Chapter 4

　　The scattered ash glowed red for a moment before fizzling out.

　　She thought of the gardener, who had been wrongly suspecting one of the new drivers, complaining that someone kept littering the garden. The culprit was found, but it was Chairman Kwon’s second son. A pity for the gardener, who had vowed to catch the offender and teach him a lesson he’d never forget.

　　"Hey, you." Jingyeom closed the distance she had created and poked her shoulder with his index finger. There was no force behind it, so it didn’t hurt. But it was unpleasant.

　　"What?"

　　"‘What?’ Your tone is a little informal, don’t you think?" he challenged, clearly looking for a fight. It was absurd, but Yiseo kept her voice even.

　　"You may not remember, but I’m older than you."

　　"So?"

　　"So you were the one who was rude first."

　　A grin spread across Jingyeom’s face. He crossed his arms as if he’d heard the most amusing thing in the world and sneered.

　　"I’m allowed to be."

　　Yiseo stayed silent.

　　"I’m your boss, after all."

　　Her eyes narrowed. Who does he think he is? Crazy bastard.

　　She had hoped he might have matured, but the spoiled brat was exactly the same. When she was a student, Jingyeom had been relentless in his torment.

　　She had done her best to avoid him, not out of fear, but out of sheer contempt. But his malicious pranks had only escalated. At school, the rumor that she was a maid living off the famous GK Group chairman’s family had clung to her like a shadow.

　　It was painfully obvious who had invented such a childish, pathetic nickname. The only silver lining was that it had fueled her resolve to study like her life depended on it. When she had been accepted to university and moved into the dorms, she had been flooded with relief at the thought of never having to see him again.

　　She had pretended his vulgar taunts didn’t bother her, that she was above it all, but that had been a lie. The desire to shed the "maid" label had always been a sharp thorn lodged in her heart.

　　"Long time no see, Yiseo Hyeon." He continued, as she glared at him.

　　"I thought you’d run away like a little rat, but you ended up crawling right back, didn’t you?"

　　Last winter, when Yiseo had taken a gap year and returned to the estate, Jingyeom, thankfully, had been away at a boarding school, preparing to retake his college entrance exam. He had only returned recently, in fact, right after Taegyeom’s arrival. It seemed Jua had hastily pulled him out, likely to have him act as a check against the first wife’s son.

　　For a while, the staff quarters had buzzed with gossip about the country’s most famous teachers being summoned to the estate to be his private tutors.

　　Jingyeom tapped a new cigarette from its pack, placed it between his lips, and looked up at Yiseo, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper.

　　"Your fate is pretty… fucked up, isn’t it?"

　　He flicked a lighter, its fluorescent green case bearing the half-erased name of some business, and tilted his head to light his cigarette.

　　"And I like that."

　　He took a deep drag and blew the smoke directly into her face. The acrid cloud billowed around her, clearly a deliberate act. Yiseo’s face contorted in disgust.

　　Her reaction seemed to delight him. He let out a series of giggles, his nose wrinkling with pleasure.

　　In a sudden movement, Yiseo’s hand shot out, snatching the cigarette from between his lips.

　　"Whoa."

　　Jingyeom, momentarily stunned, stared at her with an expression that said, Now, would you look at that. An eyebrow shot up.

　　"Oh. Yiseo Hyeon, you’re all grown up, huh?"

　　He’s five years younger than I am. The nerve of him to say I’ve grown up. It was ridiculous. He, on the other hand, had grown astonishingly tall over the past few years.

　　The last time she’d seen him, he had been a middle schooler who barely reached her shoulder. Now, their eye levels were completely reversed. It was why she had briefly mistaken him for someone else in the darkness of the greenhouse.

　　"Don’t throw your cigarette butts here. There’s a smoking area behind the garage. If you want to smoke, go there."

　　"Are you an idiot? I’m hiding out here precisely because it’s a secret. If I could smoke openly, I’d do it in my room. Why would I go through the trouble of chain-smoking all the way out here?"

　　Only then did she understand why he had come to this remote greenhouse to smoke.

　　For all his bratty behavior, he’s still afraid of his parents, isn’t he?

