Chemistry

2. A Day in the Life of a Chemical Company Intern(8)

“This is unbelievable. How could you know that?”

“Oh, there’s also cucumber alcohol. And you didn’t eat cucumber seasoned vegetables, right? Maybe… are you going to have lunch again?”

Song Boyeong’s expression faltered as she struggled to control her emotions at Jeong-woo’s question.

Finally understanding the situation, Jeong-woo was momentarily at a loss for words. Song Boyeong had purposely brought her plate to talk to him.

“It’s because I’m hungry, that’s all.”

At her awkward response, Jeong-woo chuckled before covering his mouth.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to catch on purposely.”

“Whatever.”

As she looked at him with her mouth shut, Jeong-woo had to hold back his laughter. When she started playing with her spoon and lifting the rice to her mouth again, Jeong-woo raised his hand to stop her.

“Stop eating. It’s going to make you sick.”

“So what?”

Jeong-woo didn’t want to force her to eat if she didn’t want to, so he cleared his own plate and took Song Boyeong’s plate away.

“I was considering getting another bowl, but this works out perfectly.”

“What are you doing?”

“If you want more, go ahead and get some.”

As Song Boyeong watched him enjoy his meal, holding her spoon in her hand, she remained silent.

A moment later, Jeong-woo wiped his plate clean and patted his stomach.

“Ah, that was delicious.”

“Amazing, Mr. Parachuter.”

After a while of sitting quietly, Song Boyeong asked with curiosity.

“Assuming you could tell I ate first just by passing by. But how did you accurately guess the side dishes? Did you install surveillance cameras here or something?”

“I saw it on your mouth.”

“I mean, how? Just now. It was really like Professor Cheon.”

Jeong-woo replied as he stacked the two plates together to clean up.

“I don’t need to tell my own tricks that I learned from Dr. Cheon to my senior. Especially when we are my rivals. What’s the point? It’s a Nobel Prize research. They only give credit to a maximum of three people, right?”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

Song Boyeong’s expression rapidly turned gloomy. Her senior had a truly diverse charm, making her smile and laugh one moment and suddenly surprising her the next.

‘Her laundry skills that gave birth to an static bomb coat, and her strangely humorous talent.’

Without realizing it, Jeong-woofelt that the moment had come for him to move on. If he stayed here any longer, he would have to suffer through questions he couldn’t answer until the end of lunchtime.

“I had a good meal, senior.”

As Jeong-woostood up, Song Boyeong also got up as if there was nothing else to do.

“Mr. Parachute, what are you going to do this afternoon?”

“The senior members of team 3 asked me to continue assisting them, taking turns for an hour.”

“Well, then….”

As he had to keep an eye on the reaction all the time, Song Boyeong realized that she had no time to call him separately.

Thinking that she could only aim for another opportunity tomorrow, her shoulders drooped.

With a dry throat, Jeong-woolooked at the liquid swirling inside the automatic analyzer.

The mixture spinning on the tray, shaped like a disk, was a catalyst for better breaking down the hard olefin that comes out when refining oil.

“So, this olefin is used to make plastic, right?”

Today, he had a bright understanding of the process he didn’t even know existed yesterday, but the repetitive work that was being done under the guise of research only caused him to yawn.

As the rotation reached a certain speed, the catalyst passed to the sample part and reacted, with the result being quantified on the monitor.

After recording it, Jeong-woowaited another ten seconds, even yawning in the meantime, which he had been doing every five minutes all afternoon.

“Boring. It’s so boring.”

The automatic door of the analysis room opened, and a man stuck his head in.

“Good job, Jeong-woo.”

“Is it time to switch?”

“It’s time to go home, so you can go now.”

The researcher in the contact decomposition catalyst development department of team 3, after looking through the statistical table that Jeong-woohad recorded, nodded his head.

“There’s nothing to hand over. Have you tried this experiment before?”

“Not really. I just guessed…”

It was more of a hunch. Besides, this level of experiment did not require recalling numerous chemical information that was dormant inside cells.

“You have good instincts. I’ll count on you from now on.”

“Ah, from now on?”

The researcher raised his thumb in response to Jeong-woo’s answer.

‘Hmm.’

He thought that if he wasn’t actually going to contribute to the performance, he should avoid this kind of support work as much as possible. After all, he didn’t come to the research center to earn an annual salary of 100 million won for this.

“Excuse me, have a good day.”

Jeong-woo stretched himself outside and headed towards the office, which looked like a chicken coop where he left his bag in the morning.

‘Ah, I’m tired.’

Still, he felt a little proud that he had smoothly adapted to the research center life.

As he opened the door to his office, he saw several new hires sitting there. They were all concentrating on studying something at their desks.

‘Is it not time to go home? Oh, they’re probably preparing for the planning evaluation.’

Since Jeong-woo agreed to work with them next week, he sat down without much thought. He took out his old notebook that he used throughout his four years of college from his bag and placed it on his desk.

“Huh?”

There was a lifeless desk with hardly any sockets to plug anything into. As this was a temporary office with partitions installed in a corridor, he couldn’t see any place to plug in electricity.

‘My battery is almost dead.’

Jeong-woo sighed deeply and looked at the new hires working vigorously on the latest laptops.

Anyway, there was no way to work here, so he got up, thinking that he would have to go home and work. Then, his phone in his pocket beeped.

[Is it time to go home? Just a moment, please.]

It was Dr. Moon.

Jeong-woo took his bag and stood at the entrance of the office.

“I’ll go first, seniors!”

