CHAPTER 5

Through the open window, not only the sound of music but also the lively laughter came in. To sleep peacefully again tonight seemed unlikely. Leeseo let out a short sigh.

The owner of the annex, Kwon Tae-gyeom, was truly a strange man.

He’d only been in Korea for a couple of weeks, and yet he was out every night, inviting people over for parties. Leeseo truly wonders how he has so many friends considering his strange personality.

‘What are you looking at?’

Water droplets rolled down his sharp jawline. His black hair damp with water. The wrinkles on his smooth forehead looked prominent. The way he looked at people like they were a nuisance.

He probably doesn’t treat his friends that disrespectfully.

However, Leeseo couldn’t imagine the image of the man, pleading gently with his close friends. She adjusted the direction of the fan on her own and enjoyed the breeze while being lost in her thoughts.

The man’s dazzling bare body emerging from the water’s surface left Leeseo momentarily speechless and stunned. She felt embarrassed and flustered at the thought of herself being so entranced and staring blankly at him that she could just suffocate.

She shuddered, feeling a chill run down her spine. It wasn’t until today that she realized what it meant to want to hide in a rat hole.

She accidentally caught a glimpse of someone n*ked, and was sorry for it… But even if it’s a house where one lives alone, wouldn’t it be normal to have at least put on a swimwear?

Leeseo shook her head as she looked at the noisy annex beyond the window. Anyone would have looked as frozen as she did if he’d suddenly jumped out of the pool without a single piece of clothing on. It’s hard to believe it’s part of a human body, something that huge…….

I must be crazy, really.

She squeezed his eyes shut and hastily pushed away the scene from her mind. Heat rose to her face. She tried fanning herself, but it was no use.

She couldn’t believe how she kept replaying him in her mind, feeling embarrassed and dumbfounded by herself. Taking a deep sigh, she pressed a cold beer can against her flushed cheek, cooling herself down.

His n*ked body, which she saw by accident, was truly out of the ordinary. It was strange, shocking, and disturbing. That’s why it kept coming back to her mind.

‘You were staring too much. Does my d*ck look so tempting to you?’

And then he said this ridiculous thing……. Leeseo was so stunned, she couldn’t even speak.

Leeseo shivered briefly and then got up from her seat to close the window of her container room. The loud music subsided considerably after that but even when she drew the curtains, the faint glow of bright lights beyond the fabric peeked through.

I should get blackout curtains.

She organized the empty beer cans, reminding herself to go shopping on the weekend. After brushing her teeth, she sat back against the headboard of her bed and read a book. The text in front of her became increasingly blurry and distorted with the fatigue of the day combined with a slight tipsy feeling absorbed her.

Dozing off repeatedly, Leeseo temporarily woke up when her head fell with a thud. She put the book down and crawled into the bed, snuggling under the blankets. The light from the annex poured in through the thin curtains, flickering like a snake’s tongue.

She sighed and turned her back to it. Shadows of light danced softly across the container walls through the curtains.

That night, Leeseo couldn’t sleep for a long time.

And throughout the night, the lights in the annex never went out.

* * *

“I’m here.”

As she opened the side door and went in to the kitchen, the smell of cooking wafted through the air.

“Oh, Leeseo, you’re here? Come and sit quickly.”

Chef Kim waved the ladle in his hand to welcome Leeseo. The other employees around the table also waved good morning to her. It was a lively morning just like any other.

As soon as she sat down at the edge of the dining table, a small bowl of rice was placed in front of her. Hot steam rose from the rice, which was mixed with plenty of crown daisy greens. The employee sitting next to her pushed a small dish containing seasoned soy sauce and sesame oil toward her.

“Wow, it’s crown daisy rice.”

“Yeah, you like it, right? I made it with the crown daisy greens sent from Jeongseon yesterday. It’s precious, so eat a lot. Jeongseon crown daisy greens have a unique fragrance.”

“I’ll enjoy it.”

“Instead of mixing the soy sauce from the beginning, try gently mixing it with the stew first and then eating it.”

Chef Kim set down a bowl of miso stew with plenty of marbled pork belly next to Leeseo’s rice bowl. He patted Leeseo on the back and hurriedly went back to the kitchen to flip the mackerel cooking on the grill.

“What’s this? There’s a lot of meat in your bowl. Chef Kim’s really generous with you. Mine just had plenty of vegetables.”

Across the table, the gardener, who had finished his meal, rinsed his mouth with cold water and grumbled playfully.

