An Izakaya in Osaka (1)
In Dotonbori, Osaka's famous entertainment district, the streets were packed with people once again.
Slip free of the crowds and walk toward Nipponbashi Station, and a drinking house came into view: an izakaya hung with a red lantern, the name Mogamigawa painted across it.
Five men who had the look of company employees were drinking inside. They were staff of Korea's H Group — three of them in from Korea on a business trip, the other two stationed at the local branch.
A man in his late forties, seated against the wall, addressed the man of about thirty sitting across from him.
"Have a drink. Japanese sake not agreeing with you?"
"Ah — yes. I am drinking, sir."
"Is it too cold, maybe? Should I have them warm it up?"
"No, I'm fine, thank you."
"When did you join the company?"
The other man in his late forties, sitting across the table, cut in.
"This is Kim Chirok. He's in his second year."
"Is that so?"
"He hasn't built up his drinking stamina yet. Don't push him. You just drink plenty yourself."
"Me? I'm the Osaka Branch Manager — I drink every day. And these days the Osaka Expo has me running around like crazy. Sometimes I have to do two rounds of evening entertainment in a single night."
"Two rounds? Still, I envy you being a branch manager."
"What are you talking about? You're a Director at H Chemical back in Korea. That's better."
"Not all Directors are created equal. I'm not even at group headquarters — I work at an affiliate factory. What's so great about that?"
"It's not some far-flung province. It's Incheon. Once the GTX-B line opens, they say you'll be in Seoul in twenty minutes."
"I envy you, with your English and your Japanese. Getting to travel overseas on the back of that — isn't that nice?"
"Knocking around someone else's country is hard in its own way."
"Hard how?"
"My wife's in Seoul, and I've got a son about to start middle school. Being apart from them isn't good."
"Don't the higher-ups come through here all the time? Seems like a great place to curry favor. Play it right and you'll make Managing Director, won't you? Get promoted and come back to Korea."
"Managing Director? Don't make me laugh."
The Director who had come from Korea and the Osaka Branch Manager seemed close — close enough that they might have joined the company in the same year. The easy, familiar way they spoke to each other made it obvious.
The H Group Osaka Branch Manager took a sip of sake and spoke again.
"By the way — the employee who came with you. Kim Chirok, was it?"
The man of about thirty shifted in his seat, half-rising as he answered.
"Yes, that's right, sir."
"Unusual name. Chirok, of all things."
"My father gave me that name."
"Did he? Sounds like there's a meaning behind it."
"He said you have to manage your blessings well, and named me accordingly."
"Manage your blessings? Haha. Your father has a good sense of style."
At those words, Kim Chirok thought briefly of his father, who had left home.
The Director who had come with him from Korea spoke up.
"Kim Chirok here is an SNU Business School graduate."
The Osaka Branch Manager looked mildly surprised.
"Ohhh? Seoul National University? Then he ought to be working somewhere like the group's Strategic Planning Office. What a waste, having him at an affiliate in Incheon."
"Bad luck landed him on an affiliate's planning team, but he's a talented one. Shame to waste him."
"You've got to get in with the right people... Once you're sent out to an affiliate, it's hard to make it back to group headquarters. Unless you've got someone pulling for you on the other end — even a rotten rope would do."
Kim Chirok thought of Jeong Chan-young, who had joined the company in the same year. Jeong had graduated from a second-tier university, but because his father was the president of an H Group affiliate, he had gone straight into the Strategic Planning Office.
Kim Chirok had clenched his teeth and studied, told that graduating from Seoul National University was the path to success — and yet now he felt as though he was already falling behind. The thought left him hollow.
Still, his mother and relatives were delighted that he had gotten into a major corporation. His mother had gone around bragging to everyone she knew.
Kim Chirok had grown up poor, but thanks to his mother he had attended school in the Gangnam 8th School District. The family had originally lived in Goyang, in Gyeonggi Province. His mother, however, had insisted that her son's education had to take place in the Gangnam 8th School District, and so they had moved — into a semi-basement unit of a townhouse behind Dogok Elementary School.
Living in Gangnam did not mean you were rich. There were semi-basements there too.
His mother, standing in for an incompetent father, had taken two jobs the moment they arrived. She worked as a cleaner in a luxury apartment complex in Dogok-dong, and she also worked as a visiting caregiver.
Kim Chirok getting into Seoul National University meant his mother's campaign had succeeded. But how much scorn had he endured from his classmates for living in a semi-basement? His mother would never know the bruises on her son's heart. And Kim Chirok himself had never wanted to let it show.
Things had improved somewhat for the family now — because Kim Chirok had landed a job at a major conglomerate. Not long ago they had moved to a villa in Bongcheon-dong. Not a semi-basement this time, but a slightly more spacious unit on the third floor.
Having joined a chaebol company, Kim Chirok had wanted, if he was going to be there at all, to work in one of the group's core departments. But society was not so accommodating. Connections, it seemed, mattered more than ability.
The man in his late thirties who had come on the business trip with Kim Chirok — a Manager — spoke up.
"Branch Manager, sir. When it comes down to it, society seems to run on connections more than ability."
The Director nodded.
"Connections are ability, that's right. Managing Director Jeong at our company — the moment his older brother got elected to the National Assembly, he was promoted straight to Senior Managing Director."
Kim Chirok felt the gloom settle over him again.
So without connections, does that make me incompetent?
He was the son of an apartment cleaner. He had graduated from Seoul National University, and still he felt certain he would fall behind those who had connections. He even wondered if he would ever be able to get married. He would have to buy a home first, and that prospect felt impossibly distant.
The Director dipped a piece of fried shrimp in wasabi soy sauce, ate it, and lifted his face. Then, looking at a poster on the wall of the bar, he spoke.
"What's that poster? The woman in the photo looks like a geisha."
On the poster, a beautiful woman in a kimono stood smiling beneath a cherry tree at a temple.
The Osaka Branch Manager raised his head and looked at it.
"Ah, that's a promotional poster for the city of Kyoto."
"Was the woman on that poster drawn by AI? Where do you find a woman that perfectly beautiful?"
"It's not AI. She's the top geiko in Kyoto right now."
"Geiko?"
"In the Kansai region, geisha are called geiko. And among the Kansai cities, Kyoto is famous for its geiko."
"I've heard Kyoto is famous for its geisha. So that's why the city made a promotional poster like that."
"Do you know how many tourists Kyoto gets in a year because of the geisha? Hundreds of thousands pour in. The tourism revenue alone is enormous."
"Should we go see some geisha tomorrow?"
"Real geisha are hard for ordinary tourists to even catch a glimpse of."
"That so? But if that poster is a real photograph, she's genuinely beautiful."
"She's famous. Hirosue Yoshiko — the most beautiful geisha in Kyoto."
Kim Chirok looked at the poster as well. A woman like a celestial maiden was wearing a captivating, alluring smile. It was a face that might have stepped out of a classical Chinese painting of a beauty.
That's a real photograph? She looks like a goddess. Hirosue Yoshiko, was that the name?
Kim Chirok stared, lost in it. He had never seen a beauty like this in his life.
The Director tapped him on the back of the head.
"Hey! What are you staring at like that? She's a beauty from another country — a pie in the sky!"
"N-no, I was just looking."
"A woman like that would never even cross paths with ordinary mortals like us. Just drink."
With that, the Director poured sake into Kim Chirok's empty cup.
Kim Chirok drank a little of what he had been poured and looked at the poster again. She really was as beautiful as a sculpture.
And yet — and yet.
Not a soul in that room knew that this woman would, in days to come, walk into Kim Chirok's life as if by fate. They could not have dreamed it.