SURE 1

How are you?

Most of the time, a text from an unknown number is one of three things: a wedding invitation, a multi-level marketing scheme, or a cult trying to recruit you. How often is it genuinely from a friend wondering how you are?

Ever since turning thirty, I have never welcomed a message from an unknown number. My heart, which had been hardened through a moderate amount of social life, did not open easily, and I would view even well-intentioned messages with suspicion first. This was the inevitable nature of human beings.

When there was no reply for over five minutes, a series of message bubbles popped up.

It’s me, Jungwoon.

Sungjoon.

Ah, Yoon Sungjoon. Only then did the not-unfamiliar last four digits of the number, 0624, catch my eye. Yoon Sungjoon was the guy who, three months ago, poured an iced Americano on my face in a packed cafe and said, “Let’s end it,” before walking out.

There were many ways to signal the end of a relationship. Text, phone call, face-to-face, external pressure, catching someone cheating, and so on. I had experienced it all while dating for what could be considered a long or a short time. The fact that getting coffee thrown in my face was not as embarrassing as I thought played a part in why I forgot Yoon Sungjoon so easily. It was because it wasn’t my neighborhood. Getting coffee thrown on me in front of people I would never see again was…

Anyway, the Yoon Sungjoon I knew was not the type to fall for multi-level marketing or a cult. On the contrary, in front of such people, he was the type to drop his pants and brazenly say, “I’m a pervert who gets a hard-on for men, are you okay with that?”

That leaves only one possibility. Marriage.

Since I had not said a word, only the read receipt would have appeared on the other person’s phone. Sending a text about getting married is pretty crazy, isn’t it? Why send something like that to an ex? I ignored it and continued cleaning. The cordless vacuum I received as a birthday gift a few days ago was revolutionary. I was convinced that the best home appliance developed by humans was the dishwasher, and the next was the cordless vacuum.

After pushing the vacuum into every corner of the house and placing it on its stand, the dustbin emptied itself. Life is so convenient. I brought over the mop, attached a cleaning cloth, and tapped my phone screen. A picture file and a crying text had arrived together.

I’m getting married, Jungwoon ㅜㅜ Please save me ㅠㅠ I think my mom’s gone crazy ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

I was not even surprised. In my experience, the endings for gay couples largely concluded in one of two ways. They would break up somewhat normally and meet someone else, or they would have a sham marriage.

Instead of laughing at the thought of whether the guy who used to drop his pants and pounce on me, begging for sex every time we met, could even get it up for a woman, I just wondered why he would send this to his ex-boyfriend. In the mobile wedding invitation, a beautiful couple was holding hands and smiling brightly. Their expressions were the complete opposite of the crying in the text.

I have nothing to say, so what should I do?

If he’s getting married, he’s getting married. I did not want to send a congratulatory message, nor did I want to respond with a “So what?” attitude. It was not as if he cheated on me to get married.

In the end, I just screenshotted the mobile wedding invitation and deleted the text. Ah, I did not forget to block the number before deleting it. I sent the screenshot directly to the tax accountant. To write it off as an expense.

“Hello, Mr. CEO.”

“Yes.”

The small snack shop I started seven years ago in a back alley with a rent of 1.2 million won per month had, through a combination of luck and timing, now developed into a business. At the time, I was desperate to make a living, so I had thrown myself into it with a do-or-die attitude, but capitalism had a way of making even an introvert smile, and the business did quite well.

After operating in one location for two years, franchise inquiries started flooding in, so I boldly pivoted to franchising. With the money left over after paying off my debts, I set up a small office and kidnapped my childhood friend, Jo Yeonsu, who had just quit his job and was spouting nonsense about preparing for a new one, then leaving for a month-long stay in Jeju Island with his family. I made him the accountant.

Yeonsu, fuming, asked if I was out of my mind, questioning how I could kidnap a talent like him, with all his experience, for a neighborhood snack shop. Yet, he diligently negotiated between the food suppliers and the tax accountant. After tasting the tteokbokki I made, he said he could never, ever bear to see this flavor fail.

For the franchisee Customer Service and Marketing manager positions, I kidnapped another childhood friend who had worked at a telecom company for eight years and had a high combativeness level, and a university junior who, strangely, had only ever drifted from one crappy startup to another, spewing curses about what shitty small companies they were. So, when the business started, there were four employees, including me. To others, it might have looked like we were running things by the seat of our pants, but we were very serious and overflowing with the ambition to succeed.

