The Little Sister
Once again, the woman who had failed to find work that day returned to the building used as the women's dormitory, her face twisted in a scowl.
A woman with her hair tied back, who had been sitting on the entrance steps, approached her and asked,
"Failed again today?"
The scowling woman nodded silently. The one with the tied hair spoke in a comforting tone.
"...Maybe it's time to give up, or look for something else."
At that, the scowling woman's irritation exploded.
"Something else? What the hell else is there!"
Her voice grew louder.
"There's barely any work they give to women right now. Dishwashing? Cleaning? Kitchen duty? Those already have their regulars who work every day, and they only take on a few extras when they really need them...."
As her voice trailed off, the woman with the tied hair said,
"Even if there's nothing right now, if we just wait a little longer, maybe some way will open up? The owner here is a woman too, after all. Would she really abandon other women?"
"Don't be so naive! What makes you say that? Do you think her situation and ours are the same right now?"
Just as the two women's voices were about to rise again, eight new women approached the building, accompanied by a single administrator carrying a spear.
Once they drew near, the administrator pointed at the women's building and said, "You can go into that building over there," before disappearing. The eight women, still trembling, huddled close together and approached the two standing in front of the entrance after glancing around.
"...Um, excuse us.... We were told to come this way...."
...New arrivals.
The woman with her hair tied back glanced sideways at the one she had been talking with, then called another woman from inside the building and had her guide the newcomers to their rooms.
After watching the new women disappear entirely into the building, the scowling one spoke again to the woman with the tied hair.
"If we don't change this situation ourselves, women are going to have a harder and harder time getting shower coupons or winter clothes."
"Even without the coupons, living in here isn't that rough. They give out meals fairly, without discrimination...."
"No! Looking at it the other way, that means we're not producing anything right now—we're just eating up the food. It's fine for now, but the moment things get even a little harder later on... discrimination will become completely natural."
She looked up toward the third-floor rooms where the new women had just gone and continued.
"Already, some of the women have started selling their bodies every night for the coupons or clothes the men hand out. Right now it's just clothes or coupons, but if food ever switches from free distribution to a coupon system... then they'll be spreading their legs for a few food coupons."
Worry over that terrible future written plainly on her face, she looked at the woman with the tied hair.
"If that happens... those girls who just went upstairs. The ones who clearly went through hell at the hands of garbage outside... they might end up having to open their legs again just to survive here."
"We have to stop that..." she muttered, and the words were so realistic that the woman with the tied hair could say nothing more.
"I think we need to pick a little sister."
The moment I stepped into Sim Geum-a's room, she spoke while standing by the window, looking outside.
I stared at her, baffled by the sudden remark. She beckoned me over to the window.
"Come here, Seobang."
I walked over to where she stood. She pointed a finger down outside the window.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?"
"Look there. See those two women?"
In the direction she indicated, two women were talking in front of what looked like the women's dormitory.
"What do those women have to do with the 'little sister' you just mentioned?"
"Back when I first got into this business... there was a 'big madam' and a 'little madam' who managed the girls."
As I listened, I stepped away from the window and sat in a chair. She turned to face me and perched on the windowsill.
"Anyone can't just become the big madam. Usually it's someone who already knows the big players, or who's deeply tangled up with an organization—someone with real power and clout."
Then she turned her head back and looked down again.
"But the little madam... the one the girls usually call the 'little sister'... is someone the big madam picks herself. She leans on the big madam's authority and manages the rest of the girls under her."
As if recalling the past, she closed her eyes briefly and tilted her head before speaking to me.
"Well, before the zombie outbreak, I was the boss of the organization in this area, so I was the 'big madam' and Eun-ji was the 'little madam.'"
"Then why not just leave it to Choi Eun-ji again this time?"
"No! If that was all she had to do, maybe... but Eun-ji's already buried under too much work. If I asked her, 'Eun-ji? Want to be the little sister too?' she'd probably try to kill me."
She continued.
"From what I've been hearing through the people I planted over the last few days, that bitch down there on the right—she's the only woman who's accurately worried about this prostitution situation the coupons are creating, and who's actually trying to do something about it."
