The Final Countdown
“...”
“I don’t know if you’ve treated others this way, but I am different. Whether you blindly hate the wealthy or not, and whether I’m criticized simply for being born into a better environment with more resources, it’s not something I have to listen to. The fact that you dared to insult me to my face is truly intolerable. If you hate me, keep that hatred to yourself in silence. I have absolutely no idea why I should be subjected to your abuse.”
“That’s because you did the job like a total moron...”
He let out a dry, mocking laugh. “In what way did I do the job like a moron?”
“...Obviously, rich people think it’s their own company, so they just slack off...”
“I jumped into the sea not long ago to rescue a ship that had run aground. I received a medal for it. Furthermore... I am pouring a great deal of effort into the timely procurement of rare chemicals and experimental materials that you, Ms. Min Suyeon, request from the company.”
“The wealthy don’t slack off just because they think it’s their company. 99% to 100% of my assets consist of stocks, and if I—the owner—or my father don’t work, the stock price drops, and my own net worth shrinks. Who in their right mind would slack off at their own company?”
Let’s just forget about what he had been doing in the EPS room just moments ago.
“...”
“I can only conclude that this is nothing but prejudice. If I were the type to slack off, there would have been no effort to create GPL or this alternative gasoline. Failure is an inevitable part of the process when you’re striving for something. I’m sure you’ve experienced such failures yourself, Ms. Min Suyeon. In that regard, I’m actually at a greater disadvantage. Your failures were never made public to the masses, you’ve never been harshly criticized by anonymous strangers you’ve never met, and you certainly haven’t suffered the financial losses I have.”
“But I have. Unlike you, I had to endure all of that. In a way, aren’t I working under even worse conditions than you?”
Min Suyeon stared at him, lost in thought for a moment, and then she said—
“...If I don’t go, does that mean that’s how it will end?”
Suddenly, she was using formal, polite speech.
“That’s how it has to be. I don’t like people who insult me.”
“...”
“...”
“I’ll think about it... and let you know.”
He might have just been making a wild guess, but his voice—saying, ‘The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment’—still echoed in her head. In truth, that was the very reason Min Suyeon had quit her job at another overseas oil refinery and joined Doowon. She had caused such a massive disaster, but after collecting all the news articles, related content, and foreign press reports, she realized it had been an absurd mistake and thought she could just try again—but the first list of tasks she had to handle upon arriving at work was the news that an employee of the Alternative Energy Development Group had caused a vehicle accident. As she checked the details of the incident, she was so dumbfounded that she dismantled the vehicle and started by inspecting the fuel tank, at which point her anger began to escalate in a gradient.
“...What did they say about the raw materials?”
“Lightly processed hydrogen, refined vegetable oil extracted from pine trees...”
“...Yes, turpentine.”
“And... they say there’s bio-ethanol from corn fermentation.”
“This is absolutely... insane. *Sigh*...”
After writing the accident investigation report, she had intended to go and report it herself. On her way to headquarters in her car, Min Suyeon thought, “No, they poured so much money into this, yet it’s still failure, failure, failure!”
“And then they talk about filming a demonstration video...”
“What kind of lunatic thinks of mixing this with water to make a car move?!!!”
Upon arriving at the company, seeing a woman in a stylish suit—unlike herself, who was wearing a shabby lab coat—giving an incomprehensible report in a moderate tone, she had thought, ‘I get so frustrated when she talks like that,’ and when her turn came, she had caused that scene. She had exploded with the anger she had been suppressing without context, but honestly, she had no regrets. The research she had originally intended to do was always rejected wherever she took it; she had to pay for her own hospital bills for her mother, who suffered from severe asthma, while living in a cheap room in Incheon on life support; and her father had been reduced to working as a part-time university lecturer after being fired overnight for working his body to the bone for his company.
‘...It’s better this way. I’ll just scream my lungs out at someone high up like that before I die.’
But he was a little different. She had worried that if she just started cursing, he might slap her, and she could squeeze some settlement money out of him, but instead—
“I don’t know what’s going on, but to come here and say this out of the blue...”
“Let’s just sit down and talk.”
“It was a product that had some degree of potential, after all.”
“Didn’t you come here to solve the problem? Why are you being so aggressive?”
