Friday's Time Traveler

Chapter 2. A midwinter night’s dream (1)

 

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“Yes? What does that mean?”

 

Monday the 26th, a day after the boring Christmas. As usual, an unexpected news came to Cha Seonwoo, who came to work on time.

 

“So, it’s all gone? Everything you’ve been working on?”

 

“Yeah…….”

 

An employee who opened his laptop and looked around, nodded slowly and hesitantly. Seonwoo looked at the employee with bleak eyes. He didn’t know why but his mouth, which used to be sharp like a knife at work, remained silent for a long time.

 

“How do you fix it? There are really important documents here. I’ve been working on it for days…. .I still had it yesterday.”

 

“There’s nothing that I can do.”

 

“You are an expert. You can’t just let it go off my hands like this.”

 

“An expert is not a God. You know me well. And this laptop’s hard drive is fried, so you can’t use it anymore. I will replace it with another one.”

 

The employee, looking for an opportunity to get out of the difficult situation, unilaterally ended the conversation and left the office. Seonwoo, who was left alone, only made a desolate expression. His last few days of work in blood and sweat were about to turn into nothing.

 

Seonwoo, staring at the vacant seat of the employee, couldn’t let go of his regrets, and took out glasses from his front pocket. And with serious eyes, he looked inside the laptop for a long time, but that didn’t mean that the dead hard drive was revived.

 

“What happened to your laptop?”

 

Kim Junghyuk, who was Seowoo’s college friend and a coworker, came to him with coffee in one hand. Unlike anyone who whined in the past few days and blew away the documents that had reached almost before completion, he was very laid back without any worries.

 

“Did you save the documents on USB or elsewhere?”

 

Seonwoo woo looked up at Junghyuk silently with vain eyes. Kim Junghyuk, who read the answer from Seonwoo’s pathetic eyes beyond the glasses, put his left arm on the partition and kicked his tongue.

 

“Is that due tomorrow? So, why did you come to the company yesterday and ask for your own misfortune? Didn’t you like meeting family and friends on Christmas?”

 

“Will you help me? If not then go away.” Seonwoo said.

 

“Ay.”

 

His sad eyes quickly changed to a cold temperature. Kim Junghyuk, who was full of energy, spit out a futile smile.

 

“Hey, why is your personality getting dirtier?”

 

“And you seem to be nagging more and more.”

 

“You do not have a lover, right? Is that why your personality gets dirty because you don’t have a lover?”

 

“When people get married, will they just get a mouth like yours? If that’s the case, I want to live alone my entire life.”

 

The sound of the inadvertent smack immediately followed by ridicule.

 

“That’s a really useless worry. Would a girl with a right mind take a man like you?”

 

“In time, people will come to a hard- to- get age. Don’t you agree?”

 

Seonwoo curled his eyes and smiled once politely. Kim Jung-hyuk, who was persistently playing with words with a smile, shook his head as if there was no way he let it go.

 

“Don’t do that, take some time on the weekends. There’s a really nice girl among my wife’s juniors. Will you have time for the weekend?”

 

“It’s work time. Don’t make up useless things, Mr. Kim.”

 

Kim Junghyuk couldn’t complain anymore. However, he was still regretful until the last minute, and on his way back to his place, he left the bad words behind.

 

“Oh no. I see it, I see it. Mr. Cha’s future, which will die alone as a swearing-in grandfather, is right in front of my very eyes.”

 

Some who pretended not to be interested and secretly listened to their conversation, sighed and swallowed their laughter. However, for a while, they hurriedly settled down around Seonwoo because they knew his temperament well. Seonwoo, who had been looking for the lost documents, took off his glasses nervously, and just glared at the place where Kim Junghyuk had been.

 

Cha Seonwoo, who was twenty-nine this year, and soon to be thirty, was a handsome man. His parents, who were doctors at university hospitals at the age of about sixty, and a younger sister who has a quick temper, and they managed to get along well. Seonwoo himself was a Gangnam kid who was smart even when he was younger, and was an accountant who has stepped through the routes of special high schools and prestigious universities. In addition, he was tall and his face was attractive with distinct features. If a cold impression was considered a flaw, then that would be his flaw, but these days, many people even take it as a charm.

 

 

In short, it meant that there was no flaw on the outside. Great appearance, good family, good education, good job. Having all  four advantages but he has been single for a year now since the last relationship. His father would call every week to check on his private life, and his colleague’s enthusiasm to set him up with blind dates made him tired.

 

“Is it because of Yejin?”

