Page 15 of Break Room

To reveal the underwhelming ending: the mole turned out to be Cake, and only two people guessed correctly – Tumbler and Coffee Mix. I had a fleeting curiosity about why Tumbler and Cake hadn’t submitted the same answer, but with filming wrapped, it no longer seemed to matter.

What stood out most was a segment featuring Coffee Mix’s parents, their faces fully revealed in a video interview.

They spoke warmly about their daughter, emphasising how they’d always supported her emotionally and financially.

Her ‘mild collecting tendencies’, as they called them, had started as early as elementary school, but they adamantly denied any association to some deep underlying trauma.

After the interview, what followed was a comedic montage highlighting Coffee Mix’s minor hoarding habits.

The editors played up the humour, cutting together clips of her collecting small items up to ten times a day, set to upbeat background music.

They were cleverly juxtaposed with deadpan interviews from family and friends throwing around jargon in an effort to explain her behaviour.

The absurd contrast, combined with shots of Coffee Mix blissfully sipping coffee or munching on snacks, turned the segment into unintentional comedy gold.

Meanwhile, Tumbler, early in the game, leaned into the camera and whispered with conviction that Cake didn’t have ‘the face of someone who can’t hide her true feelings’, but instead ‘the face of a master deceiver’.

(This moment was cleverly highlighted as a teaser for episode two.) With great fervour, he launched into an analysis of the facial features and expressions of so-called environmental activists who seek investments under the pretence of eco-friendly ventures but are, in truth, dishonest. In a heated tirade to the camera, he listed all the reasons why Cake had to be the mole, pointing to her facial features as ‘evidence’ – features that, amusingly, bore a striking resemblance to his own.

The editors didn’t miss the comedic opportunity, juxtaposing close-ups of Tumbler and Cake side by side, adding a dose of irony and perfectly breaking the tension.

Despite correctly identifying Cake as the mole quite early on, Tumbler played the game skilfully.

He put on a false front when interacting with her, even scheming to cast a fake vote for Coffee Mix to throw her off the scent.

From the start, his personal interest in Cake appeared non-existent, and – whether fortunately or unfortunately – it seemed the feeling was mutual.

The show also revealed how Monologue had accumulated hints: he had been stashing personal cleaning supplies in the break room’s communal cabinets, and throwing away leftover food that others had saved for later, presumably to reduce clutter or as part of his cleaning routine.

(Whether these actions were intentional or unintentional remained unclear.)

One of the most-debated elements of the show became Monologue’s cleaning checklist. Online forums exploded with discussions about whether it was fair for him to have earned a hint card by marking Xs next to the other players’ names to imply they hadn’t fulfilled their cleaning duties.

Some viewers argued: ‘If he cleaned, marking an O for his own name would’ve been enough. Crossing off others feels passive-aggressive – it’s basic social etiquette to avoid unnecessary conflict.’

Others countered: ‘It’s just a system to show who cleaned and who didn’t. If the checklist offends you, maybe you should be cast in the next season of the show!’

Beyond that, the scenes of each player revealing their pick for the mole were cleverly edited, intercut with flashbacks of their actions leading up to their choices, and revisiting key moments throughout the duration of filming to show how each person came to their own conclusion, adding an extra layer of fun.

The inner turmoil I’d experienced while filming didn’t make it on to the screen at all.

There were brief shots of my face that captured fragments of my emotions, but my distress had clearly been overlooked by the editor, leaving me relegated to the background – little more than part of the set-dressing.

I was grateful that my internal struggles weren’t visible on screen, yet I couldn’t help but wonder whether, in all the reality shows I’d watched in the past, had I ever truly seen the truth of what was happening? Or was I only ever seeing what someone had wanted me to see?

After the success of Break Room and the buzz surrounding the show, my coworkers started coming up to me, saying how much they’d enjoyed the show and offering their apologies for nominating me.

They claimed they had ‘misunderstood’ me.

I almost wanted to respond, ‘That’s not what we call “misunderstanding”,’ but I held my tongue.

Instead, I told them I’d been inspired by the antics of A and B, which had helped me earn the hint cards – a line I thought was a good joke. But they didn’t laugh.

I wasn’t sure which moment made me feel more pathetic – when my joke fell flat, or when I watched Monologue in the final episode, writing his own name on the answer sheet and muttering, ‘I’m enough as I am,’ as though trying to console himself.

A few months after the show aired, rumours began swirling that the production team had already begun their recruitment process for contestants for season two.

In the meantime, a mobile game based on Break Room was under development, with a release date fast approaching.

Social media was buzzing with posts looking for beta testers:

We’re hiring beta testers for the game Break Room!

Find the mole, make a mess in the break room and complete secret missions that only open at night.

What kind of villains have you met in your break room?

Leave a comment and receive a gift package worth 30,000 won!

Curious, I clicked on the post and saw more than five thousand comments, with each person boasting about their worst break-room villains.

There was a villain who froze doughnuts only to abandon them to their frosty doom, a villain who left rotten salad in the fridge, and a villain who brought their blender to work every morning to make ABC juice (the blender being a compromise, apparently, as they’d started out bringing in a full-sized juicer).

Others called out break-room supply managers who stocked only the most unpopular snacks, or hoarders, or those who emptied the ice-cube tray the moment it refilled. The list was endless.

As I read further, the tone shifted. What had started as light-hearted complaints turned into bleak reflections:

‘There’s no hope for humankind.’

‘What happened to decency?’

One commenter even wrote a long op-ed on cancel culture in modern society. Others spiralled into outright inflammatory rants.

I switched the sorting order from newest to most liked, and saw a lengthy comment with more than 2,000 likes at the top:

‘This is a bit off-topic, but . . . Do you guys remember the player Cake from season one? The mole? She used to work at our company. She didn’t actually leave cakes in the fridge, but she did bring them to the office often.

She’d always brag about guys buying them for her.

One day, though, I saw her at a bakery far from the office, buying the cake herself.

That’s when I started keeping my distance.

Later, I heard she’d moved to another company.

Seems like she’s not pulling stunts there.

I don’t know how much the producers knew when they cast her, but seeing her as the mole gave me the chills. ’

Reading the comment, I found myself thinking about the producer, Lee Il-Kwon, whose face I hadn’t seen since the shoot.

For a brief moment, I struggled to dissociate the unease from the memory of his silhouette.

But I couldn’t shake the sense that a producer whose work thrives on capturing the unsettling might still be orchestrating something long after the cameras have stopped rolling.

I felt as if his documentary was still unfolding; it had expanded beyond the original cast and was now set in the real world. A more expansive backdrop than his debut work, and infinitely more disquieting.

After all, with a world full of disagreeable people, he’d never run out of content – or villains.