Don't Try to Beat Money or Drink
Hwanghak-dong, Jungang Market.
Park Yonghak sat at a worn old table. It was the place where he had first learned to drink, after coming up to Seoul, and perhaps because so many memories had soaked into it, he sank into a reverie unlike himself.
As a boy he had thought himself a rather special man. He had studied abroad at Waseda University in Japan in the 1930s, and he was fluent not only in Japanese but in English—a rare talent, no question. Perhaps it was because he had thrown himself so completely into his studies. In those days Park Yonghak believed the work of making money was a vulgar thing. Set that beside the man he had become, and it was impossible to credit. But at the time, it had been the truth.
Then one day a so-called uncle appeared and poured sweet talk into his ear.
Invest the right way, and you can live off the interest your whole life without working a day... I've put nine-tenths of my own fortune in, so why not place your father's inheritance there as well... Then you'll be able to give yourself all the more to your studies, won't you...
It had not taken a full year to learn the uncle was a swindler. Call up the despair of that day, and a chill still ran down his spine. Looking back, the sorrow of the lost money had likely been the smaller pain. Worse was the betrayal by his own blood, and worse than that—doubled over—was the rage of having been fool enough to be taken. But there had been something larger than all of it added together. The pathetic shame of having scorned the labor of earning one's bread.
Why should bringing home food for his own children be a low thing? No. Far from low—where under heaven was there anything more sacred?
Damn it.
Furious at that truth, he had forced liquor down his throat though he was not a man who drank. Right here. In this very seat.
Stupid.
He was staring at the empty chair when a voice pulled him back into the present.
"Both young masters have set out, sir."
"What was that?"
"Both young masters have set out, sir."
Ah. Park Yonghak lifted his head, quiet, and spoke.
"Right. You look into Jihoon's matter?"
"Yes, sir."
The chief secretary went on as if he had been waiting for the question.
"Both Manchester United and the cruise are being paid in installments."
A child, already getting a taste for paying on installment? Chairman Park's face was just about to crease.
"Astonishingly, both are interest-free."
What?
Madness. Who handed over something that expensive with no interest on it?
"In Manchester, it seems the mayor stepped in personally and settled the matter. As for the ship... I am told they extended the courtesy because they did not expect it to end with a single vessel."
Manchester, he could grant. But the cruise? They didn't think it would end with one?
"He had thought of it as a private leisure craft, but once the purpose shifted to commercial use... they appear to have judged that further orders might follow."
"Commercial, you say?"
The chief secretary laid out Park Jihoon's plan with care.
A family cruise, dressed in the Super Orlando and Capsulemon IPs!
The corners of Chairman Park's mouth had no choice but to rise.
"Goes off to spend money, and sits there scheming how to earn it."
He said it that way. Even so, he looked thoroughly proud.
"So both of them interest-free. That what you're telling me?"
"Yes, sir."
The larger the sum, the safer it always was to pay in installments. Put bluntly, who would dare screw things up while there was still money left to collect? It was the very reason people insisted apartments be sold only after they were built!
"No trouble paying it back?"
As if there were still more, the chief secretary continued.
"The vacuum cleaner the young master invested ten billion won in is scheduled to launch this year, however..."
"He invested in a vacuum cleaner?"
"Yes, sir. And the product appears to be quite something."
Chairman Park only stared.
"They say it is the first in the industry that can be used without a dust bag. From what I hear, the suction itself is on an entirely different level from anything already on the market..."
"That so? How much they saying it'll sell, for you to be wearing that face?"
"If one factors in the young master's distribution network in America... sales of the vacuum alone should more than cover the cost of the cruise every year."
Not the sort of thing a man ought to say of his own grandson. Even so—had some money-minting ghost gotten into that boy Jihoon?
That was when a familiar voice drifted out of the kitchen.
"Chairman, you look like you're in a good mood."
"Good mood, my foot."
At the owner's question, Park Yonghak turned his head and pretended otherwise.
"What can I get you?"
"What else is there. Come here, you eat squid. No two ways about it."
He tried to hide it. Even so, the pleasure sat clear in his voice.
Even after the car let me out, I had to walk a long, winding road before I arrived.
Grandfather comes to a place like this?
It surprised me. For me, though, the atmosphere couldn't have been more familiar. The moment I stepped into the old restaurant, the smell of stir-fried squid rushed me—hot and red, exactly the sort of thing that belonged beside a glass of soju.
"You're here?"
I bowed my head to Grandfather, then traded a look of greeting with Yugeon, who had gotten there first. The stir-fried squid came out soon enough, and a soju glass was set in front of each of us.
"Th-this is... why..."
My brother looked startled. Grandfather paid that no mind. He cracked the bottle and looked at Yugeon.
"Both hands."
"Pardon?"
Yugeon snatched up the glass in a fluster, and Grandfather poured.
"Jihoon. You ever had a drink?"
"Not yet."
This life only, of course. Ahem.
"Take it."
"Yes."
Soju whispered into the glass. Then Grandfather filled his own, himself. Startled, I reached for it—and his eyes glinted, just barely. The look said it plain. And where did you learn the way of the pour?
"...I saw it in a movie."
I smiled, awkward. Grandfather lifted his glass, and we lifted ours in turn, reading the room.
"Never been curious?"
We only blinked.
