I sighed for the umpteenth time that afternoon when the real estate agent rudely shut the door in my face. I was dumbstruck for a moment, because no one has ever done that to me before. A sigh escaped my lips along with the positive energy that was left inside of me. Well screw you, maybe I don’t want to rent that stupid apartment. Tch. I swivelled around and walked off, pretending as if nothing happened.

But as soon as I stepped outside the nice building, a wave of disappoint washed over me. The apartment was so pretty, the price was lower than expected and the location was near perfect. I sighed, so much for a positive outlook on life. I glanced at the piece of paper in my hand again, the list of apartments that were available was slowly decreasing and my chances of finding a nice place was nearing zero.

You’re probably wondering why a 21-year-old girl like me was looking for an apartment, long story short, ‘you can’t live with us forever’ I quote Mr and Mrs Lee. So here I was, looking for a place to live so that my parents would stop nagging me. But at least they offered to pay the first 6 months of rent for me. Heh.

“What a jerk! You’ll regret not sleeping with me.” I was pulled out of my depressive thoughts to see a girl of similar age saunter out of the same building, cussing while trying to fix her short skirt. I was wondering why she was even trying, her outfit didn’t seem to cover up much anyway. She was wearing a sleeveless crop top with matching black stilettos that could definitely cause major damage. I had to admit, she had a good figure. Wait, what the hell am I talking about? Okay, I’m not envious of her body, but with what she was wearing, it was clear that she was trying to make a statement about her curves. She glanced up, making me realise that I had been staring at her the entire time she was complaining. “What?” Wow, someone’s rather up themselves. I mentally rolled my eyes and looked elsewhere before she could say anything else. She seemed to have wanted to comment but scoffed and left instead.

My body’s not that bad. I looked down, I had the curves…they’re a decent size. I scoffed at myself, had I really just compared myself to a girl like her? What an idiot.

“Miss Lee!” I turned to see a well dressed man stepping out of an expensive looking car. He looked quite familiar, but I just couldn’t put a finger down. The stupid sun had to be directly behind him which was blocking my vision. Aish. The man neared and as he did, my eyes slowly grew in size.

Oh crap.

What was my boss doing here? I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything wrong at work recently. Or maybe he found out that I had been eating all the pudding in the teacher’s lounge. But it was so good. You wouldn’t believe it, it was just… “What brings you here today Miss Lee?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and composed myself before bowing to him. “Good afternoon Chairman.” He nodded his head once. “Nothing much.” Okay, that sounded really stupid. That is not something you say to your boss. I noticed his eyebrow cocking up as if he expected something more. Elaborate Hyeonju, say more. “I was looking for an apartment actually.” I couldn’t look at him, that was probably the most stupid conversation I’ve ever had.

A short silence had taken place and neither of us had said anything. I was mentally stabbing myself right now. The Chairman didn’t seem to have been paying attention to me after what I said. It was as if he was in deep thought and I continued to awkwardly stand there, not knowing what to do.

All of a sudden, he clicked his fingers and snapped his head back to face me. A smile had taken over his face, which I might add, was a tad creepy but cute. “I’ve got just the place for you.” He started walking towards the building that I had left from, gesturing for me to follow as he did. I started walking after him.

Now what the heck am I doing? I was going to tell him that this place obviously wasn’t available seeing that the real estate agent didn’t even bother showing me around, but decided against it. In case this is really about the pudding incident then I’ll play puppy for now.

We arrived in front of a white door on the tenth floor. It had a fancy doorbell attached to the side in which he used to alert the owner he had arrived. At first, no one answered, so he tried again and got the same result. I heard him sigh, muttering incoherent words under his breath. He was starting to get frustrated. This time he knocked instead, still, no one answered. He sighed and tried again, only to get the same outcome. I could see the frustration starting to build up, a vein was threatening to pop on his forehead. But then he nicely asked me to step aside so that he could punch in the code himself.

Oh. So he already knew the code? What?

I was starting to wonder who the owner was. Did they not know it was the Chairman of Seoul Academy waiting outside? Because, fook, that person must be doing something of more importance that the Chairman himself.

But it was nice of him to give whoever the owner of this place was their privacy. But I guess not everyone has good patience. Ha.

The door finally opened with a welcoming tone from the fancy doorbell. I entered, expecting a lavish and modern looking apartment. And that was exactly what I got, except, it resembled a rubbish filled alleyway with all the junk lying around the place.

I slowly stopped walking and watched the Chairman pick his way into the place. Maybe he did find out that I had eaten all the pudding. I’ve heard from other teacher’s that he had a sweet tooth as well...is this his way of punishing me?

But then again, once I cleaned this place up, it would look ten times nicer. Ha, what the heck am I thinking? This definitely can’t be the place he was talking about.

“Miss Lee, please come here.” I heard the Chairman call for me somewhere inside. I looked down, what colour was the floor supposed to be?

I hadn’t taken my shoes off and didn’t regret not doing so. They were covered in all sorts of things that I didn’t even want to think about by the time I made it to what seemed to be the kitchen. Surprisingly, it was cleaner than the living room.

“Here’s the deal Miss Lee,” he stopped to pick a chocolate wrapper off his designer brand shoes and tossed it into the empty rubbish bin. Did I mention that the bin was empty? “Since you’re such a nice girl and hard-working teacher, I’ll cut the rent in half for the first six months if you can keep this apartment clean for that amount of time.” Of course I agreed to it. Half the rent, a nice place and it’ll be all to myself, who wouldn’t take it?

But I had obviously spoken too soon when he started chuckling. “There’s a downside to this Miss Lee.” The mini parade in my head stopped like a balloon losing its air. “You’ll be living with my son.”

chapter may or may not be edited in future since I haven't thoroughly proof-read it yet.
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-baektome
(010614)