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Hoksemumin.

They disturb the world and deceive the people.

Then let me ask:

The ones who have been disturbing the world since the ancient times have constantly existed.

What do they use to disturb the world, and how do they mislead the ignorant?

* * *

The night of Seoul shines brightly.

Having lost the ability to see the stars in the sky, humans have instead learned to light stars on the ground, and instead of moving according to the will of the heavens, they have come to live in dependence on the stars of the earth, day and night without distinction.

The buildings of Seoul twinkled as if they considered themselves stars on the ground, and within that shining constellation, countless people had no choice but to continue working with haggard faces.

Work.

Work.

Work.

Ah, blessed overtime!

The joy of ‘voluntary’ overtime!

The happiness of working with a spirit of dedication to the company!

“Papa, paparazzi—paparazzi.”

The man was one of those who was experiencing this shit-like ‘blessed’ overtime.

From his mouth flowed self-mocking songs born from joy over working late, and his expression was scrunched up, while his eyes were red like a rabbit due to the taurine and caffeine he had ingested to the limit.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit-like, fuck.”

Moreover, what made it even worse was that this wasn’t even normal overtime.

He had joyfully left work.

The sense of liberation from finally escaping the continual overtime, and the thought of going home to play a few rounds of games had him grinning just 30 minutes ago.

However, just as he was nearly home, the phone began to ring.

“Hey, something’s come up! I’m really sorry, but can you quickly write up an article? What? Off work? Hey, where’s the off work for journalists?”

“I know you’ve been doing overtime, but it can’t be helped. Isn’t it the journalist’s duty to be on standby to go out anytime something big happens? Huh? You’ve gotten used to this journalist life, haven’t you? This is the spirit of a journalist, the spirit!”

“Still, what’s with you being so good to me? I didn’t reach out to anyone else; I reached out to you. To be honest, this isn’t exactly a huge scoop, but it’s not light either. This isn’t bad news for you. Isn’t this the love of a junior for a senior, love for the country?”

“But the information I received and the data I’ve gathered myself are a bit all over the place. But I feel like we need to blow this up quickly; you’re going to have to work a bit on this.”

“Hey, but it’s no big deal. If I thought it was impossible, would I really have contacted you? Huh? With your ability, you can definitely do this. I’m only asking this because I trust you! That’s the grace of a senior, like the heavens!”

“Uh, okay. And there’s no need to come back. I’ll send the data by email, so whether it’s a nearby cafe or your home… no, it would be nice to slam down some caffeine while writing the article at a cafe, right? I’ll give you a coffee gifticon, so just go there, slam down a coffee, and write your article! Good luck, alright?”

“Ah, right. And what’s really great about the relationship between seniors and juniors? Sharing information and sharing materials, bonding over it. Isn’t it? Just like now, when a senior is giving their junior good leads, and the junior hands over good materials to the senior.”

“Once you finish organizing the data, send it to me. Normally, I don’t ask for these kinds of favors, you know? I’m busy right now, and I can’t manage multiple tasks. Maybe because I’m getting old, but multitasking isn’t going well for me. So, you know?”

“I believe this amazing junior will organize the materials well and send them to me. Fighting! Okay, I’ll hang up now.”

“Senior….”

The man gritted his teeth, recalling the call he had with that bastard called ‘senior’ just 30 minutes ago.

To relieve some stress, he chomped down hard on the ice that came with his iced Americano, chewing both the ice and his ‘heavenly’ senior.

But no matter how much he chewed, there was no sign of stress dissipating.

Of course.

It wasn’t a kind of anger that could be relieved with just that.

“Damn it, that bastard gobbled up all the good stuff while throwing me only the shit…”

What the ‘senior’ passed on to him were things he couldn’t call good even as empty words.

The senior packaged it as a significant find, but it was nothing short of a thorny item.

Though the ripple effect may be small, there seemed to be some degree of occurrence, so on the surface, it didn’t look bad.

Yeah.

On the surface, that is.

Except for the fact that he had to sift through disorganized stacks of documents, including tons of false reports, do cross-verification, run around, make calls, leverage all his connections to verify facts, and annoy celebrity acquaintances he had greased up with favors.

Moreover, the senior had hit him with the organizing of this crappy data while planning to swallow it all himself.

“Can’t multitask? I could just kill you with this curse…”

It was obvious what he would use the data for.

