Catastrophe
Han Chae-kyung, born in 1988, stood before me.
On the surface, she looked surprisingly intact.
But up close, I could see two of her gel nails were cracked. You could dismiss it as just fingernails, but it was ultimately proof of a mental breakdown.
"Come with me, just for a moment." (73 / 887 / 1 year 7 months ago)
"You can speak to me right here."
"Do you really want that? Then Officer Joo Sung-hyun will be in trouble..."
"I won't be the one in trouble."
She didn't respond immediately, holding out for a moment. There was a reason she needed to stall for time.
In the meantime, I replayed her birth year in my mind.
1988.
In the sex industry, she belonged to a transitional generation — one of the golden cohorts.
Compared to the 1987-born women, her older sisters, she was marginally behind or on par. She was slightly ahead of the 1985-born generation.
It wasn't that there was anything wrong with being born in 1988. It was simply that living through an era of intense influx naturally produced more prostitutes.
The last generation to enter during the decline of the traditional brothel districts. And the peak generation of the first wave of conditional women.
The era of overseas sex work part-time jobs had also begun in earnest around this time.
Even with the most conservative estimate, at least 20,000 women. Including short-term workers, more than 30,000 women born in 1988 had been prostitutes, either currently or formerly.
"Officer Joo Sung-hyun. It'll only take a moment." (73 / 887 / 1 year 7 months ago)
"What exactly... Alright, I understand. Please follow me."
Pretending I couldn't win, I led Chae-kyung to a place I'd scouted in advance — a multipurpose room on the second floor.
"How did I end up in this... Haha..."
Even though she was in this state now, Han Chae-kyung had been the most uniquely successful woman among her generation of prostitutes.
How many women born in 1988 could be placed above her?
Perhaps a woman who married a chaebol third-generation heir or someone who made a fortune in cryptocurrency. Or maybe an 1988-born woman who got picked up by the entertainment industry, successfully laundered her identity, and established herself as a celebrity... she might be living better than Han Chae-kyung.
But there was no doubt she was a successful prostitute.
"Because of that word you carelessly spat out in front of him last time... Really, because of that one word, I... No, never mind. What's the point of saying this now? Let's just get to the point. As you know, my situation has become difficult."
"I'm not interested."
"Just listen to me!"
That was why she was still struggling.
Because she had too much to lose. And too much to look forward to.
I understood her mindset. With even her husband turned against her, how anxious must she be?
The finishing blow I had prepared was actually made possible by her desperation.
"Officer Joo Sung-hyun. The situation is very urgent. Please, you have to..."
"I'll assume you won't ask me to help you."
"...!"
"I'm just a low-level civil servant in the General Affairs Office. I have no desire to get involved in politicians' private lives."
At my response, Chae-kyung's face contorted as if recalling the recent torment she'd endured.
She wore a subtly twisted smile, and wrinkles had formed between her brows.
Her hands fidgeted... She looked like she wanted to slap my cheek.
If she'd actually hit me, at least it would have been some release. But Han Chae-kyung managed to keep her rationality intact.
Useless restraint, but I was grateful for it.
"Five hundred million."
"Councilor. What do you mean?"
"If things go well as planned, five hundred million... Yes. I'll put five hundred million through a safe channel."
She was already mentioning specific amounts, saving me time. Given Chae-kyung's state, even gentle probing would have eventually led here, but saving time was still saving time.
"I won't listen. I can already guess what you're planning..."
"Your monthly salary is about 2.5 million won, right?" (73 / 887 / 1 year 7 months ago)
Per year.
"I'm offering more than ten years of your salary. So just do one little errand... With your skills, Officer Joo, it won't be difficult at all."
"Councilor. Please stop."
"Just listen to me first. Okay?"
She knew I wasn't on her side, yet she was still saying things like this...
It didn't seem like she was simply cornered. She appeared to have made at least some preparations. Right after we were alone, I'd seen her hand slip into her bag and come out. Was she turning on the recording blocker she'd shown me last time?
"What exactly are you trying to make me do?"
"My husband's private life is quite... No. Very extravagant. The reason he's hospitalized now is all karma. You know he used to carry a thermos of ginseng stew since their honeymoon? They said he mixed maca powder with testosterone capsules, calling it a special male vitality supplement?"
"Having a lot of sex isn't a crime."
"It can become a crime depending on what kind of sex. So I need you to do some background investigation."
She was asking me to dig up her husband's weaknesses.
It wasn't the kind of thing you'd ask a civil servant to do, but I could understand it.
She'd seen how I handled her prostitute friend Kwak Min-sun. She'd witnessed my ability to nail both the nature of the work and the partner count in a single oral encounter. She was confident that if I actively investigated, I'd bring back something.
After pretending to hesitate for a moment, I lowered my voice and asked.
"When you say background investigation, specifically what...?"
"You know what I mean. Don't play innocent." (73 / 887 / 1 year 7 months ago)
"I want to confirm if my guess is correct. So you're asking me to dig up information about your husband's private life... a scandal powerful enough to match your own prostitute activities. But does such a thing even exist?"
