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Chapter 4
Chairman Park laughed heartily with a pleased expression and made his way down.
Only after his figure had completely disappeared beyond the winding mountain path did Taeo, who had been standing far back, approach Seokyung.
“To hear Chairman Park say he’ll be watching with interest.”
Taeo looked at her with a face that said she was quite something.
“I thought only your stamina was the same as ever, but your ability to win people’s hearts is the same too.”
“Same as ever? Don’t act like you know me well.”
Seokyung snorted, baring her teeth.
But even at her reaction, Taeo smiled without looking the least bit affected.
Then he noticed the sweat dripping down her cheek and unconsciously reached out his hand.
At that moment, Seokyung reflexively slapped the back of his hand away.
“What do you think you’re doing!”
An ordinary person would have been embarrassed and pulled their hand back, but Han Taeo was not.
He shrugged once as if it were nothing and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Wipe it. You’re sweating a lot.”
Seokyung quietly looked down at the handkerchief he offered.
He’s trying to shake my heart again with this kind of thing.
Back in college, she had been drawn to these occasional moments of thoughtfulness he showed while acting indifferent, and that was why she had liked him.
But not now, when she knew his true nature.
Instead of taking the handkerchief, Seokyung roughly wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve.
“No thanks.”
“You’re stubborn.”
Taeo, rejected once again, calmly folded the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket.
Seokyung avoided his gaze as if his kindness were poison.
But she couldn’t avoid even the thick scent of his body that wafted from him.
She tried to ignore the familiar scent as it dug deep into her lungs.
Just then, Taeo’s gaze stopped beneath the bench where Chairman Park had been sitting.
“Hold on.”
He approached the bench and picked up an object that had fallen on the dirt ground.
Seokyung asked with a puzzled face.
“What’s that?”
Taeo showed her the object in his hand.
It was an old velcro wallet with a dinosaur character on it.
It was a childish design you’d only see in a corner of a stationery store, and even the corners were worn out.
“Looks like someone dropped it.”
Taeo brushed the dirt off the wallet and laughed low.
“It’s Chairman Park’s. His youngest grandchild gave it to him when they were little, so he cherishes it quite a bit.”
“Really? Then we should hurry and follow him to return it.”
As Seokyung hurriedly tried to move, Taeo stretched out his arm to block her. Then he rolled the wallet once on his palm and lightly tossed it to her.
“I have a better idea than that.”
A better idea?
As Seokyung stared at him with a face asking what that was, Taeo handed her the wallet as if dropping it into her hands.
“I’m being generous. Team Leader Joo takes this.”
“What?”
“Try using this well. It might turn out to be quite a decent card.”
When Seokyung looked at him with an uncomprehending face, Taeo pointed at the wallet and spoke.
“Think about why a man worth hundreds of billions still carries something like this. It’s a story that won’t appear in the data Team Leader Joo was so diligently poring over. Before you return it, get the velcro fixed at a repair shop at least.”
Seokyung alternated between looking at the wallet on her palm and at Taeo. She couldn’t easily read whether he was genuinely helping or had some other motive.
“Is the reason you’re telling me this because you’re confident that even if you help me this much, I can’t beat you, Division Head?”
“I have nothing more to gain from holding onto that anyway.”
“That sounds like you’re saying you’ve already earned enough trust and recognition of your abilities from Chairman Park?”
He shrugged.
“Who knows. Judge that for yourself.”
Taeo silently looked at Seokyung, who still couldn’t let go of her suspicion, for a moment.
She didn’t know that even her suspicion-filled eyes were simply welcome to him.
Soon he erased his expression and smiled a relaxed smile again.
“You look like you’re wondering what on earth my scheme is—think of it as a handicap. I have to give you this much to start for you to be a worthy opponent for me. A match is only fun when you compete against someone roughly on your level, isn’t that right?”
Ha! Of course. It wasn’t goodwill—it was groundwork done for his own benefit.
Taeo, watching Seokyung make an incredulous expression, lightly clenched his fist.
