By Zephyria 
Feeling a bit awkward, Min-gyu went back up to the 18th floor and opened the door to Unit 2. Even though he had already polished off two packs of the rice cakes his mother had prepared, there was still a mountain of them. He took a photo and sent it to a friend who was working overtime.
[Mother stopped by Song-i Song-i’s place]
[I told her you’re working overtime]
Song-i Song-i-ho
[Take all those rice cakes with you…]
That was the reply, but following his mother’s request, Min-gyu opened the freezer and tucked the various kinds of rice cakes into the empty spaces.
The house, which had looked cluttered when he peeked in that morning, had been tidied up neatly thanks to his mother’s visit. While he shared his mother’s wish for Yi-ho to be more self-sufficient, a house where all traces of the man had been wiped clean didn’t feel entirely right either.
Min-gyu gathered the groceries that had been left lonely in the hallway and returned to his own home. The packing tape tore away with a harsh rip. Min-gyu filled the various corners of his refrigerator with the ingredients. The arrangement inside his fridge was similar to the layout of Yi-ho’s. This was because Min-gyu often nagged Yi-ho and organized things for him, including today.
Just then, his phone rang.
“Yeah. Song-i Song-i.”
The sound of a car engine could be heard over the speaker. The voice responding with “Uh” sounded a bit distant.
I just got off work. I talked to Mom, too. Thanks for taking care of her.
“It’s just that Mother likes me. What on earth kept you trapped there until now? The business division will go bankrupt if we don’t have Song-i.”
…I actually hope it goes bankrupt.
It was a violent reaction, rare for him. Then again, between the coding class he’d been forced to take over and a new project, he did look like he was being ground down to nothing.
“If it goes bankrupt, do you want to start a business with me, Song-i Song-i?”
I know a lot of people around me who started their own businesses…
“Yeah.”
They say there’s not much difference between involuntary overtime and voluntary overtime.
“Hmm.”
Considering Song-i Yi-ho’s personality—the type to shoulder everything alone—it might actually be better for him to stay within the framework of a company.
Still, I hope the company goes bankrupt.
His gentle voice sounded truly resentful. Though, at most, he was probably just gripping the steering wheel tightly.
Since the poor guy was struggling this much, Min-gyu hoped that much of a wish would come true.
“Right. I hope it goes bankrupt too.”
At the time, neither Min-gyu nor Yi-ho knew that those words would become a reality.
∗ ∗ ∗
In the car on the way home after working overtime that day, the conversation Yi-ho had with his mother was slightly longer than usual.
Anyway, Min-gyu really knows how to play with an adult’s heart. He must have made a lot of girls cry back in school. Right?
“Did he…?”
Goodness, you should learn a thing or two about speaking from him. What have you been doing while sticking to his side all the time?
Indeed. He wished his speaking skills had grown, but instead, feelings he couldn’t even bring himself to voice had only grown larger. Waiting for a signal amidst the stream of cars on the main road, Yi-ho let out a quiet sigh.
“You didn’t come today because something happened, right? Was it just a usual surprise inspection?”
Hmm? Oh, right. There was something I absolutely had to tell you, Yi-ho, but I forgot.
“What is it?”
Something she had come all the way to tell him? Oh, could she have found someone new…?! His eyes, exhausted from overtime, flew open.
I heard you’re in your samjae this year. They say your age is exactly right for it.
“…Mom, is a church deaconess allowed to believe in things like that?”
Traditional stories are different. Try shaking your legs at church and see. Even the pastor will tell you that your luck is leaking out.
“My mom is so eloquent, so why is her son like this…?”
Why indeed. It’s because you take after your father. That dull man who didn’t even know he was sick and couldn’t even say he had cancer.
“……”
Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to be careful. Oh, especially water. They say you have a bad compatibility with water this summer. Always be cautious.
“What is there for me to be cautious of regarding water? Even if I wanted to go swimming, I’m too busy to even take a vacation.”
That damn company, really… Min-gyu is thirty-three, right? Tell him. All thirty-three-year-olds born in the year of the Rooster are in samjae. Be careful of water.
“Cha Min-gyu was born early in the year, so his zodiac sign is different from mine.”
Oh, Min-gyu is a year younger than you?
“Yeah.”
…….
Even with Song-i Yi-ho’s lack of intuition, he could tell what the silence meant. Even someone younger than you is that capable… goodness… The ticking of the turn signal as he waited to turn right filled the brief silence.
Anyway, take your mother’s words to heart and go inside and rest.
“I will. You rest too, Mom.”
As he turned the car into the apartment complex, the streets became abruptly quiet. While the car slowed down passing through a school zone, he muttered to himself.
“Samjae…”
If it was about this year, it felt somewhat accurate. In many ways, both physically and mentally.
Summer has started unusually early this year. It’s only early June, but scorching heat has already arrived during midday. With the large temperature difference between day and night, please be mindful of your clothing. Experts predict that since the heat has taken hold early, the amount of precipitation during the rainy season will also be significant.
There were dozens, if not more, thirty-three-year-olds working in the DL Business Division.
Had the curse of samjae they received descended upon the company all at once? Or had Song-i Yi-ho prayed for the company’s destruction that earnestly the day before?
“Wait, I’ve got the CPU tower here!”
“Please clear the way. Yes, yes.”
The 7th-floor office of the DL Business Division tended to use its space quite spaciously. However, now, without any empty space, the existing desks were pushed close together, and new desks and chairs were squeezed into the remaining gaps.
