The Offer
…Well. I understand the feeling, but this is a bit much.
I wanted to tell him it amounted to nothing more than us getting first touch of a baby's dinner bowl, but with a face that grave, the words wouldn't quite come. Truth be told, I found that unshaken confidence a little impressive. I could never have said something like that out loud, no matter what I felt. Whether it was only because I liked the subject myself, I couldn't say, but I sympathized with it far more than I ever had with Changsu's figurines. Not that any woman whose breasts a man's hands could actually sink into existed in the real world, the way Kim Do-hoon described her. He smiled gently and went on.
"That is what Dowon is. It began when multimales who truly love breasts—no. Women—gathered together, and it grew as those who agreed with our philosophy joined us. Valhalla is far larger in scale, but our history runs longer."
He could certainly draw out a speech about having gathered for the sake of breasts. As he moved on to Valhalla, his expression hardened by degrees, and I watched him in silence. Kim Do-hoon drew on his cigarette, held the smoke a moment, then let it out and continued.
"The men of Dowon respect a woman's individuality. However mad he may be for women, however wayward his lust or twisted his tastes, we believe a truly ideal multimale must be able to take even a nature like that into his arms with warmth. We know that is the royal road to conquering a woman completely. True possession is not mere outward obedience. One must have her heart, wouldn't you say? And the emotion, the satisfaction, the sense of conquest one feels, watching a woman accept that and change—"
He clenched his fist as if the feeling itself were a thrill. On this, I agreed fiercely. The talk of breasts had been a bit much, but here I could nod at once. Seeing it, Kim Do-hoon smiled softly and went on.
"We are not hoping for wooden dolls who lie blank on a bed, or who cannot manage ordinary life at all."
It felt as if he had seen straight through me, and I flinched. That, too, matched what I preferred exactly. He must have caught the start I gave, because he murmured again, smiling gently.
"Mm. Just as I thought."
A moment later his face hardened.
"But Valhalla is rather different."
"…The exact opposite, I take it?"
"You could see it that way. They hold that a woman is a man's accessory, and that a truly good woman is one who is remade to a multimale's tastes—and who enjoys being remade. To them, the physical pain that follows, and the scream of a soul when the mind is twisted, are the very proof of conquest."
"…Isn't that a crime?"
"No. A Subordination Contract exists, you see. Of course, without the woman's consent it would indeed be a crime. But the law created when the population structure grew even more severe after the Great Gyeongsin Famine protects that contract, and abolishing it now is difficult. The records say it was actually effective then, and it proved effective during the Korean War as well, so—"
I had heard this story somewhere. In those days simply eating and staying alive was so hard that people with any margin took concubines, housemaids, and servants into their households under one pretext or another and called them family. I didn't know about this world, but I remembered grandfathers with concubines out in the countryside turning up as documentary material in the one before. Back then, I'd heard, it was considered an act of mercy. So this was what that mercy had twisted into.
"Already more than half the National Assembly has connections with Valhalla. We compete at every general election, but there is nothing to be done. They like money, certainly, but it is a place where votes weigh even more."
Call it a contract if you liked. It was barely different from coercion with no real choice. What made it possible was who held the initiative. Did refusing a proposal from the one who held it seem easy? Even bringing up a word during a salary negotiation was difficult. How much more so in a world where merely dating a man was little more than a dream? I used that leverage myself from time to time, but I could stand by it. I tried not to cross the line from play into something else.
"Even if she hates it, there's no way she wouldn't agree. The initiative belongs to the man."
"Precisely. Every bit of initiative rests with the multimale, and a woman cannot refuse that contract. There are countless women for whom even such a proposal is no better than a dream. And there are quite a few multimales who hold that philosophy. The victims are numerous as well."
"Calling them victims sounds right. It's no different from venting their own desires—no. From excreting them."
Kim Do-hoon smiled thinly, nodded, and continued.
"Our view is exactly that. Valhalla, of course, will not even accept the word victim. Rather, they drive the woman toward breach of contract and file suit for the financial and temporal damages inflicted on the multimale. Once a lawsuit is added to a state of mental and physical ruin, most ordinary women cannot endure it. And because they signed out of a greed they couldn't master, they aren't properly protected."
"…They'd hardly be in their right minds."
Set gender aside, and anyone sued in a situation like that would obviously suffer. I wasn't ignorant of that. I had caught the word broken and softened it, and Kim Do-hoon nodded as if he understood. Even so, I could feel that my own position was slightly ambiguous. I didn't sympathize with Valhalla in any deep way, but my own inclinations let me understand them a little. They sounded far too extreme, though. If I had to choose one, it would be Dowon. For now, I let the conversation go on.
"Yes. That is what a failed conditioning looks like. And once a woman is ruined, the world is full of replacements."
"That's rather ugly to hear."
"Yes. And I came here convinced that you, Mr. Lee, would fit well among us. The reactions you've shown just in this conversation have only deepened that conviction. Valhalla is probably aware of you as well, but they will not come calling the way I have."
"Because they think I wouldn't fit with them?"
"Yes. Does that place appeal to you?"
"Not in the slightest."
Of course, not answering so flatly—hearing both sides and weighing them—would clearly have been more to my advantage. Listening to Kim Do-hoon alone, though, Valhalla sounded nearly as serious as a criminal organization. Still, one thing nagged at me.
"Then if they're the larger power, the image of multimales couldn't possibly be this good, could it? No one so far has shown any sign of rejecting me, or of disliking me."
"That is largely the result of our efforts. That Dowon and Valhalla fought is in the textbooks, but ordinary people take it for nothing but the past. These days they know it as an old story, at best. And because both sides understand that a quarrel among multimales is never purely a good thing and keep quiet about it, the world has forgotten even further."