“Anyway, do your best. Fighting!”
With those words, he fluttered his hand in a wave and descended the mountain path, and Seokyung glared at his retreating figure while tightly gripping the old wallet on her palm.
The fingertips that had come so close to her cheek kept bothering her, but what remained more strongly was his irritating provocation.
Fun, is it?
Just you wait. I’ll make you eat those words.
Seokyung pushed the wallet deep into her bag and set off down the mountain path where Taeo had disappeared.
Monday morning, the forest of buildings along Gangnam-daero was bustling with the crowd heading to work.
Seokyung entered the lobby of the company building thirty minutes earlier than usual.
In her bag—along with her neat navy two-piece suit and her heels neatly worn—was Chairman Park’s wallet, its zipper cleanly repaired.
‘How should I use this?’
Ding dong.
As the elevator doors that had arrived slowly opened, a familiar silhouette came into view.
Hair neatly swept back and a crisp suit. The man radiating a subtle woody scent was, irritatingly, Han Taeo.
Ah, of all people.
Seokyung briefly wondered whether to let it pass and take the next one, when Taeo’s voice came from inside.
“Aren’t you getting on?”
She wanted to tell him to go up first, but avoiding him on purpose also seemed ridiculous, so she swallowed her displeasure and stepped into the elevator.
Soon the doors closed, leaving just the two of them in the narrow enclosed space.
In the silence, only the numbers indicating the floors rose indifferently.
“Did you rest well over the weekend?”
Taeo asked, staring straight ahead.
“Someone who doesn’t usually hike must have had a hard time going all the way to the peak.”
His eyes, reflected in the mirror-smooth elevator doors, were subtly smiling.
“My livelihood is on the line—I have to do at least that much to win the PT.”
As Seokyung adjusted the strap of her bag and replied, Taeo’s gaze subtly shifted toward her.
Even her snapping tone seemed pretty to him. So much time had passed—his feelings from before should have faded, but instead of fading, they were growing bigger than before, which was a problem.
Standing front to back with the tall Taeo in the narrow elevator, just their gazes meeting made the space feel even narrower.
Seokyung desperately avoided his gaze and looked up only at the floor indicator.
Then, with a ding, the elevator stopped.
As the doors opened, Seokyung hurriedly walked past Taeo and stepped out.
But she couldn’t get far from him.
The 12th-floor office was divided left and right with a central corridor between them.
On the left was Seokyung’s Planning Team 2, on the right was Taeo’s Planning Team 1.
Even the wall dividing the two offices was transparent glass, so each other’s movements were plainly visible.
After greeting her team members and sitting at her desk, Seokyung took the repaired wallet out of her bag and placed it on the desk.
‘So, how do I use this…’
As she stared blankly down at the wallet and turned her head absentmindedly, her eyes met Taeo’s through the glass wall.
Fiddling with his pen, he met Seokyung’s eyes and mouthed silently.
‘Good Luck!’
Ha, ridiculous!
Seokyung let out a hollow laugh and sharply turned her gaze away.
Taeo’s figure overlapped with her face reflected on the glass wall.
An enemy beyond the glass wall.
The sight of them fighting while watching each other closely was exactly that.
Alright, let’s give it another go today.
Seokyung shouted fighting inwardly and looked at her team members.
“Now, everyone pay attention. Starting today, we’re doing a full revision of the proposal.”
The team members’ eyes all focused on her.
“Data is the basics, but what we’re going to target anew is Chairman Park’s heart. You all haven’t forgotten that the losing team might have to leave the planning team, right?”
Seokyung looked at each team member in turn and added firmly.
“So we must never lose to Team 1—no, we won’t.”
At those words, fighting spirit blazed in the team members’ eyes.
Seokyung fixed her gaze on the monitor without turning her head toward the glass wall.
But she knew.
That Han Taeo was watching her every move from over there.
Just as she finished giving instructions to her team members and was about to open the proposal file, a company messenger window suddenly popped up.
[ By the way, Team Leader Joo, did you know that? ]
