Chapter Text
Absolutely nothing has been going right for you, and this is the last straw. You have been working your ass off for this company for the past six and a half months, and the only thing that they seem to have recognized about you is that you can’t seem to get to work on time—probably not even if your life depended on it. Most days, it's not even your fault. You’ve tried leaving your apartment extra early only to be met with a flat tire in the parking lot. You’ve tried setting your GPS to avoid construction only to have an undocumented car accident reduce traffic to a crawl. You’ve over-communicated with your supervisor to explain yourself, and hoped against hope that your transparency would at least build some trust that you were trying. You’ve come to realize that she probably thinks that everything was just excuses or lies, so all of your humiliating, self-deprecating humor about how you can’t seem to do anything right, has probably served to damage your relationship with her more than help it. They put you on an employee improvement plan last month and you’ve decreased your lateness by about fifty percent—which for you, is huge. You shake your head sadly as the HR representative drones on about your severance package. It slowly creeps into your awareness that if you could have reduced your late arrivals by that much, maybe you had a little more control over it than you previously thought.
But that was par for the course in your life: it was nearly impossible to be motivated unless you were under dire threat of failure or extremely passionately excited about something. Why are you like this? You think to yourself and realize, yet again, you’ve blanked out on what the HR person was saying. They’re all looking at you expectantly for some form of a response and you have no idea what to say, so you look down into your hands and sniff slightly. You hope that they will just get it over with if tears are impending; most people would have had to fake it but you’re nearly there in reality, thanks to all of the negative thoughts you’re lashing yourself with internally.
Up until now, you’d never been put on an employee improvement plan. At 31 years old, you’ve been mercifully employed in jobs where such things were not the norm. But this job was your most earnest attempt at adulting that is chalking up to be yet another in a series of failures that remind you how hard it is for you to do all the things that it seems to be completely easy for everyone else to do. You continue to feel helpless as you catalog all of the reasons you failed to hit their goal for you this month. One morning there's a stall on the freeway or your battery is dead or okay, yeah, once (or twice) there was a longer line at the espresso stand than you expected and you probably should have skipped it, but you know that you can't keep your brain-to-mouth filter working without a nearly fatal dose of caffeine each day… So much for excuses. Even real, genuine reasons. They are letting you go. You realize that to them, your failure sends the clear message that you are not ‘one of them’; you don’t fit into the hyper productive culture of worker bees they are trying to build in a company they tried to claim was Gen Z laid back, and hip, and realistic about work/life balance. Liars. They never seemed to notice how hard you work or how much you've been trying. You were the newest person on the team; you stuck out like a sore thumb, so you're out.
Fuck these fake ass anti-capitalist posers.
But for you, this is really the last straw. You really can't do this whole ‘adulting’ thing like everyone else.
School never panned out for you, either. None of it went how you had hoped it would. You struggled to keep up with the workload of your classes, failed spectacularly at meeting deadlines, and your professors scoffed when you had the audacity to actually take the mental health breaks that they insisted were acceptable at the first day of class. Leave it to you to be naïve and not realize that they did not actually want you to take any breaks. Your grade was lowered for every day you missed. You ended up walking away from school and never did graduate your university program. Since you did acquire some reasonable skills and knowledge from the courses you were able to complete, you thought you could use those skills in your present job and just be able to start your life, even without some shitty degree. Boy, were you dreaming.
You just can’t seem to conform to everyone’s expectations, you chide yourself. You really should know this by now. It used to be a running joke in your family how you were an ‘out-of-the-box’ thinker, but it’s really not so funny now, in the real world. You still have to fit into the same box as everyone else, but who are you kidding? This world is just about boxes and labels and how people fit in the world. You’re sick of the boxes.
You put all your stuff from your desk and your cubicle into a box—ironically—and you do the Walk of Shame through the front lobby. Security is kind enough to just stand by at a distance. They know you're not going to do anything in retaliation; they look like they feel bad for you. They've seen you struggle every day, bursting through the doors to get upstairs as quick as you can, and they know that you're generally a nice person who tries their best, so they're not judging. At least there's that. You glance around at all the people you were hoping to make friends with (your co-workers) but nobody meets your eyes as you walk toward the front doors. You shove the door as hard as you can without spilling your box of belongings, and stumble awkwardly out of the building into the sunlight. It is not the brightness of the day that brings the moisture to your eyes, or even the fact that you just can't get your proverbial shit together. It's kind of just… everything.
All of your failure comes crashing down on you at that point. You feel yourself starting to cry for real, so you walk to your car as fast as you can. You clumsily get in, throwing your box in the back seat and cringing as you hear the contents spill out onto the seat and the floor. The tears start falling hot and fast as you sit there and fall apart, crying uncontrollably. Your unrestrained sobs come so hard, wracking your lungs until you begin to cough and wonder for a second if this is how you die, choking on your own pathetic snot and tears. Your hands are smacking the steering wheel in silent screams until the stinging pain buzzing in your palms jars you to realize how ridiculous you probably look. You stop and begin trying to figure out what you're going to tell your mom this time. Your thoughts run the reel of cascading concerns, like how are you going to keep your apartment? How are you going to get another job without a reference? You find yourself blankly staring for a moment until you take a deep breath and start the car, grabbing the nearest leftover fast-food napkin from the center console. As you dry your tears, you can’t help but feel absolutely pathetic.
