SM Ch 3

I first heard the name Han Juwon at the training institute. At the time, it was a trending phrase among the training officers. Whenever someone acted exceptionally fastidious, the officers would sarcastically say, “That one’s turning into Team Leader Han,” or to someone who was being particularly ill-tempered, “Team Leader Han has descended here too.” Having only picked up snippets that the head office was completely abuzz over a recent incident caused by the person named Han Juwon, we naturally accepted the faceless name that reached us through the grapevine as synonymous with a demon, a dictator, and a complete lunatic. As with all inside jokes, that trend lasted less than a week.

When I entered the head office, I had completely forgotten that name. I was busy adapting to a department completely different from the one I had hoped for, and the same went for my peers who had scattered across various departments. Then, at company dinners or gatherings with my peers, that name would pop up occasionally whenever it was about to be forgotten. The anecdotes that came up were all similar in content. They said he acted so nitpicky that he made a client’s employee cry, or that he had a outright showdown with an executive in the hallway. The reactions when that name was talked about were starkly divided into admiration mixed with fear and contempt hiding fear.

I happened to belong to the former side. It was simply fascinating to me that the name I had heard at the training institute belonged to a real, existing person. His consistent image, like a comic book character, was also interesting. It was likely even more so because of the timing. Spending several arduous months while adapting slowly, I thought that the company I was attending and the company Team Leader Han Juwon was attending felt like completely different places. Perhaps his side was a place without layered borders, a place where, when an arrow is shot, it cleanly cuts through the air and flies away. A vast space without suffocating walls or ceilings.

Around that time, there was a dream I had every night. Once I fell asleep as if passing out by relying on sleeping pills, scenery of a place I had never even been to dyed the back of my eyelids blue and damp. It was a sky that I didn’t even know if it actually existed.

∞ ∞ ∞

The department head was not at his desk starting from around lunchtime. Still, feeling that I couldn’t leave my seat without saying anything, I hesitated before calling my senior co-worker out to the hallway a few minutes before three o’clock. When I said I had applied for the TF job posting and needed to go to an individual interview with Team Leader Han, my senior co-worker stared at me with an utterly dumbfounded expression.

“Are you saying that seriously?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t apply thinking you’d actually get selected, right?”

I kept my mouth shut. Placing his hand on the wall, my senior co-worker let out a long sigh.

“Mr. Lee Seodan, in your current situation, what do you plan to do if that gets to the department head’s ears?”

“…That doesn’t matter.”

“Why, to hand in your resignation? I’m seriously going crazy. Why on earth are you applying for that, Mr. Lee Seodan?”

“I will go and come back for now.”

Three o’clock was drawing closer and closer. Having spent the entire day muttering to myself and stringing together long sentences in my head as if preparing for an interview, I grew increasingly anxious as time went on. I couldn’t even properly see the face of my senior co-worker, who was ruffling his hair in annoyance.

“It’ll be a long time before the department head comes back in, so do as you like.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but Mr. Lee Seodan, you’re still a part of our team. If you were going to apply, you should have at least told me in advance. Do you think you’re the only one who ends up embarrassed by this?”

“I’m sorry.”

Covering up words that were threatening to grow long with an apology, I ran to the nearby stairwell. I checked my cell phone clock as I went up. Three-five. Opening the door to the 4th-floor hallway, the crowd that had just disembarked from the elevator was immense. For a moment, I had the absurd imagination that this many people were waiting for an interview with Team Leader Han.

Fortunately, the structure of the floor was generally the same. Without getting lost, I found the hallway with the small conference rooms all at once. Checking the closed door of Conference Room 3, I slumped my back against the wall. Three-seven. It was a close call. My heart was pounding like a hammer.

Regulating my breath, I straightened my posture and stood up. There was no telling when or where Team Leader Han might appear. Having brought nothing else, I held the edge of the printed application form, every nerve on edge. Each time footsteps drew near, my heart rate drew a steep rising curve. Not a single word I had prepared came to mind.

