BT 04

Chapter 04

Then the Period Is One Month from Now

Eun-chae stared blankly up at the Tower Palace, which seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky.

She had never lived anywhere higher than the first floor in her entire life, so she couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly live that high up.

Do-hyeok’s home was on the 64th floor.

This is insane. How does anyone live that high up? Wouldn’t you get motion sickness while sleeping?

She had come to his home because she was afraid of what kind of scheme Do-hyeok might come up with next, but she really didn’t want to go inside.

It felt as though she were voluntarily stepping into the devil’s lair.

She even needed an access pass just to enter the apartment building.

Do-hyeok had already told them about her, so she was allowed inside after leaving her ID at the desk, but somehow it left a bad taste in her mouth.

It felt as though she’d used some trick to sneak into a place she wasn’t supposed to enter.

Eun-chae hated things like that.

No matter how luxurious or wonderful something was, if it wasn’t hers, she never coveted it.

Perhaps that was why she was so certain she would never like Kwon Do-hyeok, no matter how much she knew he had.

He was a man who belonged in the Tower Palace, while she was a woman who belonged in a market-street hangover soup restaurant.

The moment Eun-chae stepped inside the house, she suffered another cultural shock.

Was this really the home of a man who lived alone?

It was ridiculously huge, filled only with expensive collectibles that looked like they would cause a disaster if she broke them, and there wasn’t a single trace that anyone actually lived there.

There wasn’t even an ordinary graduation photograph.

She couldn’t see a single family photo either.

He wasn’t some human who had suddenly fallen from the sky, so did he just hate taking pictures?

More importantly, the house was so enormous that she couldn’t summon even the slightest desire to clean it.

For someone who didn’t even properly clean her own room, this place was like a Mission Impossible assignment.

“Why did I say I’d do this?!”

Overcome with despair, Eun-chae collapsed onto the floor.

When she thought about it, she hadn’t really volunteered to do this.

She had simply fallen for Do-hyeok’s trap like an idiot.

The first thing Eun-chae did after entering Kwon Do-hyeok’s palace was order jjajangmyeon.

She needed the energy to clean, after all.

But when she called a jjajangmyeon restaurant near Tower Palace and heard the price, she was horrified.

“It’s 4,000 won in my neighborhood! Why is it so expensive there?!”

[It’s this price everywhere in this neighborhood. Is this your first time here?]

The restaurant employee was subtly looking down on her for placing an order.

And, frustratingly, this really was Eun-chae’s first time in the neighborhood.

Eun-chae told herself not to get too worked up over a few thousand won like someone without any manners and forced herself to calmly place her order.

“Then please deliver one bowl of jjajangmyeon.”

She was thinking that if they managed to deliver it all the way to the 64th floor before the noodles got soggy, she would generously forgive the employee for looking down on her.

But the employee added another irritating comment.

[Just one bowl?]

“Why? Can’t I even order that?!”

By then, Eun-chae was practically arguing with the jjajangmyeon employee.

Over nothing more than a bowl of noodles.

[No, it’s just that people here normally give at least a 10,000-won tip, so I thought it was interesting that you’re ordering delivery worth only a few thousand won.]

“I’m not eating it! You bastard! I’ll never pay my money for your jjajangmyeon! Go live and die as a pathetic Chinese restaurant worker for the rest of your life!”

After pouring out everything she had and hanging up, she was even hungrier.

She had just wasted what little energy she had left on something completely pointless.

But she didn’t have enough energy to go downstairs and buy food herself.

How was she supposed to go down 64 floors?

That was far too cruel to ask of a hungry person.

Why did he have to live somewhere this ridiculously high up?

Eun-chae collapsed in despair before dragging herself toward the kitchen like a zombie.

Still, this was someone’s home.

There had to be something edible somewhere.

“I think everyone is aware that not only in the domestic construction market, but also in the international construction market, the profitability of simple construction is rapidly declining due to increasingly intense price competition. Moving away from construction-centered business and focusing on high-value development projects will become a visible growth engine. So don’t become fixated on specific fields or things we’ve already been doing. Look for new business opportunities in various areas.”

It was time for the business development meeting.

The Business Development Division had finished its briefing on discovering new businesses, but the opinions being presented were hardly any different from what they had already done.