"…So Valhalla still existing means you're using them."
"You are wonderfully quick on the uptake. Yes. If their own conduct were exposed, Valhalla itself would have no choice but to see its actions constrained, and if women came to distrust multimales, their own leash would grow precarious. So they do not reveal their affiliation. From what we've investigated, they disclose it only vaguely when they present a woman with a contract. Absurd, isn't it? It amounts to them admitting that what they do is wrong."
"It does seem that way."
"Thanks to that, we have been free to step to the front and cultivate the best image we can. The headcount that forms a base of support is simply different, so those in power—who must chase votes on account of the sheer number of women—do not favor us. In every other respect, the quality of our membership is far superior. In law, in medicine, in business, and in education, those who support us are more numerous by a degree that hardly bears comparison. Valhalla is, well. You may think of them as having nothing but numbers. Most of them are men struggling just to get by."
If anything, that made me tilt my head. A multimale received at least a basic stipend for no reason other than being one. As if he had read the thought off my face, Kim Do-hoon went on.
"There is one thing we won over all those long years of fighting. The moment a Subordination Contract is signed, state support is cut off. The flaw is that, with every benefit gone, it only made them band together all the more tightly among themselves."
"…And you didn't mention support for the women, so that must still be in place. Which means…"
"Yes. Support for pregnancy and childbirth cannot be abolished. They, too, became unable to sustain themselves unless they kept gathering women—if only to stick a straw into them. No. To siphon off their stipends. On this point, our predecessors did make a mistake. It is also why those men cling all the harder to the powerful. But we are hardly in an ordinary position ourselves, so they cannot even propose some bill meant to restrain us."
"So that's how the balance holds."
"Yes. We have fought, and we have competed, but the damage to both sides was never slight. The blow to our side, with its high social standing, was especially severe. Valhalla, though, would be unable to put even gruel in their mouths. So at present we may growl at each other, but there is no direct friction. You might think of them as North Korea, brandishing a nuclear weapon they cannot actually fire and swinging it about like a club. We take a bruise now and then, when one of those missiles they wave around happens to hit us."
"I understand everything you've explained so far. But."
I scratched my cheek and sank into thought. I didn't trust Kim Do-hoon's words a hundred percent. What mattered was whether accepting this offer would gain me anything. Joining Dowon meant making an enemy of Valhalla. Was there anything I needed badly enough to go making enemies for it?
"If I join Dowon, that means standing against Valhalla. Is there a reason I should join, even at the cost of making an enemy?"
"A precise judgment. If you join Dowon, there are three benefits."
"Such as? A discount on public parking?"
If the next words out of his mouth were something like a fare discount on public transit, I was done on the spot. Making enemies over a perk that amounted to nothing wasn't my style. I could live quietly, just as I was, and be more than happy. At my words Kim Do-hoon's eyes went round. He burst out laughing, clapping his hands, and drew a round silver case from inside his jacket. What was that—the blue cat-robot's belly pocket? Doraemon's?
"Ha ha—one moment. You are quite amusing."
He dropped the cigarette butt into the case, sighed, wiped at his eyes, and went on.
"First, a tax benefit. Limited to the multimale himself, but fifty percent of every tax is reduced. This stacks with the existing multimale tax benefit. In other words, you would pay only a quarter of what an ordinary man pays. There is a ceiling, of course. Should your annual income ever exceed a hundred billion won, we can discuss it again then."
"How is that even possible?"
"Because we control the Ministry of Maternity and Childcare. Every decision regarding the operation of its facilities and the benefits granted to multimales rests with us. King Jeongjo, who was a member of Dowon, guaranteed us permanent autonomy, and since we conduct the audits ourselves, you needn't worry. There is a line, of course."
An annual income of a hundred billion won was a figure that didn't even feel real. More than that, what he'd said next was a dangerous remark, wasn't it? It was practically a confession of corruption. But the confident look on his face, as if none of it mattered, made me wonder if I was the one overreacting. Kim Do-hoon, who had been smiling quietly as he watched me, lowered his voice.
"…When the time comes to pay acquisition tax and capital gains tax, I can promise you will feel just how large this benefit is."
"I imagine so."
As expected of another multimale, he hadn't missed that a house was what I was agonizing over. At my reply, though, he looked into my eyes again and pressed the point once more.
"I would ask you to think it through carefully. This is a benefit on acquisition tax and capital gains tax, no less."
"…Ah."
"Yes. Precisely that. And a tip, if I may. Make use of it after June, once the property tax for the year has been assessed, and you can enjoy a good half of the year in rather fine style."
In other words, he was telling me to buy property. Now. He was probably circling around saying it outright, worried that speaking too plainly might be a problem for someone tied to the Ministry. Which raised the question of whether everything he had already told me counted as normal. If anything, that seemed like the bigger problem.
"The other two are not state support, strictly speaking. Do you remember the card I showed you earlier?"
"Yes. Of course."
"It is a benefit included on that card. Explaining every detail would be complicated, but you may regard it as a substitute for a Republic of Korea electronic passport. Present it when entering most countries, and you will receive treatment on par with a diplomat's, along with the use of a diplomatic pouch—small, but a diplomatic pouch all the same. You need only refrain from anything pointless."
"I have absolutely no intention of doing anything dangerous."
"A sound view. Furthermore, simply link the credit card you already use, and a discount of thirty percent or more applies automatically in the relevant fields—within the limits the margin allows, of course. The effect is even better if you tie it to a Hanseong card. You receive Hanseong Group support without a separate application."
And then, once again, Kim Do-hoon quietly inclined his head toward me and whispered.