and then I’ll close it. Yeonoh searched for the personnel profile that could be viewed on the intranet.

“Found it….”

“Hmm? Mr. Yeonoh, what did you find?”

After a long session of scrolling, Yeonoh found Heonyoung’s personnel file and muttered to himself, prompting Assistant Manager Choi Jinseok to ask from over the partition what he had found. Yeonoh hastily covered it up by saying it was nothing, and was finally able to face Heonyoung’s youthful ID photo.

What the, why has almost nothing changed? Besides the fact that his facial lines had become sharper and his gaze more mature over the years, his appearance hadn’t changed much.

However, in the photo, Heonyoung, who gave off more of a vibe of a newcomer to the workforce than he did now, was barely smiling, with the corners of his mouth faintly lifted as if someone had forced him. It looked as if he would grab the photographer by the collar if they had instructed him to raise the corners of his mouth just one more millimeter.

Heh heh. Yeonoh barely held back the laugh that was about to escape and snickered without making a sound.

Still, a freshness different from his current self emanated from him. He must have been good at his job, too. There must have been rumors about him among the sunbaes. That the handsome intern was smart as well. He must have been popular…. Yeonoh was staring blankly at the photo.

“Still, back then, there was something like vitality in my eyes.”

That voice was, without a doubt, not Assistant Manager Choi Jinseok’s. At the familiar voice that suddenly came from behind him, the hairs on Yeonoh’s body stood on end. Like a rusty tin doll, he slowly turned his head to follow the source of the sound. That brief moment felt like an eternity.

“……”

It was Seo Heonyoung. Yeonoh, who had failed to notice the presence of Seo Heonyoung who had approached without a sound, had committed the act of looking at his intern-era photo right in front of him.

“…I-I am sorry!”

Yeonoh, belatedly grasping the situation, turned off the monitor completely, shot up from his seat, and bowed his head. The surrounding staff were busy watching, wondering what was going on, while Seo Heonyoung let out a hollow laugh that was clearly a scoff. And Yeonoh desperately wanted a letter of resignation.

“I-I need to go to the restroom….”

Deciding he couldn’t brazenly face him like this, Yeonoh proceeded to flee the scene. Without even looking towards Heonyoung’s face, he gave a nod as a farewell and ran without stopping all the way to the restroom. His face, burning like a tomato, he repeatedly splashed cold water on it.

“I must be getting punished.”

He never thought the price for secretly peeking would be this bitter. He had talked such a big game about having sorted out his feelings, but Seo Heonyoung would probably see him as a crazy person. His entire being, from his face to the crown of his head, was burning.

After roughly cooling his face with a cold water wash, he returned to his desk, and Jinseok called out to him worriedly.

“Did something happen?”

“Ah! It was nothing.”

“Really? The Executive Director is asking for you.”

“Ah, pardon?”

In that moment, his heart dropped with a thud.

Leaving behind the feeling of wanting to tear his hair out, Yeonoh lightly knocked on the office door. Only after hearing a response, spoken in a voice accustomed to routine, to come in, did he open the door and enter. But Seo Heonyoung was focused on his work, as if he had never called for Yeonoh.

For that reason, he had to listen for a long while to the sound of paper being turned and the scratching of the fountain pen nib drawing across it.