Babo Besties' Impure Relationship

 

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01 Just a friend… :

 It was a rainy summer night. The rain was falling hard. (Zuben: When a book starts with rain at night, it supposedly doesn't bode well)

Yira worried about her appearance as she had run out in a hurry. She checked her reflection in a shop window. Making sure her hair wasn’t wet, and she didn’t look too sloppy or shabby.

String was a high-class wine bar in Nonhyeon-dong that Yira’s friend of twenty years and her boss often frequented.

With a heart that was partly nervous and partly excited, she took the lift to the top floor of the building.

How much had he drunk that he was calling her this late?

She sighed.

Even though she was a bit angry at him for calling her out after ten pm on this rainy night, she was rather worried about him. (Zuben: He’s a grown ass man)

‘Oh! Hong!’

On entering the bar, Gye-eul saw her right away. He was sitting at a table by the window. He smiled and waved at her.

Cha Gye-eul. He had black hair and brown eyes. His face was handsome and immaculate. Illuminated by the low golden lights, his appearance made her heart beat faster.

‘What is it?’ she asked when she reached him, ‘I was about to fall asleep when you called.’

She took a seat beside him.

‘How can I go out drinking without you?’ Gye-eul replied with a smile as he ruffled her hair with a large hand. (Zuben: All well and good, but she was sleeping?)

‘Hello, Yira-ssi.’ A man sitting across from Gye-eul greeted her.

She suddenly noticed his presence, and bowed slightly.

‘Say hello, this is my hyung who helped me a lot while I was in Milan.’

‘I’m Lee Jun-ho.’

‘Hello, I’m Hong Yira.’ She greeted awkwardly.

Gye-eul smiled as he filled her glass saying proudly, ‘Hyung saw a picture of you on my phone and asked for an introduction.’

She went pale.

So, the reason why he dragged her out of bed on this rainy night was to set her up with his friend?

Her heart which had been throbbing with excitement, was suddenly throbbing in pain.

Lee Jun-ho laughed nervously, ‘Yes, I had been nervously excited looking forward to meeting you, Hong Yira-ssi. Are you surprised because it was so sudden? I apologise. I wanted to have a formal meeting, but this Gye-eul…’ (Zuben: Can I punch him and Winter?)

Gye-eul laughed, ‘Why are formalities needed? Let’s meet casually first and get closer. Don’t you think so, Hong?’ he said patting her shoulder.

It was always like this. Smiling, playful with his handsome face that was pleasing to everyone. He touched her head or patted her shoulder, and unknowingly shook her heart. Y-ra closed her eyes at the sensation of suffocation. (Zuben: Just date the Lee dude. When you’re no longer in his orbit, he’ll be looking for you)

Old love.

An old unrequited love.

Twenty years ago, from the moment she had met nine-year-old Cha Gye-eul, she had fallen in love. Even if he didn’t see her feelings, it didn’t matter as long as she could remain his friend. (Zuben: How do you fall in love at age nine.)

As though to prove that he was good-looking, Gye-eul cleaned up women one after the other, but those things didn’t matter to Yira. She was confident she would be the one always beside Gye-eul. (Zuben: Dumbass. What are you going to do if a ‘fluffy rabbit heroine’ ™ appears?!)

She had thought that in the past twenty years she had become immune to the pain was well scarred. But she guessed not.

Suddenly pain and sorrow bubbled up.

How long could she endure this? Ten more years? Twenty? No, it was now too hard to bear. (Zuben: as you lay your bed, so you lie in it)

‘Cha Gye-eul, what is this?’

Gye-eul’s eyes narrowed in confusion at her unusual tone.

‘You called me here to do this?!’ she said angrily.

Lee Jun-ho looked embarrassed by her reaction.

Gye-eul wondered why she was being sensitive, ‘It’s just an introduction, I’m just acting as the go-between.’ He said trying to cajole her, ‘Are you upset I didn’t tell you I was introducing you to someone?’ He tried to hug her shoulders again, but Yira batted his arm away coldly.

Thinking that he would be waiting for her, she had rushed out in a shabby t-shirt that had its neck stretched from years of wear and gym shorts which had gotten damp from the rain.

‘Hey, Hong Yira!’

Gye-eul was now looking a bit embarrassed. He grabbed her wrist tightly.

‘Who asked you to set me up?’

‘Hong Yira.’

‘Let. Go.’ She said harshly prying her wrist out of his hold. She marched out of the wine bar and rode the lift back down. The tears that she was unknowingly enduring were accumulating. It wasn’t until she reached the ground floor she realised that she hadn’t taken her umbrella. She could see the rain was getting heavier, but with a sigh, she went out in it, and was almost immediately drenched.

