Let's Go Drain Some Water

“Ah, fuck, this is shitty.”

The man who woke from sleep felt a splitting headache and heaved his heavy body upright.

Glug, glug.

He snatched up the half-finished bottle of Pocari Sweat that had been left sitting on the low table shoved into the corner of the room and chugged it like a man dying of thirst. Once the worst of it settled, he pulled out a Huss cigarette, stuck it between his lips, flicked the lighter, and took a long drag.

His name was Lee Jinsik.

Age: twenty-eight.

Education: middle-school dropout.

Current occupation: none.

That was right. This bastard had spent every night until he was twenty-eight years old grinding games, sleeping through the morning, and waking up in the late afternoon just to start cussing. Anyone who looked at him would call him a neighborhood bum, a piece of human garbage who contributed nothing to society.

And this piece of shit was the protagonist of the story.

Anything to eat?

I opened the fridge and the ten-year-old stench of fermented seafood hit me like a truck. The cheap side-dish cans reeked so bad my nose wrinkled on pure instinct.

“Ah, fuck.”

I grabbed the first can my hand found, cracked the lid, and found pickled perilla leaves. Without even washing my hands I pulled one out and shoved it in my mouth. Then I headed for the kitchen, smacking my lips, and opened the rice cooker. The rice inside had been sitting for at least three days; the sour, fishy smell rose in waves. I scraped a rough scoop into a bowl with the rice paddle.

Pickled perilla leaves and three-day-old rice.

That was my breakfast and lunch.

I polished off the bowl, threw on nothing but a tracksuit and a sleeveless undershirt, slipped into my slippers, and dragged myself outside. At the neighborhood convenience store I bought a pack of Huss, scooped up a free job circular and an employment-market flyer, and headed for the park near my place.

It was late afternoon, so the park was full of little brats and school-uniform punks who spat on the ground like they were practicing for a career in thuggery. I looked around for an empty spot, spotted a vacant bench right in the middle of the park, and parked my ass there. I pulled out a cigarette, lit it quietly, and opened the free paper to the “Other Part-Time Jobs” section.

Any normal guy in his late twenties would have been hunting for something stable—logging into a proper job site or hitting a job fair. Even if he was stuck looking at free papers, he’d at least focus on factory production or office work. I had zero intention of doing any of that.

A short-string bastard like me looking for “stable employment” would top out at factory production lines. Even if I applied for office jobs, there wasn’t a single place on this planet that would hire a middle-school dropout with a dick between his legs. It wasn’t like I’d never tried factory work, either.

Just a few months earlier I’d been doing the usual—chain-smoking through the night at a PC bang—when a sudden wave of existential dread hit me. If I kept living like this I’d never meet a woman, never knock her up, never build a happy little family. Instead I’d end up in some shitty hillside room nobody wanted, washing my face with cold water, surviving on instant rice and cup ramen, and finally dropping dead. Months later the landlord would come for the rent and find my rotten corpse, and the news would give me one tiny line of text in the corner: “Unidentified body found.” That future played out inside my skull as clear as a prophecy.

I couldn’t let my life end like that. I shut down the game, found a decent job site, and spent days refreshing the page hunting for something stable. With my middle-school diploma and empty head the only places that would take me were factories, and I knew my place well enough not to even glance at office listings. I set the search filters to factory wages and bonuses only.

Eventually I found a first-tier subcontractor that looked decently sized, nestled right next to the main company building. I submitted my résumé without hesitation. Filling it out made me feel sick about the life I’d lived so far. The “work experience” section had almost nothing to put. The only real jobs I’d ever held were a few PC-bang shifts. Even I could see what a shitty existence I’d led, so I swallowed the shame and listed the PC-bang gigs anyway.

The very next day the factory called and asked me to come in for an interview. I took the bus out there. It was one of the bigger plants in the region, so the grounds were impressive. I looked around nervously until an employee led me to the interview office. Being a subcontractor, the office itself was tiny and pathetic—just one middle-aged guy who looked like the boss and one girl about my age who seemed to be the office assistant. Judging by the rows of lockers, most of the workforce were production line workers.

The interview was nothing. They asked if I could do the work. I said yes. They told me to start tomorrow. No panel of interviewers grilling me like in some drama. It was manual labor, education irrelevant, so they didn’t need to bother with fancy questions.

