The General Affairs Staffer's Approach (1)
The transfer to group headquarters, however, left him with a pang of regret.
He would have to give up his Japanese studies. The lessons had just started to gain real momentum—had just begun, at last, to get interesting.
Yesterday, during Japanese class, the instructor had told them the legend of Momotaro: a child born from a peach that came drifting down a river, who grew up to vanquish demons. A Japanese folk tale, more or less.
Then the instructor had asked a question.
"Momotaro is incredibly strong, you know. Who would that be in our country? Kim Chirok, why don't you give it a try?"
Of all people, she had to pick him. Kim Chirok hemmed and hawed, nothing coming to mind. He almost said Im Kkeokjeong, then thought better of it. The instructor kept going, a pleasant smile on her face.
"I hear China had a man of enormous strength named Xiang Yu. They said he had the force to uproot mountains and a spirit that towered over the age. So who do we have?"
Nobody answered. A brief silence settled over the room—and then a deep voice rolled up from the back.
Kim Chirok turned around. It was an older man from the production department—Manager Byun.
The instructor lit up and asked, "And who would that be?"
"Xiang Yu of China, Momotaro of Japan—neither of them amounts to anything. We've got a man in this country with real strength."
"Oh? We had someone like that?"
"A strongman who'd have Xiang Yu and Momotaro whimpering for mercy. His name is Byun Gang-soe. A man overflowing with vigor, that one."
The class burst into a roar of laughter. The instructor's face went crimson. She hurriedly changed the subject, announcing they would move on to the next lesson.
Oh Ha-young poked Kim Chirok in the arm.
"Who's Byun Gang-soe?"
"I, uh—I don't know either, honestly."
"There's something even a Seoul National graduate doesn't know?"
"Look it up online later."
Morning training ended, and everyone returned to their desks. Kim Chirok, wanting to know more about Momotaro, pulled up a search; Oh Ha-young looked up Byun Gang-soe.
Apparently there's even a statue of Momotaro if you go to Okayama Prefecture in Japan.
Kim Chirok had been practicing his Japanese diligently, hoping to take a trip to Japan on his own. And now, of all days, he had been told he was being transferred to group headquarters. It stung.
He found himself thinking of the fellow recruits who had gone to the group's Strategic Planning Office.
Twenty of them had joined the company. Two, as he recalled, had been assigned to the Strategic Planning Office.
One was Jeong Chan-young—a high school classmate of his, who'd landed the post purely on the strength of his father being a president within H Group, never mind that he'd graduated from a university well below Seoul National's caliber. The other was a guy who'd come out of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Kim Chirok considered calling Jeong Chan-young to say that he, too, was headed for the Strategic Planning Office. For some reason, though, he couldn't bring himself to dial that particular number. So he called the other one instead—the University of Washington graduate. They'd spoken now and then during the two months of new-hire training at the group center.
"It's Kim Chirok from H Chemical. How've you been?"
"Ah, Kim Chirok! You were stationed in Incheon, right?"
"I got transferred to the group's Strategic Planning Office today. I'll finish the handover and report in the day after tomorrow."
"Really? I've been so busy I haven't even seen the transfer notice on the intranet. Glad you're coming this way."
"Once I'm there, I hope you'll look out for me."
"Haha. What would I even look out for? You're the one who'll have to look out for me."
The University of Washington graduate sounded genuinely pleased. He seemed like a relatively straightforward guy.
Not long after, the phone rang again. This time it was Jeong Chan-young, calling from the Strategic Planning Office.
"It's me. Jeong Chan-young. I saw the transfer notice on the intranet. Congratulations. Looks like we'll be seeing a lot of each other."
"It's not even transfer season. I have no idea why they're sending me."
"You're a Seoul National man. When new-hire training ended and you got assigned to a subsidiary, we were all pretty surprised. You're talent, aren't you?"
Son of a bitch. He stole the seat that should have been mine.
"Talent? Please. This company's crawling with talent."
"Still, you were lucky it was Incheon and not some far-flung province. We've got classmates who got sent to Ulsan and Yeosu."
"Didn't they prioritize hometown placements?"
"Even so, pretty much everyone's first choice was the Strategic Planning Office. After that, the aviation affiliate."
"You'll have already established yourself there, so I hope you'll look out for me once I arrive."
"What would I look out for? I should be learning from you."
"Do they do morning language classes over there too?"