 

As his single life has lengthened, many people began to mention his ex girlfriend. Baek Yejin. The two of them, who had been together for four years as college friends, and three years as a couple, but ended their relationship neatly and dryly. The cause of their separation wasn’t because of boredom but marriage.

 

Baek Yejin, who wanted to think about the future, and Cha Seonwoo, who had no intention of getting married since the beginning. The two’s catastrophe was scheduled from the beginning because of their differences.

 

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, Seonwoo and Yejin only expressed regret over the break up, but they were not the ones who clung to the already over or the unilaterally sold party. Actually, he didn’t have any ill will toward Yejin. There was not much remaining emotion before the bad feeling was spoken.

 

Since he broke up with the person he had dated for almost three years, he felt lonely and empty right after the separation, but even that was for a short while. Now, even the memory of how she laughed and how she cried was blurry. It was impossible to guess the heart of an old lover who broke up at this time last year, but he guessed she would be the same. But that was his inner situation. Those around him who did not know the twists and turns seemed almost convinced that he could not start a new love life because he still could not forget his old lover. Of course, it was more fun to make fun of him with their mouths.

 

“You should have held on to Yejin at that time. Honestly, where can you find someone like her? Pretty, fresh personality, good to you, plus making good money. I know, you’re gonna regret it a hundred percent later.”

 

Whenever his friends talked so much with his curly tongue at a drinking party, Seonwoo would reciprocate them with an indifferent look. There was a movie called <Up in the Air>. The protagonist, who traveled to the United States as an expert on dismissal, realized the unchanging truth as he saw his grandmother entering a nursing home alone. That was, people live alone and die alone. Life is lonely anyway.

 

Marriage was bound by the social system, and in the end, it was the moment that the faith as a very true celibacy began to take root. Seonwoo, who accidentally watched the movie while in school, turned to celibacy as if he was the protagonist and saw the grandmother who was all alone.

 

It has been a long time since his memory of the protagonist was already volatilized from how lonely he was and how much he suffered. Although the actor George Clooney, who played the protagonist, quit his splendid single life a few years ago and married a lawyer 20 years younger, and became the father of twins.

 

For this reason, Seonwoo was very uncomfortable with the persistent interest around his love affairs recently. It wasn’t that he wasn’t lonely at all, but it was never the loneliness that he wanted to escape even by offering the present peaceful daily life as a sacrifice. Every choice has a consequence. He sometimes envied his married friends, but he was generally satisfied with his life. However, whenever he spoke his thoughts, his parents and his friends would treat him as a child and say,’You haven’t found true love yet.’

 

In such a case, Seonwoo always thought that love was only in movies. No, it was rare for movies these days. If it was love that would break down peaceful daily life and blind to only one person. If that is love, he’d rather not have it.

 

In the darkened office, there was a desk that shined alone like a remote island. It was none other than Cha Seonwoo, who had fallen asleep without knowing everyone had already left the office. However, his hand on his chin suddenly slipped, and he woke up as if he had had a nightmare.

 

“What time is it…….”

 

He blinked his bare eyes and turned on the screen of his cell phone.12:17. It was already past midnight. In this season, it was the life of an accountant to work overtime until three or four in the morning, but being alone in an office in the middle of the night where no one was present can be very pleasant. Seonwoo, looking out through the window at the night view of the city immersed in darkness, stretched his sore neck, swallowing a deep sigh.

 

Then, he came across a strange drink on his desk. Blue ion drink and pink heart-shaped note paper. Perhaps it was worth imagining, but it was Cha Seonwoo who would not be fooled easily by the jokes he’s already experienced. He looked into the note, turning his stiff head slowly from side to side. As expected, it was from Kim Junghyuk.

 

“You were sleeping so well, so I didn’t want to wake you up.Take it easy and go home to sleep. P.S. I bought you a drink just in case you might look for coffee at dawn again. Stop drinking coffee already, you will become addicted to it before you know it.”

 

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Seonwoo read through the note and chuckled. He thought who was in their right mind would say “take it easy” when knowing the deadline for the documents is tomorrow. And why the “P.S” part was so long. While complaining for no reason, Seonwoo quietly took the ion drink. It has been quite a while since it’s been pulled from the vending machine, so it didn’t feel cool to the skin. He tilted his head and struggled for a while, then closed his eyes and took a drink. A lukewarm sweet liquid, like an old whipped cream cake, wetted his throat.

 

“Ugh!”

 

Seonwoo, who put down the empty can farther away with an astringent face, got up from his seat. The brain needed adequate stimulation. Such a bland drink wouldn’t go to the brain, so there was no other drink like coffee to wake it up. He was sorry for Kim Junghyuk for buying him some ion drinks, but he was going to have a sleepless night with coffee again today.