Aqua
It goes without saying, but I work for a living too.
After more than a decade at sea, I had come ashore with a decent nest egg. That much was true. Even so, with Seoul’s murderous cost of living, I still had plenty of days left to survive.
Finding a job, however, was far from easy. Most merchant marine officers like me would step off a ship and walk straight into a shipping company.
But almost no company wanted a man who had only ever crewed fishing boats, never freighters. Through the connections of a captain I used to know, I had to settle for a spot at a tiny startup shipping firm.
It was a truly small outfit with an office near the port. One single office space, barely ten employees total. A classic shitty little company that had scraped together an annual salary of just thirty million won for me.
At least they recognized my long years at sea and gave me a bit of preferential treatment, so I started with the title of team leader right away.
Of course, “team” meant exactly one team member. And that team member was…
1. Kimchi stew
2. Anything else
“...”
She had already decided on kimchi stew and was just pretending to offer a choice for show, wasn’t she? More than that, it was about time I started questioning this bizarre method of communication.
“Hey… Eom Chaewon? We’re sitting right next to each other. Do we really need to use the company messenger?”
“...”
I had turned my head to speak to her, and she still answered through the messenger just to make it awkward? Kids these days really had no grasp of basic conversation. The words rose all the way to the back of my throat before I forced them down.
Name: Eom Chaewon. Age: twenty-four this year. A three-year veteran of the working world who had jumped straight into the job market after graduating from a junior college.
Her skin tone was a little dark, her nose bridge on the low side. Height in the low 160s with shortish legs. She was so slender you had to wonder whether she actually ate, and flat-chested on top of that.
On paper she had nothing special going for her, yet somehow she was the type who drew goodwill wherever she went. Especially down at the cargo yard crawling with men—the day laborers would slow their work just to stare at her.
A little smile…
And she knew exactly how to use that high likability. Usually expressionless, but when she decided to smile on purpose, the sheer cuteness of it made everyone melt.
The problem was that she never, ever showed that freshness to me. I could guarantee she was the person who found me most uncomfortable after Harin.
As everyone expected, we had kimchi stew for lunch. Afterward, like some annual ritual, the manager dragged me out to the smoking area.
I had quit smoking quite a while ago. But wasn’t it basic workplace etiquette to keep your superior company when he wanted his post-meal cigarette?
“So? Settled into the work yet? Getting along with your teammate?”
Name: Oh Pal-uk. Age: fifty-three this year. The company had only two departments, and the president spent every day out golfing, so he was the real king of the office.
“Ah, well… Eom Chaewon has been kindly showing me the ropes in a lot of ways, so I think I’ve got the hang of it roughly.”
“You two haven’t started eyeing each other or anything, right? In a tiny company like ours, office romance is pure minus. When you break up later it becomes a total headache.”
“Ab-so-lute-ly not.”
Eyeing each other? She barely even seemed to acknowledge me as a member of this office. Of course I roughly understood why.
We were called a team, but the only members were her and me. In practice it was a senior-junior relationship, yet her career experience was actually longer.
And then I had barged in as a mid-career hire and become her boss, so of course it got on her nerves. On top of that I came from field work rather than desk work, so she had to teach me everything from one to ten—enough to drive anyone crazy with frustration.
I walked back into the office. The moment I sat down, Eom Chaewon frowned and pinched her nose shut.
She immediately aired her complaint over messenger. At least her self-expression was clear—that much was nice.
“Eom Chaewon? I didn’t smoke. The manager—”
“...?”
I wanted to explain further, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the latest message. I understood everything else—what on earth did “Aqua” mean?
Aqua [ˈækwə]: water, moisture, turquoise. Was she using the dictionary definition? Combined with weather conditions, it would mean rain was delaying the unloading, right?
But the wind was just a little strong; no rain had fallen yet. Curiosity got the better of me, so I asked her directly.
“Um… Eom Chaewon? What does this ‘Aqua’ mean here? As you know, I only started this job recently, so I’m still weak on industry terms.”
She whipped around.
For the first time in ages Eom Chaewon turned her body toward me. Of course her eyes were full of contempt and her brow was furrowed, so it wasn’t exactly a friendly gesture.
“You don’t know Aqua? The manager uses that word all the time.”
“No! I know the dictionary meaning of Aqua, but in this context it just doesn’t quite… how should I put it…”
“When something keeps getting worse, that’s Aqua, right? The manager’s always saying the economy went Aqua, Korea-Japan relations went Aqua, stuff like that.”
“...”
It wasn’t “Aqua”—it was “worsening.” She said it with such absolute confidence that I didn’t even feel like picking at the “-ed” endings that followed.
“It’s from Oshi no Ko, you know?”
“Huh? Why are we suddenly talking about that…”
“You don’t know Oshi no Ko? The anime?”
“I know what it is, but why are we changing topics in the middle of this…”
“The main character’s name is Aqua. Right from episode one he dies and his mom gets stabbed. Nothing but bad stuff keeps happening, so people took that and started saying things ‘go Aqua.’”
“...”
I already told you it isn’t “Aqua.” But she had fully entered serious mode.
“Ugh, seriously, I just don’t get the manager. Using young people’s words on purpose doesn’t actually make you younger. We don’t even use that meme, so why does he?”
