Yokai Come to the Countryside Café

Chapter 35: Rookie (5)

"Crazy bastards, they’re not even human."

The beer glass in front of Dohyuk kept getting refilled like an endless well.

Drink, refill, drink, refill.

How many glasses had he emptied and refilled like that?

"But Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk doesn’t eat much when drinking, huh? I guess that’s what being a heavy drinker means?"

"Still, try a bite. This pork skin—you can’t find this taste anywhere else."

Joo Dohyuk shook his head firmly. A clear rejection.

It was a food he had never tried before. No, it didn’t even look like something edible.

Wasn’t that skin clearly stamped with a purple mark?

Despite the savory smell, he simply couldn’t muster the courage to put it in his mouth.

And so, while he continued drinking bomb shots called 90-Year-Old Soju, the only snacks Dohyuk touched were some water and a few pickled side dishes.

"This is bad. I seriously can’t hold on. Damn it, why is that bastard still completely fine?!"

He had nearly blacked out several times already. If he hadn’t snuck off under the pretense of going to the bathroom to throw up, he might’ve passed out long ago.

But what was up with this guy?

Every toast was followed by a cleanly emptied glass placed back on the table. And yet, there wasn’t a single sign of wobbling.

But Dohyuk couldn’t just back down like this.

If nothing else, he took pride in having trained his whole life in the art of drinking.

Losing to some office worker who only drank cheap soju, not even fancy whiskey, was simply unacceptable.

"Just beat that guy. Just one more drink than him!"

"Ahaha! So, you know, the raccoon dog slid down from the window and…"

-Thud.

With a loud thump, Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk collapsed forward.

"Jeez, told you to drink in moderation."

"Mr. Dohyuk! Mr. Dohyuk! Wake up! You have to go home! Where’s your home?"

"I'm Joo Dohyeok, dammit."

"Yes, I know your name is Joo Dohyuk, but you still have to go home."

"You never even served in the army, but you sure know how to announce your name like a soldier."

"This isn’t the time for jokes. Who’s going to carry this big guy home?"

"You know, in dramas, rich guys always have personal assistants. Maybe someone like that will come? Or at least a chauffeur?"

"That’d be nice."

"Even if there is one, calling them won’t be easy. We can’t even unlock his phone."

"Ah! Manager Kim is right. How are we supposed to contact anyone? It’s not like the chauffeur is waiting nearby."

They couldn’t even check his phone. Even though they were just ordinary coworkers.

Even if they’d just met, a teammate is a teammate.

Calling around to find someone to handle this mess would only be a minus for everyone involved. For them, and for the unconscious Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk.

In the end, there was only one solution.

"I’ll just drop him off at a motel somewhere."

"He’s a big guy—will you be alright? Want me to help?"

"No. You’re drunk too, sir."

Two burdens were more than enough.

And there was the possibility of an unexpected “reward,” like: “Thanks for taking care of Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk. How about a beer at the convenience store?”

"Huff."

I grabbed Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk and lifted him up.

"Whoa, you’re lifting him so easily by yourself?"

"What do you think? I’ve gotten used to hauling you into taxis every time you’re drunk."

"Ahem."

That’s right. The distance might’ve been farther than the company parking lot, but the process of moving a drunk into a car was something I’d already mastered. Not that I wanted to.

"Alright, be careful. Make sure he gets there safely!"

"Call us if anything happens."

And so we called a proxy driver and arrived at a motel on the way to Namyangju.

"Driver, I’ll give you a tip. Can you wait for about five minutes?"

"Sure, take your time."

"Thank you. Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk! Wake up!"

"Mmm… noooo…"

"Sir!"

This was bad. He wouldn’t get out of the car.

Getting him in was relatively smooth thanks to all that 'training,’ but now he lay sprawled out in the back seat and wouldn’t budge.

"Need a hand?"

"Sorry to trouble you. Then could you take this arm, please?"

"Not at all, haha."

"One, two, three!"

"I said I’m not goooing!"

You little…!

* * *

"Where am I?"

Joo Dohyuk woke up, clutching his still-hungover head.

The room was neat. Just a bed, a desk, and a chair where he had been lying.

If one had to find something non-essential, it was the mysterious chain decoration made of linked paper strips.

“Ugh, my head.”

He couldn’t remember anything.

The last thing that vaguely came to mind, though he didn’t know why, was a raccoon dog.

“This isn’t the time for that. Let’s see… phone is here, and of course, no battery?”

It wasn’t his first time waking up in a strange place, so his actions were swift.

He fished his phone out of his pocket, slung the neatly folded leather jacket over his shoulder, and stepped out the door.

“Damn it, my head’s killing me and it was the second floor, huh.”

The stairs visible across the living room were too much for his current state, struggling even on level ground.

While awkwardly lowering his posture and stepping down one careful step at a time, an unfamiliar face suddenly popped out from the first floor.

“Hello!”

“Oh? Uh, hi. Wah!”

-Thud.

Startled by the bright wave of a foreign child, Dohyuk reflexively waved back and lost his balance, collapsing clumsily.