He would write an article ‘in depth’ based on the materials he received and use that article to tackle something much larger. Plus, he would likely use critical information he didn’t share with him to solidify connections, contact the parties involved for a trade-off to clear debts, or exchange information with other journalists…

In short, he would use his skills while the senior would gobble up everything.

Moreover, the place they were working at was a cafe.

Not an office, a cafe.

What does that mean?

It meant that the man was so, so happy, so in love with work, that he was ‘voluntarily’ doing additional work that wasn’t even recognized as overtime without getting paid.

And the cherry on top was the gifticon.

The ‘coffee’ sent by the senior was none other than iced Americano.

The cheapest one.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

The man trembled at the shitty situation engulfing him and diligently organized data and wrote the article.

Shitty things are still shitty, but still, the work had to be done.

Had the bastard called ‘senior’ had no influence, he might have entertained the thought of fighting back.

However, the senior was a veteran in the entertainment department, with tight connections to the politics and society departments, essentially a lifeline for someone pushed down like him to return to the society department.

“If I hadn’t caused any trouble, I wouldn’t be slumming it in a place like this; I’d be living in luxury, receiving recognition as a successor. Damn it!”

The man was a ‘successor’ from the public recruitment.

Once his probation period ended, he would have been assigned to the society department, where a bright future awaited him.

But unfortunately, he had caused a major incident during his probation, and because of that, he was treated like a bastard among journalists, becoming a member of the entertainment department. Moreover, he was not warmly welcomed even there after having caused a major incident, so he couldn’t even get good assignments.

Fortunately, he managed to persevere through sheer grit, gradually getting some work and being taught the know-how to report, and he had somewhat succeeded in blending in by now.

Yeah.

To some extent.

Unfortunately, the man could only drift outside the fold of other entertainment department journalists and couldn’t even receive properly shared information among them.

It was truly a shitty situation.

No matter how big of an incident he caused, isn’t this a bit much?

Even if the start was bad, there’s still a thing called human connection, and treating someone so heartlessly doesn’t make sense.

This can’t be!

“Damn it. I’m not the kind of person to be treated like this!”

Who is he?

He is a public recruitment journalist.

He was a journalist who boldly entered the company, having passed the absurdly difficult exam that was infamously known as the ‘media entrance exam.’

In the man’s mind, he was not someone to be looked down upon like this.

He wasn’t someone who should be treated this way by those who had it easy without even taking that exam.

He was an elite, and as an elite, he should be distinctly different from others.

No, he should not only be distinct but also deserve respect.

His bright intellect deserved treatment commensurate with it!

But what’s the reality?

What the hell is this?

He’s groveling to a bastard who just has the title of senior while endlessly working overtime and has not even sniffed the possibility of a scoop, wasting his brilliant talents. Moreover, the other journalist bastards are envious of him, who has a bright intellect, and they’re shunning him, not even trying to build friendly relations.

“Even those young kids are ignoring me.”

But that’s not all.

The rookie female journalists who just joined are avoiding him as if he were some dangerous material.

He just tried to be a bit closer with a little skinship, giving some advice as a senior.

Moreover, when he offered to get a drink, they even treated him like a weird person.

Isn’t it common sense for journalists to be friendly with alcohol and to encourage new hires to get used to it from early on?

Of course, it was particularly so for pretty ones…

But that’s just a natural thing.

He’s just a person, so it’s perfectly normal to want to become closer with pretty journalists and to want to share a little more with someone he wants to befriend.

Yeah.

He’s innocent.

At least that’s how the man saw it.

“Damn it. I’ll catch a scoop and leave this damned place.”

I’m not someone who should rot in a place like this.

I should soar to greater heights and achieve success.

I cannot allow my talents to waste away in a place like this.

There’s a much brighter place that suits me better.

And with that thought echoing in his mind, the man diligently organized the materials.

He organized it with bloodshot eyes, and once it was over, he gathered his stuff with a face full of irritation and stepped out of the cafe.

This time, he intended to return home to rest.

He walked through the dim, eerie path, thinking only of rest. It was a shortcut through a park.

Given its eerie atmosphere and broken streetlights, he normally wouldn’t dream of crossing here.

But the man was desperately yearning for rest.

His longing for rest overcame even his fear.

However, as if betraying that desperate heart, someone called out to him.

“Hey, young man.”

The shadow of a person beneath the extinguished streetlight.

That shadow spoke to the man, making a sound as if scratching metal in the darkness.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?”

 

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