Byeong-jin peeled the eggshell stuck in his hair off with his hand.

"Ugh… the smell."

Furrowing his face at the smell that lingered no matter how much he washed, Byeong-jin looked at Seong-ho, who was wiping himself down roughly beside him as if it were nothing, and asked,

"Are you all right? Somehow you look completely unbothered?"

Byeong-jin found it strange that Seong-ho, from the moment they'd arrived here until now, hadn't shown a single flicker of displeasure.

For an ordinary person it would be only natural to feel offended and put out, yet Seong-ho kept showing a manner as though nothing were the matter.

"Because I'm used to it."

"Used to it? This?"

Byeong-jin held out his blotchy body and a towel reeking of rotten egg and wore a look of disbelief.

Seong-ho set the roughly-used towel on the table and sat down.

"Yeah. I'm used to it."

Byeong-jin, realizing Seong-ho hadn't said he was used to it as some idle remark, looked at him with strange eyes.

Where Seong-ho could have had such an experience, Byeong-jin had no way of knowing.

And no wonder—everything Seong-ho had experienced belonged not to now but to the former life.

For Seong-ho, who'd had few occasions to face a union smiling, this sort of thing was no different from an everyday affair.

So he couldn't help being used to it, and the smell that made Byeong-jin furrow his face felt nothing but ordinary to him too.

Clunk.

The conference-room door opened and provisional manager Yu-cheol Han came in, together with the union representatives, headbands bound tight.

"Ugh."

Provisional manager Yu-cheol Han, before he knew it, covered his nose with his hand at the smell that filled the conference room.

And realizing that the source of that smell was Seong-ho and Byeong-jin, he hurriedly apologized.

"I'm sorry."

"Not at all. I wiped it off as best I could, but the smell won't go. If you're not too cold, shall we open a window and talk?"

"Yes. That would be good."

Though he'd lowered the hand covering his nose, Yu-cheol Han, who'd been nearly…