Choi Seongwoo & Lin Xiao
[Recommended OST: Falling Behind, by: Laufey]
Choi Seongwoo climbed out of bed and pressed the remote control.
The automatic curtains parted silently, letting in the cold gray daylight.
"Aigoo," he complained. "This weather is still so awful."
The marble counter in the bathroom was completely bare except for a pair of glasses.
A small black neural module, about the size of a Bluetooth earpiece, chimed with a voice message, a good morning greeting from a sect leader in the game.
This so-called revolutionary product really was something. More immersive than VR, far more compact, and not even that expensive, well within reach for an average person.
Ever since that crushing defeat, Seongwoo had grown more and more obsessed with this game.
But he held himself back and tossed the module casually back onto the bed.
Holding a black electric toothbrush, he stood in front of the mirror as warm water ran from the tap.
He splashed his face and looked up at his wet reflection.
The face staring back looked too young for its own good. Dark hair fell over his forehead, giving him a look somewhere between pride and solitude. His eyebrows were as dark as his eyes, and even his patterned silk pajamas were black.
"This guy," he muttered. "At least he looks alive. That'll have to do for now."
He dried his face with a cotton towel, opened a drawer, and sprayed cologne on his wrists and collarbone. The bathroom quickly filled with the rich scent of cedar and fir.
A few messages lit up his phone screen. He glanced over, quietly hoping his parents had sent some kind of encouragement for his first official day at their own company.
They hadn't.
It was just his older brother, checking whether everything was fine in New York. Seongwoo ignored the text and let the screen go dark.
He walked into the closet, passing a row of tailored black and charcoal suits, and picked one out.
Half an hour later, an Audi A6 pulled out of the building's underground garage.
The radio host was still cheerfully chattering about the new year, but Seongwoo found the noise irritating and switched it off.
Stuck in traffic, he flipped down the sun visor and slid open the vanity mirror. It showed his neatly styled hair and tightly buttoned collar.
A blue card sat on the center console: Employee Pass, Junior Operations Assistant.
"So this is where I start..." he sighed. "What a humiliation."
He stared at himself in the mirror for a solid ten seconds, until a horn behind him snapped him out of it, and he flipped the mirror shut.
Three blocks away, in the bathroom of a cramped rented apartment, Lin Xiao stood in front of a water-stained mirror.
A white plastic toothbrush in his mouth, phone in one hand, he scrolled endlessly through short videos, brushing along to whatever noisy beat was playing.
The sink was cluttered with cigarette packs, dental floss, and scattered cotton swabs. The top of the washing machine looked just as messy, piled high with dirty clothes and socks.
Laundry hung from a rack behind him, filling the small room with a damp smell.
He spat out the toothpaste foam and splashed ice-cold water on his face.
"Fuck, this New York winter," he cursed in Chinese. "At least I'm awake now."
He dried his face with a towel and looked himself over. The guy in the mirror had sharp features, dark curly hair, tired but clean-cut.
If some rich guy ever took a liking to this face, maybe he could finally get out of this dump.
He grinned at the mirror to check his teeth, then picked up a small white neural module, one that had cost him half a year's salary, and pressed it to his left temple.
Using his thoughts alone, he tapped through the air a few times, checking his morning messages and the daily guild tasks from his online game friends.
"Morning, guys."
"Morning! Sect leader."
Satisfied, he powered down the module, tucked it carefully back into its case, and locked it in the nightstand drawer.
Then he checked the time on his phone.
Oh no.
He grabbed a casual blue suit jacket, threw it on in a rush, and bolted out the door with his canvas bag, skipping breakfast, same as always.
Thirty minutes later, the N train screeched into the station underground with a sharp burst of metal on metal.
Lin Xiao pushed through the ticket gates with the rest of the crowded morning commute. Despite the deep winter cold, sweat beaded on his forehead.
"That was close. I really need to quit smoking."
Catching his breath, he followed the crowd into the bright, high-ceilinged lobby of the skyscraper.
Around him, office workers in formal suits hurried past with coffees in hand, heels and dress shoes clicking rapidly against the marble floor.
He walked toward the turnstiles for the high-rise elevators, out of habit, and reached into his pocket.
Empty.
Oh come on, give me a break.
He froze for a second, then grabbed his canvas bag. The people behind him, eager to badge through, shot him impatient looks, forcing him to step quickly out of the way.
He dug through the bag, a tangle of charging cables, a folding umbrella, random loose items, fresh sweat breaking out on his forehead again.
Just as he was about to turn the whole bag upside down, his fingers finally hit a hard plastic card.
He yanked it out. A pale blue ID badge, printed in small text:
Employee Pass, Operations Intern.
He let out a long breath, hung the badge around his neck, and looked up again.
Oh, come on.
The line at the turnstiles had grown even longer. Resigned, he trudged back to the end of it.
Before he'd even fully settled into place, a tall figure in black, trailing a scent of fir, cut smoothly into the line and stood right in front of him.
"Hey!" Lin Xiao protested immediately.
The man turned around. A young Asian guy in glasses, faintly gloomy-looking but undeniably good-looking. Tall, no visible badge, completely unbothered by what he'd just done.
He gave Lin Xiao a single glance, then turned back around.
What the hell, Lin Xiao thought.
He considered tapping the guy on the shoulder to point out the obvious. But looking at the suit, he hesitated.
This person didn't look like someone worth messing with, and that cologne didn't smell like something a regular corporate worker would wear. At minimum, a mid tier suck up with connections.
Forget it. As a seasoned office worker who'd lived abroad for years, his number one survival rule was simple: avoid unnecessary trouble.
Someone that polished, carrying that kind of presence, smelling that expensive, was bad news waiting to happen. If this guy turned out to be a major client or some executive's relative, it wasn't worth risking his job over an elevator line.
The man in glasses never glanced back again, as if an invisible wall separated him from the noise of the crowd around him.
Just my luck.
Watching him head toward Elevator A, Lin Xiao deliberately walked toward Elevator B instead.
Bye-bye, suck-up.
Another dull day, starting the same way as always. He sighed. Great start.
ns216.73.217.98da2
and then Add to home screen.