Chapter 1.3

1.3

No way…

Sunghee couldn’t believe what she had just heard. There was no way she did something like that. Not with a guy like him! She didn’t have an unrealistically high standard, but she still had eyes! Sejin was short, had narrow eyes, and was a horrible dresser. He wasn’t even a great employee either as far as Sunghee could tell.

And most importantly, he was her coworker! Did she actually break her cardinal rule of not dating anyone from her workplace?!

All day, Sunghee spied on Sejin secretly. It seemed that he noticed her gaze because sometimes, he turned around towards her. But thankfully, he didn’t give her that strange smile again he gave in the break room that morning,

As soon as 7 o’clock came, Sunghee ran out of the office as if she was being chased. After waiting nervously in the nearby cafe for 30 minutes, she finally saw Sejin walk in looking messy as usual. To her frustration, he walked to the counter and took almost five minutes to make his order. When he finally walked up to her table, he was carrying some kind of drink with a large amount of whipped cream on top.

“I guess you haven’t ordered anything yet.”

He spoke very slowly as usual. Sunghee glared at him angrily and shrieked,

“Are you serious? Just tell me the truth. You lied, right? We didn’t sleep together, right? There is no way.”

She couldn’t hide the desperation in her voice. As if to annoy her on purpose, Sejin scooped some of the whipped cream with the straw and licked it clean off. Some of it got smeared on his lip, and without wiping it away, he looked up at her. His eyes narrowed into a sneaky smile.

“Why can’t you believe it? Because I’m not someone like Manager Min?”

“No, it’s not like that. It’s because we don’t know each other very well, and we even work together in the same office!”

Sunghee quickly shouted out whatever she could think of. Sejun nonchalantly took a sip of his coffee and wiped his lips before looking at her again.

“But if it turned out that you slept with Min Seungju, you wouldn’t be so angry right now, correct?”

Of course not! If she spent the night with someone like Manager Min… She would’ve actually been proud. But this man in front of her… How was she supposed to feel about this? Dammit… She was embarrassed, of course! This was a secret she was going to take to her grave. This man in front of her, a rather short yet large man, was hunched over and drinking a girly drink with whipped cream on top. The sight of him made her angrier and angrier. Sunghee wanted to scream at him.

“That’s not even relevant here. I mean… Umm… So nothing happened, right?”

“You must know your body well. Do you really think nothing happened that night?”

Of course, she knew. Her body felt sore all over when she woke up that morning. And all those used condoms in the trash can… SOMETHING definitely happened.

More than once.

Sunghee covered her face with her hands and rested her elbows on the table. She was able to stop herself from groaning, but she didn’t know what to say next. Meanwhile, Sejin finished the whipped cream and was now enjoying his coffee. He watched her without showing any emotions on his face. Was this man naturally slow and insensitive? Feeling more and more annoyed, Sunghee glared at him.

“Do not tell anyone about what happened that night. If someone finds out about this at work, we’ll never hear the end of it. People are going to laugh at us, okay?”

“So you don’t remember anything from that night?”

Instead of agreeing to her demand, Sejin asked. Crossing her arms with a frown, she asked,

“Why do you ask? Who cares?”

“Because if you remembered that night, you wouldn’t be acting this confident. Do you have any idea what you told me? What we talked about? You were grabbing onto me and…”

“Ackkk!”

Sunghee screamed. The cashier at the counter stared at her, obviously wondering what was going on, but Sunghee didn’t have the energy to care. Sejun raised an eyebrow and continued to sip his coffee. Sunghee panted and glared at him.

“Don’t say anything. Not a word! Got it? I don’t want to hear it.”

“Hmm, I thought that night was pretty decent. You were so hot and passionate, and…”

“I told you it was a mistake! I was totally drunk, so how could you have done something like that with a drunk person? Now that I think about it, you must be a pervert!”

She slammed the table and glared at him as if she wanted to kill him, but Sejin didn’t even blink. Instead, he put down his cup and replied,

“You came at me and began to undress me forcefully. What man would be able to resist that? You threatened to go out and grab a random guy to sleep with if I didn’t have sex with you. What was I supposed to do? If you went out, you were gonna end up with some pervert or a thug. Was I supposed to abandon you? Although right now,  based on how you’re treating me, I think maybe I should’ve.”

Yes! He should’ve left her! A one-night stand with a thug or a pervert would’ve been much better! Sunghee was losing her mind. Why did she have to do something like that with this guy? If she was sexually frustrated, which it sounds like she was, why couldn’t she have grabbed Manager Min instead?!

Barely able to contain her anger, Sunghee gritted her teeth and said to him,

“Listen, this is what we’re gonna do. Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you. Then, we’ll be even, right? We won’t talk about this ever again. It will be like it never happened. How about it? What’s the point of bringing up the past? Right? So what do you want? If it’s something I can give you, I will.”

She was willing to pay him off. Sunghee knew this was a stupid idea, but there was no other option. Why did it have to be someone from the same office? Same team even? If it was someone from a different department, she wouldn’t have made such a big deal, but this was unacceptable.

Sejin seemed to consider her offer. After rubbing his chin for a long time, he finally looked up at her.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“The fact that you can’t remember that night is a huge disappointment to me. So let’s do it one more time. And if you still don’t like me afterward, I will forget about the whole thing.”

***