First Steps into Society
"What? An idol? A manager?! You?!!"
"Yes. Me. Is it really that shocking?"
"How is that not shocking?! We're not talking about just anybody here. Kang Jinhyuk says he wants to manage idols!"
"I mean... however badly it suits me, a man's still free to dream, isn't he?"
"That much I'll give you. But why an idol manager, out of nowhere?"
"Well... you could say it's thanks to the young lady."
"Byul? What's Byul got to do with it?"
"She sparkles, just like her name. Byul—a star. They say she'll be debuting before long, too. And from where I stand, as good as an older brother to her, watching her shine like that..."
"Made you want to try making a star of your own? Then why's it have to be an idol manager? If watching Byul is what gave you the dream, you could just manage Byul, couldn't you?"
"The young lady is someone who'll shine all on her own. If we're talking stars, she's the sun. What would managing a woman like that even leave me to do? Wait on her hand and foot, at best. So no. I don't want to be her manager."
"...What?"
"And she isn't the type who could ever survive in a group. Solo is her calling... Don't you think it'd be better to manage several pretty people instead of just one? The more, the merrier. Nothing beats the numbers game... Isn't that a law of the universe?"
Right. Bury them in numbers, and they've got no answer.
"......"
"Of course, there's still a lot I have to do. Literally, it's nothing but a dream. So, hyung—I'm not quitting this life yet. You don't have to look at me with that grave face..."
"You crazy bastard! That's another man's daughter you're running your mouth about—spouting off about gang-beatings and how there's no standing against the numbers! Is that a thing you say?!"
WHAM!
Yeah. That was how it went.
The conversation I'd had with hyung a month before they locked me up felt as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. And the reason a piece of life on the outside—something that hadn't surfaced even in my dreams as recently as the day before—came rushing back all at once today was simple.
"Good work, Jinhyuk."
"I wouldn't go so far as to call it work."
Because today was the day I walked out of this prison.
Clank.
As the lock on the thick iron door let go and the door began to swing, the guard who had been with me through all of it—Section Chief Kim—offered a word to see me off.
"If it's you, Jinhyuk, I believe you'll do just fine."
"Yes. I believe I'll do just fine, too."
"Ha ha ha. You always talk so sure of yourself. I swear, it's entertaining."
"That's because I'm a man who can afford to be sure."
"Right, right. A special pardon isn't something just anyone gets, is it? Mind you, even with the pardon, you still did a full seven years."
"I committed the crime. I took it as my due."
"Hoo. Cool right down to the last second, seriously cool. Ex-con or not, I get the feeling you could really become something. I'm looking forward to it."
Section Chief Kim had been posted here the same year I came in, and across those seven years the two of us had grown close in a kind of shared hardship. I was the inmate and he was the guard, yes—but we had still lived under one roof for seven years. The only difference between us was which side of the bars we stood on. Beyond that, he and I were as good as friends.
"Since I'm on my way out, I'll say it. I was just remembering the first time you saw me, Chief."
He'd taken one look at me—the attempted murderer from the news—and raised absolute hell, yelling that if I wanted to die I ought to go ahead and try throwing my weight around—
"I—I really am sorry about back then, all right?!"
Section Chief Kim's frantic voice snapped the memory in half. I turned my head and found him wearing a face that was half apology and half pure helplessness—the dictionary picture of a man who didn't know where to put himself.
"And once the misunderstanding cleared up, I snuck you extra side dishes and everything, remember? Huh? That was seven years ago already! Every time you drag my mistake out because you're bored, I feel so guilty I can't sit still!"
Needling Section Chief Kim with that day's blunder never got old, no matter how often I did it. But the thought that today would be the last time left a hollow little pocket in my chest. Maybe that was why.
"I understand all of it. A section chief still wet behind the ears, barely settled into the post—if he didn't want the inmates walking all over him, he would've had to do something like that."
"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Next time you call, I'll bring soju and— huh? Wh-what? What did you just say?"
I let out the thing I had not once put into words in the seven years since we'd grown close. My actual feelings.
"I understand. That you didn't have any choice but to act that way."
Saying it out loud—the acknowledgment, the understanding—was how I let every last grievance from that day go. It was a little regrettable that I could no longer tease him with this particular story, but I still had plenty of other material, and today would be the last time I saw him inside these walls. Forgiving him the one offense wouldn't hurt. Truth be told, it hardly counted as a grievance at all. The misunderstanding had cleared quickly, and once it had, I'd heard a sincere apology. Not a speck of resentment was left in me. I'd only kept at the teasing because his reactions were so good. If they hadn't been, I would have said the word forgiven the very day we cleared the air. What was I supposed to do when the reactions landed that cleanly? In a prison with absolutely nothing to enjoy, teasing Section Chief Kim was a fresh pleasure every single time. Honestly, I couldn't help myself.
