Page 2 of Break Room
A villain who owns two dozenTumblers as a self proclaimed environmentalist, but leaves them unwashed in the shared sink?
A villain who piles usedPaper Cups by the water purifier instead of throwing them away?
A villain who hoards the most popular brand’sCoffee Mixsticks at their desk?
A villain who unplugs the microwave to charge their wirelessHeadphones?
A villain who loves to regularly deliver aMonologuein the break room?
A villain who clutters the shared fridge withCakeboxes they never take home?
A villain whoGargles thunderously in the communal sink every morning?
Now imagine sharing a break room with them. Who is the biggest villain?
Eight examples and eight contestants – all of us gathered here in the room. I had to read through the examples in the presentation slide before it finally dawned on me: theIce Cubevillain in the first line was me. The other participants’ faces darkened as the realisation settled in that our flaws had been laid bare for all to see. Our quirky habits – things we’d never thought twice about – were the very reason we were here. The woman from the documentary series seemed particularly shaken; her face twisted in distress as she stiffened and sat upright.
And if that wasn’t enough, our expressions – which were transitioning from curiosity to confusion, and finally, to deep embarrassment as the meaning behind the presentation sank in – were being caught on camera. I later discovered that this exact moment was what caused the first spike in the pilot episode’s otherwise uneventful viewership graph.
‘So, here we are – welcome!’ announced the head writer, standing beside Il-Kwon. She looked surprisingly young and wide-eyed for someone in her position. ‘We’re sorry for the lackof context, but by now, we hope you understand why we had to keep things under wraps, given the nature of the game. Our production team went above and beyond, doing all the legwork and conducting discreet surveys all over the country for a month. We put in quite a bit of effort to ensure you wouldn’t find out, just so we could capture your genuine reaction.’
Her cheerful tone was at odds with the shocked and uncomfortable expressions on our faces, as if she hadn’t noticed them at all. I couldn’t tell whether this was on purpose.
‘And now, the results of our survey!’ the head writer continued. ‘The participant who earned first place received an impressive three thousand, two hundred and ten votes out of a total of twelve thousand, nine hundred and eighty-six. The winner is . . . Monologue!’
She announced it with such genuine enthusiasm that it stirred something inside me. I’d been feeling frozen with shock, but now this was giving way, squirming into an uncomfortable unease.
‘As the winner, Monologue will receive a hint card, a crucial advantage in the game.’ The head writer paused, then quickly added, ‘That is, of course, only if he decides to participate. We’ve already prepared a filming set and accommodation upstairs for everyone. You’re all welcome to stay the night and mull things over, but we’ll need your final decision by the morning. Should Monologue decide to forfeit, the benefit will automatically go to the participant who landed in second place.’
‘And who the heck is this Monologue you keep referring to?’ asked a woman wearing a blue knitted beanie. She was sitting next to the writer.
‘Well . . .’ The writer paused again. Keeping her tone carefully light, she said, ‘How should I put this . . .? We won’t be using your real names on the show. Now, I know that might feel a little disappointing – it’s not every day you get a chance to beon TV. But above all, we deeply value your privacy as ordinary office workers. So, we’ve assigned you nicknames based on the descriptions provided.’ She pointed at the centre of the slide. ‘See here? One of the examples describes someone who murmurs in the break room. That’s how we came up with the alias “Monologue”.’
Just then, a haggard-looking man across from me started murmuring, swaying slightly as he spoke. ‘Wow, geez, so that means I came in first place. And one of you must be Ice Cube, and Tumbler, and Paper Cup and . . . uh, Coffee Mix, too.’
When the man who was nicknamed Monologue mentioned Coffee Mix, I couldn’t help but notice the woman from the documentary subtly flinching.
‘That’s correct, Monologue. Everybody with me?’ The writer snapped her fingers theatrically to draw everyone’s attention. ‘Now, let me walk you through the game rules. Among the eight of you, one person has been planted by the producers. We will refer to this person as “the mole”. We will provide you with certain information about each of the participants, but all information about the mole will be fabricated. Over the next few days, your job is to identify the mole by observing each other, using the information we provide and comparing your findings. In other words, you’re going to need hints in order to find the mole. On top of that, everyone except the mole will have to play a mind game to try and confuse the others. Remember, you are competing against each other. The fewer winners there are, the higher the prize money! But if none of you identifies the mole at the end of the week, the mole will end up receiving double the prize.’
As the writer rattled off the instructions, I recalled the lastMafiagame I had played, during a college outing. If the mole was equivalent to the mafia in that game, I was confident I had a chance of winning. Back then, I’d had an uncanny ability, inthat brief moment when everyone had their heads down and then simultaneously looked up, to catch the fleeting, mysterious thrills that flickered across the faces of the people who had been assigned the roles of mafia. It was the look of someone who knew they had both the power and the responsibility to steer the entire game.
But there was one thing I failed to account for: that subtle expression wasn’t unique to someone hiding a secret. It was almost identical to the face of someone whose vulnerability had been exposed, but who was pretending it didn’t matter. At that moment, all eight of us unknowingly wore the same expression – even me.
The fact that Il-Kwon had handpicked and personally scouted for candidates for a game like this, relying on coworkers’ referrals instead of holding open-call submissions, pricked every nerve in my body like a needle. It meant that everyone here had been cast because we were disliked – except for the mole.
‘Now, shall we go upstairs and take a look around? It’s the main stage of our show,Break Room. You can leave your belongings here. Our team will take care of them,’ the head writer said casually, as though completely oblivious to the tension hanging thick in the air.
CHAPTER
Three
The upstairs area was fully set up for the show. Though it was just one floor above where we’d been, it felt like stepping into a completely different world. We followed the head writer down a corridor with a stiff, nauseating smell – something like the sharp scent of new textiles. It must be the freshly laid carpet.
The hallway had a total of eight flats, four on each side, the gaps between the doors noticeably wide, hinting that each flat was fairly spacious. Promotional posters of new products from various companies that were sponsoring the show were plastered along the walls. As I walked past one poster of a famous comedian pressing their nose against a vegetablehobbangwith an exaggeratedly ecstatic expression, I glimpsed a nameplate on a nearby door. It said: ‘Ice Cube’.
The documentary woman paused in front of the door labelled ‘Coffee Mix’. Her hesitation was evident.
The head writer nudged her to move along. ‘We will give you plenty of time to settle into your flats after we show you the break room,’ the writer chirped. ‘Let’s keep moving for now.’