How nice it would be if this rain could wash away her foolish heart. But she knew from long experience, she couldn’t let go of her feelings for Gye-eul. If it had been like an origami heart, she would have flattened it long ago.

She walked on in the pouring rain.

‘Yira!’

Her arm was grabbed tightly.

She turned to see Gye-eul. He was holding her umbrella over her head.

‘What are you thinking? You’re getting drenched.’

Her sight of Gye-eul was distorted from the rain.

‘Cha Gye-eul,’ She called.

Even though she was so angry, she resented her heart that fluttered at the sight of him.

But she couldn’t stand it anymore. She wanted it to end. She had to go all the way, or she feared, she would remain forever suffering.

She looked up at him.

‘What am I to you?’

‘What…?’ he looked perplexed at the question.

‘Am I just friend to you?’

‘Huh?’ Gye-eul was confused, but he replied, ‘Yeah, you and I are friends…’

‘I like you, Cha Gye-eul.’

The rain fell in a cacophonous tattoo on the umbrella and the pavement.

‘What?’ Gye-eul frowned unsure he heard her correctly.

‘I. Like. You.’ She said again, confessing her long-held desire for him. Her eyes stared at him directly, trying to show him that her words were not a joke. Wet trails trickled from her eyes that weren’t rain water.

‘Dude, I like you too. Of course.’ He said jokingly as though he was trying to turn a blind eye to her confession. He smiled trying to hide his confusion.

Yira’s fists trembled, as tears flowed from her eyes. Her throat stung with pain.

‘I’m in love with you, you bastard!’ She screamed. The emotions that had been buried, exploded.

Gye-eul looked like he had been punched.

‘I want you…not as a friend…as a man. I like you like that, Cha Gye-eul.’

He gasped, ‘You…? What are you saying?’

She sighed but she didn’t answer, instead she turned away and said,

‘Take a taxi home. I can’t be your chauffer service today.’ (Zuben: Stop being his dogsbody, dumbass)

Without another glance at him, she walked out into the rain.

Gye-eul watched her go, but he was unable to move a step. Had he heard right? Maybe, he misunderstood because of the noisy rain. He was suddenly confused and at a loss for what to do.

Yira’s voice echoed in his ear.

I’m in love with you, you bastard!

The noisy fall of rain was around him.

The rainy season was so noisy. (Zuben: If it wasn’t the rain, it would be the cars on the road.)

 

02 Repenting at leisure

She stared at the forbidding closed door to the CEO’s office, and exuded a sigh of regret. She had left for work an hour earlier than usual so she wouldn’t run into him.

Hong Yira, you crazy bitch! Crazy!

She dropped her head on her desk with an expression of despair.

She didn’t even have intoxication as an excuse for her behaviour; so why did she do such a reckless thing last night? How could have she confessed her twenty-year-old love? (Zuben: If you didn’t already know now you know) How embarrassing must it have been for him to hear that someone he thought as an old friend was in love with him. Someone he didn’t see as a woman.

His befuddled expression was vivid in her mind.

And this morning, his cold face as he entered his office.

‘Team leader, are you alright today?’ Young-hwan, a new employee in the design marketing team asked. Yira was the team leader.

She quickly sat up and shook her head.

‘But it seems like team leader and the CEO are both experiencing low pressure today.’ Areum, another member of the team said.

Yira glanced back at his closed door.

The others nodded their heads in agreement.

Cha Gye-eul was usually a cheerful and playful person, but today, he had secluded himself in his office since he arrived.

‘Maybe something is wrong.’ Ji-won, the team leader of the management support team said. ‘Team leader Hong, go in and ask. I have something I need approved, but I’m too scared to go in first.’

He patted her shoulder.

Young-hwan turned to Areum beside him, ‘Why is Kim-ssi asking Hong-ssi to do that?’

Young-hwan had only been working at Florence for two weeks.

Areum gave him a conspiratorial look, ‘Because Hong-ssi and the CEO have been friends for eons.’

Young-hwan nodded with an enlightened expression.

Just then, the mysteriously closed door opened, and a rather stiff faced Gye-eul emerged. Because of this, the lax employees quickly returned to their work and avoided eye contact.

‘Team leader Hong.’

As expected, it was Yira he called. She rose with a mental sigh.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I need to speak with you for a moment.’

With laden legs, she entered his office with a folder of the third quarter design changes that wasn’t really her job to take care of.

Florence lingerie was a small but successful company that grew in just four years. It was a success story in the industry with CEO Cha Gye-eul at the helm. When he started the company, she had turned down a good position at a large conglomerate at his request to take the position of Design and Marketing lead.

