My Company Is Black

#037

Hwi-kyung recalled Lee Sung-ha’s words. Gyo-ha, born innately kind and easily liking anything, was clearly someone Hwi-kyung couldn’t understand even if he died and woke up fourteen more times.

If that was the case, Gyo-ha should also be unable to understand Hwi-kyung, but Lee Gyo-ha cowardly acted as if he had Hwi-kyung all figured out. Maybe he was just guessing without really knowing. He might have accidentally hit the nail on the head.

“Lee Gyo-ha-ssi. What do you think you know…”

“I know now. I’m not sure how much more I need to know before you’ll acknowledge it, but…”

“…”

“You were sick again, weren’t you?”

Gyo-ha pointed to the digestive medicine on the table. It was evidence that Hwi-kyung had taken one pill in his disoriented state and hadn’t managed to put it away.

Hwi-kyung unconsciously raised his hands to cover his face. Lee Gyo-ha kept invading other people’s spaces like this, stirring up their insides.

“I’m worried about you.”

Even such light words felt heavy to Hwi-kyung. Feeling like he had also stepped into the “anyone” that Gyo-ha liked, his stomach that had just settled became uneasy again.

For Hwi-kyung, who was used to handling everything alone, Gyo-ha was too much of a stimulus. Imagine if a helping hand appeared for Sisyphus, who endlessly pushed the rolling boulder uphill. The punishment continues, but he’s no longer alone.

Jung Hwi-kyung was confused about exactly what he felt for Lee Gyo-ha. Whether this was a romantic attraction or the feeling of someone who found a life jacket in the vast sea…

“I told you, I won’t regress because of things like this.”

“No, it’s not because of regression…”

“…”

“I’ve been thinking, and I…”

“Stop.”

Hwi-kyung vaguely guessed what would come next. Probably “I like you” or “I’m interested in you.” Hwi-kyung would be troubled for days over Gyo-ha’s insignificant expression of affection.

“Stop talking.”

So Hwi-kyung murmured, almost pleadingly. He didn’t want to hear any more of Gyo-ha’s light expressions of affection. Perhaps because he felt that even after the fourteenth cycle, his life might be ruined because of Lee Gyo-ha.

* * *

After that, Jung Hwi-kyung noticeably distanced himself from Lee Gyo-ha. He diligently came to work at Gyo-ha’s officetel, but he no longer visited early as before. He completely ignored Lee Sung-ha’s contacts and politely declined Lee Jung-hye’s job offers.

Whether Gyo-ha was blocking them well or not, there weren’t many separate contacts from Lee Baek-gyeong or Lee Jung-hye after the family gathering. Unlike Lee Sung-ha, who persistently came looking for trouble, Jung-hye had no further contact after Hwi-kyung declined her job offer.

“Hwi-kyung-ssi, did you fight with the young master?”

“What? No?”

“Then why have you been avoiding our young master lately?”

“…”

“Our young master might not look it, but he’s such a sensitive person.”

The real problem was with Marcia, who worked with Hwi-kyung, rather than Gyo-ha’s family. Hwi-kyung had been walking on eggshells around Marcia for three days as punishment for treating Gyo-ha coldly for a week.

“If you two fought, it must have been our young master’s fault, right?”

“No…”

“Come on, you can tell me everything. It might be unfortunate for the young master, but I’m on your side, Hwi-kyung-ssi.”

Marcia wouldn’t accept the fact that Hwi-kyung and Gyo-ha were nothing to each other, even when Hwi-kyung said so. Her opinion was that they couldn’t be nothing to each other after going to greet the family.

Who would have thought that what was just a meal to smooth things over after Gyo-ha’s mischief would look like a formal meeting of families to others? Since Gyo-ha had also met Hwi-kyung’s grandmother, it could be considered a meeting of families in a broad sense. They had indeed greeted each other’s families.

“As I said before, Gyo-ha-ssi and I are nothing…”

“Nothing?”

“Oh my, you startled me.”

Hwi-kyung almost dropped the spray bottle he was holding. Lee Gyo-ha kept appearing here and there as if he were some kind of ghost.

Especially indoors, wearing home slippers, his footsteps were barely audible. It was surprising how he moved without making any sound.

“We’re fate companions, aren’t we?”

“No…”

“If you keep saying that, I’ll feel hurt too.”

Gyo-ha, dressed in comfortable casual wear, quietly looked at Hwi-kyung, having been standing behind him for who knows how long.

Gyo-ha was also aware that Hwi-kyung had been avoiding him recently. He couldn’t not know. Jung Hwi-kyung’s awkwardness was obvious if you looked closely.