He had tried to calm her down as she kept cursing, and he expressed the opinion that it would be better to find out what the situation was, investigate the truth, identify the problems, and try to improve them. Of course, in the end—
“Just hand it over. Make a proper report and get lost.”
Since she had spewed such words, it was only natural for him to react that way, unless he were a Buddha. Then, as she listened to him talk about the situation while he carefully examined the documents one by one, she felt a tiny bit of sincerity from him, and she was briefly tempted to mention the materials she had researched—but—
“...What does she know? A kid who’s never rolled in the dirt...”
He had only sneered.
It was about 10 days until the day Min Suyeon had decided to commit suicide.
“Ugh, is she a sociopath?”
“She’s just that kind of person.”
“She... right. You said she was the same age as me? No, was she always like that?”
“She didn’t use to scream at people she just met... Have you ever flipped out in the Chemistry department, Director?”
Well, she hadn’t flipped out, but it was clear that the department had been affected by GPL as well.
“...I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Okay. *Sigh*.”
After using mouthwash and wiping her mouth, Eunbyul picked up the documents the woman had left behind and checked the contents. So, this was...
“...So that’s why the accident happened.”
“Yeah. As it says here... There was potassium in the 26th batch, and it had settled inside the fuel tank, and... looking at it now, she didn’t just fill it with the 27th batch; she drove it after putting in the 26th, then added the 27th.”
“That’s right.”
“The potassium stuck inside the fuel tank, absorbed the oil sludge, and since it’s highly reactive, it reacted with the air in the fuel inlet after staying inside the vehicle for a long time...”
“Boom.”
There was also the issue caused by the purified water that had been in the 26th batch. It was a situation where it wouldn’t have been strange for it to catch fire from the start, but uniquely, the potassium remaining in the fuel tank didn’t react easily even when it met the water.
“...First, scan this data and send it to Senior Jeonghyeon on the 15th floor.”
“Got it.”
“...”
“...”
When the silence stretched, he looked at her, and she looked at him at the same time; in that moment, they both turned their heads away, looking embarrassed as they sat there. He couldn’t possibly see Eunbyul, who had done such things under his desk, as just a secretary, and Eunbyul was embarrassed because she hadn’t even wiped up the water in the EPS room yet, and she had felt so much pleasure like a fool and finished all by herself. Still,
“...Um, Director...”
“Huh? Ah, oh. Yeah.”
“Still... it felt good.”
“...”
He had no choice but to say that it felt good for him, too.
Min Suyeon, fiddling with a few sheets of paper, sat in her desk chair at home as if she had finished work for the day, hesitated, and then let out a sigh as if to exhale her very soul. Then, she looked up at the calendar and said,
“...Ten days.”
She stared intently at the purple circle drawn on September 20th, then took out a notebook and looked at the contents.
September 12, Mon: Create handover materials for the next person.
September 13, Tue: Tell parents I’m going abroad for work, make a welfare call.
September 14, Wed: Eat alone at the main branch of Will Steakhouse after work.
. . .
September 15, Thu: Set the beneficiaries of the insurance money to 1/2 for Mom and 1/2 for Dad, call the insurance company’s call center.
September 16, Fri: Write letters to Mom and Dad, to be sent 5 years later... Need to designate a retirement pension deposit account.
September 17, Sat: Drink with friends, gather all remaining money into Juseong Bank.
September 18, Sun: Watch a play or movie, take a walk along Cheonggyecheon.
September 19, Mon: Pay credit card bills, pay insurance premiums, cut off phone service. Go to a club and try sleeping with a man.
September 20, Tue: “...Yeah, this is enough...”
She didn’t think she had lived a happy life. It had been a series of misfortunes. In truth, there was no reason to blame Seongjeong or Eunbyul. If it hadn’t been that way, her father would have been fired from somewhere else. ...The anger she had felt until now was just because she needed a place to vent her frustration. ...She had acted that way in the hope that someone would realize she was going to die soon, in the hope that someone would help her.
Min Suyeon stared at the ceiling, lost in thought, and then she picked up a pretty pen and wrote one more item next to the date marked September 20th.
September 20: Tell them I don’t think I can work with them anymore, the end.