Job Search (3)
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“Tell me more.”
Seung-ho knew that Drax was at least ten years older than him.
“I’ll show you his picture.”
Min-jong turned on the laptop and showed Drax’s picture on the Internet to Seung-ho.
He looked at the pictures and saw the exact face he remembered from 20 years ago.
Nothing has changed at all.
“Maybe, that’s a picture taken 20 years ago…”
“It wasn’t a picture 20 years ago; it was a picture just taken. Drax is not getting old at all.” he said, cutting Seung-ho’s response.
Seung-ho was shocked by Drax’s appearance.
“I think he wasn’t getting old because he ate a lot of mana stones, don’t you think?”
At that moment, a thought passed through Seung-ho’s head.
“Do you think that Drax got something from the last gate raid and asked the porters to leave him behind to hide it? A key to keeping Drax youthful?”
The atmosphere became heavy, although Min-jong’s face brightened that Seung-ho gathered what he had implied.
“Yes, I think so. Honestly, I didn’t know why Drax stayed in the nucleus, and the porters had to die, but I got this idea after hearing your story.”
“It’s hard to believe.”
“These are all guesswork. I’m not going to interview him. These are just what I wondered about… someday, we’ll have to dig through all the secrets.”
When Seung-ho saw his burning determination and professional spirit, it was like he is seeing the bespectacled man in front of him for the first time.
He tried to drink another sip of coffee, but he realized that the cup was already empty after their long talk.
“It’s time for lunch”, he said.
Min-jong’s face turned as white as a prisoner sentenced to death. The time for the interview to end has come.
Seung-ho rose from his seat and kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked to the entrance of the cafe.
Min-jong tried to hold his arm out and grab it, but Seung-ho shook his hand off.
“What are you doing? Are you not going to eat?”
“Yeah?”
“Please guide me and choose a good restaurant.”
At that moment, Min-jong’s head became blank, and he seemed unable to understand, but his face brightened as soon as he understood what Seung-ho meant.
“Yeah! Let’s go. There is a delicious Japanese restaurant nearby!”
* * *
“Mother, Father – I am here.”
“Why did you come home so late? Your mother kept on insisting that I go out to find you.”
“Oh, sorry. I just had a little interview …”
With Seung-ho’s words, his father’s eyes opened wide with surprise.
“Interview? What interview?”
“I happened to meet a reporter, and he told me that he would write something about my return. Is Mother already asleep?”
“Yeah, she fell asleep a while ago. Probably got too tired, forcing me to find you. If you’re going to go around to look for a job, people will see you and start rumors. Do you know the aunt next door?”
“When I came back home yesterday, you told me all about the neighborhood.”
“Then, reporters are likely to come here.”
Ding dong!
When the doorbell rang, both men sighed while looking at each other’s faces.
“You can’t do it.”
“I’m going out.”
“Can’t we just pretend we didn’t hear it?”
“If we turn off the light right now, they would just press the doorbell more.”
The ringing bell sounded like thunder to Seung-ho because his mother was sleeping.
He felt angry at the noise because his mother was asleep. If he gets out and his conversation with the reporters did not go well, he was going to have a fit.
When he opened the front door and stood in front of the gate, he felt more popular than expected.
There were many reporters and journalists outside, some armed with huge, professional cameras.
“If I hear a clicking shutter, I will break your cameras”, he warned with a low voice.
Anyone who heard it felt terrified; even a fearless person would have felt awkward.
Because of that, not one finger moved.
“My mother is sick, so I urge you to go and never come back. It’s a warning, not a request, make your decision and say, ‘Oh! Let’s be happy we are safe because we believed his warning’. In the future, interviews will only be done through Choi Min-jong, so take your things, pack up and go.”
The reporters grumbled but showed no signs of going forward.
One of the reporters closer to Min-jong wanted to talk. His mouth hung open with his lips wriggling, but no words are coming out.
However, the reporter finally found his courage and stepped forward.
“What?” Seung-ho snapped.
“We’re just doing our jobs.”
“So?”
“We are obliged to tell the people what happened.”
“I told you my mother is sick now, didn’t you hear that? If you interview me through reporter Choi Min-jong, your duty would be fulfilled, right? If you stop talking now, you would still know how happy it is to eat with your hands.”
With that threat, Seung-ho judged that he already said too much. He left the reporter who froze like a frog in front of a snake, closing the gate roughly before marching inside the house.