At first, I emphasized mutual growth to prospective franchise owners and only charged them half the interior design costs. Building trust with each other while expanding the business was the priority. Even after a franchise opened, I traveled all over the country to train them personally, and once we had ten locations, I had the franchise inquiry phone number printed on the signs.

As a result of persevering like that for five years, there are now 37 franchises spread across the country. We moved to a new office building last year, and our thirty-three head office employees battled against time from Monday to Friday. It was a level one could call self-made success, but the four of us from the early days never uttered those words out loud. For fear of jinxing it. They just worked silently, and I simply instructed them to pay the salaries and bonuses that matched their hard work.

I, who used to make fish cake broth from early in the morning at a snack shop in a secluded alley, had now become a person who sat at a desk with a large monitor, checking sales data and issues. As I was meticulously reviewing the daily sales reports from the franchises, one of the two phones on my desk rang. I used a separate phone for work, so I thought it was that one, but it was my personal phone.

Are you really okay with this?

Yoon Sungjoon… Reading this text while drinking my coffee, I wanted to ask him, if you were going to be like this now, why did you have to throw coffee at me back then? Reviewing the daily sales report is the most important task to start the day, so I have no time to worry about things like this. There is nothing more wasteful than time spent on a relationship that is over. I definitely blocked him, so why am I getting messages?

I put down the phone and focused on the monitor again. It vibrated again.

I don’t want to get married

Should I just come out?

“Do whatever the fuck you want. You get it up just fine. Don’t ask me, just figure it out yourself.”

Instead of calling him directly, I retorted lightly. The mouse wheel scrolled endlessly. The Hanam branch’s sales dropped by 11.2% compared to last week. The weather in Hanam city last week was clear all week long. If it was not the weather’s influence, then it was either poor service, a change in the taste, customers’ financial situations being tight, or a customer complaint issue arising from negligent ingredient management. Poor service and taste can be fixed by visiting the store and running an event, but customer complaints are quite a headache.

I picked up the office phone and dialed the extension for the FC department, which is what we call the store management department. The website’s “Voice of the Customer” page was open on the monitor screen.

—Yes! Mr. CEO!

“Are there any issues with the Hanam branch? Sales dropped by more than 10% last week.”

—Oh. That’s why I was just about to head out there now.

“Okay. Can you go and give me a call?”

—Got it!

“Ah, and.”

While I was on the phone, I was about to mention another branch, but my cellphone, unable to wait any longer, rang again. This has to stop. I was trying to ignore it, but I have to cut him off.

—Mr. CEO?

“Oh, no, it’s nothing. Carry on.”

—Yes!

As soon as I hung up, I picked up my phone. The number ending in 0624 was persistently contacting me.

“Yes, Sungjoon.”

—Hey! Lee Jungwoon! Why are you leaving me on read?!

I swiveled my chair around. Beyond the blinds blocking the sunlight, the hazy world was full of fine dust. What was the fine dust concentration in Hanam city last week…

“I’d like to ask you something too. Why are you contacting me?”

—Am I not allowed to?!

Looking back, he was occasionally this much of a headache when we were dating too. Yoon Sungjoon was very pretty, but his way of speaking and his personality were not as refined as his face. Still, the reason I put up with it all and dated him was because, even though he was reckless, he was not a bad person at his core. But he is making me regret that.

I felt I had never lacked for relationships in my life, and while I did sometimes get involved with abnormally obsessive guys, this bastard was a particularly tiring type among them.

“Why is everything so convenient for you?”

—Hey. You sound really cold. Someone here is about to be dragged to a wedding he never wanted.

“Sungjoon. Am I the one getting married?”

—What?

“Did I grab you by the hair and force you to get married?”

—Hey! Lee Jungwoon!

“If you’re thirty-two years old, Sungjoon… you should learn to pick your moments.”

—You fucking bastard, I took you in when you were just a tteokbokki seller and told you how handsome you were, and now you’re talking shit to me?!

This is exactly what I am sick of. I am absolutely not ashamed of my days as a seller. Meaning, it was not a disgrace. I was proud of the phenomenon where neighborhood customers became regulars, regulars spread the word, and when I did not have a cent for marketing costs, social media posts from young people who were genuinely impressed by the taste led to open runs and lines. I owe it all to them for getting this far. Above all, when I was dating Yoon Sungjoon, I had already opened thirty franchises.

