A tight expression. Head bowed low. Quick steps.
And above all, where she was headed—
The emergency stairwell.
Every single detail was saying the same thing.
Eunyoung had been getting more and more involved in Hana's work lately, and it looked like things had finally come to a head.
Junhwi considered asking Eunyoung for the details, then decided against it. She'd just say something like, *"I only told her how to do the work?"* And if he stopped to talk to Eunyoung first, he might be too late.
*Too late? Too late for what, exactly.*
He went after Hana anyway, following her into the emergency stairwell.
Just as he'd expected, she was sitting on the steps. She'd been still long enough that the motion-sensor light had clicked off, leaving her in the dark.
Junhwi made enough noise to announce himself as he headed down toward her.
The light blinked on when he got close.
Hana must have thought he was just passing through, because she scooted closer to the wall to make room.
"What are you doing out here?" he said.
Hana startled and quickly wiped her cheek with her hand.
"Just taking a break," she said, her voice thick. "I was about to head back in."
"Mind if I sit for a second?"
No answer.
Junhwi sat down next to her anyway.
A beat of silence.
And in that silence, Junhwi finally understood what he'd meant when he thought he might be *too late*.
In games, there are limited-time events—double XP, a fast track to maxing out your affinity with an NPC. This moment was exactly that kind of event. That was why he'd felt so urgent back there. He didn't want to miss it.
Working at a company—especially in your first year—means crying sometimes. The reasons vary wildly, but one thing stays constant: you never forget the person who was there for you in that moment. And you remember them fondly. For a long time.
Junhwi knew this from experience. The day his boss chewed him out and he cried. The day he misconfigured an ad budget and burned through two million won of company money and cried. The day he sat there calling himself an idiot and cried. The managers who'd bought him drinks without a word, or spent thirty minutes patting his back and saying the right things—he still remembered every one of them.
As his years of experience stacked up, he started noticing the new hires doing what he used to do: bolting for the bathroom or the stairwell. And just like those managers who'd been good to him, he started showing up for them. They'd thank him like he'd done something enormous.
When he walked away from those moments—those looks of gratitude and something close to admiration—something lit up inside him. The rush of having said exactly the right thing at exactly the moment someone needed it most. The lift in his own self-worth that came with it. The satisfaction of leaving a good impression.
*That* was what he'd come chasing.
Hana hadn't lifted her head. But even from the side, it was obvious she'd been crying. Red-rimmed eyes. The faint tracks of tears still on her cheek.
The fact that he'd come chasing a feeling didn't mean he wasn't genuinely sorry for her. He was. It hurt to see, in the real way it hurts when you recognize something you've lived through yourself. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted it to actually help.
These two things—the selfish and the sincere—coexisted inside him without resolving.
"You okay?" he asked.
Hana bit her lip.
"...You're not, are you," he said.
Then her brow creased, deep and sudden, and tears started falling.
In that moment Junhwi felt like a director watching a scene he'd already written. He'd known this was coming. Say the right line, get the right reaction.
A dam that's already cracking only needs one more cup of water.
"Hh—... hic... hh..."
Hana cried for a while.
Before the tears come, you tell yourself *hold it together, hold it together, hold it together*—but once they break through, it's like they'd been waiting for someone to witness them. They just pour out.
After some time, she seemed to settle.
"I'm sorry," she said, still sniffling.
"Don't be. I'm the one who should be sorry for not bringing tissues. Feel free to blow your nose on my sleeve if you need to."
Hana wiped her eyes and managed a faint smile.
"Did Eunyoung say something to you?" Junhwi asked.
"No, it wasn't—I was just stuck working late, and she showed me a faster way to do it, and..."
Hana's mouth pulled down as the earlier hurt came flooding back.
Junhwi thought he understood.
"But then you listened to what she said, and it all made sense, and you couldn't figure out why you hadn't thought of it yourself," he said. "And it felt like everyone else had it figured out except you. And you were sure she thought you were hopeless. And you couldn't understand why you were like this. And it all just built up until it had nowhere to go."
Hana nodded.
*She's trying so hard not to cry again.* The face she was making—scrunched up, fighting it—was objectively a little adorable, and he felt slightly bad for noticing that right now.
"Yeah," he said. "That tracks. But I'm not just saying this to make you feel better—everyone has blind spots when it comes to their own work. Even Eunyoung. Even the best people miss things when they're too close to it. That's why someone from the outside can see what you can't. And when they point it out, your first reaction is always *why didn't I see that?* But you genuinely couldn't have. That's why even experienced, talented people still ask for feedback. That's the whole point."
Hana listened quietly.
"The work is hard, right?" he continued. "Nothing makes sense. You're sure you'll never be as good as Eunyoung. You can't imagine being better tomorrow, or a month from now, or ever. But that's not how it goes. You think there's nothing you're good at—but that's not true either. There are hard stretches and easier ones. Things you can't do yet and things you'll turn out to be great at. I'm certain of that. I would stake my entire career and every stock I own on it."
Hana's mouth moved. "...When will I know, though?"
"Know what? What you're good at?"
She nodded.
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
"...About two months."
"It's different for everyone, but here's what I know for sure: two months is way too early to be good at anything. Right? You spend months just building the basics when you're learning an instrument or picking up a sport. Before that, you're supposed to be bad at it. Deciding you have nothing to offer at two months is jumping the gun."
