Real Man

Chapter 32

Yoo-hyun smiled coldly.

“She’s not a novice at this.”

The woman was a clear-cut gold digger.

She even used a pickpocket trick and read the direction of the CCTV. 

She was a cunning gold digger.

The middle-aged man had no chance in this well-designed trap.

Even though he knew that, he struggled to get out of it.

He approached the woman next to him and pleaded.

“Hey, you saw it, right? I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh my, why are you like this?”

But the people around him were not sympathetic to the middle-aged man at all.

Even if they guessed the situation like Yoo-hyun, they wouldn’t step up in this atmosphere.

At that moment, Yoo-hyun saw the woman nod her head.

The young man who pretended to have his wallet stolen blinked his eyes as if he understood.

The gold digger said a line that only appeared in dramas with tearful eyes.

“I’m going to sue you.”

“…”

“Apologize now. Right now!”

“…”

The response of the people around him grew louder.

The middle-aged man who lost his spirit was speechless.

At that moment, he heard the voices of the people around him piercing his chest.

“Apologize quickly.”

“That’s really too much.”

“People your age shouldn’t act like that!”

The expression of the middle-aged man was full of despair.

What was the appropriate way for the middle-aged man to deal with this situation?

There was none.

The best thing to do was to go to the police station, but it was not an easy choice.

He could be branded as a sexual harasser if he made a mistake.

That’s what the gold digger was aiming for.

Yoo-hyun had experienced the same thing in the past, so he knew it well.

Self-harm gangsters.

He didn’t trust people much because of the trauma that remained from that memory.

It wasn’t something that ended with a moment of shock. It followed him for his whole life.

Because of these bastards.

Ugh.

He felt annoyed just thinking about it.

If it were like before, he would have dismissed it as none of his business and passed by long ago, but this time he wanted to meddle a bit.

He didn’t want to help the middle-aged man.

He wanted to rip off the fake mask of the gold digger properly.

“Shut up and give me your wallet. These guys need to eat some beans…”

The young man who was part of the gang pushed the middle-aged man roughly while he was speaking.

Yoo-hyun stepped forward at the right timing.

“Hey, stop, stop. Adults shouldn’t lie.”

At that, the young man frowned and glared at Yoo-hyun.

“Who are you?”

“More importantly, I’m curious. What does that woman call you? Uncle? Manager? Brother? Oppa?”

“You bastard.”

The young man snapped angrily.

Yoo-hyun smiled and observed the subtle movements of his pupils and facial muscles.

These kids’ expressions were information themselves.

“Oh, oppa. You shouldn’t pretend to be strangers when you’re siblings.”

“…”

Yoo-hyun grinned leisurely and made eye contact with the young man. 

The middle-aged man blinked his eyes, wondering what was going on.

Among the murmurs of the crowd, Yoo-hyun opened his mouth without missing the timing.

“Han Minji.”

“…!”

“Stop playing around. Okay?”

“Oh my.”

When Yoo-hyun called her name, the woman opened her mouth in surprise.

How did Yoo-hyun know?

It wasn’t that hard actually.

He inferred it from the ‘HMJ’ engraved on the surface of her wallet and the word ‘Mingji’ written in cursive on a photo inside her wallet.

He thought it was a pretty high probability and said it. 

And he was right.

Even if he wasn’t, he had other ways, but calling her name made things easier.

Especially when the two hesitated, the situation quickly turned around.

“What?”

“What’s going on?”

A different kind of murmur came from around them.

In a perfectly reversed situation, there were always limited actions that stupid people could take.

As expected, the young man clenched his fist.

“You bastard!”

“Why, are you going to hit me?”

“What did you say!”

“Don’t mess with me. You’ll really regret it.”

Yoo-hyun moved closer to him just before he swung his fist.

Thud.

The young man who was already overwhelmed didn’t even reach out his hand but backed away and bit his lower lip bitterly.

There was definitely an effect of going to the gym regularly.

“Tsk.”

The woman who sensed the situation hid herself among the crowd and quickly disappeared.

She was a quick-witted woman.

The young man who was late to run away tried to escape when Yoo-hyun reached out his hand and shouted.

“Hey!”

“Get out of the way.”

Then he pushed the people and ran down the stairs.

“Ouch!”

Thud thud thud.

He even rolled down the stairs with his face.

But he still managed to get up and ran through the crowded crowd.

It was almost time for work, so Yoo-hyun didn’t bother to chase him.

“…”

The onlookers who were pointing fingers at the two who ran away were silent when Yoo-hyun turned his gaze.

They felt guilty for siding with the gold digger gang, so they looked around and soon scattered.

From their perspective, it was just a fun spectacle.

It was none of their business anyway.

Yoo-hyun didn’t help with a great sense of duty either.

As he was about to turn his feet, the middle-aged man stopped Yoo-hyun.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. And this…”

He took out a thick wallet.

