A Midsummer Night’s Temptation
Nostalgia was a complicated thing.
A scent was only the unique fragrance drifting from an object.
But the purpose of a perfume was to leave a specific impression on the person smelling it.
That was why perfume was built from three layers of notes.
And why that progression had to tell a story.
“A scent of youth and summer...?”
Manager Han Su-a tilted her head, as if she couldn’t quite follow me.
“Yes. In the short time I’ve been keeping an eye on FineStar up close, the words that best describe them are ‘summer’ and ‘youth.’ So I’m going to try composing a perfume built around those two.”
“I see. That direction is very good, actually. Especially since the image of them as a small agency idol group has already spread, I think we can even capture the look of them sweating and working hard.”
After thinking it over for a moment, she answered, “But if we only lean into FineStar’s own feel, doesn’t that leave out what the head director asked for?”
“You mean sexy?”
“Yes. I don’t know why he wants to stamp that image onto those kids, but... we still have to deliver what he asked for.”
It was only natural that FineStar would be the focus, but the people we’d signed a contract with were not FineStar themselves, but their agency.
If the company asked for something, we had to meet it.
And of course, I had already thought that far ahead too.
“If we weave that into the keyword of summer, we can solve it in a way that isn’t too blatant.”
“How?”
“Close your eyes for a moment.”
Manager Han Su-a looked uncertain, but she closed her eyes anyway.
Blazing sunlight, hot enough to push past thirty degrees.
The sounds of insects and cicadas filled the air.
Before her eyes, trees thick with deep green leaves crowded together in lush layers.
Then, beyond the forest, a wide sandy beach opened up, washed in the sea.
No one else was there. Only two young lovers were the owners of this place.
The sun still burned overhead.
Even though it was summer and they were wearing short clothes, a bead of sweat slipped down skin.
It traced the line of the neck and ran along the collarbone.
Follow that line, and a sensual curve emerges.
“That’s what summer can express,” I said. “All of it.”
“Oh...!”
Manager Han Su-a finally opened her eyes and let out a sharp breath of admiration.
“I can picture exactly what you mean now.”
“Good.”
“But...”
There was still a look of doubt on her face.
“Maybe because I’m not especially versed in perfume, I can get the image, but I have no idea what sort of scent it’ll actually be.”
“That’s fine.”
“It’s not fine for me. I need to understand it if I’m going to help you with the blending, Manager Kang...”
“I can make the scent by myself just fine.”
I smiled and added, “In fact, it’s more distracting when someone’s there with me.”
That was true. When I worked in the workshop, being alone was the most comfortable thing, and I got the best results that way too.
“I’ll finish it and then let you know. Come by my workshop then and smell it yourself.”
“Then I guess this is the only thing I can do.”
“...?”
“Instead of coming to the office for now, work from the workshop. I’ll take care of things on this end, so you can focus entirely on the perfume. How’s that?”
“Then what about paperwork and all that...”
“I’ll handle everything except the actual perfume-making. That part isn’t hard.”
I did feel a little bad, as if I were dumping all the annoying tasks on my superior.
But in business, it was more important to handle the part you were good at and do it without dropping the ball.
“Understood. Then let’s do that.”
***
“So you bought it after all.”
Another new piece of equipment had been added to the workshop.
To equip myself with the kind of gear needed to process raw materials, one workshop simply wasn’t enough, so I hadn’t gotten greedy enough to go that far.
I was planning to use essential oils already on the market, as well as absolutes refined with alcohol after solvent extraction, but I’d bought only the minimum equipment necessary to precisely adjust and quantify the ratios.
‘Still, it’s pretty awkward being in the workshop on a weekday afternoon.’
On weekends, I practically lived here anyway, so coming during daylight wasn’t strange.
But at a time when I should normally have been at the office, being here felt oddly unfamiliar.
Bzzt-!
- Deputy Park: Something happen? Why aren’t you at work?
- Deputy Park: Ah, are you out on a business trip?
- Deputy Park: Still, I haven’t seen you for two days, so I was starting to worry.
Sure enough, a message came in from my coworker.
- Kang Seo-jun: We’re working off-site for our project for the time being.
- Kang Seo-jun: I’m working out of the workshop lol
- Deputy Park: Whoa, no way;;
- Deputy Park: That workshop you went to last time?
- Kang Seo-jun: Yep. My hideout.
- Deputy Park: Man,, now I want to work from home too.
- Kang Seo-jun: lol Come by after work. I bought a draft beer machine too. Let’s have some chicken and beer.
- Deputy Park: Honestly, I want to go right now...
- Deputy Park: But I’ve been busy lately with my side job too lol
- Deputy Park: I’ll make time and come by next time!!
