Sunrise [Yungi FF]

1. A Typical Day

The brightly lit room was filled with all sorts of sounds. The rustling of papers, rumbling of printers, whirring of air conditioners, clacking of keyboards, scratching of pens, skidding of chairs, and most dominating of them all, the insistent chatter of the rows of employees guarding their work stations.

One might wonder how anyone could possibly stay sane in this chaotic environment. There was only one answer to that and it was simple: you did not.

Yunho flinched and pulled one ear of his headphones away before he could go deaf from the screeching static on the other end. He had no idea what the customer was saying, but at least he could discern from the high-pitched voice that he was talking to a woman.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid you'll have to call again. The phone reception is not very good-"

The woman screamed again, her words all morphed into sadistic demon noises by the time they reached Yunho's ears. Yunho sighed, repeated what he said in the most patient tone he could manage, and then hung up.

He practically ripped off his headset once the phone call ended and threw it carelessly onto his keyboard. He was so used to being here that he barely registered the ambient noise of the office - all he heard was his ears thanking him for being relieved of the suffocating headphones.

The person sitting across from Yunho's desk gave him a sympathetic look over the low partition before turning his attention back to his own headset, which was still sitting snugly around his head and ears.

Yunho rolled his eyes at his colleague and best friend, Jongho. They met in the first year of work here in Bank of Korea, and it was both their third year of being a bank teller.

Yunho couldn't see himself spending his mid-twenties talking to irritating old folks who didn't know how to press a single button on their phones, but he had to deal with what he was given. And that happened to be a decent salary in his case.

"Get back to work, Yunho." The manager of the phone support sector walked past Yunho's seat and placed a big hand on the employee's slim shoulder, patting it two times.

Knowing he only escaped scolding because of his three-year friendship with the manager, Yunho straightened his body and picked up his headset. Before putting it back on, he braved a look over his shoulder and saw his boss walking away while keeping a vigilant eye on his subordinates.

Kim Hongjoong was a scarily competent man for his age, but being only a few years older than Yunho meant that he was considerate and understanding of their mentally draining job.

Yunho licked his dry lips as he waited for his next call to connect. His ears, trapped under the cushions, were already protesting due to the heat and discomfort.

The dialling sounds cut off abruptly and the banal line of greeting came automatically out of Yunho's mouth like always. "Hello, how may I help-"

"Finally! A person I can talk to," a gruff voice interrupted.

Yunho was used to being unable to finish his sentences, but what worried him wasn't the customers' lack of manners. No, it was the tangible frustration from the other end that made him tense his shoulders, because he had picked up enough phone calls to know instantly - from the very first spoken word - whether the caller was going to be mean, or less mean.

Unfortunately, more often than not the answer was the former. You see the worse in people in this line of work, and everyone in the room knew that.

"...thirty minutes to get this call," the man complained. "Has everyone decided to get a day off suddenly?"

Yunho heard that one before. When he first got the job he was naive enough to think that he could get used to these accusations and insults.