Slot Two Candidate
After finishing his workout, Dagyeom went to work at the restaurant.
He changed into his work clothes inside the cramped storage room that doubled as the men’s changing room, then headed into the kitchen and greeted the others who had already arrived.
"Hello."
"Hey, Dagyeom."
"Our gym boy’s here."
The kitchen crew, who had been chatting among themselves, answered his greeting in a tone that was frankly warm.
"You worked out again today?"
"Yes, I came straight here after I finished."
"Wow, you’ve turned into a total gym rat. At this rate, you’re gonna hit a 600 total on the big three soon, huh?"
Kim Jeongbae, the man with tattoos on his arm, asked playfully as he rubbed Dagyeom’s shoulder and forearm.
Jeongbae was twenty-three, two years older than Dagyeom, and usually a little rough around the edges in both speech and behavior.
"Working out really does suit you. Your face looks so much brighter now."
Kim Seohee, who was twenty-nine this year, married for three years, and the oldest among the kitchen staff, naturally joined the conversation.
"Maybe I should start going to the gym too."
"That’d be great. You should go with your husband."
"That man? As if... He just rolls around on the sofa all day. His belly’s gotten so big people probably think he’s pregnant if they see him."
Dagyeom gave an awkward laugh while she vented her complaints about her spouse in front of him.
Jeongbae and Seohee. They’d both been working together with him for a long time, but only recently had they become this familiar.
It was all the result of Dagyeom deliberately forcing himself to act sociable, trying to change his gloomy personality.
Honestly, it’s still hard.
The time and emotional energy required to maintain smooth relationships with other people was far greater than he’d expected. He was only hanging on because of the favorability.
"The other day, I said we should go for a walk after dinner, and he told me to go by myself. It was nighttime too—did he not even worry about me?"
"Wow, that’s a bit much, sir."
"Maybe work’s really wearing him out... Still, he must’ve been pretty hurt."
Following Jeongbae’s exaggerated tsking, Dagyeom also put on a look of pity and defended Seohee as if he truly sympathized.
Outwardly, the whole exchange seemed harmless enough, but in truth Dagyeom was already feeling a brutal drain on his emotions.
Talking to people about things he didn’t really care about, then tossing in the right reactions at the right moments—it was torture, plain and simple.
This is even harder than working out...
Tired of the conversation’s total lack of substance, Dagyeom found another, more efficient way to maintain relationships without having to spend so much time talking to people.
It wasn’t anything especially grand. He simply scattered around light snacks like jelly, gum, and candy.
"I heard this is a new mala-flavored jelly. Want to try some?"
"Jelly tastes like mala?"
"These days, they really make everything."
Seohee and Jeongbae both showed interest.
The snacks Dagyeom brought in were more about novelty and attracting attention than actual taste—trendy new products made to get consumers talking.
"Ugh! Holy crap... this tastes awful!"
"Have another one, sir."
"Hey, get this garbage out of here! Where do you even keep finding this stuff..."
"I actually don’t mind it. Way better than that rice cake with kataifi in it we had last time."
While Jeongbae recoiled and got up in disgust, Seohee seemed to rather like the bizarre snack Dagyeom had brought.
"You kids, come try some too."
She even called over the floor staff and turned it into a jelly tasting party.
"What is it this time?"
"Oh, mala-flavored jell-y~"
Since the floor staff were all cute women in their early to mid-twenties, they seemed especially amused by Dagyeom’s odd little snacks and showed real interest.
Sometimes they even came up to him first and asked if he had brought anything new, just so they could post it on their social media.
"Dagyeom, do you run some kind of GoTube channel? You always find the weirdest stuff."
"I just like trying new products when they come out."
Dagyeom scratched the back of his head shyly as he answered, though the truth was he didn’t actually have such a hobby at all.
It’s all for favorability.
His goal was to become a kind of fun consumer who could periodically toss out a decent talking point and naturally secure his presence among them.
In fact, it was a pretty good strategy. He’d used it to draw the other employees’ interest and, in just two weeks, had become comfortable enough to mingle with them without awkwardness.
Of course, it didn’t work on everyone.
"Manager, want one too?"
Dagyeom held out the bag of jelly to Baek Jiseon, the floor manager who was checking sales in front of the register computer, and asked casually.
She didn’t even look at him. In a cold voice, she replied, "No. You eat it."
Her refusal was so blunt it left him embarrassed, and even the other floor staff who had been laughing and chatting around them suddenly fell silent. With the mood dropping, Dagyeom awkwardly withdrew his hand.
There she goes again.
For some reason, Baek Jiseon didn’t merely dislike him—she seemed openly averse to him.
Even when Dagyeom tried to show her kindness on purpose, she just humiliated him like this.
She happily took food from the other employees, but treated only him that way.
...Forget it. Why bother with someone who says she hates me.
He hadn’t even done anything wrong to her, yet she still acted like that, so Dagyeom decided to stop trying to get close to her.
It was unfair, sure, but you couldn’t get along perfectly with everyone.
He clicked his tongue inwardly and went back into the kitchen.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Dagyeom. Jeongbae. We’re going to have a new kitchen member joining us soon."
