She was seeing things again. Sighing, she let the photograph float down from her fingers and onto the desk.
“It should have been me,” Dahye murmured. Every time her mother looked at her, Dahye could sense her disappointment. In the hardness of her mouth. The narrowing of her eyes.
Five years. It had been five long, dreary years, and Dahye was still stuck in her dead sister’s shadow. She swiped at her cheeks angrily. No, she would never measure up to perfect, faultless Eunhye.
But perhaps Hyukjoon could.
On Tuesday, Kangmin called out sick. Upon hearing the news, everyone on the floor scattered, rushing to hide. It was Kangmin’s day to man the support desk, and none of them wanted to be picked as the stand-in. Junyoung, who was distracted by Mirae washing a stain from her blouse in the third-floor bathroom, had the misfortune of running into Mr. Choi on the way to the stairwell.
“Junyoung!” Mr. Choi barked, gesturing toward him with a meaty finger. Mr. Choi was the department head, a short man with a growing bald spot and an enormous, fiery temper. “You’re on desk duty today. Kangmin’s out. Food poisoning.”
Junyoung bowed, fighting to keep his expression in check.Food poisoning, my ass, he thought. “Yes, sir.”
As soon as Mr. Choi was gone, he shot off a message to Kangmin on KakaoTalk.Fuck you, man. You owe me one.
Kangmin:Sorry, dude. But when I show you her picture later, you’ll understand …
Junyoung scowled. He was going to be stuck talking to morons all day while Kangmin played hooky, no doubt curled up in bed with some bimbo. He peeked over at Kangmin’s empty cubicle and, feeling resentful, scanned the camera feeds again. His bad mood began to lessen as Michelle appeared on the screen. He leaned forward as Michelle entered a stall and pulled down her pants.
Briefs. She was wearing ugly fucking briefs that not even his mother would wear. Junyoung gripped his mouse.
It was going to be a terrible day.
+
The first call of the day came from Subin. She worked on the second floor and often wore a specific pair of sexy blue panties that Junyoung loved. Kangmin had slept with her after a drunken office party a while back, leading to a two-month-long, turbulent, drama-filled entanglement.
“She’s crazy,” Kangmin had said after the fact. He twirled his finger around his temple. “But most of the females in accounting are. You know what they say about women who look at numbers all day. They’re repressed.” He lowered his voice. “Amazing body, though. Curves in all the right places.”
Kangmin’s words echoed through Junyoung’s head as he took the elevator up to Subin’s floor and walked to her desk. She smiled when she saw him, said hello. He thought about how she looked in her underwear, and how sometimes she locked herself in the stall and cried in the middle of the workday.
Subin got up and moved aside, and Junyoung sat in her chair. It was warm. The residual heat from her body made him shiver. She hovered over his shoulder as he booted up the computer, the ends of her hair brushing against his ear. Junyoung’s heart raced. When she pointed at the monitor with her indexfinger to show him the problem, Junyoung nodded, even though the sound of his pulse throbbing was drowning out her words.
It was a process issue. A faulty program, running in the background, consuming resources. The computer was hot, the fan whirring loudly. As soon as he ended the task, everything returned to normal.
“There you go,” Junyoung said, straightening up. “Everything should be working now.”
“Thanks,” Subin said. “I’m surprised you were able to fix it. I honestly thought it was broken. The whole thing froze up when I tried to send an email and, well …” She mimed picking up the computer and throwing it onto the floor.
Junyoung laughed. “That’s what I’m here for. Feel free to call my line if you run into any other issues.”
“I appreciate it. You’ll hear from me before the day is over, I’m sure, given how terrible I am with technology.”
Subin was quite pretty, Junyoung realized. Her eyes were warm and crinkled at the corners when she smiled. She had nice teeth, and her neck was long and graceful like a swan’s. He found his gaze moving lower and lower until he stopped at her breasts. They were beautiful, barely contained by her fuzzy gray sweater. Her waist was slim. What had Kangmin said?Curves in all the right places?
Subin stepped back, and Junyoung snapped to attention. She wore a frightened expression on her face. How long had he been ogling her for? Junyoung flushed. “Sorry,” he stammered. He made his voice obnoxiously high and cheery, but even to his ears, it sounded false. “I was spacing out. Daydreaming about lunch. Heard naengmyeon is on the menu at the cafeteria today, and you know …” He made a feeble gesture with his hands.
She gave him a curt nod. “I have to get back to work,” she said. The kindness in her voice had evaporated.
“Good luck,” he blurted out. She ignored him.
Alone in the elevator, Junyoung pressed his fist into the center of his forehead. “Stupid,” he muttered under his breath. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
+
At least there was still the naengmyeon. But it was a busy morning; Junyoung found himself glued to his desk throughout the lunch hour. By the time he was done, it was nearly one-thirty, and his stomach was grumbling. He took the elevator up to the cafeteria, rushing to make it before the doors were locked. Without the chaos of the lunch rush, the line was short; there were only two men standing in front of him. For some unknown reason, though, they were taking forever, scooping the rice slowly and picking up each piece of kimchi one by one. Junyoung, wallowing in his frustration, was startled when a quiet voice came from behind him.
“Can they be any slower?”