You push the car into reverse and glance in the rearview mirror. You try to ignore how your theatrical hysterics have completely wrecked your face. You dab at your puffy eyes and runny nose again before putting the car into drive. The stereo has finally connected to your phone’s Bluetooth, and you startle as Turbulence comes on from your favorite ATEEZ complete playlist.
Of course. The universe seems to be set on fucking with you at this point. You start to lose your shit all over again, because of course: ATEEZ is always there for you and knows exactly what you need to hear. and you wish all of life could be that simple. They say that they will always be there for you, and you feel like they are—in their way—the best that they can be. But It's not enough; it's not the same. It's obviously not the companionship that you need. You’ve struggled so much in this city and not making friends at your job because nobody wants to be close to the fuck-up girl who can't get it together, your attempts on dating websites have been absolutely horrendous. You’re still so devastatingly lonely.
It's been so awful that it's almost funny but not really funny at all, because you're still alone and you have ATEEZ to comfort you. But right now, you still just feel completely empty and worthless. Having ATEEZ on your side somehow seems to highlight, rather than soothe, what is missing in your life. How do you begin to imagine what life would be like if there was something more for you out there? If only somebody would come along and recognize what you have to offer. You've always been a calming presence to the people around you. Small children and animals trust you instinctively. People who tend to get overly angry or yell at your work, don't do it when you're there. You always come back from a couple days off and find out that somebody completely lost their shit when you weren't around. It seems like a huge disconnect between the people you know and the stories of all of their meltdowns and tantrums you have missed. You wish that your flaws could be overlooked in favor of some of these unspoken skills you possess. Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe your old coworker was right when he referred to you as “human valium.” Bitterly, you hope that someone totally flips a desk when you’re gone and maybe they realize how you’d held the office together with your secret superpower.
Your thoughts shift to all of the comfort ATEEZ offers you through their music and their variety shows and their lives, the FROMM messages… everything that they do that brings you comfort and makes you at least feel like you can keep putting one foot in front of the other. As the next song on the playlist rolls around, of course, it's Take Me Home. And it's not helpful, at all, in this moment. The sweeping melody passes through you as though your body is not a solid entity but a collection of atoms only coincidentally buzzing around each other. It feels like when you wear a thin sweater without checking the weather forecast and a cold breeze blows right through you. You are empty, cold and alone and the painful melody is like ice through your chest.
The lyrics of the song draw your focus and cause you to wonder, do they have somebody like that? Do the boys have someone to keep them from feeling so terribly alone? Because, obviously, they're idols. They have to keep their private life secret and separate, and everything has to be just so. It’s not the first time you find yourself wondering—are they as lonely as you are sometimes? Obviously, they have each other, but they've been together for so long; they probably have their good days and bad days. They probably fight and avoid each other sometimes, depending on what's going on. And besides, they all work so hard. How would they even have time to find somebody to just listen or just be around? You hate the idea of any of them being lonely and you can’t help thinking how much it feels like you owe them, and your ultimate fantasy would be to take care of them in any possible way, as a tiny way to repay your gratitude.
You laugh at your own ridiculousness. The very idea sounds absurd. You wonder if that’s some of the crazy shit that sasaengs think, and your stomach does a sick little flip. No, your thoughts are not impure; you genuinely would do anything behind the scenes, even if it never brought you near them. You’d be completely fulfilled if you knew you were helpful to them in any meaningful way. You assure yourself that you’d never try to insert yourself into their lives where you know you don’t belong.
It’s such a stupid thought, anyway. You don’t even speak Korean. You've tried to learn, and you’ve never been able to do it. Yeah, you've tried with the stupid app on your phone, but like, let's be honest: it all sounds totally different in context when they're talking casually in their pop lives and in their interviews, and you’re completely baffled by the translations even though you recognized some of their words. If you even attempted to get a job at KQ, would they even look at you? What are your skills? You've never finished a degree. You haven't finished a lot of things to be honest, and what would it even look like? But you're just sitting there in your car, you can feel the tears that shrink wrap your eyes trying to stay on the composed side. You’re trying not to cry again and welcome this silly, distracting thought. You open your phone and search for the KQ website. The little bubble pops up: [Do you want to translate this page?]. Yeah; you still don't read Hangul, and it would be horrifying to have to go through the whole thing to try to figure it out on your own.
You scroll to look at their human resources page. It takes forever to load, giving you time to start to think this is the dumbest thing you've ever thought about doing. You’re not going to fly to Korea. You’re not going to get a job at KQ. They're never gonna hire you anyway… How would you justify the expense of flying there if you’re not likely to even get the job? Whatever. But, okay, you know, maybe they would have something for you to do, so you open the webpage auto-translate the HR section, and half-heartedly scroll down the page. You pause over a short listing. “Assistant (General): housekeeping, personal assistance, light duty.” It doesn't say who you’d report to. You know you could be working for literally anybody there. You don't know if you’d be just cleaning toilets in the office or what, but you look down at the job requirements, and most of them are all things that you've done that you still have decent, not-too-stale references for. You still wonder if it matters that you don’t speak the language.
