Siblings Working in Business (182)
“H-how, no. Why?”
“Is PD-nim sick or…?”
Flick. Flick.
Just as Eun-ji and Eun-ho were expressing their shock…
CEO Park, unable to bear it any longer, flicked both of their foreheads with lightning speed.
Eun-ji and Eun-ho clutched their foreheads, their faces still full of disbelief.
“Is this really that surprising?”
“Isn’t it surprising?”
“…”
When Eun-ho countered reasonably, CEO Park lowered his head, speechless.
Eun-ji then tilted her head and asked,
“You know…”
“Yes?”
“Honestly, CEO Park and PD Kim…”
“What are you going to say now?”
“Well, you two look at least 10 years apart…”
“No! That’s not true!”
CEO Park’s face flushed as he shouted.
“You two!”
“Haha.”
Eun-ho and Eun-ji, far from being intimidated, found CEO Park’s outburst amusing and just laughed.
“How old do you think I am?”
“Mid-to-late 40s?”
“What are you talking about! Early 40s!”
“Ah… huh?”
Eun-ho and Eun-ji looked at each other with wide eyes, genuinely surprised, then back at CEO Park.
“Weren’t you in your 40s when we met?”
“I was 39 in Korean age.”
“That’s still forty.”
“Use international age.”
As Eun-ji grumbled, pouting like a duck, CEO Park looked around and grabbed a pen.
“Lips, lips, lips.”
Eun-ji received three flicks on her lips with the pen.
She grumbled with a sullen face,
“That hurts.”
“It’s supposed to hurt. And hey, even so, 10 years is too much.”
“Looking at your hair, it’s enough—”
Eun-ho stopped mid-sentence.
It was because of CEO Park’s chilling glare.
Since Eun-ho and Eun-ji had significantly contributed to the receding hairline, it wasn’t really something they should be commenting on.
“Badugi’s mom, no…”
“Badugi’s mom?”
“Ch-, Cheol-soo and I, anyway, we’re only five years apart.”
“Wow, five years. Still a cradle robber.”
“Yeah, where’s your conscience?”
“Even you, Eun-ji! You brats, I was the one who got proposed to!”
“Huh?”
As Eun-ji made a strange noise in surprise, Eun-ho followed up with a question,
“By ‘propose,’ you mean like, asking to get married, right?”
“Eun-ho, don’t tease me too.”
“Haha, but seriously, I’m just, really, so, so surprised.”
Eun-ho’s voice trembled, seemingly genuinely bewildered.
“What does PD-nim even like about you?”
Eun-ji asked, completely baffled.
Just then…
“Argh!”
“My eyes!”
Eun-ho and Eun-ji simultaneously poked their own eyes.
It was because CEO Park suddenly showed a bashful side, something they had never seen before.
A middle-aged man’s shyness.
It was like seeing their father act cute.
Not a pleasant experience.
“J-just go home!”
“Okay. But I didn’t know you could be so shy, CEO Park~”
“Get out!”
CEO Park yelled at the teasing Eun-ho and Eun-ji and kicked them out.
The two siblings grinned at each other, their identical faces mirroring the same mischievous expression.
When they got home…
Eun-ji, who had stormed into her room, ran out screaming,
“L-Lee Eun-ho!”
“What?”
“Is there a cockroach or something?”
“Don’t say such horrifying things!”
Eun-ji shrieked as if her soul was leaving her body.
“I’m more surprised if there isn’t one in that pigsty of yours.”
“Ah! Stop joking around! This is serious!”
“What?”
“Briquette is gone!”
So that’s what it was…
Briquette had disappeared again.
Unlike the frantic Eun-ji, Eun-ho remained calm.
“Check on top of your black clothes.”
“Black clothes? There’s no-, oh!”
Found him.
“Aha, there he is. Found him.”
When Briquette, with his black fur, closed his eyes and nestled into black clothes, a black chair, or a black bag, he truly became one with his surroundings.
