Min-jae always hated working late. He recently started as an Associate Editor at a publishing company a couple of months ago, and had been assigned his first solo project. However, in the final stretches of the project, he struggled to keep up with the weight of his supervisor's constant battery of irrelevant tasks and unreasonable deadlines. It was a busy period for the company, with most of the workers staying late countless nights in a row.
This week has especially been bad.
The office had just emptied out except for the Associate Editor, Park Min-jae, and his boss Lee Jun-ho. Between the sounds of typing and scribbles on paper, the hum of the dim fluorescent lights could be heard. It was a cold evening in early December, and the outside sky was a dark midnight colour. The view of the city wasn't great from the office window, as it was obscured with an array of other buildings.
An email popped up in the corner of Min-jae's computer screen with the subject, 'Emerald Manuscript.' Min-jae's heart sank after realising he lost track of time and hadn't submitted the assignment yet. He opened the email and clicked reply. He attached the most recent development of his project titled 'CYJ - NMCE - Final Draft' and hit send.
"Ah…" Min-jae leaned back on his chair and sighed. He moved across to other unread emails and postponed tasks and continued drafting up emails. Minutes passed and turned into an hour and he started to pack up for the day and leave, unaware of a new nearby presence. He picked up his bag and turned to face his boss who seethed with anger.
"Associate Park," the voice startled Min-jae who nearly fell off his chair. "Where do you think you're going after sending me that manuscript?"
"Manager Lee, I-" Min-jae was cut off, trying to give an excuse. He hadn't figured out what he'd done wrong just yet. Panic rose in his chest.
Lee Jun-ho was a tall man with neat, black hair. He had a permanent scowl on his face and bags under his eyes most days.
"Stop with the excuses, if you have plans then you should focus now so we can leave before midnight."
He was… confused. Hadn't he submitted his work for the day? Isn't it all finally over?
Min-Jae glanced at the clock. He has an important guild event later tonight, which he needs to be home for. It's not unusual for Min-jae to stay at work late. His seniors frequently give him work at the end of the day, so they can leave on-time. Unfortunately, being a junior means accepting workplace abuse. But tonight, he didn't have time for that.
Min-jae is the top PvPer in the game Eclipse Online. His guild IMMUNE is the top guild in the region and is participating in an 8v8 guild war tonight. They're expecting to face Vanguard, a new guild that suddenly appeared on the leaderboard last month and took the number five spot in the region.
The Manager pulled up a chair next to Min-Jae and sat beside him. "We're not leaving until this is dealt with. Open your emails," Jun-ho commanded with the scowl still plastered on his face.
Min-jae swallowed thickly before sheepishly answering, "Sorry, I'll get right on that."
Min-jae set his bag down and logged back onto his computer. With Jun-ho seated so close, Min-jae noticed how sleep deprived his senior looked. Had he been sleeping?
As instructed, he opened the email. The overbearing presence of his senior made his hands tremble. While the trembling wasn't enough to make any mistakes, it didn't go unnoticed by Jun-ho.
The document he sent earlier had been sent back, with multiple red lines and text everywhere. Not a good sign. Words had been crossed out, question marks at the end of certain phrases and corrections for incorrect formatting and spelling.
Manager Lee Jun-ho stood up and walked over to his desk. "It would normally take a couple of hours for one person to go through this." His voice could be heard from the other side of the office. "With me here, at least we can get it done quicker than that."
He returned a moment later with some papers and firmly placed it on top of Min-jae's keyboard. "Is this-" he tried to ask. It was a printout of the work he submitted, Miss Choi's manuscript of a new novel she intends to publish.
Jun-ho waved him off and interrupted. "This is meant to be the final draft. Here are the notes I've made so far. Clearly…" Jun-ho took a deep breath. Eyes narrowed. "...I can't count on you to do something as simple as reading the script."
Min-jae scrambled for the papers, his heart beating at a faster pace.
"Quicker. You're too slow. This is why you can't get anything done," his words were like venom. This isn't the first time he's been in trouble with his supervisor.
'This guy…' Min-jae thought to himself, internally sighing. 'I logged in this morning with double the workload I had yesterday. Is he trying to kill me?!'
"I'm sorry…" Min-jae trailed off.
Jun-ho saw the desperation in Min-jae's eyes. He's just a dumb kid in way over his head. "Doesn't matter. I shouldn't have given you this project. This scene," he pointed to a section on the page. "Last time this was submitted, I told you to look at this and have Miss. Choi change it. Do you remember why?"