Hearing the noise, Jinseong came out from the kitchen to the café.

“Awake? I was about to wake you. It’s almost ready. Just sit and wait a little.”

Meeting Jinseong like that in a disgraceful state, Dohyuk hurriedly stood and brushed off his clothes as if nothing had happened.

“This place is…”

“My house. I run a café on the side. Not that there are many customers.”

“A café?”

But Jinseong, holding tongs, returned to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, so there was no one to answer the follow-up question.

Only then did Dohyuk have the leisure to look around. Like any first-time guest to Jinseong’s café, he began to wander slowly.

With Ria guiding him.

“We roast sweet potatoes in that stove over there! And that seat is for drawing with Sanyi. Oh! Don’t touch the golden toad too often. The gold paint will come off. And also…”

‘She speaks Korean really well.’

Blonde hair and blue eyes. Definitely a foreigner. Cute enough to appear in a movie as a child actor.

Her bubbly voice giving a disorganized tour of the café still somehow conveyed the essence of daily life here.

‘What a shabby way to live. Is our company not paying enough?’

There wasn’t a single item that didn’t feel old. In fact, the upstairs room where he had slept felt more livable in comparison.

“Breakfast is ready. Eat up and recover.”

While being dragged around by the girl and hearing all sorts of unneeded information, Jinseong came out carrying a tray of ramyeon.

He couldn’t bring himself to say he normally didn’t eat breakfast.

Not out of appreciation for the effort, but because the powerful aroma of the ramyeon in the stainless steel bowl was simply impossible to ignore.

-Slurrrp.

Instead of saying thanks, the slurping started first.

To Joo Dohyuk, who had always been on the receiving end of favors all his life, someone else’s kindness was merely a natural right.

“After you eat, wash up. We’ll go to work in my car. Ah! You drank a lot yesterday—if it’s too much, I can talk to the department head and have it counted as a day off.”

That couldn’t be allowed.

For someone like Joo Dohyuk to not only disgrace himself at a company drinking party but also not show up the next day? It was the perfect setup for a bad rumor.

“I’m going, don’t worry.”

Dohyuk snatched the clothes and towel Jinseong offered and headed to the bathroom.

Jinseong smiled faintly as he watched Dohyuk.

-Knock knock.

“Chairman, I…”

“Come in, hurry!”

A booming voice called from inside as if he’d been waiting.

“Now, repeat what you said on the phone earlier.”

“There was a report that Assistant Manager Joo Dohyuk arrived at work on time today at 8:10 a.m.”

“Is that really true?”

“This is today’s attendance record.”

The attendance log Director Shin Ji-cheol brought wasn’t prepared to report to Chairman Joo Man-ho.

Even he found it hard to believe and had personally requested it for confirmation.

Dohyuk had shown up to the office so rarely that writing business trip reports just for him had become one of the secretary’s main tasks.

“That brat didn’t even show up right on time.”

“Yes, he arrived at the office 50 minutes early together with Manager Kim Jinseong.”

“Well, with an expensive tutor like that, of course he should.”

‘It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The two came together in the same car. But how the hell did he drag that wild kid into the office after just one day? And early in the morning, at that.’

Only someone as close to the chairman as he was could get Dohyuk to use honorifics—so educating him was out of the question.

If only he had siblings, things might’ve been different.

Just having a competitor to inherit the company would’ve stopped him from acting like a spoiled brat.

But Joo Man-ho’s precious only son, born late in life, had his future decided from birth. He knew that future very well himself.

So after finishing his studies abroad and joining the company, it was nothing more than a toy he’d already claimed.

“Did you expect Manager Kim Jinseong to be used like this when you first saw him seven years ago?”

“How can you know something like that from one meeting? At first, I just thought the kid was extraordinary. After a few years, I got to know his character and personal story, then gave him a shot. It took you a while to earn your current seat too, didn’t it?”

“Yes, I had to hand in my resignation letter to finally get it.”

“Ha ha, don’t take it too personally. I almost stepped down with you back then, trying to support you in that portal business gamble. If it had blown up, we’d have had to bring in some fancy professional CEO.”

Having risked everything on a do-or-die business play, the two of them had reaped the rightful rewards as victors.

And now they had thrown their second dice. Unfortunately, this time Director Shin Ji-cheol wouldn’t share in the rewards.

“That guy’s really got some luck.”

“That brat doesn’t think like that. When he looked at me with those wide-open eyes, there wasn’t even a speck of ambition in his face. You had to coax and cajole him just to get him to take the seat, didn’t you?”

“Yes, even after I used your name, Chairman, he still tried to quit.”

“What’s that? Ha ha ha! So even using the great Joo Man-ho’s name couldn’t buy that teacher, huh?”

Chairman Joo Man-ho was so delighted he kept slapping his knees as he laughed heartily.

“Good grief, this expensive tea has gone cold while we’re chatting away. You’re not drinking?”

“I’ll enjoy it now.”

‘Huh?’

In the teacup, now cold, floated black tea leaves he hadn’t seen before.

It had a deep aroma that no cheap tea bag could ever produce.