Chapter 1.5

The previous night Dan had tidied the first floor living room, prepared a meal that amounted to nothing more than one sweet potato and a boiled chicken breast salad, then filled the large bathtub, and with that finished his first day’s work.

The cleaning and filling the bath were manageable enough. The problem was the completely unseasoned chicken breast salad. A meal plan where chicken breast made up the majority of the contents was grueling. Chicken breast filled the plan under different names: braised chicken breast, chicken breast and onion salad, seasoned chicken breast.

Dan, who had had no intention whatsoever of respecting Chris Paul’s meal plan, took one look around the dining room and reconsidered the chicken breast dominated plan.

Because Chris Paul’s mansion dining room did not have a single grain of salt or sugar. A house with no salt and no sugar, it was so absurd he burst out laughing.

On the first night Chris Paul behaved like a reasonably decent employer. He let Dan’s roughly tidied living room pass without comment, raised an eyebrow briefly at the slightly large portion of chicken breast salad, then ate his share in silence and went to the bathroom. He spent the night quietly without a word about the water being too hot or too cold.

And today, the true first day at Christopher Paul’s mansion began.

In the dim early morning Dan was woken by a call from Brian Paul, his employer Christopher Paul’s subordinate.

Brian told him to tidy the multi room and the study, excluding the bedroom Chris Paul slept in, before Chris woke up.

When tidying the dressing room between the bedroom and the multi room, he was instructed to sort coats with coats, shirts with shirts, trousers with trousers, t-shirts with t-shirts, with darker colours placed toward the back and lighter ones toward the front.

Brian reminded him that there was an interior design book among the documents he had been given and that everything had to be arranged exactly as shown in the photos.

When Chris got up and showered, he was to tidy the corridor from the bedroom to the dining room from that point on, the dining room while Chris was eating, and the living room while Chris was having his after-meal tea.

He was pressed four times to make sure his hands were clean after tidying before handling the food, and that the meal must without fail be prepared according to the meal plan.

While Chris Paul was eating, around the time Dan would be preparing the after-meal tea, Shane the bodyguard and driver would arrive for work, Brian said. When Shane came to the entrance and handed over the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly newspapers and magazines to be delivered that day, Dan was to set them upright on the living room table with the headlines facing out, and with that the morning routine would be finished.

Dan wrote on a notepad: clean room 2, room 3, excluding room 1, then connected room 1 and room 2 with a curve and wrote dressing room in small letters beside it. Next to dressing room he wrote in even smaller letters, coats, shirts, trousers, t-shirts, and below that, darker colours inside, lighter colours outside.

Having written that much, Dan’s brow twitched with irritation at Brian’s instruction to clean first thing upon waking, given that it wasn’t as though a fashion show was going on every night.

He went on jotting down notes about what needed to be done after waking Chris Paul, then realized that Shane was the only person who brought any news from the outside world and laughed out loud again like the night before, utterly exasperated.

Brian issued his next orders without pause.

When Chris left for training the proper housekeeper duties would begin in earnest. The most important task was dusting, sweeping, and wiping down the rooms Chris used, room 1, room 2, and room 3, along with the dressing room and bathroom attached to each, and then arranging everything to match the photos enclosed with the documents.

The next most important task was cleaning the dining room and managing and organizing the organic vegetables and low-fat milk that arrived by delivery every day, and he had been given particular instructions to pay close attention to this.

Managing and patrolling the corridor leading to the study, which could only be approached as far as the door, and the home cinema made from the largest room in the mansion, were the last items of work.

At Chris Paul’s mansion, Shane led the way, with Mul and the gardener commuting daily. Waiting for them at the right time, checking their identities, and opening the door for them was also part of Dan’s duties as manager.

Besides them, someone who came every day was an employee from a supplier who received organic vegetables from a designated farm and delivered them, and most of the groceries were to be received through him. Brian explained that the list of items varied by day and required attention.

For example, today’s delivery included a day and a half’s worth of vegetables, low-fat milk, green tea, and select chicken breast, among other things. Besides those who came every day, those who came every other day or every few days included the physiotherapist and the stable manager.

Apart from these, the personal physician or nutritionist might also come when contacted as needed, but according to Brian the laundry service employee who collected the laundry basket and brought back the washed laundry was a far more important figure than any of them.

After listening to all of Brian’s long list of precautions and notable figures, Dan brought up one by one the items he had written down the night before under the heading ‘don’t get worked up’ as things requiring improvement.

“I was not told about the no alcohol, no smoking, and dietary restrictions at the time of signing the contract.”

Brian was silent for a long while at Dan’s words. When Dan asked whether there had been any mention of those terms, Brian asked back whether Chris had demanded them.

Dan started to ask why he hadn’t been told that the house simply had no salt or sugar to begin with, rather than just the no alcohol, no smoking, and dietary restrictions, and got briefly worked up.

Brian tried to explain the aerodynamics of an F1 race car. Dan said firmly that he did not want an explanation of what percentage disadvantage aerodynamics caused for every centimetre over 175 centimetres a racer’s height went.

Brian then said in a more hurried voice that Chris’s height was significantly greater than other drivers, and that his younger brother had wanted a low-fat, no-sugar diet of his own accord since exceeding six feet. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] He explained that Chris’s home simply had no salt or sugar to begin with and that he didn’t usually impose dietary restrictions on others, so he had no idea why this was the case.

“Not knowing is the end of it? So what. Am I supposed to eat dry flavorless chicken breast and boiled greens and drink water? Ireland is the land of Guinness and I come here to be told no alcohol? And on top of that, no smoking?”

