Recently, Won Chaehui had been living days where even six bodies wouldn’t have been enough.
Starting with the February photo exhibition celebrating Spark’s debut anniversary, following the promotions for “Bright,” filming videos for the fan tube channel she’d started as part of her New Year self improvent goals, and catching the live broadcasts of “My.Ga.Jang” and “Uninhabited Rest Stop Island” had completely devoured all of Won Chaehui’s free ti.
And on top of that......
She’d been dragged into a TF team created because a director had impulsively started so ridiculous project, worked herself to death, stayed late almost every day, and spent entire mornings and afternoons trapped in etings.
If not for all this, there was no way Won Chaehui would’ve failed to even apply for the audience lottery for “My.Ga.Jang.” If not for “Uninhabited Rest Stop Island,” she would’ve spent a weekend without a single thing to laugh about.
Thankfully, the TF had managed to produce results worth showing off. Managent brushed it off with a “let’s do even better next ti,” but the actual employees knew it was practically a miracle.
Assistant Manager Yeo, who had played the biggest role in that success, got promoted.
It was probably the only worthwhile thing that damned project had left behind.
“Everyone, let’s go eat!”
Lunch was Assistant Manager Yeo’s treat.
No, not assistant manager anymore. As of today, she was officially Manager Yeo.
It was a celebratory company dinner for her promotion.
‘She did all the work herself, so why is she even buying food for these people.......’
It wasn’t even her own money, but Won Chaehui still felt irritated about it. During the ti Manager Yeo had practically been living two lives, the only person who’d genuinely helped her while she’d been running around like crazy had clearly been Won Chaehui herself.
Upper managent told her to focus on the TF, while their team leader told her to prioritize regular team work. The impressive thing was that Manager Yeo had perfectly handled those contradictory demands. The rest of the team hadn’t helped her at all.
And Won Chaehui’s own efforts probably hadn’t been that much help to Manager Yeo either.
Even so, Won Chaehui obediently attended the dinner.
Or more accurately, she “willingly” showed up.
Since Manager Yeo was spending money anyway, if soone like Assistant Manager Cheon started spewing nonsense like, “Since you got promoted, are you treating us to sothing expensive?!” then Won Chaehui fully intended to stab him with words imdiately.
‘With her personality, she’s definitely going to bring everyone sowhere fancy too.’
Just as expected, Assistant Manager Cheon—despite contributing absolutely nothing—imdiately started insisting they should order enough food that the entire team couldn’t possibly finish it all. Naturally, he also complained about how unfortunate it was that he couldn’t drink wine after coming all the way to such a high end Western restaurant.
“If we run out, we can just order more. The portions here are huge anyway.”
“If the flow breaks in the middle of the al, the mood dies.”
“I’ll conduct a survey midway through. Then it’ll be fine, right?”
Won Chaehui smiled while pulling the corners of her mouth upward as far as possible.
Please understand that this is supposed to be a celebration for your senior’s promotion, not a gathering for you to stuff yourself.
“You worked hard, Manager Yeo. You must’ve been busy running back and forth everywhere.”
“It was nothing. Assistant Manager Won helped a lot.”
Kind hearted Manager Yeo even made sure to acknowledge the contributions of her junior.
Won Chaehui simply smiled and dipped her head once.
“Looking at it, I think Assistant Manager Won really likes Manager Yeo. Whenever I ask for help, you look annoyed, but when your senior...... I an, manager gives you work, you do it imdiately. Right?”
How is work assigned by a senior manager on the sa TF the sa thing as you begging for help because your own work ability sucks? You should be grateful I even help you at all, you son of a bitch.
......Obviously, she couldn’t say that out loud.
Twisting pasta around her fork, Won Chaehui answered instead.
“That’s not true.”
“Co on, it’s obvious.”
Won Chaehui didn’t respond.
Instead, she imagined the pasta in her mouth was Assistant Manager Cheon and chewed it thoroughly.
“Assistant Manager Cheon.”
“Yes, Manager!”
“Want to co order a few extra side dishes with ?”
“There’s a call button though, why would we go all the way over.......”
“I want to look at the nu properly while ordering.”
Before anyone could even call an employee over, Manager Yeo stood up.
Assistant Manager Cheon reluctantly followed after her.
A few minutes later, he returned with slumped shoulders and silently focused on eating his food.
“What do you all want for coffee? I’m paying, so everyone pick one.”
“You should split the coffee bill. Manager Yeo already bought lunch.”
“After today I’m never buying again! This is your last chance, so hurry up and order!”
At Manager {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Yeo’s playful words, everyone started choosing drinks.
“Assistant Manager Won, want to co to the cafe with ?”
“Sure.”
When the team was large, even carrying drinks beca work. The two of them checked the order slips against the drinks one by one while loading everything into carriers.
“Whose large size is this?”
“If you an the cold brew, it’s Assistant Manager Cheon’s. I upgraded the size to cheer him up.”
How badly had Assistant Manager Cheon gotten scolded in that short amount of ti?
Won Chaehui couldn’t even imagine it.
Then she noticed that the frappuccino she’d ordered had been upgraded too.
“Was there another person who ordered a frappuccino?”
“That one’s yours, Chaehui.”
“Mine?”
“That one’s because you worked hard.”
Manager Yeo grinned.
“I didn’t really do much.”
“You were busy too. You helped a lot, but unlike , you didn’t even have anyone you could lean on, so it must’ve been exhausting.”