It happened often enough that it had become a routine.
Seemingly in a deep sleep, Briquette was sprawled out, purring contentedly, his eyes rolled back.
Briquette usually stayed in Eun-ji’s room, except when he needed to use the bathroom or when he wanted to subtly hint that his litter box was dirty.
So, Eun-ho rarely interacted with him unless he came to Eun-ho’s room on his own.
It had been a while since he last talked to Briquette.
Eun-ho lay down on his mat and turned on the EG lamp on his bedside table, which he used as ambient lighting instead of the ceiling light.
“I’m tired.”
He was tired, but he liked being tired.
It was a feeling he couldn’t quite understand.
Anyway, CEO Park getting married…
Before the regression, he had been alone until his hair fell out…
He hadn’t even seen PD Kim before the regression.
He and Ji Ye-chan weren’t even close enough to exchange greetings, let alone friendly conversations.
KakaoTalk—
Speak of the devil.
KakaoTalk, Kakao—Kakao—KakaoTalk. KakaoTalk.
Startled by the continuous KakaoTalk notifications, he finally picked up his phone.
[Ji Ye-chan ― Eun-ho
― Eun-ho
― Eun-ho
― Eun-ho
― Eun…….]
Ye-chan had spammed the group chat with “Eun-ho.”
He burst out laughing, finding it absurd whenever someone unexpected acted like this.
[Me ― Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes…….]
He spammed ‘y’ and ‘e’ in return.
[Ji Ye-chan ― Did you hear the news?]
[Me ― About CEO Park getting married?]
[Ji Ye-chan ― (A ridiculously nodding, pathetic-looking cat emoticon)]
He hadn’t known Ye-chan used emoticons…
Not just him, but all the Toxin members, he thought.
During the “Red” music video shoot…
Eun-ji had gifted him an emoticon during break time, saying, “This is cute because it looks like our Briquette!”
It started from that day.
[Ji Ye-chan ― (A pathetic-looking black cat emoticon covering its mouth and repeatedly exclaiming, “Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!”)]
[Ji Ye-chan ― Aren’t you surprised?
― (A pathetic-looking black cat emoticon tilting its head back and forth frantically)]
Whether it was because he didn’t have any or couldn’t find any he liked before, Ye-chan was now a heavy user of the emoticon Eun-ji sent him.
Except, Eun-ji always picked emoticons that looked just like her…
The frantic cat character kept stealing his attention.
[Ji Ye-chan ― Did you hear how they proposed?
― (A pathetic-looking black cat emoticon clapping frantically)]
[Me ― OMG no]
A proposal!
It was a topic interesting enough to overcome even the distracting cat emoticon.
Ye-chan told him to wait and left the chat.
A moment later…
[Ji Ye-chan ― Got permission (A pathetic-looking black cat emoticon spamming ‘OK’)]
It seemed he had gone to ask PD Kim for permission to talk about it.
The story of the proposal, as told by Ye-chan, was quite shocking.
“I can’t believe it.”
PD Kim’s one-sided love had been going on for a long time.
Since she first met CEO Park.
That is, since PD Kim Cheol-soo’s days as a ‘homma’ for Toxin, earning extra cash.
Side Story: Bazooka
Park Chang-seok lived alone, about a 30-minute drive from the old building where Eun-ho and Eun-ji were staying.
‘Living alone,’ he said, but his house was a spacious detached house, big enough to raise four children.
However, all those rooms were themed around exercise: a leg room, an upper body room, a back room, a cardio room, and so on.
Incidentally, Park Chang-seok slept on a bed in the living room.
However, there was one room that wasn’t exercise-themed.
The largest room, the master bedroom, was entirely dedicated to a cat tower for his cats.
The calico and tabby cats that CEO Park cared for were the stars of the cat photos Eun-ji used as a “dirtiness gauge” on O-Tube.
The calico and tabby had another family member.
‘Badugi,’ whom Kim Cheol-soo had adopted.