If he meant to provoke me, he chose the wrong thing.

“Sungjoon.”

—What!

“Congratulations on your marriage, and don’t contact me again. It would be awkward for you too if I went to your future wife and introduced myself as the guy who fucked Yoon Sungjoon’s ass.”

—Wha-what?!

“I’ll send the gift money through a message, so take it. Be good to your wife. Don’t do anything childish and get the wedding called off. You might get coffee thrown at you too. Water is fine, but the ice hurts a bit.”

—Hey!

I really think I need to file a complaint with Apple. To ask why I am getting messages from a blocked number. Not wanting to hear any more of his shrieking, I placed the phone face down.

The morning’s off to a bad start… I also wonder if I shouldn’t have answered the phone. I looked down at the now-quiet phone and drank my coffee. Let’s see, today’s schedule is…

When we moved to the current office building, I made a resolution. That if the company grew to more than three times its current size, I would build a standalone office building in a more accessible location. Every time I was crammed in with the office workers who had come up to the rooftop, creating a den of smokers, I became desperate for a relaxed smoking area.

“Well, well. Mr. CEO has arrived.”

Yeonsu, who was in the smoking area before me, acknowledged my presence. He pretended to bow and scrape as he offered to light my cigarette, so I did not refuse and brought the tip of my cigarette to the flame and took a drag. The amount of smoke being exhaled by the white-collar workers was tremendous.

The accounting team, except for team leader Jo Yeonsu, was composed entirely of female employees, and though it was not intentional, they were all smokers united in one mind and purpose. So, the accounting team had its own smoking rules. If a nicotine craving hit like crazy during work hours for various reasons, they would go to the rooftop to smoke in order of rank. However, frequent breaks were forbidden, so it was only once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Considering the time it took to travel to the rooftop by elevator, each person was given 8 minutes. Even if two people of the same rank went up together, the time did not change. If the team leader, Yeonsu, declined, the turn would pass to the assistant manager.

Yeonsu met me in the smoking area after about 4 minutes and 40 seconds had passed. Yeonsu was puffing out smoke like a runaway train and immediately lit up a second cigarette. And yet, this was the same guy who made a fuss at the end of last year, saying he would quit smoking.

Yeonsu was a typical smoker who would vow to quit at the year’s end, saying he would become a father loved by his daughter, endure it while being a total pain in the ass until the new year, and then around January 18th, he would say he could not take it anymore and buy cigarettes and a lighter. I trusted what Jo Yeonsu said when it was about work, but anything related to cigarettes went in one ear and out the other.

“Ah. Hey, right. I meant to tell you this when I saw you. Team Leader Im got a big proposal yesterday.”

Team Leader Im was the marketing team leader. The accounting and marketing teams’ desks were next to each other, so the two teams were quite close. The funny thing is that the entire marketing team is composed of non-smokers. To be precise, Team Leader Im who is in the process of quitting, and non-smoking team members.

I was about to ask him about it right away, but a gap opened up as the white-collar workers left in a throng. Yeonsu kept checking his smartwatch, putting on a ridiculous show, saying, “Time, stop. Time, stop.”

“A big one?”

“Shinyoon F&B said they want to collaborate with us.”

“Huh?”

Shinyoon F&B was a leading domestic conglomerate whose sales last year alone exceeded 2 trillion won, making them the top in the F&B industry. Compared to them, our company was not just a small-to-medium enterprise, but a tiny, tiny small business. I should have been overjoyed just hearing the name, but suspicion and doubt came first. Why would they want to work with us?

“I don’t know either. Team Leader Im said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the email. It looks like he’ll prepare a presentation and call for a meeting, so you should hear it directly from him.”

No. This is closer to being bewildered than to suspicion and doubt. What are they lacking that they would want to work with us? Having lived for over thirty years, I learned that good fortune never comes without a reason. The best I ever did with the lottery was winning 5th place once. But Yeonsu seemed extremely pleased, grinning as he patted my shoulder.

“Mr. CEO Lee Jungwoon. It feels like just yesterday that I was busting my ass negotiating cost discounts with the grocery mart presidents and factory presidents. But they say every dog has its day if you just hang in there. Don’t you think?”

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”