But you suddenly think about your friends who went to China. They were teaching your language; they didn’t speak a word of Chinese. You don't even know how that works. But they stayed there for like 3 or 4 years, with their whole family, and everything was great, and they came back happy and healthy. You’ve heard all these great stories about how much they learned and loved the culture and everybody they met, and they started learning the language. So, maybe it doesn't matter.
The listing doesn't say you have to speak Korean but maybe that's kind of implied by the fact that it’s a Korean company on their own website. You chuckle as you shrug off your own ignorance. Who knows. You scroll down further, and it just lists generic duties like housekeeping, organizing, shopping, food preparation, personal errands, things. It's super boring stuff, but you can't think of anything else to try. This is the silliest thing you've ever thought of and then you realize you’re still sitting in your car in your assigned space at the complex with only a vague recollection of the drive home. Fear grips your heart as you realize you don't really want to talk to your weird nosy neighbor in this state if you get caught outside. You shut off the car and quickly grab your things to dash into your apartment. You walk into the dark entryway, clumsily bumping the box and your hip on the doorframe as you curse and slam and then deadbolt the door.
It's exactly how you left it: the three outfits you changed your mind about this morning spread across the couch, last night's dinner dishes piled up on the counter next to several previous nights’ discards. Clearly, all of the stress at work has left you exhausted, and you’ve neglected your living space as a result. You heave a shameful sigh as you slide the box onto the kitchen island, using it to plow piles of unopened mail out of the way in hopes of finding enough level space for the box to rest.
Your stomach lurches with shame at the crust forming on the dishes, but thankfully there's really not that many because you never actually cook anymore; you just reheated a bunch of frozen crap that you got at the convenience store down the street. Your eyes scan the cluttered counters, coming to rest on the small, clear fishbowl that is partially overshadowed by the cupboards. You take a step forward ,thinking it was probably time to feed your little blue Betta fish, Hala. You’ve curated his little bowl tenderly in a pirate motif, and you selected the prettiest blue gravel that nearly matched his iridescent blue tail fins. As you move toward him, your gut clenches, and you instinctively know something is wrong but it’s not readily apparent what the problem is until your eyes come to rest on his little body floating at the top of the waterline, resting gently near the tender leaves of the fake plant you have placed in his bowl. Your little buddy, the only other living creature sharing your daily life, is dead… Another last straw in a big pile of last straws. You start to cry again, and without thinking, grab your phone to call your best friend. But you stop yourself; you want to get it together before you do because she's really been there for you so many times, and you have not been super helpful to her lately. It's just all you can do not to put her through that again as you become this insane person sobbing over dead fish, lost jobs, and the crushing realization of all the things that you’ve struggled with in your entire stupid life. It’s a wonder she answers your calls at all.
After a few moments of self-indulgent sobbing, you look at your fish. Sighing heavily, you scoop his body up gently with a paper towel. Look at his beautiful little fins. He was kind of your only companion, and you can't bear to flush his body down the toilet because it just seems wrong. You shudder as you think about what you do in that toilet. No way, that's not the burial that he deserves. But you don't have the energy to go scatter him over a rosebush, or whatever, so you fold him up in a paper towel and placed him inside the kitchen trash. At least he’ll go to the waste-to-energy plant and become energy. Maybe someday, when you turn on a light bulb, there he is.
You chuckle a little to yourself, realizing that you probably have become completely unhinged at this point. Like how you've even considered moving to Korea to do some weird personal assistant/housekeeping job at your ult group’s production company. You need to go to bed. This has been the worst day in a series of worst days. Yes, it's mid-afternoon, but who cares? Nothing good is going to come from trying to make decisions in this state, so you go crawl into your unmade mess of a bed and fight the tangled sheets to pull the blankets up to your chin. You grab your Jjoongrami and Deongbeoli plushies and place them protectively on either side of you as you pull the blankets up over your head, closing your eyes tight against the afternoon sun peeking through your curtains. You'd always promised yourself you'd get black-out curtains, but you never got around to it. Then you read some article saying that it helped you wake up if you got little bit of natural light in the morning. So, you thought well, maybe that'll help me be on time and be more awake. Spoiler: it didn't work. But anyway, you are thinking in circles about nothing, and you have no idea what you're going to do next, and you drift off to sleep. When you do wake up, it's dark outside and it's dark in your apartment.