“Eom Chaewon? I think the manager is saying ‘worsening,’ not ‘Aqua.’ The meaning is similar, but it’s an existing Sino-Korean word…”
“Team Leader, are you a T?”
“...?”
What the hell was a T now? But there was no time to ask.
Eom Chaewon looked genuinely annoyed, whipped her face into a scowl, and turned back to start typing.
Not that she was working—she was blatantly online shopping during business hours. Goddammit. I hadn’t even watched a single episode of Oshi no Ko, so why was I stacking up hate points again?
An hour later we headed to the port. The company’s work was extremely simple: empty ship arrives, load cargo; full ship arrives, unload cargo.
Of course there was checking various shipments and contacting clients along the way, but since work only existed when ships arrived, we only came in about three times a week.
The trade-off was that weekends didn’t really exist.
That was exactly why a man in his thirties with a high-school daughter was eating discarded food for lunch at Aunt’s Pork Cutlet Restaurant in the middle of a weekday. How bored did I have to be to even cosplay as a male high-schooler?
Thud… thud…
The unloading work stretched late into the night. Loading was just stacking containers, but unloading sometimes involved different destinations midway, so I usually jumped in to help myself.
“What are you doing?”
Eom Chaewon, who had been yawning nonstop while buried in paperwork, walked over and asked. I wiped the greasy sweat from my forehead.
“Unloading, obviously?”
“I’m asking why the team leader is doing it. Isn’t that what we pay the day laborers for?”
“Well… you’re not wrong, but everyone’s sweating away. If I help, we finish even a little earlier, right? Or don’t you feel any social pressure about that?”
“Not at all. It’s not like they give extra overtime pay for it, so why bother?”
“...”
Eom Chaewon shook her head as if she couldn’t understand and walked off. But that was only because she didn’t know.
In the end I had to keep running into the day laborers face-to-face. Building a good reputation never hurt. Even if it didn’t help right now, someday it could come back around to me…
“Chaewon? I bought some drinks—want one?”
“Thanks.”
I did the work, yet the drinks went to Eom Chaewon. The moment break time hit, every single laborer flocked over to her side, straining to throw even one more question her way.
Whoosh~
Meanwhile no one stood near me. Sitting astride a forklift and taking a sip from the water bottle I had “personally” brought, a thought suddenly struck me.
Maybe… she was the one living more wisely?
Vroom~
It was past ten at night before we finally clocked out. I climbed into the used Honda Civic I had bought for 1.5 million won after falling for Uncle’s slick sales pitch, and headed for Seoul.
The problem was that Eom Chaewon was sitting in the passenger seat. That sweet manager of ours had insisted a woman shouldn’t be out alone this late and forcibly arranged a carpool.
The moment we entered downtown Seoul my head got complicated. We hadn’t been carpooling long, so the route to Eom Chaewon’s place was still fuzzy.
“Um, Eom Chaewon?”
“...”
I called her name, but got no answer. More accurately, the two of us hadn’t exchanged a single word the entire ride.
With the help of a red light I turned my head to check on her. And what do you know? She had wireless earbuds in both ears, chin propped on her hand, staring out the window.
Wasn’t that a bit much? Even if she didn’t want to talk to me, her superior was driving her all the way home—why plug her ears?
I couldn’t help feeling slighted. Figuring she would stop me if I took a wrong turn, I put my hands back on the wheel.
“You called me—why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Huh? You were listening? I saw the earbuds and thought you were listening to music…”
“I’m just wearing them. And these aren’t earbuds, they’re AirPods.”
“...”
Then answer when someone talks to you? She set it up so anyone would misunderstand, then treated me like the weird one—what was that about?
“I’m still not great with Seoul geography. To get to your place…”
“Turn left up there. But why are you such a bad driver? Does it always take this long from Incheon to Seoul?”
“Uh… I only got my license recently. So for now I’m just driving safely.”
“Didn’t you say you were thirty-four? What were you doing all this time that you’re only getting it now?”
“Huh? As you know, I went straight onto ships right after high school, so I never had time to get one.”
“Is that so?”
“...”
The conversation died again. Of course I had no obligation to force it, but wouldn’t improving this already awkward teammate relationship make work easier too?
“Um… come to think of it, you haven’t eaten, right? Earlier it looked like you just grabbed a piece of bread…”
“I already ordered Coupang Eats.”
“...”
Who said anything about eating with you? I was just asking out of basic courtesy how she handled dinner on work days.
Should I explain further? If it ended like this I would look like a creepy boss ten years older hitting on a female subordinate for dinner.
Screech…
In the meantime we arrived in front of the officetel where she lived. Eom Chaewon tilted her head and asked me,
“Weren’t we going to eat?”
“N-no? Besides, you already ordered Coupang Eats, didn’t you?”
“Then why did you ask?”
Eom Chaewon muttered to herself with a frown and got out of the car. Without a single word of thanks for the ride, she strode straight into her building.
“...”
What the hell was this? Where exactly had I gone wrong?
I never suggested eating in the first place. Since she misunderstood, should I have explained more clearly?
But she already ordered Coupang Eats, right? Or was it something else?
Did it mean that if I offered a better menu than delivery food, she would gladly come along?
Hard. So hard. At home it was Kang Harin; at work it was Eom Chaewon.
Not a single person I could actually talk to.