The new hires turned their heads at his cheerful shout, but their reactions were cold. Still, Sung-hwan was the only one who greeted him briefly.

‘I guess things will get better.’

Jeong-woo pressed the button for the 10th floor where Dr. Moon worked in the elevator.

Pharmaceutical Bio Center.

Information was posted on the company’s homepage that KG Chemistry has recently established a new research institute and is conducting aggressive research.

‘Didn’t they say it was a research institute that leads the era of comprehensive medical care in an aging society?’

As he arrived on the 10th floor and walked down the hallway, he saw Dr. Moon standing on the other side of the corridor. She was dressed casually, preparing to leave work, which gave a different feeling from the early morning.

Because of her hair tie being loose, her long hair flowed naturally over Dr. Moon’s shoulders.

Jeong-woo called out to her, “Dr. Moon.”

Under her elegant eyebrows, her deeply intellectual eyes looked at Jeong-woo. He felt like his eyes were being purified as he stood in front of her.

“Welcome.”

“Wow, such a warm greeting. This is the first time I’ve received one since I entered the company.”

Dr. Moon’s expression changed to one of questioning, but then immediately moved on to the matter at hand, as if it was not that important.

“You received your access card for the research building, right?”

“Yes.”

“With that, you can enter Dr. Cheon Seung-guk’s personal research lab.”

“This one?”

Jeong-woo took out a red card from his pocket.

“But what does that mean?”

“You’ll know when you get there. All the research data that Dr. Cheon has been working on or planning to work on will be there. Check and familiarize yourself with them when you leave work from now on.”

“Are you saying that I will be conducting the research instead..?”

“That’s right. Understand it properly so that you can start immediately after the adaptation period ends.”

Dr. Moon watched as Jeong-woo stepped out of the elevator. When he tried to follow her, she raised her hand to stop him.

“I have to go down. The lab you’re going to is on the 25th floor.”

“Are you not coming with me, Dr. Moon?”

“Why should I? I’m a doctor, not a chemist. If we end up working on a medical research project, we might work together.”

The elevator doors closed.

As he stood there absentmindedly, Jeong-woo realized that Dr. Moon had just thrown work at him, assuming that working overtime was a given.

“Unbelievable.”

Signing the contract must mean that I won’t stop working… Jeong-woo tried to comfort himself with uncertain thoughts once again.

Beep beep.

As soon as he swiped his card, the opaque glass door opened automatically.

With a curious gaze, Jeong-woo stepped into Dr. Cheon Seung-guk’s research lab. The first thing that caught his eye was the sight of a room that resembled a miniature version of the various labs in the Basic Materials Center.

‘So, this is the personal space used by executive-level researchers?’

It was both vast and spacious.

Upon opening the door on the opposite side and stepping inside, he saw an office space where one side of the wall was filled with specialized books.

There was a glossy leather sofa that looked good for hosting guests, a wooden desk with a nameplate that read [Chief Researcher Cheon Seung-guk] and a chair that looked extremely comfortable, just like the kind a CEO would have.

Jeong-woo briefly leaned back in the CEO chair.

“Wow.”

A sense of comfort that he had never experienced before enveloped Jeong-woo’s back and butt. He thought to himself that this was why expensive chairs were worth using.

‘There’s even a computer. I don’t have to prepare for the planning evaluation in the general affairs office. I should do it here.’

Sitting on the chair, Jeong-woo pushed his feet towards the cabinet. He opened it, and there were piles of documents recording Dr. Cheon Seung-guk’s personal research. He pulled out a file with the most recent date on it.

“The Omnipotent factor project?”

It was a title that included unfamiliar words in the field of chemistry. Moreover, there were only blank pages inside the document. It seemed that they had only decided on the outline and had not even started yet.

The date of the document was from June of this year, and there were no records after that. Dr. Cheon Seung-guk must have gone on retirement around that time.

Since there were piles of research information that he needed to be familiar with, Jeong-woo’s attention quickly turned to other documents.

How much time has passed?

Jeong-woo looked at the clock on the wall and stood up in surprise.

It was already 10 pm.

‘There’s no need to overdo it from the first day.’

Considering that he hadn’t slept at all last night, tomorrow could be a day when he might collapse.

He was trying to put the documents piled up on his desk back into the cabinet, but a note fell from one of the documents.

“Huh?”

He picked it up and read it immediately.

[The production of organic compounds using ‘AF-5’ must be carried out carefully. Even a partial occurrence of this groundbreaking chemical reaction can shake the foundation of society…]

It was a note that had been stuck in the ‘Omnipotent factor Project’ file, which had been blank research records.

‘AF-5?’

Jeong-woo cocked his head as he saw the code name similar to the blue pill he had taken in the early morning. The term ‘omni-factor’ didn’t bring anything to mind unlike other chemical information.

‘Could there be other pills besides the one I took?’

As he left Dr. Cheon Seung-guk’s laboratory, Jeong-woo yawned heavily. There were other researches that he had to learn and memorize right away, instead of worrying about the blank research records.

“Ah, I feel stiff. Let’s just go home for now.”

Just like the excitement of the first day of work, the first day of leaving work was also exciting.

Upon arriving home, taking a shower, drying his wet hair, and contemplating his hard day with a can of beer.

I feel good just imagining the small everyday routines that come with working. It’s something that I haven’t experienced until now, the daily occurrences of the world.

Jeong-woo’s footsteps became lighter.

He felt like he would sleep very well tonight.

code: AF-12

case: Static Electricity Master

research: When sending an electric signal to the nerve fibers in the palm, it is possible to exert some influence on the world of free electrons by promoting ion reactions.