Murmuring voices, footsteps stalling out. It was the kind of scene where you didn’t have to look to know the anonymous office-worker forums were already going up in flames.
“Um, excuse me, who sent this?”
“Unless the client tells us, there isn’t much we get told either. Though it sounded like his sweetheart works at this company.”
“Ah...”
“Anyway, want to grab a drink before you go? We’ve got top-grade beans, every variety. And for people who can’t do coffee, there are other drinks and decaf too!”
And in the thick of it, a handful of people who’d come over to satisfy their curiosity and walked away beaming with a cup in hand.
“...Excuse me?”
It didn’t take long for the news to climb all the way up to the secretarial office on the building’s upper floors. Early that morning, a colleague wandered in trailing the fragrance of good coffee, and at what he said, a certain someone flitted through Minseok’s mind.
...Don’t tell me?
He had his suspicions, but no proof, so the hours simply slipped by.
And then, as the clock crept toward noon.
“...! ...!!!”
Minseok was aghast.
HR had sent up the roster of overseas staff rotating back home next quarter.
The deadline was tighter than expected, so he’d opened the door to the executive office meaning to ask Jueon to review it and sign off.
“Wh- what in the world is that!”
“What is it?”
Minseok’s reaction was violent in a way that almost never happened, so Jueon broke off from his work to ask. Watching him jab a finger somewhere while his mouth flapped uselessly like a broken radio, Jueon followed the line of that pointing finger.
And he saw it.
The building directly across the way, at the exact same height as his own office.
Written, no less, across an enormous electronic billboard positioned in plain view of his window.
“...”
The fluorescent green background blared loudly enough that it was honestly strange he hadn’t noticed how long the thing had been sitting there like that. And for all the fuss it was kicking up, it even had a laughable typo in it.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over him so fast his head started to ache, and Jueon reached straight for his phone.
Haa...
I D I D I T ! ! !
What a hard-nosed bastard. He’d taken on serious bleeding to throw out his trump card, so a bite should have been coming any minute now, and yet there’d been no reaction whatsoever. Hanbyeol, who’d been fretting himself raw, let out a soundless whoop.
He hurried to smooth out his voice and answered the call.
“Hello, Managing Director! It’s almost lunchtime, have you eaten y-”
“Dan Hanbyeol.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I called to exchange pleasantries?”
“You didn’t?”
“What is that billboard in front of my company? And the coffee truck downstairs, is that you too?”
“Ah. That would be me, yes!”
“Hah.”
I pitched my voice up extra bright on purpose, just so it would rile him up more. What?
Nobody told him to throw down the gauntlet.
It’s not like I advertised that the coffee truck and the billboard were from you.
Out of the bare minimum of human kindness, I’d let him off easy for the sake of Managing Director Cha’s public dignity.
So you want to find out what your name is capable of? Hanbyeol, who had finally gotten a call from Managing Director Cha right as the waiting was about to turn him into a full-on crazed gong, had not the faintest intention of backing down.
The bastard let out a sigh that sounded more like a scoff, then spoke again.
“Are you in your right mind?”
“Yes?”
“The coffee truck, fine. Let’s say that one slides.”
“Yes!”
“Why did you put up a billboard in front of my company? What on earth- no, where did you even get a design like th-”
“Well, because you wouldn’t answer me?”
I picked out the prettiest billboard design myself. It’s really striking, and the colors are so bright. Not bad, right?
He said it with a giggly little heh heh. His actual feelings, though, ran rather differently.
Fueled by the single-minded urge to pay back every ounce of humiliation he’d suffered, he’d spent god knows how many hours trawling the web. Hunting down the sort of PowerPoint designs that must never, under any circumstances, be inflicted on other people in a group setting, and then picking the very worst of the lot.
The only thing on his mind had been how to maximize the public embarrassment. Picturing the other man calling in sheer horror felt like a hundred years’ worth of indigestion clearing all at once, and Hanbyeol smiled a genuinely contented smile.
Just then a voice dropped a register lower in his ear. A low, rich tone so pleasant to listen to that he gave an involuntary shiver.
“Take it down. Now.”
“...No!”
“Listen here. If you think this is some kind of jo-”
“You’re the one who blocked me first.”
“...”
“Youblockedmycallsandyoublockedmytextsandyoublockedmyemails.”
He rattled it off without pausing for breath, and the rebuttal came flying back instantly.
“And that justifies putting up a billboard in front of my company?”
“I didn’t have a choice either! You’re the one who made me this way!”
“What are you-”
“You shut down every single way to reach you! And you won’t see me when I come in person, so what was I supposed to do!”
I clearly tried to approach this as peacefully as I possibly could. You ignored me, so you’re the one in the wrong!
His conscience had been sold off down the road a long, long time ago. Hanbyeol made a point of tipping his chin up stiff and high. It wasn’t even a video call, so nobody could see it, but he did it anyway. Lose the momentum and you’ve lost.
And the result.
“...Fine. Take down the billboard and send the coffee truck home first. Then I’ll unblock you.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“But what if you block me again the second I send it away?”
“I won’t. God knows what you’d pull next time if I did.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll unblock you, so clear that eyesore away first. In exchange.”
Managing Director Cha paused a beat, then went on.
“Three texts a day, maximum.”
“Yes!”
“That includes KaX and email. Don’t carpet-bomb me with nonsense. Send things the way you did before and the messages I actually need won’t get through.”
So my messages don’t count as needed? He flared up and shot back.
“That’s way too stingy! Let me call you too!”
“...”
“...”
“...Fine. But only during lunch hour. And I decide how long it lasts.”
“What if you hang up the instant you pick up? Set a minimum time for me.”
“Ten seconds.”
