A child who looks like me

Saturday morning.

Ye-na marked an “X” on the calendar, counting down the days. Her birthday was now just five days away.

Looking at the X marks Ye-na had collected on the calendar, she realized how meaningless the past days had been.

“Ye-na, all I want to do on my birthday is eat cake with Mom and Grandma. Are you still looking forward to it?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because Mom will come home early.”

Jeong-oh couldn’t help but reflect on how much she had neglected to take care of her child.

I work because I love you the most, yet I don’t have enough time to show you that love.

Moms always feel sorry for their children.

“And Mom will give me a present. That’s why I’m happy.”

Ye-na had already picked out her present a long time ago. She said she wanted a coding robot. Worried that the product might sell out, Jeong-oh bought it early. The gift had already arrived last Thursday, and Ye-na knew about it.

What must it feel like to wait until her birthday for a present that was already at home?

The child was patiently counting down the days, eagerly anticipating what she wanted to receive.

Jeong-oh sat Ye-na on her lap and looked at the calendar together.

Turning a page, she saw a circle drawn for Monday, June 7.

“Ye-na, why did you mark this circle?”

“Because it’s the day I go to Do-bin’s house.”

Smiling beautifully at the circle on June 7, Ye-na wandered into the living room.

In the meantime, Jeong-oh picked up her phone to check her text messages.

There was a message from Ji-heon that had arrived overnight. It contained a brief note along with a web link.

– I thought you might like this as a copywriter.

It was a video of a lecture by a famous overseas creator that Jeong-oh recognized.

It would indeed be very informative, but Jeong-oh felt put off.

‘Why send a lecture on a Friday night?’

Displeased, she flipped her phone over and sat quietly when Ye-na returned with a Go board and stones.

“Mom, let’s play Go.”

“I don’t know how to play Go.”

“Then I’ll teach you.”

Ye-na’s enthusiasm for Go was always genuine.

Becoming her Go teacher, Ye-na passionately explained the game. Jeong-oh knew some of it but also had many gaps in her knowledge.

The more she didn’t know, the more she had to concentrate, yet since checking Ji-heon’s text, her mind felt distracted.

Should she reply or not?

If she replied, it seemed like the conversation might drag on.

Yesterday, Team Leader Seong Mi-ran’s words came to mind.

“… I’m just worried. The director is going to get married soon, right? Plus, you work at the same company.”

She couldn’t create something for her colleagues to worry about.

Before he could approach, Jeong-oh needed to push him away first.

While she was lost in thought, Ye-na raised her voice.

“Mom, Mom! In Go, you save with the line, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. The line…”

“The line is the vital point, and the other side isn’t the vital point. You have to go to the vital point. Got it?”

“Okay. You have to go to the vital point.”

Right. In Go, as in life, you have to go to the vital point. That’s how you survive.

Jeong-oh gained enlightenment from Teacher Lee Ye-na’s lessons.

‘Yes. I just need Ye-na.’

I have to protect my line first.

.*. *. *. *. *. *.

For someone, it was just dipping a toe in and pulling it back, but the weekend had slipped away completely.

But for Ji-heon, it was a dull weekend.

A wedding of a not-so-close friend, a meal with the advertising client representative, and a call from his mother…

What he wanted always seemed out of reach, while unwanted events kept piling up.

On Friday, he had sent a beneficial text message to Assistant Lee Jeong-oh, but she had left it on “read.”

Finally, when Monday came around, he felt a breath of fresh air.

– Yes. I’ll look at it.

At exactly 9 a.m. on Monday, he received a text message from Jeong-oh.

Ji-heon read and reread the seven neatly written characters.

It seemed to be a reply to the text message he sent on Friday night.

“Looked at it well” or “I will look at it well”? Now?

Ji-heon snorted with laughter and immediately replied.

– Are you sending a reply three days later?

Drrr. This time, the reply came quite quickly.

– It’s work. Just one working day, excluding the weekend.

– You send texts like packages.