She had been busy.
It was just that compared to Manager Yeo, she couldn’t exactly brag about it.
Besides, it wasn’t like she’d been assigned impossible work. She’d even get overti pay calculated down to the minute.
Before becoming the heroic leader of the TF, Manager Yeo had simply been soone who’d already spent quite a few years as an assistant manager. Even if Won Chaehui had sohow handled all the work alone, she still wouldn’t have been promoted due to lack of seniority.
At best, she might’ve received a good evaluation score.
“Thank you. You saved .”
Hearing the gratitude directed toward her, Won Chaehui imagined a future where this person beca her final boss.
If that happened, wouldn’t she be able to work happily at least three days out of every week?
The other two...... were unavoidable.
“It was nothing. I learned a lot too.”
This ti, Won Chaehui answered sincerely.
“You know, sotis I think it would’ve been nice if I had a younger sibling like you.”
“Were you an only child, Manager?”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s because I grew up alone that I don’t really understand what having siblings is like?”
The two continued chatting about the life of only children while carrying the drinks outside.
The conversation mostly revolved around things like the advantage of monopolizing all the love within the family, and the burden of eventually having to support your family alone soday.
“If you’d had younger siblings, I think you would’ve treated them really well.”
“Does it seem that way? Most of my friends with siblings say they fight all the ti.”
“I’m sure they fight, but wouldn’t they resolve things maturely? People say siblings resemble each other.”
Manager Yeo laughed at Won Chaehui’s comnt.
She adjusted her grip on the drink carrier.
“Even if I’d had siblings, we probably wouldn’t have resembled each other.”
“I’m adopted.”
Won Chaehui forcefully swallowed the “What?” that nearly escaped her mouth.
At so point during adulthood, people learned that even unintentional reactions could still wound others.
“Sorry, did I surprise you?”
“No, it’s just...... I started worrying whether I’d ever said sothing insensitive before.......”
“You don’t need to worry about that. There probably aren’t many people as careful as you, Chaehui.”
Won Chaehui had already known Manager Yeo viewed her favorably.
Manager Yeo wasn’t rely polite to coworkers. She treated Won Chaehui with genuine warmth.
Still, she’d never expected her to share sothing this personal.
“It’s not so huge secret! It happened when I was really young, and I get along great with my family.”
Watching Won Chaehui struggle to find words, Manager Yeo added another explanation.
“You told about Spark before, rember?”
“Of course.”
“Most people don’t really tell coworkers they’re idol fans, right?”
Manager Yeo was correct.
Among working adults, many hid the fact that they liked idols because they disliked the stereotypes associated with idol fans. Even beyond idol fandoms, people who enjoyed subculture hobbies like comics rarely revealed their cherished interests to just anyone.
Because they didn’t want to be mocked.
“Of course, so people are comfortable sharing things openly depending on their personality. But soone as careful and self managed as you telling about your life outside of work made really happy.”
“.......”
“It felt like you trusted .”
Only then did Won Chaehui finally understand why Manager Yeo had shared her past.
She wanted to show that the distance between them had beco that close.
Once people beca adults, opportunities to feel acknowledged beca rare.
To Won Chaehui, that kind of sincere affection felt strangely ticklish and comforting at the sa ti.
Their conversation continued nonstop while walking back toward the office.
Won Chaehui listened to stories about how Manager Yeo’s family resembled each other so much that even relatives and friends found it fascinating, and how her mother had nad her “Hana” because she was their one and only precious child.
“The reason behind my na’s pretty straightforward, right? It’s a pure Korean na, and my surna’s easy to write too, so whenever people asked for the Chinese characters of my na, it was convenient. The ‘Yeo’ character doesn’t have many strokes.”
“I know that feeling too. ‘Won’ is simple as well.”
“I wonder which ‘Cheon’ character Assistant Manager Cheon uses. I think most people use the one aning ‘thousand.’”
“His surna’s probably convenient to write too.”
“Yeo, Won, Cheon....... Now that I think about it, the surnas in our team are pretty unusual. Don’t you think?”
Now that she heard it that way, it really was a strange combination.
anwhile, the idol Won Chaehui liked belonged to the terrifyingly common lineup of Kim, Choi, Jeong, Park, Lee, and Kang—practically the top six surnas in Korea.......
‘Wait.’
Hadn’t Kim Iwol once said his older sister was eight years older than him?
Won Chaehui’s gaze shifted toward Manager Yeo walking beside her.
A thirty one year old woman with average height and a warm appearance.
A woman who did not resemble Kim Iwol in the slightest.
Wouldn’t it be rude to ask sothing like this?
But what were the odds that soone whose appearance and age matched exactly what Kim Iwol had described, and who was also adopted as a child, wasn’t related to him?
“What’s wrong, Chaehui? Is there sothing on my clothes?”
More importantly, what were the odds that two completely unrelated people could look this similar whenever they smiled gently?
“No, it’s not that.......”
Won Chaehui swallowed dryly.
She was terrified her curiosity might cross the line from nosiness into outright rudeness.
And the thought of Kim Iwol’s adoptive parents—people Won Chaehui might genuinely be better off never knowing about—made her hesitate even more.
“Oh, right.”
While waiting for the traffic light to turn green, Manager Yeo suddenly spoke.
“The idol you like was looking for an older sister around my age, wasn’t he?”
For a brief mont, Won Chaehui nearly dropped the drinks she was carrying.
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