So Do-hyeok drove his point home.

He had taken the thought, ‘If you bring me the exact same thing again like you’re stamping out fish-shaped pastries, you’re dead,’ and softened it, then softened it again, until he expressed it in an intellectual and civilized manner.

“I’ll give you one more week. Come back with a proper proposal by then.”

The meeting had started brutally and ended even more brutally.

Before leaving, Do-hyeok called back Manager Cha, who was in charge of the Business Development Division.

The executives who had left first gave him sympathetic looks before quickly disappearing from the conference room.

Without even looking at Manager Cha, who was standing with his head bowed deeply before him, Do-hyeok stared out the window and spoke coldly.

“Manager Cha, when did you join our company?”

“Yes. I joined in 1985.”

“So is the reason you’re sitting in the position of Business Development Division manager simply because you’ve been here long enough?”

Manager Cha’s face stiffened.

Being criticized like this by a young CEO was humiliating, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“If that’s not the case, then show me proof that it isn’t. You have only one opportunity left. If the next meeting is like today’s, I’ll be thinking about finding new talent before I think about finding new business. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Manager Cha answered heavily and bowed his head deeply.

Only then did Do-hyeok rise from the head seat and leave the conference room.

Manager Cha remained there with his head bowed until Do-hyeok had closed the door behind him.

“Do you really intend to fire him?”

Park Manager asked as he followed behind Do-hyeok like a shadow.

“Manager Cha worked with Chairman Kwon.”

“So what does that have to do with anything?”

As the company’s representative, Do-hyeok never hesitated for even a moment when deciding who was useful to him and who was a burden.

It was his father, Chairman Kwon, who had taught him to become a symbol of power rather than simply a boss who worked alongside his subordinates.

Like father, like son.

A killer boss.

The names the employees used to describe Do-hyeok weren’t entirely inaccurate, and he didn’t particularly care about them.

After all, the person who held the sword was the one who remained until the very end.

Kakao—.

A cheerful KakaoTalk notification rang from Do-hyeok’s phone, completely out of place in the serious atmosphere.

Park Manager was startled and pulled out his own phone, but when he realized it wasn’t his, he looked up at Do-hyeok.

It couldn’t possibly be a ghost sending a KakaoTalk message, so it had to have come from Do-hyeok’s phone.

Do-hyeok calmly took out his phone and checked it.

It was from Lee Eun-chae.

Starting today, Lee Eun-chae, rather than a professional helper, would be cleaning his house.

He still couldn’t imagine what his home would look like after she was done with it.

First, he needed to extinguish Eun-chae’s overly lively energy and make her a little more obedient.

Right now, no matter what he said to her, she only bounced right back.

He had assumed that seeing the environment in which the upper class lived would have intimidated Eun-chae, who had grown up as the daughter of a market-street hangover soup restaurant owner.

But her KakaoTalk message was something completely unexpected.

<The refrigerator is completely empty! You’re a chaebol! But why! Why! Why!>

The only time the refrigerator door in his home ever opened was when he took out water to drink.

He hated having the smell of food in his house, so he never allowed anyone to keep food there.

And the very first thing Lee Eun-chae, who had entered his private space for the first time, had become interested in was the one thing in his house that revealed its impoverished interior.

His barren refrigerator had earned him a scolding.

But the hunger in Eun-chae’s message was so desperate that Do-hyeok let out a quiet laugh.

Then, sensing Park Manager’s gaze, he immediately wiped the expression from his face and looked straight ahead.

In truth, even Do-hyeok hadn’t given much thought to the contract with Eun-chae.

He had made the decision suddenly while drinking.

It was the most ridiculous and impulsive contract he had ever written.

Even so, watching Lee Eun-chae sign it had given him a strange sense of satisfaction.

He had no doubt that he would ultimately be the winner of the contract.

Once Eun-chae spent enough time beside him, she would fall under the spell of money, and at that moment, she would surrender to him.

As he watched the numbers on the elevator panel climb upward, Do-hyeok thought that, for the first time in a long while, he should leave work at exactly six.

There were two particularly strange things about Do-hyeok’s home.

The refrigerator was completely empty, and he had an enormous collection of classical music records.

There were so many classical records that if Eun-chae hadn’t known Kwon Do-hyeok, she would have assumed he worked in classical music.

