Secretary Gwanggong's Survival Diary-Chapter 84

Summary of Entry: About Baek Sieon

Yoon Taeo’s perspective was somewhat monotonous.

To be more precise, everyone seemed almost devoid of distinctive features. Like mannequins with shiny faces and unremarkable voices. The vast majority of people appeared that way. If he focused all his attention and examined them closely, he could discern differences, but that was no ordinary mental effort.

Yoon Taeo was basically someone who didn’t have to try. A life that flowed according to his desires and wishes. Because of that, he knew neither earnestness nor desperation. The same went for his relationships. He never found any value worth trying for, nor did he feel any particular discomfort. To Yoon Taeo, people were no different from consumables. Parts that could be replaced and swapped out as needed.

Naturally, his interest in people waned, and he lost the will to memorize the names of others, especially when distinguishing them properly was difficult.

Therefore, he never bothered to learn who exactly he was talking to. Team Leader 1, Team Leader 2, Head of HR, Chief Secretary. Whoever was needed would appear when summoned. Of course, not everyone was like that. The closer the relationship and the longer they had been together, the clearer the facial features became.

Sometimes, suddenly, certain people’s faces stood out vividly. That “certain person” might be a bar employee, someone he passed on the street, or even someone getting beaten by some thugs. Although he couldn’t fully grasp the reason, he felt curiosity and interest in whoever instantly caught his focus.

That was how Yoon Taeo chose his beta. Or perhaps “choose” was the wrong word, since there was only one option given.

Then one day—

“Not Secretary Kim, but Secretary Baek...”

Inyoung, with a face shiny as if made halfway from rubber, said that. That he was Secretary Baek, not Secretary Kim. He knew he wasn’t the secretary he’d first seen before. It was just that, since there was no special characteristic to distinguish him from others, he hadn’t bothered to remember him.

Although he surely had eyes, nose, and mouth properly attached, it was hard to tell who he was without focusing. Secretary 1, Secretary 2, Secretary 3... just one of many employees. And since he couldn’t just call him “Hey,” he ended up calling him “Kim,” the most common surname.

After that, the secretary started chattering a lot. Wait, was there such a guy before? He was a familiar yet strange presence. The urge to rip that egg-like head off the body rose in waves as the guy talked nonstop. But well... since he didn’t say anything unpleasant, he just let it be. Comments like his suit suited him well, or he was the best among Alphas. Things he already knew but it didn’t feel bad to have confirmed again.

From Yoon Taeo’s perspective, calling someone the best among all those half-finished faces wasn’t something to welcome, but anyway, listening wasn’t a problem. Despite the cheap clothes, the secretary was an egg—no, a secretary with at least decent taste.

The morning preparations for work, which had been a pretty decent start, fell into the abyss the moment Taeo saw the car waiting outside the house. Since the driver was human, a bit of overdrinking the night before was understandable. But if a terrible Omega scent spread thickly from the open car door, that was a different story.

This was an unacceptable kind of aberration. Just from the strong smell, the scene that must have unfolded inside the car was clear as a picture. When he broke the car window and punched the sleeping guy’s head a few times, the secretary who had gone to get another car came back.

“Ugh, ugh...”

What the hell kind of bastard was this? Seeing the bloodied driver, the tiny guy ran into the alley vomiting repeatedly. His retching looked like he was about to spew his guts out, and when he came back with excuses about feeling unwell, Yoon Taeo didn’t quite buy it. Looking closely at his face with more care, the guy’s expression was terrified, as if he would faint if touched even once. A weakling, he thought.

Normally, Taeo would have punched that kind of behavior and excuse right away, but seeing this reaction for the first time, he didn’t even want to. And when the chattering voice popped into his head again, strangely, he wasn’t too displeased.

By the time they arrived at the company, Secretary Kim’s face was drenched in sweat. They came together by car, but Kim looked like he had run all the way alone. He said he wasn’t feeling well, and that seemed no lie. When Taeo handed him some money and told him to go to the hospital, the guy got teary-eyed. Watching that, Yoon Taeo thought:

That brat must be touched. Yeah. Where else would you find a boss like me?

It was just that the guy was so scared he wanted to cry, but Yoon Taeo misunderstood alone.

❖ ❖ ❖

“Why do you eat like that?”

“No... I’m full... I’m sorry.”

Seeing the person eating in front of him, even Yoon Taeo’s appetite vanished. The slender man barely ate less than a third of a steak slice smaller than his palm, then put down his fork and knife. This man was recently the person Taeo saw the most clearly. Taehyun? Or some beta with a similar name.

Thud—

When Taeo put down his fork, the man tensed up and lowered his head further. Most date partners were like that. If Taeo did something, or conversely did nothing, they would get scared like that. There wasn’t much Taeo wanted to say, but at this rate, no real conversation could happen.

“Look up.”

It was strange. According to the secretary who had vomited this morning, this kid was supposed to like Taeo. He’d said he was especially handsome among Alphas or something. But the man who reluctantly raised his head only showed an eye-roll, no other emotion.

