The First Line in the Notebook
Kang Chi-yeol stared at the blinking cursor for a long time after typing the first line in his chicken startup notebook. He had always been the type to start with a title. Even at the company, the first thing he did when opening a file was decide on the document name. When writing reports, he would outline the table of contents before filling in a single line. Having a framework kept his mind from wavering. That was probably why the blinking cursor beneath the rather bland title Things I Can Do unexpectedly put him at ease. All day long he had felt like he was being dragged around against his will, but this small document was something he had opened with his own hands.
He typed the second line. Calculate severance pay accurately. Third line. Check maximum loan amount. Fourth line. Look at whether opening a chicken shop is truly feasible, coldly and objectively. A small laugh escaped him as he wrote the word coldly. He wondered if that was even possible in his current state. How coldly could a man who had spent the night he was laid off searching for “chicken shop startup” with grease-stained hands possibly think?
Still, he couldn’t charge ahead on emotion alone. In this day and age, self-employment wasn’t romance—it was calculation. No one knew that better than he did. The news constantly reported rising closure rates, and everyone around him offered the same easy advice: “Just join a franchise,” “Look for a proper job again,” “The restaurant business is brutally hard.” They were all right. And that was exactly why it felt so suffocating. When too many correct answers piled up, a person’s breath got trapped in their throat. The urge to walk down the wrong path at least once, on their own two feet, would rise up.
His phone buzzed with a text about an upcoming card payment. When Chi-yeol saw the amount, he unconsciously frowned. It was larger than he’d expected. There had been the congratulatory money he’d given away, and he’d also helped cover part of his mother’s hospital bill last month. While he was employed, next month’s salary had always papered over this month’s problems. That was the most familiar—and most terrifying—delusion of salaried workers. The belief that the paycheck would come forever. Or rather, the habit of thinking that at least until next month, nothing too bad would happen, so they could put it off. That gentle delusion had shattered completely in a single day.
Chi-yeol opened the calculator app again. Severance pay, remaining savings, bank balance, fixed expenses. The numbers looked bearable when viewed one by one, but when added together they made a person feel utterly small. They forced him to confront how different the numbers expected of a man his age were from the ones currently in his hands. There was clearly some societal standard that said by forty-one you should have reached a certain point, and Kang Chi-yeol had always felt half a step behind it. House, marriage, promotion, bank balance. He had lived without any major accidents, yet somehow the results were always a little emptier than everyone else’s.
He scrolled past the notebook and opened a franchise startup information page. Franchise fee, training costs, interior work, equipment, initial inventory. Each amount caught his eye. Some items were larger than expected, others surprisingly small, but when added up they still amounted to a huge sum. For someone who had just been laid off, it felt even larger. Chi-yeol leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. So this was the wall he had to hit right from the start.
When he had vaguely imagined opening a chicken shop, what came first were the signboard, the chickens, the oil, the kitchen, the customers. In reality, what came first were contracts, material costs, monthly rent, security deposits, and sales projections. Yet strangely, even as he looked at all those realistic numbers, a very small, truly tiny part of his heart fluttered with excitement. It felt like standing at the threshold of an entirely different world.
The numbers Chi-yeol had dealt with at the company had always belonged to other people. Client sales, team performance, quarterly targets, deadlines. Numbers that had no direct connection to his own name. He would work overtime to meet them, get chewed out, clean up the mess, then receive a new set of numbers the following month. That had been his life. But the numbers written here were different. He was the one who had to bear them. If he failed, the failure would be entirely his, but if he succeeded, that success would also be entirely his. That simple fact strangely set his blood on fire.
As the night deepened, the air in the room grew quieter. The sound of water running upstairs drifted down, and in the distance the brief roar of a passing motorcycle rose and faded. Chi-yeol stood up, carried his cup to the sink, and drank a glass of water. Instead of a mirror, his reflection appeared in the window. A face floating pale beneath the fluorescent light, fatigue pooled beneath the eyes, hair uncombed. He looked like he had aged several years in a single day.
He stared at that face for a moment, then let out a small snort of laughter.