It was obvious that there was a lot of cash in it.

He grabbed a bunch of bills with two fingers and pulled them out. 

He seemed to know what to say next.

He was about to hand over some money with a clichéd expression of gratitude.

Yoo-hyun stopped his hand that was halfway out of his wallet and said.

“It’s okay. I didn’t do it for the money.”

“But still…”

The middle-aged man who paused looked at Yoo-hyun with a frown.

“Put it away. And you shouldn’t offer money first in this situation.”

“…”

“Then I’ll be going.”

He turned his steps again.

He had barely enough time to get to work.

On the other side, there was someone who watched Yoo-hyun enter the building.

It was the gold digger gang who had been fooled by him.

“Son of a bitch. Let’s see how long you can last.”

The man who bent his waist and the man who clenched his teeth.

The two men stood out among the busy people with their unusual appearance.

…

Yoo-hyun entered the building and moved to the auditorium on the first floor.

Inside the auditorium, there were his colleagues who had arrived earlier.

They looked young and naive with their excitement and anxiety.

On the other hand, their eyes were full of pride for working at Hansung Tower.

It was understandable.

They were a special case among the new recruits.

In fact, there were only 12 new employees assigned to the LCD business unit who would work at Hansung Tower.

They were only 1% of the 1,200 new employees hired in the second half of the year.

In other words, they were the elite few.

And working at Seoul Hansung Tower added to their specialness.

Yoo-hyun smiled lightly as he saw them.

He remembered his past self.

There was a brief training by a senior from the HR team in the auditorium.

“Welcome to your employment…”

After hearing about the working hours, security zones, mentoring schedule, and so on, the 12 colleagues took the elevator up.

They each went to get their laptops that they would use in their work.

After receiving their laptops from the general affairs team, they had an indefinite waiting time.

They had to wait until their senior mentors came to pick them up.

In a conference room on the tenth floor.

The new employees from IT/TV group and staff departments such as PR, accounting, and strategy had already left.

Only two people from mobile sales marketing remained.

They were Min Jeong-hyuk, who was assigned to the sales team, and Kwon Se-jung, who was assigned to the marketing team.

Kwon Se-jung seemed nervous about being deployed to the field soon and kept shaking his legs.

“I want to go back. The new employee training. Ugh.”

Min Jeong-hyuk, who was one year older than him, snorted at him.

“What? You said you were so tired of doing assignments. You said you wanted to go to work soon.”

“Hey, hyung. That was then.”

“And now?”

When Min Jeong-hyuk asked with a subtle look, Kwon Se-jung’s expression changed.

“When I got my salary, I forgot all about how hard it was.”

“Wow. Impressive.”

“And back then I didn’t have an ID card yet. But now I have it around my neck.”

Min Jeong-hyuk stuck out his tongue and Kwon Se-jung smiled smugly and showed him his ID card.

Yoo-hyun chuckled as he listened quietly.

He felt good seeing Kwon Se-jung’s brightened face.

He no longer looked dark and wary like before.

Then Kwon Se-jung seemed to remember something and whispered to Yoo-hyun.

“Yoo-hyun-ah, I got a text from that Chief.”

“What did he say?”

“He said to work hard. Haha, it’s all thanks to you. Thank you.”

“That’s good.”

What would it have been like in the past?

When he thought back on it, solving Chief Choi Kang-won’s case was really a stroke of genius.

He smiled as he watched him and Min Jeong-hyuk grumbled.

“What? Let me in too.”

“He asked me how to be a popular new employee. Yoo-hyun is smart, you know.”

Kwon Se-jung twisted his words and Min Jeong-hyuk’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh really? Ask me too.”

“How should I do it?”

When Yoo-hyun asked with innocent eyes, Min Jeong-hyuk straightened his posture and adjusted his glasses frame.

There was a flash of light under his thin frameless glasses.

“First of all, you don’t need to be nervous in front of your seniors.”

“And then?”

“Especially don’t be stiff. You might be ignored. What you need to do is…”

“Haha.”

He looked like a master of corporate life and Yoo-hyun snickered.

He saw that and Min Jeong-hyuk raised his voice.

“Yoo-hyun-ah, I’m serious.”

“Just imagining the situation makes me laugh.”

“Wait until it happens. You won’t be able to laugh.”

He sounded confident, but Min Jeong-hyuk was just a new employee who had just entered.

He was just repeating what he had heard from somewhere else, not what he had experienced himself.

If it were the old Yoo-hyun?

He would have either tackled him or ignored him completely.

That sharp edge was the main factor that made him distant from his colleagues.

What’s the point of that?

In fact, he wasn’t wrong.

Yoo-hyun smiled and played along with him.

“Yes. You’re right. Please continue, hyung.”

“Really? Is it helpful?”

“Yes. It helps.”

“And next…”

Min Jeong-hyuk seemed to be in high spirits and went on with his speech.