Ep 2: Tears on Fire Stairs and Cold Canned Coffee

After leaving the interview room, Yuna walked quickly across the hallway as if running away. I never had the courage to go down to the crowded first floor lobby or elevator hall. It was an unbearable shame and torture to encounter the lively laughter of employees dressed in neat suits and the sight of office workers of the same age walking confidently with employee ID cards around their necks and holding take-out cups of coffee. The place she headed was the heavy fire door of the emergency staircase located in a corner of the hallway. Clap, bang-. As soon as the thick iron door closed, the noise of the city center and the bright lights of the outside world were instantly blocked.

The cool and dark emergency stairs on the 45th floor. In the middle of the gray concrete stairs that endlessly went up and down, Yuna could not hold on any longer and collapsed to the floor. I leaned my back against the wall, raised my knees, and buried my face. I gasped and squeezed my chest, but only a suppressed moan escaped my throat.

“Hmm… Hmm… Ugh….”

The tears I had been holding back poured out like a torrent. The tear-soaked foundation and mascara spread unsightly across my carefully made-up face. The past year passed by like a flash. In a single room at a gosiwon in Sillim-dong with a deposit of 500 and monthly rent of 450,000 won, there were nights when I rewrote my personal statement by putting bubble wrap on my fingers to block the winter draft blowing through the cracks in the window. Those many early mornings spent working part-time at a convenience store from 11pm to 7am, eating discarded triangular gimbap and cup ramen for meals, and digging into books on logistics manager certification.

While picking up coins thrown by drunkards and swearing while swearing, I consoled myself by saying, ‘All this hardship will be in vain, my youth was not in vain.’ The naive faith that I had had was shattered in an instant. Suppressing the cold feeling of inferiority that pricked my heart every time I saw pictures of training centers for large companies, luxury bags, and overseas vacation spots posted on my friends' SNS, the hope that I believed that one day I would become a proud member of that skyscraper and give my mother her first salary envelope was thrown into the trash can by the interviewer's cold ridicule.

Yuna took off her right high heel with trembling hands. The inside of the shoe came off with a dull sound, and red blood stains were clearly spread on the bottom. The flesh-colored stockings were clotted and stuck to the skin of the heel. An excruciating pain, so severe that even the slightest touch would tingle every bone, shot through my entire body like lightning. When I took off my left shoe, both heels were raw and bruised, and the joints of my big toes, which had been crushed by the pointed toe, were blue and bruised. It was a terrible price to pay for abusing oneself in order to fit the opinions of others and the standards of society.

At that time, a crunching sound and a sign of people were heard from the landing of the stairs downstairs. Yuna was startled and curled up, wiping away her tears. The person who came up through the darkness of the emergency stairs was a building cleaner in her late fifties wearing a blue uniform vest. The lady saw Yuna sitting on the bottom of the stairs, holding a mop sack and a cleaning bucket, bleeding barefoot, and hurriedly approached her with wide eyes.

“Oh, my God! Girl, what’s going on! Your heels are all bloody!”

“Ah… I’m sorry. I’ll leave right away so as not to disturb you…”

When Yuna blushed with embarrassment and tried to stand up, the lady waved her hand and gently pushed her shoulder to sit down. “What am I sorry for? Just sit down and stay still. Where are you walking when the blood is pouring out like this?”

The lady rummaged through her vest pocket, took out a clean disinfecting ethanol tissue, two large waterproof bands, and a bag of Margaret cookies she had saved in her pocket, and placed them in Yuna's hand. He then opened the lid of the silver thermos he had brought with him to drink, and carefully poured out the delicious, steaming cup of round-gule tea and handed it to him.

“Young lady, you came out of the interview in the conference room on the 45th floor, right? Your face is white. I’ve been cleaning here for five years, and every year around this time, I see dozens of young people like you. I wonder what kind of mentality these people have, and it’s hard to keep the spirit of young people down. Now, take a sip of this. Only when your insides are warm can you feel sad. Forget the snacks too quickly. If you’re hungry, you’ll feel twice as sad.” The warmth of the savory donggulle tea warmed Yuna’s frozen fingertips. As I sipped the tea and took a sip, the sadness that was stuck in my throat turned into hot tears and dripped onto the teacup.

“Ma’am… I lived really hard. Even during vacations, I carried boxes at the factory without taking a break, worked part-time at a convenience store in the early morning, and wrote my personal statement all night long. But… the people sitting in those high positions laughed at my efforts, calling them just the level of a ‘sentimental literature club.’ Is my youth without qualifications just trash?” Yuna's voice broke down into sobbing like a child. The lady gently wiped Yuna's sore heels with a disinfectant tissue and let out a deep sigh. When the disinfectant touched me, the stinging pain spread, but the lady's touch was extremely gentle.