Chang-seok had playfully named him Badugi when they were adopting him, trying to break the awkwardness between him and Cheol-soo.
But Cheol-soo, who had feelings for Chang-seok, decided to keep the name.
Cheol-soo often visited Park Chang-seok’s house, using Badugi as an excuse.
‘It’s been a while.’
Cheol-soo walked across the stepping stones neatly placed on the well-maintained lawn and stood in front of the black front door.
The last time she visited Park Chang-seok’s house was a few weeks ago.
Around the time Eun-ho and Eun-ji started getting busy.
The day he had to rush out to rescue Toxin from TaKa Entertainment.
「“Thank you.”」
He had quit smoking because it was bad for his health, but he must have been incredibly angry to light up again.
And as if the cigarette hadn’t brought him any comfort, Chang-seok had crushed the entire pack.
Cheol-soo smiled, looking at the crumpled cigarette pack in the small trash can inside the car.
The pack, still full of cigarettes, had been crushed inwards.
She liked that side of Park Chang-seok.
The way he decisively cut off things that weren’t right.
Click.
“Oh my, you scared me. When did you get here?”
Park Chang-seok, seemingly on his way to greet Cheol-soo, was wearing a white shirt and black shorts.
Cheol-soo stared at him, standing at the door, and thought,
She had always had a clear ideal type.
Someone bolder than her.
Yet also delicate.
Someone like him, who couldn’t ignore a child in need and decided to become their guardian.
His tender heart had saved Toxin, the group that included her childhood friend, Ji Ye-chan.
And eventually became a legend in the broadcasting industry.
When threatened by gangsters, instead of cowering in fear, he trained like crazy and now had a better physique than those who threatened him.
His broad shoulders, the result of meticulous self-care even in his 40s…
His imposing figure, yet his unwillingness to impose on others… she liked it.
But she didn’t want him to be a complete pushover either.
Someone who helped because they were capable, and when a line was crossed, could be cold and cut them off.
「“By the way, you’re still hanging around Team Leader, huh.”」
Ji Ye-chan’s casual remark bothered her.
A relationship that started through work…
She wasn’t his girlfriend, yet she had been visiting him like this, using Badugi as an excuse, for years.
A man and a woman regularly meeting at one house for years.
But nothing that should have happened ever did.
「“At this point, you might as well just confess.”」
Ji Ye-chan’s voice echoed in her head.
Should she just confess, like he said?
“Cheol-soo?”
“…”
“Ah, aren’t you coming in?”
“…”
“Is there something on my, ah, if there is, it’s probably because I forgot you were coming today…”
“…”
“So, I was trying to quickly make kimchi jjigae and I must have splattered some…”
Park Chang-seok seemed confused, unsure how to react to Cheol-soo, who was just staring at him.
Watching him look around, wondering, ‘Where is it?,’ Cheol-soo laughed in disbelief.
It was chaotic.
Seriously, she must be blinded by love.
Why did he look so cute…?
Just then…
「“Well, it’s been over 10 years since Team Leader had a girlfriend.”」
Ji Ye-chan’s words became the trigger.
“CEO Park.”
“Yes?”
The problem was, she thought she was holding a small pistol…
“Will you marry me?”
…But when she pulled the trigger, it turned out to be a bazooka.
Boom!
Park Chang-seok’s thoughts were clearly written all over his face.
‘D-did I just hear what I think I heard?’
Although she accidentally fired a bazooka, Cheol-soo had no intention of taking it back.
“Let’s get married first, and then date for the rest of our lives.”
“D-d-date? With me?”
“Yes. With you, CEO Park.”
Late 30s and early 40s.
They were old enough to get married.
“I’ll be your dedicated music video director for life, for both E-UNG and Toxin.”
“Huh?”
“Marry me, Park Chang-seok.”
Instead of a ring, Cheol-soo offered the kennel carrier containing Badugi, the beginning of their connection.
“…Okay.”
Park Chang-seok, flustered, instinctively accepted the kennel carrier.