Good Customers and Bad Customers (2)
The unexpected visitor was Jang On-gyu, the man they called a business genius.
I hadn't seen this coming.
Something showed in his eyes.
Desire. Or call it greed, if you want.
He was trying to hide it, but my eyes saw through that easily enough.
Wary now, I asked, "It's possible, but what is this about?"
"I'd like to talk with you about the Youth Mall tenancy."
"As you've probably heard, I've given up on a spot in the Youth Mall. I have no intention of filing any objections either."
"That's exactly why I'm here."
"And?"
"Yes. I happened to overhear you say you weren't set on opening a shop in the Youth Mall specifically."
Happened to, huh?
Jang On-gyu didn't stop talking.
"I thought I might have a proposal for you."
"What kind of proposal?"
"Why don't we walk and talk?"
He pointed off to one side. I turned to look. Across from the food alley sat the place people called Shinsigaji.
Right for the food alley. Left for Shinsigaji.
If the food alley was the long-time fixture that had claimed this ground for decades, Shinsigaji was a redevelopment complex built after they'd torn down part of the old market and put something new in its place. The original plan had been to revitalize the whole district together with the food alley. The results had been underwhelming.
That place ended up in the same boat as the Food Truck Zone.
A brief flash, then failure.
I followed him in that direction. We hadn't gone far into the complex before Jang On-gyu stopped. A five-story building stood in front of us.
"This building right here. Looks pretty good for business, doesn't it?"
"Business in this building?"
"Yes. A restaurant."
The building itself had a well-finished look, as if the remodel had only just been completed. The structure was solid. The problem was everything around it.
"It does look a little quiet at the moment."
"No foot traffic, you mean?"
There wasn't a soul in sight.
"Yes. It's almost empty, even allowing for the time of day."
"Foot traffic depends on what you do with a place, doesn't it? You can draw people in or you can fail to. And a man like you could draw them just fine."
"Draw people in."
"Not confident?"
A provocation, then.
So this is how he shakes people.
Most folks would rise to that kind of bait. I had no reason not to answer it. I gave him an easy smile.
"Not confident? I started in the Food Truck Zone when there wasn't a single customer in sight."
"I figured you'd say that. It would be even easier here."
"So what exactly did you come all this way to say?"
I asked him straight out. Bring the real business. He answered as if he'd been waiting for the cue.
"I thought you'd have caught on by now. This shop, this location—how about we make a huge hit of it together?"
The tall building filled my vision.
Three days flew by.
In that time, nothing changed about the Youth Mall selections. Not a single successful applicant was swapped out.
One thing did change, though.
My phone kept going off. The polished-looking Jang On-gyu was messaging me more and more often.
At first it was once a day. The next day, several. By the third day, more than ten had come in that day alone.
In this line of work, you accumulate messages like these.
Every single one of them was phrased to look like a pure benefit to me. And yet something about it wouldn't sit right.
"Hmm……"
It just wouldn't click. Why? It left a bad taste. Call it an alarm going off in my gut.
I'd seen this pattern before, in the past life.
—It's a hard world. Shouldn't we try to live together?
—Let's all join hands!
—I'll share my food with you! Come with us!
A self-proclaimed prophet who claimed he would save people even in the apocalypse. In the end, it turned out he had been sacrificing other human beings as offerings so he himself could survive—the worst kind of cult leader.
If Jang On-gyu somehow overlapped with that man in my mind, was I imagining things?
The memory's hazy, but the face is weirdly similar too, isn't it? Minus a few scars and the burn marks……
No. Stop.
I shook my head hard after thinking about it too long. I needed to keep my wits about me. You don't judge people by their looks.
This isn't some parallel universe. There's no way they're the same person.
Looking alike didn't mean the personality would match. The worlds themselves were different.
Still, the feeling was bad.
A big storefront……
The second floor of a five-story building could become my restaurant, clear as day. The terms on offer were excellent. I knew that if I just put my head down and worked there for five years—or even three—I could walk away with a place that was fully mine.
And yet it still wouldn't pull me in. So what was I supposed to do?
All I had for grounds was a single instinct, but that was enough. I picked up the phone that felt heavier than usual today. The ring tone hadn't even lasted three seconds.
"Sunwu?"
"Hello. Do you have a moment to talk?"
"As long as you need!"
His voice came through bright. He sounded like he was in a good mood.
"So you've finally made a decision. Haha."
He seemed to think I was going to accept. Most people would have. The terms were too good to turn down. But the answer I was about to give had already been decided.
