Chapter 21

“Misunderstanding.”

To understand what Hae-il meant by that one word, Danbi looked past him toward Suhyeon.

Suhyeon also looked at her with a bewildered expression, as though asking, Misunderstanding?

For the brief moment when their gazes collided and then drifted apart in the air, Hae-il’s eyebrows twitched faintly.

The faint smile that had been lingering around his lips vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a chilly expression whose emotions were impossible to read.

“Ah…….”

Suhyeon seemed to realize the direction Hae-il’s words had been pointing and let out a small gasp.

His face immediately flushed bright red, and he frantically waved his hands.

“It’s not like that. I just helped Danbi a little yesterday…….”

Despite his desperate explanation, Hae-il’s gaze remained fixed solely on Danbi.

He didn’t move an inch, as though Suhyeon’s explanation wasn’t even worth listening to.

When Danbi gave a small nod to support Suhyeon’s words, his gaze sank even deeper into a cold, bottomless abyss.

“Ah, I see.”

It was impossible to tell whether he was accepting Suhyeon’s explanation or simply announcing that he had reached his own conclusion.

“Your three Americanos are ready!”

The café employee’s cheerful voice shattered the icy silence.

Hae-il picked up two of the cups first.

He handed one to Danbi and kept the other for himself.

The untouched cup remained forlornly behind as Suhyeon’s.

His manners had come and gone in an instant.

After a brief hesitation, Danbi picked up the remaining cup and handed it to Suhyeon.

“Here, Suhyeon.”

“Ah, thank you.”

It was an entirely natural gesture between coworkers.

But Hae-il’s piercing gaze immediately followed it.

Under his stare, Danbi felt as though even the slightest tremor of her eyelashes was being dissected and analyzed.

Danbi forced herself to speak casually.

“Thank you for the coffee, Team Leader.”

“I’ll enjoy it too.”

Hae-il casually looked over the two of them standing side by side before giving Suhyeon only a brief nod.

Then he turned around without hesitation and left the café.

His precisely measured footsteps were slightly faster than usual, and his rigid back radiated an unmistakable chill.

Only after Hae-il’s back had completely disappeared from view did Danbi finally release the breath she had been holding.

There had always been a precarious tension whenever she was around him, but today, in particular, it had felt suffocating.

Why on earth is he acting like that?

No.

She could guess the reason.

Thinking back to the bizarre thing he had suddenly said yesterday—The Lee Danbi I know likes me—the answer seemed fairly simple.

He had always been accustomed to a world in which everyone treated him favorably and showed interest in him.

That was simply the default setting of his world.

Then is his current attitude something like the reaction of an idol who has just watched an enthusiastic fan turn her back and announce that she’s no longer a fan?

Is he sulking because she isn’t giving him as much attention as he expected?

Danbi shook her head inwardly.

Han Hae-il couldn’t possibly be that childish.

Probably.

“Haa…… Team Leader seems especially intimidating today. Is he always like that?”

Suhyeon asked cautiously.

Apparently, he too had felt the coldness Hae-il was giving off.

“He’s always a little like that, but today he’s especially…….”

Danbi couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

Suhyeon lightly patted her shoulder.

“You must have a tough time.”

Danbi gave a weak smile.

She didn’t want to carelessly speak ill of her team leader in front of an employee from another team.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what conclusion Hae-il had reached after combining the final look he had given her with the meaning behind the “misunderstanding” he had thrown at her.

✶ ✶ ✶

As the project moved fully into gear, the atmosphere in Development Team 1’s office was like a bowstring pulled taut to its limit.

Maintaining the stable operation of the existing service while simultaneously building the massive infrastructure required for the new project.

Caught between these two brutally demanding tasks, the team members ran into their limits every single day.

And at the very center of that merciless atmosphere stood their team leader, Han Hae-il, who was several times more on edge than usual.

Danbi already knew that when it came to work, he was an uncompromising perfectionist.

But the sharpness Hae-il was radiating now was on an entirely different level from ordinary perfectionism.

It was as though the sharpest edge of that blade had been deliberately aimed at one person alone.