Even as he said it, he didn’t feel any real hatred toward the man in the reflection. If anything, he felt a little sorry for him. A man who had clung to the company for twelve years without making much of a fuss, thinking that if he just endured moderately without big ambitions, his turn would eventually come. A man who had gone to work in silence, never quite sure whether that “turn” meant a promotion, marriage, buying a house, or simply a slightly less anxious life. That man had been laid off today.
The fact still felt awkward, yet at the same time painfully clear. The reality that he wouldn’t be going to the office tomorrow. No matter how hazy it felt in the predawn air, it would become sharper once morning came. He sat down again, closed the internet browser, and opened a job search site—just in case. Even if he was entertaining reckless thoughts about opening a chicken shop, it was dangerous to completely close off realistic options.
Job postings scrolled by. Similar experience, similar positions, similar salaries. A few listings didn’t openly state an age limit, but the atmosphere was unmistakable. Young, fast, flexible talent. Among those words, forty-one-year-old Kang Chi-yeol felt himself shrinking little by little. He clicked on one posting, then closed the window. He clicked on another, saw the resume form, and let out a sigh. Even if he got another job, what would really change?
Of course, he couldn’t say for certain. The world sometimes opened unexpected paths for people who climbed back up from the bottom. But at least right now, that path felt dark and distant, like a train he had already missed several times. In contrast, the words chicken shop were strangely vivid. Frightening, but they had form. They had smell, temperature, and tangible labor. Naturally, the chicken shop in his imagination and the one in reality would be different. In truth, grease stains, complaints from neighbors, cost management, delivery app commissions, and customer grievances would probably come first. Still, at least there would be work he could do with his own hands.
All his life, Chi-yeol had been the kind of person who did what he was told, not the kind who decided things for himself. Suddenly the difference felt enormous. Past two in the morning, his eyes grew bleary. He half-closed the laptop and was about to spread out his blanket when he noticed the last piece of chicken still sitting on the table. It had gone completely cold, but throwing it away felt like a waste. When he took a bite, the skin didn’t shatter with the same crisp snap as before. Still, it was edible. A little soggy, but it had its own flavor. Chi-yeol chewed that single bite for a long time.
Today had been exactly like that. At first there had been a crisp breaking sound, but afterward it took longer than expected to swallow. He must have dozed off, because he opened his eyes while still sitting in the chair as dawn approached. His neck was stiff and the back of his hand had left an imprint on his cheek. The laptop screen had gone dark in power-saving mode, and outside the window the sky was already turning a faint blue.
He slowly rose and went to wash his face. The cold water slapped against his skin and jolted him awake. The man in the mirror still looked haggard, but he seemed a little more solid than he had the night before. Maybe that was how people were. The day right after something truly terrible happened wasn’t as real as the day after that. Once the emotions settled a bit, all that remained were the choices.
The morning when he didn’t have to go to work felt stranger than he had expected. At the hour when he would normally already be on the bus, he was instead making coffee in the tiny kitchen that barely deserved the name. He poured instant coffee into a mug, added hot water, and stared at the steam rising for a long time. Even on a morning without a company to go to, coffee still got made. The silly thought made him smile.
When he carried the cup to the window, he saw the lady from downstairs heading out with a garbage bag. The world was still moving at its ordinary pace. For a moment he felt as if he alone had been thrown off the track, but the feeling soon vanished. Maybe he hadn’t been thrown off at all. Maybe he had simply stepped onto a different rail.
Several messages had piled up in the team group chat on his phone. Someone had written, “Manager, thank you for all your hard work,” and another had sent a single sticker. A junior colleague sent him a private message: “I’m really sorry it turned out this way. Let’s get a meal sometime.” He wasn’t upset. Everyone had said only what they could manage from their own positions. Chi-yeol was no longer young enough to misunderstand that. He sent each of them a short reply.
Just because the company relationship had ended didn’t mean all relationships had to end, but most of them tended to fade that way. He knew that well.
Around ten in the morning, his mother called again.
“Chi-yeol?”
“Mom.”