Chapter Text
He was starting to feel like he looked sort of stupid.
Seong Gi-hun showed up to his first day of work in his best suit, which was, admittedly, the wrong size. He had a black backpack containing an ancient laptop and a pitiful lunch, his shoe was scuffed, and he had pressed the wrong button on the elevator.
Go to the fourth floor, fifth door on the right. Fortunately, no one else was in the elevator, so it would just also appear on the fifth floor for no reason, but that was nowhere near his greatest concern.
He was a technician. Why was he dressed like some kind of a businessman? He felt like a fraud. But what should he have worn? A t-shirt and dirty jeans? He needed this job.
That's what he kept saying to himself. He needed this job.
The doors opened with an eerily mechanical bing and Gi-hun dragged himself down the hall, knocking on the door that had been described to him.
"Come in," came a soft voice.
Feeling as though his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest, he pushed it open.
The office was colossal, with giant windows overlooking the city. At a dark, wooden desk sat a tall young woman, her hair cut into a somewhat severe bob, neatly manicured fingernails tapping absently on the desk. "Seong Gi-hun?" She asked, sounding somehow both polite and as though she had twelve other places to be.
"Ah, yes, ma'am," he said, extending his hand for her to shake.
She did so, gesturing at the chair across the desk from her. "Cho Hyun-ju. We're glad to have you on board." Passing him a manila folder, she gave him a very professional smile. "There's the paperwork you'll need to fill out, you can give it to me at the end of the day. Until then, I'll show you your office shortly."
"I have an office?"
Hyun-ju blinked at him. "Of course. The expectation will be that you'll spend most of your time there so that people can find you when technical difficulties arise. OneEarth is a parent of three other companies, you'll be the point person for mechanical breakdowns for all three of them. They're all based here, though I expect you'll be working in closest conjunction with OneScience, which is our research branch."
Gi-hun nodded slowly. "What if there's something I don't know how to do?"
"Then it will be your responsibility to call the manufacturer and get a tech specialist here urgently. At OneEarth, we are focused on efficiency."
"Good. Thank you. I look forward to working with you," he recited, remembering what he'd been taught to say at real jobs.
"Excellent. Let's go to your office." Hyun-ju rose, her immaculately tailored blazer and skirt making Gi-hun feel doubly inferior in his ill-fitting clothes. She led him down the hall silently, and they crossed a glass bridge, where she paused. "Down there is the cafeteria, though most people take their food back to their desks. HR is across from it."
But Gi-hun wasn't listening. Down there, just in front of the cafeteria, a young woman with a visibly odd gait stumbled, dropping her tray loudly. That wasn't what caught his attention.
What caught his attention was the face of the man who grabbed her elbow, keeping her steady and then stepping away and handing her his own bagged lunch. She attempted to deny it, but he insisted, then she thanked him and they parted ways.
It was a face Gi-hun knew better than his own. Not knew like trivia, knew like familiarity. He knew that face the way he knew the streets of his hometown—innately and without thinking. He knew the way it felt in his hands, he knew the way it pressed into his neck, knew the way it tightened with displeasure or brightened with joy.
And yet, the posture of the body around it was completely unfamiliar. Cold and collected and foreign. As though detecting eyes, the face turned slowly upward, toward him, fixing on his face and blinking emptily.
Despite that, Gi-hun raised his hand in a hesitant wave.
Hwang In-ho's hands remained resolutely at his sides, his only acknowledgement of Gi-hun a curt nod.
"Don't worry," Hyun-ju cut in. "We, here at OneEarth, do our best to foster employee relationships. You'll have plenty of friends in no time."