Hyena stumbled out of the taxi and wobbled down the street.

Her mind was perfectly clear, but with every step she took, the ground swayed beneath her feet. She stopped and glared down at the pavement.

“What the h*ll? Why are you doing this?”

Even though the inanimate object couldn’t possibly answer, she kept waiting for a response.

“Are you ignoring me too?”

Again, no answer came. Hyena let out a deep sigh and waved her hand dismissively through the air.

“Whatever, fine. I’m not the kind of person who gets ignored just because someone tries to ignore me. I’m going my own way!”

After shouting at the top of her lungs, she stomped on the ground repeatedly like she was punishing it.

As she continued this for a while, the frustration she’d briefly forgotten reared its head again.

“Seriously, I can’t believe it. Did I do it on purpose? I just did exactly what he told me to do. But what? Why do I only do what I’m told? If I hadn’t done what he said, he would’ve cursed me out for talking back to my superior. Manager Lee, seriously!”

Lately, Manager Lee had been nitpicking everything she did, seemingly full of complaints. He was probably taking out his frustration over being passed up for promotion. Out of all his subordinates, he had to single her out specifically.

“If I did his work for him, he should be grateful instead of complaining. Honestly, why should I be the one making those materials? Am I the one trying to look good in front of the new team leader? Am I? He’s the one who wants to look good, so why make me do it? This is straight-up labor exploitation.”

Stomp, stomp. Her soles stung from the continued kicking, but Hyena didn’t stop. She couldn’t forget the humiliation she’d suffered on Monday morning, the start of the week, in front of all her coworkers. After wrestling with the ground for a while, Hyena suddenly clenched her fists tight.

“You think I’m going to be intimidated? I’m Yoon Hyena. The toughest and most competent among my peers. I’ll make you pay dearly for messing with me!”

As she staggered and poured out everything she had to say, someone called out to her.

“Miss from 702?”

At the familiar voice, she looked up to see the security guard she was friendly with peeking his head out from the security office.

“Oh, sir. Hello.”

Hyena bowed her head in greeting.

“My goodness, why did you drink so much today?”

“Something really upsetting happened.”

“That’s just how work life is. Don’t drink too much just because you’re upset. You’ll hurt yourself.”

At his warm concern, Hyena bowed her head again.

“Thank you for worrying about me.”

“Shake it off and go inside to rest.”

“Yes. Take care.”

The security guard tilted his head as he watched her stumble away.

“Didn’t she say that young man who came today was her older brother? What kind of siblings look so completely different?”

His muttering soon disappeared through the gap in the window he’d closed to block out the cold air.

After three attempts, Hyena finally unlocked the door and entered her place, staring at her reflection in the entrance mirror. Unfocused eyes, flushed red cheeks, disheveled hair. The mirror showed someone completely different from when she’d left for work that morning.

“Yoon Hyena, today was really tough. Like the security guard said, let’s shake it off. Shake it off and sleep well. Then a new day will unfold. Tomorrow is another day, right?”

Giggling as she quoted her favorite movie, she hummed the famous OST.

“Hmm. Hm hm hmm. Hmm. Hm hm hmm. Hm hm hmm…”

Possessed by the female lead dancing with the mustachioed male lead, she spun round and round across the living room when something caught her eye.

‘What’s that?’

She tilted her head and tried to stop, but couldn’t overcome the momentum of her spinning and her body swayed. Taking a few steps to the left to avoid falling, then a few more to the right, Hyena stopped right in front of the object that had caught her attention.

Before her eyes was a man’s body with muscles she’d only seen on TV screens.

“Am I still drunk?”

Muttering, Hyena squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. But the muscles in front of her didn’t disappear. 

As she lowered her gaze a bit more, she saw a clearly defined six-pack abdomen and below that, a towel barely covering what lay beneath. Even with the n*ked eye, she could tell something thick and long was under that towel.

‘Could that be… that?’

She’d never encountered a man’s g*nitals in this way before. Not that she was completely clueless about such things. As she stared at it intently, the towel seemed to squirm like a living creature.

Hyena reached out her hand without realizing it. She wanted to personally confirm the identity of something she only had suspicions about.

Little by little, her hand advanced until it finally touched the towel. She could feel the squirming flesh directly beneath her palm. Hot and damp and…

“Hard.”

The moment the word left her mouth, the flesh in her palm began to swell.

Fascinated by this, she tried to grip it harder when something grabbed her hand.

“Do you even know what that is that you’re touching it like that?”

“A c*ck.”

As she blurted out a word she’d heard somewhere, a sigh poured down from above her head.

“Do you know what happens when you mess with this carelessly?”

“…”

“You’ll get pounded until you’re raw down there. Even if you beg me to stop, I absolutely won’t.”

