Chapter 9

Sunwoo left home to go to work. He spotted a taxi waiting in front of the officetel.

‘Oh! Today feels like a good day!’

Just catching an approaching taxi would feel lucky, but getting into one already waiting? Somehow, it felt like resigning might go smoothly.

Sunwoo headed to the company with a lighter heart. Usually at this time, the roads would be congested and traffic lights would delay him, but today he moved along without any of that.

Thanks to this, Sunwoo was able to arrive at the company in just 10 minutes.

The good omen continued with him immediately catching an elevator. There were few people in it, so it only stopped once on the way up.

The secretarial office was quiet. Perhaps because Sunwoo arrived earlier than usual, Secretary Jo’s and other employees’ desks were empty.

As Sunwoo sat at his desk, he glanced at Secretary Jo’s desk. Being diagonally across, he could see the desktop clearly.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but the resignation letter he had given yesterday seemed to be on top.

‘It should be fine to take that one instead of writing a new one, right?’

He hadn’t saved yesterday’s letter, so it was already gone. It seemed not bad to pass on the one he gave to Secretary Jo to Director Kang Jinwook.

Anyway, since Secretary Jo had already checked it, he could just say he’d deliver it to Director Kang Jinwook himself. Thinking this, Sunwoo stealthily approached Secretary Jo’s desk and reached for the folded paper.

“Sunwoo, what are you doing?”

Just then, a voice came from behind him.

“…!”

Sunwoo was so startled he couldn’t even scream. He turned around with wide eyes. Secretary Jo was standing at the office entrance with a puzzled look.

I almost lost the baby…

Sunwoo straightened up, gently rubbing his still-flat stomach.

“Ah, I was just going to tidy up a bit. Sweep the floor, empty the trash cans.”

Secretary Jo’s face showed disbelief at Sunwoo’s weak excuse.

“You?”

You’re really going to clean? Secretary Jo’s eyes seemed to ask if she had heard correctly.

Of course, her doubt was justified. There was a separate cleaning service for this place. So Sunwoo didn’t need to do it.

Though Sunwoo didn’t know this, he realized from Secretary Jo’s expression that he had said something unnecessary.

“I’ll just… empty the trash cans.”

Sunwoo quickly replied, spotting an overflowing waste basket as he looked around.

Except for the large recycling and trash bins in the pantry or office entrance, everyone was supposed to empty their personal desk trash cans.

This was to prevent important documents or files from being lost or leaked.

“Well, if you insist, I don’t mind. Then, could you clear the other desks too?”

Secretary Jo finally dropped her suspicion. There was no reason to stop him if he wanted to do it. Moreover, she even added more work for Sunwoo.

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

Sunwoo nodded, clutching his still-pounding chest. He regretted not getting the resignation letter, but had to give up to avoid suspicion.

Sunwoo began collecting trash cans from around the desks.

Though only a day had passed, the trash cans were full of garbage. Most of it was paper or discarded office supplies, so there shouldn’t have been any particular smell.

But when Sunwoo bent down without thinking, he caught a foul odor.

“Ugh!”

What on earth is this smell?

Sunwoo covered his mouth and nose with his hand and looked down. A sour smell was wafting up from the gray trash can.

Of course, normally Sunwoo wouldn’t have reacted so sensitively to this. But due to his heightened sense of smell from pregnancy, he kept feeling nauseous even with his mouth covered.

“Sunwoo?”

Secretary Jo, who had just turned on her computer and was waiting for it to boot, looked at Sunwoo with surprised eyes.

‘No way!’

Secretary Jo recalled what Sunwoo had said yesterday when submitting his resignation letter. That it wasn’t a terminal illness, but he was too sick to continue working at the company.

“Ah, I’m fine. Just feeling a bit queasy…”

Haha… Sunwoo awkwardly laughed and looked away, noticing Secretary Jo closely examining his complexion.

It seemed Secretary Jo had misunderstood something again, but Sunwoo didn’t feel like making any other excuses.

In fact, it would be better if she thought it was due to illness. No sooner had he thought this…

“Urk!”

Sunwoo dry heaved again. He simply couldn’t hold back his nausea due to the smell.

Thanks to this, Sunwoo left the office carrying several trash cans at once, one hand tightly covering his mouth and nose, not realizing that Secretary Jo was watching him with even more surprise.

The trash disposal area was separately located at the back of the first floor. Fortunately, being outside, he didn’t feel as queasy as before, but the smell was still there.

Sunwoo held his breath as he dumped the trash. As he upended the trash can that had upset his stomach, yogurt bottles clattered out.

