3. Kindness (3)
Seo Eungyu stepped out onto the terrace on the opposite hallway from the document archive and let the cold wind wash over him. The heavy snow that had fallen throughout the day had stopped, and the vast grounds of the headquarters shimmered with a bluish glow in the freshly piled white snow.
Feeling the chill against his body unprotected by an overcoat, his reason, which had gone astray, gradually returned. Perhaps it was because it had been so long since he had stood this close to Mun Dawon and spoken with her—he had nearly acted rashly.
Five years ago, after completing the new employee training, he had only seen her occasionally: at classmates’ weddings or in passing within the company building. Even when they happened to run into each other, she was usually the one to turn her head away first.
If he had known this heart-wrenching time would drag on for so long, he should have confessed five years ago.
Back then, Mun Dawon had a boyfriend she adored, and he had assumed his unrequited love would quickly wither away once they were separated after training.
After graduating from the training center, he was assigned to Daejeon and she to Daegu. On days she appeared in his dreams, he would wake up and check her messenger profile. And seeing the photo still set to a bouquet that seemed to be from her boyfriend, he would chew over the bitterness.
He thought he was in the process of forgetting her.
However, at a classmate’s wedding half a year later, he realized it had been a delusion. When he visited the bridal waiting room to offer his congratulations, he spotted Mun Dawon smiling brightly.
“Alright, here we go. One, two, three.”
Arm in arm with the classmate in her dress, she beamed in front of the camera. The slight upward tilt of her eye corners relaxed into gentle curves. Her full lips parted wide, as if she were about to let out a bright laugh at any moment.
His heart pounded rapidly, as if he had sprinted two hundred meters at full speed. Forgetting completely where he was or who was around him, every sharp frequency of his senses tuned toward Mun Dawon.
Their eyes met over the camera. And when the smile vanished from her face immediately, he realized that it was still far too early for the resentment between them to dissolve.
At that day’s wedding, the prettily dressed Mun Dawon stepped forward and caught the bouquet thrown by the bride. For the first time in his life, Seo Eungyu tasted the bitter flavor of being left behind.
He could not even entertain such a petty thought as whether things might have been different if he had met Mun Dawon before her boyfriend, because she looked perfectly happy.
For a while, he was so trapped in a feeling as if he’d been doused in sewage that even when he was assigned to the headquarters audit team—a fast track for promotion—he was not particularly happy.
However, the moment Mun Dawon’s bouquet photo came down from her messenger profile and no new photo went up, the corners of his mouth returned to their usual angle.
He knew this was exactly why she could not help but hate him, yet he could not stop his mood from gradually lifting.
“Ah, so that friend is Assistant Manager Mun Dawon.”
By the time he had grown accustomed to life at headquarters, Mun Dawon had been assigned to the International Contracts Team. And he ran into her walking through the lobby with foreigners. It was a face he had not seen in ten months.
“Originally, that friend was also supposed to come to the audit team last year. But the team leader said he didn’t want female employees, so only you were brought in, Eungyu. He changed his mind right before the assignment orders came out, so you have no idea how sorry I felt toward that friend.”
Seo Eungyu’s superior clicked his tongue. His gaze following her retreating figure shook faintly. With this, one more reason was added to why she hated him.
Since they had begun working at headquarters together, they ran into each other more often than expected. In the elevator, the company cafeteria, the café, the auditorium—their gazes tangled in midair several times, but she was always the one to sever them decisively.
It had been five years where only missed connections steadily piled up. Only two days ago had they finally been able to reach each other again. He did not want to ruin this barely given opportunity by rushing it.
Seo Eungyu filled his lungs with cold air and left the terrace.
Since it was an evening with snowfall, the only people working in the office were him and Mun Dawon. He heard her voice quietly speaking on the phone at her desk.
“Yeah, Dad. It snowed a little. I’m about to leave work now. Yeah. Don’t worry. I can get home. Yeah.”
He waited until the call ended, then deliberately made noise with his footsteps as he walked to his desk. She did not even turn her head, focusing solely on her monitor.
“Leave before the roads freeze.”
So he tossed out his concern disguised with an indifferent tone. Though he felt her gaze reach him, he silently shut down his computer and rose from his seat.
It was overtime he had chosen anyway in order to exchange even a few more words with her. But the office, with only the two of them remaining, required more patience than expected.
“See you tomorrow.”
Seo Eungyu greeted her as he put on his coat. She bowed her head briefly without a word and immersed herself in work again.
* * *
Mun Dawon rubbed her stiff nape and slipped out of the office. It had already been an hour since her phone call with her father. Today too, she felt like she would collapse and go straight to sleep once she got home.
“Oh my.”
The moment she stepped out of the building, she nearly slipped and fell. The snow that had fallen during the day had been shoveled to the corners, but as darkness fell, the remaining moisture had frozen into an icy road.
She made her way to the parking lot with quick steps. In the dim outdoor parking lot, her car remained forlornly covered in white snow.
