TW 4

Chapter 4

After that day, Danbi’s daily life began to be consumed by a strange, constant tension.

Hae-il called her over at all hours to discuss the integration project. The short walk to his desk became an ordeal every single time, like trudging through a field of thorns. And whenever she suddenly felt his gaze from beyond the partition, a chill would creep down her spine.

Team manager and team member.

Within that unmistakable hierarchy, Danbi had no choice but to follow whenever he called, like a puppet being pulled along by invisible strings.

She endured.

And endured.

And finally, Friday came.

Four in the afternoon.

Determined to avoid running into Hae-il as much as humanly possible, Danbi had gotten up at five-thirty that morning and arrived at the office by seven. The moment he briefly stepped away from his desk, she seized the opportunity and hurriedly packed her bag.

“I’ll be heading out now~”

“Yeah. See you~”

The company had a flexible work schedule. As long as you finished your work on time, the rest was relatively free.

Of course, if a server went down after work, you still had to work. And late-night deployments were so common that the line between life and work barely existed.

But right now, none of that mattered.

The only thing Danbi cared about was getting out of the same building as Hae-il.

She packed up at the speed of light and escaped the office.

While waiting for the elevator, she started thinking about dinner.

Judging by the speed at which Hae-il pushed work forward, there was no way they would make it past next week before the B project officially descended into hell.

Which meant she had tonight and the weekend.

A short but precious window of freedom.

Enjoy life while you still can.

Danbi had always lived by that philosophy. You never knew when some unexpected issue would explode in your face, so whenever she had the chance to laugh, she figured she should laugh one more time.

Chicken and beer while I catch up on that American show~

She was just humming to herself, ready to savor the sweet freedom of getting off work—

when—

“Danbi, are you leaving now?”

Her heart dropped straight to the floor.

She screamed internally but turned around as casually as she could.

Hae-il was walking toward her.

Unlike Danbi, who gave him an awkward smile and a small bow, Hae-il wore that same lazy smile—the one that made it impossible to tell what he was actually thinking.

He respected her wishes and treated her properly as his subordinate.

But being alone with him in the same space?

She wanted to avoid that at all costs.

The strange awkwardness.

The suffocating tension.

If she had to sum it all up in one word, it would be—

Uncomfortable.

“Just a moment.”

He opened his mouth as though he had something to discuss.

No.

My day off. My weekend.

Afraid that her perfectly planned escape might somehow be ruined, Danbi instinctively clutched her stomach and doubled over.

Her face twisted in agony.

“Ah…”

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“My stomach suddenly—ngh…”

She sucked in a breath dramatically.

“Ah… I’m sorry, Manager Han. It’s… kind of urgent…”

Danbi unleashed her ultimate move.

The Emergency Stomachache.

Surely, no matter how important his business was, he wouldn’t be cruel enough to keep someone who looked like they were about to shit themselves standing around.

Hae-il looked momentarily taken aback.

Then he nodded.

Danbi immediately slipped past him and rushed toward the restroom.

The moment she entered, the shrimp-like curve of her back snapped perfectly straight.

Her brows, however, remained deeply furrowed.

The nerve of him.

Trying to stop someone who’s leaving work.

Seriously, what kind of terrible workplace manners are those?

Absolutely not.

She had gotten up at five-thirty and clocked in at seven just to avoid him.

There was no way she was getting caught here.

Danbi sat down on a toilet and casually opened a mobile game.

Playing games in the bathroom was admittedly a pathetic sight, but she wasn’t about to waste this precious time off.

After clearing a few rounds in a frenzy, she realized twenty minutes had passed.

Just to be safe, she waited another ten.

Only after a full thirty minutes had gone by did she finally wash her hands and leave the restroom.

She was humming again, ready to reclaim her freedom—

when she saw Hae-il leaning against the wall beside the elevator.

Danbi froze.

Why is he still standing there?

Did he seriously wait thirty minutes?

She immediately considered backing into the restroom again.

But Hae-il spotted her and straightened.

“Ah. Feeling better now?”

“Ah… yes…”

He casually rolled back his sleeve and checked his watch.

Danbi stared at it.

How many watches does this man own?

This one was completely different from yesterday’s.

Apparently, he treated the office like a fashion runway.

“Hmm.”

He looked at her with surprising seriousness.

“You shouldn’t sit on the toilet for too long. It’s not good for you.”

He was genuinely worried about the health of her anus.

Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped me on my way home, then.

Danbi kept that thought to herself and forced a smile.

“Haha… right.”

She sighed internally.

It was obvious he had something to say, and she couldn’t exactly just walk away now.

Go on, then.

Tell me what could possibly be so important that you waited thirty minutes for me.

“I’m getting off work too. Want to grab some coffee?”

Danbi’s heart dropped again.

“…What?”

“Coffee.”

He paused.

“Ah. If the timing’s bad, then dinner?”

“Excuse me?”

“Coffee. Dinner. Drinks.”

He looked at her.

“Pick one.”

She could have said she had plans.

That she was busy.

That something had come up.

But she was so thrown off by the question that she ended up actually choosing.

“Coffee…”

And naturally, she picked the option that seemed the least burdensome.

Before she knew it, Danbi was sitting across from Hae-il at a secluded window seat in the far corner of the company café.

Normally, it was a familiar place where she gathered with her coworkers, drank coffee, laughed, and complained about the miserable realities of corporate life.