‘These should be washed and recycled!’

Sunwoo sighed, looking at the yogurt bottles with leftover contents. He didn’t forget to shake out the contents and put the bottles in the plastic recycling bin, all while holding his nose.@@novelbin@@

“He was retching? Really?”

Sunwoo, who was returning to the secretarial office with empty trash cans neatly stacked, stopped in his tracks at the voice coming from beyond the corridor.

“Yeah. When he said he’d take out the trash earlier, that’s what he was doing.”

“Isn’t he doing it on purpose? To show he’s sick?”

“Who knows. But it’s concerning, isn’t it? He’s doing things he doesn’t usually do.”

“True, I heard he was like that during lunch yesterday too? Someone said they saw him suddenly run into the bathroom.”

“Yeah. When I heard that story yesterday, I thought, ‘No way.'”

“Is he really sick?”

A sigh followed the quietly probing voice.

“I don’t know. But considering he handed me his resignation letter yesterday, there must be something going on, right?”

It seemed the conversation was between Secretary Jo and another employee. Sunwoo happened to overhear them talking because the pantry was on his way back.

“What’s wrong with him? Did he say he has some terminal illness?”

“Well, I’m not sure about that. When I heard from the doctor, they just said it was due to overwork.”

That was the diagnosis everyone, including Secretary Jo and other employees, knew about.

But with him constantly retching, and saying he’s quitting a job he seemed like he’d never leave, it kept raising suspicions. Like whether it might be a really serious illness.

“Ah, it’s just unsettling. Honestly, we did push him a bit hard all this time.”

Secretary Jo sighed again as she spoke.

“What’s so hard? Everyone does it. And he’s doing the least important work. Honestly, we were under more stress! Some weird guy parachuting in out of nowhere!”

The other employee’s voice rose, sounding a bit agitated.

“Shh! Shh! Assistant Manager Kim, lower your voice.”

Secretary Jo quickly hushed the other employee raising her voice. Ah, so that was Assistant Manager Kim.

Sunwoo nodded at this new information.

“Ah, I don’t know. It’s good, I guess. After stubbornly hanging on despite all the pressure to leave… if he’s finally going now.”

Assistant Manager Kim said grumpily.

“Yeah, well. I didn’t want to keep worrying about it either, so it’s a relief.”

“But… I’m curious what illness it is. What did he say? Seeing him dry heave, could it be stomach problems?”

“I don’t know, I’m not interested.”

They probably thought Sunwoo was a beta, so it seemed they hadn’t even considered the possibility of pregnancy. After hearing that much, Sunwoo deliberately tapped the wall with the trash can he was holding, making a ‘thunk’ sound.

At that, there was a bustling noise from the pantry. They seemed to have realized someone was there.

Sunwoo intentionally didn’t look in that direction and went straight back to the secretarial office. As he was putting the trash cans back in their places, Secretary Jo and Assistant Manager Kim returned.

Judging by how they kept glancing at him, they seemed quite curious about his medical condition, just as they had discussed.

‘Should I tell them it’s memory loss like I told Yeoltaeng yesterday, and that’s why I can’t work? Director Kang Jinwook knows about it anyway.’

After pondering for a moment, Sunwoo shook his head. He had already said he was quitting, so there was no need to say more to the other employees. They might just suspect him and wonder what he was up to.

As Sunwoo sat down, he glanced at Director Kang Jinwook’s office. It was almost 9 o’clock, but Kang Jinwook’s office was still empty.

“The Executive Director has a meeting, so he’ll be in after 11 o’clock,” Secretary Jo announced, looking around the office after finishing a phone call.

“And Sunwoo, please organize this month’s receipts and hand them over to me today.”

Oh, so Director Kang Jinwook wasn’t coming to work right away.

‘I was going to submit my resignation letter immediately.’

Everything seemed to be going smoothly when he came to work this morning, but it must have just been his imagination. Sunwoo swallowed his disappointment and replied,

“Yes!”

Sunwoo quickly looked around the secretarial office. Remembering that he had organized receipts at the publishing house, he thought there might be receipts in the transparent storage box next to the printer here too.

He quickly got up and approached it. As expected, the transparent container was full of receipts of various sizes.

Sunwoo returned to his seat with the receipt container. This kind of task wasn’t difficult for him, who had been handling all sorts of organizational work quickly and accurately.

After all, working in a publishing house for a long time tends to build up the ability to handle all kinds of odd jobs efficiently.

Sunwoo soon became absorbed in organizing the receipts. His eyes and hands moved quickly, classifying them by date and typing in the details on the keyboard.