Dongha folded his arms and looked down at Jaehee with a high-handed expression.
That woman?
No one was allowed to talk about Yoojin like that, and Jaehee had crossed a line she shouldn't have.
Without looking at Yoojin, Dongha spoke in a lowered voice.
"Yoojin. Can you go change in the changing room over there and come out?"
"Okay."
When Yoojin came back after changing, the sharp edge Jaehee had been aiming at her was gone—as if she'd been told something by Dongha. Now, she was watching Dongha's mood instead.
They tidied up the studio, and the three of them walked out of the building. An awkward silence hung in the air.
Dongha opened the door of the car he'd parked nearby and said to Yoojin,
"Come on. I'll take you home."
But Jaehee, who had been following them, cut in quickly.
"Take me too. It's late."
"Aren't you close?"
"Your place is close too. My house is right next to yours."
At her tone—like she was throwing a tantrum—Dongha's brows knit.
Seizing the opening, Jaehee climbed into the front passenger seat.
"Stop acting however you want and get in the back."
Dongha's voice turned rough and sharp with anger at her one-sided move.
"I don't want to."
"It's fine. I'll sit in the back."
Yoojin spoke like it was nothing, opened the back door, and dropped into the seat.
But inside, Yoojin felt stifled. It was like the seat she always sat in had been taken from her.
Dongha stared at Yoojin for a moment, let out a sigh, and hurried into the driver's seat.
Then, unlike his usual self, he drove impatiently, heading toward Samseong-dong.
When they arrived in front of an apartment complex, Dongha said to Jaehee in a hard voice,
"We're here. Get out."
But Jaehee shook Dongha's sleeve as if the Yoojin in the back seat didn't even exist.
"What about you?"
"I have to take Yoojin home."
"This is right next to your place."
"Will you just get out already?"
"Then drop her off and come back here."
"Get out. And Yoojin—you come to the front."
Noticing how cold Dongha had become, Jaehee finally got out, and Yoojin—unable to resist his urging—moved to the front seat.
After stepping out, Jaehee turned her back and walked into the complex without even saying goodbye.
"I think she likes you."
Without meaning to, Yoojin bit her lip. Jaehee's behavior was thick with possessiveness toward Dongha.
It felt familiar like what Choi Hyun-oh had shown toward Yoojin. And that familiarity made something uneasy churn inside her.
"It's just someone I got to know because of this project."
Dongha spoke in a detached tone that neatly gathered up Yoojin's anxiety in one go.
Yoojin looked back at Jaehee through the rearview mirror.
And she saw it.
Jaehee had stopped walking, turned around, and was staring at the back of the car as it pulled away.
But Yoojin couldn't see what kind of expression she was making.
*
On Sunday afternoon, Yoojin boarded a flight to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam—earlier than planned.
On Friday morning, after receiving a firm confirmation from Chen at Taitex that he would go to the factory on Tuesday to check the defect issue, Yoojin shared the travel schedule with the sewing factory.
But then an international call came in—Joo Myung-gon, the manager at Vietnam Factory No. 3, exploding with anger at Assistant Manager Kim Se-hee, the head of the overseas purchasing team.
"Yes, Manager. Of course—the person in charge of the fabric claim should go as quickly as possible, confirm the defect, set a plan, and prepare the meeting with the overseas vendor…"
Kim Se-hee said, briefly stroking her pregnant belly.
"But as you know, I don't have the decision-making authority. I'll report to Manager Lee Hyuk first."
Soon the call ended, and from inside the partitions, the sound of Manager Lee Hyuk talking leaked out.
Kim Se-hee let out a low sigh as if she were exhausted.
Then Lee Hyuk's irritable voice came through.
"It's the weekend—how am I supposed to send staff out?"
As if that remark had lit the fuse, the tug-of-war between Joo Myung-gon and Lee Hyuk went on for quite a while.
When the long call finally ended, Yoojin was summoned.
"You'll have to go on the business trip Sunday afternoon, early. Well, it's weekend travel, so you'll get double per diem—good for you, Yoojin."
Yoojin hadn't even thought about travel allowance. She accepted the Sunday-afternoon flight in silence, and preparations moved quickly.
"Yoojin, from what I see, Manager Joo Myung-gon might've been thinking of you."
"Exactly. Night flights are brutal. A Monday-night flight, arriving Tuesday dawn, straight to the factory—then handling a defect claim? Come on. That makes even less sense."
