I Want You as My Hyung
Hyeongjun and Hyeonseong were at their wits' end.
Too much work?
No idea what they were supposed to be doing?
Neither.
"Senior. I'm going to run down to the plenum and back."
"Go ahead, Seokhyeon."
It was Lee Seokhyeon. The man never stopped moving.
Does he always roam around like this?
He had only just finished checking WN-9. The day's work was already done, and still he took another full lap of the line. Even that wasn't enough. Now he was heading all the way down to the lower level and back.
...So this is why the hyungs acknowledged him.
He'd kept this up for three whole months? He'd even come back up from below, dropped into his chair, and started clacking away at something with fierce concentration.
"Seokhyeon. What are you doing?"
Hyeongjun couldn't hold the curiosity in. Seokhyeon answered as if it were nothing.
"Ah. I saw some piping that's worn out, so I'm putting in a replacement request."
"...You can see that?"
"Yes."
It was impossible to make sense of. How did he know the pipes were aging? Stranger still, every line he flagged came back with the worst possible result on its durability test. He filed the replacement requests, and then—
"Senior. I'm going to go look over the tools."
Off he went again.
"What for?"
Even Senior Yeongseok was curious enough to ask.
"Ah, I thought I'd see if there were any improvements to be found."
"Yeah? Go on, then."
???
Improvements just turned up because you decided to look for them? A three-month rookie announcing he was off to find improvements was baffling enough. Hyung Yeongseok sending him on his way as if it were the most natural thing in the world was harder still to swallow.
Ah, forget it.
He truly didn't get it anymore. And Seokhyeon wasn't even at his desk. Hyeongjun decided to ask outright.
"Hyung Yeongseok."
"Yeah?"
"Has Seokhyeon always worked like this?"
"Pretty much."
For real?
This is ridiculous.
A new hire's passion. There was something past even that.
"What do you think?"
Hyung Yeongseok asked. He probably meant, what do you make of him.
"...Well. He's an ace. That's all."
At those words Hyeonseong nodded too, and so did Hyung Uhyun, who had been sitting there the whole time. At that level there was no point arguing the point. In name and in fact, he was the ace of the WN Part.
Unfortunately, I couldn't turn up any further improvements. The blue lights were still there, spread like mold, but—
I can't tell what any of it means.
I still didn't have the study or the experience. And it wasn't as if I could take it to the seniors.
"Senior. This is going to need an improvement, isn't it?"
"Oh? Which part?"
"..."
That was exactly how it would go.
I'll just have to study more.
I settled on that and closed out the day's work. With WN-9 already fixed, there was nothing left to do.
"Good work today, everyone!"
I bowed to the seniors and headed out of the office, and on the way I caught Senior Yeongseok talking with Deputy Head Kim Soonhyeop.
What are they talking about?
I found out the next day.
"You'll like this, Seokhyeon."
"Yes?"
"They say a new hire's coming in. Your junior."
"Really?!"
My heart kicked, just like that. My first job. My first junior!
I've got to do this right!
No more, no less. Exactly as much as Senior Yeongseok did for me.
"When? When do they get here, Senior?"
"...Seokhyeon. Aren't you a little too happy about this?"
"So when do they get here?"
"Probably next month? They're in training now, I hear."
I was already looking forward to it. I wanted next month to hurry up and arrive.
Sungsam Electronics headquarters. The president's office.
President Seo Deokhwa sat at his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose.
What am I supposed to do with this brat.
He had one child. An only son—the kind of boy a father could set in his eye and feel no pain. And that precious son had a single flaw. His character.
Too arrogant.
He knew he was brilliant, and so he treated nearly everyone as if they weren't there. The trouble was that he really was brilliant. Money was incidental. With no patron behind him whatsoever, he had entered MIT on talent alone and graduated with a perfect record.
And a boy like that...
He had joined Sungsam Electronics without a single word to his own father. How much trouble would he stir up this time? Deokhwa could only hope no one discovered the new hire was his son. Precious as the boy was, no father alive wanted to stand up and explain away a scandal over his child's character.
Which means...
the boy had to be sent somewhere as brutal as possible. Somewhere so grinding he wouldn't have the breath left to talk. Seo Deokhwa picked up the phone.
"Yeah. Head of HR. It's me."
Reassigning a single new hire was no trouble at all.
Where was the hardest place to work at Sungsam Electronics? Ask around, and people all said the same thing.
"Mine. Obviously."
Everyone was convinced their own post was the worst. And yet, tell them to go there, and every last one of them turned away.
"Line 1? That place is... yeah."
It was the oldest building on site, so the breakdowns came often and the conditions were miserable. Tell someone they were being transferred to Line 1, and you could find people who would rather quit. Morning came to that same Line 1 Deposition Part all the same.
"Good morning!"
I came in no different from any other day. My mood was better than usual, though. Even my condition felt a notch higher.
Is it the anticipation?
A month had passed. It was finally time for the new hire to arrive!
A junior. A junior!
I'd had juniors at school, but a junior at work was a first. I was full of the urge to treat them well.
When will they get here?
First thing in the morning? Halfway through the shift? When was I supposed to introduce myself? Should I do it now, before I went in? Where were they?
"Seokhyeon. You're looking around a little too much, aren't you?"
"Ah. Sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry for."
Senior Yeongseok glanced at me and let out a short laugh. My excitement must have been showing.
"Still, don't expect too much."
"Sorry?"
"The training lead said the personality's a bit rough."
New hires went through a short course before they were assigned to a department. Seemed the one coming to us had caused trouble during training.
"Bad temper?"
"No. More like... he looks down on people, they said."
Senior Yeongseok smiled, awkward about it.
"Even so, he's our junior. Let's treat him well."
"Yes."