"I told you. He really lived extravagantly."
I knew that too (117 partners, 2,223 experiences).
But no matter how dirty a 50-something real estate developer lived, it was hard to compare him to a prostitute councilor. You could say a woman who sold her body and a man who ate women were equally worthless, but the former was someone who received a salary from national tax money.
Ultimately, what Han Chae-kyung was asking me to do was...
"Councilor. Don't tell me you want me to fabricate a scandal for you?"
She was asking me to help manufacture a scandal.
She wanted to create a weapon to pressure her husband, who was suffering from acute jaundice and bile duct obstruction.
At the word "fabrication," Chae-kyung crossed her arms and stared straight at me.
But soon she nodded.
"I need something to hold too, right? My husband is insulting me by calling me a prostitute." (73 / 887 / 1 year 7 months ago)
"Are you perhaps... talking about overseas sex trafficking?"
"That's not enough."
"Of course not. Councilor, you've sold your body to so many men. So don't tell me you're planning to push him toward sexual bribery?"
"That would be more convincing. Actually, there's something suspicious from 2018. My husband's parking lot had a change of use approved in an unusually smooth manner. I know he gave a lot to the head of the Transportation Policy Division at the time."
Chae-kyung was trying to pin sexual bribery charges on her husband.
She wasn't entirely off base. ...Kim Ho-chang was, in my view, not just someone whose shame I'd witnessed — he was actually a rotten human being. If even half of the rumors I'd heard at the city council were true, he'd done things far worse than just civil servant sexual bribery.
Making one weapon for her. It wasn't difficult.
All my ability could do was read Partner Count, Experience Count, and the time since the most recent experience.
But when combined with publicly available information, it was more powerful than people expected. And the greatest victim of that power was the woman standing right in front of me.
"What do you say? Can you help me?"
"I'm not sure."
"If I had enough time, I'd do it myself. But I don't have that luxury right now...!"
Compared to the amount Chae-kyung had just offered (500 million won), it was actually a simple matter.
But there was one problem.
"Councilor. You said you'd give me 500 million won if I did one errand for you?"
"I can adjust upward,"
"That's fine. 500 million or 600 million, it's all the same to me."
"...?"
She didn't have the ability to pay that money.
More precisely, she was about to lose it.
"Councilor... I've always thought your head was filled with flowers. ...But thinking about it, it's normal for you to be a flower field."
"Officer Joo Sung-hyun. Stop beating around the bush..."
"Prostitutes born in the same year as you tended to have relatively high turnover rates. They'd work for about 3 to 4 years, and after retiring, they'd typically try to bury their past. But you were different."
Chae-kyung hadn't buried her past — she had monetized the connections she'd gained from her prostitute work.
She was a woman who had met upper-class men and become upper-class herself.
When you succeed like that, you have no choice but to become convinced.
Convinced that you're "the one." You've never truly experienced a crisis, so how could you develop crisis management skills? You can only believe that you managed things well enough that nothing exploded.
"I've decided not to mock you, Councilor. But I also have no intention of doing business with you. How could I do such a thing as a civil servant?"
Chae-kyung's face contorted as if she had some premonition about my repeated references to being a civil servant.
That was also when I pulled out a voice recorder from my pocket.
A device I'd modified with a microphone module.
"I have a recording blocker."
"Councilor. There are also machines that block recording blockers. And they're not difficult to obtain at all."
"Why would you have something like that..."
I hadn't just recorded audio.
"He'll be here soon."
When Chae-kyung had stormed in looking for me, I'd stalling for time and summoned someone.
Actually, I hadn't told him to come personally — I'd just suggested "send someone trustworthy." But...
Perhaps because he had unusual affection for Chae-kyung, he had come himself. Maybe he'd been outside. The door to the multipurpose room where we were slowly opened.
"..." (117 / 2,233 / 1 year 7 months ago)
It was the moment her husband appeared, looking just as unhappy as Chae-kyung.
"Hun...gy." (73 / 887 / 1 year 7 months ago)
Chae-kyung called her husband tenderly, even though they hadn't been apart for long.
Did that mean she was happy to see him?
But Kim Ho-chang showed no interest in catching up. He strode straight toward me.
I hadn't mentioned handing anything over, but Kim Ho-chang seemed to catch on from the situation. There was no reason to waste time, so I showed him the recorder right away.
"Everything is recorded here. As for the content..."
"I heard it... from outside."
Kim Ho-chang said he'd overheard the conspiracy targeting him.
Then it was simple. I handed over the recorder immediately. I had two of them anyway.
Chae-kyung stared at me and Kim Ho-chang with her mouth slightly open.
Her eyes blinked irregularly, the corners of her mouth pulled in opposite directions, her lips twisted...
It might have been my imagination, but she seemed to have aged rapidly in just a moment. Even so, she looked like she wanted to appeal to someone.
"Chae-kyung. Thanks to you, I've made my decision. You're going to hurt a lot from now on."
Her husband, Kim Ho-chang, had already made up his mind.
The decision to send his prostitute wife far away.
...
The articles started appearing that afternoon.
It had ended in public execution.