In any case, whatever I had thought of would have been useless words anyway. No matter how much I searched, there was no formal language that could represent a raw, live truth. Even if I carefully picked and stitched together words similar in shape to what was in my mind, looking back from a step away, they faded and became banal. When tapped, their echo was completely empty. Words like best, passion, effort. Every single word I had placed down carefully with force was the same.

— Clack.

The door behind my back suddenly opened. Surprised, I froze stiffly. The woman who opened the door and came out glanced at me standing there, gave a light nod without saying much, and passed by.

Light leaked out from the gap of the open door. The presence of a person could be heard. Even without looking, I could tell someone was inside.

Without even being able to fully calm my steeply pounding heart, I took a deep breath. My mind having gone blankly white, I wiped my damp fingertips on my pants and first pushed the door open.

Sitting behind the conference room desk, a picture-perfect handsome man casually raised his gaze. He scanned down the me standing at the threshold with a expressionless face and spoke briefly.

“Come in and take a seat.”

Searching in vain for a suitable greeting, I closed my mouth. I closed the door and approached the chair he indicated with a chin gesture, sitting down.

It was not a seat facing each other directly. The chairs were placed at 90-degree angles on either side of the desk’s rounded corner. Thus, when I raised my gaze while seated, I did not have to look straight at him. Sticking my hips to the chair, which still retained the warmth of whoever had been sitting there until just a moment ago, I stared at the thick document binder resting on the desk and the hand draped over it.

It was a handsome hand. Masculinely, the joints were thick, and the fingers were long and elegant. The white half-moons of the neatly arranged fingernails were also perfect. As my gaze was following the subtly bulging veins on the back of his hand, a smooth voice echoed over my bowed head.

“I read the application carefully.”

“…Thank you.”

“Raise your head a bit. I don’t have a hobby of talking while looking at the crown of a person’s head.”

It was a low voice with pronunciation so clear that one could feel its well-sharpened edges. I raised my chin right away and met the pitch-black eyes observing me without expression.

This was my first time seeing him this up close. My dry tongue kept sticking to the roof of my mouth.

“Looking at the application, it seems you know the project well.”

“…Yes, I have been interested in it since before…”

“I understand last year’s project was around the time you joined the company, Mr. Lee Seodan; it seems you separately looked up the details of what took place later on.”

“Yes.”

Come to think of it, the reason why it had been constantly noisy with his name at the training institute must have been because the project was taking place around that time. And for the past year since then, as he said, I had spent my spare time finding and reading the materials accessible to me.

Team Leader Han gave a brief nod without much of a reaction. I gradually dropped the gaze I had raised downward.

“Right. This year is also similar in its basic framework to last year. We plan to focus heavily on specific technology, and I am thinking of gathering creative personnel with abundant related knowledge.”

“…Yes.”

“Since it is a system aiming for a select few elites, one person must do the portion of more than one person. You can consider the workload to be about 1.5 times that of general work.”

“Yes.”

At the words delivered in a nonchalant tone, my head gradually cooled down coldly. Without needing to think twice, it sounded like he was politely turning around to state the reasons why I was not suitable. To notify a subtle rejection individually was an unexpected kindness. Looking near his sharp jawline, I thought that perhaps Team Leader Han might not be as much of a tongue-lasher as rumors claimed.

Just then, twirling the stem of his pen slowly with his fingers, he set the pen down with a thud. He spoke in a languid voice.

“So. Are you debating between a resignation letter and the Daegu branch on either side?”

“Pardon?”

Reflexively, I raised my eyes. He calmly continued speaking with an unchanged expression.

“Sales won’t work out, given that personality of yours. Even if you want to stay at the head office, I wouldn’t recommend that side either. Since it’s obvious you won’t be able to meet the quota.”

“How…”

My fingertips tucked under the desk trembled as if having a seizure. Seeing my expression, the man in front of me smiled faintly.