I Rejected the Firefighter Who Died for Me, Now I Chase Him novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Watch for a Firefighter

Seo-won's first gift is a watch that would melt, and then he asks his boss in front of the whole team to swap the doors back.

The Mapo fire station raised its big red bay doors at seven fifty on Saturday.

Seo-won was standing in front of them with a gift box.

He had tried to think what a man gives the person he is courting.

In the end he had asked the best watch shop in Cheongdam, and they had told him.

Inside the box, on black velvet, lay a titanium chronograph that cost three point two million won.

A young firefighter wiping down the engine saw him and nudged the one beside him.

"Hey. Hey. The architect's here."

"The one Tae-min-hyung talks about in his sleep?"

"Shut up, he'll hear you."

Seo-won heard them.

He stood a little straighter.

Tae-min came out of the locker room in a navy station shirt, towel around his neck, hair sticking up.

He stopped dead.

"Seo-won-ssi? It's not Saturday night."

"I know." Seo-won held out the box with both hands. "This is for you."

Tae-min took it and opened the lid.

He looked at the watch for a long time.

The whole squad had somehow found a reason to be in the bay.

"This is..." Tae-min turned it over. "Seo-won-ssi, this costs more than my first month's rent."

"It's waterproof to a hundred meters."

"I can see that."

"The strap is titanium. It won't melt."

"Seo-won-ssi." Tae-min was fighting a smile, and losing. "It'll melt. It will absolutely melt."

"We wear fire gloves, and the gear squashes everything flat."

"The first time I climb through a window, it goes in the river."

Behind him, Captain Yeo, a square man in a faded station jacket, said gravely, "That's a very nice watch to lose."

The squad burst out laughing.

Seo-won's ears went hot.

"I'll take it back."

"No." Tae-min closed the lid and held the box against his chest, and the smile finally won.

"I'll keep it in my locker and wear it on my days off."

"Nobody's ever bought me anything that wasn't a drink."

He leaned closer, just for Seo-won.

"But next time, bring me a sandwich."

"A sandwich," Seo-won repeated, as if writing it down.

"Tuna. Don't overthink it."

He did overthink it, all the way to Sangam, in the back of a taxi, with the memory of that smile.

Then the elevator doors of Daon Architects opened on the ninth floor, and he stopped thinking about sandwiches.

The Saturday meeting was in full swing.

Eight people sat around the long table in the glass conference room.

At the head, Managing Director Pyo Dae-ho was reviewing the tower punch list with a soft, pleasant voice.

He was fifty-four, silver at the temples, and nobody had ever heard him raise it.

Ga-ram sat halfway down, looking at his laptop.

Eun-seo, the engineer, sat at the far end with her arms folded.

"Seo-won. You're late." Pyo smiled. "Sit. We were on the lobby finishes."

Seo-won did not sit.

"Director, I need to raise the east stair doors."

The room went quiet in a way he remembered.

"The doors," Pyo said.

"The change order on September 29th. I want to put back the rated steel at Stair B. Every lobby. Before we open."

Someone near the window looked down at their pen.

Pyo set down his tablet.

"Seo-won. Do you remember who signed that order?"

"I did."

"You did." Pyo's smile was so gentle it was almost fond.

"You told me the glass met the requirement. You told me the light was the whole building."

"The owner wept at the model."

"I was wrong."

"You were wrong," Pyo agreed. "In a Saturday meeting, in front of eight people, three weeks before opening."

"Is there a report that says so?"

Seo-won glanced down the table.

Eun-seo was looking at him.

She said nothing.

"There's a concern," he said.

"A concern." Pyo nodded slowly.

"I have nine hundred tenants arriving on November first, and an owner who paid for a cathedral of glass."

"And you have a concern."

"Fire doors are not a finish."

"No. They are a line item, and the line item is closed."

"Director..."

"Sit down, Seo-won."

It was the same voice as always, but now Seo-won could hear what was in it.

In another life, he had sat down.

He had sat down, and he had gone on sitting for two months, until the stairs.

He did not sit.

Pyo waited. Then he rose and walked around the table and stopped beside him.

He put a hand on Seo-won's shoulder, exactly where it had been on September 29th.

"My office, please," he said pleasantly. "Everyone else, ten minutes."

In the glass office, with the blinds shut, Pyo did not smile.

"Let me explain how this works," he said, quietly.

"You are twenty-seven. You are on the shortlist for partner by spring. It is yours, if you stop talking."

"And if I don't?"

"Then Yu Ga-ram gets your seat." Pyo straightened Seo-won's collar with two fingers.

"He wants it very much. Ask about the door again, and I'll let him have it."

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