But right now?

It felt like a hostile battlefield surrounded by enemies.

While Hae-il went to get two Americanos, Danbi sat there anxiously watching his every move like a dog checking its owner’s mood.

A few minutes later, he returned with a cup in each hand.

Seeing Danbi hovering awkwardly between sitting and standing, he let out a quiet laugh.

“I told you to sit comfortably.”

“Ah, but…”

Was it really okay to sit there while her superior personally brought her coffee?

Danbi hurriedly reached out to take it, but Hae-il deliberately avoided her hand and placed the cup in front of her himself.

Her hand remained suspended awkwardly in the air, following the movements of his hand and the coffee cup before eventually giving up.

She suddenly felt like she had gone back to being a rookie.

Busy.

Moving constantly.

And somehow not actually helping with anything.

“Drink. I’m not sure how the coffee is. I’ve never had anything from the company café before.”

He had always been the type to drink only one particular coffee brand.

Danbi, on the other hand, considered spending more than three thousand won on coffee a luxury.

Cheap takeaway coffee in the morning.

Cheap company coffee at lunch.

It’s all just water filtered through burnt bean powder anyway. How different can it possibly be?

“Ah. Thank you.”

She wrapped her hands around the warm cup, but her fingers were still cold.

Hae-il had called over someone who was already leaving work, sat her down, and then—

said absolutely nothing.

He simply rested his chin on his hand and stared at her.

Danbi had no idea what he wanted.

Unable to make sense of his intentions, she fidgeted with her coffee cup and waited for him to speak.

The faint murmur of conversations around them and the soft background music only made the silence between them more obvious.

Time crawled.

Every second felt painfully long.

After several minutes, Danbi finally cracked.

“Um… Manager Han?”

Her quiet, polite voice broke the silence.

“Did you need something?”

Only then did something flicker faintly in his eyes.

The corner of his mouth curved into a soft smile.

“What about you, Danbi?”

“Me?”

“Don’t you have something you want to talk to me about?”

He turned the question back on her.

Danbi’s brain immediately crashed.

What?

What does he want?

Did I do something wrong?

She ran through countless possibilities but came up with nothing.

So, in the end, she gave him the most honest answer she could.

“Um…”

She hesitated.

“I don’t think so?”

“Seems like you do.”

He crossed his arms with a strange smile.

It was clearly an invitation to speak.

But Danbi’s mind was completely blank.

“…No.”

“Hmm.”

She swallowed.

“If you don’t have anything to discuss either… then maybe I should start heading—”

She had already spent more than enough time facing her boss across a table.

Danbi grabbed her now moderately cooled coffee and gulped it down.

Gulp. Gulp.

She emptied the entire cup like she was downing a shot of soju, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and prepared to leave.

Then Hae-il’s expression changed.

“The B project.”

“Ah…”

So that’s what this was.

Of course.

A workaholic’s business was always work.

“The code is a complete disaster.”

His voice was calm.

“I honestly wondered if senior developers at a major corporation had really written it. It’s outdated, low-quality, bizarre…”

Somewhere inside that nightmare of code were probably a few piles of garbage Danbi herself had written as a rookie.

Without realizing it, she clasped both hands together and lowered her head.

She instantly became a criminal.

“I’m sorry…”

“Huh?”

Hae-il frowned.

“What do you have to apologize for? The problem was the senior developers who were in charge of that project. If they had no talent, they should’ve quit early or studied harder.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“No, why do you keep apologizing?”

He looked genuinely puzzled.

“I’m just venting. Don’t people usually get closer by talking shit about someone together?”

He honestly seemed curious.

Ever since his school days, people had naturally gathered around him without him having to do anything.

He had probably never needed to actively try to become friends with someone.

Which was why he was apparently sitting here now, giving Danbi the perfect opportunity to trash-talk her own incompetent rookie self, along with the seniors and coworkers who had suffered through that project with her.

Somehow, it only made her feel worse.

And at the same time, another question began to surface.

Why is he trying so hard to get close to me?

Out of everyone on the team, he called for Danbi the most.

He spoke to her the most.

And she couldn’t shake the feeling that the B project wasn’t the only reason.

Then suddenly, something he had said long ago flashed through her mind.

[“Really? Then want me to let you join us? You look like you’ve been hovering around because you don’t want to eat alone.”]

The rumor that he was the CEO’s son.

His openly prickly personality.

After those things became known, the team members had begun avoiding him quite obviously.

Danbi didn’t know what his life in America had been like, but no matter who you were, being isolated within a group could make you lonely.

Especially because Development Team 1 had an unusually close-knit atmosphere—almost like a college club.

Even someone with terrible social skills could feel lonely when they were left out.

Once that thought occurred to her, Danbi suddenly felt sorry for him.

“Are you lonely?”

The unexpected question made his eyes flicker.

Just slightly.

Not like himself at all.

He stared at her silently for a moment.

Then he loosely curled his hand into a fist and covered his mouth before asking,

“Um…”

He paused.

“What kind of lonely are you talking about?”

A fresh set of question marks appeared in Danbi’s head.

There are different kinds of loneliness?

Before she had time to solve that philosophical mystery, her phone suddenly erupted with a loud notification.

URGENT ISSUE DETECTED.

Danbi immediately pulled out her laptop and got to work.

And just like that, the conversation ended unfinished, scattered away beneath the sudden flood of incoming work.