Eun-chae didn’t listen to classical music at all because she found it boring.

She didn’t know why, but even though it was music like any other, classical music somehow made her feel as if she were studying.

“Is it for interior decoration?”

That seemed likely.

She couldn’t imagine Kwon Do-hyeok sitting around listening to classical music and becoming immersed in its beauty.

Instead of playing one of the countless classical records, Eun-chae turned on the radio.

When the latest hit songs began echoing through the enormous house, Eun-chae finally started cleaning, swaying her shoulders along with the lively rhythm.

“Wow!”

She had opened it without thinking, only to find a dressing room that looked like an entire clothing store had been moved inside.

Eun-chae’s mouth fell open.

Luxury watches and sunglasses were also proudly displayed in glass cases.

“This place is basically a department store.”

Some of the things here might even be more expensive than the ones in an actual department store.

Everything was for men, so there was nothing she could use.

But sunglasses were different.

She took out a pair of aviator sunglasses and put them on.

They were a little too big for her, but they looked cool.

She posed in front of the mirror for a moment like an action star from an old Hong Kong movie.

Then she started cleaning again, swaying her shoulders to the music.

If the owner of the house had actually witnessed her cleaning, he would have clutched the back of his neck in horror.

It would have looked less like she was cleaning his home and more like she was tearing it apart.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep—click.

Do-hyeok opened the door and entered the house at exactly seven o’clock.

Compared to his usual time of returning home, it was incredibly early.

But Eun-chae, sitting on the sofa and looking at him, had the expression of a completely wilted flower.

Her face made it painfully obvious that she regretted choosing this job.

“Are you so hungry that you don’t even have the strength to move?”

Eun-chae, who had nearly starved to death because there was nothing to eat in the refrigerator, complained in an aggrieved voice.

“Do you know how hungry I was today?! If the young man downstairs hadn’t given me ramen, I would’ve called 911!”

At the words ‘young man downstairs,’ Do-hyeok’s eyes narrowed.

“Downstairs?”

“You don’t know who lives there? Of course you don’t.”

Naturally, Do-hyeok didn’t know.

He had lived in this home for more than ten years without ever feeling the need to know.

But apparently, on her very first day here, Lee Eun-chae had already gotten acquainted with the man living downstairs.

It was unbelievable.

“You just follow anyone who gives you food?”

“Do you think I’m a dog?! Do you think I’ll follow someone just because they give me food?!”

She had rung the downstairs neighbor’s doorbell first because she didn’t have the strength to go down all 64 floors.

Fortunately, not every rich person was as rude as Kwon Do-hyeok.

The kind young man had given her a packet of ramen, allowing her to survive.

“What do you eat when you’re hungry?”

Kwon Do-hyeok had to get hungry if he didn’t eat, too.

She’d thought it was strange that his refrigerator contained absolutely nothing, so she asked.

Do-hyeok loosened his tie and answered simply.

“Wine.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Having lost the will to ask anything else, Eun-chae sighed.

Who could she blame?

She had to blame herself for signing the contract without reading it carefully.

One month.

She just had to endure for exactly one month.

“By the way, when are you giving me the three million won?”

She intended to quit immediately if he said he wasn’t giving it to her now.

Contract or no contract, being alone in this enormous house all day was much harder than she’d expected.

It felt like being trapped in an incredibly expensive prison.

But before she could say she was quitting, Do-hyeok took three checks out of his wallet and held them out to her.

Exactly three million won.

“You’re not taking them?”

He looked at her strangely.

She had been pestering him to give her the money, but now that he had, she was merely staring at it as if it belonged to someone else.

“…Do you normally carry 1-million-won bills in your wallet?”

“Just like you have 100-won coins rolling around in yours.”

Eun-chae glared at Do-hyeok and snatched the checks from his hand.

She didn’t like the fact that the money was his, but she needed it right now.

She was going to throw these checks at the bald manager’s shiny head and scream at him to stop living like such a piece of trash.

Actually, throwing 10,000-won bills would probably be more effective.

That way she could watch the bald manager crawl around pathetically, picking up the money.

Three checks would be picked up too quickly.

As she stared at the checks, Do-hyeok apparently thought she was getting greedy and asked,

“Don’t tell me you’ll keep doing this if I pay you more.”

