The Variable He Wanted to Erase

“……I'm sorry, what?”

“What?”

Sojin blinked.

“I'm the team leader. Am I not supposed to act like this?”

Sojin stared up at Hyeonju with the wide-eyed, guileless expression of a child.

A frosty silence settled over the office.

Hyeonju said nothing, but the fingertips tapping her keyboard pressed down harder and harder.

Sojin smiled as if savoring the tension in the air.

Then she strolled back to her own desk and powered on her computer.

What lit up the monitor wasn't a work screen—it was a luxury clothing site.

Sojin left it there, leaned back in her chair, and popped her wireless earbuds into both ears.

Minjun approached her cautiously.

“Team Leader, um…….”

With her earbuds still in, Sojin merely moved her lips.

“Hm? What was that?”

“Could you take your earbud out for just a second…….”

“Oh, sorry, I love listening to music while I work.”

Sojin tapped the earbud with a fingertip. Tap, tap.

“Just leave it in the messenger for me.”

Minjun's brow furrowed. He raised his voice slightly.

“Didn't you say typing was hard for you?”

Sojin's eyes went round with surprise, and she laughed.

“That's right! If you leave a message in the messenger, I'll send you back a voice recording. Thanks, Associate Kwon.”

In that instant, Minjun's face turned scarlet. Eunha, listening from beside him, didn't crack so much as a smile.

Sojin's outrageous antics only continued from there. Showing up late was the baseline now.

“The Director wants me? Well, I have to buy a limited-edition bag right now, so Associate Kwon is going in my place.”

When Dohyun summoned her, she sent Minjun instead.

“I just happened to stumble on this artsy little café, you know? I bought cake to share with everyone, so go ahead and take some.”

Vanishing at lunchtime and reappearing two or three hours later was the least of it.

“Sorry, I forgot about the meeting, so I'm running late. Nothing important on the agenda anyway, right?”

She was late to meetings, too.

“I have to go feed my dog, so I've gotta head home~ Let's wrap up the meeting right now, everyone.”

Walking out mid-meeting had become so routine that no one even flinched anymore.

The team members watched Sojin's antics with growing disbelief.

Had there ever been a team leader this unhinged?

What made it stranger still was that Sojin didn't feel like a bad person. She was simply lacking in diligence and behaved oddly—that was all.

Her team members chewed on the cake she'd brought them and gazed at her blankly.

Those fingernails studded with glittering rhinestones seemed almost painful to look at.

Yoo Seungjun, team leader of Planning Team 3, rounded on Hyeonju.

“Manager Song, I told you specifically to discuss this at the meeting. Are you saying you didn't?”

“……I apologize. If you could give me more time, I'll discuss it with my team and report back with results.”

Hyeonju's head bowed of its own accord.

Here, apologizing unconditionally was far more advantageous than whining that it was Sojin who refused to work. Whatever the reason, the work Team Leader Yoo had requested simply hadn't been done.

Hyeonju, a veteran of many years in the corporate world, knew that fact all too well.

That didn't mean her insides weren't boiling.

She doesn't have to worry—she's a parachute hire. She couldn't care less about the rest of us whose livelihoods depend on this job.

Seungjun waved a hand, telling her he understood and that she could go.

Hyeonju offered one more apology and stepped outside.

Eunha and Minjun were waiting for her.

Eunha's expression was already carved from ice.

“……I'll be the one to say something. To our precious team leader……!”

“Don't. If we stick our necks out, we're the only ones who get hurt. Let's just handle whatever we can among ourselves. Without waiting for the team leader's instructions.”

For the first time, Minjun's ever-cheerful face had gone dark.

They all looked toward the team leader's seat.

Empty again—she'd disappeared off to who-knows-where.

I don't think she's a bad person, but…… if this keeps up, it's us who pay the price.

Hyeonju turned away from the empty chair.