- Kang Seo-jun: Ah, seriously, what side job are you doing?
- Deputy Park: I’ll tell you later lol
- Kang Seo-jun: I’m worried because of your track record. I’m afraid you’ll get scammed again.
- Deputy Park: It’s not like that. Don’t worry.
- Deputy Park: I’m more decent than you think, man lol
- Kang Seo-jun: Fine, I got it for now. Take a break.
What on earth kind of side job was Deputy Park doing...?
To be honest, when I first heard about it, I worried he might be doing some side-job scam that popped up on social media.
And then he’d only just started and already bought a luxury watch, so I even wondered if he’d gotten tangled up in some Ponzi scheme.
‘But if he’s doing side work after hours, maybe he really is actually working?’
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like the nightmare I’d been imagining.
‘Right. Deputy Park’s old enough. He’ll manage on his own.’
Let’s get back to my own work.
Coming to the workshop meant there was no one watching me, and I could already feel myself starting to slack off a little.
‘Still, I have to do it.’
There was a deadline, so this wasn’t the kind of job I could afford to treat casually.
“All right, let’s begin.”
I rolled up my sleeves and started working in earnest.
***
Seventh day of perfumery.
“This is basically labor...”
I flopped onto the sofa and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Imagining the base scent I wanted wasn’t difficult.
Thanks to my talent, I could at least tell which raw materials I needed to use.
The problem was that there wasn’t just one or two ingredients. The real issue was adjusting the ratios.
There were as many as five base ingredients alone, so once I started adjusting each one, the number of possible combinations exploded.
“I feel like my nose is going numb...”
I’d been locked in the workshop for a week, doing nothing but smelling scents, so my head was dizzy from it, not just my nose.
Honestly, I’d spent the whole weekend resting at home without even coming to the workshop, so there was no point saying more than that.
‘Still, I’m starting to see the end.’
I’d managed to build the scent I wanted to a certain extent.
Only the final fine-tuning remained, so I figured one more day, maybe two, and it would be done.
Ding-dong!
Then the doorbell rang.
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
I wondered if it might be the building manager, so I opened the door.
“Huh?”
“Hello, Deputy.”
“Manager...?”
Han Su-a was standing there.
“How did you get here...?”
“I felt bad seeing you struggle alone.”
She held up a cake in one hand and said, “I came to bring you this and tell you to keep your strength up.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“Oh, and I asked Deputy Park for the address. I didn’t come to monitor you or anything. I thought if I called ahead, it might feel like pressure.”
Manager Han Su-a seemed sincere, and after handing over the cake, she even stepped back a little.
“I’ll head off then. Fighting!”
“Wait a second, Manager.”
“Yes?”
“You’re just leaving like this?”
“Yes.”
She nodded calmly.
“I didn’t want to get in the way of your work...”
“Still, you came all the way here. Since you’re here, at least have a cup of coffee.”
I lifted the cake she’d handed me.
“It’s not even a single slice, and that’s too much for me to eat alone. Have some with me.”
“Oh, may I?”
Manager Han Su-a smiled with her eyes and pointed downward.
“Then I’ll go buy some coffee nearby.”
“No need. There’s a machine inside. Let’s use that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, come in.”
“Okay!”
Manager Han Su-a brushed her hair back with a smile.
“Then excuse me.”
She followed me slowly into the workshop.
“Wow...”
The moment she stepped inside, Han Su-a’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“This is really nice. You use this place all by yourself?”
“Yes, that’s right. It’s in the middle of work, so please ignore the mess.”
“I’ll look at it through foggy eyes.”
“Ahaha, thank you.”
She kept looking around, clearly fascinated by the workshop.
“What kind of coffee would you like?”
“Anything warm is fine...”
“Would you like Americano or latte?”
“Latte, then. Also, may I look at the equipment too?”
“Of course.”
Leaving her behind, I headed to the coffee machine.
‘So this machine gets its debut too.’
I’d left it alone for days because I couldn’t be bothered.
But since I had a guest, I might as well use it.
Rrrr-.
Wheeeeeeeng-!
After I pressed a few buttons, the beans were ground, tamped automatically, and espresso was extracted.
It definitely earned its price.
“Wow, I’ve only ever seen that in coffee shops.”
Manager Han Su-a had come up beside me at some point and was standing there.
“It was a gift.”
“Amazing. That draft beer machine too?”
“Yes.”
“Is the beer good?”
“...It really is.”
“If it were after work, I’d get one glass from you. What a shame.”
She turned away with a bright smile.
While the coffee was brewing, I sliced the cake she’d brought and put it on a plate.
When I carried it over to the sofa, she clapped her hands with a cheerful grin.
“There aren’t any forks, so we have to eat with chopsticks.”
