Persuasion
I answered with the air of a man keeping a careful step of distance, and Lee Hyesun smiled at me, soft and easy. The warmth in her voice sat so far from the tone she had used on Hwang Jiyoung that I found myself feeling sorry for Jiyoung in her place.
"So. If we take it up again, I was thinking of something like this."
"I'm listening."
"Do you know what a support corporation for a multimale is?"
"......A support corporation?"
"Yes. Some people call it sponsoring."
"......That word has an unpleasant ring to it."
"Doesn't it. The word itself is innocent, but put it between a man and a woman and it curdles. Women with nothing but money dirtied it, so if anyone ought to apologize, it's me. That's why I prefer to call it simply a support corporation. And it isn't illegal. It's a perfectly legitimate business."
"Is that so?"
It was a kind of corporation I had never heard of in my life, so I only murmured along and let her talk. My manner seemed to please her. A gentle smile settled over Lee Hyesun's face.
"It looks after a multimale's living and backs his ventures. From the government's side, it cuts the Ministry of Maternity and Childcare's drain on personnel, and it lets them claw back—through corporate tax, at least—some of the tax favors they've granted multimales. That's why they license the things. The advantage is that the money sits beyond the tracing of the financial regulators and the tax service."
It came out of nowhere, and yet it was the sort of thing I couldn't help but read. I let out a breath. So that was it.
"......Hyunji. Is she saying she wants to do this?"
"Ah, you make conversation so easy. Honestly, my head feels clear. Yes. That's right."
Lee Hyesun turned a warm gaze on me, rested an arm along the armrest, propped her chin on her hand, and crossed her legs. The stocking drew taut over the skin it bared, and my eyes went there before I could stop them. I set my molars and held.
"Hyunji says she's thinking of quitting dance."
"......She did?"
"Yes. Knowing my daughter, she probably means to tell you over a date."
"Then things have gone the way you wanted. You must be pleased."
"Oh my. Are you being sarcastic?"
"No. If it sounded that way, I apologize. As I told you before, I only respect Hyunji's choices. Whatever she does, Hyunji is still Hyunji to me."
"......Thank you. Even so, I count this as another debt I owe."
"You don't."
So that was it. I had wondered, the last time we spoke, why she had gone out of her way to confirm our date. This was why.
"Then I suppose I'll have to pretend I don't know."
"......Then I'm more than grateful. How is it you only ever say exactly what I want to hear? I have no intention of interfering in my daughter's love affair. It's only that she's still young."
"I understand. If anything, I ought to thank you for the warning."
"......As expected. You understood at once. Then I don't need to apologize, do I?"
She winked at me as she said it. I smiled quietly, nodded, and answered.
"I'm the one who should be grateful."
I thought I understood what she meant. She had been uneasy that Hyunji had settled a matter this large without consulting me, and she had wanted to tell me beforehand. I was grateful for that. Hear a thing this big sprung on you all at once, and it isn't easy to decide. It felt as though I was coming to owe Lee Hyesun a debt of my own.
"My daughter thinks something this large comes together easily. She grew up that way, and I raised her that way. Truthfully, to me it isn't so grand. You apply for the corporation, move the investment and the capital. Simple. But business is business, and Hyunji has never done anything like this."
"I think I see. You seem worried about the part that was decided without me."
"That's right."
Lee Hyesun let out a long sigh, looked at the wine-colored curtain drawn across the stage, and went on.
"Even a surprise has its limits."
"I think so too."
"At first I wanted to talk her out of it. But in the end I agreed with Hyunji."
She turned the gaze she had kept on the stage toward me and continued, quiet.
"I'm telling you this because what I lived through was so hateful to me. I've held a support corporation myself. By the time I understood it had been a mad choice, it was already too late."
I swallowed the answer I had been about to give and simply looked at her. Lost somewhere in her thoughts, Lee Hyesun turned back to the stage curtain and began to speak as if murmuring to herself.
"Lee Chul-young. Do you know the name?"
Lee Chul-young. A common name, if one were generous about it—but a man of the caliber to come out of Lee Hyesun's mouth could only be one person.
"......You don't mean Hanseong...?"
"That's right. The founding chairman of Hanseong. That perverted old man. That creature is Hyunji's father."
I had no answer. The words had come out close to a growl, and Lee Hyesun's eyes were cold—cold enough that frost might have bloomed white over the wine-colored curtain where her gaze fell. It was a story I had never imagined. If the opening was this shocking, what followed felt like something I was not meant to hear. But Lee Hyesun brushed the corner of her eye and went on.
"Shall I tell you what that man's hobby was?"
"......If it's painful, you don't have to say it."
"No. It's a famous story among a certain set who like to put on airs. His hobby was making virgins bear children."
"......What?"
For a moment I couldn't grasp what she meant. But if I reasoned from the word pervert—surely not. Surely not that.
"......He was a man who liked to force nothing but his own semen into virgin women, get them pregnant, and then savor the swelling of their bellies and the making of the child. Only ignorant twenty-year-old girls. And he insisted the body below had to remain a virgin, so he forced cesarean sections on them. A psycho who, because he wouldn't touch them down there, slaked his lust by every grotesque method he could devise."
"......That's appalling."
"A monster, born of nothing more than the right to decide over sex, the title of multimale, and childbirth as his pretext. The world was even more revolting. So were the papers that, for a few columns of advertising, held him up as a conglomerate magnate contributing to the birth rate—the very embodiment of noblesse oblige. I, at least, was finished with it after a single time, because I was head of the support corporation."