Yira, who knew how hard Gye-eul had worked for this, couldn’t just abandon him. People mocked Gye-eul, saying his success was only because he was the son of Cha Won-sik, the president of a Eunsung Wool, a chaebol of the Korean fashion industry, but she knew that his success was the fruit of his hard work.

Her heels clicked as she walked across the wooden flooring to his office.

He closed the door behind her, and went round to sit against his desk.

He stared at her.

The atmosphere got awkward quickly, so Yira said, ‘I have brought the design files with me, you mentioned you didn’t want to change the designs…’

‘Was it a joke?’ he asked.

Yira stilled, ‘What do you…mean?’ she asked trying to pull herself together.

He hadn’t taken her seriously. What else was new?

‘What you said last night?’

She knew he wanted her to tell him she was joking. She felt like she was going to fall apart. Though she had never expected him to love her back, it was unbearable for him to take her feelings as a joke.

‘I don’t think we’re in the right place to discuss this.’

‘We’re not, but I want to discuss it because I can’t do anything. Hurry up and answer; you were joking last night, weren’t you?’

Yira clenched her fists.

‘No.’

Gye-eul’s eyes rounded, ‘Hong Yira…’

‘Why do you think it’s a joke?’

‘Because we’re friends, Hong.’

‘Yes, I am your friend and have been for the last twenty years.’

‘So why are you going this all of a sudden?’

‘All of a sudden? It’s not all of a sudden, I have felt like this the whole time. You just didn’t notice!’

Gye-eul sighed, his handsome eyebrowed dipped into a frown, ‘So why are you saying something you haven’t mentioned in the past twenty years?’

Her cat like eyes were heating up again, but she hoped she wouldn’t cry.

Her voice trembled as she said, ‘I wanted to end it. This damned hopeless love, I wanted to end it. I want to stop liking you, Gye-eul.’

There was silence between them.

It may sound contradictory to confess a love to end it, but for Yira, it was heartfelt. She had this fear that if she didn’t do it, she would never be able to move on.

‘What…?’

‘I don’t even want to be friends with you anymore.’

‘Hong.’

Scene of the past twenty years flashed in her head like a movie; from the moment they met, all the way through their childhood, adolescence, and in university.

‘From now on, our relationship will be defined as CEO and employee, landlord and tenant.’ She said firmly.

Her coldness made him feel strange.

Though she was trying to clear her complicated mind, it was beginning to feel more twisted to him.

‘You really…’

‘If you have nothing more to say, I’ll return to my desk.’ She cut off his words, and left his office abruptly.

Gye-eul sighed at the shut door.

It was still incomprehensible; why was she doing this all of a sudden? Was it in protest because he had tried to set her up? Was is a prank? But she had said she wasn’t joking. Yet, he still couldn’t believe that it was true. It made no sense. (Zuben: You’re not responsible for her feelings, dude. You don’t have to date her. Oh wait, if you don’t we won’t get to the smut – carry on ruminating)

He couldn’t believe Hong Yira liked him. She loved him?

He still couldn’t understand it.

 ❃

A Kakaotalk message arrived as they work day ended. She frowned.

Hello, Lee Jun-ho here. We greeted each other last night. Sorry to bother you.

Yira could not believe that Gye-eul gave him her phone number. How could he give her number without her consent?!

I’m sorry for being rude, but I would like to meet you tonight if you wouldn’t mind. I would like to get to know you more.

Yira stared at her phone for a long time without answering. She was suddenly angry at Cha Gye-eul who didn’t care whether she dated or married another man. Maybe that was why she had made such reckless confession last night.

She held on for a moment, then began to tap on her screen.

Sure. Where should we meet?

Once she pressed send, she rose out of her chair.

‘I’m going home first. I have a date.’

Everyone’s eyes turned to her.

This was unprecedented. Her colleagues knew her very well, she was someone who went from home to work and back again without every going on a date.

‘I have an appointment with Team Manager Oh Heung-ho tomorrow at 9.’

‘Okay, see you tomorrow.’

They stared after her as she walked out.

‘Does team leader Hong have a boyfriend?’ Ko Young-hwan asked Areum.

‘I don’t think so. As far as I’m aware, she comes to work and goes home. So, it’s likely she’s unattached.’

‘How strange, she’s very beautiful. Maybe she intimidates the men around her?’

‘Hey, have you fallen for Hong-ssi?’

‘Oh no! I just respect her as a senior and my boss.’

Everyone burst into laughter at Young-hwan’s embarrassment.

But Gye-eul could not. 

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