7:47 a.m.
People streamed in beneath the massive Goliath crane.
Dark navy work clothes.
Hard hats.
Safety glasses.
Tool bags slung over their shoulders.
Some walked with faces still foggy from sleep, while others drained the last sip from the canned coffee in their hands.
Hyunwoo Kang was among them.
“Yaaawn.”
Hyunwoo pulled his hard hat down and let out a short yawn.
He hadn't even been clocked in for ten minutes, but the clang of metal was already ringing out from every direction.
Clang. Clang.
Brrrrrr—
A grinder was running somewhere, and welding sparks flew from a hull block a little farther away.
It was a familiar morning to Hyunwoo.
When he had first started at the shipyard, everything had seemed amazing.
Vessels dozens of times larger than people.
Cranes so huge he couldn't take them in at a glance even with his head tilted all the way back.
Countless pipes packed into narrow spaces.
The ringing of hammers and grinders loud enough to make his ears buzz.
But after spending several years there, none of it fazed him anymore.
Today was just another day at work.
“Hyunwoo!”
A deep voice called from behind him.
Hyunwoo turned his head.
Taesik Park was walking over, pulling on his work gloves.
“Yes?”
“We’re going into Block 84 today.”
“The one we were working on yesterday?”
“Yeah. We need to finish that up and line up the flanges.”
Hyunwoo gave a short nod.
“How many are left?”
“Two.”
“We’ll be done today, then.”
Taesik snorted.
“If you behave.”
“What did I do?”
“People who say that are always the ones who cause accidents.”
“Don’t say stuff that jinxes us first thing in the morning.”
“I’m saying it so you don’t get hurt, you punk.”
Taesik gave Hyunwoo’s hard hat a light tap and walked ahead.
Hyunwoo picked up his tool bag.
Today’s work wasn’t difficult.
All he had to do was line up the two pipes whose positions they had checked the day before.
If everything went smoothly, they’d have most of it cleaned up by the afternoon.
That was what he thought.
At least until she showed up.
9:32 a.m.
Inside the ship was far more cramped than outside.
Several work crews were operating at the same time in the space enclosed by steel plates.
“Raise it a little!”
Hyunwoo gestured.
The piping above him moved slowly.
“Stop!”
The piping came to a halt.
Hyunwoo bent down to check the flange.
“Lead.”
“What?”
“It’s a little off.”
Taesik came over beside him.
“How far?”
Hyunwoo showed him the gap with his fingers.
Taesik examined it for a moment, then said, “We need to pull it in.”
“I’ll do it.”
Hyunwoo picked up a tool lying beside him.
This was something he did every day.
Pull the pipe in a little, line it up, secure the bolts, and they’d be done.
Just as Hyunwoo was about to move—
“Hold on a second.”
An unfamiliar woman’s voice came from behind him.
At first, Hyunwoo didn’t know if she was talking to him.
He was about to continue working anyway.
“Worker.”
The voice came a little closer.
“Yes?”
Hyunwoo turned around.
A white hard hat.
Gray work clothes.
A black clipboard in one hand.
She was a woman he had never seen before.
The words “Safety Management” were displayed on the front of her hard hat.
Hyunwoo looked from her hard hat to her face.
She was young.
Much younger than he’d expected.
She looked younger than him.
But her expression didn’t look young at all.
The woman looked at Hyunwoo, then pointed upward.
“Please stop work for a moment.”
Hyunwoo slightly furrowed his brow.
“Why?”
“I’m going to check the work position first.”
“We’re almost done.”
“You still need to be checked.”
Hyunwoo let out a short breath.
A safety manager.
One of the people he ran into most often on the job site.
Of course, he knew they were necessary.
Checking to prevent accidents was their job, after all.
But when they showed up in the middle of a job and started calling out one thing after another, there was no way a worker wouldn’t feel frustrated.
Especially when the work was almost finished, like now.
“What’s the problem?”
Hyunwoo asked.
Instead of answering right away, the woman checked the area around them first.
Then she walked past Hyunwoo and pointed farther inside.
“You can’t leave tools like this in the work passage.”
Hyunwoo looked at the floor.
A few ratchet wrenches and adjustable wrenches were lying there.
“I’m using them while I work.”
“When you’re not using them, you need to put them off to the side. Someone from another crew could step on them and fall.”
“No one walks through here.”
“Just because no one’s walking through right now doesn’t mean no one ever will.”
Hyunwoo shut his mouth.
First one.
He could still put up with it.
The woman raised her head again.
This time, she was looking toward Hyunwoo.
More precisely, at the spot where he was standing.
“And, worker.”
“Yes?”
“Your safety lanyard.”
Hyunwoo looked down at his waist.
He was wearing his safety harness.
But while moving into position, he had temporarily unclipped the lanyard.
“This?”
“Yes. Clip in.”
“I’m going down right now.”
“You still need to clip in.”
“It’s not that high up.”
The woman’s expression hardened slightly.
“Just because it’s low doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt if you fall.”
Hyunwoo was starting to get irritated too.
Work had stopped, and the other worker above them was waiting.
“It’ll only take a second.”
“Accidents can happen even in a second.”
“I’m telling you, I’m going down as soon as I line this up.”
“Then you can clip in while you line this up.”
A brief silence fell between them.
The sound of a grinder turning came from far away.
Brrrrrrrr—
Hyunwoo looked at the woman.
She didn’t look away either.
Wow.
She was relentless.
Usually, after saying this much, people would give you one warning and move on.
But not this woman.
Hyunwoo finally picked up his safety lanyard.
Click.
He clipped it in.
“There. Happy?”
“Yes.”
The woman answered calmly.
