A Name in the Fog
"We've ended up together like this. That's a bond, isn't it? How about a simple dinner tonight, just to mark it?"
Ryunosuke's proposal came brimming with nerve. The man clearly didn't know me. There are professors who start teaching on the very first day of the semester, aren't there? That was my style. Ahem.
"The schedule is extremely tight."
"Sir, if it's the story, I can draft it in no time—"
"An original... story?"
Ryunosuke, parched for a debut, let his mouth fall open. Suzuki, by contrast, looked as if a thunderbolt had just struck him. Sure enough, he asked.
"A seri—a serialization?"
His face still had no confidence in it whatsoever. But—
"Yuji will handle the story. Mr. Suzuki, all you have to do is draw."
Afraid the project might slip away, Ryunosuke rushed to cut in.
"I-it isn't only the story! From the moment I send the storyboards, I'll deliver them nearly finished. Trace the lines and a panel comes out. That works, doesn't it?"
He was offering that much consideration. Suzuki had no grounds left to refuse, and could only nod.
In that case—!
"Whose word do you think this is? If there isn't a slot, we'll make one. The prime position there is—right in front of Dragon Planet. I'll have it ready and waiting."
Was it thanks to having the pecking order settled in advance? The effect showed at once. I turned to Ryunosuke.
"Food only has to deliver nutrition. A delivered lunchbox suits me perfectly. Heh."
Okay. That was as far as it went.
"Then we start today?"
Late that night, Jo Sudeok and I walked the streets of Tokyo. The urgent business was more or less behind us.
If I'd been an adult... a little celebration, tempura, a cold draft beer. Ahh. The thought alone was happiness. Reality, though, was what it was. We made for an old shop that kept late hours and, there, made short work of a bowl of udon apiece.
Maybe because he'd done real work for the first time in a while, Jo Sudeok looked faintly elated.
"Night falls, and people turn terribly sentimental, don't they."
"...?"
"I didn't know it myself until I met you, sir. Would you believe it—there are two selves inside me. Jo Sudeok, when he takes up a brush! And David Cho, whose heart pounds the moment business is in front of him!"
"David Cho?"
"My business name. We have entered the age of the global village, so one really ought to—"
Global village. Now there was a phrase I hadn't heard in a very long time. Heh.
"Anyway, working alongside you, I feel as if I've discovered a new me."
"You didn't have a drink behind my back, did you?"
"Heh heh. Do I look drunk?"
"Well. A little."
"It's been a long time since I worked with you, sir. I suppose that's why I'm in such a good mood."
"Now that you mention it, it's been a very long time since I came overseas, too."
"Hasn't it? The old days come back, and I like it. I like it a great deal. Heh heh heh."
The moment he said it, the drink I'd been barely holding off became a desperate need. Jo Sudeok seemed to feel much the same. He soothed the regret with a glass of cold water, then went on.
"Sir, is the plan proceeding well?"
"Which plan?"
"That grand ambition of yours. Not inheriting the company..."
Ah.
"I am privy to your plan, after all. And yet the Chairman gathers his distinguished guests and introduces you, and—heavens, my heart nearly dropped out of my chest."
"He did that?"
"How could he not? At this rate, won't our CEO end up inheriting Hyeon-gang..."
"You really were worried, weren't you?"
"Of course. Deep down... a question did occur to me. Why shouldn't you inherit it... Ahem. But you don't want to, so—"
"Inherit it, and all you get is suffering."
"Right. Nothing but suffering..."
In that instant a thin thread of doubt rose between Jo Sudeok's brows. Sure enough, he asked, as if he truly wondered.
"But... aren't you suffering even now?"
"..."
He had a point. The irony of sprinting myself to death toward the goal of never working. What can you do.
"It's like senior year."
"You mean you only grind until you get into college?"
"Yes. After that, the idea is that I loaf for the rest of my life."
Jo Sudeok nodded. He looked sorry, but his eyes said that if it was my choice, he would trust it and follow. Maybe that was the early-member effect. There was a real fondness between Professor Jo Sudeok and me.
I'll say it again. A night like this, a good man across the table, exactly one drink.
Aish.
Stay any longer, and the craving would only grow more desperate. Jo Sudeok must have felt the same.
"Shall we get up?"
"My seat was just starting to make me sweat, actually."
He rose without a backward glance.
Meanwhile, an untimely meeting was underway at Daisho headquarters.
"I want to join the development."
