My, This Is Quite the Parachute Hire (3)

"I'm sorry? Wh-what am I supposed to do, exactly?"

At those words from Lee Sung — Kang Jinhyuk's sworn brother — the man seated across from him startled and asked again. Repeating a question you'd heard plain as day was a transparent bid to deny what had just been said to your face. It did not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠work on Lee Sung, a man who believed most problems could be solved by charging straight through them.

"What do you mean, do what. Day after tomorrow my little brother shows up, and I'm telling you to plant him in the company."

"Th-that's... what in the world..."

Anyone overhearing in passing would have taken it for sordid, ugly abuse of power — words that sat poorly on a man who had walked through his whole life upright. Even so, he said them as upright as ever. He had a reason to put it so bluntly.

"Why're you fumbling around like that? It's in the first contract you and I ever signed. Once during the contract period, Party A has to accept the hire of whoever Party B names. Written right here. So what."

Lee Sung jabbed a forefinger thicker than most grown men's thumbs at a passage of the contract lying on the table.

There it was, just as he had said: the clause requiring them to accept the hire. It had been written in a year ago, when Lee Sung and the man drew up the contract to found the agency.

"Even so, this is a bit much, isn't it..."

Telling a man out of nowhere to shove someone into a job would have been abuse of power. Pointing at a clause both sides had agreed to a year ago and telling him to honor it was not. It was nothing more than an order to carry out what the contract already said.

The man who heard him knew that perfectly well. Even so, he couldn't help recoiling.

Because—

"You're telling me, just like that, to hire a convict... an attempted murderer, no less?"

The man Lee Sung wanted hired was the Gangsters' Gangster, who had once committed attempted murder. Contract or not — even if the words came from Lee Sung, the man supplying every bit of funding the agency needed to run — hiring a violent felon was not something he could easily swallow.

"Sure. Hiring a guy convicted of attempted murder is a hell of a risk for a company president. If some ex-con who'd tried to kill a man came asking me for a job, I'd snap his back the wrong way myself."

Lee Sung, the very man who had demanded the hire out of nowhere, nodded as if he understood completely. In that nod the man caught a splinter of hope. Maybe — just maybe — the refusal would be accepted.

"R-right?! You feel it too, don't you, Hyung-nim? How unreasonable what you just said really is?"

What came out of Lee Sung's mouth next was a lump of despair that shattered that hope to pieces.

"Thing is, that kid never pulled any attempted murder. The whole thing was a frame-up. 'Course, Lord knows what he was thinking — didn't appeal once, just swallowed the entire charge — so in the end he got pinned as an attempted murderer anyway."

"What?"

"He got in a fight, yeah. Using violence instead of the law to get what he wanted — that plainly wasn't the righteous way. But it was the right thing. If you'd been in that place that day, you'd have done exactly what he did."

"Th-that's... what are you even saying? What does that even mean?"

From start to finish, none of it meant anything the man could grasp.

"If I had my way, I'd tell you the whole story, beginning to end, so you'd know that Jinhyuk kid is the genuine article. Unfortunately, this is as far as I can go. You've been in the broadcast business long enough. You know some things you're better off not knowing."

The man knew the rough shape of Lee Sung's past. Which was how he understood that better off not knowing, coming from that mouth, was not a dodge to hide information. It was a genuine warning that not knowing was safer.

Even so, you could not simply hire a convict who had been sentenced, served his time, and walked out. The man opened his mouth to talk Lee Sung down somehow. Lee Sung got there first.

"Baro. Jung Baro. That kid's my little brother, but I think of you as my little brother too."

At those words, Jung Baro found his voice stuck in his throat and closed his mouth without saying anything. Lee Sung looked at him with a bitter expression and drove a wedge into that wavering heart.

"And you know what kind of man I am. You think I'd shelter some vicious, irredeemable criminal and call him my brother, the way you're imagining?"

Jung Baro hesitated a moment, then put surrender into words.

"...No. Of course not. I know better than anyone that you aren't that kind of man, Hyung-nim."

He hadn't said he'd lost. Failing to answer Lee Sung, though, was no different from bending his will.

And so Lee Sung finished an exercise of rights that looked like abuse of power dressed up as persuasion. With a palm the size of a cauldron lid, he gave Jung Baro's shoulder a couple of solid pats and asked, gently.

"See? Knew it. Then I'm counting on you. I'll send him the day right after he gets out, so take him in properly."

Jung ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Baro was, however, a man who bore the title of agency head. He could not become a yes-man who folded at a word from Lee Sung. Timid as it was, he put into words that his will had not been entirely broken.

"If he can't do the work... if I don't like what I see, I'll cut him on the spot."

"Sure. Be my guest."

What came back was an answer brimming with confidence — the confidence of a man certain there was no possible way this one would fail to satisfy.

"They switched every address over to those new street names, so I wasn't sure... this is the place?"