Even the team members who hadn't thought badly of Sojin were beginning to frown as her antics stretched on longer and longer.

Jihwan stepped into the Director's office.

Dohyun was working at his computer.

Jihwan had reported every one of Sojin's escapades to him, and Dohyun had listened with a face devoid of any emotion.

“So she thinks the company is her personal playground.”

“……I can't begin to guess what she was thinking when she joined us, but she acts like a woman desperate to be fired. Is there perhaps some other reason…….”

“That woman has no hidden motives. She doesn't think at all.”

Jihwan flinched at Dohyun's brutal assessment.

“Th-that's…….”

“She just does whatever she pleases, so let her. She'll leave on her own eventually.”

Jihwan's heart sank watching Dohyun show no mercy to his own fiancée.

“Come on, she's still your fiancée…….”

“This is a company, Secretary Ahn. Refrain from comments that imply personal ties.”

“Ha…… understood, sir.”

Dohyun added, his voice flat and without inflection.

“There's no need to report anything else about that woman. Focus your attention on other matters, Secretary Ahn.”

“……Understood.”

Jihwan bowed and left the office.

Only then did Dohyun tear his eyes from the computer and squeeze them shut, hard, again and again.

What are you thinking, Father?

Executive Director Jung's words drifted back to him unbidden.

Ha.

Dohyun scrubbed a hand down his face, over and over.

The moment he'd arrived at Kangseong Media, he had carried out a sweeping purge.

He cut loose the employees who drew salaries without doing honest work and installed capable new people in their seats.

Handpicked by Dohyun himself, down to the last name.

And then, of all things.

An absurd woman had walked onto that flawless chessboard.

His plan had been to announce the launch of the project gradually, once the new hires settled in.

If only that woman hadn't barged into the picture.

As team leader of Planning Team 2, Sojin was, by principle, entitled to a place in that project.

Because the Replay Project had been decided as an initiative involving every planning team at Kangseong Media.

Dohyun ground his teeth.

A variable as unwelcome as a typo.

A stain that could not be erased.

A woman as grating to him as his own birth.

Is he trying to sabotage me, or to back me?

The Chairman had gone so far as to hire the daughter of a powerful family—a parachute hire—as a display of support for the marriage.

And yet he had cast his own son out into this minor subsidiary. Coldly, without a single moment of hesitation.

Maybe he knows that woman's true nature. That's why he's doing this.

She was foolish enough that sooner or later she was bound to cause a disaster. And since Dohyun was his son, he couldn't publicly disown him—so perhaps burying him in the worst possible marriage was the Chairman's hidden scheme all along.

Chairman Kang had always operated this way.

Testing Dohyun, savoring the results, sometimes disappointment in them—like a child poking at a pet hamster, the Chairman tormented him while pretending there was no malice in it at all.

Dohyun pulled open the very bottom drawer of his desk.

Inside sat a red desk clock, a jarring splash of color against the dark, modern office.

On its far left edge, words were inscribed: Love That Doesn't Flow.

It was ten o'clock in the morning. And yet the clock's hands pointed to 2:45 a.m.

Dohyun stared at the clock with an unreadable expression, then sent Jihwan a terse message.

At 11:30, Dohyun left the office early for an appointment with a business partner.

He was crossing the company lobby when voices drifted over and snagged his feet.

“Did you see the Planning Team 2 leader?”

Dohyun turned his head toward the voices.

Two men stood at the café, chatting as they waited for their coffee.

Dohyun withdrew his gaze. He was moving to walk on when one of the men spoke up again.

“Her figure today was absolutely insane.”

“It's ridiculous her coming to work dressed like that, but hey, it's nice to look at.”

The men snickered as they appraised Sojin's looks, trading comments about the lines of her body and where she carried her weight.

“Her chest, though. Man, that—”

“Was it Min Team Leader?”

Min Team Leader hastily ducked his head at Dohyun, who had materialized right beside him.

“D-Director Kang!”