Those who had migrated in large numbers were the employees from the floor below. Their faces were filled with irritation after performing hard labor they hadn’t signed up for since morning. Because the elevators were already at capacity, they had carried their belongings up through the emergency exits. Of course, the atmosphere among the existing employees, whose pleasant space had been invaded, was not good either.
“Ugh, ah… ah, I really can’t carry it anymore…”
A monitor and a CPU tower, held precariously in two arms, were set down on the floor, and the employee crouched in front of them. At a sight that no one with a conscience could simply pass by, Yi-ho picked up the exhausted employee’s CPU tower.
“Where should I move this?”
“Gasp, thank you so much… over there, that desk.”
“Okay. Give me the rest of those too.”
Yi-ho walked in the direction the employee pointed.
“Team Leader, you lift those so lightly. Do you work out?”
“Occasionally, whenever I get stressed…”
“You’re being very humble about the fact that you do it every day.”
“……”
A beat late, Yi-ho replied quietly, “It’s… not that much…” The desk where Yi-ho set down the luggage was also one that hadn’t originally been there, and the top of it was a mess.
“Is there anything else I can help with?”
“No, I’m fine. This was the heaviest thing. Anyway, it looks like everyone will be moving back and forth all day today without being able to work…”
At the start of summer, the daytime temperature approached 30 degrees without warning. Usually, people say real summer begins after the rainy season, but if it was like this even before the rains started, it was terrifying to imagine what this summer would be like. The company ran the air conditioning to keep the slaves rolling smoothly despite the heat, but unfortunately, the floor directly below Yi-ho’s office faced the unbelievable disaster of a total air conditioner failure.
The merciless company forced them to come to work regardless, and eventually, an accident happened. One person, who had been in poor health, collapsed from heatstroke. Fortunately, it wasn’t life-threatening, but the atmosphere both inside and outside the company became unsettled.
And so, the decision the company made was…
“Team Leader Song.”
Amidst the chaotic atmosphere, Department Head Gye approached Yi-ho. He had an irritated expression, as if a headache-inducing problem had arisen.
“The development team worked from home once when the contagion was spreading, right?”
“Yes. For two months…”
“The development team can work sufficiently from home.”
Yi-ho had never seen his team members’ eyes sparkle like this. They looked like a pack of puppies who had just heard the words “Let’s go for a walk” in a popular video. The ripple effect of the short phrase “Let’s work from home” was that immense.
“Tidy up the desks roughly today, and lend them to the Management Support Team for a while. They say they can’t let that team work from home.”
“…Understood.”
If Yi-ho’s rank had been just a bit lower, he would have started packing his bag in excitement, but as the person responsible for the project assigned to the team and a middle manager, he couldn’t help but run other calculations first.
‘If I do it alone, 3 days; if we do it together, a week; if we work from home… fifteen days.’
Since the work-from-home period started exactly when they were deathly busy, Yi-ho felt more anxiety than joy.
The next morning, his mind changed.
Working from home is a good thing.
Yi-ho didn’t love the company enough to want to commute every day. Regardless of his worries about the efficiency of remote work, a life where he could wake up, wash his face, and “commute” in 10 seconds brought immense satisfaction from the very first day. As did the alarm that he had pushed back significantly to ring at 8:50.
Another popup was floating above the alarm.
Cha Min-gyu
[Is it great that you didn’t come to work and left me abandoned at the company??]
[Is it great??]
[I’m so sad I’m crying on my way to work]
[Song-i Song-i probably woke up 10 minutes before his start time, hmph]
[Disloyal Song-i Song-i, try opening your front door before you start work]
Yi-ho, his body still creaking from sleep, stepped out of the bedroom and opened the front door. As he opened it, there was a soft thump. A small insulated bag was sitting in front of the door. When he opened it, sandwiches appeared.
With his lips pressed tight, Yi-ho stepped back inside and carefully placed the insulated bag on the table. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he placed the sandwiches on the most decent-looking tray in the house, poured a glass of water, and entered his study. The tray was placed gently next to his laptop stand.
A cozy home, comfortable pajamas, and delicious-looking sandwiches. It was so peaceful. It was a perfect environment for an introvert.
The other team members’ impressions of working from home weren’t much different. Amidst the chatter on the company work tool about how happy they were, a question suddenly popped up.
Kim Mi-so (Assistant Manager)
[Sorry, but I have a question! ㅠㅠ]
[Latency keeps occurring here when moving to the next step, and I don’t know the cause. The delay is a bit too long to ignore!]
Song-i Yi-ho (Team Leader)
[I’ll check it.]
[Please push what you’ve worked on so far.]
Kim Mi-so (Assistant Manager)
[Yes!]
If they were in the office, he would have stood up immediately and checked Mi-so’s monitor quickly. But in remote work, latency occurred here as well. Soon, the project was shared.
“Hmm…”
There was nothing wrong with the part she said was stuck. Yi-ho ran the compiler. Just as Mi-so suspected, a noticeable delay occurred in one specific spot. After tinkering with the code here and there for a moment, he found the cause.
Song-i Yi-ho (Team Leader)
[Unused memory is unnecessarily large.]
[I think previous developers left this behind…]
[It gets better once the unnecessary calls are removed.]
[Go go]
Kim Mi-so (Assistant Manager)
[Gasp, yes, thank you…!!]
[Go go! >.<] Yoon Gwan-young (Deputy General Manager) [Go go! ^^] Kwon Tae-kyung (Employee) [Go go!!] Lee Jae-sik (Assistant Manager) [It is GoGo.] Jung Hyo-won (Head of Section) [Kko-kko] Why is everyone copying...? Anyway, he was glad that they weren't just logged in, but actually sitting properly in front of their computers.