“No! I’m only doing it for one month! And after that, it’s goodbye to you forever!”

She answered confidently.

Do-hyeok was confident too.

He was certain that, one month from now, he would be the one laughing.

“Then I’m leaving.”

The moment Do-hyeok returned home, Eun-chae tried to leave.

Do-hyeok was irritated.

He had come home early for once.

Not that he’d deliberately left work early just to see her.

“If you avoid me like that, what’s the point of signing the contract?”

“Who’s avoiding you?! My work is finished, so I’m going home.”

Do-hyeok looked around the house that she had supposedly cleaned.

It had already been clean before, so the difference wasn’t obvious.

But to Do-hyeok’s eyes, the disturbances throughout the house were painfully clear.

“The porcelain is in the wrong place.”

Eun-chae frowned.

What did he mean, wrong?

As long as the porcelain was sitting on the table, wasn’t that enough?

“Your careless personality shows even in the way you clean.”

To Eun-chae, the house simply looked clean.

So Do-hyeok’s words sounded like nothing more than nitpicking.

It wasn’t even a job she had wanted.

Do-hyeok had arbitrarily decided that she would do it.

“Then give me something else to do.”

“Forget it. This seems like the safest job for you.”

Do-hyeok’s words made it sound as though he considered her a stick of dynamite.

Eun-chae’s expression darkened.

She didn’t want to hear anything more irritating from him, so she walked toward the front door.

Just as she reached for the doorknob, a large hand reached past her and grabbed it first.

Do-hyeok was standing directly behind her.

Eun-chae jumped and protested.

“Why are you following me?!”

“I told you. The contract. Creating mandatory time for you to spend with me is also part of your job. If you simply leave now, then you’ll be the one violating the contract, which means I’ll win.”

To Eun-chae, it sounded completely arbitrary.

But Do-hyeok was a businessman accustomed to contracts, while she was a novice whose only real talent was singing.

If he started picking apart the contract, she would inevitably be at a disadvantage.

“So what do you want me to do?”

Eun-chae gritted her teeth and asked while holding herself back.

“We can have dinner together.”

“Do I have to make dinner too?”

“Forget it. If you cook, you’ll probably poison my food.”

Do-hyeok opened the front door and told her they would eat out.

Eun-chae glared at him briefly before walking toward the elevator.

Since the elevator had to come all the way up to the 64th floor, they had to wait for quite a while.

“But what happens if the elevator breaks down here or there’s a power outage? I’d have to walk up to the 64th floor using the stairs, right? Wow. I’d probably have a heart attack before I made it up.”

Eun-chae looked genuinely terrified by the number 64.

Tower Palace had much more thorough backup power and management systems than other buildings, so that was unlikely to happen.

But Do-hyeok didn’t bother explaining.

“So if the elevator here ever breaks down, I’m never coming to work again. Never.”

She was the first person who had ever worried about the possibility of the elevator breaking down in his home.

Do-hyeok gave a dry laugh.

“You’re saying you don’t care whether I’m trapped on the 64th floor?”

“Then who told you to live this high up? It’s your own fault.”

“It’s not my own fault. Shouldn’t you call it being capable?”

“No matter how capable you are, you can’t walk up 64 floors.”

He couldn’t deny it because he felt the same way.

The elevator reached the 59th floor.

Only then did Do-hyeok suddenly feel the dizzying reality of that number.

It was something he’d never thought about when he bought the house.

“If I ever have to walk up 64 floors to get to you, I’ll need the power of love.”

Do-hyeok turned away from the number panel and looked down at Eun-chae.

What?

Love?

“Ha! But that’ll never happen, even if I die.”

Eun-chae laughed at her own words and stepped into the elevator alone.

When Do-hyeok didn’t get in and simply stood outside, she became annoyed.

“Are you not getting in? Are you just going to leave me?”

Only then did Do-hyeok move his legs and step into the elevator.

Eun-chae pressed the close button.

The doors immediately shut, and the elevator began dropping toward the ground at tremendous speed.

For a moment, Do-hyeok’s heart began beating abnormally fast.

Was it because of the dizzying height of the elevator’s descent?

Or was it because of the person standing beside him?

It was an ambiguous moment.