　　"Just keep your mouth shut," he warned. "If rumors start to circulate, I’ll assume it was you."

　　"I couldn’t care less if you smoke or not. Just throw away your own damn trash."

　　At Yiseo’s retort, the mischievous smile clinging to Jingyeom’s lips suddenly twisted into a snarl. Something she said had clearly struck a nerve. But whether it had or not, Yiseo had no intention of wasting another breath on him. Averting her gaze, she walked right past his stunned, motionless form.

　　"You always have such a pretty fucking way with words," Jingyeom ground out at her retreating back.

　　Instead of replying, Yiseo only quickened her pace.

　　"See you again?" he called after her, his insolent shout slicing through the crisp evening air.

　　***

　　Leaving Jingyeom behind, Yiseo walked with resolve, the lukewarm night air clinging to her bare arms and legs. Just as the path around the pond ended, a small house built from a shipping container came into view. Its outer walls were streaked with rust where the paint had peeled away.

　　This was the space where she had spent her entire childhood. Here, she had eaten, slept, and left for school each day.

　　After punching in the passcode, she stepped inside and tossed the cigarette butt she had been clutching into the trash can. The bent filter fell with a soft thud. She washed her hands thoroughly in the sink, which was part of a small kitchenette right by the entrance, and then stripped off her work clothes, tossing them into the laundry basket. There was no room for a washing machine, so she had to collect her laundry and haul it to the staff quarters to be washed.

　　The bathroom was so cramped that one person could barely fit inside. Her father, who had been taller and stockier than she was, used to constantly bump his arms and legs against the walls. Of course, that was from a time when all three of them had lived here, bustling together in the tiny space.

　　Her father seemed to shrink and wither day by day after her mother’s sudden death. She hoped that, wherever he was now, he was at least free from the confines of a cramped bathroom like this.

　　After her shower, Yiseo wrapped her hair in a towel and stepped out. She hastily rubbed lotion on her face, then pulled a beer from the small, square refrigerator and popped the top. A cheerful fizz filled the silence.

　　Gulping down the cold liquid felt like it was clearing a refreshing path straight through her insides. Sipping beer alone in her room at night was a new habit she had picked up since returning to the mansion. It was deeply ironic, considering she had come to despise alcohol so much that the very thought of it made her shudder.

　　She pressed the button on the fan, and its blades began to whir with a tired rattle. Drying her hair in the artificial breeze, she took another swig of beer. Her gaze drifted to a picture frame on the low side table.

　　It was a photo from her high school graduation: herself holding a large bouquet, sandwiched between her beaming parents. They had both taken a special day off work, they’d said. After the ceremony, they had taken her to a family restaurant for the first time in her life.

　　The three of them had huddled over the complicated menu, flustered because they didn’t know what to order, but the food had been unbelievably delicious, and their laughter had spilled out endlessly.

　　Her mother had worked in the mansion’s kitchen, and her father had been a driver. They had drifted from one rented room to another until, around the time her mother’s belly inflated like a balloon, Chairman Kwon and his wife had graciously allowed them to live on the estate. In exchange, her father became an on-call driver, forced to rush out at a moment’s notice, day or night. But it had solved their precarious housing situation, and her mother was forever repeating, as if by habit, how indebted they were to the mansion’s owners.

　　Yiseo sometimes indulged in the futile fantasy of what might have happened if she hadn’t run away to college back then. If she had stayed, would she have noticed her mother was sick? By the time they discovered the cancer, it had already metastasized throughout her entire body, leaving no time for treatment. She could never forget the doctor’s expression as he clicked his tongue, remarking how he couldn’t imagine how she had endured such extreme pain for so long.

　　"Your fate is pretty… fucked up, isn’t it?"

　　Recalling the words Jingyeom had spat in her face, Yiseo shook her wet hair in front of the fan. A fucked-up fate… Yes, maybe that was exactly what it was. She had felt like the world had ended with her mother’s death, but she hadn’t known then that it was only the beginning of her misfortune.

　　Yiseo threw back the rest of the beer in one go and rose to her feet. Lights flashed from beyond the container’s window. The annex’s owner was throwing another party.