Lee Hyesun sighed, working at her temple as she murmured.
"Even if you're a woman. Even if you want a child. That is not it. To have our desire and our human rights ignored, to be handled like an incubator that exists only to get pregnant—it wounds the pride past bearing."
"......I think I understand."
"In any case, that was how I had to give birth to Hyunji. But I couldn't run. Every last bit of my property had been tied up in the support corporation."
Did the thing really bind a person that tightly? I could hardly believe it. Dissolve a corporation, close it down, and that ought to be the end of it. If Lee Hyesun was right, she was saying closure was impossible.
"It sounds as if you're saying it can't be closed."
"A support corporation cannot be dissolved until the multimale it serves is dead. Close it midway, and the entire capital reverts to the national treasury."
"That can't be right, can it? This isn't some communist state."
"Of course not, because the benefits match the cost. For someone in business, the use of funds the financial regulators can't trace is an enormous privilege. Corporate tax, too—file a return, and the figure you declare is accepted as it stands. Even so, people don't put the money in lightly. A person's heart doesn't last forever."
I thought I understood. It meant you had to keep supporting him even after the affection was gone. Call it support if you like; it was someone else's money, drawn out whenever he pleased. The sort of arrangement that would loosen a man's character in no time.
"I'll speak to Hyunji and have her refuse."
"......That isn't what I meant. I only need you to understand the weight of this support corporation. Just know that Hyunji's heart goes that far."
"......To be honest, it does weigh on me. I have no such thought now, but I'm human, and so is Hyunji. Either of us could change. If a day comes when she has come to dislike me, shouldn't there still be a way for her to escape?"
At that, a soft smile came over Lee Hyesun. She nodded quietly and answered.
"......That's enough. I worried over how to say it, afraid you might take offense."
"If it was that hard, you needn't have said anything. I'm not that stupid. Hearing Hyunji's proposal, I likely would have refused."
"I'm not hoping for a refusal. I was asking you to think about it seriously. I had to lay a card of my own on the table, or you would never trust me, Shinwoo."
She drew a deep sigh, fidgeted at her temple, and went on.
"......I got a little worked up. I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"......You really are a curious one, Shinwoo."
"Have I done something wrong?"
"Oh my, no. You listen so well that my mouth keeps running ahead of me before I notice."
She winked as if she had never worn that bleak look at all. I smiled quietly and nodded. Perhaps I ought to change the air.
"It's only that I enjoy talking with you as well."
"......With me?"
I nodded at Lee Hyesun, whose eyes had gone perfectly round, as if she were hearing such a thing for the first time in her life.
"Yes. You're Hyunji's mother, too. I know very well that you've always spoken kindly to me. This conversation included."
"......Oh my. And you speak so well. Your sense of things is good, too."
If it hadn't been for Kim Do-hoon, I might never have had cause to think of Lee Hyesun twice. She laughed—a bright, nasal, melting laugh—and I smiled quietly and listened.
"Anyway, Hyunji's father put me through a great deal of misery. My private life was mine to bear, but playing the part of his wallet grew unbearable. I can't even say how much he bled out of me expanding that business of his."
"That will never happen. I can promise you that. I'm not built to be that kind of man."
"I know. And honestly, it's all right if you treat my daughter like a wallet."
"......Pardon?"
"I know it isn't something to say after I've just frightened you. But capital on the scale that would go into the corporation—spend every last bit of it, for all I care. And if it's you, Shinwoo, I find I can trust you a little. You've been keeping a promise I made on a whim of my own. Still, even if it displeases you, there was something I had to say, which is why I brought this up."
She looked straight at me. I met that gaze without a word, and Lee Hyesun smiled as if satisfied, then continued.
"The house, at least—let Hyunji and me see to that. I'm more grateful than I can say that you're making my poor daughter happy, the child born without love. But I didn't raise my daughter to be treated carelessly, either."
Five minutes of talk was enough to see how much love Hyunji had grown up in. I found myself seeing Lee Hyesun anew. Had her character been even a little more twisted, she might have taken that anger out on Hyunji, the daughter she had not wanted. Kim Do-hoon's account lost a great deal of its weight all at once. The Lee Hyesun before my own eyes was a good mother who loved her daughter.
No. She was a woman.
"......I understand."
And I agreed with what she had said. It wasn't only Hyunji. I didn't want to force Ra-hee, or the others, to hold out in cramped quarters until I could earn the money myself. It seemed I wouldn't be able to refuse. In the honesty of Lee Hyesun's story, I felt her heart reach me.
"......If anything, I should apologize. Perhaps I've been too naive."
"There's no need to apologize. If anything, I could see you had a stubborn streak, and I was wondering how I was supposed to persuade you."
Lee Hyesun, who had been watching me with a look that smoldered, quiet and intent, went on as if whispering.
"So it's true. It isn't money that matters. It's something else."
"I'm trying to live that way. Lately I've been feeling how hard it is."
"That's society. It's only that I've never met anyone like you, Shinwoo. What you decided today—that was because of my story, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Hyunji is precious to me too, and I don't want to make her suffer. There isn't even enough time to give her nothing but good things."
"......I see. Now I can believe it. And... thank you."
And the eyes she turned on me grew steadily moist, steadily soft. Looking into them, I felt one side of my chest give a small, unbidden flutter. This couldn't happen. She was Hyunji's mother.
That was the moment.