Someone's About to Be Fired

"Y-yes. He said he had been trying all night to reach you because of something work-related and that he was growing worried since you weren't answering, so he looked up your emergency contact, which is me. And he also mentioned a weird phone call with your mom, which made him suspicious...?", Eun explains, the anxiety evident in her voice.

Shit. Of course, he wasn't sleeping. I should have known. I should have been more careful. What the hell was I thinking? How could I be so stupid?

I was going to come clean this weekend, but now, everything is ruined. I can't even imagine who's going to angrier at me, Hajun or my parents. And of whose reaction I'm more scared of.

While I care much more about not disappointing my parents, the consequences if Hajun's disappointed in me will be much worse, I'm aware of that. Eventually, my parents will always forgive me. Hajun, however, has no reason to. I ponder about this while I make my way to my parent's apartment, coming up with different theories of what Hajun's going to do with me now.

How did my evening go from crying of laughter with Chan to almost crying out of fearing Hajun?

Hesitantly, I stare at the doorbell of the apartment that I once used to call my home and that I haven't been to in months. At first, I want to ring but then decide against it. This is still my home, after all. If I ring, it will just make it look even more like I've done something wrong. The people inside that apartment are already going to treat me like a freaking criminal, no need to make that job easier for them. I grab my keys from my bag – I've kept them there every day and would sometimes play with them when I had too much anxiety at work- and open the door, my heart beating very fast.

I enter my living room and immediately have three pairs of eyes laid on me. My mom's, my dad's, and Hajun's. Suddenly, that fleeting feeling of courage I had earlier while opening the door has disappeared completely. Instead, I have to resist the urge to throw up.

"Well, look who we have here," Hajun says quietly, sounding extremely satisfied. He must be so happy he could throw me under the bus like this. Yes, I lied to him for weeks, but at least he just got his sweet revenge by telling my parents about me.

Oh, how I loathe him right now.

"Rose!" My mom immediately stands up from the couch as she sees me, and just seeing her blonde bob-cut and her shining blue eyes almost makes me want to cry and to hug her at the same time. How I've missed my mother, words could never even begin to express.

However, I don't think the feeling is mutual as I see mom glaring at me.

"Where were you?"

I'm not sure if she's referring to the last few months or to tonight, but either way, I play dumb. "Out," I simply respond, letting my gaze glide over the three of them. My mom, standing, my dad, and Hajun, still sitting on the couch. They were probably having a conversation about me before I came. I wonder how much Hajun has found about me, or how much he has told them

Our eyes meet, and he raises one eyebrow. Let's see how you deal with this, Rose.

"What is going on here?" I ask slowly, keeping my voice as controlled as possible. They don't need to know I'm almost peeing my pants out of nervousness right now.

"Oh, nothing special." My dad says. The sarcastic one in our family. "We just met your boss, who, until one hour ago, we didn't even know existed since we were convinced you were on vacation in Australia."

I gulp. His tone has never been this dry. My dad is really, really mad, that's for sure.

"Very nice young man, by the way. Shame we didn't meet him for the first in a more pleasant way.", My mom adds. Of course, she likes him. I should have seen this coming. Everybody who doesn't know him personally freaking likes him. Hajun just finds his way into people's heart.

Unsure what my next move is, I clear my throat. "Mom, Dad, I can explain."

Hajun suddenly stands up and nonchalantly walks towards me, looking down on me in a condescending way. "Good luck with that. Sounds like you have a lot to talk about, and it's very late. I better get going."

"No," I respond right away and surprise myself at the firmness of my tone. "I need to talk to you first."

Since Hajun is now probably convinced that I'm a sick liar and is going to fire me, I have nothing more to lose in having an honest conversation with him, right?

Besides, letting him leave after he's probably damaged my relationship with my parents would just be weak. Hajun and I are both aware of that, and if there's one thing I don't want him to think of me, then it's that I'm weak.

At least when he perceives me as a liar, he's correct. If I don't want him to be correct too when perceives me as weak.

My boss looks surprised. "Fine."

I lead him into the kitchen and close the door so that my parents can't hear us.

As soon as that's done, I hiss at him: "How could you do this?"

Hajun's anger, however, most definitely matches mine. "How could you lie to me for weeks?! How could you lie to your parents like that? Who the hell does that?"

My blood is boiling, and I can barely hear him through my blinding rage. "I understand that you're mad at me for lying, oppa, but you had no right to meddle in my family life like that. No right."

He scoffs at my words. "Has it ever occurred to you that that's not why I came here in the first place?"

What a bunch of bullshit. "When why the hell did you come here?"

"Because I was worried about you, for God's sake," he explodes, startling me as I absolutely did not expect him to say that. I blink, having difficulties taking his words in. "You were not answering your phone, and your best friend didn't know where you were either. Anything could have happened to you! What if you were kidnapped? And well, once I found out what nice people your parents are, I judged they deserved to know the truth about you and your little lies."

It hurts, him talking about my parents like that—them bonding over me being a liar, a shitty person.

I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant any harm.

Suddenly, it's like all energy has been sucked out from me. "I might owe you an apology," I whisper hoarsely, "but so do you."

Hajun's dark eyes glide over me, emotionlessly. "Maybe. But out of the two of us, one person is on the verge of losing their job. So maybe they should apologize first, don't you reckon?"

When I avoid his gaze and don't answer, not ready to swallow all my price just yet, he just shakes his head and starts leaving. With his hand already on the doorknob, he turns around and looks at me one last time.

"You know Rose, I'm disappointed. This whole time, I had this gut feeling that you were hiding something. But you asked me to trust you, so against all odds, I did. Looks like I shouldn't have."

Then, he leaves me alone in this kitchen so familiar and yet so foreign to me.