Starting Over Again
To introduce them briefly, starting from the left: “Have you been well?” “The General Manager is using formal speech with me...” “Oh, please, stop it.”
This person is the two-year senior I mentioned earlier. His name is Lee Jeonghyun. He graduated from the Department of Chemistry at the College of Natural Sciences. At first, he was quiet and rarely seen because he was out handling various tasks, but once we decided to start a venture company and rented an office, he became a person who made a huge contribution to the business's growth by mobilizing information and connections he brought from the outside.
“We thought we’d been abandoned. What’s going on?”
“I have something to tell you. You must be very busy.”
“Wow... I really thought this was a meeting made for consolation, but the work is just...”
The man who stood up after sitting with his head resting on the back of his chair while a chemical molecular modeling program was running is Park Jihoon. A one-year senior. He was the second member of the club because Lee Jeonghyun, who founded it, brought his department junior along. He also graduated from the Department of Chemistry. His personality is easygoing. He’s handsome, but he’s someone who always carries dark circles under his eyes.
“Exactly. There’s too much work. No, if it’s going to be like this, they should at least move us to a different department. Going up to the Finance Office every day is just...”
“I’ll suggest it. Have you been well?”
“...Forget it!”
This woman was the one who handled the work distribution in the club, planned the budget, attached receipts, and wrestled with the university headquarters over club subsidies. Her name is Yoo Jieun. She graduated from the Department of Business Administration. She is the same age as him.
“I seriously thought about going to law school, Suhyun.”
“...Are you quitting?”
“No... I have to earn money. Maybe I’ll take classes in advance and push things back...”
“Exactly. I told you, I thought about just following Jeongmin to law school too. They say engineering graduates are more sought after? Oh, seriously...”
“You’ve worked hard.”
These two are Oh Jeongmin and Kim Myungho. They are the same age and graduated from the Department of Energy Resources Engineering. They are still as noisy and chatty as ever, even without me saying anything.
“But if you become a lawyer... do you shout in court and stuff?”
“Hey, I heard that once you write the documents and submit them to the judge, that’s it.”
“I’m bad at writing... Hmm...”
“Think about the money. How stable is it? A professional job!”
Within GPL, they were responsible for tasks such as assisting with research, physically evaluating reactions inside engines, and repeating experiments over and over to confirm the differences between gasoline and alternative gasoline and make them similar. Everyone is important, but these two are especially core members. They are like twins—they both double-majored in chemistry, both graduated with a 4.1 GPA, and were classmates from elementary through high school. It’s also the same that they both got into Seoul National University.
Next, “Hyung... are we getting kicked out? Now?”
“What are you talking about? You have to work.”
“Or a department transfer...? Senior, I’m working really hard...”
“I told you, that’s not it.”
These two are Jeong Eunchan and Goo Minsu. They are from the College of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, majoring in chemistry. As I said before, if Lee Jeonghyun and Park Jihoon were in charge of research from the initial model of GI-X100, the alternative gasoline being developed, to the 08 model, these two were the ones who took charge of research and development from then on until reaching the 25 model, which is almost a finished product. So they are also core members.
“Are you still... making that?”
“Can this place be a space for experiments? We’re barely doing anything.”
“Still, Hyung-nim, I’m doing a little bit in Namyangju.”
Huh? “What Namyangju?”
“Minsu is a silver spoon. He bought land by himself and built a laboratory.”
“Oh... how is it?”
“We’ve made up to the 27th generation model now. It’s an improved model after the accident happened a while ago.”
Listening to the story, he looked all around the surroundings and said, “Let’s go into the conference room. If we talk here, it’ll get long.”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
“So, what happened?”
There are 10 people in total. The people who came in here. Eunbyul is standing next to him, and he stands in front of the conference room board and tells them to continue the story they were telling. Ah, the reason there are 10, not 9?
“I’ll explain.”
Because there is one person I haven’t introduced yet. The woman walks out slowly, and he sits down for a moment. When he sits, Eunbyul sits next to him too. The woman begins her explanation while picking up a whiteboard marker and starting to write letters.
“Now, what we’ve been doing so far was vegetable oil, a little bit of water, and liquid oxygen.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“The existing liquid oxygen was difficult to handle. There was a lot of loss, too.”
