On the morning of my third day at the company, I submitted a file with my name on it for approval for the first time.
Compiling the weekly report materials. It was the job of gathering what the team members had uploaded to the shared folder and organizing it into one document.
"Ms. Kim Yeoju, could you come here for a moment?"
Ten o'clock in the morning. Assistant Manager Jangwon turned his monitor slightly toward me.
"This chart here. Where did you get these numbers?"
"From the performance file in the shared folder."
"There were two files in that folder, right? Did you check the date?"
I looked at the screen.
And my face flushed hot.
What I'd pasted in was last week's file.
The names were almost the same, so I'd just opened the one on top.
"...I'm sorry. I'll fix it right away."
"No need to apologize."
Assistant Manager Jangwon's voice wasn't loud, nor was it sharp.
But for some reason, that made it even scarier.
"This report goes straight up to the team leader. If even one number is wrong, it means the whole team is wrong. So get into the habit of checking the date first when you open a file. Don't trust the name."
"Yes."
"And this."
Assistant Manager Jangwon tore a sheet off a memo pad and set it in front of me.
It listed, in three lines, the steps for finding the latest file in the shared folder.
"Mistakes are fine. Just don't make the same mistake twice."
I nodded and went back to my desk.
My ears were burning with embarrassment, but strangely, I didn't feel hurt.
He'd only told me why I was wrong and what I should do instead.
*
By the time I finished correcting it, lunch break was long over.
In the empty office, I was checking the numbers again when someone plopped a triangle gimbap on my desk.
"What are you doing without eating lunch."
It was my new-hire classmate, Hyunseo.
"Hyunseo, you're an angel."
"I know. But did you get scolded earlier?"
"Not really scolded... I made a mistake. Assistant Manager Jangwon was only saying the right thing, so I had nothing to say back."
Hyunseo sat on the empty seat next to me and lowered his voice.
"But there's something kind of weird."
"What?"
"Assistant Manager Yang. I heard him talking with Sunwoo earlier, and he was really casual. Joking around and everything. But with you he's super formal, isn't he? 'Ms. Kim Yeoju,' 'do,' 'look.'"
"...Really?"
"Yeah. You said he was your college senior, right? Shouldn't he be more casual if you already know each other?"
I stopped peeling open the triangle gimbap wrapper.
Come to think of it.
That had been bothering me too. On the first day, his face had paused for a moment when I called him "Senior Jangwon."
After that, I'd been calling him "Assistant Manager" without fail.
It felt like I should.
"Maybe because I'm a newbie."
"Is that it?"
Hyunseo tilted his head, but didn't press further.
*
Three in the afternoon.
Assistant Manager Jangwon, who had been out on business, came back.
He had two coffee carriers in his hands.
"I bought them on the way back. Take one each."
Sunwoo was the first to run over. Manager Yoojin and Hyunseo each grabbed a cup too.
They were all iced Americanos packed with ice.
I was about to stand up too, when Assistant Manager Jangwon took the one cup left in the corner of the carrier and set it on my desk.
"This one's for Ms. Kim Yeoju."
I looked down at the cup.
Inside the clear cup, milk and espresso were layered, and caramel sauce had been drizzled on top in a lattice pattern.
It was a caramel macchiato.
"Oh? This is my favorite."
The words came out before I could stop them. Assistant Manager Jangwon's hand froze for a moment.
"...I just bought whatever."
"Oh, why's Yeoju's different?"
Sunwoo, holding his own cup, craned his neck.
"They're all iced Americano, but Yeoju's got whatever? I want whatever too."
"New hires need something sweet to get through the day."
"I was a newbie last year too, you know?"
"That was last year."
Assistant Manager Jangwon left it at that and went straight to his seat to open his laptop.
Sunwoo grumbled, "Discrimination, discrimination," and went back to his desk.
I looked back and forth between my cup and everyone else's.
Among the black Americanos, mine was the only light brown one.
He said he just bought whatever, but mine was the only one different.
I put in a straw.
With the first sip, sweetness wrapped around the tip of my tongue.
It felt like the bitterness of the iced Americanos I'd been drinking all morning was being washed away all at once.
Only then did my shoulders, clenched tight all morning, loosen a little.
"It's good."
When I said it softly, Assistant Manager Jangwon answered without taking his eyes off the monitor, "Glad to hear it."
That was all.
But the wheel on Assistant Manager Jangwon's mouse kept scrolling up and down in the same spot over and over.
Probably just a coincidence.
Back in college, this was really the only thing I drank.
During exam season at the library, and in the seminar room when we were doing group projects.
My classmates used to tease me, saying, "Yeoju's got caramel running through her veins instead of blood."
When I came to work, I'd decided to put that habit away along with my college days.
There was no way Assistant Manager Jangwon would know I'd practically lived on this in college.
Who would remember the coffee preference of a junior they'd only crossed paths with a few times in the seminar room?
He probably just ordered a bunch of Americanos and picked something sweet for the new hire's share, and this happened to be it.
That's what I decided to believe.
*
Clocking out.
Just as I stood up to throw away my empty cup, I sat back down.
The cafe logo printed on the cup holder.
It was a place not on the way from the company to the subway station, but across the street on purpose.
He said he bought it on the way back.
"Ms. Kim Yeoju, aren't you leaving?"
Assistant Manager Jangwon, bag slung over his shoulder, was standing beside my desk.
"Oh, I'm going. I'm going now."
I hurriedly tossed the cup into the trash can.
Assistant Manager Jangwon's gaze lingered on the cup for a very brief moment before dropping away.
"See you tomorrow."
"Yes. You head home safely too, Assistant Manager. And..."
Assistant Manager Jangwon turned back.
"Thank you for the coffee."
"...I told you I just bought whatever."
Assistant Manager Jangwon left it at that and walked toward the elevator first.
I watched his back and bit my lip.
Because I felt like I might laugh.
Of all things, he'd bought that by chance.
My face reflected in the subway window still felt a little sweet.
