Chapter 17

When he caught her eye and smiled, Ji-an went red. “Yes,” she said, then rolled her lips between her teeth and whipped her head aside.

“Hey there.”

This time he greeted the high-schooler first. The boy looked him over once with a sulky face and answered, “Yes,” without putting anything into it.

“Say hello properly.”

Maybe he caught the danger behind that friendly smile, because the boy wavered a moment, then bobbed his head.

“…Hello.”

“Good.”

Sa-heon took the greeting carelessly and turned to Ji-an with a sweet voice.

“Ji-an, would you put that inside for me?”

“Yes.”

Ji-an opened the rooftop room door and went in. Paul evidently couldn’t bring himself to follow her, so he stood there poking at the ground with the toe of his sneaker for no reason at all.

“Hey! Kim Paul! Where are you!”

At the girl’s shrill shout from below, Paul looked down off the roof and waved.

“I’m up here! On the roof!”

Sa-heon thought, What is this, their place or something? He left the noisy kids behind, followed Ji-an into the rooftop room and shut the door.

Ji-an had set the bag on the counter and was taking out the croissants, the mocha bread and the madeleines one by one.

“Ms. Han Ji-an.”

Sa-heon stood behind her with one hand shoved in his pocket, and his tone had a twist to it.

“There’s something I’m curious about.”

“What are you curious about?”

She didn’t even turn around. One of Sa-heon’s eyebrows went up and came back down.

“Why do you let that kid go around calling you Noona, Noona?”

“Sorry?”

She’d been carefully rewrapping a mocha bread whose packaging had torn, but now her eyes went round and she finally turned to look at him.

“Paul? He is younger than me, isn’t he?”

“He’s a lot younger than you, isn’t he, Ms. Han Ji-an?”

“Well, sure. He’s in high school.”

“Then why won’t you let me call you Noona? You and I are closer in age than that.”

Her busy hands stopped. She blinked a few times, then laughed as if she were lost for words and dropped her voice a little.

“Managing Director, you’re not twenty-one. You’re in your thirties.”

“Then you call me Oppa, Ji-an.”

Ji-an gave him a small glare, as if that wasn’t even worth a reply, and swept primly past him.

“Where are you going?”

“To help Unnie.”

She brushed by close enough to stir a cold gust, opened the door without a moment’s hesitation, stepped out and went pattering down the stairs.

“Han—!”

He’d very nearly shouted after her to stop. Sa-heon let out a hollow laugh.

So today it’s the prim act, is it. Shy every single day until now, and this time she tries to bewitch me with that instead.

Having followed the thought that far, he frowned and laughed at himself.

What am I even doing, honestly.

He was putting on a whole one-man show all by himself. Meanwhile the students had planted themselves on the platform bench as they pleased and were eating popsicles and watching him, whispering together, “Looks like he got shot down,” or something of the sort.

Sa-heon crooked a finger at Paul.

“You. Come here.”

“Me?”

Paul pointed at his own chest and looked around, but Sa-heon gave no answer and only stared at him. So Paul came over, popsicle still in hand and lips pushed out.

“Wh… what do you want?”

Up close, Paul was nearly a hand’s span shorter. Sa-heon looked down at him with a chilly gaze.

“From now on, quit going Noona, Noona at Ji-an.”

“Why… why not?”

“No reason.”

“Then what am I supposed to call her…!”

“Don’t call her anything.”

From where Paul stood it was, frankly, nonsense. Some newcomer had blown in out of nowhere, and here he was lording it over the place.

But in the end, people too have to bow to the law of the jungle, don’t they?

“Got it?”

When Sa-heon lowered his eyes and looked down at him, Paul shrank into himself on instinct. If he’d had a tail, it would probably have curled right up under him.

His shoulders hunched all on their own, and Paul felt deeply craven about his own timidity, yet in the end he nodded.

“…Yes.”

“Off you go.”

Paul only bobbed his head, but his grumbling carried all the way over, and the sulky set of his back as he huffed down the stairs looked thoroughly put out. Look at that little mutt.

Anna, sitting cross-legged in her gym clothes, had watched the whole thing, and she rounded her lips with an “Oooh.” Sa-heon pushed his hair back as if he were tired.

“You’re not going?”

“Am I really not allowed to call you Oppa either?”

“Cheeky.”

“Why not!”

Ugh, why were kids these days so loud? Sa-heon rubbed his throbbing temple against the ringing noise and lay back down on the sunbed.

“Go study or something. Aren’t you going to college?”

Even to his own ears it sounded like something a boomer would say, but on the outside he was in his thirties anyway. Anna just shrugged and gave an innocent laugh.

“I’m not going.”

“Suit yourself.”

It’s your life, not mine. He’d said it offhandedly, and Anna’s eyes went round. “Whoa.”

