Prologue

The forty-fifth failure arrived in a confluence of mundane moments. It happened just as the sight of a smoker drifted past the bus window; as a lone zucchini tumbled from a shopping bag in the diagonal seat; as a heavily tinted sedan blared its horn and the sharp scent of lilac stung the tip of his nose. It happened as a zipper rasped in the quiet, as the sign for the next stop flashed to life, and as the bus, failing to decelerate completely, jolted over a speed bump. It happened at the exact moment a tide of elementary school students, released with the final bell, washed over the sidewalk, their collective energy radiating a palpable heat from the pavement.

The screen of Seo Jinwoo’s smartphone blazed at maximum brightness.

[…After a thorough review of your submitted application, we regret to inform you that you have not been selected to advance to the second round of evaluations…]

His face was as parched as a pollack dried in the sea breeze.[1] With a single, decisive swipe, he dismissed the rest of the email and jabbed the button to get off.

A sudden rush of noise flooded in, as natural as opening a window. Jinwoo descended the steep bus stairs onto the pavement and lifted his head. As the patch of shade cast by the bus receded, the sun struck his face. A beat later, a gust of wind sent the leaves of a nearby tree into a clashing, noisy chorus. His long, elegant eyes blinked once, then twice.

After the forty-fifth rejection, there wasn’t much surprise left. And yet.

“Just let me get a fucking paycheck for once, you bastards!”

The kind of face that could easily earn him a business card from a talent scout contorted into a grimace. His carefully styled dark brown hair stood on end as he ground his teeth, his jaw tight. He kicked viciously at a broken paving stone and raked his hands through his hair.

On a lonely afternoon, no one paid any mind to the monologue of a young man with no money and no pride.[2]

This was, truly, the great age of the job catastrophe.

***