The expression that had been locked away all weekend finally loosened. Ji-heon sent another message right away.

– Yes. That’s correct. Work is processed based on working days. If you want same-day delivery, please send it before 3 p.m. on weekdays.

– No, same-day reply.

Seeing the two messages arrive side by side, Ji-heon couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Thinking that his laughter might have escaped outside his office, he cleared his throat and straightened up before sending one more message: the link to the video collection of the creator’s works he had sent on Friday night.

– I think it’d be good to watch this together.

– Yes. Message received. I’ll take care of it.

He chuckled.

For some reason, he could almost imagine her expression when she sent that text.

He didn’t mind her audacity and shamelessness in taking his message as just a bothersome task.

It was so amusing that a new desire was quietly budding within him.

He wanted to keep her sitting next to him.

.*. *. *. *. *. *.

In the afternoon, a meeting for the new product advertisement of Dawon Brewery was held.

The AE briefed on the updates since last week’s meeting.

“After last week’s dinner meeting, Dawon Brewery gave us several comments. First, the client showed interest in all our ideas, and they said they were all good… and they want us to combine all these ideas.”

The production team was understandably shocked by the AE’s hesitant announcement.

“Combine? Combine?”

“What are we supposed to do with that? Make budae jjigae?”

The AE continued the briefing steadfastly.

“They want us to prepare three drafts after combining them.”

“Three after combining? If we combine them, wouldn’t it just be one?”

“That’s basically the same as saying to prepare everything again.”

Assistant Jo Si-nae’s voice was especially angry. In an unexpected turn, the blame fell on Jeong-oh.

“Assistant Lee Jeong-oh. Don’t you have anything to say?”

“What is there to say?”

“If you hadn’t mentioned this and that to the client at Thursday’s dinner, I don’t think we would be in this situation.”

“I only said what Team Leader Ahn Chan-seob said I could.”

Jeong-oh responded without being discouraged by Si-nae’s criticism.

“Well, that’s possible! Now that we’ve figured out the client’s intent, that’s a relief. Hm-hm.”

Team Leader Ahn Chan-seob from Production Team 1 cleared his throat and added a pitiful excuse.

“What about the deadline?”

Jeong-oh asked about the deadline.

“First of all, they want us to send the first proposal by this Friday. They don’t need a storyboard in the first proposal; they just want a script based on storytelling,” said the team leader.

“A first proposal? So they’re saying they want to turn everything upside down again. That’s too much.”

“We have to do our best to pass the first stage.”

“How is that easy?”

As the production team members continued to grumble, the planning team leader stepped in.

“Time is tight, but I’d appreciate your cooperation. Also, please prepare a good amount of copy candidates, both in quality and quantity. Dawon Brewery is notoriously picky when it comes to selecting copy, you know?”

Eun-bi looked at Jeong-oh and said, “I’d like Assistant Lee Jeong-oh to handle the final arrangement of the drafts. She has talked the most with the client individually, and there isn’t much work assigned to her.”

The members of Production Team 1 nodded. It felt like everyone was trying to dodge responsibilities.

Jeong-oh decided to accept Eun-bi’s suggestion.

It seemed much better to take charge and move things along rather than getting dragged around and losing time.

Thursday was her daughter’s birthday. She had to finish her work before then.

“Yes. Then I’d appreciate your cooperation. Please send your ideas to me via email. Since time is short, I hope we can at least share our thoughts for an hour each evening. I’ll take care of the compilation and organization.”

“Wow. That’s refreshing!”

As Jeong-oh made her decisive move, Team Leader Ahn Chan-seob applauded.

Since Jeong-oh ended up taking most of the work, the meeting wrapped up quickly.

As she was among the last to organize the meeting room, Eun-bi approached her.

“Assistant Lee Jeong-oh, here’s my copy for now. You can reflect it without calling a meeting.”

Eun-bi immediately handed her a piece of paper. A few lines were handwritten on it.

“…You didn’t organize this separately?”

“I worked on it by hand.”