I arrived at the address Hyung-nim had given me, and a five-story building stood there as if it owned the block. Running down the outer wall in a vertical line were the letters that told me I'd found the right one.

So why was I standing here struck dumb after finding it just fine? Because the building in front of me was far too familiar.

"Honestly... they really committed to this. Hyung-nim and the young lady both."

The Bareungil Entertainment Building before my eyes had been, seven years ago, the headquarters of Jeongdo-pa — the syndicate where Hyung-nim was the boss and I was a member. For all practical purposes, it had been my home.

"I figured Hyung-nim would've cashed this building in for startup money. It's still standing."

Call it a remodel if you liked. They'd hung a Bareungil Entertainment sign, touched up the exterior cladding, and swapped every window for one-way glass so no one could peer in from outside. The rest was the Jeongdo-pa building I remembered, unchanged.

"And if the name just went from Jeongdo-pa to Bareungil Entertainment, then practically nothing's different at all."

In our gangster days, Hyung-nim and I had been thugs who reached our ends through violence nobody had sanctioned. Even so, we had only ever done what we believed was right. That was how Jeongdo-pa got its name — the Righteous Path, in so many words. Seeing that same will come down unbroken under Bareungil Entertainment, Righteous Path Entertainment, left me with a strange feeling.

"And here I thought I'd settled every account with the gangster life..."

I'd heard the funds were put up so the young lady could found an agency. But the idea of turning this building into that agency, and the choice of the name Bareungil — that had to have been Hyung-nim.

He wasn't at my side. Off at his own company for work. Even so, staring at the building, I could almost hear his voice.

"Honestly... aren't you embarrassed, saying something like that? Hyung-nim."

It was embarrassing enough that heat climbed my face for no good reason. Still, I understood well enough what he wanted me to hear, and I thought the same way.

"You don't have to spell it out like that. I'll manage just fine on my own. I will, from here on."

As I always had, I would pull it off in the end. I wouldn't go back to the gangster's work, but I wouldn't forget the old resolve either. Swearing it once more, I started toward the Jeongdo-pa building that had been my home — now the Bareungil Entertainment Building — for the first time in seven years.

"Hoo... all right. Let's go in!"

"......"

"......"

"......"

"...E-excuse me."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Um... there wouldn't happen to be anything I could help with, would there?"

"No, there isn't."

"Yes. Yes, sir."

I'd walked in prouder than the day I stood at the vanguard to smash a rival syndicate, and that pride had been utterly destroyed within thirty minutes of stepping inside. All I had left was awkwardness, and a sheepish heat. The spirit a new hire was supposed to bring — a young man's drive, his courage, those impressive things, whatever you wanted to call them — none of it remained in me. Which figured.

"......"

"......"

"......"

"......"

"......"

"......"

Not one of the employees at their desks was talking. Not one of them was working. They simply stared into empty air and sat still. If they'd been too swamped to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠look after a new hire, I could at least have read the room and found my feet. If they'd given me the cold shoulder, I could have burned the resentment for fuel and lit a competitive fire. Instead they'd told me to sit here until Mr. Choi Chulhoon arrived, and for thirty minutes they hadn't given me a single task — and they themselves hadn't done a single thing. Was this for real?

They truly weren't doing anything. Not even ordinary grunt work, so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there was no enthusiasm to burn even if I'd wanted to burn it. Enthusiasm needs a goal, and I didn't have one, aside from waiting on a man named Choi Chulhoon who might show up sometime or never. And I couldn't get enthusiastic about waiting for Choi Chulhoon. What would enthusiasm for waiting even mean? Was this the reality of an agency with no trainees and exactly one signed entertainer — an agency that could sit perfectly still, because the money came in from outside?

In more ways than one, it was horrifying.

A workplace that paid you a salary for killing time without working. Anyone who only heard it described would want it. Anyone who learned it meant a place like this would take the wish back.

Even so, I couldn't sit there in a daze. I was already a parachute hire — dropped in from above — and an ex-con. Zoning out would only make them dislike me, and that much was guaranteed. With nothing to focus on, I chose to stare into empty air and focus anyway. Thirty minutes in, I understood with miserable clarity how hard it is to keep your mind sharp when there is nothing to keep it sharp on.

How was the office rougher than prison? At this rate I was genuinely going to lose it. A bathroom, at least — somewhere to clear my head...

I was thinking that, just starting to haul myself out of the chair, when the automatic door whirred open. A shaved-head man with a powerful build walked in. Eyes glaring wide, he strode straight at me, slammed a palm on the desk, and growled low.

"I don't accept the likes of you working at our company. Get outside, you ex-con bastard."

Sudden cursing. A threatening stance. Anyone could see he was picking a fight. I broke into the most delighted smile in the world and nodded hard.

"Yeah! Thanks. Seriously!"

Now I can live!