At the voice boring into her eardrums, something below her body tingled. Like it was begging to be pounded.

“Yoon Hyena.”

She snapped her head up at the voice calling her name.

First the tightly defined six-pack abdomen came into view, then the muscular chest in sequence. Traveling up past the protruding Adam’s apple, a firm jaw and well-shaped lips were revealed. 

Hyena moved her gaze upward without hesitation. As she traveled up past the straight nose, she met long, narrow black eyes.

A somehow familiar face and gaze.

Hyena rolled her eyes and checked the face before her once more. It was Do Gunwoo. The son of Mom’s best friend, Aunt Eunju, and the nemesis she’d spent most of her life with. And…

‘My first love.’

The definition that flashed through her mind left a bitter taste. But her alcohol-soaked brain quickly swallowed that bitterness.

“This is definitely Do Gunwoo’s face. Ha, fine. I’ll admit it. I’m drunk. Very drunk. Otherwise there’s no way I’d be seeing someone who’s across the ocean in America here…”

Hyena shook her head roughly. The motion made her body lose balance and sway. Fortunately, she quickly returned to her original position.

“Did I have such good balance? I drank that much but I’m still fine.”

Hehe. Between her stifled laughter, a voice that couldn’t be hers penetrated.

“I told you to only drink as much as you can handle, didn’t I?”

“Wow, that’s creepy.”

Do Gunwoo, who had first taught her to drink, had said exactly that. And for several years after.

“How old am I that I still have to be swayed by words like that? Yoon Hyena, let’s graduate from this. Please.”

“I won’t let you.”

Hyena shuddered. That pleasant low voice with perfect pronunciation. This was definitely Do Gunwoo’s.

“Wow, now I’m even hearing voices. For a hallucination, this is way too vivid.”

Suddenly something grabbed her limp hand. Soon warmth touched her cold hand. Hyena blinked and stared at where her hand had landed. She could feel muscles squirming beneath her hand.

Her alcohol-soaked mind turned ice cold.

Timidly raising her gaze, Hyena let out a shriek.

“Eek!”

Her body, losing its center from the sudden movement, fell backward.

‘Between the drunken scene and the slapstick, I’m doing everything.’

Anticipating the coming pain, Hyena squeezed her eyes shut. But the expected pain didn’t come. Instead, something hard and hot was felt through her thin blouse.

Thump thump. A vigorous heartbeat—she didn’t even know whose—seeped into her skin. That was the only way she could describe it. A strange state where sight and hearing closed off and only touch remained vivid.

She didn’t want to be released from this solid embrace.

“Ha, you make me like this and then fall asleep?”

“…”

“You’d better prepare yourself, Yoon Hyena.”

With that ominous warning, her consciousness faded. It was the moment when the rationality that had briefly returned was completely consumed by intoxication.

Without knowing that her collapsing body was being lifted or that she was being laid on the bed, she was completely devoured by the sleep that overwhelmed her.

***

Hyena opened her eyes to the sound of her alarm ringing incessantly and clutched her head at the splitting headache.

“Ugh, my head.”

A groan escaped involuntarily.

The headache that inevitably followed excessive drinking never became familiar no matter how many times she experienced it.

“Who else can I blame? This is all my fault for having zero learning ability.”

After facing the usual brief moment of reality, she slowly sat up.

How nice would it be if today were Saturday? But unfortunately, the weekend she so desperately wanted was still far away.

“I need to settle my stomach. Do I have time to eat ramen?”

As she calculated the time and stretched hard, Hyena’s eyes widened. Then she recalled what she’d worn yesterday. A white blouse and jeans.

Thanks to that outfit, she’d listened to Manager Lee’s subtle nagging all day, so there was no way she’d forget.

‘What’s wrong with this outfit!’

She even remembered drinking with Heejin, her colleague, and cursing out Manager Lee. 

But why was she wearing pajamas now? 

As far as she could remember, she’d never properly changed into pajamas on nights when she was drunk. She’d been too busy collapsing onto the bed the moment she saw it.

“Was I less drunk than I thought yesterday?”

Even as she spoke, she tilted her head at the unresolved question. Hyena, who had been casually looking around, paused. She noticed her clothes neatly folded.

‘Neatly folded clothes, changed pajamas.’

Because these were actions she never normally did, they particularly grated on her nerves. The problem was that no matter how much she thought about it, she had no memory of what happened after she came home yesterday.

After pondering for a while, Hyena jumped up from her seat.

“I’ll think later. First, let’s survive.”

Muttering, she walked toward the kitchen and paused. Someone was occupying her dining table.

The person sitting there in neat appearance, elegantly drinking coffee, was definitely—

“Eek!”

At the sharp metallic sound, Gunwoo, who had been looking at his tablet, raised an eyebrow.

