The Original Gorillong
"Boss, it's gotten awfully dark."
"What? Already?"
"Yes. They say it's time to close."
He wasn't wrong. The arcade had emptied out, and the owner was making his rounds, killing the power on the machines one by one. I scratched at my head.
"Sorry to keep you waiting so long."
"Not at all. You were having such a good time, Boss, I ended up enjoying myself right along with you."
I was about to say we ought to go when footsteps sounded. Step, step. A small East Asian man came into the arcade in neat business casual. Not Korean. Not a chance. Japanese, if I had to guess.
On any other day I would have let him pass. But the face snagged at something familiar, and I caught myself staring outright. A stare that open is rude by nature. Maybe it was only that I was an eleven-year-old kid; the man didn't seem to mind much. He glanced around, spotted the owner, and hurried over. A few words passed between them.
"No. No, no. We're already packed to the rafters."
The owner refused, flat and final.
"Come on. If the thing's that much fun, what are you doing out hustling it in the dead of night? Leave it alone and the orders will pile up on their own."
The English was short, but I could follow the shape of it well enough. A Japanese man on a sales call, and a shopkeeper turning him down.
Where have I seen that man?
Had turning eleven wrecked my memory? I scratched at my head again.
Doesn't feel like it's going to come to me anytime soon.
Nothing for it. Tonight, the only move was to leave. I turned to the interpreter.
"It's gotten very late. I'm sorry. Let's head back."
The next morning I called Jo Sudeok, then headed down to the hotel restaurant. He was already seated, immaculate in a suit.
"The work's finished, hasn't it? Why put yourself through a suit?"
"I'm reporting to you, Boss. Of course I have to observe the forms."
"A report that'll be over in a minute."
"Real professionals pour everything they have into that one minute."
There was no winning once the man got his mouth going.
"Boss, if you're hungry, perhaps the meal first..."
"No. I'll take the report first."
"Ah. Yes. Then I'll come straight to it. Dürer's piece arrived in Germany before dawn today, and once headquarters confirmed receipt, the balance was deposited. With that, the Dürer matter is entirely closed."
"Beautifully done."
"And I'll keep showing you beautiful work."
There it was again, that retriever-bright face. I let out a short breath of a laugh.
"Oh, there's one more thing to report."
"...?"
"I met that fellow Martin yesterday. It felt wrong to send him off with nothing, so we talked about this and that..."
"And?"
"A remarkably unusual young man."
"Unusual doesn't begin to cover it."
"The hiring conditions had a great many peculiarities of their own. I judged we'd have a hard time finding anyone on those terms, so... I set the interviews to more ordinary criteria, as far as I could."
"You mean the authentication team."
"Yes. I've called in every professorial connection I have and lined up some solid recommendations. We should be able to put a team together before long."
"Knowing you'll be with them puts me at ease, Professor."
"It's your work, Boss. Of course I have to put my back into it."
Jo Sudeok put on that slick smile again.
"Did you rest well yesterday?"
"Goodness. You packed the day full."
"I'm thinking of heading out again after breakfast."
"Where to, today?"
"Ah... I see..."
He let the rest of it trail, then slowly opened his mouth.
"Of course. That's what's normal. It is, and yet... you're rather exceptional, Boss."
"Exceptional? I'm just an ordinary student."
A third-generation chaebol heir, a four-time winner of the New Spring Literary Contest, and on top of that a man who had made thirty billion won today. Ordinary, my foot.
And I had the nerve to say it out loud.
Embarrassed, I nudged the subject aside.
"Once the team is together, I plan to head straight home."
"So the real authentication will happen in Korea."
"I have a feeling it's going to take quite a while."
"Yes. I'll keep that in mind."
After that we ate a simple breakfast. Toast, butter, eggs, bacon, the same as always. A hotel meal down to the last crumb.
Mm.
Maybe it was simply time to start missing home cooking. All at once my family came to mind: a steaming pot of doenjang-jjigae, that salty soybean-paste stew, and kimchi beside it.
Wait. Before that... what?
F-family?
A good while had passed, and the word was still awkward in my mouth. Ahem. Better eat and get to the arcade. Flustered, I went on stabbing the innocent bread with my fork.
At that same hour, in Seoul, in Hannam-dong, Park Yonghak took a short report from his chief secretary.
"Thirty billion?"
"Yes. We confirmed it was deposited into the young master's account today."
"And the tax?"
"Schultz paid it on his behalf, I'm told."
"Ha!"
Startled, Park Yonghak looked out the window. Darkness had settled over the garden, as if the grounds were quietly waiting on the dawn.
"So the picture our Jihun got hold of... that hard-nosed German went and bought it, and paid the tax besides? That what you're tellin' me?"
"That's correct."
"What kind of picture makes a man do a thing like that?"