It was Senior Yoon Sun-young and Assistant Manager Kang Jin-wook, saying the schedule Executive Director Park Jin-hee and Manager Lee Hyuk had set in the first place was unreasonable.
There wasn't even time to talk about what Dongha thought after hearing the trip had been pulled forward.
On Friday—Yoojin's last day before leaving—Dongha had to grind through as much busywork as possible.
He had to wrap up sample organization with his junior who had been assigned to the basement storage work, finish sorting the color confirmations, and tie up tasks with the sales team and the headquarters collaboration team.
They didn't even have time to bump into each other in the office.
And over the weekend, Dongha had urgent entertainment work scheduled—enough to pin him in the studio all day.
As boarding time approached, Yoojin kept thinking about Dongha.
No matter how busy they were, they usually saw each other and talked—at least sent a text.
But with no contact like this, her attention kept drifting to her phone.
Yoojin texted Dongha.
[I'm getting on the plane now. You'll be super busy on Monday doing even my work too. I'll text you when I get to the Vietnam factory on Monday.]
After sending the message, Yoojin felt lighter. Before the plane even took off, she fell into a deep sleep.
As if she were trying to make up for the lack of sleep over the past two weeks, she leaned against the hard airplane seat and didn't wake up even once for five hours.
In the end, Yoojin arrived after 9 p.m. local time in Ho Chi Minh.
Half-asleep, she went through immigration, nodded off in the company-arranged pickup car, and then—once she reached the room assigned to her—she didn't wake until the next morning.
*
'Kik, kik, kik!'
At the strange sound, Yoojin's eyes snapped open.
Bright light was seeping in through the window.
She could see tiled walls, and from an old air conditioner, cool air—not exactly pleasant, but still cold—flowed out and wrapped around her.
Right. Vietnam.
Only then did Yoojin stretch out long in a yawn—
'Kik, kik!'
Startled again, she looked around.
That was when she saw something moving fast along the wall.
"Eek!"
At Yoojin's scream, she heard a light knocking sound at the door.
She sprang up, flung it open, and a young Vietnamese woman peeked in.
Her eyes widened at Yoojin's face, then she grinned, showing her teeth.
"Ma'am, it's okay. Lizard. Lizard."
Lizard… Oh. A gecko.
Yoojin blinked and nodded.
"You beautiful. Mosquito no good. Lizard good."
Ah—does it mean the gecko eats mosquitoes?
When Yoojin nodded again, the girl giggled as if amused, closed the door, and left.
From beyond the door came voices and the smell of warm food.
Yoojin closed the door and fixed her eyes on the direction of the kik-kik sound.
Sure enough, a small yellow gecko was stuck to the wall.
Sensing Yoojin's movement, it darted into a corner and hid.
Forcing herself to ignore it, Yoojin ran into the bathroom in the room and got ready for work as fast as she could.
Rather than screaming again, escaping this room as quickly as possible felt like the only solution.
The shuttle to the factory was scheduled to arrive at 6:50 a.m.
She glanced at the digital clock in the room—it was 6:15.
Vietnam was two hours behind Korea, meaning it was 8:15 a.m. in Korea.
Her body felt strangely refreshed, like she'd slept in.
She got dressed quickly, put on light makeup, grabbed her laptop bag, and fled the room.
Thinking she had two more nights to sleep with a gecko made her vision go dark.
She opened her phone to check the exact time—
And her eyes went wide at the missed calls and messages she hadn't expected.
*
Dongha was sitting in a one-liter-coffee café with his teammates.
While Manager Lee Hyuk and the others shook off their Monday fatigue with stupid jokes, Dongha looked at the texts he'd sent Yoojin and let out a self-mocking laugh.
[15:23 — Have a safe trip. Fighting.][19:37 — Text me when you arrive.][20:58 — You'll be there soon. At least send a message when you arrive.][21:22 — Did you arrive? Call me when you get there.][23:01 — Why aren't you answering the phone?][23:25 — Are you asleep?][01:11 — Yoojin, I'm worried. Nothing happened, right? I can't stop thinking about you.]
And there were eight missed calls.
It was an overseas business trip. Of course the company would've arranged pickup and transportation.
Of course she'd be exhausted and asleep. That was why she couldn't text back or pick up.
And yet he couldn't stand even that short gap—so he texted and called anyway.
Even now, Dongha kept staring at his phone, waiting for the little "1" next to his messages to disappear.
Pathetic.
He should've held back and just called Monday morning—around the time Yoojin would head to the factory.
Now he only regretted it.