Right before the lunch rush truly got going, Seohee shared the news.
Dagyeom, who had been portioning meat for the gukbap by weighing it out, tilted his head.
"Did someone quit?"
"No."
Seohee shook her head.
"The boss probably won’t be able to come into the kitchen for a while."
"Ah, that explains why I haven’t seen him."
The restaurant they worked at was large, and during the busiest lunch rush the kitchen tasks were normally handled by four people: Seohee, Jeongbae, Dagyeom, and the owner.
"These days, the boss is busy preparing a second location somewhere else. So we decided to bring in one more person."
Since the place was already famous as a local favorite, the four of them could barely keep it running as it was. With someone leaving to prepare a branch, it was only natural they’d decide to add another staff member.
"Anyway, someone’s coming in later for an interview."
"Unnie, is it a guy or a girl?"
Jeongbae, who had been chopping vegetables for the sundae filling, stopped cutting and asked with brightened eyes.
Dagyeom also pricked up his ears.
If it was a woman, that meant the pool of candidates for Slot Two in the custom window would grow, so he couldn’t help but be interested.
"A girl. She’s twenty."
"Nice!"
Beside the delighted Jeongbae, Dagyeom also cheered inwardly.
As long as she wasn’t someone like Baek Jiseon who openly disliked him, this could be a chance to build the relationship properly from the start and register her in a slot.
Not long after, lunch hour arrived, and customers began to flood in.
"One assorted sundae! Two gukbap, meat only!"
"Coming right up!"
"Dagyeom, do we have any empty clay pots left?"
"I’ll wash one right away!"
"Seohee unnie, we’re almost out of sauce paste."
"There’s some in the storeroom. Want to go get it yourself? We’re so busy today without the boss here."
"Ah, okay~"
Everyone was so busy they barely had time to breathe, and it wasn’t until around three in the afternoon that they finally got a chance to catch their breath.
As the restaurant began to quiet down, the little bell at the door jingled.
"Seohee unnie, the kitchen assistant interviewee is here."
"Okay. I’m coming."
Seohee took off her apron and left the kitchen.
Just after finishing a late lunch and preparing the filling for the sundae, Dagyeom and Jeongbae both looked toward the dining area as if by agreement.
In place of the owner, who was away, Seohee—the oldest in the kitchen—sat the applicant down at an empty window table and began the interview.
"Ah... what is this."
Jeongbae, who had been staring that way, saw the applicant’s face and openly showed his disappointment.
From his point of view, it was hard to call the woman pretty, even generously speaking.
For one thing, she was quite short. Dagyeom, who had a good eye for such things, guessed she might be around 154 to 155 centimeters tall.
With her blunt bob cut, a nose that spread a bit too wide to the sides, thin little eyes, and a face that was generally soft and plump, she gave off a slightly dull impression.
Jeongbae lost interest at once, wearing the look of someone who’d been let down.
Wow, that’s transparent.
Seeing his reaction, Dagyeom clicked his tongue inwardly, but at the same time thought this might actually be a good thing.
A thought from a famous fighter he’d seen before flashed through his mind.
The American fighter, saturated in macho ideology, had given a realistic piece of advice to male fans who were clumsy when it came to dating.
Don’t try to go after some high-level woman right from the start when you’ve got nothing. The point is to start with someone within your reach, learn how to talk to people, and build up dating experience and confidence first.
It might have sounded like garbage at first glance, but in a situation like this, what better guideline was there?
Dagyeom faced reality head-on.
Wasn’t it obvious that it was easier to draw favor from someone at a similar level than to chase after a tree too high to climb?
If I’m going to do this, I should invest where the input-to-output ratio looks high.
He knew his own thinking was far too calculating and opportunistic, but he had no intention of stopping.
Dagyeom was absolutely no good Samaritan like Baek Seungho. He’d been abandoned by his biological parents, driven to drop out by school bullying, and was a man so steeped in complex and insecurity it had sunk to his bones.
Now that he’d stumbled into a bizarre power called the custom window and was struggling to turn his life around, he had no desire to make the road harder by clinging to moral purity.
If all goes well, they’ll hire her, right?
It wasn’t like they were looking for fine dining staff or anything that required special experience, and he himself hadn’t exactly had any trouble getting in, had he?
As expected, when Seohee came back after the interview, she announced the result.
"Her name’s Hyojeong. Han Hyojeong. She’s twenty."
"Has she worked in a restaurant before?"
"She hasn’t worked anywhere else, but she said she went to a cooking academy. Apparently she knows how to handle a knife at least."
Jeongbae looked like he would have preferred someone else, but Seohee seemed to like the applicant she’d just met quite a bit.
"She seemed polite and decent. She said she can start right away tomorrow."
More than anything else, the fact that she could start immediately seemed to have left a good impression.
"You two take good care of her when she comes in."
"Dagyeom will handle it, won’t he?"
"Yes. I’ll teach her well."
Jeongbae already looked like he intended to dump the newcomer’s training on him, but Dagyeom actually spoke with enthusiasm.
If I teach her the work little by little, we’ll naturally get closer.
His head was already full of thoughts about Slot Two.
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