“Works for me.”
Han Su-a took a sip of her coffee and smiled with obvious pleasure.
“Mm, the coffee smells good.”
We ate the cake, drank the coffee, and talked about this and that.
What people had been saying at the office while I’d been gone.
The trouble the neighboring department had caused.
And so on.
When the small talk ended, she naturally looked at the perfume and asked, “I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, but how far along are you?”
“Almost there. It isn’t finished yet, but I’ve gotten something pretty close to the direction I wanted. Want to smell it?”
“Very much.”
I took out the perfume I considered about ninety percent finished and sprayed it onto a test strip before handing it to her.
“Hm?”
Manager Han Su-a’s eyes widened.
“This smells like apricots.”
“That’s right. I used apricot as the base note.”
“And after that there’s something cool too... It’s made of scents I already know, but it blends so perfectly.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Personally, I’d want to use this as a perfume.”
Her eyes gleamed with real enthusiasm.
“I really like it.”
“After a little while, the lingering scent comes out too. Smell it again when that happens.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.”
She slowly waved the test strip back and forth, then seemed to remember something and looked at me.
“Oh, right, Deputy Kang. Have you decided the price for this perfume?”
“...The price?”
“Yes. Since this is part of the project, we need to bill for it.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it separately, but... wouldn’t the cost of the materials be enough?”
“No, that’s not right.”
Manager Han Su-a cut me off cleanly.
‘Am I asking for too much?’
True, even if I’d bought it for work, I wasn’t using every last bit of the raw material.
I was thinking it might be fine to keep the price low when she continued, “We should be charging much more.”
“...Huh?”
“This is a side job. It’s separate from your main job. If anything, the company is receiving a donation of your talent.”
Her logic was surprisingly clear.
“SYK Entertainment asked for ad planning, not perfume-making, right?”
“Right.”
“Creating a scent that didn’t exist before is something Side-Hustling Teddy Bear does, and the person supplying it is Deputy Kang, isn’t that how it works?”
“Still, this was only possible because you gave me time off work...”
“That’s our company’s capacity, then. Even if we were trying to find a good scent, we’d have to set aside time for it either way.”
When she put it that way, she wasn’t wrong.
“So I think you should charge separately for making the perfume.”
“I’m grateful, of course, but... I have no clue how much I should ask for. Should I charge about twice the raw material cost?”
“What’s the usual cost ratio in the perfume industry?”
“If you’re talking about perfume alone, it’s not even ten percent.”
It was rare for perfume ingredients to be expensive.
When making fragrance, the material cost was usually far outweighed by the labor and time invested in the process, which was why the price went up.
“Then you should charge ten times that.”
“...Huh.”
“Just tell me the price. I’ll make the form and request payment from SYK Entertainment. That part is only right.”
“Thank you.”
“No need. This is all part of our job too.”
Doing it that way did feel like I was getting some proper compensation.
In fact, making a large batch of perfume for the pop-up store would cost plenty in materials, so if I could charge ten times the cost, the payout would still be decent even after all the trouble.
‘That’ll more than cover the value of my talent for scent.’
That alone made it worthwhile.
“Hm?”
Then Manager Han Su-a froze and looked down at the test strip.
“I think the scent changed.”
“Oh, yes. I made the volatility pretty strong, so the lingering scent should be coming out by now. Want to smell it?”
She nodded and took a whiff.
“How should I put this...”
Then her cheeks flushed red.
“It’s sexy.”
“...Yes?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s really sultry. Should I say it’s exciting, or that it makes me nervous? Anyway, that kind of feeling. I think it’s because it naturally captured the image you mentioned at the beginning, Manager Kang.”
“I did intend sensuality, but I think it turned out even better than I expected.”
When you spend all day smelling only fragrance, there were times I couldn’t even tell whether I’d made something properly or not.
But seeing her reaction, it looked like I’d blended it correctly.
“Have you decided on a name for it?”
“Not yet. I’m terrible at naming things...”
“The keywords were youth, summer, and sensuality, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then...”
She thought for a moment, then asked me, “How about Midnight Temptation of Midsummer?”
“...Oh!”
The moment I heard it, the feeling landed perfectly.
“That’s great.”
“You can change it if you don’t like it.”
“No, I like it. Let’s go with that.”
“I’m glad.”
Even then, Han Su-a still had her nose half-buried in the test strip.
Her face was still bright red.
“The scent is addictive. Really addictive...”
The way she muttered like she was making excuses was oddly unlike her.
Her gaze was fixed on something behind me.
I glanced back and saw the draft beer machine.
Sure enough, she asked me carefully, “Deputy Kang.”
“Yes?”
“Could I take one glass, just to steal company time?”
---