The first thing you hear as you peer around through your puffy eyelids is the booming base of the next-door neighbors; they're probably doing their nightly ritual: drinking cheap beer, yelling while playing some violent video games, and listening to music at a level that makes any sort of conversation impossible without screaming. Passively, you wonder how they even have vocal cords left after doing this night after night. But it's sort of become the background noise, and it allows you to not feel like you're completely alone because you're clearly surrounded by people. You shuffle to your kitchen, pushing your hair out of your eyes, looking across the carnage of dirty dishes and neglected meal prep containers. You suddenly remember your lunch from work is still in your bag, so you go to your bag and get that out, and your phone falls out. You shut the bag when the screen lights. Your lock screen is the picture that you took at the concert two months ago... The part when the boys give their ending ‘ments, and you stare at their perfect faces and sigh to yourself and think, well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad…
Maybe it's insane, but you know, maybe this is finally your moment of having some good luck. You've had enough bad luck; the odds of something good happening to you something's gotta change, right, if everything's going wrong? There's gotta be a shred of good luck out there in the universe left for you. Luck certainly hasn't been on your side at work or at home or in the dating world. Stop it. You take a deep, steadying breath. When you unlock your phone, it's still on the KQ HR webpage. And then the thought hits you: they might not even be hiring for anybody who has anything to do with ATEEZ. This might be for Xikers, but maybe it doesn't even matter, maybe that's fine. and you start to think, even if it's for Xikers, maybe that's better, actually because then you won't have to like figure out how to not fangirl and act like a complete dumbass If you ever run into anybody from ATEEZ, much less either of your biases….
You laugh at yourself and shake your head as you close out of the browser that has the HR window open. And you think I better at least call my best friend and tell her what has happened because she might kill me for getting fired, but she will definitely kill me if I don’t at least tell her what went down today. So, you dial the number, take a deep breath and figure maybe she'll have some ideas of what you can do next. You certainly don't want to tell her anything about your stupid idea about going to Korea and trying to get a job at your ult bias group’s company because it sounds insane. It is insane. Forget about it. The line keeps ringing.
Eventually, it clicks over to voicemail when you hear the old message, “The person that you have dialed has a voice mailbox that is full.” You hang up the phone and roll your eyes. She's not exactly more on top of life than you are, but somehow—you don't know if it's her winning smile, her wicked sharp sense of humor, or her perfectly in-shape, toned body, but people seem to give her a lot more leeway than they do you. Self-consciously, you look down at yourself; your work clothes have become horribly wrinkled because you went straight to bed in them, and honestly, they're a little dumpy on the best day.
You hate how you dress for work; you just chose what you thought people in an office were supposed to wear. But none of the clothes seem to be flattering on you. In fact, they make you look like you're 50 years old and you're only 31. Gross. You wish you had a better work style but have never had a good sense of what was acceptable, and since you've not had any success keeping a good professional job for more than 6 months, you didn’t want to push your luck by going outside the norm. You didn't dare to try dressing too fashionably or in a way that makes the older, more conservative people in your office uncomfortable. You didn’t want anyone to think of you as vapid or superficial because you put a lot of effort into a unique or stylish look. So, you just dressed like anyone else did, picking up your clothes at the local department store and layering shapeless jersey knit dresses with frumpy cardigans, mass-produced “statement necklaces,” and sensible shoes. You slip out of your work clothes, grumbling to yourself that you hope, wherever you work next, that nylons will not be involved. You ball up your nylons and throw them straight in the trash because, let's be honest, you’re never wearing those again.
You wonder if maybe you could just go back home and get a job with your mom at her daycare center. It doesn't pay well. But at least you’d get to spend your day with people who think that the sun shines out of your ass, because small children are generally pretty loving and accepting. And when you're the person who brings out the finger paints and the teddy grahams, you are the coolest person on the planet. Okay, so there's plan B, you suppose. But you cringe slightly thinking about how your mom is gonna get that look on her face that's super disappointed and concerned but loving and trying not to judge. She’ll, of course, be wondering when you're gonna get your shit together, or at least get married or something… because you've not managed to check off a single thing off of the adulting checklist thus far. And obviously, she was trying to raise a stick, not a boomerang, as she always loved to tell you. You sincerely hope this saga isn’t going to end with you having to ask to move back in with her again.
You change out of your wrinkled work clothes into your favorite fleece joggers. They're black with cargo pockets, and they’re your favorite; they're flattering, they sit just below your waist on your rounded hips, and you wear your absolute favorite ribbed black tank top with them because it reminds you of the black tanks that the boys like to wear that drive everybody crazy on ig. And let's be honest, they look good on everyone. It hugs your full breasts and tapers around your waist without being restrictive. You feel slightly sexy in it but also extremely comfortable.
You shuffle back toward the sink, grab your earbuds, hit play on your playlist, start tackling the mountain of dishes, and try not to think about what conversations you must have next. As you finish stacking the dishes, the thought occurs to you that you do have some money saved up, so okay, maybe you aren’t a complete failure as an adult. You've saved up some money, and you could pay your rent for a couple of months until you figure out what you're gonna do next, without necessarily having to admit to your mom what you have yet again failed to do, which is keep a steady job.
You might have to eat bargain ramen the whole time because it'll be all you can afford. But hey, it's better than the humiliating crush of parental disappointment and having to humble yourself to take whatever job you can get in this stupid city. Because you're not going to be able to use the last one as a reference, and you'll have to tap dance a bit around the question as to why you have a hole in your job history for the last six and a half months...