"They say it's a Dürer last drawing. An architect in Boston had it in his collection."
"So Jihun bought the picture off some architect in Boston?"
"Ah. Well. It doesn't seem he paid money for it."
"...?"
"Videotapes. Yes. He handed over videotapes he'd brought from Korea, and came back with the piece. That's how it looks."
The chief secretary hastily added an explanation about baseball. The Boston Red Sox, and Sun Dongyeol.
"They say the man wouldn't have moved for money if you'd killed him and brought him back. Professor Jo Sudeok was at his wits' end, and then the young master walked in with the tapes..."
"And the whole thing sorted itself out just like that?"
"Yes."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
"I'm sorry to say it, but from everything we've been able to learn..."
"For crying out loud."
Put it all together. The boy had walked in with a handful of tapes and walked out with a Dürer. Then he'd turned around and sold the thing for thirty billion won. A kid still wet behind the ears, and he'd had Germany's big three sweating over it.
"Then why hasn't the little rascal called even once?"
"Sir?"
"He goes all the way out to America, he ought to let us know he's all right, shouldn't he?"
"W-well, he's been so busy with the work..."
"What? You sidin' with that rascal Jihun?"
Instead of answering, the chief secretary stole a glance at the chairman. The brow was knotted tight enough to look furious, and yet the lifted corner of his mouth showed no sign of coming down. Not anger at all. The happiest face in the world, if anything. The boy was a credit to him, and he wanted to see him soon, so he was only throwing a tantrum. Inside, he had to be prouder than anyone.
"Well? Why so quiet?"
"I'm sorry. Then... shall I tell him to come home at once, even now?"
It was a question tossed out half in jest.
"Enough, I said! A boy who won't even make one phone call — what's so precious about him!"
Chairman Park roared words he didn't mean, at the top of his lungs.
I stayed at the arcade until late. It had started as an imitation of a thoughtless child. Click. Click-click. By now I was half enjoying the situation itself. Genuinely thrilled, as if I really were eleven. Tch.
As closing drew near, the owner began shutting the machines down one after another. Time to head back, then. I was just hauling my stiff body up when I stopped.
Huh?
The Japanese man from yesterday had come back. Same business casual, and the same pamphlet as the night before in his hand.
"Good evening!"
He belted the greeting out on purpose. For all the good it did him. The owner pretended not to see and started in on the cleaning.
"Sir, I made a special request to headquarters in Japan. I begged them — pleaded with them — so that only this shop could get the boards at a special price..."
"Excuse me?"
"I take your machine, I've got to pull one of the ones I've already got. You know that."
"..."
"I'd have to think twice even if you were giving the thing away. So why do you keep telling me to buy it?"
The owner had raised his voice, then seemed to remember I was there and quietly took the edge off it.
"We're closed and I've got to clean up, so hurry up and get out."
"Ah, where's the broom? I'm Japanese, so I happen to be rather good at cleaning."
"I said that's enough. Out."
"Then at least let me stack the chairs."
I didn't need anyone to tell me. That man would be back tomorrow.
Because there isn't any other way.
How could I fail to know that feeling? Back when I'd debuted and still couldn't get a single manuscript request. Just leave it there. Leave it, and it became nothing but trash. They would never so much as glance at it. There were times I'd waited outside for hours, until the editor came out for a smoke. See a face often enough, and maybe they'd read it once. Effort aside, those were days when you had no choice but to lean on someone else's goodwill.
Maybe that was why the past came up. What was happening in front of me didn't feel like somebody else's trouble.
Hm. When I was small, I'd thought an arcade was nothing but a happy place. Grown, I could see it for what it was: a place where a salesman had to come every night and bow his head.
"Sir, I'm terrific with a wet mop."
"It's fine. I said I'll do it."
I left the two of them bickering and was just stepping out of the shop when a dull sound came from behind me. Thud. Then a short groan.
"Ah..."
"Th-that's why I said I'd do it. Are you — are you all right?"
I turned. The Japanese man was sitting on the floor where he'd landed, and red pamphlets lay scattered all around him.
"I was only trying to take the mop... I swear, it wasn't on purpose."
While the owner helped him up, I walked over. A man had fallen. It felt wrong to just pass him by. The papers were half soaked from the wet mop. I picked the pamphlets up one by one, and because it seemed a shame to throw them out, I simply held one. My eyes went to the center of the print.
"..."
A fierce-faced gorilla looked back at me. Under it, lettered dot by dot, was the copy.
What a tacky name. The thought lasted only a moment.
Wait!
What? Gorillong?
Startled, I looked for the company mark. The bottom of the sheet. My eyes locked on a single line.
Daisho?
Sure enough, at the tail of the pamphlet, the words sat almost shyly: Daisho America.