Three days after he met Yun, he got a message from Aurum that he shouldnât be late for his job interview.
The interview took place five days since then.
Though he had been jobless for more than ten days, he had been busier than when he worked at Taeyang Woodworking Shop. He moved around as a ginseng digger during the day and worked as a chauffeur late into the night.
The interview date was up.
Aurumâs factory and office were in the outskirts of Ansan city. Using public transportation, he could arrive at the factory in an hour from his home.
When he arrived there, there were quite a few candidates already there for the interview.
Oh, there are more than 40 candidates here.
Actually, there must have been many more applicants because the hiring manager filtered them out after reviewing their resumes.
After all, only three applicants were going to be hired. Even though it was a middle-sized company, the competition rate was high among the applicants because of its prosperous business.
The interview was conducted for two candidates at one time.
The interview time was rather long. It took more than ten minutes to conduct an interview for one group of candidates, and it seemed that the interview was tricky because the candidates came out of the interview with their faces deadly pale.
It was the same for the next group of interviewees. Once they came out of the interview, they were sweating and shook their heads.
Even though Hyunwoo tried to stay calm, he just got nervous when he saw them.
âMr. Jang Hyunwoo and Mr. Oh Sangho, come on in!â
Iâm alright. No big deal. Everything will be alright because president Yun has already put in a good word for me.
Trying to stay calm, Hyunwoo went into the interview room. He took a glance at Oh, another interviewee.
With milky-white skin, Oh was just like a noble prince. He was wearing glasses with a lean frame, which made him look very intellectual and sharp.
There were five interviewers in the room. Three were middle-aged, and the other two were a man and a woman, both young like Hyunwoo.
Hyunwooâs eyes were naturally turned toward the young woman interviewer.
She was so good-looking that any man would be tempted by her.
However, her personality didnât look good. Reclining on a chair, she expressed boredom openly by yawning sometimes and even went as far as giggling at Hyunwooâs resume.
On the contrary, she smiled at Oh, expressing her personal friendliness to him by waving her hand. It looked like she wasnât conscious of the other interviewers at all.
Nonetheless, nobody stopped her. That was enough to make Hyunwoo feel her rank in the company.
Looks like she is the daughter of the companyâs president. Are they lovers? If thatâs the case, this guy must be guaranteed to be hired, Hyunwoo thought.
This time, Hyunwoo cast his eyes at a young male interviewer. Because he became an interviewer at a young age, he mustâve come up from the ranks in the company, Hyunwoo thought.
Suddenly Hyunwooâs eyes became wide because the young interviewer was familiar to him.
Actually, it was much more than that. Hyunwoo used to be very close to him.
âKim Yonggu?â
Hyunwooâs relationship with Yonggu among his other friends was very special. Both went to the same elementary, middle school, and high-school. Also, both were in the same class at their schools as many as four times.
They were temporarily separated when Hyunwoo moved to Ansan from Seoul. However, Yonggu moved to a rich village in Ansan by chance, attending the same high school with him.
Before Hyunwoo moved, their houses were located right next to each otherâs, so they went to school together.
Watching them walking together, many envied them, saying, âYou guys must feel great because youâre not lonely.â In short, they could be considered best friends.
However, thatâs only indicative of what they looked like on the surface.
Actually, they were not that close. Rather their relation was bad.
Even though Hyunwoo didnât particularly hate Yonggu, Yonggu would provoke him for no reason.
Hyunwoo didnât go to school with Yonggu because he wanted to.
Just because their houses were located next to each other, their parents forced them to go to school together.
In particular, since Hyunwooâs family had an accident, Yonggu blatantly ignored and harassed him. During high school, Yonggu formed a group and even assaulted him.
Even now, Yonggu showed the same attitude toward him.
Yonggu was gazing at his face with sharp eyes. The corners of his mouth turned up at the edges as if he was saying, âHey, dude, Iâve got you now!â
What the heck was the reason?