…And before that is your mom's daycare. Great. You sigh to yourself, as you drain the sink and dry off your hands. Then you find yourself wondering exactly how much a plane ticket to Seoul would cost if you were to get an interview. No, that's nonsense. But you pull up the browser again and it's still on the HR website. You scroll down and look at the heading “Language requirements” and the only one listed is your language, and that doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't Korean be at least on there? And again, you laugh to yourself thinking, it's got to be just implied. Like, who in their right mind would think you could go work in Korea for a company if you don't speak their language… But it's a technical loophole that offers you the tiniest bit of hope, and honestly, this silly fantasy you’re mulling over might be the only think keeping you from having a complete mental breakdown if you were to actually face and embrace reality right now. You tangentially wonder if you could finish up some of your college courses while you're there or take some language courses so that you could learn enough to be passable. Before you think about it too hard, you're looking at how much a plane ticket to Incheon airport from your town’s airport costs.
The one-way ticket from your home airport costs about the same amount as a month's rent. Round-trip? No way. One way. You chuckle at yourself. That's absurd. That's so much money, but also you have 2 months’ rent saved up. You’re actually slightly grateful that you had decided to go month-to-month on the rent because you weren’t confident about your position when you moved here. You could get out of your apartment without breaking a lease. If you came back from an interview in Korea unsuccessful, what would happen after that? You could put your stuff in storage and worry about it later because you wouldn't have a place to live if you didn't get the job.
But you meet all the requirements—at least as far as they've listed them for the job. This is insane. You have no idea why you're even going to consider doing this, but at this point, nothing conventional has ever worked out. You don't fit in the mold; you don't even know where “the box” is that everyone thinks inside of. You're an out-of-the-box person; hell, you probably backed over the box by accident or left it on the roof of your car.
You know, it's just a metaphor, but really, it’s so true. Without thinking further, you click the link at the bottom to open the application, giving yourself permission to hold on to the fantasy a little longer before facing actual solutions to your life’s problems. Of course, the application that opens is also not in your language; you hit the translate button again, but only half of the boxes on the page change. You realize, with an icy jolt of dread, that the other ones are images, not text, on the page. Great. But for whatever reason, although that obstacle should have been enough to jar you to your senses and make you just quit even trying, there's something about this crazy idea that gives you just the tiniest bit of butterflies and hope in the pit of your stomach. It feels so much better than the rising despair and self-hatred/self-loathing you were feeling a moment ago that you press on.
You plop on the couch, sending throw pillows and empty snack bags airborne before they scatter to the floor around you. Grabbing your laptop, you open it up and launch the browser with the application for the job, and you exit out of the browser, on your phone, and instead open up your translation app. You start scrolling through the translator for Korean to your native language, and you open up the Hangul keyboard and start punching in what you see in the boxes that you don't recognize before hitting “translate.” And of course, it's exactly what you expected: it's the numbers, the street address boxes, things that would be really simple to someone who had even the rudimentary understanding of Korean. So you continue the laborious process of typing, translating, and entering your information until you have been able to enter all of your information. When you get to the bottom, it asks [If you're not a citizen, do you have an F-Series Visa, or would you be able to apply for a work Visa?] You click [Yes] even though it doesn’t require you to specify which part of the question you’re answering in the affirmative. It’s a bluff, honestly, you’re going to shoot your shot, but you know you’re not gonna get it. But it's an adventure. You’ll probably get a wacky story out of it that will make you a hit at parties, and it makes you feel a little bit better than you did a moment ago. So, this is the course of action you're going to take. It's completely bananas, but at this point in your fucked up life, you can probably just claim insanity. You hit [Submit], and then wonder, what the hell did I just agree to? So, you open up the Korean Visa website to find out more information on that, only to realize that your attention span for finer details has been exceeded for the day and you take a deep breath figuring, you know what, it won’t matter anyways. You’re not getting this stupid job. You don’t even know what the actual job is. You don’t know anything about anything. But hey, it’s not unlike buying a buttload of lottery tickets with a plan to change your life, or anything stupider or more reckless or more unlikely to actually work out that desperate people do. You close the laptop down and start laughing at yourself. Wow, you really are ridiculous. They're never going to contact you; it's never going to matter. But yeah, what a nice fantasy for a moment. You just let yourself reside in the bubbles of excitement of what if I actually did get the job and got to, like, meet my idols help them with their lives in some tiny, tiny insignificant way? And you bask in the warm fuzzy glow of thoughts of how they've helped you so much through all of the bullshit of your life. You let that giddy feeling just sort of roll around in your stomach as you laugh at your own stupidity and realize, you know, you really are a child for believing in fairy tales. And this is why, for real, you can't do adult things because you just are really not an actual adult.
You lean back on the couch and turn on the TV. You scroll past your current K-drama because you don’t have the attention span or energy to follow subtitles and pay attention to all of the gorgeous details and intonation of the scenes. You also are really not in the mood to cry again, and this particular series is like a delicious sucker punch of unrequited love that hits you in all your vulnerabilities. Instead, you pick your favorite comfort movie, Ever After, because you can recite it word for word, and you love the imperfections of the heroine, who, not unlike you, has delicious curves and a sassy mouth that she can’t quite keep shut even when her life depends on it. As the familiar movie plays, your head lolls to the side, and you aren’t sure when you drifted off to sleep.
