Pheromone Off Chapter 28

“To the company?”

“Yes. There are practice rooms at the company, you see. You can practice separately there, or there’s also a small movie theater on the tenth floor. When you need to, you can study while watching what you want to watch.”

“…Really?”

“Yes. People who are rookies like Mr. Hajin usually do that. Coming out to the company and showing your enthusiasm to catch the eyes of the higher-ups is one method, after all. There are lessons every day too, so you can pick and choose what you want to hear.”

“The welfare is… incredible.”

“In exchange, the contract period is a bit short. If it doesn’t work out even with that kind of support, you’re immediately.”

Fired. The manager spoke decisively while drawing his hand across his own neck. Hajin let out a small, “Ah…,” lament and nodded his head as if he understood.

“Mr. Hajin, you can head to the meeting room on the fifth floor. I have a place to drop by, so I’ll head up a bit later.”

“Ah, yes. See you shortly.”

Hajin spoke as he gave a polite, silent bow. At that, the manager chided him to make himself comfortable, but Hajin substituted the reply with a still awkward smile.

Parting with the manager at the first-floor lobby, Hajin headed toward the fifth floor he had spoken of. Funnily enough, when he went to the fifth floor, all sides were meeting rooms. Quite a lot of people were already in the middle of conducting meetings, and about half of the floor was an office. The employees seated at each desk were quite a few as well. Standing awkwardly, Hajin cautiously asked toward the employee visible at the very front.

“Hello. I… came because I was told I need to write a contract.”

The employee who was busily tapping away on the keyboard glanced at him with a bewildered look.

“A contract?”

The employee hurriedly rummaged through the documents strewn about the desk, then muttered to herself with irritation that she hadn’t heard anything. Then she suddenly connected an extension call and phoned somewhere.

“Is there anything you’ve heard about writing a new contract today?”

The employee, who was continuing the conversation with the opponent she phoned, glanced at him once more.

“Ah…. The Representative’s guest? …Yes, I understand for now.”

Whatever she had been passed word of, an interest had arisen in the gaze that scanned him. Becoming embarrassed at the suddenly changed attitude, Hajin subtly turned his head and feigned indifference.

“I didn’t know you were the Representative’s guest. If you go up to the seventeenth floor, an employee will guide you.”

Throughout the entire time she spoke, the employee did not detach her gaze, which was full of curiosity that seemed to say, Is this person that person? Conveying his thanks, Hajin hurriedly slipped out of that place.

Getting into the elevator again, Hajin firmly pressed the seventeenth-floor button with a still tense face. The movement without a single sound felt exactly like he was levitating. Arriving in no time, the silver door opened rapidly, and an employee, who looked as though they had been passed word in advance, strictly guided him to the office. Hajin closely followed behind that back in an awkward posture. The secretary knocked, tack, tack, and stepped inside the office first. Between the gap where the door opened slightly, someone’s voice drifted out.

“An fiancé, you say?”

“That’s how it turned out.”

The voice asking back as if surprised, and the reply taking it back nonchalantly. Even if he didn’t know one person, he could sufficiently recognize at least the voice of the person replying. Hajin looked between the gap of the door with somewhat surprised eyes. A back profile wearing a gray suit was visible very faintly.

“Weren’t you marrying Yeonwoo?”

“You can just know it as that.”

The man seated in the seat of honor gestured to the secretary who was about to speak as if telling her not to interrupt, and continued the conversation while treating the opponent like an invisible person. One person was Kwon Haesung, who was the Representative Director of this company and Kwon Sayoung’s relative, and one person was Kwon Sayoung.

“Crazy, crazy.”

“Don’t overdo it.”

Whether that fact was surprising, the Representative wore a quite astonished face. Kwon Sayoung, while leaning back leisurely, merely continued his words ordinarily.

“Is Yeonwoo staying quiet?”

“…He must have been hurt.”

“Wow, you—, seriously. If the guys hear, they’re going to flip out, you know?”

The man, who failed to suppress his wonderment once more, reacted somewhat exceptionally. At that sound of conversation, Hajin recoiled with a start and firmly clasped his two hands together. For some reason, it felt like a conversation he shouldn’t hear, but it was difficult not to listen to a conversation where his own story was coming out.

“Anyway, you’re slotting your fiancé in?”

The Representative continued the question again. What kind of face the opponent was making was not visible to Hajin’s eyes, but his voice was heard distinctly. A fittingly indifferent way of speaking, a voice.

“Later, the elders will all come to know the news that he is my fiancé, so should I leave him under an agency that is completely going under? When I looked into it, it was famous for being a low-quality place.”

“Ah, simply because of the gaze of those around you?”

At the question of the opponent who was digging into it quite inquisitively, he added the words in a voice full of a bothersome inkling.

