The Name on the Envelope
Bong Junoh is one of my favorite directors.
Back in high school I saw Memories of Murder and even dreamed, for a while, of becoming a filmmaker myself. I scraped together money I didn't have and bought the DVD, desperate to own the thing even though I had no machine that could play it.
My favorite of Director Bong's films is Murder.
Parasite is a monument in the history of Korean cinema, no argument there, but if I'm speaking for myself, Murder sits at the very top. That last scene—God.
Anyway.
And there it was: the name of a director I truly loved, planted square across the front of a document envelope.
It could have been someone else with the same name. Still.
Director Bong Junoh graduated from Yonsei, didn't he. Sociology, I think.
Then—!
A catch I'd never seen coming, and I'd stumbled into it just like that?
I swallowed.
No wonder the packet had been absurdly thick.
So I read it.
This is good.
The direction was pure Bong, and the drawings were excellent on top of it. He'd even been diligent; there was a great deal of material, and some of it felt uncomfortably familiar. Two detectives hunting a criminal. A killer who, in the end, is never caught.
Isn't this Memories of Murder?
It wasn't as detailed as the film, of course. It was a short, for one thing, and you could feel the places where his skill hadn't ripened yet.
Right. The student number says he's a freshman.
If someone who had only just started college knocked out a masterpiece overnight, that would have been the stranger thing. Even so, sharpen the characters and put a little flesh on the bones, and it was already close enough to become a feature.
This might actually get interesting.
On the back of the manuscript a home address and a phone number were written out in large letters, along with a line in his own hand. With a strange little smile, I copied Director Bong's contact information down separately.
That afternoon I headed for the Hannam-dong publishing house.
The interior work was finished. All that remained was move-in.
I ought to see it at least once.
From what I'd heard, a whole squad of Seoul National University art-school aces had been thrown at the place near the end of the fit-out, supposedly to leave murals as a gift.
And would you look at that.
The first thing that caught my eye by the entrance was a style I knew. Wasn't that Professor Jo Sudeok's hand? You could tell from the line alone—that characteristic force in the touch. I'd told him to prepare a solo show. Why was he painting a mural?
This is the chairman's building. And I should sit that out? Me? Sit it out? I could never. Absolutely, eternally, categorically never, sir.
It was as if Jo Sudeok's voice were coming out of the work itself. He had to be busy. Tsk.
The wall along the stairs held abstract paintings as well. My guess was the doctoral students, the real players. Had they painted with the sunlight through the windows and the corridor lighting already in mind? Follow those meticulously calculated pictures and you felt yourself being led into some other world.
This isn't a publishing house. It's practically a gallery.
An ordinary person paying ordinary money could never expect quality like this. Call it the result of the battle-tested crew who'd been through the American schedule with me, painting with their whole hearts.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
I went up to the second floor, and there was still a man at work, laying down the last strokes. A familiar back.
"Team Leader?"
The one who spun around in a start was, of course, Jeong Jinwook.
"Oh—you've come, sir?"
"You're painting this yourself?"
"Yes, well. I just... wanted to finish the place where you are with my own hands."
Dead serious. It was nearly done; I couldn't very well tell him to stop. Far from it—if the same picture had been on canvas, I would have wanted to buy it myself. Maybe he read my face. Jeong Jinwook smiled, a little shy.
"It's a sort of retirement piece. I put real care into it. I hope you'll be satisfied..."
"Retirement? You paint something this good and then say a thing like that?"
"Ah, I ought to be putting the weight on the work now, and..."
"I'll give you plenty of leave."
"Sorry?"
"Once Professor Jo Sudeok is back, your load will drop sharply. I'll make sure you get a proper rest then, so keep painting. That solves it, doesn't it?"
I know plenty of people who gave up their dreams because they were poor. I've watched plenty more throw themselves onto the front line of making a living and shove creation to the back. I'd been in similar spots myself, more than once. So I want to look after the people who stay with me—all the more if it's for the sake of making something. Jeong Jinwook had no way of knowing any of that.
"......"
He just stood there looking dazed.
"Talk the details over with the professor later. Understood?"
"Th-thank you."
When I headed for the office, Jeong Jinwook hurried after me.
"Weren't you in the middle of painting?"
"Ah, it's not a retirement piece anyway. No reason to rush."
His salesman patter had improved already. Heh.
"I'll show you around. This is your space, sir."
"Don't tell me I'm using the whole second floor by myself."
"Of course. That's how it should be."
All this, just for me?
"Is it inconvenient?"