He felt responsible for the nonsense spoken by that secretary. The ones who reserved this kind of restaurant and made the man in front unable to eat properly, too. As always, Taeo’s date was a failure again today.

“Go have a smoke for a bit.”

If Taeo didn’t speak, no conversation happened. This was familiar by now, but today the silence felt unusually uncomfortable. When he escaped the deathly quiet place, went to the rooftop to smoke, and returned, the room felt emptier than before.

The man who was supposed to be there was gone. Again, again. What exactly was missing that they always tried to run away from him whenever given a chance? Though it wasn’t the first time, Taeo still couldn’t understand.

To find the runaway beta, the secretaries and security team busily moved about. While waiting anxiously for their contact, his phone vibrated.

— “Boss, this is Secretary Baek. I hope you rested well... no, that you ate well... no...”

“What?”

Ah, it was him. Hearing the chattering on the other side, he immediately knew who it was. The guy who was sure the beta named Taehyun or Daehyun liked him during morning prep. The only one around who spoke so incoherently. And then he abruptly said to check his wallet, so Taeo rummaged the coat pocket he had taken off but found nothing.

“...Damn it.”

That was the day Yoon Taeo had his wallet stolen for the first time in his life. Fortunately, before Taeo’s patience ran out, the staff who habitually chased runaway betas caught the thief.

“There’s no need for the boss to come here or for it to be such a place.”

“Move aside. Even if it’s Team Leader 3, I won’t tolerate it now.”

He couldn’t believe it. He thought there might be some circumstances behind the wallet theft. But when he heard reports that the beta was drinking with a woman at a fancy bar, he came chasing personally. He was suspicious. It could be a lie fabricated to avoid responsibility for the missing beta. For example, the secretary with the annoying voice. Well... He was still confused about whether the beta’s name was Taehyun or Daehyun, but he couldn’t accept that the beta he cared about had his wallet stolen.

“You said he wasn’t even a college student?”

“Yes... sorry. Our background check was insufficient.”

Actually, the investigation itself was pointless. All the betas Taeo took interest in had miserable lives. After repeated failures, he thought this one was no different. No one expected the guy to be lying about his already unimpressive identity.

“Who caught him?”

“Well, I pretty much found him myself...”

On the way to the place where the beta was, Kang Seokho recounted his exploits.

“What? So the secretary found him in the end?”

“...Yes... I got a little help from Secretary Baek.”

“Do we even have a secretary like that in this company?”

As mentioned, to Yoon Taeo, subordinates were just consumables, but secretaries were worse. They inevitably got deeply involved in his life, so their frequent mistakes stood out more. Sometimes the person he assisted changed several times a day, as he used and discarded them repeatedly.

“Today he came to work with the boss...?”

“Ah, that guy.”

He caught him just in time. Using this as an excuse, Taeo thought he could just rip that little head off the body. But somehow, he thought that even if that secretary’s head got torn off, his mouth wouldn’t stop wagging.

Kang Seokho got goosebumps looking at Taeo. It seemed like a big problem was about to happen today. Meanwhile, Taeo smirked.

“This is the room, huh.”

“I’ll go in.”

“No. I’ll handle both anyway.”

As soon as Yoon Taeo opened the door and entered, he momentarily froze. The sight was far different from what he expected. Instead of just two small guys squabbling, it was a battlefield splattered with bright red blood and shattered glass shards everywhere. Seeing Secretary Kim crushed on the floor in a cheap suit and the man atop him holding a knife, anger he hadn’t felt welling up before suddenly surged.

“Secretary Kim, what are you doing?”

If he’d been a bit later, the secretary’s neck would have really been severed. Forgetting his previous intent to rip that neck off, he quickly approached and grabbed the hand wielding the knife. Should he break this wrist right now? The impulse surged but he restrained himself.

“Haa...”

As expected when he saw the white shirt stained bright red, the secretary’s condition was worse when he checked by loosening the top button. His pale, delicate body was bruised here and there, cut with a knife, bleeding red blood. Yet the secretary didn’t make any excuses. He only said he was wrong and would accept the punishment. But his terrified expression showed no sign of true remorse.

“I think I told you to go home and rest, Secretary Kim.”

Come to think of it, he said he wasn’t feeling well. So why was he stabbing ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ someone here? He could have made a fuss and excused himself with that noisy mouth. Instead, he just shut it and waited for punishment without rest. That attitude was unbearable.

The bright red blood visible between the secretary’s soft skin was an odd mismatch. For Yoon Taeo, it was an everyday sight, but such a mismatch was new. The stubborn refusal to beg for mercy despite being terrified—what was that?

“You deserve to be scolded, Secretary Kim.”

“...Baek... Yes, Boss...”

In the midst of all this, the secretary corrected him that his surname was not Kim. Taeo’s mood softened slightly but then worsened. How dare anyone touch his secretary? His fist, filled with unrefined emotion, violently struck the face of the one who made Kim like that.

It was the first moment his thoughts about the secretary changed. He didn’t realize Baek Sieon’s shiny, egg-like facial features had become somewhat clearer.