Pygmalion

Clearly annoyed, Sungwoo replied, 

“You’ve been to my room. It’s the one on the second floor! The one you went to the first day you were in the shop.” 

Sukyung remembered where Sungwoo’s room was, but was it really okay to go inside? She walked up the stairs hesitantly as she asked,

“What kind of document…?”

“Are you inside my office yet?” 

“Not yet… Ah, I’m in now.”

Sungwoo’s office wasn’t locked. Sukyung opened the door slowly and looked inside before walking in. Sungwoo’s room looked exactly the same as before. His chair was piled up with so much paperwork. Did running a shop like this involve this much paperwork? Sukyung walked up to the desk and looked around. There was a nameplate, a bunch of pens, and a whole lot of documents. 

Sungwoo ordered, 

“It’s in the bottom right drawer of my desk.”

“Don’t you lock your drawers?”

When Sukyung asked quietly, she could hear Sungwoo gritting his teeth. She flinched and opened the drawer, which was filled with paperworks. 

Sukyung murmured,

“There are a lot of documents here.”

“On the left side, there should be a file with a tag titled ‘CAT’. Get that. Grab the one titled ‘ELM’ too. Bring those to my home.”

“But I don’t know where you live, Mr. Jin.”

“I’ll give it to you right now, so write it down.”

Sukyung hurriedly grabbed a notepad from the desk and wrote down the address. Sungwoo ordered, 

“Hurry up. I’ll get you money, so take a cab.”

Sungwoo sounded very tired as he hung up. Sukyung could tell that something was very wrong. She stared down at the address for a minute before going through the files. Thankfully, it wasn’t difficult to find the ones Sungwoo requested because everything was in alphabetical order. 

After grabbing the two files, Sukyung went downstairs. Suddenly, Sukyung bumped into Jungim. For some reason, Sukyung felt like she was caught stealing something. When she became pale, Jungim looked at her with suspicion and asked,

“Oh, did you leave something behind?” 

Jungim tilted her head in confusion. Sukyung placed the files in her purse as nonchalantly as possible, and replied, 

“Ah, yeah… I can be really forgetful.”

Sukyung was trying really hard, but her voice trembled a little. Jungim shrugged and answered, 

“Okay. Please take care.”

To Sukyung’s relief, it seemed that Jungim didn’t find anything strange. Jungim passed by her and walked upstairs. Sukyung stood where she was for a moment. When she saw Jungim disappear, Sukyung finally ran downstairs and left the shop. She ran until she reached the main street. There, she finally stopped and panted. She was huffing so loud that she was afraid people around her might be staring at her. 

What was she doing? Why was she acting this way? All she had to do was give the documents to Jungim and tell her Sungwoo wanted them. It would’ve made things so simple, and it would have been the logical thing to do. After all, Sungwoo wanted Jungim to bring him the files from the beginning. He only asked Sukyung to do this only because she couldn’t find Jungim. So why did Sukyung run away like that?

Sukyung took out the piece of paper with Sungwoo’s address. It was a little smudged, but it was still readable. The truth was…

She wanted to see where Sungwoo lived. This was why she acted so strangely. Sukyung wanted to find out why Sungwoo stopped giving her lessons. Because she couldn’t ask him on the phone, she thought it would be a good idea to pretend to be helping him in order to snoop around. 

She wasn’t doing anything wrong, was she? Someone like Sungwoo probably had plenty of women going in and out of his house. So it probably wasn’t a big deal for her to visit him briefly. He probably wouldn’t care. 

Trying her best to not feel guilty, Sukyung hailed a cab. She told the cab driver the address, and when the car began to move, she finally sighed. Leaning back against the chair, Sukyung looked outside the window. For a brief moment, she considered looking at the files, but she decided against it. What if they were some secret documents? It was bad enough that she lied to Jungim. Sukyung decided not to cause any more trouble than she already had. Even now, her heart was beating wildly. 

She finally arrived in front of a giant house. Sukyung’s heart was beginning to pound even harder. Putting her hand on her chest, she looked up at the giant building. It seemed like a new structure, and it looked very luxurious. Was the inside as big as it looked on the outside? Would it look extravagant like the mansions she had seen on TV? 

Was he alone right now?

Sukyung paused. She never considered the possibility that Sungwoo might not be alone. What if… he was with a woman?

Should she leave the files in front of the door for him? But shouldn’t she get the money for the cab? It didn’t cost her a lot to get here, but she was doing a favor for him, right? So he should pay for her cab, shouldn’t he?

But then… she still hadn’t paid the lesson fees yet, so…