Chapter 10

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: The Loafer
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[What do you want to eat?]

Taeseo frowned at the message on his phone. He had sent that text ages ago. Why was she only replying now?

Kwon Taeseo had really hit a new low. Back in Seoul, women were lining up, just waiting for a single call from him... And here he was, getting a late reply from some country girl.

[Chicken]

As soon as Taeseo sent the text, a reply came back.

[We sell chicken at our convenience store...]

“Is she seriously trying to make a sale...”

Convenience store chicken wasn’t freshly fried; it was cooked ahead of time and kept warm. Taste aside, the soggy batter was definitely not to Taeseo’s liking.

He was about to text back “never mind” when another message arrived.

[What kind? Seasoned? Fried?]

[Half and half]

[I'll pick it up on my way home from work. I'll be there at 7. There aren't any chicken places that deliver to our neighborhood.]

“What a backward place to live.”

In any case, she said she would bring the chicken, so his initial goal was accomplished. Now he had to solve the problem of being stranded.

The biggest reason he was lazing around at home, playing games on his phone, was that he didn’t have a car.

In the middle of summer, the red dirt of the shadeless country town shimmered as if it were burning. He had no intention whatsoever of walking around a place like this on his own two feet.

As it happened, his driver had dropped off the Porsche in front of the convenience store that morning.

[Where's the car key?]

He texted the driver, and a reply came back instantly.

[I left it at the construction site office for safekeeping.]

Since the car was worth 180 million won, it seemed the driver couldn’t just leave the key anywhere and had put it in the site office.

[Bring me the key.]

[Uh, Manager... I'm back in Seoul.]

His position had changed, and so had his treatment from the company.

He could continue working with his secretary, Woo Hyunwoo, but not as an assistant. They were now colleagues, manager to manager, working on this project together. As for the driver, he had been reassigned as of today.

[--]

He sent the two simple lines, and the driver immediately backed down.

[I'll contact the site office staff and have them send the key over right away.]

[Yeah.]

It was turning out to be a thoroughly dissatisfying day. Taeseo got out of bed, stuck a cigarette crookedly in his mouth, and headed into the bathroom to shower.

It was the time of day when others were getting ready to leave work, but he was just about to start his.

* * *

He was drying his wet hair when a text came in. It was from Yuna.

[Come to the convenience store to pick up the chicken.]

The timestamp on the message read 7:01 PM. She had said she would arrive around seven, and she had kept her word to the minute.

Still, if she was going to her room after work, she could have just brought it to him. Who was she to order him around? Taeseo's fingers flew as he typed a reply.

[You bring it.]

[I have to place an order right now.]

[Didn't you just get off work? You're working again?]

[Yes.]

Yesterday she had been working the convenience store counter, and according to the neighborhood loafers’ gossip today, she had gone to work at a factory. It seemed she was back to working at the store right after clocking out.

Muttering about her harsh life, Taeseo roughly dried his wet hair with a towel and went out the door.

As he entered the first-floor convenience store, the wind chime on the door tinkled.

Standing at the counter, Yuna looked up from the POS system she was using to order products and acknowledged Taeseo as he walked in.

“The chicken is on the counter. You can take it.”

She seemed busy. As soon as she finished telling him to take the chicken, she was already looking back at the POS screen, tapping on the keyboard. The sound of her typing echoed in the empty store.

Taeseo glanced at the bag of chicken, then walked over to the store's refrigerator and grabbed two cans of beer.

He came to the counter and gestured toward the cigarettes with his eyes. Yuna pointed to the pack of imported cigarettes that had caught his eye.

When Taeseo nodded, she picked up the barcode scanner and scanned the beer and cigarettes.

“That’ll be 10,000 won.”

Her face, as she worked mechanically, seemed to say she was tired. Perhaps it was the fatigue, but her voice was even weaker than yesterday.

“What’s with the crappy customer service?”

“It’s busiest at the convenience store right after a shift change. I have to check inventory, place new orders, tally up the day's sales, and set aside the cash deposit.”

“Right. So you work somewhere else during the day?”

“Yes. Why?”

“So I can text you if I need to ask something, like today.”

“Ah, okay. But I can't take calls while I'm working. For this week, I'm on the day shift, so I get off at six. If you text me, I'll reply during my lunch break or after work.”

“Yeah.”

An Yuna bagged the items Taeseo had paid for. He picked up the plastic bag with the beer and cigarettes and the other bag with the chicken and was about to turn away when An Yuna quickly added something.

“Oh, and the lady from Seongwoo Baekban wanted me to tell you she's sorry. She said she'll come by to give you a refund.”

“She doesn't have to go that far.”

He had ordered the food, after all, so he had no intention of getting a refund. At his dismissive remark, An Yuna's expression hardened.

“Accounts should be settled properly. And the chicken is 17,000 won. I'll text you my account number, so please transfer the money.”

“Yeah.”

The way she was going on about settling accounts, she must have been worried he would stiff her for the chicken.

