1―11. First Meeting
At the mention that he was the chairman’s family, people started to watch their behavior around him. It was good that they believed in his abilities, but it was equally burdensome. It felt like something big would happen if he made even one mistake. He worked at home late into the night, tense about everything.
Seeing Seo Sihan accomplish everything smoothly, people praised him saying as expected, the successor is different. With the excessive workload, Seo Sihan pulled all-nighters more and more often. Eventually, he even developed insomnia.
And now again, at the Olympic stadium.
For the first time in his life, Seo Sihan was feeling skeptical.
‘First, I need to do well in the upcoming meeting… But what will change if I finish it well? Moving to a higher position? I…’
How long do I have to live like this?
“…”
The cheering in the stadium grew louder. Seo Sihan closed his eyes and held his head. His headaches had been getting worse lately, and listening to loud noises on top of that made his head hurt more. His ears were ringing.
People were each feeling various emotions. Happiness, anger, excitement, admiration, and so on… Seo Sihan, who didn’t feel much emotion even watching such a match, stood up from his seat.
Even though he didn’t have the courage to run away from realistic problems anyway, he wanted to go to a quiet place at least for a moment.
He went inside the waiting room where there were no people and sat on a chair.
Being alone in a quiet place made him feel a little more comfortable. He leaned his back against the wall and slowly exhaled.
“Hah…”
As his heart calmed down, realistic worries came to mind again. Thinking of the approaching meeting, he just wanted to run away. He didn’t have confidence he could do well. Rather than fail and get cursed at…
He bent his upper body over his frustrated chest. When he was in a half-lying position doing only small deep breaths.
“Mm, ahem.”
“…?”
A man who had sat next to him so quietly he didn’t even know when he’d entered suddenly handed him something.
It was a sky-blue wrapper containing what looked like white pills.
Because it was suspicious-looking medicine to anyone who saw it, Seo Sihan frowned and looked at the other person. At that gaze, the man’s eyes widened as if slightly surprised, then soon took out the same thing from his pocket and held them in both fists.
“…”
The man silently held out both fists. When Seo Sihan just stared, he shook his fists slightly as if urging him to choose quickly.
His head hurt and his stomach was churning, so Seo Sihan, who didn’t even have the energy to tell him to go away, roughly chose the left fist.
Then the man immediately pressed the medicine in his left hand into Seo Sihan’s, and put the medicine in his right hand into his own mouth. It meant there was nothing to be suspicious of.
Seo Sihan looked at the man’s clothes. There was a Taegukgi embroidered near his chest.
As far as he knew, there hadn’t been any issues related to drugs or doping among South Korean athletes recently. In the end, Seo Sihan asked the other person.
“…What is this?”
When Seo Sihan asked in Korean, the man’s eyes widened and he answered in a surprised tone.
“Huh? You’re Korean? What the heck. I desperately did body language? because I can’t speak English. I did something pointless.”
As soon as he realized the same language worked, the man just turned his head in a comfortable position and said.
“Eat it. It’s medicine.”
“…I don’t do that kind of thing.”
“Huh?”
When Seo Sihan still looked at him with suspicious eyes, the man soon seemed to realize the meaning and answered in an absurd tone.
“Ah… It’s not that kind of thing? It’s real medicine. Like a sedative.”
“…What?”
“No, this was a waiting room only I knew about, but someone came in… But looking at you, you seemed really struggling. Like, you have a headache and your chest feels tight and stuff, right?”
“…!”
“Then this is super effective. Actually, I was also nervous so I came here for a moment to take this.”
“…”
At the man’s words, Seo Sihan pondered. His usual self would never have eaten it. Taking such suspicious medicine just from hearing a stranger’s explanation—it was ridiculous.
However, the other person’s face looked absurdly too carefree. Roughly styled hair, glasses, a leisurely tone of speech. He looked like someone with nothing to do. But his face also looked young, so he had no idea what he did for a living. He only guessed from the clothes he was wearing that he was someone related to athletes.
In the end, Seo Sihan had no choice but to open the wrapper. It was the result of acting impulsively because he felt like he would die from frustration right now.
However, as soon as he put it in his mouth, he regretted it.
“…Ugh.”
“You chew that, so eat it well.”
It tasted terrible. He held back the desire to spit it out and chewed it. As his expression gradually worsened, the other person asked in a teasing tone.
“Aha, you can’t handle bitter things? Sorry. But medicine is all bitter anyway.”
“…”
Seo Sihan glared at the other person with sunken eyes hidden behind his long bangs. The man who made eye contact flinched slightly. Soon he cleared his throat and sat up straight again before opening his mouth.
“I don’t know what you’re going through, but everything will be fine.”
Hearing the useless consolation, Seo Sihan only let out a disbelieving laugh. What will be fine when you don’t even know the details? He understood it was with good intentions, but he couldn’t help getting angry for no reason. He was serious but the other person was carefree, so words came out without him realizing.
“What if I want to run away from something really important?”
At the unexpected answer, the other person thought for a moment, then tilted his head and asked.
“Why? Did you already fail?”
“That’s… not yet…”
“You haven’t even tried yet, so what are you worried about?”
Seo Sihan had no intention of telling a stranger about his circumstances at length. However, he kept getting strangely angry at the other person’s words. Even though this wasn’t his usual personality, his words kept coming out harsh.
“That’s because… it’s that difficult. You said you came here because you were nervous too. Aren’t you an athlete? Aren’t you worried you’ll mess up?”
When Seo Sihan asked in a disbelieving tone, the man looked at him quietly then chuckled.
“Well… Of course I’m nervous since it’s the Olympics.”
“…”
As expected, he’s nervous too, so why is he saying stuff to others…
“But I’m just naturally nervous because it’s that kind of situation, it’s not that I’m nervous I’ll do poorly.”
“…What?”
“I’m confident I’ll definitely get first place. I believe in my skills. It’s just a bit embarrassing because there are a lot of cameras and people.”
At the tremendous confidence, Seo Sihan couldn’t close his mouth. It was a completely different mindset from his own, which always thought of all the negative possibilities that could realistically occur.
“How can you be so sure? What if you make even one mistake…”
“I’ve never done that before.”
“You could this time.”
At Seo Sihan’s persistent negative debate, the man sighed briefly.
“Ah, yes. This time I might suddenly make a mistake.”
“…”
“So what?”
“What?”
When Seo Sihan only blinked, the man looked Seo Sihan in the eyes and answered.
“If I make a mistake, I just recover right away. It’s not like I’m going to kill someone… As long as it’s not something like that, most things can be done if you try again. If it completely fails, mm. I can try again next time. It’ll be super embarrassing, but all my efforts until now won’t disappear.”
Seo Sihan silently just looked at the man’s face. It was a tone that seemed casual, but his expression at least looked serious.
When Seo Sihan didn’t respond, the man thought for a moment then asked.
“Have you… made a lot of mistakes until now?”
“…No.”
“What? Then you must be good at it too.”
“But this time…”
“Ah, really. I said it’s fine, didn’t I? I just gave you medicine. I’ve never failed once after taking that.”
“…What’s in it?”
“…It works better if you don’t know.”
Isn’t that really like doping or something? Seo Sihan looked at the man with suspicious eyes again. The man tried to say more with an aggrieved expression, then checked his suddenly ringing phone and stood up from his seat.
“Anyway, if you take that, you’ll definitely succeed, so don’t worry.”
The man answered the phone and was about to leave through the door, then stuck his head back in.
“And smile a bit! You’re scary. With that face, everything will go well if you just smile.”
“…”
With those final words, the man quickly closed the door. The sound of footsteps running away faded.
