You're Gonna Go Far

Being Funny in a Foreign Language

The weekends were always relatively quiet at the HYBE building.

Yunjin realised this after the first few after-hour visits to the headquarters during her time as a trainee. The office space on business days was overflowing with employees from various departments. Yunjin could always tell which people were working in which teams - the neatly dressed, white-collared ones were in the Business Management, Operations and Finance departments; the ones who wore trendy, casual smart clothing were usually from the Marketing, Arts and A&R departments; and those who wore jumpers, sweatpants and noise-cancelling headphones were working in the IT department. It was interesting to ponder about the number of human beings it takes to keep a multi-million-dollar corporation running since she heard from someone somewhere in passing that the company has more than 1,000 employees in total as of the 2021 financial year. The more Yunjin thought about it, the more grateful she felt knowing that she was under the safe hands of thousands of trustworthy and like-minded individuals who wanted nothing but the best for all artists in their respective labels.

Since Saturday was everyone's day off, Yunjin didn't have to worry about being overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of everyday corporate life.

In fact, as soon as Yunjin stepped out of her online taxi and walked her way towards the Yongsan Trade Center where the HYBE headquarters were located, she was greeted with nothing but the whistle of the cold wind and the occasional zooms of cars and buses passing by the main road. The end of November meant that everyone and their mother had the same idea to leave town for the holidays, giving the often-bustling business district an almost ghost town-like feeling. Regardless, Yunjin liked it. She loved talking to people on the regular, however, it was nice to be in solitude now and then.

Yunjin flashed a smile through the transparent glass doors at the security guard sitting at the front desk, waving her hand slightly at the familiar figure as she heard a long beep signalling that the doors had been unlocked. Artists didn't own access cards to the building as it was an employee-only policy, so most of the time, the manager of each artist or group would often let them in. Or in this case, a security guard who knew these artists on a day-to-day basis.

"Yunjin! So nice of you to visit me on a weekend!" The security guard greeted Yunjin in a welcoming manner, laughing in good spirits. The man was in his 50s and was one of the permanent full-time staff who worked from Wednesdays to Sundays. He and Yunjin are on a first-name basis as they had known each other way before LE SSERAFIM debuted.

"Nice to see you too, Kwangseo," Yunjin greeted back in the same manner as the older gentleman, walking towards the front desk. She placed a takeaway bag on top of the desk. "I don't know if you had breakfast this morning, so I went and got you some coffee and an almond croissant to go with it."

The gentleman gasped dramatically as he reached towards the takeaway bag and looked at the contents inside. Taking out his drink and pastry, he said, "You still remember my coffee order after all these years."

"Large Flat White, extra shot during the winter, then a strong, Iced Latte during the summer," Yunjin recited proudly.

"Hey, if you ever need a personal driver, let Manager Han know that I could fill in her shoes," Kwangseo joked, taking a sip of his warm coffee. Knowing that it was Yunjin who bought it only made his chest feel warmer. He sees a bit of his only daughter in Yunjin; the former is busy pursuing her bachelor's degree in Japan with a full scholarship and coming from a middle-income household, this meant the whole world for Kwangseo's family. Although the distance gets hard to deal with sometimes, a brief conversation with Yunjin always brings his mood up. The latter shared so many similarities to her daughter, that he would often joke about how Yunjin could be her daughter's long-lost biological sister.