Shall We Celebrate a Reunion Fifteen Years in the Making?
The morning's work had more or less settled when I opened my inbox and found one message waiting that stood out from the rest.
It looked like something the overseas business side had sent around. Nothing I needed this minute, so I set it aside and opened the progress-payment review I still had to send up. I'd meant to give it one last pass before putting it in for approval.
"Manager Do."
I looked up. Kang Sejin, the intern, was standing there.
"I finished organizing the materials you asked for yesterday."
"Good. Upload them to the team shared folder."
Sejin hadn't been gone long when a messenger alert popped up. It was Han Daegyu, department head of the Construction Management Team. My direct boss.
I took the laptop and stepped into the small meeting room. Two coffees were already on the table, and Director Han slid one of them toward me.
"Iced americano, right?"
"Yes. Thank you."
I took the cup and sat. He got to it at once.
"Nothing else. How's the Seongwon Construction progress-payment review? First job since you made manager. I imagine you put a lot into it."
Seongwon Construction. The very review I'd just been reading through one last time.
"Ah—yes. It's done."
"Figured as much. You're Manager Do. Mind if I see whether you actually did it right?"
"I'll send it up for approval right away."
"No. Don't... don't submit it yet."
I'd been about to open the laptop. My hand stopped.
"Just show me the draft the way it is, on your screen."
"...Yes."
That was odd. If the review was finished, he could read it once it was in the queue. There was no reason to call me in and look before I'd even submitted it. I opened the file without comment anyway and turned the screen toward him.
Director Han skimmed, then looked up.
"This is final?"
"Yes."
"And you're standing by these numbers?"
"They... are the numbers?"
He scrolled down a little.
"Nothing else we can look at outside the approved scope?"
"I already reflected that."
"The over-excavation?"
"I already took out everything that could come out."
He kept scrolling, then pointed at one stretch.
"Here. Is this whole section inside the change order?"
"Yes. The inspection records came back for that same range."
Director Han frowned.
"A change order going out doesn't mean we pay every won of it. What about quantities that ran past the instructed range?"
"Already excluded."
Knock, knock.
The door opened a crack, and an employee leaned in.
"Manager Do Jaeseong, someone's here asking for you."
Before I could answer, Director Han cut in.
"We're in an important meeting. Tell them to wait a little."
"Ah, but... for now—yes. Understood."
The door shut again.
"Where were we? Right. We can't take another look at that? The poor-ground range they marked on site at the time. Wasn't the range itself too wide?"
"I checked that again too. It matches the inspection records and the work logs from then."
Director Han stared at the screen for a moment.
"Is there really no room to shift more of this onto Seongwon?"
"Not within what I verified."
"Dig around and you'll find a pretext to call it more conservatively. We could cut it down to about this much, couldn't we?"
He pulled out his phone and tapped at the calculator.
"Let's see. Roughly—"
A moment later he turned the screen toward me.
"...About this far?"
Do it like that, and this isn't a progress-payment review. It's extortion dressed up as one.
The thought jumped up the second I saw the figure. What actually left my mouth still had to pass through a filter.
"There's no basis for booking it that way."
"Do you really have to read it that tight?"
"As you said, it's the first job I've had since making manager. I can't do it sloppily."
Director Han groaned, plainly displeased, a long unhappy sound in his throat.
"I can't submit a number I can't defend and call it the result of my review."
I said it flat, and Han Daegyu's face went hard.
"Manager Do. Does it sound to you like I'm telling you to pocket a partner's money with no basis?"
Somewhere in the last few seconds, an edge had come into his voice. I knew I'd stepped wrong.
"I'm sorry. That isn't what I meant."
"...Ha."
He glared at me, then let out a sigh so heavy he seemed tired of the whole room.
"Jaeseong."
The voice had gone soft.
"I know you're good at the work. I know you're meticulous. But those things alone make it damn hard to climb any higher. That's why I'm saying this."
He sounded genuinely frustrated.
"When the top settles on a direction, matching it is part of the job. Pick apart every piece and dig your heels in, and the one who ends up losing is you."
"No, but—"
"You think I enjoy talking like this? I'm saying it because I want to bring you up. You, Jaeseong."
I couldn't find a proper answer to that. At least he wasn't doing this to screw me. By his own measure, it sounded close to real concern for where I was headed. Maybe he honestly wanted to pull me onto his side while he was at it.
Inside the company, Director Han was a known member of the vice president's line. Following him here wasn't purely a losing move.
"Director. This cut... is it the vice president's wish?"
Han Daegyu stared straight at me.
"Manager Do. You don't need to think that far."
The title was back. Then he glanced toward the door, as if checking who might be listening.
"Don't make this bigger than it is. Count yourself lucky the vice president isn't in today. He's preparing for the Teguren princess's visit in a few days."
He looked at me a moment longer, then said it quietly.
"I'm asking you like this. Just this once, trust me and match the number. If the vice president marks you, I won't be able to cover for you even if I want to."
The answer wouldn't come. Yes, sir. One sentence, and it would be over. Doing as Director Han said might even be better for my future.
"Don't be a hardhead. I'm saying this because I really do look out for you."
The man at his back, the vice president of Mansan Construction, was owner family of the Mansan Group—someone people were already calling the next group chairman. Riding a line like that couldn't hurt. Falling out of favor with it couldn't help.
"Manager Do. Your answer?"
