JD 5

“Ahem, come this way.”

geowong beckoned to Hakyung, who was looking around like a student on a field trip. Hakyung quickly moved his feet toward the man calling him.

“You can use any room here.”

“Sorry?”

“They’re all empty, so pick whichever you like.”

At his words, Hakyung tilted his head in confusion. This was supposed to be a staff dormitory… but they were all empty? Why build such a fancy place if no one was using it?

“What about the other employees’ rooms?”

“Uh… there aren’t any.”

“There aren’t?”

“Yup.”

It was a complete contradiction to what had just been said about building a grand dorm for the sake of employee welfare. Finishing the inconsistent conversation rather half-heartedly, Geowong quickly excused himself, saying he’d be going now.

Hakyung had a ton of questions—what was he supposed to do as a janitor, was he starting work today, how would meals work—but the man, retreating slowly, disappeared before he could be stopped.

“So slow, yet so fast…”

Left alone in the middle of the wide hall, Hakyung took off his cap and let some air into the soft spot on the crown of his head. As the fresh air entered through the tender spot, his tension melted away and the corners of his lips curled upward.

Well, he was told he could use any of the rooms here, so he decided to start by checking them out.

After passing the large kitchen and turning the corner, he came across several doors in a row that looked like they led to rooms. He worried for a second that there might be hammers or saws inside, but all he found were neatly arranged furnishings like those seen in historical dramas.

Thick bedding embroidered with pretty designs, an oil lamp sitting atop a nightstand, and a chest of drawers adorned with mother-of-pearl inlay—too fine to be used as regular employee housing. All the rooms were decorated in a similar fashion.

Returning down the hallway, Hakyung chose the room with the whale-embroidered blanket as his.

“Wow, so fluffy!”

After thoroughly checking every corner of the room and confirming no one else had lived there, Hakyung’s first move was to leap onto the thick blanket.

Back in the countryside, he had always slept on the floor with a thin blanket, so having bedding soft enough that his back didn’t even touch the ground… it was heaven!

He flailed his arms and legs on the blanket, enjoying the softness for a good while. His pink hair scattered wildly over the bedding as if it were excited too.

His body, overworked for the past two days, tempted him to sink into a nap right away, but Hakyung got up and grabbed his nearly-dead phone. He couldn’t help but think of his grandmother, who must be waiting desperately for his call.

The ringtone hadn’t rung more than a few times before he heard her voice.

— “Oh my, my little piglet! Did you start work already?”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he’d been scammed by Taeyoung. When he simply said he had arrived safely, she assumed he’d started working today.

Hakyung frowned at the thought of piling lie upon lie, but he had no choice.

“Yeah! I started work just fine. I’m staying in a really nice dorm!”

— “That so? Guess that Taeyoung kid finally grew up a bit, huh?”

“Uh, seems like it! Grandma, I just wanted to tell you I’m doing fine. I’m about to start work now, so I’ll hang up!”

— “Already? Then call again tonight, alright?”

She only hung up after making him promise repeatedly that he would call again. Telling a lie he didn’t mean made his conscience prick, but it was far better than making her worry.

Letting out a short sigh, Hakyung began unpacking. Not that there was much—just a few changes of clothes, a journal, a laptop, and its charger.

It was pretty pitiful. But Hakyung lifted his spirits by thinking positively—at least if he had to run away, he could pack everything quickly.

There was no mistaking it—this wasn’t your average company.

“Alright, time to get to work!”

Standing up, he pulled his cap low over his head and stretched his body. It was still early afternoon, and it felt inappropriate to spend the entire day lounging in the dorm.

Casting one last, wistful glance at the thick blanket, he opened the door—only to let out a startled scream at the pitch-black silhouette standing right in front of him.

“Yikes! Anyone would think you’re not a dolphin…”

The man’s brow furrowed deeply as if assaulted by an unexpected scream. Only after hearing the low voice that sounded like it could bore into the floor did Hakyung realize it was the CEO in front of him—and stepped back in a panic.

His startled heart pounded in his chest, and the soft spot on his crown pulsed. Hakyung ressed a hand to his chest and looked up.

