Interview at Lucy
6:52 a.m. Kang San's house.
The moment he opened his bedroom door, a crisply ironed shirt blocked his path.
Today was the final interview at the lingerie company.
"Wear this today. It's an interview—don't go in that black T-shirt you always wear. Dad ironed it yesterday."
His sister held the shirt out on its hanger.
"I already have clothes. Why pull that out again?"
"Because you wear the same thing every single day. You're a fashion design major—why do you have zero interest in your own clothes?"
She sat down at the table and asked,
"What was the company name again?"
"Lucy."
"Hey, that's a famous place. They make women's underwear. They're in every department store, they run ads—and you're going there?"
"It's a clothing company."
"Here we go again, first thing in the morning."
She shook her head.
"Why there of all places? Honestly, I still don't get it. Fashion design covers men's wear, sportswear—there are tons of brands these days."
"It looks hard."
"That line again."
"They make things you can't see. From the outside everything looks the same, but the person wearing it feels the difference."
"Do you even know anything about women's underwear?"
"No."
"Then why are you going?"
"Because I don't know. That's why I'm going to learn."
"If you say that in the interview, won't you just fail?"
"If I get in, I learn. If I don't, I hear the reason."
"That actually sounds pretty reasonable."
"I'm always reasonable."
"But Lucy's tough. Even for internships, kids from good schools flood the place. Aren't you nervous?"
"I'll get nervous if I pass."
"If you're done eating, go. It's going to be crowded."
"I'm off."
8:10 a.m. Morning commute, Line 2 subway.
Kang San stood inside a subway car packed with the rush-hour crowd.
Across from him, the face of a woman in her thirties had gone noticeably pale.
She pressed a hand to the upper part of her chest and gasped for air. Her shoulders heaved, yet the breaths she managed were desperately shallow.
In that instant Kang San's heart rate spiked and a ringing filled his ears. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The moment tension and excitement hit critical levels, his vision flipped in a bizarre inversion and switched on.
Ssshhh—!
The world in front of him reconstructed itself completely.
The thick wool coat and blouse the woman wore melted away as if they had never been solid, turning transparent like a lie.
Where clothing lost all meaning, the curves of her ribcage and skin stood out with microscopic clarity.
And there, digging savagely into that white flesh, was the wide band of a heavy-duty shapewear bra.
The lower curve of her breasts, crushed to the point of bursting, and the high-tension wire that clamped mercilessly under her ribs with every attempt to inhale, plus the rigid hooks along her back.
It was an engineering failure in pure form. The harder she tried to breathe, the tighter it squeezed; the tighter it squeezed, the less she could breathe—a hellish loop. The space for air itself had been completely sealed off.
"Ah… ah…?"
Her hands flailed at empty air before she crumpled forward in her seat.
"Oh my god! Miss!"
In an instant people screamed and scrambled backward.
In the chaos where no one dared touch her, Kang San pushed through the crowd and dropped to his knees in front of the woman.
"Call 911. Right now."
He laid the back of his hand near her nose, then pressed his ear against the full swell of her chest exposed through the gap in her blouse.
Warmth came through the thin fabric, but her breathing had stopped completely.
He tilted her chin to open the airway and sealed his lips over her cold ones, forcing air into her lungs.
Her chest did not move at all. Swallowing his anxiety, he pushed another deep breath in—same result.
In his see-through vision that heavy ribcage refused to budge.
The cause was clear. The high-tension band and wire clamping viciously under her ribs.
That solid mass of fiber had completely blocked the space for air and driven the pressure distribution past its limit.
Kang San shouted urgently at a woman hovering nearby in panic.
"Air isn't getting in. The back band is crushing her ribcage too hard. Reach behind her and undo every single hook. I can't touch her myself."
A woman hurriedly knelt and thrust her hands behind the collapsed woman's back. Rough fabric friction sounded from under the clothes.
"Here? Ugh, why is this so tight?"
"Yes. The triple hook clamping at the very bottom. Undo all of them and release the pressure."
Click! Snap!
Through the sensation at her fingertips and Kang San's transparent vision, the hooks came free one after another.
The band that had been cutting deep into flesh finally loosened, and the ribcage won its freedom.
"Again."
Kang San covered the woman's lips once more and blew with everything he had.
Swoooosh—!
This time was different. The suppressed chest and the alveoli inside it visibly expanded, beginning to take the load.
"Huuuuh—!"
The woman expelled a rough breath and her eyes flew open.
"Haa… haa… My chest just suddenly closed up…"
"Breathe slowly. Air is getting in now."
The woman who had undone the hooks wiped her sweat and let out a sigh of relief.
"Good lord, that underwear band almost killed her. No wonder she couldn't breathe, clamped that tight!"
Kang San confirmed the woman's stabilized breathing and the restored elasticity of her ribcage before speaking quietly.
"With the pressure released, ribcage movement has recovered. For a while, fasten the hooks on the loosest setting and breathe slowly."
The subway stopped. Station staff and passengers helped the woman onto the platform.
Kang San smoothed the wrinkled sleeve of his shirt, slipped through the crowd, and stepped out of the station.
8:47 a.m. Front entrance of Lucy HQ.
The ten-plus minutes lost on the subway had caught up with him.
When Kang San entered the lobby still catching his breath, the receptionist was already closing the list.
"Intern interview applicant?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. Check-in closed at 8:45. You're two minutes late."
"There was a medical emergency on the subway—"
"I can't make an exception for just one person. Everyone else arrived on time."
