An Apology Through His Wife
Executive Director Park Young-ho was smiling as he tossed a joke at Vice President Jo Bong-young.
"I'm not joking. This is real. That man Yoo Kang-soo — his wife is very closely connected to our cafe."
Vice President Jo Bong-young was sharing dinner and drinks with Executive Director Park Young-ho, just the two of them, in a private room at the Japanese restaurant of a luxury hotel. For over an hour, as they tipped their glasses, Jo had been explaining the nature of the cafe and the women who served there as its public subs.
Park Young-ho's face had taken on a faint flush.
"Wow. I really can hardly believe this. I thought Vice President Jo's gathering was just some entertainment club — the usual kind of fun. Wait. Is that actually possible?"
Park's face was flushed far more deeply now than it had been a moment before.
Jo Bong-young opened his mouth to answer.
"You know, there's no end to human creativity. Inside this tiny little skull of ours, another entire universe exists."
He said it with a sly, suggestive smile.
"How about it, Director Park? Would you like to try it yourself?"
"But is it really Yoo Kang-soo's wife? I mean — that idiot. His own wife, whoring around like a filthy slut, and he genuinely doesn't know? Don't tell me this isn't some kind of netori thing."
Park Young-ho put the question to Jo again, his face alight with something that looked a great deal like excitement.
Jo Bong-young explained everything, carefully and in order — starting from the man named Yeom Seong-bong, who had blown himself up by exposing the affair to Yoo Kang-soo, all the way through to Ko Dong-seok inviting Kang-soo to a meal in a clumsy attempt to talk his way out of it.
"It's an absolutely staggering situation, but I can somewhat understand that man Ko Dong-seok's feelings. The courage to violate the husband of the woman he stole. Ah — that courage just ended up as reckless bravado, didn't it."
Jo Bong-young was inwardly surprised. Park Young-ho's reaction was not the sort of thing an ordinary person would easily produce. It was a distinctly unusual response.
"How about it, Director? If you want, I'll have her serve you as well. She has no idea, of course, that you're her husband's former superior — the one who had trouble with him at his old company. She'll think of you as nothing more than a new membership candidate for the cafe, and she'll attend to you on that basis. Are you interested?"
Park Young-ho answered with a lewd little smile of his own.
"I'd be an idiot not to. What's there in this world? New experiences are always welcome. If you're afraid of change, you might as well die. I actually — that bastard Yoo Kang-soo —"
The drink had loosened his tongue. He was on the verge of casually mentioning the contract beating that had failed — then he caught himself, shut his mouth in a hurry, and covered it with a different story.
"That bastard came at me cursing. It left a filthy taste in my mouth. But I'll take that apology through his wife instead."
Park Young-ho had already decided he was going for it, whether he could quite swallow it or not.
He had a reputation for liking women. He had already laid hands on the secretary in his executive office — a married woman in her early thirties — and had since grown tired of her and left her alone. It was hardly just one or two of the middle-aged female employees in their forties at the insurance company that he had touched over the years. But nearly all of them had been one-night-stand arrangements. Dragging something like a girlfriend along was not Park Young-ho's usual style. Besides, the entertainment scene these days was full of young girls who were far too hungry for money, and honestly, it was often a letdown.
This, he thought, would be a very fine experience. And at the same time, a rage that felt uncomfortably like inferiority toward Yoo Kang-soo seemed to be boiling up in him all over again.
"Try some of this. Side dishes my wife sent by courier. She sent too many, so I divided some up."
Yoo Kang-soo was handing over a few of the banchan he had portioned into disposable plastic containers to a fellow manager who worked out of another room in the studio-apartment lodging.
"Oh — thank you. I'll enjoy them. Want to come in for a bit? I'll get you a cup of instant coffee, at least."
Kang-soo had wanted to get along freely with the other contract managers doing insurance investigations, the way he had at his previous company. But strangely, the handful of investigator-managers temporarily lodging in these studio apartments barely even saw each other's faces. When they did meet, they would exchange a light nod and pass by, and it was nearly impossible to strike up a conversation. So he had taken the initiative, approaching with the side dishes in hand.
"I'm a former military police investigator, just like you, Manager Yoo. I'm three years older. Turned fifty this year, on the nose."
"Ah — so you're my senior. I didn't know you were a former MP investigator. I'm sorry."
"No, no. How many MP investigators are there across the country? You may not know me, but I actually knew of Manager Yoo Kang-soo when I was still on active duty. You were quite famous, after all. You put down a lot of dangerous incidents. That shooting rampage at the front — when you fought a gun battle all by yourself and saved every one of the hostages. I was shocked then too. I wouldn't have the confidence to do something like that."
The man, a Manager Ham with a pleasant, open face, laid himself out first and started talking. Kang-soo thought he had done well to approach.
"I had an accident in the service. Couldn't complete twenty years — I was forcibly discharged in my seventeenth. That's what I regret most. You must feel a bit disappointed, Manager Yoo. The atmosphere among the investigators here is... well. Like this."
"Ah. Yes. Honestly, compared to where I was last, the atmosphere is quite different. I was a bit surprised."
"It's like that here. The former cops have a tight grip on the place, so military veterans, former prosecution investigators — anyone who isn't from the police side — they can't hold out. A lot of them fail to get their contracts renewed. That's the atmosphere. So everyone is wary of everyone else. Even I — the others just aren't watching right now, but if I got friendly with you where people could see, word would get out immediately, and I'd probably get the boot right along with you. So even if I can't treat you warmly, please understand."
"That's fine. So that kind of culture exists. But doesn't headquarters know about this? That kind of atmosphere — headquarters ought to be correcting it."
Manager Ham shook his head.
"Headquarters actually encourages it, quietly. To completely shake down and control the insurance investigators, they tacitly foster that territorial bullying, that ostracism. So that later, if a problem comes up, they can immediately shake people out. They keep the discipline tight. The company you were at before, Manager Yoo — that actually had the best atmosphere you'd find. I worked there myself about six years ago, for exactly one year. That would have been before you were discharged. I failed to get my contract renewed, but that place was the best to work at, I think. The atmosphere was the best too."
Hearing that, Kang-soo felt a dull ache settle in his chest. If it hadn't been for that business with Executive Director Park Young-ho, he would have wanted to keep working there. And the truth was, it upset him a little.
Park Young-ho was waiting in a tourist-hotel room that Vice President Jo Bong-young had given him in advance. It was early morning.
Park was in his late fifties, and honestly, he had tried just about every experience there was. It was not as if he had never had affairs with married women. But those cases and this one, he thought, were entirely different things.
He was turning all of this over in his mind when the doorbell chimed.
Park Young-ho opened the door — and he could not help but be a little surprised.
A pretty, innocent-looking woman was standing on the threshold.
Park Young-ho could not help but doubt his own eyes and ears. He stood there slightly dumbfounded. That clear, ringing voice. That innocent face, pretty in its own quiet way. The woman in the sleeveless dress looked far too wholesome — not a trace of the pleasure district about her. Nothing of that world at all.
Park Young-ho perched on the edge of the bed. At his feet, Ji Hye-in sank to her knees.