As if a man who had no intention of taking back money for a meal he didn't even eat would skip out on paying for chicken. He gave An Yuna a pitying look for her needless worrying and turned to leave, just as the wind chime tinkled behind him.

The person who entered the store was one of the neighborhood loafers who were always killing time out front. Taeseo remembered his face because he had the distinct look of a cattle thief.

“Jaeseop, you’re here.”

“Give me a pack of smokes.”

Suddenly recalling what he had overheard earlier that day, Taeseo turned and looked at the man named Jaeseop.

The well-built man, dressed in a matching black tracksuit, stood swaggering in front of the counter with his hands in his pockets.

An Yuna didn’t even glance at the man named Jaeseop as she found the brand he smoked and scanned the barcode.

“You been busy lately?”

“Ah, yes. The factory has a lot of orders, so we're working two shifts.”

“Heard their cosmetics are selling well. Guess they really do have a lot of orders.”

“Ah, yes.”

Her short answers clearly indicated she found him annoying, but the guy persistently kept talking to her.

“When you're not so busy, let's grab a drink. You probably don't know since you didn't go to college, but when you're twenty, you're supposed to learn how to drink from your elders. Ever heard of drinking etiquette? That's how you learn to handle your liquor properly. So you don't make a fool of yourself somewhere.”

Taeseo thought the guy sounded like an idiot, calling himself ‘oppa’ in every other sentence, and walked out of the store.

He suddenly remembered the conversation he had overheard from the group gathered out front earlier.

*‘We gotta get her drunk to get her in bed.’*

So the idiot who said he was dying to get with An Yuna must have been that cattle thief.

* * *

Taeseo’s daily life in Seongwoo-eup was monotonous. Since he had no intention of going to work every day, he treated it like a vacation, waking up late, eating whatever, chain-smoking a few cigarettes, and playing mobile games.

After a few days of being engrossed in the mobile game, he started to get bored, and Hyunwoo’s pressure on him to come to work intensified.

[Manager. Headquarters called. They're asking why you haven't been coming to work.]

[Just make something up about me adjusting to the site.]

[You know Senior Managing Director Kwon Taejin has it out for you. I'm going to die, seriously.]

“Useless bastard can’t even handle one simple thing.”

[Please, just come to work. Huh? I'll come pick you up, so please, please, please just come to work. Please.]

[I said I'll come in after a week off.]

[The civil complaint filed at the town office isn't getting resolved, so the public officials are calling constantly, headquarters is in an uproar, and I'm at my wit's end.]

[What complaint?]

[The property holdout land.]

Taeseo minimized the messaging app and stared at the dazzling character on his mobile game screen.

Taejin hadn’t blocked microtransactions on his phone, so he had been spending freely on the game.

With an endless supply of cash, his character grew more spectacular by the day, but the fun of strategizing had diminished, and he was starting to get bored.

“Games these days don't have that thrill like they used to. That thrill.”

In truth, the game had felt particularly dull since last night, and he was already thinking about going to work.

Waking up with the sun high in the sky for the first time in a while, Taeseo showered and put on a pair of slacks and a pique polo shirt. Over that, he wore the work jacket Hyunwoo had left for him.

He chuckled as he put on the jacket, which had “Namgyeong Development” written on it.

Dressed like this, who would ever recognize him as the second son of Namgyeong Group?

He picked up the work helmet lying beneath the jacket, then stood in front of the shoe rack, debating whether to wear sneakers before opting for a neat pair of boat shoes.

Even though he lived like a scoundrel, there were certain ironclad rules he followed. Trivial habits, such as not walking around barefoot and wearing proper shoes for work, were ingrained in him by his upbringing.

When he stepped outside the building, the glaring summer sun hit his forehead. The black Porsche parked in front of the convenience store was completely exposed to the summer heat, with no shade in sight.

Just looking at the car made his skin feel like it was stinging and cooking. Taeseo scowled and entered the convenience store to buy an iced Americano.

The wind chime tinkled, but there was no greeting of “welcome.” The convenience store counter was empty.

Taeseo’s gaze automatically shifted to the parasol table in front of the convenience store's glass window.

Sure enough, the neighborhood loafers were there again today, chain-smoking under the convenience store parasol. Among them, he spotted the guy named Jaeseop, the one who kept calling himself ‘oppa’ to An Yuna.

Jaeseop seemed to be the leader of the pack; a group of guys who looked to be in their mid-twenties were gathered around him, chattering excitedly.

When Taeseo knocked on the glass door, a pale-faced guy who had been laughing next to Jaeseop reluctantly got up. He had delicate, fox-like features. He seemed to be the part-timer covering for An Yuna while she was at her other job.

Judging by the way he was goofing off with his friends in front of the store during work hours, he didn’t seem like the hardworking type.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. Did An Yuna know that her part-timer was messing around with his friends instead of manning the counter?

Considering An Yuna worked at a factory and still had to run the convenience store herself, she probably wasn’t well-off. After paying an hourly wage to a loafer like that, he wondered if this little country store even turned a profit.