“Why should I give more meat to the man who keeps asking for an extra bowl? He could just come to work at a more reasonable time, but he keeps showing up so early in the morning to get me to serve him more food.”

“Because the food here is delicious.”

The gardener just shrugged and split a kiwi in half and scooped out its contents with a teaspoon. Leeseo also laughed heartily and picked up a spoon. She scooped up a mouthful of the crown daisy rice with a little sesame oil and swallowed it in one bite, filling her mouth with the savory aroma of greens.

“Did you sleep well last night?”

Mrs. Seo, while peeling the kiwi with excessive care, asked.

“From what I heard, it was partying loudly in the annex all night yesterday. Did you hear everything in your room?”

Leeseo slurped the savory miso soup down her throat and replied.

“Ah, I was fine after falling asleep. Once I doze off, I sleep so deeply that no one can disturb me.”

In truth, she woke up several times in the dawn, tossed and turned around. The music coming over from the annex was too loud to lull her to sleep.

“Well, that’s good to hear. Finish your meal and come with me to the annex today.”

“…The annex?”

Leeseo looked puzzled.

“While the young master sleeps on the upper floor, we need to clean up all the mess left there. You know how he doesn’t like running into the staff. But if this goes on, after nights of partying like last night, I think I can be at a level where I can clean it up quickly on my own for the next day.”

Since Kwon Tae-gyeom’s return to Korea, there had already been several instances of wild parties in the annex. They partied all night, making such a commotion that it was obvious that the interior of the house would be a mess.

Mrs. Seo shook her head as if she could see it clearly.

“We need to clean up everything before the young master wakes up, but there’s no way I can do it alone. Do you have any schedule for today?”

“No.”

Leeseo’s tasks were not really specifically defined. Depending on the situation, she would assist in the kitchen and garden maintenance, tend to the vegetable garden, or run the vacuum cleaner in the common areas of the accommodation.

In fact, she was hesitant to call herself an official employee. She hadn’t returned to the mansion as a hired worker from the beginning. She had merely sought refuge in the place she grew up, escaping her life. The place she had returned to was not just a workplace, it had become a hiding spot from her troubles.

At one point, she had exerted all her efforts to escape and avoid this place, but in the end, she had returned to it on her own accord. She found it funny and ironic how she once viewed the cramped and old container home with distaste, considering it drab and suffocating. Yet now, the memories of the her family bustling and living together there had become her only solace. Life had a way of surprising us, leading us back to unexpected places and finding comfort in the most unlikely circumstances.

Last winter, a series of events forced her to take a leave of absence from school and she spent days being holed up in the container house. The staffs working in the mansion eventually coaxed her out after more than a week of seclusion.

Some of them had known Leeseo since she was a child, and they seemed to sympathize with her situation. At some point, Mrs. Seo’s strict hands had reached her, and she started assisting with chores around the mansion from spring onwards.

Not long after, Mr. Gong Jihoon, the manager overseeing the mansion’s staff, presented her with an employment contract. The salary listed in the contract was quite generous, comparable to the amount of money she could have earned by diligently working a part-time job during the semester. It was an unexpectedly generous gesture.

Even though the hiring of staff was technically under the authority of Manager Gong Jihoon, it couldn’t have happened without the approval of Chairman Kwon and his family. If her mother was still alive, she would probably say that they received another great favor from the mansion’s owners.

“Then why don’t you come with me today and clean up the annex. It’ll be quicker if we do it together, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, finish eating quickly then.”

Mrs. Seo sliced the kiwi into bite-sized pieces and put it on a plate, and then started placing the tender grilled mackerel on top of the crown daisy rice.

Leeseo looked down into her bowl. She thought she would never receive such warm care again, but she felt comfortable and content. Maybe it was because of the many considerate housemates at the quarters that she couldn’t help but act like a child at times.

‘It’s really… damn great, isn’t it?’

She didn’t know why that phrase popped into her head so suddenly. Receiving such a lavish meal fit for a king since the morning, there was no way her behavior could be considered ‘great’.

With a dry smile, Leeseo swallowed a spoonful rice along with the fish meat. The savory and fragrant aroma of the green filled her mouth.

* * *

“Oh my, if anyone sees this, they’d think there was a war or something.”

Mrs. Seo murmured as she looked around the courtyard of the annex.

In just one night, the place had turned into complete mess, as if a swarm of locusts had swept through. The booming music that had rattled their eardrums was now completely gone, leaving the annex eerily silent, resembling a quiet and desolate ruin.