There was a silence as he thought for a moment. He ran a hand through his hair and stopped at his neck. "You said the writer is emotionally blind and this scene proved it." His breath hitched at the last word and regretted his response.
"Ah so you remembered that, then why is it even worse? Are you not holding the hands of these writers?"
Min-jae bit his tongue to hold back his words. Worse? He wrote that scene for her. He spent days researching and rewriting. This is supposed to be a heart-breaking scene in a novel, yet it's still not good enough? He looked down and stared at the words on the paper, his eyes refused to focus.
"I…" Min-jae stuttered and his face turned red. He couldn't look Jun-ho in the eyes. "This was the scene I suggested. I spent so long drafting that with her." He closed his eyes as he spoke the last words.
Jun-ho's expression changed, at first he looked furious but then changed to disappointed. "I don't have the time to babysit you. You can't handle a breakup? Have you never dated?"
He skipped ahead and pointed to another scene. "Here, look at the formatting of this section. The line spacing, the headers, the font. Everything is wrong. Did you even read this?"
Jun-ho stood up. "This is the final draft. What do you think would've happened if we submitted this today? Now I have to go back to the client and let her know we can't publish her work this month."
Jun-ho's voice echoed in the empty office. One of the lights flickered, as if affected by his rage.
Before Min-jae could offer any words to defend himself, he flinched at the sight of his superior stacking the papers up. Lee Jun-ho leaned forward over the desk and turned his body to force eye-contact with Min-jae. He noticed the fear in Min-jae's eyes and softened. Not enough for Min-jae to notice, but he lowered his voice.
"Go home. I'll deal with this."
Without waiting for a response, Jun-ho left the room to seclude himself in his office and slammed the office door behind him. Min-jae was stunned. Did he really do that bad of a job?
"Good night," he politely excused himself and picked up his bag and left in a hurry. Just in time, too, as he almost couldn't hold back the tears from being ripped into by his boss. As he left the building, he stood with his back on the wall, supported by the material. His body trembled lightly, he needed a moment to calm down before he continued.
A wet droplet fell onto Min-jae's nose. He looked up at the black sky as more drops fell. 'Looks like it's starting to rain.'
He hadn't brought an umbrella with him, and it would be too awkward to walk back inside and collect one from there. It was an unexpected downpour of rain, and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. Min-jae used his bag to cover his head and hurried to the train station.
Min-jae had finally sat down on the train and let out of a sigh of relief. He'd gotten soaked from the weather and cars splashing him from the puddles, adding fuel to the fire.
The Associate finally had a chance to let the day catch up with him. He checked his phone which was slightly damp from his pocket. The time was 7:49 PM.
His mind went back to the events of the day. The venom in his boss' words, the disapproving looks, and now he has to sit and be soggy for the next 30 or so minutes on a train. At least it was relatively empty at this time.
Min-jae covered his eyes with his hands and applied a bit of pressure. "Ugh," he let out an audible groan. "He's such a dick."
He had just over an hour to get home, shower, get dressed and eat before his guild war, but somehow he felt he'd have to skip most of that since his apartment is still a 25 minute walk away. He was tired, too. His heart rate hadn't calmed down yet.
'He really thinks I'm that useless? I started this job under the impression I was to be taught how to do this. That bastard hasn't taught me anything.'
Min-jae didn't realise his hand turned into a fist on his lap. 'I've spent countless nights working on this. Doesn't that count for anything?'
Before he realised, Min-jae was home. He was in apartment 31B on floor 3, which was all the way at the end of the corridor away from the elevator. On the train, he started to dry, very uncomfortably, as in his clothes were stuck to his skin. However, when he left the train he found himself caught in part two of the rain onslaught.
He entered the code to his apartment: 639129. A beep signalled the door to be unlocked, and he pushed the door open to enter.
The fridge door opened. Barren. "Ah… this sucks. I didn't have time to go the store." Min-jae closed the door a few moments later and looked at the clock on the wall. He could go hungry. It's not the first time he didn't have the time to hit the convenience store on the way back from work.
No time to worry now, he needed to login. Min-jae quickly changed into his lounge wear and attempted to dry his now tattered, brown hair with a towel. He didn't have time to shower, maybe in the morning. Hopefully, he doesn't get sick from the rain water. But he's almost dried fully now, so that should count. Right?
He switched on his computer, and navigated to the game client.
Loading…. Loading...
'Welcome back KeuMinMin.'