You awaken to the jarring sound of your alarm, Work Pt.2, blaring from your phone. You wince as you realize that you forgot to turn off the alarm before falling asleep last night. You no longer have any need to get up so obscenely early. Swatting at your phone, you manage to silence the alarm and sit up slowly. Your head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and you can feel how puffy your face is from all of the crying yesterday. You feel a little dizzy—probably from dehydration. You blink in the morning sunlight, beginning to filter into the room. Glancing back at your phone to make sure that you didn’t just snooze the alarm, you notice the email icon in the top corner. A heavy sigh escapes you as you wonder which of your former coworkers had been nosy enough to message you about your termination or whether it was something even more annoying like an “exit interview” link from your former employer.
Satisfied that you did, in fact, dismiss the alarm, you click the icon to open your email. You were completely wrong about the contents and what you see in the subject line makes your breath and your blood freeze in panic. You can’t actually read it, as it is written in Hangul. But you can read the sender’s email: [email protected]. You fumble to get the message open and wonder if you even know how to get the email app to translate for you. Trembling slightly, you select the text and hit [Translate]. The email appears to be a standard form letter thanking you for submitting the application. There is another box to confirm your email and fully submit your application. You smack yourself in the forehead for not anticipating that the website would want a confirmation. You skim the rest of the contents and hit the [Confirm] button, and laugh lightly at yourself for all of the adrenaline the initial discovery of the email had caused. The self-doubt and shame at your ridiculous idea comes flooding back in with the morning sunlight. Shaking your head, you walk the short distance to the kitchen to attempt to stomach something for breakfast. Scanning the contents of the fridge, the pathetic assortment of wilting vegetables, your collection of well-intentioned protein powders on top of the fridge, nothing appeals to you. You know what you should eat, what’s healthy; you’ve struggled with your diet which was largely dictated by singular “safe foods” that appealed for months at a time, to the exclusion of all others, and then became utterly revolting without any warning. It was one of these in-between times when a safe food had become disgusting, and nothing had yet stepped up to hold the honor of the new safe food.
You step back from the fridge, annoyed when your phone vibrates again. Relieved by the distraction, you look down to see another email notification. There’s no way that it’s anything important, but you allow yourself to hope and ride the little stomach flip of adrenaline that the email icon triggers. Another email has arrived from KQ, and you hold your breath as you open it and hit [Translate]. This email thanks you for applying and informs you that interviews will be held via Zoom by appointment until the posting closes on {Date}. You glance at the calendar icon on your phone and realize that the closing date is tomorrow evening. A slight panic hits you as you also realize that Korea is many hours ahead of you and that it is technically tomorrow already. You quickly tap the link for scheduling and panic as you see that only two times are left and both are within the hour. You take the later option without hesitation, hit [Confirm], and slam your phone on the counter. You run for the shower and rush through your morning routine, breaking all of your speed records from days when you slept through your alarm and still had to catch the commuter. You spend a little extra time on your makeup since the interview will be on camera. You curse and dash out of the bathroom when you realize that you probably didn’t connect your laptop to the charger last night. In your haste, the bath towel you were wearing slides out from under your arms, and you nearly faceplant when you trip over the corner of it, and it propels you forward, slamming your shin on the small coffee table. Tears spring to your eyes as you gasp and curse but continue moving toward the laptop. You can already see that you didn’t plug it in, so you ignore the pain and get it connected on the kitchen table. You glance at the various crafting items, completely obscuring the surface of the kitchen table. With a wild sweep of your forearm, you swing most of the mess to one side of the table and ignore the unlucky items that fall to the floor. Satisfied, you turn and dash back to the bathroom to dry your hair before it sticks that way and finish making yourself “Zoom pretty.”
You probably look like a drag queen irl, but you know that the appearance filters on Zoom and the questionable lighting around your kitchen table will need all the help they can get. You select a conservative blouse and pair it with a pair of high-waisted relaxed slacks. There was no way you were going to forgo pants as you’d heard so many nightmares about people forgetting and standing while on camera. You complete the look with a pair of pearl stud earrings your mom gave you when you got your last job. They were supposed to be a graduation gift, she said, but since you didn’t actually graduate, she felt like this was the next best thing. You cringe a little at the guilt you feel and are grateful that you really layered on the foundation, and no one would be able to detect the flames of shame licking up your face. You glance one more time around the area, ensuring that the curtains are closed behind the table, and you throw a stack of old magazines down to raise up the laptop and avoid the cursed double-chin effect of a low camera angle. You have three minutes to spare.
Knowing how dry your mouth gets when you are nervous and forced to talk, you dash to the kitchen to grab a glass of water and slide into the seat just in time for the email with the Zoom link to arrive. Despite your shaking hand, you click the link to open the interview session and nearly die when you see the notification that pops up. [Please Update Zoom to Proceed]. You just about projectile vomit onto your screen, but click the notification as fast as you can. Of course, it was out of date. You hadn’t used it since undergrad and the whole pandemic thing. This is just perfect. You really are so predictably pathetic. You roll your eyes at yourself and try to control your urge to hyperventilate while you wait for the program to finish updating. You try to remind yourself how this whole idea is really silly, and you don’t actually expect it to pan out, so it doesn’t really matter if this delay causes them to reject you.