“You’re the same as always, Yoon Hyena.”

Every cell in her body reacted instantly to the voice he casually tossed out. It was a familiar sensation she felt whenever dealing with Do Gunwoo. 

There was only one person in the world who could instantly close the distance she’d worked so hard to create with just his voice.

‘Do Gunwoo.’

Hyena stared blankly at the man before her.

It had been a year since he’d been promoted at his company and transferred to head the American branch. He’d been cold enough not to return to Korea even once during that year.

Did he come back for accumulated vacation? If so, he would have gone to his parents’ house. Could he have come here because he missed me…

Suppressing the expectation that was bound to end in disappointment, Hyena asked bluntly.

“Why are you here?”

“Because this is my house.”

She couldn’t argue with that. This officetel was legally in his name, and Hyena had only agreed to borrow it temporarily while he was away.

“How did you even get in?”

Aunt Eunju or Mom must have told him.

Answering her own question while fidgeting with her fingers for no reason, Gunwoo spoke up.

“The password was still the same.”

“Ah…”

The number was too familiar for her to think of changing it. The door lock password was the day Gunwoo and Hyena first met. Of course, she didn’t believe Gunwoo had set the password with that in mind.

Someone who didn’t even properly celebrate his own birthday wouldn’t remember something like that. It was probably just a coincidence.

“If you’re here on vacation, shouldn’t you go greet Aunt and Uncle first? But why are you here…”

“I’ve moved back completely.”

“What?”

Her voice rose without her realizing it. Even at Hyena’s outburst, Gunwoo paid no attention and fixed his gaze back on his tablet.

“Why so suddenly? You said you’d be there for at least a few more years…”

“I changed companies.”

A curt explanation followed.

“This suddenly? This isn’t roasting beans in a lightning flash—why so rushed?”

“The schedule just moved up faster than expected.”

“If you were coming, you could have at least contacted me. You scared me.”

“Who got scared?”

A sulky voice poured out, but Hyena didn’t quite catch it.

“Don’t tell me you came in knowing I was living here?”

“This is my house. And I, as the owner, have the right to enter my own house.”

“Even so, without any warning like this…”

“Auntie said she told you in advance.”

“I never heard any—”

Hyena, who had been speaking with raised hackles, suddenly closed her mouth. A few days ago, Jeongseon—her mother—who had called to nag, had added something at the end that happened to come to mind at that moment.

‘Gunwoo got scouted by another company and is coming back to Korea. Eunju says she’ll find another place because you’d be uncomfortable, but we can’t kick out the owner. There are two rooms left anyway, so live together.’

The problem was that she’d been juggling three tasks at once due to Manager Lee’s harassment and had let her mom’s words go in one ear and out the other. How could she forget something like that!

If it had been a bed, this would be a moment for some blanket-kicking.

“Just to be clear, Aunt Eunju was the one who suggested I move in first.”

Six months ago, because of her father’s health after his cancer surgery, both parents had decided to quit their lifelong jobs and move to the outskirts where the scenery and air were good. 

The problem was that the place they were moving to was far from the company Hyena worked at.

She’d insisted on independence because the commute would take over three hours round trip, but was immediately shot down. Her mother said that if her daughter, who lived like a mess even with them around, became independent, she’d turn into a complete wreck.

It was Aunt Eunju who convinced her mother, who kept shouting absolute opposition. She said Gunwoo had bought a place before going to America that was still empty, so why not let her live there?

Of course, she’d refused at first. Living in the house of someone she’d firmly decided to forget—that was absolutely impossible.

But faced with her mother’s stubbornness that she couldn’t accept any other form of independence, she eventually moved in here. At first, she’d planned to stay for just a few days until she found a place. So she went to look at apartments whenever she had time.

She’d calculated that once she found a place and informed them, her mother wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

The problem was that finding a safe, decent place was harder than she’d thought. If the place was decent, it was too far from work, and if it was close to work, the monthly rent was too expensive.

And she couldn’t very well ask her parents for money.

‘Gunwoo can’t come back to Korea for several years anyway. So live comfortably.’

With Aunt Eunju’s continued persuasion, she’d decided to stay for just one more year. But living there for free didn’t sit right with her conscience.

When she first offered money as rent, Auntie had adamantly refused, waving her hands. The place was empty anyway, so what did it matter if someone used it?

The problem was that Hyena had no intention of backing down either. After a war of words where neither would yield, a price was set. It was nowhere near proper rent, but it was enough to soothe her guilty conscience.

Let’s find a place and move out quickly. That’s what she’d decided, but she got swamped with work and life. And so the number of times she went apartment hunting gradually decreased.

‘I should have kept looking for a place.’

Through her belated regret, an irritating voice penetrated.

“I heard. You’ve been paying rent faithfully.”