It wasn't my money. I didn't work for Seongwon Construction. Was this really something I had to protect, at the cost of making an enemy of my direct boss and, past him, that distant upper floor? Change one number the way I was told, and my life got easier.
...And if I was going to do that?
Then what the fuck have I been reviewing all this time, and why?
I'd dug through the site records and stripped out everything that had to come out. Where it wasn't payable, I'd drawn the line. If I was only going to fit the number the top wanted at the end, they never needed to ask me for a review in the first place.
They could just do whatever the hell they wanted.
"...I appreciate you looking out for me."
A hardhead, was I? Well. He wasn't wrong.
"But I'm sorry. I can't."
Even so, I couldn't put my name on a number I had no grounds for and call it the result of my review. Han Daegyu's face twisted.
Knock, knock.
The same employee as before.
"Director. The person who was asking for Manager Do earlier—"
"I told you we were in the middle of something important! Tell them to wait a little longer."
He snapped it, irritable. The employee hesitated, then nodded.
"...For now, understood."
The door closed. Director Han looked at me again.
"Ha... Do Jaeseong. Does this look like a request to you? Match the numbers and send it up today."
We'd come far enough that there was nothing left to weigh.
"I can't."
"What?"
"I won't submit it that way."
Director Han roared.
"Do Jaeseong, you son of a bitch, I was putting it nicely and now—!"
The meeting-room door banged open.
"Who's this bald bastard calling a son of a bitch?"
Director Han flinched and shut his mouth. I turned toward the voice at nearly the same moment.
Hat, sunglasses, and a mask besides. A woman stood in the doorway with her face hidden under a full suit of armor, and behind her was the employee who had opened that door so many times already, looking thoroughly cornered.
"...Wh-what? More to the point, bald? Did you just say bald?"
Director Han shot the question back, flustered, and even so his hand crept up toward his head as if he couldn't help it.
"Who are you? Can't you see we're in a meeting?"
The woman didn't answer. She raised her hand instead.
And then—
Smack!
"Ghk—!"
She slapped Han Daegyu across the face without a moment's hesitation. I jerked in surprise, eyes wide. He touched his own cheek with a dazed look, then bellowed.
"What the hell does this woman think she's doing!"
She opened her mouth as if nothing at all had happened.
"A mosquito."
"It isn't even summer. What mosquito—"
She opened her palm. Sitting there was one very large mosquito.
"...There really is one."
The employee behind her produced a wet wipe as if they'd been waiting for exactly this, and she took it without fuss and wiped her hand.
Who the hell was she, that they waited on her like this?
Director Han was still rubbing his cheek, as if the sting hadn't faded.
"No, that's not the point. Mosquito or no mosquito, who are you? Who walks in and slaps someone's face out of nowhere—"
"Director Han."
The employee behind her cut in at once, stepped close, and lowered their voice.
"This... this is a visitor under the chairman's special approval."
"Uh... which chairman?"
"Chairman Choi Byeongju. Of our Mansan Group."
In an instant, Director Han's face locked up. The employee added, carefully,
"Director Han. I'm sorry, but the visitor is scheduled to speak with Manager Do separately."
Han looked at the woman once, then at me, a little pale.
"...Manager Do. We'll continue this later."
He had just stood and turned to go when the employee stopped him again.
"Oh, and Director Han."
"...What."
"This visit is a non-public schedule managed directly by the chairman's secretariat. Any separate report will go up through them."
In other words: don't go running your mouth.
"Under... stood."
Han Daegyu looked at the woman one more time before he reached the door, but he couldn't seem to make himself say anything, and in the end he simply left. The employee started after him, then bowed to her, polite and careful.
"If you need anything, please let me know."
"I'm all right."
The door closed. Just like that, the small meeting room held only me and a woman I couldn't identify.
"Excuse me... who are you?"
From behind the sunglasses, she stared straight at me.
"You really don't recognize me?"
Who? There was nothing in the voice I could place.
"So the voice alone isn't enough."
With that, she uncovered the face she'd kept sealed away. Light brown hair, pressed flat under the hat, spilled down.
"...Huh?"
I had seen that face before. And not long before—this very morning, in a news article.
"The princess of Teguren?"
Dayana Aldar. Her visit to Korea was supposed to be days away. So why was someone like that already here, standing in this room? With the chairman's special approval, no less, having asked for me by name?
Before any of that—how did she even know who I was?
And yet the first thing out of my mouth was a completely irrelevant question.
"...Your Korean is very good?"
Only after it left me did I realize this was hardly the moment to be curious about that. Dayana's reaction, though, was not what I expected.
"Yep!"
She looked, somehow, a little proud.
"I practiced. So I'd never again hear anyone say my Korean sounded fucking pathetic."
Judging by the locally sourced profanity, it was a skill she had every right to be proud of.
"But the visit was definitely a few days from now..."
"That's the official schedule."
"Uh... then why did you want to see me..."
Instead of answering, Dayana put a hand in her pocket.
"Catch."
Something came flying.
"Whoa—what is this?"
I threw a hand out on reflex and caught it. A chocolate, wrapped in glittering gold foil.
"...A gold-coin chocolate?"
"Tusug tosoor hariulakh."
The same words I'd seen in the news article on the commute this morning. A Teguren saying: repay a kindness with a kindness. Even then I'd thought I'd heard it somewhere, and now, with this chocolate in my hand—
Wait.
"I came to pay back a debt. I'm a little late."
Before I could find an answer, she added it, bright and unbothered, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.