Clack. Clack.

“How shall I grind her down today? Hohoho.”

A woman got out of the lift at the Latte Signiel, muttering to herself.

Her name is Gu Miryeo.

Attached to DMC’s third team with the title of assistant manager, she is Seo Dahui’s current manager.

A rank smile hung at her mouth.

The duty is manager, and in fact she is nothing of the kind.

She is Seo Dahui’s real anti-fan.

Her reason for going round the entertainment companies taking jobs was plain too.

The purpose is to dig out information worth money at the closest possible range to women entertainers doing well.

And to fill a life with the thrill of tormenting them where it does not show.

Of all the women entertainers, Seo Dahui is the one Gu Miryeo hates most.

“Playing the fox at her age. The pretty ones…… every one of them should have the tail cut off.”

A clouded venom and a skin-crawling pleasure showed in Gu Miryeo’s eyes at once.

Miryeo — beautiful!

Her looks did not back the name up, and through her school years she carried the nickname Guryeo, which is what a person says of something shabby, hung on her like a label.

That was when her mind went crooked.

An instinctive jealousy of women with pretty and beautiful faces began to rise.

At this entertainment company the work she was given suited her from the start.

Seo Dahui, who works solo, is outstanding at writing words and music.

Seo Dahui has a clear standard for her own particular strength and for how she is to present herself.

She has survived as a singer-songwriter on her own strength and still keeps her name.

There has not been one sponsor scandal of the kind women entertainers are easily caught up in.

Never mind trouble over school violence — she graduated top of her university.

With a strange sexiness about her as well, her following is mainly male fans.

Her voice is not thin, and it is sweet, and full of a quiet sorrow.

It backed her own particular musical world without any adjusting.

At present Seo Dahui has stated her refusal to re-sign with the entertainment company.

There are only a few months left before expiry, and Seo Dahui has no intention of putting a seal to it.

A quiet instruction came down from up the line to make her change her mind.

That work of all work is tailored to Gu Miryeo.

Tormenting a person where it does not show is a pleasure.

Having taken the work instruction, Gu Miryeo moved in earnest.

The close support that starts at six in the morning runs until eleven at night.

To anybody looking she never lost the manner of a devoted manager.

She wanted to live in the accommodation with her and be at her side twenty-four hours a day, and Seo Dahui refused it to the last.

The reason Seo Dahui gave was that she is highly strung, and Gu Miryeo knows it is a pretext.

She is suffering from sleeplessness, and even medicine and what she eats were restricted.

Frequent contact with her family was controlled too.

Only the most basic area of a private life was allowed her.

Within the limit of the space she can move in inside the accommodation, of course.

Gu Miryeo went to the accommodation where Seo Dahui lives at the same time every day.

Beep.

It is a master key issued after registering as a cohabitant.

She goes in and out of Seo Dahui’s home as a matter of routine, so there was no need for anything like a knock.

“Today too you’re…… dead.”

Whispering it low, she pulled the front door open roughly.

And in that moment.

Clunk.

A front door that would open no further, with a latch caught on the inside.

“Eh?”

Gu Miryeo was thrown.

It is a door that must not be locked without her permission, naturally.

“So she wants to have a go?”

Gu Miryeo’s face twisted up hideously.

The muscles of her face went hard and turned savage, as though an evil spirit had got into her.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

Gu Miryeo peered in through the gap in the door and began jabbing at the bell in a temper.

—Who is it?

Seo Dahui’s voice came out through the intercom.

“Who? It’s me, Gu Miryeo! Open the door!”

Seo Dahui, knowing perfectly well who it is and pretending not to.

Gu Miryeo’s anger shot to the top of her head and she shouted.

—I’m getting ready. Wait until I’ve finished.

“What? W— wait??”

Gu Miryeo went blank, as though hit on the head with a hammer.

Has she gone mad! Is she trying to have a go at me now?

The blood stood up in Gu Miryeo’s eyes and the anger came boiling up out of her heart.

Up to yesterday she was a toy held in her palm, opened and closed as she liked.

A single night has passed.

She is resisting as though she had become an entirely different human being.

—This is my home. Please respect my private life.

Seo Dahui’s cold voice came again, like a warning.

“Oi! Seo Dahui! I’m your manager!!”

—You aren’t my mother, though?

“Whaat??”

Beep.

With that the voice cut off.

Fuck. Has she taken something in the night! Oi! Seo Dahui!!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Gu Miryeo, unable to hold her anger, struck the door with her fist.

