Page 2 of Break Room
I had met the producer Il-Kwon just once, a month before the first shoot.
I remember feeling just as famished that day, too nervous to stomach a thing.
I had admired his documentary series, and it had never crossed my mind, even in my wildest dreams, that I would be cast in his show – but he had personally selected me.
Il-Kwon was someone who never hesitated to assert his ideas.
He explained that he personally scouted participants, all ordinary people, instead of holding an open call for auditions.
His goal was to find the most typical office workers he could – and, apparently, my co-workers had put me forward for the role without my knowledge.
I asked Il-Kwon a series of questions. What exactly had my coworkers said about me in their recommendation?
What was the specific concept of the show?
But he was quick to avoid all my attempts to grill him, and said that he couldn’t reveal anything until the first day of filming.
All he could tell me was that it would be like a game of Mafia set in an office break room.
When he saw the growing reluctance on my face, he made a bold offer: I could decide whether to join the show after the orientation event on the first day of filming, during which I would meet all the other participants.
He assured me the show would merely observe the participants’ behaviour, that the rules were simple, and that filming would only take a week.
To accommodate all the participants, he had already made an arrangement with their respective companies for them to continue working from their temporary office spaces on set.
When I told Il-Kwon that I was a fan of his documentary version of Break Room, he seemed pleased, but as he slowly sipped his coffee, I noticed a tinge of melancholy in his expression. After a brief pause, he said, ‘Then I have to warn you – brace yourself for a little surprise on the first day.’
The moment I arrived at the filming space on the nineteenth floor, Il-Kwon’s warning immediately made sense.
The participants were four men, including me, and four women.
One of the women was someone I immediately recognised from the documentary series – she was the woman who had stuffed her pockets full of instant coffee sachets after finding out the new hire was being paid the same as her.
The woman glanced around at the cameras set up all over the space, her face sullen as she perched stiffly in a corner. When our eyes met, I offered her a polite smile, secretly amused by her presence, but she dismissed it entirely.
In hindsight, what was the point of all this?
Il-Kwon’s cryptic comment about me being in for a ‘little surprise’ had been completely off the mark; it was almost rude.
It didn’t come close to describing the shock I felt when his production team gathered up all eight of us and announced that they were going to show a presentation based on some surveys they had conducted.
Who is the worst office villain?
A villain who fills the communal Ice Cube tray with cola and coffee?
A villain who owns two dozen Tumblers as a self proclaimed environmentalist, but leaves them unwashed in the shared sink?
A villain who piles used Paper Cups by the water purifier instead of throwing them away?
A villain who hoards the most popular brand’s Coffee Mix sticks at their desk?
A villain who unplugs the microwave to charge their wireless Headphones?
A villain who loves to regularly deliver a Monologue in the break room?
A villain who clutters the shared fridge with Cake boxes they never take home?
A villain who Gargles 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: the Ice Cube villain 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 lack of 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 be on 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 last Mafia game 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, in that 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.