On the long-awaited drinking day, after the rowdy and lengthy first round with as many as seven people ended, not many remained for the second round. Heo Seungju, Yoon Hyeondo, Cha Sojeong, and Park Dawon. Dawon said while mixing soju and beer:
“The people here are really stagnant water too.”
“Aren’t we just alcoholics?”
Sojeong replied, putting down the phone she’d been looking at. Seungju crossed his arms.
“Addiction? Alcohol is necessary for living. We don’t say rice addiction or water addiction.”
“Seungju, are you drunk? Don’t talk nonsense.”
Hyeondo shook his head. The four people toasted. Cheers. Here. Let’s die. A sigh flowed from Seungju’s mouth as he gulped down the alcohol and set down his glass.
“Hah… If I died right now, I wouldn’t have to go to work tomorrow, right?”
“I really wish the company would burn down.”
“When things were really hard at the company I used to work at, I even wished for a car accident on my way to work. I really, really didn’t want to go to the company.”
Seungju, Dawon, and Sojeong sang a round-robin song in turn. It was one of their “I don’t want to go to work” repertoire that they chanted like a prayer. Seungju said while picking at the basic snacks:
“Team Leader Sojeong, that old company—is that the place with that crazy boss?”
“Yeah. How can he be so exactly the same as the Director? Anyway, now it’s fortunate that General Manager Kang is above me, acting as a cushion…”
Seungju nodded. Sojeong looked at him with a pitying expression.
“Our poor Seungju, taking the Director’s raging bullshit with his bare body.”
“I really don’t understand….”
Seungju began his lament while picking up his glass.
“Why is the Director really like that as a human being? These days he’s docile with other team leaders, but why is he dying to devour only me? Not sharing meeting content and ostracizing me was really, really petty.”
“Well, it’s because you got close to our General Manager, Seungju sunbae.”
“Your General Manager Mu and I aren’t close.”
Seungju lied to Dawon. It was an instinctive defense. And Dawon knew it was a lie too.
“Don’t bullshit me. The General Manager asks about you so much.”
“What? What does he ask?”
“No, he asked if you and I drink often. So I thought, have sunbae and General Manager Mu gotten close already and are even talking about drinking sessions? That’s what I thought.”
“That’s just because the topic of who I’m close with at the company came up.”
“He also asked how old Team Leader Seungju is, where you went to school?”
“He was probably just curious.”
Seungju’s voice began to get louder. Seungju thought while lifting his glass to drink. Wait, General Manager Mu went around investigating my background? And then he played dumb and asked me this and that?
I don’t know whether to call this cheeky or cute.
Meanwhile, Dawon, already buzzed, half-listened to Seungju’s retort. Instead, she moved on to the story she really wanted to tell.
“Anyway, whether you think you’re close or not, what can you do when the Director thinks that way? He picked you as a team leader, and now you’re trying to get on another line.”
“Is that line one I want to get on? Even going on market research—I didn’t go because I wanted to. I was drafted.”
“But, Seungju, back then you went to eat with General Manager Mu in front of the Director.”
Sojeong interjected. She was right. Seungju shut his mouth. There was an unfair aspect to it too. There was no responsibility on Seungju’s part there either. Baek Muyeon did something crazy. Seungju, who had been silently quiet for a moment, changed the subject.
“So what I’m saying is, if the Director thinks I’m such an insignificant guy he can treat me however he wants, can’t he just leave me alone? I don’t have team members and I’ve only just become a team leader—what does it matter whether this junior gets on General Manager Mu’s line or not? I don’t understand what the Director is doing.”
“Well, I get it.”
Hyeondo, who had been listening silently, answered. He looked at Sojeong. Sojeong nodded too. Dawon asked:
“What is it, the reason?”
“It’s a power struggle, what else?”
Sojeong replied. Dawon and Seungju looked at her with expressions of not understanding. Hyeondo answered instead:
“Honestly, from a superior’s perspective, Seungju isn’t exactly a compliant kid.”
“Me?”
“Seungju answers well, right? Plus he does everything he’s told. But should I say he does more than what he’s told and makes his superior feel embarrassed? And even when it differs from the superior’s opinion, he has to say what’s right, doesn’t he?”
Thinking about it, that seemed to be the case. Seungju nodded and listened attentively to his words.
“From some superiors’ perspectives, they need to feel like they’re coaxing and soothing their subordinate and pulling them along—only then does the person below look adorable to them. When they see a kid who seems like they’re thinking differently behind their back, or a subordinate who’s better than them, they get wary and conscious of them.”
“The more that kind of kid is, the more they want to crush their spirit and make them grovel to them.”
Sojeong summarized simply. A brief silence flowed, and Seungju and Dawon let out sighs.
