Time Mansour - Chapter 5



Only Noblemtl

Episode 5: Mother’s Hometown

It’s been a long time since I came to Seoul.

On the way to the client company after receiving a call from Sales Director Cheon Dong-jin.

Get off at Chungmuro ​​Station and exit through the Hanok Village exit.

A sky with floating white clouds. A watercolor-like landscape is reflected in my eyes.

“Are you here?”

“Yes. Sasung IT Research Institute. That’s right.”

“Huh? Isn’t this the former home of the chairman of Sasung Group?”

I looked again because the road was familiar, and it was a place I had seen when I passed by with my mother.

He kept looking around the house with his eyes as if he was curious.

At my reaction, Director Chun looked at me with wide eyes.

“Do you know that? People your age, Director Jeong, probably don’t know.”

“My mother lived nearby when she was young. I came here with her once while she was still alive.”

mom.

At the word “mother,” I find myself looking up at the floating clouds with eyes that are unconsciously immersed in memories.

Long ago, they say stars lived under that mountain.

My mother’s old stories always began like that.

During the military dictatorship.

1 star general. 2 star general. 3 star general.

And even the chairman of Sasung Group.

Underneath this Namsan Mountain.

It is said that countless stars gathered under mother’s feet to form the Milky Way.

I used to say it like a habit.

“Your mother lived in Pil-dong? At that time, Pil-dong was… a wealthy area, right?”

“No. It’s Pil-dong, but it’s not exactly this neighborhood. It’s up there.”

“The top is Namsan?”

Director Chun follows my gaze and looks up.

At that time, there was a shantytown on the side of Namsan Mountain. After the Korean War, people who had lost their homes gathered together to form a village.

“They were displaced people. My maternal grandparents.”

“ah···”

“He lived there until the shantytown was demolished.”

“You must have had a hard time.”

“That’s right. He suffered all his life until he passed away.”

Whenever I think of my mother, my nose gets tingly without me knowing it.

I quickly changed the subject because I thought I would cry if I continued talking.

“What do you want from Sasung Card? A complete system conversion? Or just some functions?”

“Half and half. It’s a bit like a trial and error. I was thinking about whether or not to completely switch to the cloud. After hearing Director Jeong’s story, they contacted me and asked if I could meet them.”

“Are you talking about me?”

I frowned slightly at Director Chun’s words. I am just an ordinary field engineer.

People in the industry I’ve worked with only occasionally know my name.

He is not a famous person known to even unrelated large corporate clients.

“I think the story came from Chosun Bank. They say that the director grabbed the project by the scruff of the neck and pulled it up right before it went bankrupt.”

“That… is such an exaggerated rumor?”

I shook my head with a bitter smile. An individual cannot pull off a huge project.

I was just lucky. That’s all I could say.

“I guess that’s how the rumor spread in the financial world. You know, how Chosun Bank is treated in the IT industry.”

Bank employees are lazy. The level of SI developers who come to support has declined.

That’s why Composition Bank is the first in the industry to successfully transition to the latest technology.

“I guess you think we have some special know-how.”

“That’s right. After Director Jeong joined, the atmosphere changed dramatically. It was almost like magic.”

What is magic?

I just worked hard.

Director Cheon smiled silently at my answer. While chatting like that, I walked towards the development center with Director Cheon.

We followed the manager into the development center, and a man greeted us.

“Hello. This is Saseong Card. This is Deputy Manager Cho Yong-ho.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Cheon Dong-jin, Executive Director of White Soft. This is Director Jeong Yeong-jun, whom I mentioned last time.”

“Ah! I’ve heard a lot about this person… that… story.”

The vice president of Sasung Card lets out an exclamation of admiration as soon as he sees me.

I wonder where he heard that story from. Looking at the smiling face of Deputy Manager Cho, I feel uneasy for no reason.

“Hello. This is Director Jeong Yeong-jun.”

“It’s really nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about Director Jeong from Jo Seong Bank.”

“Okay. Okay. Let’s go in and talk instead of doing this here.”

When the conversation seemed to be getting longer, Director Chun intervened.

“Ah. I’m sorry. I got excited without realizing it because I saw someone whose name I had only heard of. Let’s go.”

Vice President Cho Yong-ho turned his back and walked ahead. Following Vice President Cho’s guidance, Cheon Sang-moo and I headed to the conference room on the second floor.

**

“Thank you for your effort.”

After a meeting that lasted nearly an hour, he lowered his head with a tired expression.

As soon as I entered the conference room, I was bombarded with questions from Vice Chairman Cho.

What are the differences from Kubernetes? Are there any stability issues? Are developers satisfied with the operation process?