"You've heard the conditions, so you know there's nothing else like this out there. So……"
"I'm sorry, but—"
"Hmm?"
"I'll have to decline."
"Decline?"
"Yes."
A brief silence. Then a flustered voice came through.
"……You won't regret this?"
He must have heard the firmness in my voice. Now he was bringing up regret.
Keep them off-balance right to the end and shake them. Interesting.
The tone made it feel as if every scrap of kindness up to now had been a lie. I knew that kind of speech. Black-and-white thinking. Ally or enemy—nothing in between. That was the voice you usually heard from people who lived only in those two categories.
Maybe this choice had rubbed the business genius the wrong way. Maybe I had just made myself his enemy. Life worked like that sometimes—feelings got hurt or hearts got moved over the smallest things.
But this settles it.
That was why I could feel even more certain now.
"I don't usually say this kind of thing, but I'll ask one last time. Are you truly sure you won't regret it?"
"Yes. I don't think I'll regret it."
To Jang On-gyu's question, I could answer that I absolutely would not. What came back was a deep sigh. And after that—
"Then I suppose there's nothing to be done. Understood. Goodbye."
"Yes. Good—"
A voice steeped through and through with hostility. Click. Jang On-gyu hung up without waiting for an answer. I stared at the phone screen for a second, then felt it all at once.
"Hahaha. What is this? This is actually fun."
One part of me felt the last three days of fretting had been pointless. The other part felt incredibly light inside, for reasons I couldn't quite name.
"When did I ever get by riding on someone else's coattails? From start to finish, doing it with my own hands is just how I'm built."
I understood right away why my heart felt so much clearer. The moment I decided I would do it myself, I knew I held full control of my own life again.
To say I hadn't wavered at all would be a lie. But from here on, I could be sure.
"I'm going to do what's mine."
After those few days of deciding, I had become a little harder to shake.
Click.
After hanging up, Jang On-gyu's face twisted hard.
"……Damn it."
"Boss, the report— yes?"
"Never mind. You came to report?"
"Yes. It's time."
"Give it here. I'll look at it now."
"Ah—yes!"
The executive secretary who had come to deliver the report wore a startled look. Jang On-gyu changing expression like that was not a common sight.
Something's gone badly wrong.
Having served the man for years, the secretary could guess the situation well enough. The warm, approachable image of the business genius out front, and behind it the cold calculations of a businessman—anyone who worked right beside him knew that better than most. He was more arrogant than he looked, and when things didn't go his way he had no patience for it. Once, that had even been something to admire. Lately, though, it had become something to fear.
He wasn't like this at first…… He's changed. He's changed.
The only reason the secretary still stayed was that, recently, no one had been foolish enough to cross Jang On-gyu, so the man never had cause to show his temper. The peace had come simply because that vicious streak had had no reason to surface for a while.
"Haa……"
Sigh after sigh as the report went on. From where the secretary stood, that short stretch of peace looked broken.
From what I heard, it was about that food truck he was trying to recruit before. What's he going to try this time?
Even with the worry, the secretary kept a blank face. There was still a job to do. The status report for the restaurant street they were preparing continued, and the minutes ticked by.
First things first—find a shop.
Every job starts with a single step. The Food Truck Zone was about to disappear, so I needed a real storefront now. Luckily, there was someone nearby who knew the area cold.
"Boss."
The coffee truck owner.
"Yeah? What's up? Cups run out?"
"No. Cups are overflowing."
"Then what?"
"Do you know any real estate agents around here?"
"Real estate? Ah!"
The boss was quick on the uptake.
"You're looking for a shop!"
"Yes, that's right."
"Then let's look together."
"What?!"
This time I was the slow one.
Look together? What is that supposed to mean?
I couldn't quite process what he was saying next. I must have been wearing a blank face, because the boss laughed like he was enjoying himself and waved Boss Jang over. Boss Jang, who sold butter squid, came running.
"What is it? Ah! Don't tell me you already said it?"
"He brought up real estate, so I figured the timing was perfect and told him."
"Hey, I was going to say it first! You jumped the line again! You always hog the good stuff, don't you?"
"Hahaha. That's how it landed. So are you going to tell him or not?"
"Of course I am. Even better to do it now that it's out."
"Heh. See? I didn't have a choice."
The two of them already seemed to be on the same page. At that point something began to take shape in my head.
Don't tell me……
Still, I needed to confirm it. Certainty was always better. So I asked.
"Don't tell me both of you gave up on the Youth Mall?"
The answer that came back was not what I expected.
"Gave up?"
"Gave up? What are you talking about?"
Huh? What?