At lunchtime, someone stopped Dongmin in front of a snack shop.
"Hyung, you didn’t forget that you said you’d buy me a meal, right?"
It was that junior who had grabbed Dongmin here not long ago and pestered him for dinner. That
day, he had just passed by, but this time Dongmin seemed aware of me and introduced him first.
"...This is Kim Wunhak."
Dongmin gave a brief introduction. Wunhak bowed first in greeting.
"Ah, hello. I think I might be able to help sort out the materials for Sunil Capital this time, so would you save my number? There might be times we need to contact each other."
I saved the number without really thinking about it. He was nothing special beyond being Dongmin’s junior.
*
That night, I was alone at the office and took the documents back out of the drawer.
As I followed the flow of the accounts, tracing the highlighted marks one by one, a small contact number written in the corner of the approval section caught my eye.
010-****-5321
There was no name, just the number.
I was about to dismiss it as just the contact for the person in charge, but my hand stopped.
It matched the last digits of the number I’d saved during the day.
I took out my phone and checked again. No mistake. Kim Wunhak.
Since only the number was written there, it probably hadn’t stood out.
Dongmin had highlighted this page too, but there was no way he would have memorized his junior’s number.
I remembered that ordinary face, smiling as he saved the number at lunchtime.
I still couldn’t believe someone like that had stepped into this ledger somewhere.
What bothered me even more was that Dongmin seemed completely unaware.
*
The next evening, Dongmin, working overtime, came to my desk carrying two cups of coffee.
"...Here, drink this."
"...Thank you."
Even as I took it, my hand was shaking a little.
The number I’d checked last night still wouldn’t leave my head.
Dongmin pulled over a chair and sat across from me.
"...The settlement date is getting close, so everyone’s on edge. If we can’t finish sorting out the Sunil Capital matter within this quarter on our side too, I think we’ll hear from above."
My grip tightened on the coffee cup. I forced myself to swallow another sip as if nothing was wrong.
"...Everyone’s going to be busy that day, huh."
"I guess so."
He gave a short answer, then fell silent.
Dongmin, who had just been staring at his coffee cup, suddenly spoke up.
"...There’s something I’ve been wondering about lately."
"...Yes?"
"You’ve been avoiding me, right."
My fingertips froze. If I said no, it would already be obvious I’d been caught more than once.
"...It’s not like that."
"If it’s not like that, then that’s a relief. And because of that photo thing too, these days it’d probably be more reassuring if we stuck together.
But you keep avoiding me, so I’m worried, and also a little hurt. I even wondered if I was imagining it alone."
"...What are you talking about."
"I thought maybe you had feelings for me too. If not, then forget it."
My heart sank. Because he wasn’t wrong, I had nothing to say back.
If I said that I felt the same, that even in the first round it had always been like this,
both the promise that I wouldn’t get any closer and the promise that I wouldn’t get involved would probably all collapse.
And when the settlement day came, I was the only one who knew that those feelings would eventually put him in that car again.
I should have said no, but the words wouldn’t come.
Even though I already knew that silence was an answer, in the end I couldn’t say it was no, and I couldn’t say it was yes either.
Dongmin studied that silence quietly, then, without pressing further, gave a small laugh.
"...You don’t have to answer. I just needed to know I wasn’t imagining things."
It wasn’t my imagination that his smiling face looked lonely.
I could feel the question he hadn’t asked lingering between us just as it was.
*
A few days later, as I passed by the break room, I heard Kim Wunhak on the phone.
"...No, I mean, you said to get the numbers aligned before settlement, right? There aren’t even ten days left now, so what am I supposed to do about it."
After hanging up and turning around, Wunhak met my eyes and smiled a beat late.
"...Oh, did you hear that? Our side’s been in an uproar lately too, trying to make the numbers match. You’ve been working overtime a lot lately too, right?"
He smiled ingratiatingly, casually changed the subject, and then drifted away with light steps without even waiting for an answer.
There was no sign at all that he’d been caught in what he’d just said.
The fact that he could brush it off so calmly meant he wasn’t just an ordinary sly fox.
The words “make the numbers match before settlement” kept echoing in my ears.
It meant Seongho’s side was moving with the same date in sight.
I knew I would die beneath that date, and they knew they had to finish something before that date.
In other words, we were both running toward the same day for different reasons.
I couldn’t tell Dongmin.
I couldn’t bring up, without any evidence yet, that his junior at the company might be involved.
I couldn’t tell whether that also counted as keeping my promise not to get involved in “his business,” or whether I had already broken it.
*
A few days later, I casually joined in while Dongmin was checking other Sunil Capital documents.
"...This account section, you’re handling it all by yourself, Dongmin-ssi?"
"No, Wunhak’s looking over this line with me too. Why?"
"Just because. If you’re both checking it, I figured the review would be more thorough."
"He might look a little spacey, but he’s solid when it comes to work. He’s someone you can trust."
The words trustable caught in my chest. If I asked more here, it would obviously make me look suspicious.
Without evidence, I couldn’t tell Dongmin to suspect the person he trusted most.
In the end, I could only stay silent and nod.
*
That night, I spread out the registry materials and documents again by myself and searched for any other trace that might lead me to Wunhak’s name.
It was just the same account, the same number, over and over; nothing new turned up.
If I wanted to dig deeper, I would have to ask Wunhak directly or confess everything to Dongmin, and I couldn’t do either.
I didn’t know feeling powerless while knowing was this frustrating.
And so several days passed, going nowhere.
Even after that day, Wunhak kept putting on his easy smile as if nothing was wrong, Dongmin didn’t press further, and I kept repeating the same thing every night: open the documents, then close them again without changing a thing.
Everyone was getting through each day as if nothing had happened.
Back home, I took off the watch from my wrist, set it on the desk, and looked at the calendar.
My fingertips touched the circled date.
Tomorrow.
The very day I died was coming again as tomorrow this time too.
Dongmin’s words overlapped in my mind over the crack in the glass.
'You don’t have to answer. I just needed to know I wasn’t imagining things.'
It wasn’t a confession of liking me. And yet, with just that one line, my resolve tilted again.
I thought maybe the line I believed I was holding onto had already been fading for a long time.
I put the watch in the drawer and turned off the light.
Even in the dark, the crack in the glass—and those two characters, tomorrow—kept standing out vividly in my eyes.
This time I wanted to write it a little more as a group-operations story, so I added a serious incident, but the incident itself is hard ㅠㅠㅜ
I’m writing it all knowing everything, so I understand it all, but I’m worried readers might find it hard to follow....
If there’s anything you don’t understand or anything you’re curious about, questions are always welcome....💛
Please enjoy reading it ㅎㅎㅎㅎ