Kang San was about to bow his head bitterly and turn away when an elegant figure stopped at the entrance caught his eye.
"Oh? Student."
It was the stylish woman in a tailored suit who had personally undone the hooks of the woman who collapsed from lack of air on the subway.
"You came here for the interview?"
"Yes. I was late."
She walked to the desk. The employee badge hanging from her neck clearly read Practical Interviewer.
"Ms. Interviewer. This applicant arrived two minutes past the deadline…"
At the receptionist's words she waved a hand.
"I saw it myself. This student just saved a life on the subway. While everyone else was only holding their phones, he alone ran in and even performed CPR. When the clothes were too tight for air to go in, he was the one who told me exactly to undo the hooks."
She turned to Kang San with a captivating smile.
"The person who was two minutes late spent those two minutes saving a life. I'll take responsibility. Let him in."
"…Applicant, please go up to the second-floor auditorium."
The staff member's attitude flipped instantly. The woman walked toward the elevator and gave Kang San a light nod as she passed.
"You did well earlier."
"It was nothing."
"But how did you know? Everyone else was panicking thinking it was a heart attack, yet from the start you pinpointed underwear pressure."
"I blew air in, but it was physically blocked. If the chest doesn't rise, something inside is sealing the ribcage. Other than the high-tension band of shapewear, nothing could block a ribcage that thoroughly."
"Interesting guy. Good luck with the interview."
Her rich perfume brushed past him. Kang San set his foot on the stairs leading to the second-floor auditorium.
On the screen above the auditorium stage, bold letters glowed.
2027 LUCY INTERN RECRUITING
The head of HR took the microphone and spoke solemnly.
"Thank you to everyone who has joined us for today's interview. Total attendance is one hundred; final selection will be ten. The process runs group interview followed by practical interview.
And starting this year, the portfolios you submitted will be used only as reference material. At Lucy, we look at the person first—before flashy credentials."
A stifled murmur erupted around the auditorium. The applicant in the next seat whispered,
"…Insane. They're not even looking at portfolios?"
Kang San looked down at the number tag on his chest. It read 47. A moment later the waiting-room announcement came.
"Numbers 41 through 50, please move to the adjacent waiting room."
Group interview waiting room. Five or six people sat in a tense circle, eyeing one another.
The extremely voluptuous female student who sat next to Kang San glanced at him, then whispered to the person beside her.
"Huh? There's a guy in our group."
"For real. First one I've seen today."
When Kang San met her gaze, the girl flushed slightly and asked with awkward curiosity. Every time she breathed, her thin blouse strained as if it might burst.
"Are you majoring in innerwear? Male applicants are really rare…"
"No. I just applied."
Then the interview room door opened.
"Come in. This is a blind interview."
Three interviewers sat side by side. The middle-aged woman in the center scanned the documents with sharp eyes and spoke.
"First question. Applicant number 47. Please tell us why you applied to Lucy."
The instant the question landed, the suffocating tension inside the interview room made Kang San's heart rate surge again.
With the thudding of his heart in his ears, the suppressed X-ray Vision opened its eyes once more.
Ssshhh—!
In a flash every garment inside the interview room lost all meaning and melted into transparency.
The first thing that caught his eye was the figure beneath the suit of the middle woman who had asked the question.
Outwardly she looked like a strict middle-aged woman, yet under her jacket a purple lace push-up bra was crushing her flesh, shoving her breasts upward to emphasize deep cleavage.
It was a bold compression structure that did not match her age.
When he flicked his gaze sideways, the body data of the girl who had spoken to him earlier was laid bare in clinical detail.
She had an unusually full hips relative to her frame, and for today's interview she had forced herself into heavy-duty shapewear girdle.
Through the thin skirt, the strong elastic bands of the girdle were mercilessly digging into the soft flesh of her thighs and buttocks, leaving dark marks.
With every breath the trajectory of her hip flesh being minutely crushed registered clearly on his retinas.
Kang San steadied his trembling voice and answered calmly.
"…I thought clothes you can't see are harder."
The interviewer on the right adjusted the jacket covering her purple bra with clear interest and said,
"Explain."
"Outerwear you can see in a mirror right away. But underwear you can't see only reveals itself through the body's fatigue after a full day. Only products with their own unique pressure distribution and elasticity create a reason to put them on again."
"What makes good underwear?"
Kang San's gaze lingered on the pelvic line crushed by the girdle of the girl beside him.
"Underwear you forget the moment you take it off."
"Interesting."
The interviewers' eyes lit up. Kang San continued.
"A good chair makes you forget you're sitting. A good shoe makes you forget you're wearing it. Underwear that wraps a woman's body in the most intimate way should likewise make her forget the very fact that she put it on—that is a truly good product."
"Is the reason people keep buying the same?"
"Yes. Buying once can be done by flashy ads or design. But making someone buy a second time is something only a product that has perfectly calculated the trajectory of body and fiber can achieve."
"If you join Lucy, what would you do first?"
While analyzing underwear friction coefficients in real time through his transparent vision, Kang San drove the final nail home with a voice full of conviction.
"I would go to the stores. I would collect pure, on-site data on what discomforts buyers are enduring while wearing the products."
"Why?"
"I would look at the people who buy."
"Wouldn't sales data be enough?"
"Data only leaves results. But the real 'reasons' of customers who pick up a product in the store and then put it back down never remain."
"Final question. What can you do better than the other applicants?"
"I will look at people more than products."
"Reason?"
"Products are results. People are reasons."