Suddenly, the update is complete, and you click the [Join Meeting] button and glance at the clock, just four minutes late for your scheduled fifteen-minute interview. The screen opens to display a polished, poised woman in a lavender suit jacket and cream blouse. She appears reserved and professional—her lips pressed together in a small smile. You give a wide, toothy grin before checking yourself and realizing that you might be failing miserably at observing the culture and decorum, and quickly morph the grin into an attentive, neutral look. As you think about your ignorance, you realize that you do not know how you will be communicating with the woman. You glance at the settings icon on your screen and hold your breath slightly while you attempt to click on it without making the movements obvious. You’re hoping against all hope that there might be some type of real-time captions or translations provided.
As you nervously scan the settings and feel yourself beginning to sweat, the woman speaks, snapping your attention back to her image on the screen. Relief floods you as you realize that her words are in your native language. You can’t believe your luck. Of course, they may have brought in someone who was bilingual when they saw your application, but you realize quickly that there was no way they could have done so on such short notice. She must already speak the language and you hope that maybe more people at KQ are bilingual than you had previously assumed. You realize you’re lost in your thoughts and have yet to respond to her greeting, so you clumsily shift gears and say, “Good afternoon,” acknowledging the time difference and stating your name. The interview proceeds similarly to every interview you have ever had: asking about prior experiences, education, strengths, and weaknesses. You wonder if you have inadvertently applied for a totally different company, as nothing she has said seems to pertain to anything in the entertainment industry. You talk generally about your skills relating to childcare but generalize it to cooking, cleaning, organization, data entry, communication, and financial management. The fact that it relates to toddlers seems like an unnecessary detail. You wax poetic about your interest in Korean culture, music, and geography and state that you have planned to experience more of the world before you settle down, and you sincerely hope that she can believe that being unsettled at 31 is totally normal in your culture. The interview proceeds pleasantly enough, and you feel like you may actually possess all the skills they are looking for.
But the interviewer’s tone shifts, and she is joined on the screen by a man in a casual but tactical-looking shirt and earpiece. He speaks Korean directly toward the camera and appears to be addressing you. You recognize enough of the words to know he is introducing himself to you, and his name is Hong Beom-seok. The woman pauses, listening carefully, until he is finished, and translates the statements, pausing for your response. They discuss the results of your preliminary background check, the required, extensive NDA you would be signing, and explain the additional data safety procedures which would include sharing all of your passwords and inactivating your social media accounts. When he explains that you will be issued a company smartphone, which will include sensitive information access but also be monitored exclusively by the company’s cybersecurity firm, you are slightly confused. It sounds as though you already have the job, but you have never been hired during an interview before. All other interviews ended with a trite statement that they would “be in touch with you,” and you had to wait an indeterminate amount of time before receiving a call, but only if you actually were getting the job offer. These two make it seem as though you already had the job.
You realize the woman is paused, waiting expectantly for some form of acknowledgment, and you nod your assent. She then asks if you have questions, and you can’t help but stammer, “So, when do I find out if I get the job?” She gives an almost imperceptible sideways glance at the man who nods at her, bows to the camera, stands, and leaves. She looks directly at the camera and says, “If you would like the job, I have a few more questions. Then you may tell me if you want to accept.” Your eager smile morphs into a frown of confusion. What was she going to need to ask you that would change your mind? You shake the concern away and nod, an open expression on your face as you await her next question. What she says next changes everything.
She begins by reminding you that the details of your interview, including the content of the questions, is covered by the application signature you provided and that it includes a nondisclosure agreement that is legally binding and internationally applicable. Your heart falters for a moment wondering what in the hell she is going to say next. You nod, and she asks you to say yes or no aloud, so you say “Yes.” in the most confident tone you can muster. The woman takes a noticeable sip of her glass of water before continuing. Her next question is the one you have been dreading. “So, have you been a fan of either of our groups?” she asks, staring down the camera poignantly. You take your own swig of water before replying with a subdued “Yes. I like ATEEZ.” But when a long silence follows, you feel that your response is inadequate, so you blubber, “I mean, of course, who doesn’t? But I don’t actually want to meet them or anything. I just wanted to have a job where I could help out however I could because I want them to be super successful and happy. I’m not completely crazy. I know my place. I just thought if I could do something that helps out their company, I could be helping them out indirectly. I’m completely fine if I never, ever even see them or anything like that. It would probably be better. Really.”
The woman has remained largely impassive throughout the interview, but at this, one manicured eyebrow flicks upward before returning to her neutral, professional expression. You kick yourself internally because you really did sound a little insane just then. But she must be somewhat accustomed to this reaction, as she doesn’t seem put off by it. Instead, she folds her arms across the table in front of her and leans toward the camera slightly. “Your duties would require you to meet ATEEZ. You would be required to interact with all members of ATEEZ in order to provide the services that are part of your job description.” She pauses mercifully to allow you to swallow a panicked gag and begin breathing erratically. “The personal assistance and housekeeping responsibilities would largely take place in the members’ dormitory. Some travel may be required. That part is not yet decided. But your position would be located within the KQ headquarters and ATEEZ dorms, for the most part.” Your eyes must look cartoonishly large at this point, and you would glance at your own camera image on the screen to check if you didn’t feel the edges of your vision blacking out as your panic rises.