He wouldn't be outright rude to the seniors. Surely not. I waited for him that way and got through the morning's work. After lunch, when we came back into the office, the department head called the Deposition Part together.
"All right, all right. Eyes up, everyone!"
Beside him stood a tall, strikingly handsome man with a sharp cast to his face.
"This is Employee Seo Jeongwoo, joining us in the Deposition Part. Everyone, a round of applause!"
Clap— clap— clap— clap—
Applause broke out. My eyes lit up.
So that's him.
The new hire. His face was a little sharp, but I had a feeling we'd get along.
"All right. Employee Seo Jeongwoo, introduce yourself."
At the department head's word, the new hire took one step forward. And then—
"I'm Seo Jeongwoo."
...
That's it?
That was the entire introduction. Everyone seemed too thrown to react at all.
Clap— ...clap— clap— clap—
A belated answer to someone who had started clapping. The new hire gave a small nod and took one step back.
Shy, maybe.
Must be the bashful type. Very quiet. Cold, even. A new hire who didn't feel like a new hire at all. None of that green, fumbling air.
"Ahem. Well. Employee Seo Jeongwoo will be with the WN Part, so Deputy Head Kim Soonhyeop and Yeongseok, look after him."
And that was the end of the introduction. Everyone drifted back to their desks. The new hire walked to his own seat with a confident stride—our row. The desk directly beside mine.
"Here. Take this."
I held out the spare Inform notebook I'd been keeping, the handover log, and a cleanroom pen.
"Bring them with you when we go into the line later."
"I do already have a notebook and a pen."
"Ah—ordinary notebooks and pens can't go into the line. Particles."
"...Understood."
New hire Seo Jeongwoo nodded and took the notebook and pen.
Heh. Did I seem a little like a proper senior just then?
A senior shines brightest when looking after a junior. That was why Senior Yeongseok always seemed to glow.
"All right, everyone. Time to head in."
"Yes!"
At Senior Yeongseok's word, we gathered our things. Lunch had been a brief pause. It was back into the line for the rest of the shift. We were about to go in when—
"Ahem. Ahem. Jeongwoo?"
Someone had come to our row. Deputy Head Park Seongwoo.
That man still hasn't cleared out.
He'd been pulled off the budget post and had nothing left to do, yet he clung to his seat all the same, poking around everywhere as if he could still widen his reach.
"Yes."
"Good to meet you. I'm Deputy Head Park Seongwoo. Just stopped by to say hello. Let's get along."
Now he'd stooped to bothering new hires. He offered his hand. The new hire stared at it for a moment, then took it.
"Yeah, yeah. Carry on, then."
Deputy Head Park Seongwoo turned away with a satisfied smile. That was when—
Flutter—
Something unfolded. I looked for the source and found new hire Seo Jeongwoo. He had drawn the pocket square from his suit and was wiping his hand.
...Huh?
Swipe— wipe—
Then he dropped the used handkerchief into the trash. Bewilderment washed over Deputy Head Park Seongwoo's face.
After the handkerchief incident, Senior Yeongseok barely managed to calm Deputy Head Park Seongwoo, who was beside himself with rage. Only after that ordeal did the WN Part finally make it into the line.
"..."
No one spoke. The handkerchief incident had been that shocking. Seo Jeongwoo, meanwhile, looked entirely unbothered.
So that's why those rumors were going around.
That he looked down on people. This wasn't merely looking down. This was open contempt.
This won't be easy.
I was going to have to harden my heart. Senior Yeongseok's usual manner alone wouldn't make me a good senior. I had to be ready to show them the dark side of Senior Yeongseok, too.
Not that I've ever actually seen the dark Senior Yeongseok.
I was bracing myself when he spoke.
"Jeongwoo's new to the line, so Seokhyeon, take him around and explain things."
The chance had come sooner than I expected.
"Yes!"
"Jeongwoo, watch Seokhyeon and learn what you can. He's the ace of our part."
"Sorry?"
I was grateful to be acknowledged as the ace. But what was a new hire like me supposed to have worth teaching? No one contradicted it. The rest of the part nodded as if it were obvious.
Is this for real?
Beside me, new hire Seo Jeongwoo nodded too.
"Yes."
...
Please, just don't pull a handkerchief on me. And so the line tour, Seo Jeongwoo and I, got underway. I didn't actually know that much. What was I supposed to do?
"From here to there is the bay where our tools sit. Ah—a bay just means a section of the floor."
"Yes."
"Our tools are..."
I walked him through it as we went. What kind of tools they were, and how they deposited film. What problems could come up, and how to deal with them.
"This one, WN-15..."
I even gave him a brief history of the tools I knew, down to how I'd found the problem at the time and how I'd fixed it.
Well. He won't understand all of it right away.
Still, it would help to have heard it. Seo Jeongwoo's attitude wasn't bad. He asked questions along the way.
"By any chance..."
We went back and forth like that.
"Ah. That one's going to need a fix."
I found failures, too. A few white lights were flickering. I called the seniors, passed along what I'd seen, and asked them to handle it.
"How did you know?"
Seo Jeongwoo asked.
"Uh..."
If I explained, would he even follow? Dumping too much on him at once could just as easily backfire.
"You can tell if you look."
I'll explain it all later, Jeongwoo.
We finished a circuit of the line and went down to the plenum.
"This is where the tools' support systems are."
Same thing there. I explained that aged pipe had to be replaced, or you could get a water leak. I happened to spot some worn piping and logged it while we were at it. And that was one full tour of the line.
Huh.
Maybe I knew more than I thought. By the time I finished explaining, my throat was nearly gone. Everything I'd studied and picked up amounted to far more than I'd realized. A quiet pride settled over me. That was when—
He seized my hand in both of his.
...Why, all of a sudden?