“No, counting in seconds is a bit- make it three minutes! It’s a problem if you won’t even give me as long as it takes to make a cup of instant ramyeon!”
“One minute, then. Not a second more.”
Don’t like it? Then call the whole thing off.
Managing Director Cha laid down the threat so flatly that Hanbyeol agreed in a rush, terrified of losing even this much. Once the call ended, he kept his word and immediately contacted the billboard’s owner to bring the eyesore down, then got in touch with the coffee truck as well. Only then could he breathe a little easier.
It had been a bit extreme, sure, but he’d gained a line of contact, so they were back to square one.
Unlike Kang Taeseo, the man stayed far more dignified even when he was angry, which was a promising start.
They say thirty is a whole tray of eggs. Is this what they mean by seasoned?
Anyway, the investment had paid off, so all’s well. The effect was undeniable.
“It’d better be undeniable. Do you know what I gave up for this?”
Billboard rental: roughly a few tens of millions of won.
Ten million at most would have covered it, but cutting into the schedule on short notice meant stacking a premium several times over on top. Raising that much by selling clothes would have taken forever, so to turn it into cash fast he’d had no choice but to sell the most expensive, most in-demand thing he owned.
And so he had said goodbye to his beloved watch.
Still, did getting unblocked one single time really have to cost this much? Tears welled up. Not as a figure of speech either; picturing his vanished treasure made him genuinely, unbearably sad, and Hanbyeol bawled his eyes out.
And yet his hands kept dutifully typing out replies to Managing Director Cha’s message about lifting the block.
Drip, drip. Tears fell onto the screen and the typos went off like fireworks.
Dan Hanbyeol
1 [Waahh! thank yoy I’ll rwally only contact you thre times a dya like mornign lunhc dinner yesss!]
Dan Hanbyeol
1 [oh and the bilboadr I called just now and took it dwon hehe]
Dan Hanbyeol
1 [the coffee truck is bieng used by your compnay’s employees right now so I tlod them to leave after lnuch breka!👍❤]
He thought about hitting edit, but decided it wasn’t half bad as it was and left it alone.
...Honestly, he wasn’t in the mood to hand-fix typos just so Managing Director Cha could read in comfort.
“Huh, hnnngh, kheurk! That, that bastard, that rotten bastard...!”
Mom and Dad gave me that to celebrate my twentieth birthday. I wanted it so badly I spent weeks on edge waiting for it!
His treasure number one, his graduation present (note: limited edition), now gone off into somebody else’s arms, shimmered in front of his eyes. He clenched his fists and ground his teeth.
I am going to seduce you if it kills me.
I’ll make you fall so hard that you’d lick my feet if I told you to.
And then I’m definitely getting my revenge!
A good while later.
“Hoooo...”
Hanbyeol, composure recovered, took one deep breath after another. His eyes were puffed up into swollen little slits and he sniffled.
...Let’s think positive. At least I graduated from university, right? And it’s a good thing, too, since it leaves me plenty of time to seduce Managing Director Cha. After all, he was currently a billionaire of free time, a Home Protector, the on-site security detail of his own residence.
A question struck him mid-thought, so Hanbyeol opened his laptop and looked something up.
Come to think of it, how does graduation actually work? Do I just show up to pick up the diploma?
It was the tail end of February and March was right around the corner, so there had to be a ceremony, or a cap to wear, or something.
He’d attended entirely as the mood took him, and he’d even left the department group chat, so there was no decent channel for news to reach him. So he searched the EveryX app, legwork and all, and finally logged in to the academic information system to check his graduation review results.
And then.
[Graduation Review Result: FAIL]
“...Huh?”
W-why does it say that?
Hanbyeol stared blankly at the screen, refreshed it several times, and when nothing changed he hurriedly called the department office.
A teaching assistant with an extremely tired-sounding voice picked up.
“Hello, Hanguk University Business Administration office.”
“Hello. Um, I was down as a graduation candidate, but I checked and my graduation review came back as a fail. Could I find out what the reason is?”
“One moment. I’ll look it up, so could you give me your student number?”
“It’s 20XXXXXX35.”
“Hmm... ah. You have an incomplete required major course, and there’s no record of a certified English test score submitted for graduation certification. You’ll need to take Intro to MIS, and you’ll also need to submit a score from an accredited English exam such as TOEIC or TOEFL.”
“...?”
There was a rapid clatter of keys, and then the answer came back smooth as anything. Hanbyeol blinked.
Okay, the language exam score is on me for not handling it, fine, I’ll grant that much.
“M-MIS? But I took that class.”
“You received an F, so it’s logged as incomplete.”
“No, I made the attendance requirement and I sat the exams. I turned in the assignments and I went on the field trip!”
“Since the year before last, the professor in charge of that course has been failing every student who scores under fifty on the final. The grading criteria changed and it’s stated in the syllabus as well, so it looks like you may not have checked it.”
“What kind of-!”
“It’s the department head’s policy.”
“...”
“According to the professor, a business student who can’t even handle MIS isn’t a business student, so he won’t let them graduate.”
The assistant continued without wavering and handed down the sentence.
“You’ll have to retake the course. And sit a language exam and submit the score.”
“...”
Dan Hanbyeol of the past.
You...! You...!!
Just how much of a trainwreck were you at school, aaaaaghh!
The sign’s last line parodies the Korea Broadcast Advertising Corp.’s “Public Service Advertising Council” credit, swapping “public interest” for “selfish interest,” and the Korean misspells “advertising” — hence the typos kept there.
In Korean slang an egg tray holds thirty eggs, so “a tray of eggs” means being thirty years old.
“Home protector” is a joking Korean label for someone with no job who guards the house all day.
EveryX stands in for Everytime, a Korean university community app.
