Chapter 4.2

4.2

“I wish I could go to bed right now.”

“Sunghee, did you get any work done though? You didn’t even come up with a single portfolio design, so how could you think of sleeping?”

Sunghee sighed deeply. Thanks to the new apartment ad contract, her office has been unusually busy lately. Their manager demanded so many new ideas, and two-hour group meetings have been taking place every hour.

Sunghee stretched her arms and offered Yura,

“I’m going to get some coffee. You wanna come with me?”

“No, I don’t want any. I don’t think other people are interested either, so hurry back.”

Sunghee left the office quietly. The warm spring weather has been lovely, but it wasn’t helping her with her drowsiness. Her body also acted as if she had been exercising vigorously. Her plan this weekend was to ban Sejin from visiting her. She was going to sleep all weekend or else, Sunghee knew she wasn’t going to survive next week.

She washed her hands and splashed some water on her face in the washroom. Looking at herself in the mirror, Sunghee wondered why her lips didn’t look as swollen as they should. On the other hand, her whole body was covered in kiss marks from Sejin. It seemed that Sejin enjoyed leaving his marks on her. Every morning, she became shocked to see the redness all over her body. She has told him to stop doing this, but she never couldn’t muster enough brainpower during their lovemaking to physically stop him.

Shaking her head, Sunghee left the washroom and headed towards the break room. She was about to open the door and enter when she felt the warm breath on her ear. She jumped.

“Sejin!”

“Don’t scream like that. Everyone’s gonna hear you.”

He grinned and whispered. Narrowing her eyes at him, Sunghee walked backward towards the coffee machine, making sure to protect her ear from him.

“Did you come here for some coffee?”

He shook his head and took his glasses off. He slowly put them in his front pocket. She could tell his dress shirt was washed, but it was clear that it has never been ironed before. It was so wrinkled that it bothered her. This morning when she saw him put it on, Sunghee contemplated taking it off from him and ironing it. But they weren’t a couple, so she felt odd doing something like that for him. So she didn’t do or say anything.

“Then why are you here?”

“I thought you looked really sleepy, so I came to help you.”

“How?”

Adding ground coffee to the machine, Sunghee asked uninterestedly. She was sleepy because she lacked sleep, so how the heck was he going to fix that? He was clearly talking nonsense.

But when he came towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist, Sunghee dropped the spoon and flinched.

“Sejin, what are you….”

“If you climax, you’ll feel wide awake. I read an article somewhere that sex helps with drowziness.” 1

“B…but h…here? No way! We can’t!”

Sunghee looked around nervously. She slapped his arms around her waist, trying to make him move. But unfortunately, Sejin wasn’t ready to back down. Licking her ear seductively, he murmured,

“Then it’s okay if we do it somewhere else? A safe place like… the washroom maybe?”

“How could the washroom be safe? Don’t! We can do it when we get home tonight!”

“We’re all working late tonight. Didn’t you hear Manager Min announcing that no one will be allowed to go home until we finish the portfolio? I doubt we’ll get to go home by two or three in the morning.”

“But doing this here… now…”

Suddenly, when they heard the footsteps outside, Sejin leisurely took a step back and began to hum.

“Wrong place… wrong time…”

He walked towards the opposite end of the room as Yura walked in.

“What are you doing? Isn’t the coffee ready yet? Oh, hi, Sejin.”

When Yura nodded to him, Sejin bowed awkwardly with his usual blank face and left the break room. When he was gone, Yura rolled her eyes and turned towards Sunghee.

“What were you guys doing here?”

“Nothing. I think he came in to get some coffee, but I dropped the spoon on the floor.”

Sunghee answered calmly as she picked up the spoon. Yura sat down on the sofa and shook her head.

“Isn’t that guy really weird? Every time I see him, I wonder how he got hired here.”

“It’s not like our office is a top tier corporate. They aren’t picky, so they probably hired him because he seemed like a good worker.”

“But he doesn’t do anything! You know how many people got let go recently, right? Officially, we were told they quit, but they clearly had no other choice but to leave because of the upper management pressuring them. Yet this useless guy is still hanging around here. I just don’t get it. Maybe he pulled some strings to get hired here. Maybe he knows someone important higher up.”

Sunghee shrugged her shoulders and pretended to be busy turning on the coffee machine. When she had nothing else to do after pushing the “on” button, she began to clean up the unorganized paper cups on the table. She replied indifferently,

“Who cares? There are many different types of people in this world. Who knows? Maybe he looks strange, but he’s really talented. There are people like that, you know.”

“Well, I’ve never seen one. Anyway, I don’t like short guys. Not my type.”

“You really gotta stop being so shallow, Yura. Or at least, don’t voice your thoughts in public.”

Finally feeling calm, Sunghee turned towards Yura, who waved her hand.

“It’s not like I’m looking for a super tall man. But I want my man to be at least as tall as me when I’m wearing my high heels. The only person who fits that criteria in our office is Manager Min.”

Thinking of Sejin in her head, Sunghee nodded. With heels, Yura was close to 180 cm. So indeed, Seungju was the only tall enough guy in the office. Yura continued,

“And what about the way he dresses? Those thick glasses? Is he trying to look like Harry Potter? He looks so ugly.”

“He’s not that bad.”

Feeling strangely upset, Sunghee retorted. But Yura only frowned and said to her,

“Of course he is! Did you see his shirt this morning? How could a dress shirt get that wrinkled? Most men nowadays know how to iron. Look at Manager Min! Not a hair out of place.”

“I don’t like men who look too perfect.”

“Awesome. Then you wouldn’t mind me taking all the perfect looking men in the world!”

Sunghee turned around and rolled her eyes.