But Gyo-ha deliberately didn’t ask Hwi-kyung, “Why are you avoiding me?” He felt intuitively that if he said that, Hwi-kyung would avoid him even more. Gyo-ha’s intuition, developed through years of social life, was quite accurate.

Did something happen with Sung-ha at the family gathering? As Hwi-kyung started to avoid him, Gyo-ha couldn’t suggest that Hwi-kyung become a live-in housekeeper and move into this officetel.

He wanted to bring him out of that villa with unpleasant neighbors and no elevator… But if he were to suggest now that Hwi-kyung sign a contract and become a live-in housekeeper, it was obvious Hwi-kyung would coldly refuse.

Still, Gyo-ha waited patiently. Lee Gyo-ha’s patience, honed through completing over 10 integrated master’s and doctoral programs, was almost Buddha-like. Although he didn’t know the exact reason, he judged that since Hwi-kyung was still coming to work at the officetel regularly, he would eventually tell him what had happened if he just waited a little longer.

However, Jung Hwi-kyung, as always, lightly betrayed Lee Gyo-ha’s expectations. Even after ten days, Hwi-kyung was still openly avoiding Gyo-ha. When Gyo-ha tried to talk to him, Hwi-kyung would say Marcia was calling and leave. When invited to eat together, he would skip meals saying he didn’t feel well.

It had gotten to the point where not only Marcia but even Gyo-ha’s driver asked, “Did you two have a fight?” Gyo-ha felt a bit wronged. A fight requires both parties to engage, but Hwi-kyung was just avoiding Gyo-ha.

Lee Gyo-ha had three guesses as to why Hwi-kyung was avoiding him:

One, Lee Sung-ha had still treated Jung Hwi-kyung terribly at the family gathering.

This was the most likely reason. Gyo-ha was certain that whatever Sung-ha had said to Hwi-kyung, it must have been wrong. There was no way Lee Sung-ha would have said anything normal to someone else.

Moreover, Hwi-kyung had unnecessarily washed Sung-ha’s handkerchief and given it to Gyo-ha. Gyo-ha found it hard to understand breaking someone’s nose but then washing their handkerchief and returning it. Was this some new way of getting back at someone?

Two, Jung Hwi-kyung was thinking of moving to the fifteenth cycle.

Maybe working as a housekeeper was difficult. Although he seemed to be enjoying the physical work as if it were his calling, the reality of work is often different from what it appears.

And in this cycle, he was receiving warnings for working at a company not registered on J-Planet. Even Gyo-ha thought that after a tax audit at the end of the year, there might be a risk of forced regression for working at a company with a weak foundation.

So Jung Hwi-kyung might want to move to the next cycle without wasting time. He might be avoiding Gyo-ha because Gyo-ha was trying to stop him.

But this hypothesis seemed less likely. For someone who had gone through multiple regressions, Hwi-kyung didn’t rely that much on the regression system. Even when he could choose to regress, he was the type to endure as long as possible before being forced to regress.

Three, the great Jung Hwi-kyung has lost his mind and likes Lee Gyo-ha.

The last hypothesis was even less likely than the second one. While Gyo-ha was generous in his assessment of others and himself, he didn’t think Hwi-kyung would like him romantically.

First of all, Hwi-kyung wasn’t open-minded like Gyo-ha. Unlike Gyo-ha, who thought fate-like love was fine regardless of age or gender, Hwi-kyung had never dated anyone, let alone a man. Didn’t he say the system window was strict about office romances?

Moreover, Hwi-kyung first saw Gyo-ha as a parachuted executive director. Gyo-ha remembered the occasional disgusted expression Hwi-kyung had shown beneath his businesslike face. Having ruined one of Hwi-kyung’s cycles significantly, it wouldn’t be easy for him to gain Hwi-kyung’s affection.

Gyo-ha, who had intelligence and refinement injected through infinite graduate school power, was quite good at self-objectification. Due to his unnecessary ability to self-objectify, he only ended up having useless thoughts like “Lee Sung-ha really doesn’t help my life…” while the answer was right in front of him.

“Please make some noise when you walk.”

“If I make noise, you run away.”

“When did I run away?”

“For the past ten days?”

“…”

“It feels like it’s been a while since we’ve had such a long conversation. Can we talk without the spray bottle between us?”

Marcia, who had been glancing at the two, chuckled and left to give them privacy. Hwi-kyung looked at Marcia with a desperate gaze asking her not to leave, but she was only on Hwi-kyung’s side in words.