Two years ago, just after she left her previous company to work at Si-Jin’s, Na-Yool was full of energy and enthusiasm. She was light-hearted too. That kind of feeling where you let your guard down. Which is to say, just the right time to fall in love.

Due to family circumstances, she started to work before she even graduated from university. She had worked for a small office, a middle-sized company, an advertising agency, and then a design agency. But it was her first time working in such a big company. One in which the space was meant to be felt through your senses, a pure display of extravagance.

It had crossed Na-Yool’s mind that maybe she had endured the humiliation her whole life for the sake of getting employed at Ethical Communications. The first time she truly felt like a designer was when she came here for her job interview. And once officially employed, she finally started feeling like a person whose creative process was acknowledged, and not like an insignificant pawn that was ordered around.

Of course, it was one kind of a syndrome. The artist syndrome. Na-Yool was deluded.

The employees that wandered around the splendid building dressed in style were not the artists Na-Yool first thought they were. The problem was Si-Jin’s determination and integrity.

Si-Jin’s integrity standards were set up, and the employees followed blindly.

All shine but no substance… No, as it were, they were more precisely like zombies that roamed in broad daylight with dead eyes. Na-Yool would sometimes even be concerned about whether they were actually breathing. “With the talent of a few members of the elite come great results” was her personal conviction. But no matter how hard she looked, it seemed like that elite had turned into zombies too.

And, despite her initial aversion to their behavior, Na-Yool soon turned into one of them. But at least, her situation had improved from her previous workplace. She was a pawn that was capable of creativity.

Fortunately, the situation from 2 years ago and now were different. The number of humans occupying this spacious office increased by about ten people, and the zombies’ faces were injected with some liveliness. Unfortunately, two editorial designers who worked with Na-Yool took maternity leave at the same time.

The last member of her team is a free spirit artist from Hongdae, who are good at what they do well and invariably fail at what they are not good at. Someone with nice ideas, but not very helpful, so to speak. When 2 weeks ago Na-Yool got dragged to take care of the project that was way past its deadline, that artistic junior of hers was the cause of it.

These days, Na-Yool was swamped with work: the heavy workload which even the three people could barely handle, dealing with the incidents created by the Hongdae guy… She had no time to push head above water to take a breath. Just as she thought she could take a breather, the incident with Sang-Hoon had sunk her deeper into the water. And today, her computer failure was the final nail of her coffin.

Thankfully, generous incentives – the company’s greatest merit – fattened up her bank account. But she had no time to spend it anyway, so why would she care?

“That guy, really… always pushing his work on others…”

That was problematic. Because after all, he was the one with the most responsibilities. That was a problem, and so forth the reason he would never understand others.

Someone too perfect cannot understand those who are not.

Someone who lived too diligently cannot understand someone who did not live as hard as they do.

Someone smart and talented cannot understand someone ordinary.

As the president of the company, Si-Jin checked all these 3 boxes. Therefore, even if Na-Yool were to stay here all night like a dead fish, he would not even snort at her.

No matter how hard Na-Yool struggled, she still would not be recognized by Si-Jin.

In fact, from the very beginning, she had always been an ugly duckling in his eyes.

“Kim Na-Yool.”

As she hallucinated that Si-Jin had called her, Na-Yool suddenly woke up.

“…Was I asleep?”

Of course she was – who would not be in her situation? Dejected and upset at herself, she turned off the computer without a glance at it. At any rate, her hands were tied until tomorrow evening, so whether she was to take a nap now or later, it would not be the end of the world.