New Beginning (16)

The fishy docks felt like my own world as I weaved through them. Today, I was once again strolling beside the fishy Noryangjin Market, savoring a cup of the neighborhood’s famous cup-bap. I must have good luck with people. Aside from my brother, who’s always number one, there’s Hyung Sparkles, Deputy Chief Ha, and plenty of others. Lately, Eun-seong and the Minhee siblings have also been a huge help to my business.

It was as if they’d been given a ground mission. The moment the phenylamine arrived, the Minhee siblings started producing samples. By the time they’d made about five grams, I ran into a massive problem: a shortage of materials. Besides the main ingredient, phenylamine, several other chemicals were needed, and sourcing them wasn’t easy.

In truth, it should have been simple. Any chemical company would sell them. The real issue was repeat purchases. I have a philosophy, after all: suspicion breeds specificity, and specificity breeds arrests. What’s the point of having an organization? If you don’t know, ask. So I asked our manufacturing chief, the Vietnamese brother.

This brother never changes. It took him two hours to reply.

“Who?”

The same Ali who handles our shisha outsourcing? I hadn’t contacted him in ages. After the US Army brother handed over the entire Itaewon line, I’d left everything to Deputy Chief Ha. We were in the middle of the war on drugs at the time, and since no reports had come up from Ha, things seemed to be running smoothly. Still, I should reach out.

Our ever-expressive Ali brother replied instantly.

As expected, he was the same talkative brother. I decided to cut straight to the point, just like last time.

Whether he was thinking it over or busy with something else, thirty minutes passed without a reply. Then it came.

Ah, he’d been typing the whole time. I sent the list right away. When he asked if I was planning to manufacture, I saw no reason to hide it and told him yes. He said he had cheap stock available. The word “cheap” triggered a flash of past trauma, but I asked anyway. I didn’t know the market well enough not to.

Reliability is the most important factor when choosing chemical products. The same probably holds for everything else. Chemicals are produced in lots, and the first and last lots of a run supposedly don’t turn out well. Those are meant for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠samples and post-verification. Ali said those were the lots he could arrange. The reason they were cheap was because they carried no brand. Unofficially, he added, they were the factory workers’ dinner-party fund.

Suddenly Ali started talking about accounting treatment, and he didn’t sound like a Pakistani at all. Everyone around me transforms when money is involved. He said it could be booked as test-material expenses rather than inventory, so there was no risk of getting caught. No chemical-production reporting either. From what he said, the risk seemed low. I asked him to prepare five tons each of the main sub-materials, ammonia and acetic acid, and sent the deposit. I’m a man without credit these days. The rest of the sub-materials were easy—available at any grocery mart. Baking soda, synthetic flavorings, that sort of thing. I told the Minhee siblings to pick them up while shopping.

I also sent the five-gram sample to Nakamura for quality testing.

As I entered Noryangjin Station with my cup-bap, a welcome message arrived.

It was my beloved Hyung Sparkles. But what kind of special order? Couldn’t we just stick to our usual safe, fun, everyday conversations?

It was cheap. Urgent. This wasn’t the relaxed brother I knew. And suddenly yuan? A China deal? I turned on my phone and checked the exchange rate: 194 won per yuan. That came to roughly 200,000 won per gram. Hyung wouldn’t even make margin.

I could almost see the senior taking a deep breath on the other side of the screen.

I hurriedly contacted Yeongcheon and Sinan. Combined, they only had eight kilograms. I’d ordered them to build up to ten after the big hashish and Japan deals, but the Busan Cider brother had suddenly taken three ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kilograms, leaving a hole. When I asked if there was any way, Candle brother said emergency production was possible and asked for about a week to make the remaining two kilograms. I relayed the message immediately.

Why did I just get cursed at? I instructed Candle brother to expand the farm. My organization had grown so much that we couldn’t respond to urgent demand. Today I’d been lucky. Specifically, I told them to aim for a maximum stock of twenty kilograms and a combined monthly production of about five kilograms from Sinan and Yeongcheon. Under the full-purchase condition, the Cider brother was taking a big share—sixty percent of the expanded volume. It still stung to think about. If I’d received it, the commission would have stayed with me.

Factoring in holiday hashish, Itaewon, Incheon, Bucheon, and Gyeongnam, we really needed to produce at least that much. There could be accidents during delivery or production issues, so we had to keep a comfortable buffer. Credit was life, wasn’t it? If today’s order hadn’t come through, we would have failed to meet demand. Since I didn’t know how much Sinan and Yeongcheon were actually selling, I’d simply ordered production. I needed to check on them myself occasionally.

And what about that yuan? I couldn’t spend it even if I withdrew it, and the fees were brutal anyway. I didn’t want to touch it. Those Skylight thugs! I’d just have to hold it. Did they even pay interest?

As I prepared to leave Noryangjin Station—transforming once more from a two-billion-won dealmaker back into an ordinary high-school graduate examinee—a woman in a yellow sweater that clashed with the gloomy, sweaty atmosphere of Noryangjin walked past. She had a short bob that showed the nape of her neck and a cute face. Tucked under her arm was a pharmacology textbook the size of a pillow. She was heading out of Noryangjin Station, crossing the overpass.

The moment I saw her, something electric ran through me. I wanted to grab her, talk to her, hear her voice, know who she was. I sprinted toward the overpass at full speed—the same speed I’d run in Cancun to avoid the clubs. She vanished. Damn it. She was gone. No matter how hard I looked, that bright yellow sweater was nowhere to be seen. Only the gray masses of commuters remained. After ten minutes of meerkat-style scanning, I felt a little embarrassed; people crossing the overpass were starting to look at me like a freshly dumped guy. I’d never felt this way before. If it’s fate, as the Buddhists say, we’ll meet again, I told myself, and headed back to the academy disappointed.

There I studied the rise and fall of Korean Buddhism and its historical transformations. The chill that had been mocking the languid spring weather finally retreated, and May approached. I wondered if there ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would be another Japan boom like last year, but Nakamura hadn’t contacted me. Nor had he reported the quality-test results. Last time he’d acted like he’d take the goods immediately. So the Haman Factory remained in a state of open-but-closed. We still hadn’t found a use for the remaining three hundred kilograms.

My little sister seemed to have a good sense for these things. She deliberately kept a low profile outside. When I asked what she was doing these days, she said she’d quit the pizza place. There was nothing left to do with her brother, so she’d started making alibis again. When I asked why “again,” she said she’d done plenty of it while she was inside. I told her to focus on studying instead of working and gave her the recipes I’d found in the basement, along with notes on effects, mixing ratios—especially scent. I pushed her to create our own brand.

I asked Eun-seong to split the materials Ali had sourced and bring them into the factory at night, and I got him a gym membership so he could work out. I also requested he stay on standby for sudden situations. What if something had happened during the Russian trawler raid? I wished he could receive the same training I’d gotten in Cancun, but I was watching him. Trust only comes after watching someone for a long time, doesn’t it?