The Interview, Part 1
Riding the escalator up to street level, I squinted against the bright sunlight. Stepping off, I tugged at the cuffs of my suit.
It was the black suit I'd bought for the interview at my current company and then left hanging in the closet ever since, and after so long unworn it felt uncomfortable everywhere. I shifted my weight in the black dress shoes that, unsurprisingly, felt like strangers on my feet.
When I raised my head and looked straight ahead, a building soaring into the sky filled my view. BD Group headquarters—for so long the tallest building in Daehan. I had come to a place I'd never once imagined visiting in my entire life. Feeling strangely off about the whole thing, I stopped for a moment and looked around.
BD Group was said to be older than the Empire of Daehan itself, a company founded by Hwang Jicheon, its first chairman, the man remembered as the father of Daehan's modernization.
Following Chairman Hwang's founding principle—own and invest, but never manage or interfere—the company had achieved staggering growth. It was an investment powerhouse so vast that people joked there was nowhere in Daehan where BD Group's money couldn't be found.
BD Group was famous as a dream workplace, renowned for its high salaries and incredible benefits. And here I was, about to walk into it.
I tilted my head back once more to stare up at the building's peak, then started walking again. I'd done my research before coming, so I had no trouble figuring out where to go.
BD Group headquarters occupied an entire block in Gangnam, Seoul—the most expensive real estate in the country—and consisted of several buildings.
The tall tower I'd noticed first was Building B, ninety-nine stories of office space. According to what I'd read, it was known as the most tightly secured building in all of Daehan, a place you couldn't simply wander into.
Building C, to the south of Building B, was a long rectangular structure housing the employee amenities. It was a space reserved for BD Group staff alone, and judging from the few leaked photos circulating online, it had the feel of a sprawling shopping complex.
The mere fact that they used a building the size of the international exhibition hall across the street just for employee facilities was a symbol in itself of BD Group's grandeur.
My destination, Building A, was a nearly cube-shaped structure attached to the western side of Building B. It was where visitors to BD Group were received—the only building, as far as I'd read, that outsiders could actually enter.
Beside the main entrance of Building A stood men in black suits wearing earpieces, solidly built, though they didn't stop anyone coming or going. Falling in with the flow of people, I passed through the enormous automatic revolving door into the building.
The interior felt less like an office and more like an indoor plaza. The ceilings were high, benches and chairs were scattered throughout, and cafeterias dotted the space.
Screens mounted on the massive circular pillars played a variety of videos—news broadcasts, BD Group advertisements, and the like. One pillar in particular caught my eye: it was playing a music video by a girl group.
It was a girl group even I knew the name of—Tales. Their choreography, which made heavy use of their hips, was memorable enough that I'd even gone looking for fancam videos of them.
Looking around this way and that, I walked toward the back of the building. There I found the kind of security gates I'd seen plenty of times in subway stations and dramas.
A dozen turnstiles stood in a row, their transparent barriers opening automatically when you tapped your access card, and nestled among them was a semicircular information desk.
Beside the gates, men in black suits—unlike their counterparts outside—were watching each person passing through with careful attention.
I approached the information desk. Inside the rather large desk sat four women, all dressed identically in white dress shirts and deep navy uniforms.
The desk was slightly higher than waist height, so their lower halves were hidden, but even from the chest up, the uniforms flattered their curves beautifully.
To the right of the desk, a woman was leaning her upper body over the counter, chatting with one of the receptionists.
She wore a light gray women's suit with a straight-cut skirt hemmed a few inches above her knees. Her stockings were peach-colored, and because she was bent forward, the skirt had ridden up and stretched taut, putting her backside on full display.
Her ass seemed to glow, catching the reflection of the bright overhead lighting. Her hips were already on the generous side, and with the lights hitting them like that, there was no way my eyes weren't drawn to them.
Forcing my gaze away from her lower body and back to the front, I headed for the information desk. As I drew near, one of the receptionists politely folded her hands and gave me a slight bow.
"Welcome to BD Group. What brings you here today?"
The receptionist, her short bob neatly pinned back with black hairpins, smiled and met my eyes. Faced with her beauty, I fumbled through my answer.
"Ah... um... I'm here for an interview. Oh! One moment."
I rummaged through my clothes looking for my phone to show her the message with my interview details. Glancing sheepishly at the receptionist, who was still watching me with her smile in place, I pulled my phone from my left trouser pocket—and at that moment, a voice came from my right.
"Excuse me—would you be Mr. Choi Juhan, by any chance?"
Turning my head to the right, phone held awkwardly in my hand, I found a tall beauty standing before me at eye level. It was the woman with the huge ass who'd been leaning against the information desk.
With her long hair neatly tied back and black horn-rimmed glasses, she radiated mature elegance. She looked to be in her early thirties.