Section Chief Kim, who had no way of knowing any of that, looked at me with the emotion bare in both eyes, his whole body trembling.
"Y-you're forgiving me?"
No—if the reaction's this good even now, I'm the only one who comes out the villain. Seven years of teasing a man who's still sorry about something from seven years ago. How much of a piece of trash does that make me?
It wasn't a shiver from cold, or from fear. It was the tremor only a man truly moved can show, and guilt drove itself straight through my chest.
"Jinhyuk... I—I've only come this far because of you..."
Clunk!
Words that, had I heard them through, would have followed me out of here as a faint and lasting guilt—fortunately, the iron door swinging the rest of the way open cut them off. Even so, he wasn't the sort of man to let a sudden noise end a speech for good. I ducked my head at once and rushed the goodbye out before he could get another word in.
"Thank you for everything, Section Chief Kim! If you're not too busy, let's meet again!"
"H-huh? W-wait a second..."
"Someone's waiting on me, so I'll be going! Goodbye!"
And with that I didn't stay for an answer. I kicked hard off the ground and ran for the open door.
Bang!
I ran without once looking back, eyes fixed only on what lay ahead, and what opened before me was not the little prison walled in by concrete on every side, but a wide world blanketed in fresh white snow.
Seven years. Seven years. A full seven years.
Even at a dead sprint, the road refused to end. Asphalt stretched out wide and long, beyond any comparison to the prison, where all I had ever done was circle the same yellow exercise yard. Seven years ago that road had been nothing but pavement. Now it was the finest stretch of ground I had ever run. For a man tasting, for the first time, that perfectly controlled speck of a world called a prison, the past seven years could only have felt suffocating past all reason. Before I went in, I had been glad to take a ten-year sentence—glad the world might forget me. Those seven years had been so miserable I wanted to beat that version of myself senseless. But all of that was past now. I was still in my twenties, and my body was unbroken. I could do anything.
From here on, even running with my eyes on nothing but the road ahead wouldn't be enough. The old thoughts ended here. From this moment, I would live looking only at tomorrow. The gangster who had lived for today alone was gone. So was the convict who had lived for yesterday alone. From now on I would be a constructive man—one who lived for tomorrow, who didn't swing his fists without cause, and didn't throw his words around either.
"And for that, I'll need someone who can help me toward that brilliant tomorrow."
I had run without a pause from the prison to the main road. There I took out the old phone Section Chief Kim had given me, meaning to call the only ally I had been out of touch with for some five years.
He really was a good man.
Someday, once I had made it, I would have to treat the chief to a feast—no, to several. I was just about to punch in the number still living in my memory when another thought stopped me cold.
"Come to think of it... he hasn't changed his number, has he? If he has, I'm finished."
Five years was obscenely long inside a prison, and even out in the world it was long enough for half the landscape to change. A phone number could easily have changed with it. Of course, if I still occupied even a corner of the man's head, he wouldn't commit the blind folly of swapping numbers...
"Then again, that man is fully capable of changing it without a second thought. No. No, come on. He wouldn't have. Even a guy whose body does all the living so his brain never has to clock in—he still wouldn't do something that stupid."
Forcing down even that sliver of doubt, I placed the call.
Riiing—! Riiing—!
From not so far away, just past the edge of my sight, rose a ringtone so garish and loud that anyone alive would have called it tacky.
"Who's the one without a thought in his head, you punk!"
"...That would be you, hyung. If you were coming to meet me, you could have at least sent a letter. What were you going to do if we missed each other on the road? Seven years go by, and you're still as impossible to plan around as ever."
I hung up the call that had never connected and turned my head to look at him.
"Is that any way to talk to the hyung you're seeing for the first time in five years?! Seven years in a cell and you come out without a lick of reform? You don't seem one bit different from before you went in!"
Five years ago, he had heard me tell him not to come to a place like this—to work hard, for my sake—and had left me with nothing but just trust hyung. We hadn't met since. And still he stood there, as hale and solid as ever. He hadn't changed in the slightest. I let out a short laugh and handed his own words straight back.
"Well, you're no different yourself, hyung."
"Heh-hah! That so? First time you've seen me in five years. I haven't gone and gotten old, have I?"
"I'll take that as a compliment. Hyung is hyung, as expected."
"Damn right. A man called Lee Sung is a man called Lee Sung. Goes without saying. Goes without saying."
"I'm hungry, so buy me a meal. I'm seriously craving gukbap—a hot bowl of rice soup."
"Figured as much. Already scoped out the best gukbap joint around here. Come on, Jinhyuk."
He tossed the words over his shoulder and strode off in long steps, and watching hyung—still as solid and comforting as a steaming bowl of gukbap—I felt it at last, down in my bones, that I had really gotten out. Maybe that was why. A smile that had almost never found my face inside the prison broke into full bloom, and I drew up beside him and followed.
Today was the first of January. The first day of a new year.