That somehow made it even more annoying.
Hyunwoo was about to start working again when her voice came once more.
“Hold on a second.”
Hyunwoo’s hand stopped.
This time, he turned around slowly.
“What now?”
Irritation colored his voice.
But the woman didn’t seem to care.
“Your safety glasses.”
Hyunwoo touched his face.
His safety glasses caught against his fingertips where they rested on top of his hard hat.
He had pushed them up while checking inside earlier and left them there.
“Oh.”
Hyunwoo pulled his safety glasses down.
The woman nodded.
“Now you can work.”
Hyunwoo turned around without a word.
A short distance away, Taesik was biting his lip to keep from laughing as he watched.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I’m not.”
“You were laughing.”
“You finally met your match today.”
“Oh, come on.”
Hyunwoo grabbed his tool roughly.
Behind him, the woman was writing something on her clipboard.
For some reason, it bothered him.
What was she writing so intently?
Was she writing down his name?
The work crew?
A little while later, the woman walked off toward another section.
Hyunwoo glanced at her back.
Taesik didn’t miss it.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why are you looking at her?”
“What am I looking at?”
“The safety manager.”
“I’m checking to see if she’s coming back to say something else.”
Taesik laughed.
“She is pretty, though.”
“Lead.”
“What?”
“Do your job.”
“I am doing my job.”
Hyunwoo didn’t answer.
He turned back toward the piping.
Click.
The tool caught on the bolt.
But for some reason, he couldn’t focus very well.
Safety lanyard.
Safety glasses.
Work passage.
She’d called him out three times in just a few minutes.
What a pain.
That was what Hyunwoo thought.
11:46 a.m.
“Let’s go eat!”
Someone’s voice rang out.
As if they’d been waiting for it, the workers set down their tools one by one.
Hyunwoo took off his gloves too.
His palms were already damp with sweat.
“Having a great morning, huh?”
Jaehoon Kim said with a laugh beside him.
“What?”
“You got caught by Safety three times.”
“You saw that?”
“Who could miss it? Her voice carried all the way outside.”
“Shut up.”
“But she’s new, right? I’ve never seen her before.”
Taesik answered, “Looks like they switched who’s assigned here.”
Jaehoon moved in close beside Hyunwoo.
“Hyung.”
“What?”
“She was pretty.”
“So?”
“No reason. Just saying.”
“Eat your lunch.”
“She looked intense, though.”
Hyunwoo agreed with that much.
“She’s insanely intense.”
“Wow. If you admit it, she really must be.”
The three of them walked toward the cafeteria.
That was when Hyunwoo spotted a familiar white hard hat up ahead.
It was the woman from earlier.
She was walking with another safety manager.
Without realizing it, Hyunwoo slowed his pace a little.
“Why?”
Jaehoon asked.
“What?”
“Why’d you suddenly slow down?”
“There are a lot of people.”
“Oh.”
At that moment, the women’s conversation drifted faintly back to them from ahead.
“Jia, did you go to Block 84 this morning?”
“Yeah.”
Jia.
Hyunwoo’s gaze flicked toward the front.
Seo Jia.
He didn’t know her last name yet.
He only knew that her name was Jia.
Hyunwoo turned his head away again.
What good would knowing it do him?
She was just a safety manager he’d met for the first time today.
Once he ate lunch and finished the afternoon’s work, today would pass like any other day.
By tomorrow, he might even forget her name.
That was when it happened.
Jia, who had been walking ahead, suddenly turned around.
Her eyes met Hyunwoo’s.
Exactly.
Hyunwoo froze for a moment.
Jia looked at him for a moment too.
Then her gaze slowly dropped.
To Hyunwoo’s hand.
Without realizing it, Hyunwoo was holding his work gloves.
Jia opened her mouth.
“Worker.”
Hyunwoo’s expression stiffened.
No way.
On the way to lunch too?
“What now?”
Jia stared straight at Hyunwoo.
Then she pointed at his hard hat.
“Chin strap.”
Hyunwoo stopped.
Beside him, Jaehoon lowered his head.
His shoulders shook.
He was obviously trying not to laugh.
Hyunwoo touched the chin strap on his hard hat.
It was undone.
“…We’re on our way to lunch.”
“You’re still on the job site.”
“Ha.”
“You have to keep it on until you leave through the gate.”
Hyunwoo silently fastened the chin strap.
Click.
“There. Satisfied?”
Jia gave a tiny smile.
It was the first expression like that he’d seen from her.
Her face had been so rigid when she was calling him out on the job site, but when she smiled, the whole atmosphere around her changed.
“Yes. That’s good.”
Jia turned and walked away again.
Hyunwoo stood there for a moment.
Jaehoon, who had been beside him, finally burst out laughing.
Pfft.
“Don’t laugh.”
“No, hyung.”
“I said don’t laugh.”
“She’s going to be on you all day, isn’t she?”
Even Taesik laughed as he slapped Hyunwoo on the back.
“Hyunwoo.”
“What?”
“This afternoon, check yourself before she even gets the chance.”
“Check what?”
“Safety lanyard, safety glasses, chin strap.”
“Oh, come on.”
Hyunwoo started walking irritably.
But after only a few steps, he looked ahead again.
The white hard hat growing more distant.
And the long hair tied beneath it.
Seo Jia.
Hyunwoo repeated her name once in his head.
He told himself it was so he wouldn’t get called out again.
Knowing the name of the safety manager who annoyed him would make things easier, after all.
That was all.
At least, that was what Hyunwoo Kang believed that day.
He didn’t yet know that from then on, every morning,
among hundreds of hard hats,
he would look for that one white hard hat first.