Chapter 8.5

⌘W

Sangwoo arranged the documents with a calm expression. It meant that the meeting ended early today as well. Sangwoo put his belongings into his backpack and meticulously zipped it up. With the backpack on his shoulder, he walked to the door without even looking at Jaeyoung. He turned his head when the door was open halfway.

“See you at the next meeting.”

“You’re leaving already, again?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t want to tell me the reason?”

“You’re well aware.”

Thud.  The door closed again.

After Sangwoo left, Jaeyoung stared intensely  at the empty seat. Two people that were as different as night and day would be working together. There was no way it could be done. They were bound to be in conflict every step of the way, and they would easily get exhausted from having different opinions. Chu Sangwoo would whine in a businesslike manner and push him away even if he even acted a little bit too familiar. . Jaeyoung didn’t know things would turn out this way. Even with his own diabolical mind, he had walked right into Sangwoo’s trap, digging his own grave himself. Would he stick with him even if he heard that it was sad and disappointing?  Quitting was the best opinion in every respect, but his pride didn’t allow him to quit at this point.

‘Just wait and see.’

In his imagination, Sangwoo’s eyes were already sparkling at the character that Jaeyoung had designed. His hands were clasped together and his mouth was open in surprise.

‘You’re the best, Jaeyoung hyung!’

Unlike the original, a dramatized voice was resonant in his ears. Jaeyoung bitterly smiled and folded the rejected draft in half.

By the look of it, he had been given the incentive to bury himself in work.

⌘W

However, a draft that would satisfy his brutal employer wasn’t as easy as it sounded. He couldn’t even concentrate when he sat down at his desk to work because he got so angry when he thought of that sour face. Chu Sangwoo, who thought that drawing a few lines resulted in a complete drawing would probably say ‘I’m disappointed that you can’t even do this. I’ll go with the original plan.’

Jaeyoung came up with some new characters on Friday, and then scrapped them and went drinking with some hyungs he knew. The first round was soju and Korean BBQ near campus. On the second round, they moved to a bar in Yeonseok-dong, and on the third round, they went clubbing.1  After going around and drinking a few bottles of beer, he didn’t even have the strength to hold a pen.

Half of Saturday was over because of his hangover. He ate hangover soup in the evening and watched two movies after barely getting himself together.2 He slept soundly and grabbed his pen again on Sunday after waking up late. He got inspired and scribbled just in time, and the drawing came out pretty well. It was an androgynous character with red curly hair that was holding a laser gun in both hands. Evolutionary Weapon Survival Adventure Action with a dystopian steampunk background setting.

In the same spot, Jaeyoung sketched another scene in which a character parachutes down against the backdrop of an exploding building.  He then also drew a version where it evolves into having wings and one where it evolves into a jaguar. The quality was embarrassing in comparison to Han Soo Young’s Carrot Man. It didn’t matter how buttoned-up Chu Sangwoo was. There was no way he could scrap this. He wrote down a suitable concept and storyline on a Post-it and attached it to a piece of paper.

Preparation for the meeting: complete.

Jaeyoung went out to grab dinner feeling completely satisfied. That was because a classmate from high school had invited him to the opening of his webfoot octopus restaurant. After he finished eating, he went to a small concert hall to watch live indie artists.

⌘W

“It’s a plan that is suitable for a PC game project.”

‘Ugh.’

The result had been another rejection. Sangwoo rummaged through his folder and handed over a document.

“It’s a ranking analysis of the top 100 games in the app store. Sixty eight percent are simple mini-games like arcade, action, and puzzle games. Eleven percent account for RPGs, but there are all from large corporations. The plan sunbae proposed can’t be implemented into a mobile environment in 2-4 months by two people.”

“You said you’d support any concept I want to try.”

“There has to be a limit, though.”

With an expressionless face, Sangwoo put aside the draft that Jaeyoung had submitted. Jaeyoung was quite shocked, because he didn’t know he’d be rejected so quickly. He sat in a daze for a while.

“You’ve never tried working on a mobile game before, so I understand. I’d like you to stop wasting time like this now and focus on the original plan.”

“No.”

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Footnotes