#ccdf

hyunjin never intended to live a double life: the split, as she experienced it, was gradual.

because you don’t just show up on the first day of your new corporate job with a carefree and cheery attitude like it’s the first day of school all over again. no one is going to want to be your friend because you’re (relatively) pretty or (mostly) fun, or because you (used to) wear cool clothes and go out to party every weekend. no one wants to be your friend at all, in fact.

and she really did try – spent a whole year trying to be the ideal employee. putting up with questionable jokes, going along to company outings, looking the part, so on and so forth. it was fine.

so, what changed?

from 8:00 to 17:00, monday to friday, hyunjin runs on auto pilot. sometimes it feels like she’s completely blacked out for the better part of the day, snapping back to reality right when she opens the door to her apartment after the short walk home. who did she talk to? what happened to that account she was working on?

but everything just keeps going. no one has really even noticed. she’s slightly more irate these days, and less of a kiss-ass to her seniors. that’s the hyunjin we know. so it’s all the same, apparently.

her reprieve comes on the weekends. hitting the town with a healthy checkings balance is totally different from all the ways they had to finesse back in university. same good time, just with fewer inhibitions. if you hone a skill for this long, obviously you’ll be great at it.

and then on monday, it’s right back to the office again. her weekend was fine, how was yours?

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so there’s lee hyunjin the office worker, a cog in the corporate wheel who has just about burned through her grace period and left a distinctly mediocre impression on her seniors. on the quiet side; keeps her head down, but never causes a fuss. a little boring, but nice enough.