I started the next day. The place mainly made shopping bags out of paper. One of the workers stuck with me to teach the job. Since it was unskilled production work, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠task was dead simple: grab a hundred sheets of paper at a time and feed them into the machine. The machine did the rest; finishing was someone else’s station. I only had to do my part, so I never bothered wondering how the paper actually became shopping bags. All day long I just lifted hundred-sheet stacks and shoved them into the machine’s maw at regular intervals.

The first few days weren’t hard. Work one hour fifty minutes, ten-minute break, another hour fifty, eat, another hour fifty, ten-minute break, last hour fifty, then go home. The company was well-known in the area, so they ran a rare three-shift rotation and the pay wasn’t bad. Bonuses hit four hundred percent. If things kept going like that I honestly thought I could bury my bones there.

Then the variable appeared.

About ten days in, the team leader—some mid-level prick who managed a handful of production workers—started picking on me for no reason. The first few days he’d even handed me yogurt and chatted about life like we were buddies, so I’d had a decent impression of the guy. Then one day he flipped completely.

Once he started his random bullshit, the other production guys in my team who’d just started warming up to me began keeping their distance. It was pure shit. And then it hit me.

Ah. So this is the factory hazing I’ve only heard about.

I’d seen the stories on community sites. Factory production work is hard and exhausting, but the absolute worst part is the superiors’ baseless harassment. The job attracts uneducated assholes, so whether you’ve been there one day or ten years you end up surrounded by foul-mouthed, garbage-personality bastards. Of course not every single one was like that, but of course my first factory had to be the one that handed me this exact experience.

Living it myself was pure dogshit. If I’d actually screwed something up or looked clueless I wouldn’t have said a word, but the work itself left no room for mistakes or cluelessness.

A few days after the team leader turned on me I hit my limit. I tried telling myself this was just punishment for living a shitty life without studying, tried to grit my teeth and endure. Then the bastard crossed a line he should never have crossed, and I exploded.

That’s right. When I didn’t react to his baseless nagging and just took it, he must have found it so entertaining that he started poking me with his hands, jabbing his finger in my face, dancing right on the edge—until finally he opened his mouth and cursed me out.

“You fucking piece of shit, I told you to get this sorted!”

For a second I thought I’d misheard. I’d just finished my usual hour-fifty of feeding hundred-sheet stacks into the machine and was heading to the break room when the random stream of abuse hit me. The team leader was staring straight at me when he called me a fucking piece of shit. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I couldn’t take any more.

“Ah, you fucking ancient piece of shit, you dog bastard, what the fuck did you just say to me, you fucking asshole? You motherfucking son of a bitch!!”

I dumped every single thing I’d been holding in on that team-leader bastard. The curses poured out of my mouth like I’d bolted a motor to my jaw. He just stood there, face turning beet red, staring at me like his ears were bleeding and he couldn’t get a word out.

“You dog-fucking bastard, say one more fucking word. Today I’ll rip your head off while you’re still breathing and end my life right here, you fuck.”

Just as he was about to open his mouth again I cut him off for good, punched the door hard enough to rattle it, walked straight to the office, and submitted my resignation. The office boss looked at me with the bored eyes of a man who’d seen this a hundred times, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said “Got it,” and accepted the resignation on the spot. From that day on I swore I would never so much as glance at factory production work again.

I scanned the “Other Part-Time” section. There were a few PC-bang openings, but most of them were way too far from home. I didn’t even feel like calling. I was already a walking guy; how much could a PC-bang shift pay that I’d ride the bus back and forth every day just to grind?

Today was a bust. I folded the paper, spat out one last curse, stood up from the bench, and headed home.

I lay there staring at nothing, brain wide awake, trying to figure out how to kill time. After months of unemployed gaming since quitting the factory I was completely sick of it; for some reason I didn’t feel like going to a PC bang today. I picked up my phone and started scrolling through the community sites I usually haunted. One of them was a nightlife site.

I was browsing one of the more famous local entertainment boards when I clicked into the review section and found a post that actually looked appetizing. Decent face, pussy that tasted amazing—the description alone started getting me hard.

But fuck, it’s ridiculously far… even by bus that’s at least an hour, right?

I thought it over for a while, then dialed someone.

With a rare appointment set, I peeled off the tracksuit, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, laced ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up my sneakers, and headed for hyungnim’s place.