A Man With Nothing to Lose
The Managing Director was the first to offer his hand.
"Ah... a pleasure to meet you."
"Our Manager Yoo here... quite the résumé you've built. Multiple citations as a military investigator... and as an MP investigator, no less, you completed airborne training several times over. Distinguished marksman, too. Outstanding martial arts skills on top of all that. Those kinds of experiences... they seem to be showing up in your results. Your numbers are excellent."
"Yes. Thank you."
"But you see... just because you know how to throw a punch... that doesn't mean you can go around hitting people. That kind of thing can land you in serious trouble. We don't need employees who go around beating people. Have you... recently... been going around hitting people outside of work?"
Yoo Kang-soo felt himself go blank for a moment. This was a move he truly had not seen coming. Not a police report — going after his job. That was a scenario he had never once considered.
"Managing Director... I'm not sure what you're referring to. I never use violence when I investigate insurance fraud. That would put the company in an impossible position. The suggestion itself is absurd."
Kang-soo had a fairly clear idea of what the man was driving at, but he answered by the book. Even a managing director had no business poking into an employee's private life.
"No. Not company business. I heard some unpleasant rumors about your personal life. That you've been going around beating people."
The Managing Director let his speech slip into something casual, his voice climbing as he did. A man in his late fifties, trying to throw his weight around, to save a little face.
Kang-soo didn't so much as blink. He valued this job — truly valued it — but in the worst case, he could walk away. Four years of know-how at this firm meant that any smaller insurance company would welcome him with open arms. The pay would drop, of course. But he knew exactly what lowering his head here would mean. It would mean losing to Ko Dong-seok. It would mean that the very act of having provoked the man would become a joke.
Besides — his had been a life of nothing to begin with. Born a fatherless child with not a thing to his name, he had studied on his own, studied with a viciousness that got him into the law college of a respectable national university. He had lasted a year on part-time jobs and scholarships. But a man with no money could grind through law school, maybe — sitting for the bar was a fantasy for people who could afford to eat. So he took a leave of absence and enlisted as a non-commissioned officer, a career soldier.
His mother had begged him through tears. She would take out loans for the tuition, she said — please, just graduate. He had pushed through anyway. He had started with nothing. All he had ever owned was a bare fist and the blood in his veins, and he had driven that life forward on nothing but his own will, all the way to here. He regretted none of it.
"Whether I go around hitting people outside of work... whether I give some degenerate assholes a lesson they won't forget... has any of it interfered with company business? If you don't need a man who hits people, then terminate the contract. It's a one-year contract. I've still got more than six months left. Go find a clause that lets you cancel it. If I've violated a single company regulation, go ahead and name it."
"Now wait just a minute — who do you think you are, talking like that?"
The Managing Director's voice jumped the moment Kang-soo came at him hard. Kang-soo only came harder.
"What exactly did I do wrong? Looks like some piece-of-shit asked you for a favor. A managing director calling in a contract investigator to talk down to him — that the game here? Hey. Managing Director. You picked the wrong man. How about I shake down whoever's backing you and scrape your guts out with a kitchen knife? I want to know which bastards put in this filthy request so you could sit there and pull rank on me."
Kang-soo did not raise his voice. He simply looked at the Managing Director of an insurance company and spoke.
"Ah — now — now see here—"
A man of Kang-soo's imposing build, saying those words in a voice that had gone completely, unnervingly calm — the Managing Director was starting to panic.
"M-Manager Yoo, please — the Managing Director is only saying that violence—"
The Admin Manager cut in, and Kang-soo turned his eyes on him.
"Hey. Admin Manager. In the last four years, have you ever seen me hit anybody? Look at these fists. If I hit a man, I cave his skull in. I don't do sloppy. In four years, have I caught a single complaint for violence? Don't you sit there and lecture me about violence. Fuck. All those gangster insurance-fraud cases nobody wanted to touch — who took every last one of them and closed them? You think those old farts over there could handle that if I wasn't here? I'm done. I'm not renewing. Let's go to the president's office. I'm going to tell the president that this managing director son of a bitch took some filthy request from god knows where and pulled rank on me. I'm turning that office upside down."
"Hyung-nim — why are you doing this? Please, stop—"
The Admin Manager grabbed Kang-soo's arm, his face white, trying to hold him back. The Managing Director's expression had gone completely rotten. He couldn't get a word out. He was staring at the wall.
"Hey. You fucking managing director piece of shit. The bastard I beat is trash. Are you the same breed as that son of a bitch? You fucking asshole. I'll shake you down myself. I'll show you — properly, this time — what the scariest thing in this world really is."
Kang-soo raised his voice at last and roared it at the Managing Director, and the man went rigid.
"I — Manager Yoo — I'm sorry. I didn't look into this properly. I think I've made a serious mistake. I apologize."
The Managing Director was apologizing with a face that had completely folded. The moment Kang-soo stopped cursing, the Admin Manager pulled him by the arm.
"Hyung-nim, let's go. Come outside and talk to me. Come on — you're the one everyone says is a gentleman—"
Only then did Kang-soo allow himself to be led from the Managing Director's office, as if relenting.
The instant they were out, he gave the Admin Manager a light clap on the shoulder.
"Sorry about that, Manager. I roughed up some thugs a while back. Looks like those bastards got to the Managing Director. I don't need the contract renewed. But if he keeps coming at me like this — even if I quit, I'll quit by walking straight into the president's office."
"Aigoo, Manager Yoo, honestly. You're famous around here as a gentleman. Why would you do this? The Managing Director made a mistake. Hyung-nim, please. Don't do this."
Yoo Kang-soo was looking at his watch.
Nearly ten days had passed since the incident with Ko Dong-seok. A full week since the affair with the Managing Director.
He had deliberately said nothing to his wife, Ji Hye-in. And Hye-in, for her part, gave every appearance of knowing nothing at all. Ko Dong-seok, though — Ko Dong-seok would know. He would know that he had tried to have Kang-soo half-killed through the upper channels, and that it had gone sideways and blown up in his face.
Kang-soo had emptied his heart of it. It was the end of May. The contract ran through December of this year anyway. He told himself not to get attached to this company. It was a major insurer, rumored to pay the best in the business — but it was just a paycheck. You ate, you shit, you moved on. He was already preparing himself, if it came to that, to jump to another firm at the end of the year. He would never — not ever — submit to a situation that absurd.
And then came the first night his wife had a company dinner since all of it had happened. She had mentioned it the day before. This time, Kang-soo had deliberately asked nothing — not whether Ko Dong-seok would be there, not anything else.
Around eleven, their son Pil-jun had come home and was already sleeping hard. The clock had long since crossed midnight. Then it was past twelve-thirty, edging toward one, when he heard the front door open.
Kang-soo made a point of not coming out of the master bedroom. The footsteps that approached were very small. Then his wife, Ji Hye-in, stepped into the room.
"You're still up?"
Kang-soo was lying on the bed, looking at his phone. At the sound of her voice, he lifted his head.
He had been through hell and back. He had seen more dead bodies than he could count. And still, in this moment, he could not help but be stunned.
"What... what is that. That outfit..."
The words came out of him in a voice of complete shock.
"Ah... th-this is..."
A deep flush had risen across Ji Hye-in's face. She couldn't answer properly. She stood there hesitating, fumbling for something to say.
The smell of alcohol hung thick in the air — but it was the smell of cigarettes that hit harder. Cigarette smoke clung to her so heavily it seemed to pour off her body in waves.