Her feeling hurt, her eyeballs had gone right over.

Seo Dahui had not been able to make a peep and had gone small, and at her sudden resistance the lid came off.

And at that moment.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

Two well-built men getting out of the lift came toward Gu Miryeo and asked it.

Signiel security officers.

“This is my house! Open the door, quickly!”

Gu Miryeo, having lost her reason, shouted at the men.

“At the resident’s request just now, your cohabitant entry rights have been withdrawn. Please leave this floor.”

“W— withdrawn? This belongs to our company! On whose say-so would you——”

“I wouldn’t know about that. The resident is Ms Seo Dahui. The cohabitant’s entry has been blocked. Please move down to the concierge at once.”

“……”

At the security officers’ forcing manner Gu Miryeo’s mind came sharply awake.

Seo Dahui, doing her down properly, right now.

Bitch! Seo Dahui! I’ll kill you!!

Gu Miryeo ground her teeth, her force down a notch.

Gu Miryeo did not know.

That a man had come out into the corridor from next door and was watching her without expression.

And how cold and how chill that man’s eyes were!

Thud! Thud!

Seo Dahui’s heart beat madly.

Her manager Gu Miryeo, who is ordinarily like a savage cat looking at a rat it has driven into a corner.

Her character was unlike the few managers she has had.

She involved herself in every last one of Seo Dahui’s movements.

She lived a life with almost no private hours in a day.

She stayed at her side from the end of work until deep in the night, or interfered as far as her weekends.

She seemed like somebody with no daily life apart from a manager’s work.

That is how thoroughly her manager Gu Miryeo watched Seo Dahui.

She asked the agency privately for a change of manager and was refused.

All that came back was that there was a shortage of replacements.

She has carried a life like that for half a year.

She avoided living alongside her on the grounds of a sleep disorder from her sleeplessness.

It being her first agency, and the re-signing problem hanging over it, she has been on edge.

Not having made her name firmly with the public, Seo Dahui is in a position where she can only keep herself low.

But the manager’s interference has gone past the line.

A company and a manager who did nothing but drive her on, inside the vertical structure where they are the power and she is not.

Choked, she had thought even of ending her life, and at the edge of the cliff she met a benefactor.

A man who has saved her life twice over.

She does not know what the man is.

His name is Ha Tae-ung.

He looked younger than her, and by his actions alone he is mature past describing.

He was more grown-up than herself, who is nearly thirty.

The natural weight that comes off every single thing he does? Charisma?

With him her bent back straightens and she goes tense of herself.

And against that he has a very kind and warm nature.

And decisively, the arms she leaned into for a moment——

“I’m mad!”

At the moment coming back to her again her face burned and her heart beat roughly.

The man who has set Seo Dahui’s heart going is a younger man.

She is deep in the moment she was held in his arms.

The scent he uses and his own scent mixed strangely and made the fantasy more.

She felt peace in the hand patting her back.

Thanks to that Seo Dahui took her courage.

“If you’ve nothing to be ashamed of, stand squarely! A life on this star, the Earth, that came a hard way from a far part of space. Take it as precious, and live it hot……”

Words the man gave her in encouragement, almost singing them, while he held her.

Seo Dahui felt strength rising in her from inside.

The manager who stuck to her like a devil.

This morning she stopped her coming in as she pleased.

Tik-tik-tik-tik.

Seo Dahui settled her beating heart and opened her phone.

And sent a message, calmly.

—Manager. My condition is poor today and I will rest. Please go safely.

A day with no particular event or schedule to get through.

Lately they threw her songs of a low standard and had her practise every day until her voice went.

Nobody could do that unless they meant to wreck the vocal cords entirely.

“I’m not bearing it any more! I’m Seo Dahui!”

Seo Dahui, closing both fists and deciding.

Her eyes went to the table.

Ramyeon piled up in a heap, and eggs, and chonggak kimchi.

There was nothing left to be afraid of.

The solidity the man next door handed her, telling her to take strength.

“I won’t forget this kindness. Neighbour……”

A being with a solid wall blocking the way and yet as though facing her.

The fact alone that he is on the same floor, right next door, made her heart solid.

Shff.

Seo Dahui, leaning against the wall and running a palm over it quietly.

She was feeling a deep wave of feeling, for the first time in a long while.

She put her cheek against the wall and closed her eyes.

And……

She brought back the moment she was held in his arms, and bit down on a deep smile at her mouth.

(End of Chapter 80)