By Zephyria 
-The group activities for Part 2 will be conducted by team. However, this time, we’d like you to leave your familiar teammates behind and meet new colleagues.
The entire group at the training center was divided into new teams. Assignments were made by drawing lots, but to ensure a balanced ratio of members in each team, the drawing was conducted by rank.
A team leader who had stepped forward first pulled out a colored ping-pong ball from a large box. Since team leaders were the smallest group in rank, each team was assigned one, or at most two, team leader-level members. In the midst of this, Yi-ho made a predictable wish.
“Team Leader Song. What are you doing? Just spacing out.”
Yi-ho, who had been standing there staring longingly at the drawing box, felt his arm being grabbed. Because it was the person he had just been thinking about, he flinched instinctively.
Seeing Yi-ho’s reaction, Min-gyu furrowed his brows.
“We can’t waste time, so stay right behind me. There are plenty of people waiting to draw.”
“Ah… yes.”
Min-gyu pulled Yi-ho by the arm and lined him up in the queue where he had been sticking out. Yi-ho found himself standing right behind Min-gyu’s back, which was covered by a gray windbreaker. The air had become more humid than it was in the morning, yet Min-gyu had unexpectedly put his outer layer back on.
“Gosh, Team Leader Cha. Why do you talk so scary? It’s a workshop, go with a smile.”
Team Leader Lee from the Planning Team, who was lined up behind Yi-ho, took his side.
“I’m just worried. Team Leader Song is so clueless.”
“There you go again, picking on the gentle Team Leader Song. This is workplace harassment. If Team Leader Song finally snaps one day, know that I’ll be there as a witness.”
“After knowing each other for several years, you think he’d snap over just this? Team Leader Lee, aren’t you the one being too discriminatory?”
“If there’s a developer who accepts planning as without complaint as Team Leader Song does, then I should discriminate. Right, Team Leader Song?”
“Ah….”
“Wow, I’m starting to feel genuinely hurt. I’ve known him longer.”
“Hurt or whatever, just go draw. It’s your turn.”
Just then, the person in front of Min-gyu finished their draw. Pushed forward by a waving hand, Min-gyu looked back at Yi-ho. The moment their eyes met, Min-gyu gazed at Yi-ho for a slightly long time.
After rummaging through the box for a moment, the ball Min-gyu pulled out had ‘B’ written on it.
“Darling, go on.”
“Ah, yes.”
Yi-ho stepped into the spot Min-gyu had vacated and put his hand in the box. Same team as Cha Min-gyu, please, same team…. Believing that the reason he had never won the lottery until now was because he had saved all his luck for this day….
Concentrating all his senses in his fingertips, he resolutely shifted the balls, when he felt something strange. One ball was extremely cold.
“Hmm?”
Touching it again, the difference was so stark that it would have been strange not to notice. It was as if someone had frozen it on purpose.
What is this?
“Team Leader Song, didn’t I tell you not to be clueless?”
Min-gyu, who was still nearby, reprimanded him in a chilly voice. What is it with the ‘clueless’ thing since earlier? What did I even do to make him annoyed? Anyway, why didn’t Cha Min-gyu say anything about there being a weird ball? …And why didn’t the other team leaders notice? Ah, could it be?
Yi-ho lifted the cold ball. The expression of the Planning Team Leader waiting behind him clouded with pity.
“Oh, Darling. Of all things…. What now. Look at him. Look at how he’s showing his dislike.”
“…I guess so.”
The ball was so cold it made his hand sting, so even the incredibly dense Song Yi-ho couldn’t help but notice it had ‘B’ written on it. Yi-ho’s gaze now fixed on Min-gyu, who had finally taken off his windbreaker and was fluttering his t-shirt to cool down from the heat.
Min-gyu mouthed the words, ‘I almost died of heat,’ and tapped the inside of his wrist. It meant he had kept his outer garment on to hide the ball in his sleeve.
Did he do this using his authority as a co-organizer? Yi-ho approached Min-gyu with an awkward smile.
“Hey, Cha Min-gyu….”
“And you don’t even recognize my feelings. Huh?”
“I’m originally clueless, you know.”
“Forget it. Don’t talk to me for five minutes.”
Whispering in a voice only Yi-ho could hear, Min-gyu turned his body away, pretending to be sulky.
“You two, fighting already? You’ll be meeting strangers later, so please exercise some restraint!”
The two of them gave an awkward nod to the displeased Planning Team Leader and dispersed.