First, as a temporary measure, she took out a long umbrella from the trunk and cleared the snow from the front and rear windshields. Then she got in the car, started the engine, and warmed it up for quite a while.
“Slowly, slowly now.”
But the moment she lightly stepped on the accelerator, she felt the rear wheels slipping. Strength surged into both her hands gripping the steering wheel. Every muscle hardened at once.
“Please, I just want to go home.”
Mun Dawon pleaded with the car as she carefully turned the steering wheel. A rattling sound was heard, and soon the car escaped her will and swerved in an S-shaped acrobatic maneuver.
She held her breath and hit the brakes hard. The car swerved even wider than before and stopped precariously in front of a parking lot pillar.
“Haa…….”
It couldn’t have been more fortunate that the parking lot was empty. If it had been packed with cars like in the morning, her auto insurance premium would have risen by several hundred thousand won next year.
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the driver’s side window. Startled, she turned her head toward the window, and a dark silhouette gestured for her to roll it down. She held her breath again and lowered the window slightly.
“I had a feeling this would happen.”
It was Seo Eungyu.
The man’s hair, which had been neatly swept back, was slightly disheveled, and his quick exhales became white breath clearly visible in the cold.
For some reason, Seo Eungyu, who looked angry, flicked his hand.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Move over, I’m driving.”
In a bewildered state, Mun Dawon opened the door and got out. He climbed in as naturally as if he were the car’s owner and adjusted the seat position. Then he looked at her standing blankly outside.
“What are you doing? Get in.”
“But, uh… what about your car, Chief?”
“My car is safely tucked away, so don’t worry and get in quickly.”
The man’s tone was not as smooth as usual. It was somewhat urgent and commanding. Feeling inexplicably cautious, she climbed into the passenger seat without a word.
Seo Eungyu, who was even good at driving, maneuvered the car smoothly like a driver with thirty accident-free years of experience. The rear wheels did not spin at all and obediently followed his driving.
Sitting in the unfamiliar passenger seat of her own car, she rolled her eyes around before looking out the window. Seo Eungyu passed by a black sedan haphazardly abandoned near the parking lot entrance and exited through the company main gate.
The acoustic pop song flowing through the Bluetooth speaker was dreadfully ill-suited to their atmosphere. The man’s face was cold as ice as he drove slowly, maintaining fifty kilometers per hour.
“Where do you live?”
“Please drop me off in front of the Anho Post Office.”
It was exactly the kind of feeling one would have if their airway were suddenly blocked. The thin ice on the windshield seemed to force its way past the heater’s blast and encroach inward. Mun Dawon held back a sigh and dropped her gaze.
Unlike her, Seo Eungyu drove with one hand while his right hand gently gripped the gear shift. Her eyes, which had been staring at the fingers wrapped around the gear shift, thoroughly scanned the smoothly trimmed nails, the long finger joints stretched out like a man’s legs, and the veins bulging along the back of his hand.
Even his hands are handsome. That was her first thought. But soon she found herself jealous of even his innate physique.
Seo Eungyu had caused a stir at the training center with his outstanding looks and physique immediately after joining the company. She had heard he received several confessions during the three-month training. She knew that even on the last day of the graduation ceremony, someone had confessed to him with a bouquet.
After the training ended, rumors had spread even to the regional branch offices scattered across the country. The employees who were his classmates must have all been asked at least once what he looked like in person.
Even Seo Eungyu’s outstanding appearance grated harshly against her pride. He gained favor simply by staying still, purely with his natural looks. Even if she were to get full-body plastic surgery now, she could not replicate his nearly 190-centimeter frame or even the hands she wanted to hold just once.
The car he drove slowly entered Anho-dong. The post office submerged in darkness became visible up ahead. She gathered her bag and prepared to offer her thanks.
“Where exactly is your house? The post office isn’t your home.”
“No. Please let me out here.”
“The alleys in this neighborhood are narrow. Can you pass through without hitting another car on a snowy road?”
Mun Dawon’s head drooped on its own. Her face burned when she thought about how he must have seen all the commotion in the company parking lot. She had no choice but to point to the alley beside the post office.
“If you go into this alley, it’s fine.”
Seo Eungyu narrowly passed the cars parked in a line along the curb and arrived at the women-only studio company housing where she lived. And he even parked perfectly in the narrow space.
Mun Dawon got out of the car and greeted him.
“Thank you for driving instead of me.”
But he did not accept her greeting and simply looked down at her. Thanks to the white snow piled everywhere, the surroundings were brighter than usual. Because of that, the presence of the man with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets felt even greater than it did at the office.
“Ah, you left your car behind. I’ll call you a taxi.”
She cleared her throat and took out her phone. However, the large hand she had been stealing glances at the entire way here gently caught and lowered her hand.
The hand, warmer than expected, immediately let go. Her vacant gaze trailed after it.
“Sleep well, Dawon.”
Leaving behind those words as if whispering them quietly, the man turned around. She stood still, repeating those words to herself until his back disappeared from sight.