There was no way for Hyunwoo to find out.
Though Hyunwoon didnât do anything good to him, he didnât do anything wrong, either.
Despite that, Yonggu seemed to treat him as an enemy all the time.
After take a quick look at his resume, Yonggu asked Hyunwoo a question that was related to the contents of his resume.
âMr. Jang Hyunwoo, do you know about Incoterms?â
At that moment, Hyunwoo felt he was freaking out. It was a term that he had never heard of before. He didnât know what the term meant.
Because he was so embarrassed, Hyunwoo couldnât recall the term he had just heard.
âIncoâŚwhat did he say?â
When Hyunwoo hesitated, Yonggu asked again as if he was trying to bully him. It looked like the kind of pressure interview he had heard about before.
âDo you know or not? You have to answer.â
Hyunwoo became even more embarrassed. He just didnât know how to answer.
âMr. Jang Hyunwoo, are you here for pleasure? Do you think this interview is just a joke? Why are you not answering?â
Yonggu continued to press him hard as if he was determined to push him to the edge of the cliff.
âJust say Yes or No. Canât you say that?â
As he pushed more and more, Hyunwoo felt he was sliding into a swamp.
No matter how he tried to calm down, Yonggu didnât give him a chance to do so.
At that moment, Yongguâs said a word that hit his head, and it was if he threw cold water over him.
âAre you scared, Mr. Jang Hyunwoo? How can you work at a company when you donât have guts?â
âWhat did you say? Iâm scared?â
Suddenly, Hyunwoo got offended. He suddenly got more comfortable.
What the heck! Why should I be afraid while taking an interview? What is the big deal even if I fail or succeed here?
Actually, Yonggu was always behind Hyunwoo in terms of academic performance until their middle school days. Hyunwoo topped the class, while Yonggu was always second in the class because of him. It was the same for their athletic games and their classmatesâ perception of them.
Of course, everything was overturned when Hyunwooâs parents had a traffic accident when he was still in middle school. Still, Hyunwoo thought he couldnât get cold feet before a guy like Yonggu.
Okay, Iâve always led a life with the determination even to die. How can I be scared about this kind of thing? Let me do this my way.
Hyunwoo, whose eyes were trembling, regained calmness before he knew it.
âThatâs a term I donât know.â
The corners of Yongguâs mouth turned up at the edges unusually.
âYou donât know it? Are you boasting about it? If you applied for a position in the Purchase Section, donât you think you should understand that word before coming to the interview?â
âI donât know what they are doing in the Purchasing Section. I will start to learn the necessary things from now on.â
âOh my god. How can you apply for the position when you donât even know what people do in the Purchase Section? Donât you think youâre just dumb?â
Yonggu now began to use even less sensitive words without any hesitation.
It was clear he wanted to dwarf his mind.
The more he tried to do so, however, the more Hyunwoo straightened his back.
âI donât think Iâm dumb because of that.â
He felt the interviewerâs attitude changed a bit at his confident tone. Even the young female interviewer, who had been bored this entire time, lifted her eyes to look at Hyunwoo.
However, Hyunwoo only focused on Yonggu, continuing with a confident tone,
âI think what this company needs is my experience and capability. If the company judges me to be useful, then you can hire me. Donât you think that I can learn things about the Purchase section from the moment Iâm hired?â
âAre you talking back to me now?â
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Yonggu asked as if he was scolding him, but Hyunwoo didnât shrink back at all.
âIâm just replying your question.â
Yonggu asked many other questions after that, but Hyunwoo answered without any hesitation. He was just like someone who had memorized all the answers after receiving the test in advance. In some aspects, he could be seen as rude.
As the question and answer session continued, Hyunwooâs attitude became even more bold out of the thought that it was much better to be aggressive than defensive.
Did it make any effect? The interviewers started looking at him differently as time passed. It was especially more so for the female interviewer, who thought to herself, Interesting. He looks like an untamed wild horse.