She pulled out a cigarette, stuck it between her lips without lighting it, and went on.
"I've told you before, Seobang—because of the difference in labor power between men and women, even if only a little, most of the supplies and benefits are already tilting toward the men. If this keeps up, bigger problems are going to explode."
"So... in the end, you're saying you're going to directly manage that prostitution you mentioned?"
"Yeah.... In the current situation it feels like an unavoidable current... so if that's the case, I should at least manage it in a way that makes it a little less painful."
Sim Geum-a slowly stood up from the windowsill, looked down once more, and lit her cigarette as she spoke.
"Well, this kind of work always creates someone who gets cursed out from the start. If there's someone who'll share those curses with me, all the better for me."
She called someone over, gave a few instructions, then grinned at me and said, "Since we're going to eat the curses anyway, better to eat them fast while Seobang's here!"
A short while later, the two women we had seen outside the window were summoned to Sim Geum-a's room.
"Good, you made it. Have a seat first?"
Sim Geum-a pointed to the chairs across the desk from us. The two women hesitated for a moment; the one with her hair tied back sat first, and the other reluctantly followed.
"What's your name?"
When Sim Geum-a asked, the woman with the tied hair kept her mouth shut. Only the other one, glancing nervously at us, answered in a small voice.
"...Nam Song-i."
"Nam Song-i, huh. Do you have any idea why I called you here?"
Even with Sim Geum-a's friendly tone, Nam Song-i hunched her shoulders and answered, "I... don't really know?"
Sim Geum-a smiled and said,
"I hear you've been looking pretty unfavorably on the way things are tilting toward the men lately, and on benefits like the coupons."
Nam Song-i flustered and protested, "I never did anything like that!" but Sim Geum-a replied, "No way. I heard everything," and looked at the woman with the tied hair sitting across from her.
"Right, Sujin?"
The woman called Sujin answered with complete calm, "Yes, Boss. Just as I've been reporting continuously, she has steadily pointed out the problems with the current situation."
At those words, both Nam Song-i and I could only stare at her blankly.
But she paid no attention to our gazes and, without the slightest change in expression, began an additional report.
"Today as well, she fretted that 'we women aren't doing any productive work—we're just consuming food. Right now only a few women are prostituting themselves for coupons, but if things get harder and even the food that's currently given without discrimination turns into a coupon system, the day may come when every woman has to spread her legs just to survive.'"
With a voice thick with betrayal, Nam Song-i asked Sujin,
"You've been with me here for over five months. Since when... since when was it?"
But the woman called Sujin was looking only at Sim Geum-a, not at Nam Song-i.
When Sim Geum-a gave a slight nod of permission, Sujin finally turned to Nam Song-i and said,
"From the beginning, I was someone the Boss planted to listen to what was being said among the women. I didn't mean to deceive you... but I'm sorry. In the end, I did."
The color drained from Nam Song-i's face as if the words had hit her hard.
Clap clap.
"But honestly, that story isn't very important right now."
As if she had zero interest in the shock Nam Song-i was feeling, Sim Geum-a clapped her hands and spoke.
"The reason we called you isn't some petty 'How dare you have complaints?' kind of reason."
"...Then what is it? Is there more for me to be surprised about?"
Seeming to have barely collected herself, Nam Song-i asked in a trembling voice. Sim Geum-a giggled as if she found it amusing.
"Rather than keep having problems pop up one after another, it just seemed more convenient for us to manage it ourselves."
She stuck a cigarette in her mouth, lit it, exhaled a long stream of white smoke, then pointed the tip of the cigarette at Nam Song-i.
"From now on, all prostitution inside this zone will only be allowed in a single building we designate, and we'll manage it directly."
Nam Song-i flared up and started to shout, "That's ridiculous—!" but when she heard what Sim Geum-a said next, she froze as if hit by an even greater shock.
"And that prostitution building... you're going to manage it."
That final sentence seemed to stop every thought in Nam Song-i's head. She could only stare at Sim Geum-a without a word.