You manage to ask her, “But… why would you hire internationally for a position with this level of security?” It may be an impertinent question at this point, but your brain is completely unavailable to sensor you. She smiles tightly and says, “It is simple. The very fact that you do not speak Korean is the best of your many assets.” You are incredulous and can’t contain your blurting, “How do you know I don’t speak Korean? What if I was faking it!?” The woman’s professional demeanor cracks and she chuckles in surprise. “We have ways to know this. Hong Beom-seok sshi is a paid actor who joins our interview teams and says some, ahem, choice words to test whether the interviewee is being honest about their understanding of the language.” You gape at her in shock. You wonder what on earth the man had said to you, with your complete ignorance passing the test with flying colors. When you recover yourself, you ask, “You said I had assets. What are my other assets?” The woman chuckles again and she glances down at her paper for a moment before looking up and addressing your question a different way. “Please stand up and step back from the camera.” You are confused but still can’t believe you’ve made it this far in the interview process and you can’t stifle your curiosity about what bizarre twists and turns will come next, so you stand and step back—again glad that you didn’t decide to forgo pants in your haste. “Please hold your arms straight out to your sides and turn slowly in a full circle.” Your brow furrows in confusion, but you follow the directions. It almost feels like you’re going through a security check, but no one is x-raying or patting you down. When you return to facing the camera, she says, “Thank you. You may sit.” You plop back in your chair unceremoniously as your nervous legs are rebelling against your wishes to lower yourself properly. The woman glances off camera, and you swear you see her give an almost imperceptible nod off-screen before she looks back at you with her neutral expression and answers your question, “You possess the physical qualities that are required for the nature of the job.” What the fuck? You desperately order your face to freeze—not react to this bizarre and vague response. “Okay. The job description said I need to be able to lift up to 30 pounds and walk up to three miles in an hour. You can tell that by looking?” You swear you see a slight blush creep up the woman’s neck. “Yes. Your physique appears adequate to the requirements.” A little red flag pops up in the back of your brain, but you’re honestly morbidly curious and
Wait… hold the fucking phone. She said you would be working directly with ATEEZ and spend most of your time at the dorms, and WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ASKING ANY OTHER QUESTIONS!? SHUT THE FUCK UP AND ACCEPT THE JOB ALREADY, DUMBASS!
You retrain your face to what you hope is a pleasant, professional, open expression, and you say, “Okay. Do you have more questions for me? I would like to accept the position if you are still offering it.” The woman’s lips twitch in a tight-lipped smirk before she nods and says, “I have no more questions for you. We will email you the contracts to sign and the other information so that HR can obtain the working visa if you need one. We will accept digital signatures for the extended NDA but will also ask that you sign in ink when you arrive at the KQ offices. Do you have any questions about this?” You shake your head, and she continues, “We would like you to start as soon as possible so that you are trained and begin providing the support right away. How long will you need to get your affairs in order? Would you be able to take a flight next Tuesday?” You hesitate slightly, wondering both what you will do with all of your stuff and how you will tell your mother. Seeing your hesitation and misinterpreting it, she quickly adds, “Of course, KQ will furnish your airfare. The contract includes the details, but your airfare will be deducted from your first three months’ salary and repaid to you in full on your twelfth-month check.” “So, you will just give me back the money?” “Yes, it is included as a bonus upon completing one year of employment with KQ. The details of other benefits are included in the contracts we will be emailing you. You can respond directly to those emails if you have questions or let me know and I can arrange another Zoom meeting to discuss them if you would prefer a more personal conversation.” she concludes and looks at you expectantly.
You swallow nothing but air as you realize you are slowly dissociating from your body. This must be some sort of stress-induced mental break, and you’re probably actually near death from an aneurysm or something and hallucinating on your sofa while drooling on yourself rather than about thirty seconds away from becoming ATEEZ’s personal housekeeper.
Embrace the crazy. Even if this is a lucid dream, it’s too wild not to jump in with both feet.
“Okay. I would like to accept the job.” You repeat, unnecessarily, before continuing, “Please send me the contracts. I will prepare to depart next Tuesday.” You realize you are holding your breath, and your finger is hovering over the mouse button to leave the meeting because your brain has begun to chatter wildly at 100 miles per hour about all of the things you will need to do in less than four days’ time, beginning of course with probably passing out and then calling your best friend, screaming. “Thank you. I will send the information. We will make the travel arrangements and send them in a separate email. One of the items required is a scan of your passport. Please send that as soon as possible so that we can ensure your airline information is accurate. Welcome to the KQ team. We look forward to having you.”
Holy shit.
“Thank you very much.”
Oh my fucking god.
“It was nice meeting you. I look forward to working with you, too.”
Breathe, dumbass. Oh my god.
“Yes. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions about the contracts. We’ll see you soon.”
Fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck.
“Okay. Goodbye.”
[This Meeting Has Been Ended By Host].