What would be inconvenient about space? I wouldn't even come in much, what with school. It just felt like a waste. The floor was big enough for a game of jokgu, that Korean mix of soccer and volleyball played with your feet. Set beside the mold-stinking basement room I'd lived in during my last life, there was no comparison.
Anyway.
The space itself was immaculate, and I liked it. A great span of window, a fine sense of openness—the kind of place that put a smile on your face without trying.
"Once we bring in the furniture you'll be using, you can start right away."
"Hm."
"Have you settled on a concept?"
"Not really..."
"Shall I fill it with pieces by famous designers, then?"
Famous designers. He didn't mean those desks that run fifty thousand dollars apiece, did he? Again?
"The expensive ones go for a hundred thousand."
At that I waved him off.
"Buy something like that and my grandfather will have my hide."
"...?"
"If I throw money around. He gets angry and says I'll be eaten alive later."
"E-eaten alive?"
"Apparently that's a thing."
A building he can more or less accept, because it's an investment. Spend a few hundred thousand on furniture and—God. I shook my head quickly and went on.
"Simple is fine for me. Just make sure the chair is a good one. You know, the kind that actually supports your back."
"I'll proceed as you've said."
I also told him to get the staff the same chairs, the very best. Then we looked over the third floor and the fourth.
Come to think of it, counting me there were two employees, and we were using a building all the way up to the fourth floor...
Did that even make sense? Ahem. Fine. Grow fast enough and it would.
"By the way, Team Leader. What happened with staff housing?"
"I'm sorry. That's... still being looked into."
One glance and the answer was obvious. He felt bad choosing a house for himself. For now he'd be living alone, so a nice place felt wrong, and if he went too cheap he'd feel guilty toward whoever came later. So he kept putting it off. Nothing for it. In a case like this I had to pick it myself.
"There are a lot of houses behind here. Shall we look at just three, starting with the closest?"
"No, I'll hurry and—"
"No. We're already out. Might as well look. I'm the one signing anyway, so there's no harm in seeing them myself."
"Ah, if that's what you'd like..."
An hour later, the contract was done.
It was only a jeonse lease—the Korean arrangement where you put down a large deposit instead of paying monthly rent—so there was nothing burdensome about it. Live in it first; if it suited, we could think about buying in two years. I stole a look at Jeong Jinwook. I hadn't even bought him the house, and still that painfully burdened look. You could see him agonizing over how, exactly, to say thank you.
Well. Fair enough.
The Seoul National appraisal team's lodging was spacious and perfectly decent, so the employee welfare around here might actually have been on the good side.
That aside!
I can't stand awkwardness, so I changed the subject in a hurry.
"That bundle of manuscripts you brought me. A few of them stood out."
"Do you mean... the thick envelope?"
Huh? How did he know? My face must have been answer enough.
"Actually, something odd happened with that one."
He had a lot to say. Jeong Jinwook even straightened up before he began.
"I went to the academic affairs office to collect the submissions. The people there told me there was a peculiar student who brought in a manuscript every single day. I was heading out with the stack, not paying much attention, and I happened to run right into him. Sharp kid, I suppose. He saw the envelope in my hand, came straight over, and said one thing."
"...?"
"Please look at the potential, not the finish."
Hoh.
"So I told him I only deliver them—I have nothing to do with the judging. He kept making his case anyway, with this serious look in his eye. He said time had been short, so he'd had no choice but to build the story around the incident... and as if that weren't enough, he wrote something on a sheet of A4 and slipped it into the manuscript."
I remembered. Maybe because I'd shown interest, Jeong Jinwook went on.
"At first I thought he was just an eccentric. Face to face, listening to him, it felt different."
"How so?"
"A desperation, I suppose—he was going to seize this chance no matter what. I wasn't the only one who felt it. The head of academic affairs even came over and gave him advice."
"The director?"
"Nothing grand, as advice goes. If he was going to send several pieces, why not put them all in one envelope—thicker that way, easier to show the effort. That sort of thing."
Not especially helpful. No judge was going to award extra points just for sending a lot of work.
"But he looked like a man grabbing at straws. He asked us to wait a moment, then came back with a big envelope. That was when I was sure. He really was desperate."
Desperation. If all he wanted was to publish a book, there was no reason to fixate on our contest.
There are plenty of perfectly good publishers.
Why draw a new piece every day and keep submitting?
Why else. The prize money!
A reason a Bong Junoh in his twenties would need money that badly... I had a guess.
I'll have to confirm it.
Once I'd decided, I turned to Jeong Jinwook.
"Team Leader."
Maybe my voice had changed. He took the hint and pulled out his notebook.
"The student you met today. Find out whether he belongs to a film club. If he does, check whether he's planning an independent film."