“Stop talking useless nonsense, and just mind your mouth. Since an article hasn’t come out yet.”

“It’ll be no time before rumors spread, then.”

Whether the two were quite close, Kwon Sayoung was responding comfortably. Then, all of a sudden, the Representative opened his mouth again with a flashing face.

“But how do you grow a guy who stole his own hyung’s lover into a star?”

Hajin felt sweat forming on his palms. He felt the heart that had been slightly fluttering, the heart that had been a bit excited, gradually cooling down. Today, he had definitely intended to deliver his thanks to him. That he was grateful, and that he thanked him. Even if he looked like a snob and it couldn’t be helped, that he was truly grateful for looking after him.

“What do you mean star. Just let him play around fittingly.”

Hajin stared into empty space with eyes that were gradually becoming vacant. Their conversation continued on.

Only now did he seem to know. The reason he went out of his way to look after him.

“What?”

“Since it seems he wants to play around because he’s bored, just match his tune roughly.”

Hajin blinked his eyes blankly. In the end, it wasn’t because he cared about him, but to manage him. Because of the gaze of those around, because of Kwon Sayoung’s own position, it couldn’t be helped.

Merely because of his own position, lest he be caught up in some bad public opinion, he had just cleared him away roughly. It wasn’t that he wanted a grand reason, but conclusively, it was not pure goodwill. It wasn’t to purely believe in him and support him either. Conversely, lest a bothersome matter arise, he had tossed him here to make him easy to control. Exactly as if telling them to roughly play along with him.

Hajin merely let out a soundless laugh. He was selfish.

He himself had been secretly liking that kind of selfish person. Because even if it was that selfish heart, that was the unique goodwill to him. Because he himself was a person starved for even a single small piece of goodwill. Because his stomach was empty and hungry, he had no choice but to like a selfish person. Even at this moment, even so, he was in a plight where he had to be grateful to him.

The things that had fluttered because he was secretly glad for that brief moment all felt like an illusion. Hajin realized it firsthand even at this moment when he had left the house and come out. His own position, which was different from theirs.

࣪˖ ִֶָ🍇་༘

Hajin slipped out of the company straight after that. And returning to the house alone, he scrubbed off the makeup he had received, changed into comfortable clothes, then sent out all the employees who were in the middle of cleaning the house and did the cleaning himself instead. Running the vacuum, mopping, and clearing away the laundered clothes one by one, he passed the time. When one had many thoughts, moving the body was the best. Hajin moved diligently to offset his ruined mood.

On purpose, he mopped all the way to the floor and wiped down each and every stair. Otherwise, it felt like these thoughts would not all vanish. He needed to at least shed sweat and do some kind of work. To forget the sorrow where the rims of his eyes became hot, he had to do anything. Pushing and wiping while going out of his way to find every single thing, around the time there was nothing more to do, he returned from work.

At his shabby attire, his appearance of shedding sweat, and his figure impoverished by labor, he looked at him bizarrely. “You’re here.” Scanning Hajin, who delivered an address ordinarily, long from head to toe for quite a long time, he quietly brought out the words.

“…Just what are you doing right now?”

Standing at the entrance of the living room, he could not hide his bewildered look. Hajin replied while wiping the table once more roughly for no reason.

“Cleaning.”

He couldn’t comprehend why he was getting so resentful. He had been beaten by Seong Suhyun his entire life, so he could endure and swallow resentment better than anyone. However, Hajin did not reveal it on the outside and maintained his composure.

“Therefore. I’m asking why you are doing that, aren’t I.”

Whether he was frustrated by Hajin, who couldn’t comprehend the meaning of his words, strength gradually entered Kwon Sayoung’s voice. The appearance of Hajin that Kwon Sayoung saw was dumbfounding. On a T-shirt whose neck was all stretched out, he had tightly tied a towel headband so that his bangs wouldn’t come down, and he was rolling up his loose training pants up to his thighs. It was an appearance exactly like an uncultured helper who had come to work at someone else’s house.

Nevertheless, the fact that he himself looked ordinary without a single sign of embarrassment seemed to make him more dumbfounded.

“Can you not hear my words?”

At his question that was heard once again, Hajin only then stopped his movement.

“…I used to do it occasionally originally, too.”

Hajin mumbled as if talking to himself. What was such a big deal about cleaning that he was so dumbfounded, Hajin conversely couldn’t comprehend.

In Chairman Seong’s main house, there were more than twenty servants, but Hajin generally cleaned his own space himself. Seong Suhyun had ordered it so, and to the servants, he threw tantrums that weren’t tantrums every time, telling them not to treat Hajin like family. Therefore, some servants ignored him according to his instructions, but some veterans looked after him secretly behind his back. It was only some, but that alone was enough.