The man, his eyebrows still knitted in a scowl, was looking down at him.

“Hello.”

“You’re quite polite.”

The man, whose tone could have been either a compliment or sarcasm, handed Hakyung a sheet of paper. Across the top, it clearly said Employment Contract.

The only problem? The entire page was covered in a giant “SAMPLE” watermark, like it had been hastily downloaded and printed from the internet.

“Um… I don’t think this is a real contract.”

“What? It says ‘Employment Contract’ right there.”

“This is just a sample from another company. It doesn’t have any legal validity.”

“Eh? What’re you talking about?”

The man raised his voice, clearly confused by what Hakyung ad just said. Each time his volume rose, Hakyung’s shoulders shrank smaller.

He should’ve just accepted whatever was given—why did he have to talk back…?

Hakyung silently cursed his righteous mouth that couldn’t help but say the correct thing, but it was too late to take it back now.

An awkward silence hung between them for a while. Just when the tension seemed to stretch unbearably, it was the man—unexpectedly—who spoke first.

“Then let’s go write up a proper contract.”

“Where to?”

“You’ll see if you follow.”

Grinning with only one side of his mouth, the man took the lead. Hakyung hurried to keep pace with the broad back in front of him. They passed through a long corridor and reached the main hall.

“You’re a cheeky little thing… cute, though.”

“Sorry?”

“If you didn’t hear it, never mind.”

Startled and tense, Hakyung hadn’t caught the man’s muttered comment and asked him to repeat it. But the man simply brushed it off, refusing to elaborate. Even when Hakyung hovered nearby out of curiosity, his firmly shut mouth stayed that way.

In the end, Hakyung had to open a Word doc and write up the employment contract himself. The feeling of working while surrounded by employees in sleek black suits…

At first, he thought they were there to keep an eye on him. Maybe there were confidential documents around.

But he quickly realized how unfounded that fear had been. Every time he created a table, he heard gasps of admiration—“Oooh!”—and even when he increased the font size, the reactions were the same.

These days, not even schools teach these basic computer skills anymore… Hakyung felt a weird mix of awkwardness and secondhand embarrassment as he moved his fingers.

It reminded him of putting on a little show for the elderly at the village community center.

“Wow! You’re pretty good for a janitor!”

“Hey, can you do that thing too? The one where you put numbers in square boxes.”

Numbers in square boxes? Wait…

“Excel?”

“Yeah, that was it! You know how to use that too?”

Hakyung nodded. He was reluctant to brag, but truthfully, he even had a Level 1 certificate.

“I actually have a computer skills certification.”

Even if it felt a bit showy, the world these days demanded that kind of subtle self-promotion. Again, the room burst into amazed murmurs.

Truly a strange company.

So Ha-gyeong ended up drafting and signing the employment contract himself. When he handed it over to the man, he stared at it for a long while, looking rather pleased.

Truly a strange boss.

“Sir, where should I clean? And… meals… do I have to buy them myself?”

“Cleaning? Just clean your room. Eat when you’re hungry. There’s a kitchen, right?”

“That’s… all?”

“What, you need more?”

With a shrug, the man placed the contract in the top drawer of his desk. It was a drawer that couldn’t be opened without a key.

Why hide it so securely? Suspicion flared once again in Hakyung’s already overloaded brain. Hired as a janitor but only expected to clean his own room, with an open kitchen available anytime…?

No matter how he thought about it, it felt like they were trying to fatten him up and sell him off somewhere.

“Nope, I’m good. Got it.”

The man’s expression made it clear that if he said he needed anything else, he might get ground into paste right then and there. Hakyung quickly waved his hands and backed off. It seemed best to lie low for now—and sneak out at dawn.

Forcing a smile, he gave a short bow and left the office.

He thought he’d moved very naturally, but to Muheon, it just looked incredibly suspicious. His face had been full of doubts just moments ago, and now he wasn’t asking for anything and pretending everything was fine?

Even without peeking into that tiny head, Muheon could tell it was overflowing with schemes.

“I can’t let him escape just yet.”

Muheon watched the retreating back of the little river dolphin as he scurried off—and broke into a wide grin.