“You’re the first adult who didn’t nag me when I said I wasn’t going to college.”

“…”

“Kim Paul could get into a good college on the special-admissions track, but he says he’s not going because of money. He’s got good grades. He could just get a scholarship. He’s book-smart, but he’s a total idiot.”

Sa-heon kept his brow furrowed and didn’t answer, so Anna tipped her whole upper body over, chewing on the stick of her finished popsicle.

“You like Ji-an-unnie, don’t you?”

The boy earlier had been too busy wagging his tail whenever he laid eyes on Ji-an, and this girl was a nuisance. Sa-heon closed his eyes as if he were tired and answered curtly.

“Yeah.”

“Seriously? I was just guessing. That’s insane.”

“So you kids go ahead and like each other, just among yourselves. And don’t butt in between grown-ups.”

“Want me to help?”

“Go away.”

“Ji-an-unnie likes cute things, though.”

“I know.”

That was why she’d smiled so prettily over a shoddy little thing like a turtle keyring.

“Oh, right. Ji-an-unnie’s ex-boyfriend lives in this neighborhood.”

“What?”

Sa-heon’s eyes snapped open. But when he turned to her with a scowl, Anna stuck her tongue out. “That was a lie.”

“Hehe. You finally looked at me.”

She giggled away, and a vein stood out on his forehead.

Pain-in-the-neck teenagers… Sa-heon didn’t answer and closed his eyes again.

“You know what? Ji-an-unnie and Hee-jin-unnie are as good as family to me.”

How would I know that? He didn’t answer, so Anna went on chattering all by herself.

“I don’t have a mom or a dad or any relatives, but the unnies feel exactly like real cousins to me.”

Sa-heon’s eyes stayed closed, his face as quiet as before. Hm. Anna let a moment hang, then went on.

“Ji-an-unnie has a soft heart.”

“…”

“She’s super good at getting how people feel, and she’s good at comforting them, and she’s just totally nice. If she took an MBTI test, she’d probably score 100 on F.”

“What’s that?”

“Huh? You don’t know MBTI?”

“No. Keep talking.”

That seemed to excite her, because she raised her voice and clapped her hands along with it.

“Anyway, so! My point is! If you want to get on Unnie’s good side, act pitiful. Act lonely, act all lonesome, too. Like, really set off her protective instinct.”

Loneliness and desolation, was it? Well, he’d never felt anything like that.

In the middle of a vicious succession fight over who would head Hyeongang next, what room was there for petty private feelings like those?

Sa-heon snorted, dumbfounded.

“So you’re telling me to lie?”

“I think you’d be good at it.”

At that, one of his eyebrows went crookedly up and came back down.

The little thing read people well.

“You need pocket money?”

Sa-heon took his wallet out of his pocket and held out a single fifty-thousand-won note.

“Now go.”

“Yesss! Thank you!” Anna snatched it up, crammed her feet into her sneakers, ducked a quick bow from the waist, then stuck the popsicle stick in her mouth and ran down the stairs with a bounce in her step.

That night.

Today Ji-an hadn’t shown so much as the tip of her nose, apart from bringing the bread up in the afternoon.

When he went down to see if she might be there, he was told she’d gone off on some errand, and she’d even eaten dinner separately.

That is flat-out dereliction of duty. Disgruntled, Sa-heon opened his phone. The screen read [Saturday].

So it’s the weekend today.

Was that a protest at being made to work on weekends too? Or did she just not show her face because it’s the weekend?

Snoooore. In the middle of all this, Chief Choi was snoring loudly beside him, worn out by who knew what.

Sa-heon had half a mind to shake him awake and send him straight back to Seoul. The guy who was free to go wouldn’t go, and the woman he’d told to stay beside him said she wanted to leave.

He kicked the blanket off, got up and stepped out of the rooftop room. He shut the door with a bang, and only then did the snoring die down a little.

Hoo. He drew in the tepid night air, then woke his phone and opened the messenger app.

You up?

The moment he sent it, his face creased on its own.

Wasn’t this the very text a classmate of his had sent his ex-girlfriend after getting wasted? That guy’s romance with a fellow student in their department had been the talk of the place for a while.

The girl back then had happened to be in the middle of confessing to Sa-heon, and she’d shuddered as she showed him her phone screen.

She’d said she really hated men who sent things like You up?, and that she liked that a man like Sa-heon didn’t seem the type to do such a thing.

She’d also said she felt she’d end up the one clinging to him instead, which hurt her pride, but that was exactly what stirred up her urge to conquer him, or something along those lines.

He’d listened with half an ear and dumped her, of course.

And here I am doing that very thing right now. Sa-heon laughed, deflated.

The message showed as read, but no answer came. In the end he typed out one more line and sent it.

Want to grab a beer?