Danbi.

It was the same that afternoon.

Less than an hour after she had uploaded the load-test results report for the newly implemented API, Hae-il summoned her.

Even during the few steps it took to reach his desk, a cold sweat inevitably ran down her spine.

Dozens of graphs and log data were spread across Hae-il’s monitor like flames, and his finger was pointing precisely at one particular section.

“Danbi.”

“Yes, Team Leader.”

“The authentication module we deployed early yesterday morning. Have you identified the cause of this sudden TPS drop?”

His finger pointed toward the graph covering a specific period.

It was obvious that the number of transactions processed per second had fallen dramatically during that interval.

“That was…… We determined that it was caused by a momentary network delay…….”

“Determined? Based on what? Did you actually look at the logs?”

Before she could finish speaking, Hae-il’s finger moved to another log window.

“Here. The pattern showing the DB connection pool being exhausted. This isn’t an external factor. It’s clearly a resource-management problem within the module itself. Why did you design the synchronization block like this without even anticipating this level of traffic?”

Because I copied the code wrong, apparently…….

“……I’m sorry. I should have examined it more carefully…….”

“More carefully?”

He repeated the words in a contemptuous tone.

“Do you think an attitude as complacent as ‘more carefully’ is acceptable on this project?”

The coldness in his voice seemed to touch her skin.

Danbi bit her lower lip.

Normally, at this point, he would have finished his reprimand by demanding a solution and measures to prevent the problem from happening again.

But today was different.

Hae-il remained silent for a moment, staring intently at Danbi as though scanning the most vulnerable point in a system.

That silence was more difficult to endure than his technical criticism.

Under his relentless gaze, she felt as though every weakness and insecurity she possessed had been stripped bare.

The unusually deep shadows around his eyes, perhaps from lack of sleep, his sharp jawline, and the faint redness in his eyes all revealed just how extremely sensitive he had become.

Is it because he’s tired?

Is that why he’s sharper than usual?

At the end of the suffocating silence, he spoke again.

His voice was lower and calmer than before.

Which somehow made it even more threatening.

“Those little mistakes we’ve been finding during recent code reviews, and now this critical design error. Danbi, don’t you think your concentration on your work has dropped considerably?”

“…….”

“Backend stability can depend on a single tiny variable. Developers need to maintain an extreme sense of responsibility at every moment. Could it be…….”

He stopped and looked Danbi over once again.

“If your attention has been distracted by some personal matter recently, you need to understand that it’s an act that threatens the entire team.”

Personal matter.

A huge question mark appeared in Danbi’s mind at those words.

On the surface, it sounded like an ordinary piece of workplace guidance.

But there was no way she could fail to recognize the barbed intention hidden within it.

She remembered the coldness Hae-il had directed at her that morning when she was with Suhyeon in the café.

“In a project where we’re expecting massive traffic, we can’t tolerate unstable factors like this. It’s not just one server that could go down. The entire service could become paralyzed. Managing your condition is part of being competent, too.”

“Yes, I’m sor—”

Before she could finish her apology, his final question flew at her like a dagger.

“Are you so busy dating someone that you’ve forgotten how to separate work from your personal life?”

Dating.

The unfamiliar word rolled awkwardly around in Danbi’s ears.

“Da—”

Danbi tried to question him, but Hae-il was faster.

“Ah, forget all the specifics. Letting your personal life interfere with your primary responsibilities, compromising system stability, and burdening the entire team is an attitude that’s absolutely unacceptable for a professional. Especially at a critical time like this.”

His gaze never left Danbi for even a moment.

It was as though he were saying, All of these problems are happening because of you.

On the surface, his tone was that of a superior reprimanding an employee for neglecting her duties.

And yet, somehow, it resembled the irritation of a child.

“Go out and roll back that module immediately. Submit the cause analysis and proposed fix by the end of the day. And from now on, make sure your personal affairs don’t affect your work. I’m telling you to get your head straight.”

Danbi felt a surge of injustice at several points in his words.

But there was only one answer she could give.

“Yes…….”