“Really petty people.”
“There really are all kinds of people at companies.”
“Maybe only those kinds of people remain at companies.”
At Seungju’s words, Hyeondo and Sojeong responded. Seungju poured alcohol again. Soju glug glug, beer even more glug glug… As he struck the glass with a spoon to mix the somaek, he felt miserable.
“Are there no good bosses in the world? Will I become like that too later?”
***
After putting Sojeong and Dawon in a taxi and sending them off, Seungju turned around. Hyeondo, who had been looking at his phone, raised his head.
“Oh right, now that I think about it, I had something to ask you, sunbae.”
“What?”
“That green light from before…”
“Ah, that.”
Hyeondo put away his phone. He said with a smile:
“Want to go for a third round?”
Seungju nodded. After how long since we drank—it’s too bad to go home already. No wait, thinking about it, I drank last Friday. Just three beers though. Let’s consider that much as a beverage.
The two people entered a nearby pojangmacha. They ordered clam soup and two bottles of soju and sat down. Seungju filled his glass with alcohol. First, a toast with the basic snacks. Hyeondo put down his glass and asked:
“What about the green light?”
“Things went well after that.”
“Wow, that’s a relief.”
“But something’s weird.”
“What is?”
“You know how the person feels kind of off?”
“In what way?”
Hyeondo seemed to be getting interested. He poked at the half-cooked fried egg that came as a service. Seungju helped him split the fried egg in half with chopsticks. The yolk sizzled on the iron plate as it cooked.
“Ah, it’s hard to explain in words, what is it. Just having a normal conversation, then moment by moment, huh? Why is this person talking like this? I get that feeling. In various aspects. There are just some parts where our thinking doesn’t match, and there are words that seem to have very different intentions.”
“You can’t take a person’s intuition lightly. When that happens, the feeling is almost always right.”
“So that’s my dilemma. Should I just date them? It doesn’t seem like we completely click, and there are things that keep bothering me.”
Seungju spoke as simply as possible. He didn’t talk about his fear of relationships and lack of courage. At the same time, he prepared an excuse that it was still too early to think such thoughts. And he left out all the parts that would reveal that the other person was from the same company, a superior, and moreover the president’s son. While doing so, Seungju felt his own contradiction. Was not revealing that the other person was the president’s son to protect Muyeon’s privacy? Or was it because he hated the thought that he might hear it would be better to give up the moment he revealed it?
Hyeondo seemed to ponder a bit. Meanwhile, Seungju thought. About the reason why he deliberately didn’t mention their social relationship, which he’d thought was the biggest problem until now.
Has that become an unimportant problem now?
“Where did you meet that person?”
Hyeondo suddenly hit the nail on the head. Seungju answered, unable to hide his hesitation:
“…A company person.”
“I thought so.”
“In what way?”
“No, because these days you don’t go anywhere besides home and work.”
Then Hyeondo laughed. Seungju laughed along with him. The clam soup was set up and the burner was lit. Hyeondo said while pouring alcohol:
“Not easy. To just tell you to date them—it’s burdensome because it’s someone you run into every day at work.”
“Exactly.”
“Then to give up saying ‘these and those aspects of you bother me, so I don’t think we’re right for each other’—how far have things progressed?”
“I asked for some time to think.”
“Then you have to give an answer now?”
“Right.”
The two toasted again. Ah, I’m getting drunk. Seungju spooned up the clam soup broth. I need to go home sober to have a meeting with the Director tomorrow. Hyeondo filled the glass again, but he didn’t feel like refusing. Because he was already drunk. Hyeondo said:
“Do you like that person?”
“…Yes.”
“Besides the face.”
“Sunbae, how do you know me so well?”
“Are they that handsome?”
“Yes….”
Hyeondo laughed again. Seungju clicked his tongue once and answered:
“I like them.”
“What about them?”
Seungju hesitated for a moment at that question. The moments when the person he liked looked at him with the same eyes. Emotions swayed by unhesitating expressions and actions. A daily life fluttering with excitement that came after a long time.
Explaining all that was somehow embarrassing. Seungju soon found the necessary answer.
“They’re good to me.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“Then date them.”
“Is it that simple a problem?”
“If it’s someone who puts effort into the other person, doesn’t seem like they’d be tactless when things end, right?”
“So that’s what you meant. That might be true for sure.”
“Well, besides that. They must be really handsome, but if they’re that much, even if you can’t have them, you should just go for it. Where is there a person with only good points anyway? If there are parts you can adjust to, try adjusting. But even if that person has flaws, the good points are so big.”
For you. At Hyeondo’s added words, Seungju eventually covered his face.
“I feel embarrassed like I’m a guy who only cares about looks.”
“So what? Everyone has their own standards.”