That’s right. Liquid oxygen is around minus 220 degrees. But there was nothing to replace it. Also, there was a problem with severe wear and tear after using it in existing gasoline vehicle engines for a while. It almost burned the engine room with explosive flames. So I remember having a long debate over whether to redesign the engine or not.
“We just took out the liquid oxygen.”
“Hmm?”
Then, by mixing oil and water...?
“No. The 26th generation model is vegetable oil, water, and potassium hydroxide.”
Potassium is, well... you can just think of it as potassium hydroxide. If you put that in, you can refine the oil and water properly. However, the heat generation...
“And when refueling, we decided to modify the fuel nozzle. The gas station has potassium separately, and we put in vegetable oil and water together. We also processed the fuel tanks to be separated from each other and mixed when sprayed into the engine room.”
“...Vehicle modification would be essential.”
“That’s right. However... we failed.”
Why?
“Because long-term storage of potassium is difficult. If someone who doesn’t drive the vehicle well leaves it filled with potassium and doesn’t drive for a long time, the fuel tank could explode.”
That’s dangerous.
“So in the 27th generation model, we changed the raw materials again. We electrolyzed water and mixed it with improved vegetable oil. On top of that, we included bio-alcohol... alcohol extracted from crops.”
You just mixed everything together.
“Did that fail too?”
“No, I drove a car with that in it when I came to work today.”
Huh? What did you say?
“You can just put it into a gasoline vehicle. I poured it into a car with an automatic driving function and controlled it with a remote program, and it didn’t explode, and the engine room was fine, so I just rode it and it was okay.”
“...? You drove by putting an unapproved substance into it...?”
“It’s fine as long as it doesn’t explode.”
This woman’s name is Jeong Ayeong, from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and she is one year younger. She is in the same class year as Minsu and Eunchan. As a typical example of a woman attending an engineering college, she has a calm personality and doesn’t talk about anything other than her major.
“Was there anything strange? Everything is fine, right?”
“I told you it is.”
He glanced at Eunbyul. What is going on?
“...Haha, in the past, the problem was that the experiments failed,”
“...”
“Now, this is succeeding and other things are becoming the problem.”
“Everyone, I have something to say. ...”
“...”
“I think I... made a mistake.”
Then, he laid out the relationship between Salaim and GPL, and the fact that no matter how much they develop, it could all eventually be taken away. It wasn’t something to say to employees who put so much heart and soul into their research, but he thought that if he said this after arriving in a future where everything was going well, the employees might run at him to kill him.
“...I see.”
Everyone, including Yoo Jieun, who majored in business administration, had a complicated expression. The problem was incomprehensibly difficult, but they couldn’t even find a solution. Eunbyul’s work ability is amazing, but people in this age group rarely have the possibility of experiencing such things, or rather, experiencing such things throughout their lives, so they couldn’t say anything.
“Then are we finished?”
“...Suhyun, is this what you came to tell us?”
“Hyung...”
So he said, “...Just, let’s just try as much as we can.”
“...”
“Even if that happens, how about we at least try our best. We failed really big, and I was rescued after being buried in debt. This result came out to save me and to save GPL. In a way...”
“In a way, it’s like they saved us. The company called Salaim... so let’s work hard for now. ...The Chairman and other executives also said they would help if there’s anything they can help with.”
Sighs of “ha-” burst out. In some corners, they repeat what was said before, saying it would be better to recreate the company and liquidate the equity relationship, but there are intellectual property rights attached under the GPL name, research products for which patents have been filed, and contracts that are “still” in effect, so it was just frustrating. It’s not like the results of some lawsuit come out overnight, and he couldn’t be 100% sure that they would win.
“...”
Amidst everyone’s silence, Eunbyul speaks.
“I am General Manager Han Suhyun’s secretary.”
“...?”
After starting, “Even though only negative futures have been drawn like this right now...” She decides to organize the situation a little slowly. As she said herself, she came to “assist” him. Since he finished everything he had to say and the employees had nothing to say, she takes this opportunity to speak.
“Still, the possibility is open. I hope you don’t feel too discouraged. It’s not like there’s only a desperate future.”