Hana nodded again.
"Let me give you my completely objective, unsentimental read on this," Junhwi said. "There is nothing wrong with you right now. You have zero reason to be asking yourself whether you're incompetent, or falling behind everyone else, or a burden to the team. The mistakes you're making are the same ones everyone makes. The things you can't do yet are the same things everyone couldn't do yet."
"...Okay."
"The only problem is that you're asking yourself *what's wrong with me* way too often. That's it. Other than that, you're doing great."
"...Thank you."
*Would I be doing this—taking care of people emotionally like this—if I were actually a strong team lead?* He didn't know. He'd never been that kind of team lead.
The truth was, he clearly wasn't cut out for leadership. That had always scared him. The thought of being exposed—of everyone seeing exactly how much he was missing. So he took out insurance policies like this one. Because people don't turn on someone they've had a real moment with. They give them the benefit of the doubt first. *She must have been going through something. There had to be a reason.*
Junhwi dug into his pocket and pulled out his card.
"The café downstairs is still open. Get yourself something before you come back up. And you can head home after if you want—I'll let your team lead know."
"Oh—no, really, I'm fine."
Hana tried to wave it off, but Junhwi set the card down on the step beside her and stood up.
"I'll head back in first."
Hana looked up at him.
As he climbed the stairs, he heard her voice behind him.
"Thank you."
**Eunyoung:** [I think I came on too strong.]
**Junhwi:** [Not at all. You said what needed to be said. Hana told me it wasn't because of you. She said you've been incredibly helpful and supportive.]
**Eunyoung:** [Hmm…]
**Junhwi:** [Don't worry too much about it. New hires go through this—that whole spiral of *am I the only one who can't do anything right?* I think she's just in that phase.]
**Eunyoung:** [Still… this never happened when you were giving her feedback.]
**Junhwi:** [Maybe that just means your feedback hit closer to home. The truth hurts more than the wrong answer, right?]
**Eunyoung:** [You're just really good at softening things when you say them…]
Eunyoung frowned at her keyboard.
Yesterday, when Junhwi had followed Hana out, it seemed off enough that she'd asked him about it. He told her Hana had been crying.
One thing Eunyoung had noticed since coming back to Korea was that people here had a hard time separating feedback about their work from judgments about themselves as people.
Not that anyone could do it perfectly—people weren't robots. But here, it seemed especially pronounced.
*Then again. I feel like garbage when CEO Jang gets on my case too.*
She tried to extend some understanding to Hana.
It had been happening more and more since she started here—moments where she'd had no intention of hurting anyone, and somehow managed to anyway.
Eunyoung believed in saying what she meant. If something was off, she said it was off. If something was wrong, she said it was wrong. But a lot of people seemed to bristle at that kind of directness.
Her teammates had asked her to soften her delivery. Add some cushioning.
*How much cushioning are we talking? Are we building a couch here?*
This wasn't kindergarten. Did she really have to manage everyone's feelings on top of doing the actual work? She almost let herself go there—then pulled back.
*Okay. This is all people working with people. Saying hard things without making someone feel attacked—that's a skill. There's a reason "soft skills" is a whole category. I need to develop that.*
In that respect, Junhwi was genuinely impressive. He got his point across without leaving anyone feeling worse than when he started.
*I should pay closer attention to how he phrases things and try it myself. Maybe I could… record him? Probably not.*
*Ding.*
A message came through on the internal chat. From Hana.
**Hana:** [Eunyoung, thank you for the feedback yesterday. I was able to finish the research and hit the deadline because of it.]
*She cried in front of Junhwi and now she's thanking me?*
Eunyoung found that slightly annoying.
**Hana:** [And I'm sure Junhwi probably mentioned it, but yesterday really wasn't because of you. I made sure he understood that too. I shouldn't have done that at work… It won't happen again.]
*Okay, fine.* She tried to be fair about it. *People cry at work sometimes. It happens.*
Eunyoung's irritation faded almost immediately.
**Hana:** [I've been learning so much because of you, and I feel like I'm actually finding my footing here. I really, truly appreciate everything you do.]
**Eunyoung:** [Not at all—you're getting things out of it because you're putting in the work. If something's ever bothering you, let's talk it through together!]
**Hana:** [Will do, thank you. :)]
Eunyoung found herself curious whether Hana had actually applied the feedback.
She opened the shared drive and pulled up Hana's research document.
"Oh…"
She hadn't had much time yesterday, but almost every note had been incorporated.
You could feel that Hana had actually understood what Eunyoung was going for. Junhwi had said she was a quick study with good instincts—and looking at this, he wasn't wrong.
Eunyoung's impression of Hana shifted, just slightly.
That was when she heard voices from the Planning Team 2 side of the office. Hana and Junhwi.
"You didn't go too wild with my card, I hope?"
"Of course not. What do you take me for?"
"I saw a forty-thousand-won item on the menu downstairs this morning and nearly had a heart attack."
"I got one coffee. That's it."
"Seriously? Okay. I'm choosing to believe you."
The two of them were laughing, easy and relaxed.
Both of them looked so much more comfortable—so much more at ease—than they ever did talking to her.
Eunyoung stretched her neck out like a meerkat and watched them.