Chapter 64:

Chapter 64:

Chapter 64

Park Seung-woo, an assistant manager, came up to the 20th floor outdoor terrace with a paper cup in his hand.

“Did you say you’d buy me a drink? Is this a 200-won vending machine coffee?”

“I’ll save up some money and buy you a proper coffee at the end of the year.”

“Puhaha, you’re really funny, kid.”

Yoo-hyun answered with a good-natured smile, and Park Seung-woo finally burst into laughter.

He felt like his face was getting some color back.

That’s when Park Seung-woo’s complaints began.

“Ah, it’s really no joke. What’s so frustrating is...”

“You must be getting gray hair.”

It wasn’t something he should expect from a new employee.

He must have been so frustrated to say that.

“Phew, I feel a bit better after talking.”

“It’s thanks to me listening well.”

“Haha, look at this guy. He’s getting closer and trying to climb up.”

Park Seung-woo stuck out his tongue and pointed his finger at Yoo-hyun.

He didn’t look annoyed at all.

Rather, he looked at Yoo-hyun with a playful expression.

Yoo-hyun shrugged his shoulders instead of answering, and Park Seung-woo smiled meaningfully.

“No, it won’t work. You have to prepare to go to Ulsan next week.”

“I wanted to go anyway because of the seminar preparation.”

“Oh, you seem to take it lightly. But when you go there, you’ll see how hard the company life is. Aren’t you scared?”

Scared?

There was no reason for him to be.

‘Why would I be? I’ve been here for 20 years.’

Yoo-hyun smiled and said,

“You’ll buy me something delicious when we go there, right?”

“Puhahaha, you’re really funny. Yeah. I know a great tripe restaurant.”

“You’ll have to pay if it’s not good.”

“Puhaha.”

“My fist will hurt.”

Park Seung-woo laughed loudly at Yoo-hyun’s witty reply.

The two of them were closer than anyone who had met just over a month ago.

“In that sense, do you want to go out for lunch today?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I have a prior appointment today.”

“Oh, a girl?”

Park Seung-woo made a mischievous smile, and Yoo-hyun immediately shook his head.

“No. A colleague.”

Lunchtime.

Yoo-hyun had a meal outside with Min Jeong-hyuk and Kwon Se-jung.

They had a lot of stories to share at the last colleague meeting, so they were quite close.

On their way back, Kwon Se-jung sighed and said,

“Ah, I’m dying. I still haven’t decided on a seminar topic. How about you, Yoo-hyun?”

“I’m just going to do the project that my mentor is doing.”

“Ah, that’s good. That way you can get some help, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

It wasn’t because he wanted to get some help that he chose the PDA project that Park Seung-woo was doing as his seminar topic.

Yoo-hyun had a reason why he had to do this topic.

“But isn’t that a topic that other seniors know too well?”

“I agree with Se-jung. If you don’t know enough, you’ll get grilled for sure.”

“I’ll have to prepare well then.”

“Be careful. You might collapse from overwork.”

“I’ll win if it comes to stamina.”

Min Jeong-hyuk glanced at Yoo-hyun and sighed.

“I wish the seminar was over soon. Our team already made a bet on how many times I’ll pass.”

“Me too. My mentor doesn’t care but keeps scaring me every day.”

As the two of them worried, the OJT seminar was not easy.

It was conducted for the entire team members, and they received direct evaluations from them.

They had already gone through the process and were doing related work, so they couldn’t lie in front of them.

They had to work hard and barely pass.

If they didn’t pass?

They wouldn’t be recognized as proper team members, let alone repeat the same process until they passed.

They couldn’t help but be nervous about it.

“Yoo-hyun, is there any way?”

“Try this once.”

“What is it? Tell me quickly.”

“Me too, me too.”

“It’s nothing. When you prepare for the seminar...”

“It was nothing. You did everything. Haha.”

As Yoo-hyun agreed with him, Im Han-seop seemed to relax and talk more comfortably.

He naturally moved on to talk about his work life, which showed that he wasn’t slacking off in his social life either.

Yoo-hyun looked at the business card he gave him.

-Im Han-seop, Sales Team, Semi Electronics.

“Semi Electronics?”

“Yeah. Do you know it? It’s a small company, but it’s pretty good in the electronic component field. They’re also making systems these days.”

“Yes. I know.”

He knew very well.

His friend Kang Jun-ki had just got a job there a few days ago.

A few years later, they became a partner company of Hanseong Electronics, and grew quite big.

They even went public on KOSDAQ.

Ziing.

Then, Yoo-hyun’s phone rang.

It was a message from Park Seung-woo, asking him to book a meeting room.

Im Han-seop quickly opened his mouth.

“Ah, I should go. I took too long.”

“No, not at all. We haven’t even talked properly yet.”

“Well...”

“Can I hear more? Maybe there’s something I can help you with later.”

“Oh! That, that would be nice.”

Im Han-seop hesitated, but nodded vigorously at Yoo-hyun’s words.

He felt sorry for asking his junior for a favor, but he was grateful that he offered to talk first.

He looked at Im Han-seop and asked him.

“What time are you staying until today?”

“Today? I was planning to stay until evening.”

“Do you want to have dinner with me then? I know a place that makes good rice soup.”

“Of course, that’s fine. Just call me anytime. I’ll wait.”

“Okay. See you later.”

It wasn’t out of pity that he said that.

He was someone he couldn’t take care of in school, so he wanted to help him if he could.

Besides, it was where Kang Jun-ki worked, so maybe he could help his friend as well if he did well there.

‘It’s not a hard thing to do.’

Yoo-hyun smiled brightly at Im Han-seop, who was smiling back, and went back to his office.

And that evening.

Yoo-hyun met Im Han-seop at the rice soup restaurant as promised.

He must have been tired from running around all day, but his smile was warm and pleasant.

He saw a glimpse of Park Seung-woo in his face.

Yoo-hyun ate his rice and listened to his explanation carefully.

“This is what...”

As he laid out the product portfolio, Im Han-seop felt a strange feeling.

Talking in front of Yoo-hyun made him strangely fluent in his speech.

He even felt like he was doing something very important.

He realized later that it was because Yoo-hyun was listening attentively to him.

He reacted to every word he said, and even threw him topics that could lead to his next words naturally.

It wasn’t something that would help him as a new employee, but he cared for him as if it was his own business.

‘I thought he was selfish...’

Yoo-hyun seemed to be the type who only cared about his own grades in school.

He didn’t interact with other seniors or juniors, and seemed to only focus on getting a job.

But maybe he had misunderstood Yoo-hyun all along.

Im Han-seop opened his mouth with that feeling in mind.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing. Just a moment.”

He drank his warm soup with a shot of alcohol, and loosened his tie and stuffed it into his bag.

Then he smiled sheepishly at Yoo-hyun.

He wanted to tell him something sincere, not about the product.

“I feel suffocated sometimes.”

“It can be awkward.”

“Actually, I haven’t been wearing suits for long. I moved to sales earlier this year.”

“Is that so?”

Im Han-seop said he had been working in development for the first two years after joining Semi Electronics.

It wasn’t an easy thing for a humanities major who had never handled electronic components properly.

“They said I couldn’t do sales or marketing without knowing the basics. You know how it is. Small companies have blurry boundaries.”

“That’s what they say.”

But he adapted by learning programming and other things he didn’t know, for the sake of looking further ahead.

“It definitely helped. I got a good position in the company. But when I actually tried to do sales, I felt lost.”

“In what way?”

Semi Electronics was a company that started as a component material company.