"What drink even is, that people call that bitter stuff good and swallow it. I'm asking if you never once wondered."
I had drunk the stuff every day of my last life, and my brother was not the type to take an interest in alcohol. A quiet silence moved through the old shop. Grandfather pinched his brow hard.
"You two are the ones leading companies. Am I right?"
We nodded.
"Workers finish the day, trickle on home, and this soju is what they drink when they want to forget how tired they are. Ought to make you curious at least once, shouldn't it?"
"Not only the workers. The customers who buy what we make—what about them? Every company dinner, what they drink is this soju. This very glass."
He wasn't teaching us because drink was some fine thing. This soju was a small comfort for ordinary people. If you meant to take the measure of other hearts—to feel with them, to understand them—then you had to give your attention to the one glass that held their day.
"Jihoon. You said a chairman is the one who answers for the results."
"Yes."
"You know a great many people's fates hang on a single choice I make?"
"Yes. I know."
"Then is my worry more precious than worrying over the young ones working the line?"
There was no time to answer. He went straight on.
"The moment you take up a fool thought like that, it is over. All of it."
The words struck.
"People who buy our things are ordinary folk. Every last one. You go and rot your head—only I'm great, only I'm special—you think those customers won't know?"
It was the most obvious thing in the world. And yet a chaebol chairman, standing at the very peak of capitalism, was the one saying it. That came to me as something almost new.
And here I thought he'd called us to teach us how to drink...
He must have wanted to tell us about the life held in a glass. Well. The way of drink was a kind of education, too. I grinned. Maybe, as home education went, he sat a cut above Son Woongcheol.
I was smiling, pleased, when Grandfather looked at his glass and spoke.
"One last thing!"
I waited.
Neither of us spoke.
"No one wins against those two. No matter how used to them you think you've gotten, turn your back and you must be afraid. Always. Understand?"
"Yes!"
"I'll take it to heart!"
Only after my brother and I had answered, side by side, could the three of us finally touch glasses. They met with a bright, hard clink.
Meanwhile.
When he first heard he had been released, Son Woongcheol had ached for a glass of soju. He hadn't trusted himself to bear it sober, and the thought of drink had risen on its own. Now it was different. A youth coach. The thought alone set his heart pounding.
Above all, the words President Park Jihoon had tossed off like a joke, as Son Woongcheol slipped out of the office, still circled in his ear.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if you became president of the Korea Football Association?"
"...?"
"M-me?"
"And why wouldn't it work?"
"Even so, how could I..."
"You're going as a Manchester United youth coach, aren't you? On career alone, you won't fall behind anyone in Korea."
A person's life was a strange thing. At the most despairing moment, a spark of hope had caught.
Right. Bite down, and do it.
He had never fallen behind when it came to effort. That much was true.
And it isn't only me...
With the children's lives on his shoulders as well, he would shut his eyes and work himself to death. For real. Son Woongcheol went straight to a large bookstore and pulled every volume he could find—on children's health, development, and growth, and on emotional education and psychological counseling besides. Perhaps because he had taken too many.
"Shall I send them as a parcel?"
At the clerk's question, he answered.
"No. Nothing wrong with my arms and legs. I can carry every one of them."
Son Woongcheol broke into a bright smile, rare for him. He didn't know it himself. It was the first time since the injury that he had shown his teeth and smiled, wide open.
Grandfather's scolding—if scolding was even the word—went on after that. At first I listened properly.
Heh.
Past a certain point, most of my attention went to the stir-fried squid. Did that mean I disliked the time?
As if!
Even counting my previous life, this was the first drinking table I had ever shared with family. That alone already made me the happiest person in the world. My brother, by contrast, had planted his head on the table with a thud and passed clean out.
"Boy. What are you doing?"
"I think he's drunk."
"His first time for real, then."
"Of course. With his personality, where would he have had a drink?"
"Even so. Folding on the third glass. That seem right to you?"
Hmm. To be precise, two and a half. He hadn't even downed them. He'd sipped his way through, and still passing out seemed a little extreme. Ahem. Anyway, Grandfather and I had each emptied a bottle.
One bottle used to be enough to put me under.
That was the previous life. Was it because I was young now? Or because I was sitting in front of Grandfather? I had emptied a bottle in twenty minutes, and still the drunkenness would not come. Not even a pleasant buzz.
This is practically hollow-leg territory.
Grandfather seemed to have felt it too.
"What. You drink often?"
"Oh, come on. As if."
"So it's your first time, and you put it away like this?"
Instead of answering, I scratched the back of my head.
"Today's going to stay with me my whole life, isn't it?"
"Why?"
"It's the day I learned to drink from you, Grandfather. I'll be thinking of it for a long time, won't I?"
Father had learned to drink here too, he'd said. Three generations, the same memory, in the same place!
As if that's an easy thing.
And it wasn't idle feeling, either. Someday, when the day came for my own child to learn to drink, wouldn't I be the first to come looking for this place? I grinned. Just as the talk was about to turn sentimental—
"Quit the useless talk."
Grandfather drew his brows together and brought up business.
"Think you can make a trillion won?"
"I'll have to try."
"Making it isn't the end. A son comes along who spends even more money than you—what are you going to do then?"
Was I imagining it? It felt like more than simple worry. His eyes looked entirely certain.
"Have you heard something?"
At my question, Grandfather gave no answer. He only wore a strange smile.