Beyond the gate, reporters grumbled and swore at Seung-ho, but no one else dared to press the doorbell.
His father watched the departing group from their window and thought:
“I’m glad no one got hurt. What was I thinking, calling all those reporters, thinking that I should show off my son’s survival skills.”
* * *
“Do you remember the last gate blocking operation 20 years ago? There have been many casualties, but it had been for twenty years, and it’s been laid to rest. Lee Seung-ho is one of the porters who participated in the operation.”
“For twenty years, people thought that Seung-ho failed to escape from the gate and died, but luckily, he managed to survive and return safely.”
“For more information, we have reporter Choi Min-jong.”
After the news anchor finished, the screen showed Min-jong.
Min-jong appeared with a computer-generated image of a gate, with artificial smoke around it.
“When a gate loses its core, the nucleus, and becomes unstable, and the imbalance destroys the gate. That’s what everyone knows so far.”
Lee Seung-ho was alone with him in the interview.
“But how did you get within the gate’s radius?”
“That day… I was desperate. There were monsters shrieking all around me, and my legs seemed to have a mind of their own.”
“My heart trembles when I hear your story. What happened after the gate has been destroyed?”
“Light leaked in little by little. At some point, the barrier broke and scattered with a burst of light before it disappeared without a trace. From then on, I was stuck on the other side.”
“What do you mean “the other side”? Did you go to the land beyond the gate?”
“Yes. It is just like the Earth – there are deserts, seas, vast grasslands, and high mountains. However, while people lived on Earth, monsters lived on the other side.”
“Can you say that it is a version of Earth, but with monsters?”
“Yes.”
The camera shots only revealed Seung-ho’s chest, and his face has not been captured during the broadcast.
On the Internet, there had been fierce debate about the gate incident, with various versions and different stories, until Seung-ho’s eyewitness testimony cleared things up.
***
“Lee Seung-ho?”
The man held Lego in his hands as he asked the secretary who came to report.
“Yes, one of the missing people at the gate 20 years ago.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I’ve done everything he requested. The disappearance report already canceled, and the Hunter registration card was renewed.”
The man stood up, taking his Lego. He interrupted his leisure to meet Seung-ho himself.
“How did you come over? Is that possible?”
The man’s doubts were natural. How can anyone come back after the destruction of the gate?
“I saw that the gates reopened ten years ago, and after observing it, I found a certain rule. You have to wait until the expected gate generation point and take the chance to cross over.”
“What patience and effort…”
The man, with his arms crossed, ended up thinking about it.
But the thought was not long.
“Anyway…”
“Okay.”
Seung-ho noticed as the man looked back and smiled at his secretary.
The man’s eyes weren’t smiling.
It left Seung-ho with a cold, chilling feeling.
* * *
His parents slept early after dinner. Seung-ho started looking for part-time jobs, as Min-ju recommended.
He found it hard.
“I am too old.”
“It is impossible without a license.”
“I can’t stand the working conditions.”
He can’t help but feel desperate as he browsed available jobs.
The one he thought would fit with him was being a security guard, but it is for a night shift.
He wanted to work only during the day and have dinner with his parents every night.
There were a limited number of part-time jobs available in their area.
At first, Seung-ho looked for jobs where he could use strength.
He wanted to work on a construction site, but his parents did not agree, so he had no choice but to give it up.
Office work was impossible for a person who couldn’t even handle computers, and service jobs seemed impossible because of his personality.
Browsing through jobs he was not qualified for made him feel angry and helpless, so he started to grumble with the Min-ju.
– Lee Seung-ho: Hard to find job.
– Lee Min-ju: Getting a part-time job is certainly difficult when you are older.
– Lee Seung-ho: Any suggestion?
– Lee Min-ju: What can I do for you? I should ask Seong-ah and Sia.
– Lee Seung-ho: Tomorrow
– Lee Min-ju: Okay. Tomorrow is a weekend, Seong-ah and Sia will visit you. Have fun with your pretty nieces ~
Min-ju sends messages with dozens of words, while he can only send a word or two.
He wasn’t used to having a smartphone. He could not grasp the sense of pressing the letters on the screen; he was not sure if he was hitting the right letters correctly.
Seung-ho kept looking for a part-time job with his smartphone deep into the night.
His father, who came out to drink water, discovered the light from Seung-ho’s room. He opened the door and forced his son to sleep by putting his phone away.
Thanks to that, Seung-ho managed to escape his agony with finding a job and messing with his smartphone, even just for the night.