The ball was still freezing cold, so to protect Min-gyu’s perfect crime, Yi-ho squeezed the ball tightly in his fist. With the warm heat rising from his body, he didn’t think it would take very long.
∗ ∗ ∗
The seventeen members of Team B sat in a circle on the grass. They were strangers who would be having dinner together tonight. Among them were people he had seen passing by in the office on the same floor, strangers he was seeing for the first time today, and people who looked as if he had known them for about 15 years.
A Bluetooth speaker was placed in the center of the circle, and the connected microphone moved from hand to hand among the members. The person who had just received the microphone jumped up from their seat.
“Hello! I’m Lee Chang-woo from the Global Team. There are more people here I’m meeting for the first time, but I hope we have fun and build some great relationships!”
After greeting them energetically, he passed the microphone to the person next to him. He even gave a cheer to someone who was hesitating, unfamiliar with this kind of setting.
“…I’m Song Yi-ho. I’m in a development role. I look forward to working with you today.”
Yi-ho passed the microphone to the side and sat down with a sigh. Chang-woo, who seemed to possess about ten times the energy Yi-ho had, leaned toward him.
“Hello, Yi-ho nim.”
“Yes, hello.”
“We haven’t met before, right? Where do you work?”
“7th floor, R&D department.”
“Ah, no wonder. My floor is completely far away from yours. Yi-ho nim, by any chance.”
Chang-woo leaned in closer to Yi-ho and whispered.
“I heard there are two team leaders in Team B; do you know who they are?”
“It’s me.”
“Ay, stop with the unfunny jokes. But I think I know one of them. The person standing up right now.”
“I’m Cha Min-gyu from Marketing. My hobby is cooking, so I’ll make you a delicious dinner. I look forward to working with you.”
“Waaa—!”
Chang-woo, who had already been enthusiastically applauding others, gave an even more thunderous reaction this time. To the point where Min-gyu couldn’t help but glance this way. Unable to resist Chang-woo’s pressure, Yi-ho slowly clapped his hands.
“Oh, he’s looking this way.”
A faint smile was playing on Min-gyu’s lips. Yi-ho felt like he knew what it meant. Something like, Song Yi-ho, the person next to you has found their match….
“Yi-ho nim, you should clap louder too. This is all part of social maneuvering. It’s good to get in the team leader’s good graces. I joined the company late, so this kind of thing is more important. Since he’s from the Marketing Team, he might become my boss later.”
“I see….”
The eyes of the ambitious new employee sparkled. It wasn’t in a bad way. In an organization like a company, the ‘social maneuvering’ he spoke of was definitely a plus factor. Unfortunately, Yi-ho was not born with that trait at all.
“So, Yi-ho nim, you should also appeal by showing that you’re working hard during dinner preparations with me….”
“Yi-ho nim. Do you have a moment?”
Manager Jeong, who had come up behind Yi-ho, crouched down holding a laptop that didn’t fit the setting. Yi-ho quickly grasped the situation.
“Are you on-call today?”
“Yes…. It seems like the query got tangled in the deployment we set up yesterday. For now, I’m going to try clearing the cache, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll roll it back. Would that be okay?”
Yi-ho took the laptop from Manager Jeong, examined the screen packed with code, and nodded.
“It was just a minor bug fix, so it doesn’t matter. We can’t redo it here anyway because of security. Just make sure all the logs are kept. Please share the issue in the entire team chat.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Wow…. Yi-ho nim, you’re so cool.”
The one who let out the admiration mixed with respect and flattery was Chang-woo next to him. Along with applause that was about 80% of what he had given Min-gyu.
“The STEM field is a complete unknown territory to me, so you seem like someone from another world; it’s cool. And Yi-ho nim, you could actually go around lying that you’re a team leader.”
“No, I’m telling you, I am….”
“Ay, honestly, when I first saw you, I thought you were a hubae, and seeing you work, I can tell you’re a sunbae to me, but please stop teasing.”
He just saw me working. Why won’t he believe me? Manager Jeong, who had stood up after noting the conversation in a notepad, overheard them and spoke.
“Excuse me, I think it’s better to know now than later… this person really is the development team leader.”
“Huh…?”
“He just looks like this.”
“Gasp…! O-oh, I see…!”
“…?”
Even when he kept saying it himself, and even when he showed him how he worked, he didn’t believe it, but why does he accept the explanation that ‘he just looks like this’…?