"Me too."
Hideo's answer was no. Of course it was. Even so, the developers' case had a certain validity.
"The team lead is a Daisho employee too, and he's already helping."
"If we join in, wouldn't his burden get lighter?"
At that point even Hideo had nothing left to say. The situation being what it was, the meeting had been called late into the night, and once the floor was open the developers pressed their opinions even more vigorously.
"If we'd never known, that would be one thing. But now that we know a project like this exists... how are we supposed to just sit on our hands?"
They understood the practical problem, of course. This was, in the end, company against company. Perhaps that was why a man representing one side of management finally responded. Park Yugeon.
"I'm hardly worthy of interest this intense. I imagine you've offered to join out of respect for Mr. Hideo, but whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that I'm grateful."
Park Yugeon bowed to the developers, then went on.
"Headquarters staff dispatched to a partner company... it isn't as if there's no way."
The solution he offered was simple. The most realistic one, and terms Daisho headquarters itself could accept.
"In exchange for help from your headquarters people, what if we raised the royalty rate we pay Daisho?"
Faces around the table asked, without quite asking, whether a cut in revenue was really all right.
"On one condition. Everyone who chooses to be dispatched comes to Korea."
"...!"
"Vacation ends soon. I can't cross over to Kyoto every day after school, and we can't run the whole thing by phone every time, either..."
"If that's possible, a little less revenue is fine. We'll bear it."
Had the offer caught them off guard?
"Ah... is it even safe? They're still under an armistice."
"The dictatorship bothers me more than that..."
The developers began spilling their worries, each in his own way. At that point Hideo seemed to find something to say after all.
"You heard him. Only people who can go work in Korea stay. Otherwise I don't see this conversation going any further."
Five minutes later, only two developers remained in the room. Hideo turned to Park Yugeon.
"Send two developers and take a higher royalty on top of it... Headquarters would still say no, though, wouldn't they?"
"..."
"What's more, one of them joined two months ago. A new hire. No track record whatsoever."
In short, the air in the room suggested they might as well pretend none of it had happened. But Park Yugeon couldn't give it up so easily. They needed people willing to work in Korea. That fact hadn't changed.
"Could I see both of their profiles?"
"Pardon?"
"I think I need to consult the CEO."
"A-at this hour?"
Hideo, having objected, thought better of it almost at once. It was a call with CEO Park Jihoon. Where work was concerned, here was a man who would pick up at four in the morning and smile.
"Please wait just a moment. I'll write the profiles in English and show them to you right away."
Rrriiing!
The moment I got back to the hotel room, the phone was clamoring. What now, at this hour? I lifted the receiver, and my brother's voice came through. The situation was simple enough.
"So just to borrow two people, we're looking at several hundred million won going up in smoke."
"We really need the developers."
"Hmm."
I was just thinking it would be reckless to decide with no information at all when my brother went on, as if he'd read my mind.
"I got both their profiles. I'll tell you."
"Natsume Eiji. This one's got some experience. He worked on Super Orlando. A real talent in level design."
The Super Orlando team meant Hideo's people. All right. He passed.
"The second one's a new hire. Kurosawa Takeshi. Graduated with excellent marks from the College of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts."
"That's all?"
"Yeah. They say he's only been with the company two months."
He had to be thrown into live work at once. What good was a university diploma? On paper alone, the man was no help at all.
But.
"What was the name?"
"Kurosawa Takeshi."
"Kurosawa Takeshi..."
I turned the name my brother had given me over slowly. Where had I heard it? Familiar, no question... but it didn't slam into place the way Ryunosuke had. More like a thick fog hung in front of the name Kurosawa Takeshi.
Hmm.
Waiting didn't look likely to lift that fog. The decision didn't take me long.
"So we give up a little royalty. So what."
"Really?"
If we failed to clear a hundred billion won in sales, it hardly mattered to me how much profit came in. And besides—
That name... I'm sure I've heard it.
Right. They were willing to come all the way to Korea and work. Call it scratching a lottery ticket. The bet wouldn't cost me much.
"Then I'll meet with headquarters tomorrow and call you once there's an answer."
Somehow the call ended without a single how-are-you, nothing but the work. And yet, for some reason, I liked that quite a lot. Maybe I really had started to see my brother as a proper partner.
I grinned.
In any case.
Developers we'll be working with in Korea...
The team was more or less assembled. It was about time to start preparing for the trip home.