Dan pressed the point, unwilling to give this one up.

“Chris isn’t very fond of cigarettes.”

“Forget the relationship allowance, give me a hazard allowance.”

Brian countered that a relationship allowance was given based on objective indicators of a romantic relationship, but how could a hazard allowance be given when it wasn’t clear where the hazard was.

Dan argued that Chris Paul himself was the hazard. Brian countered that Dan was the hazard, not Chris.

“Every time I’m sexually harassed or assaulted I’ll take evidence, so could you add it all up and give me a hazard allowance later?”

“Sexual assault…”

“Shall I tell you what was said to me?”

“…He won’t commit rape at any rate.”

“Looking at the housekeeper interviews about what supposedly happened with Chris Paul, I can’t see the difference from rape. Except that Chris Paul, unlike most rapists, happens to be a billionaire who’s good-looking with a great body. Suddenly pulling someone into bed and getting down to business is closer to rape than consent, isn’t it?”

Dan spoke as slowly as he could while looking at the notes he had written.

“We will arrange to pay a hazard allowance.”

Brian answered in a somber tone.

“Please send a revised contract.”

Just as Dan was about to end the call in good spirits, Brian said that the mobile phone only had incoming call functionality, the tablet PC could only send and receive messages with people in the contacts list and only through a specific program, and the laptop had access restrictions on apps unrelated to work.

If there were signs of an unauthorized program being installed on the tablet PC to contact unapproved parties, Chris Paul’s side would be able to check the type and content of the service records if they wished. The laptop, tablet PC, mobile phone, and storage devices that had been provided could also have their stored information and usage history reviewed after the termination of the contract, he said.

And by the way, he had forgotten to mention earlier, but if the living room carpet was mismanaged and microorganisms or mites bred in it, they might seek damages, he added.

The sun only came out occasionally and the place was mostly damp, dark, and windy, so once mites or microorganisms started breeding it was dangerous, and in that case getting skin on the carpet in the wrong way might mean hell, and this content shook Dan to the core.

Brian said that all of the details were in the contract and that the specifics could be confirmed through the revised contract, and hung up.

Dan stared at the incoming-calls-only phone for several minutes, then took a deep breath and threw himself into the cleaning. The road to becoming a millionaire was not easy. Cursing the damned Pauls, he did as Brian had instructed and tidied the dressing room, study, and multi room, then woke Chris Paul.

After cleaning the corridor from the bedroom to the dining room and the living room and dining room where the mite counterattack might arrive, Dan turned to go and prepare the meal.

“Tifosi.”

Chris, who was in the bathroom, called to Dan.

“Yes?”

Chris Paul had needed no waking. When Dan knocked and opened the door he was already up. Dan told him the time when he asked what time it was, and without a word in response Chris headed to the bathroom.

That same Chris now said with a serious expression:

“The hot water isn’t coming out.”

Dan had been surprised at every turn walking around Chris Paul’s mansion. However close his annual salary came to 45 billion won (45 million dollars), with total income double that or more, living like this seemed like a fast track to being broke in no time.

In Chris Paul’s mansion every room had a sofa where ten cushions could be lined up side by side, and plush carpet so thick it seemed capable of swallowing footsteps entirely.

The only room without a sofa was Chris Paul’s bedroom. A massive room with nothing but an enormous bed of a size Dan had never seen anywhere else placed in it, and yet the bed was so large the scene didn’t feel bare, and Dan was feeling slightly intimidated.

At Chris’s words Dan was surprised in a different sense.

“Hot water?”

Cars like Ferrari, Maybach, Porsche, Lamborghini, Jaguar, cars that most people might wonder if they’d ever get to ride even once in a lifetime, were often described using the term zero to hundred.

Zero to hundred referred to the time it took to accelerate from a standstill to 100 kilometres per hour. Zero to hundred in 2.3 seconds, 3.4 seconds, 4.1 seconds, cars with terrifying zero to hundred figures that F1 race cars could cleanly disregard were what Chris Paul drove without a second thought from March to November every year.

Dan recalled what an F1 official had said with a smile when asked at a fan talk session what the zero to hundred of an F1 machine was. Depending on the car’s setup, but if you configured it for zero to hundred the top speed could be reduced, so the machine’s zero to hundred wasn’t measured separately. Instead, 0 km/h to 160 km/h to 0 km/h took a maximum of around 6 seconds, and the braking time was 2 seconds, he had said.

Dan wanted to ask whether riding a car whose zero to hundred couldn’t even be measured had made him forget what waiting was. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Chris Paul was looking at the shower that was still putting out only cold water with an expression that said what’s going on.

Dan passed by the bare body with barely any body fat and turned the shower lever as far as it would go toward the hot water side. It took around ten seconds for the shower to put out hot water warm enough for a shower.

Dan handed over the shower now running with hot water and turned around.

‘How has this guy been showering until now?’

Dan left the bathroom with that ominous question in mind. When Chris Paul had pushed his favourite driver right up against the safety barrier and crossed the finish line first, then smiled with that infuriatingly good-looking face in the interview saying there was no ill intent, curses had come out of their own accord.

But seeing him like this, maybe there really had been no ill intent. The suspicion arose that he lived so far removed from reality that he himself had no ill intent but was the type to provoke it in others.

‘How does he even eat?’

Dan had sneered like that while cleaning the corridor, and then looked at Chris Paul’s breakfast meal plan and cursed silently.

Half a lemon and five almonds.

Dan thought that life as a billionaire wasn’t easy either, grabbed a fistful of almonds, and ate them all before Chris Paul arrived. The almonds eaten behind the owner’s back were nutty and good.