"Don't talk nonsense. I came to Tokyo from the countryside at the age of 19, and have done everything from washing dishes in a restaurant to working as a maid. People in the world admire only the flashy buildings on the outside, but it is dirt-covered hands like us who wipe and sweep and support these buildings every day. People who sit high up there and just look at documents don't know how hot the ground is. Drops of sweat shed honestly while being covered in dirt are what really make a person strong. My son graduated from college in Seoul and worked for a large company for three years. He eventually opened a small workshop and started making furniture. You can't tell how happy he is now.

Girl, you had a hard time squeezing your feet into those pointy shoes. Wouldn't it make you bleed to run while wearing shoes made for someone else's feet? The more a person is stepped on, the deeper his roots become. If you want to cry, cry hard. “The emergency staircase is where it’s supposed to be.” The lady carefully attached a waterproof bandage to Yuna's heel wound and then pointed to the can of coffee lying next to the bag.

“Don’t drink cold coffee. It only smells like cold metal. Life isn’t decided at the top of that tall building, it begins at the very first step you’re standing on. Don’t be discouraged, okay?” The lady squeezed Yuna's cold hands and slowly walked up the stairs to the upper floor, pushing the cleaning cart. The sound of the woman's heavy safety shoes receded into the silence of the emergency stairs. Yuna picked up the can of coffee that was in the side pocket of her bag. A 900 won Let's Be canned coffee that I bought at a convenience store this morning and kept in my pocket.

The warmth on the outside of the can had already cooled down, leaving only a cool iron smell. I opened the lid and swallowed it, but the sweet taste on the tip of my tongue was somehow harsh and bitter, like a grain of sand. The rejection letters from the 9 places I applied to over the past year flashed through my mind. A logistics document was rejected, B distribution aptitude test was rejected, C shipping 1st interview was rejected... … And today, Sale Global. At that moment, the smartphone in my pocket vibrated heavily. Jing―, Jing―. The sender that appeared on the screen was ‘Sale Global Recruitment Team.’ A text message came just an hour after the interview ended.

My fingers trembled slightly with a glimmer of hope. [Sale Global 2026 second half new recruit results information]

Dear Yuna Seo, thank you very much for applying to recruit a new employee at our company. We are very sorry that, despite your outstanding capabilities and passion, we were unable to hire your valuable talent due to limited recruitment. I wish you great success in your future. Tenth rejection notice. 'Despite your outstanding capabilities and passion... … '

A cold copy-paste sentence without a single mistake. Twenty-four-year-old Seo Yuna's youth was once again discarded as a single line of mechanical text. My vision became dark and my heart sank. And less than a minute later, two letters appeared on the screen: ‘Mom.’ Yuna bit her lip and pressed the call button. I pounded my chest to keep my voice from cracking. “Hello, Mom….”

“Uh, Yuna! Did the interview go well? Did you eat and stay overnight? I heard it’s chilly in Seoul. Is it true that you went wearing light clothes?”

My mother's rough Gyeongsang-do accent was heard over the phone and the sound of the busy chopping in the alley of Seoho Market in Tongyeong. It was the heartbreaking voice of a mother who paid her daughter's tuition and room while standing on the ice all day wearing rubber boots that smelled like fish. “Yes, Mom… I did well on the interview. The suit was warm… and the food was delicious.”

“Yes, my baby went through a lot! Did my voice sink like this? Did the interviewers say something mean? Don’t be discouraged. My daughter is not good enough! It’s okay if things don’t work out. As long as my daughter is healthy, my mother has no wish. If things don’t work out, I can just come back to my hometown and run a business with my mom. Is there really a need to live like a bastard in Seoul? Got it?” Every single word from her mother became like a dagger and cut into Yuna’s heart. In order not to be a burden to her daughter, the mother used the money she earned from pricking her finger on a fish thorn to buy her a yellow suit and send it to Seoul. I was so pitiful and embarrassed that I had to lie to that mother again, and my throat burned. “Okay… okay, Mom. I have to take the subway now, so I’ll hang up. I love you, Mom.”

“Okay, go in carefully, my little one. Don’t starve!” As soon as the call ended, Yuna lay down on the cold concrete floor, holding her smartphone to her chest and sobbing. Although he was grateful for his mother's unconditional love, his inability to repay that love became a knife and cut through his heart mercilessly. The water droplets that had formed on the surface of the cooled coffee can fell to the floor. In the darkness of the gray emergency staircase, the despair of youth was gaping like a deep, dark cliff.