These were questions that even Sales Manager Cheon could have answered with sufficient answers.

It seemed like he wanted to hear the story of a field engineer who had first-hand experience in the field.

After being harassed by the customer for a while, I came down to a nearby parking lot with Director Chun.

“Director Jeong. How about going to the station together?”

After exchanging greetings, Director Chun looks at me as he opens the car door.

“No. Since I’m in Seoul, I’ll just take a look around the area.”

I shook my head at Director Chun’s words.

“Ah. Right. Director Jeong has been staying in Ansan the whole time. Okay. Okay. I’ll go first.”

I turned around after checking that Director Chun was starting the car.

So I go to a nearby coffee shop and take out a cold coffee, then I raise my head and look at Namsan.

‘Let’s go to the place where my mom used to live.’

I’ve been there exactly once, when I was 10 years old.

A road that remains vaguely in my memory.

Before he passed away, he wanted to show me and his older sister the neighborhood where he lived as a child.

I don’t know why, but at the time, I held my older sister’s hand and we headed to Namsan together.

“This isn’t the place···”

I was so young. Only a few fragments remain, vague memories.

Eventually, I was walking without thinking and got lost in a complicated alley.

I don’t even know how to get to the house I live in now, let alone the house my mother lived in as a child.

I can’t figure it out even if I look at the map. I look around while fiddling with my phone.

I’ve made a living using cutting-edge technology my entire life, but as a user, I wasn’t familiar with it.

Because I still order delivery over the phone.

It was a habit that I couldn’t easily change, even though I was always told that I sounded like an old person.

So completely lost, wandering aimlessly through the alleys.

suddenly.

“evil!”

widely.

Something jumps out of the alley and hits me, making me scream.

I dropped the cup I was holding in my hand in shock.

The coffee I was holding shot up into the air and then fell back down, spraying like rain on my pants.

“Ah! How···”

A young woman with a small face and distinct features. She looks at my pants with an embarrassed expression.

“Oh, it’s okay.”

“Really. I’m sorry. How can I pay for laundry… No. Even the coffee…”

I kept telling the woman who was flustered and fidgeting that I was okay.

“But still. If you tell me your account number, I can give you any amount of money… No. I’m not saying I’ll solve it with money. So… This isn’t it…”

As if he couldn’t hear me, he turned on his cell phone while talking nonsense.

I kept refusing like that, but then I saw the app’s loading screen and I stopped talking without realizing it.

It’s a JoongSung Bank app. Huh? There’s a teddy bear on the loading screen.

It’s an app that I’ve used a lot, but I’ve never actually used it.

“The account number is··· that···”

As I watched quietly for the banking app to load, the woman spoke cautiously.

I think there was a misunderstanding.

I wasn’t looking to get money. I was just looking to see what the JoongAng Bank banking app looked like…

“Ah… no. I just don’t remember the account number. Well. It’s not like it’s an expensive outfit anyway.”

A woman tilts her head at my words and glances at my cell phone.

If you don’t know your account number, you can check it on your banking app.

He spoke to me with that expression on his face, but I couldn’t answer.

I don’t have a banking app installed on my phone. I know how to make apps, but I don’t really use them.

As I continued to stay still without saying anything, the woman kept checking her watch and became impatient.

“That··· I’m busy right now···”

“It’s really okay. Go do your business.”

I don’t know how many times I said it was okay.

A woman who keeps hesitating no matter how much I refuse.

After hesitating for a while, he finally seems to have made up his mind and takes something out of his pocket.

Of course, I thought it was cash, so I held out both palms and tried to refuse it.

“This is the last word. Sorry. Please contact me later.”

“Ah···yes.”

I took a notepad and pen out of my pocket and wrote down my contact information.

I happened to receive the memo.

And then the woman bowed her head and started running again in a hurry.

“No. Is it a man?”

Lee Jun-seong. 010 – xxxx-xxxx

There is a man’s name written next to the number.

Is it because the name sounds like a man’s name? Or is there an untold story?

I’m not sure though.

Anyway, put a note from a young woman or man in your wallet.

I start sailing forward again.

There was an elderly person passing by, so I asked him for directions to the subway station.

“Okay. If you go that way, there’s a station..”

The old man speaks slowly and extends his finger. “Yes, I understand. Thank you.” I smile and bow my head.

“In the end, I never found the house my mother lived in when she was young.”

I’ll probably never find it again. I swallowed the words without saying them out loud.

A person who has suffered all his life. Won’t he be suffering again when he gets there?

Thinking like that, I looked up at the sky.

The clouds in the sky were looking down at me with a strangely smiling expression.