I had been staring at her, dumbstruck by her beauty, before it registered that she'd said my name, and I answered.
"Yes! That's me, Choi Juhan."
Hearing my answer, the woman smiled and held out a business card.
"You're here early. I'm Ju Youngmi from BD Group HR Team 4—we spoke on the phone."
"Ah! Hello."
I took the card with both hands and bowed.
"Right this way, then. See you later, Seongmi."
Youngmi gave a little wave to the receptionist she'd been chatting with and headed for the security gates. As I followed, I couldn't stop looking at her body—her ass in particular. She was dressed in a perfectly modest suit, but her curves were unmistakable. Her ass was so huge and taut I honestly worried the skirt might split.
And the way that enormous ass swayed side to side with every step made it impossible for me to look away.
Beep—bzzzt.
Youngmi tapped the employee badge hanging around her neck on the gate and gestured me through. I hastily dragged my eyes upward—they'd been drifting down toward her ass—and hurried past her through the opened transparent barrier. The barrier slid shut again almost immediately, and Youngmi tapped her badge once more and followed me in.
"This way, please."
The direction Youngmi pointed led to the elevators. As I walked toward them, I glanced at what I assumed was the passage connecting through to Building B.
A wide corridor ran along until it met a huge wall bearing the BD Group logo. People were entering and exiting on both sides of the wall—which meant you couldn't see inside from here at all. It was a lot like the departure gates at an airport.
"Our company's layout is a bit unusual, isn't it? We're extremely sensitive about security."
Youngmi said this as she pressed her badge against a waist-high cylindrical pillar in front of the elevators.
Beep.
The pillar chimed, and an elevator on the tenth floor began its descent.
"Yes, I can see a world-class company operates differently."
In my head, I compared it to my current company, which rented a generic office in a commercial building. Before I knew it, the elevator arrived and the doors opened. Youngmi gestured inside with both hands, and I stepped in first. She followed, pressed the button for the sixth floor, and the elevator shot smoothly upward.
We made small talk about the weather and other meaningless things until we reached the sixth floor and arrived at the room Youngmi guided me to. One wall of the room was floor-to-ceiling glass, offering a clear view of the world outside.
Tables were arranged close to the glass wall—six rectangular tables pushed together, three on the glass side and three on the door side.
Each table on the glass side had its own monitor, with a keyboard and mouse placed at the center.
On the door side, only the middle table had a single monitor positioned at its left, and unlike the glass-side desks, which had three chairs apiece, there was just one chair, at the center seat.
"You can take the middle seat here."
After showing me to the middle seat on the door side, Youngmi walked around the tables and sat down at the rightmost table on the glass side. She typed for a moment, then rested both hands on her knees and spoke to me as I sat staring blankly at the monitor displaying the BD Group logo.
"The team leader will be here shortly. Please wait just a moment."
"Yes, of course."
With that, Youngmi turned back to her monitor and resumed typing. I looked around the room for a bit, then worked up the courage to speak to her.
"Um... so, how exactly will my interview—"
Before I could finish, the door opened, and Youngmi sprang to her feet with a bow. I stood up too and turned toward the door.
The man who entered wore a sky-blue shirt and a dark gray suit, his thinning hair half gone, his frame fleshy. The unbuttoned jacket and protruding belly marked him as a textbook middle-aged executive.
Adjusting his brown-rimmed glasses as he looked me over, the man approached and extended his right hand.
"Kim Manseok, Team Leader of HR Team 4. Good to meet you."
"How do you do? I'm Choi Juhan."
I bowed, gripped my right wrist with my left hand, and shook Team Leader Kim Manseok's hand with my right.
Kim Manseok clamped down on my right hand and shook it, grip locked tight, for a long while. I raised my bowed head to look at him, but even with our eyes meeting, he didn't let go.
Only after I'd stood there wearing an awkward smile, facing this stranger of a middle-aged man for what felt like an eternity, did Kim Manseok finally release my hand.
"Good, have a seat."
Patting my shoulder, Team Leader Kim Manseok walked over to the center table on the glass side and sat down.
As he passed behind her, Kim Manseok ran his left hand over Youngmi's left shoulder, across her neck, and up to her right shoulder. Despite the touch, Youngmi showed no particular reaction, her eyes staying fixed on her monitor.
Sensing something off about all of it, I sat back down in my seat.
Seated, Team Leader Kim Manseok worked the scroll wheel on his mouse and asked me:
"Hmm... So you're working as a programmer?"
"Yes, I develop and maintain apps. Though I was wondering—does BD Group run its own in-house IT department? I was aware it has subsidiaries, but..."
At my answer, Kim Manseok and Youngmi, who had both been looking at their monitors, turned to face me. Then Kim Manseok said:
"We didn't bring you in here to build apps."