“This is just a memo level. Could you please organize it thoughtfully and send it as a file?”

“If I give you a file done thoroughly, you’ll just copy and paste it without any sincerity, right? Since you’re the one who has to organize it anyway, it’d be good for you to transcribe my thoughts and my copies yourself as a way to study.”

“…”

“What’s so difficult about that?”

Yeah. That’s how it is.

The planning team leader was watching. It seemed like Chae Eun-bi was trying hard to make Jeong-oh look unreasonable.

Jeong-oh quickly made a judgment that seemed to avoid any fallout.

“Then I’ll take care of your memo, Manager. Since I’m organizing this, you know I’ll be doing the final report, right? Don’t feel too disappointed if your copy doesn’t make it in the end.”

Eun-bi’s face slightly contorted before she left.

Gi-hun, who had been watching from the side, secretly gave a thumbs up.

After Eun-bi left, the planning team leader spoke to Gi-hun.

“Gi-hun, this is a different topic, but we have another presentation next Wednesday. Could you help design the proposal? They say when you handle proposals, they turn out artistic. Do you have some time this evening?”

“Ah… Are you talking about today?”

Gi-hun hesitated to give a definite answer as he considered his schedule. He was already juggling a lot of work for a new employee, and now another task was being added. Jeong-oh quickly sensed that it would be difficult for Gi-hun to refuse and interjected between the two.

“How about starting next Monday? Gi-hun has a lot of work to do in the team as well. I think it would be possible to start on Monday.”

“Ah… Is there a lot of work? Then we should do that. Gi-hun, please take care of it next Monday.”

After the planning team leader left, Gi-hun let out a long sigh of relief when it was just him and Jeong-oh left in the meeting room.

“Phew, thanks to you, I survived, Assistant. Thank you.”

Jeong-oh felt a bit sorry for Gi-hun.

“Gi-hun, you’ve been pulled around for requests like this, haven’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“People who handle proposals well get called for these kinds of things. Since proposals are revised and revised until the last day of the competitive presentation, there’s no need to waste energy on it from now. You can handle it on Monday. If they don’t call you then, it’ll just pass by.”

Gi-hun nodded blankly, his lips parted as if he had gained a great revelation.

“Got it?”

A dependable ally he could trust and rely on. The cool Assistant Lee.

Now that he thought about it, things had become easier since Jeong-oh joined the team. He had received a lot of help from her, not only with organizing meetings and writing minutes but also in discussing meal menus and keeping track of schedules.

While he had felt somewhat awkward with the team members at first, he had gradually become comfortable with everyone.

Gi-hun realized that Jeong-oh had softened and warmed the team atmosphere.

She was more of a mentor than his official supervisor, Ko Eun-joo, and was a reassuring presence.

Sometimes she felt like a warm older sister, and other times like a like-minded friend.

Plus, she was pretty, fun, and smart. Thinking about it, Jeong-oh was his ideal type.

As Jeong-oh was about to leave the meeting room, Gi-hun called out to her.

“Assistant, I have something to say.”

“Uh, go ahead.”

He thought it was best to quickly secure a good position before someone else reached out.

“I like you.”

At that moment—

Knock knock.

A hurried and somewhat irritated knock echoed.

The conversation and the confession were abruptly interrupted.

Someone had banged loudly on the open meeting room door. It wasn’t a gentle ‘knock knock,’ but rather a forceful ‘bang bang.’

Standing at the door was Jeong Ji-heon.

His tightly clenched fist, having knocked so hard, looked somewhat barbaric.

“Assistant Lee Jeong-oh.”

Ji-heon called out to Jeong-oh without hesitation, his expression so serious it looked intimidating enough to be there to collect a debt.

“Yes, Director.”

“Don’t you have something to give me?”

Jeong-oh’s eyes, which had been round and bright toward Gi-hun, now shook fearfully toward Ji-heon.

“My clothes.”

The gaze Ji-heon directed at Jeong-oh and Gi-hun was so piercing it felt suffocating.