"They exist, technically. But anyone at Deputy General Manager level or above has to attend a hotel breakfast meeting in the morning. On President Jeong-hee's orders, they bring in distinguished scholars to give lectures."
"That's a nice system. You get a lecture and a free hotel breakfast."
"Ever since President Jeong-hee took office, it feels like the workload suddenly exploded."
"So that's why they're sending me out of nowhere, in the middle of the off-season?"
"Could be. When you get here, let's grab a meal."
"Sure."
"And I'll organize a high school reunion one of these days. I'll tell Lim Jae-geun to come too—the one who used to pick on you all the time."
"Pick on me? That was just kids being kids."
The mere thought of what he had suffered at the hands of Lim Jae-geun—the prosecutor's son—still sent a shiver through Kim Chirok's body.
Lim Jae-geun had beaten him over the head at the slightest provocation and taken his money. And because Chirok lived in a semi-basement apartment, Lim had treated him like dirt. To this day, he still carried a scar on his head from where Lim Jae-geun had struck him with a rock.
Kim Chirok had been the outcast of XX High School in Gangnam. But from around his sophomore year, his grades had shot up, and when he finally got into Seoul National University after a year of retaking the entrance exam, his classmates had started making room for him. So he showed up to gatherings when invited. Whenever the conversation turned to flaunting designer brands or newly purchased cars, though, he was still the odd man out.
Jeong Chan-young's voice came through the receiver again.
"Jae-geun graduated from law school this time around and joined XX Law Firm in Seocho-dong. He'd been asking about you, actually. I told him you were working at H Chemical in our group."
What? Lim Jae-geun got into XX Law Firm? Isn't that one of the top five?
Lim Jae-geun had attended a regional law school, and he'd still walked right into one of the top five firms. His father's connections, no doubt—the man had been a high-ranking prosecutor.
Lim Jae-geun had retaken the entrance exam himself and gone to Konkuk University, in an unpopular, non-legal major. For reasons unknown, he had never done his military service. That a former schoolyard thug with a solid build and a mean right hook had been excused from the army on health grounds had always struck Chirok as bizarre.
After graduation, Lim had announced he was going to law school. His entrance exam scores were poor, though, and he kept failing to get in. After years of intensive private tutoring, he had barely scraped into a regional university's law program.
And if he was at a top-five firm now, he was almost certainly earning far more than Chirok. The top five were hard enough to crack even for graduates of in-Seoul law schools. The thought that the boy who had subjected him to relentless school violence was now a lawyer at a prestigious firm left him thoroughly depressed.
That was when the phone rang. Oh Ha-young, from General Affairs.
"I heard you got transferred? Congratulations. Though I have to say, I'm a little sad."
"I received the notice quite suddenly myself."
"We should have a farewell party, right? Didn't we say we'd go to Yeonan Pier sometime?"
"Yeonan Pier?"
"Last time you went to Japan on business, you didn't bring back any souvenirs. Manager Lee, who went with you, brought back manju—and you came home empty-handed. Let's make it a farewell and go to Yeonan Pier tonight. We'll go with the other women from General Affairs."
Kim Chirok was depressed enough that even a dose of sea air sounded appealing. Going to Yeonan Pier alone with Oh Ha-young would have been awkward, but a group outing seemed all right.
Oh Ha-young was fine in most respects—except for the school violence. He couldn't shake the impression that, as a girl from a well-off family, she had probably tormented poorer classmates without mercy. She was the same kind of person as Lim Jae-geun, the prosecutor's son who had made his own life hell. People like that had something wrong with them.
A proper farewell with his current colleagues should have come first, but that could wait until tomorrow. And so Kim Chirok gave his assent. No point being petty on his way out the door.
"I... suppose so."
"Great. See you this evening, then."
Around quitting time, Oh Ha-young called again. She wanted to meet at a cafe by the Ara Waterway cruise dock at Yeonan Pier. She would be driving, she said. There was a public parking lot by the boats.
She's bringing the car, so she probably won't drink much. Or is she driving because several of the women are coming?
Kim Chirok felt a flicker of unease. If too many of the women showed up, the bill would be brutal. Still, he had no intention of pinching pennies on his last night.
He didn't own a car at the moment. The studio wasn't far from the office, so there had never been much need for one.
Should I take the bus to Yeonan Pier?
The routes looked complicated and the waits would be long, so he took a taxi instead.
He met Oh Ha-young at the cafe. She seemed to have put on makeup; she looked a little different from the woman he'd seen at Japanese class that morning. Her lipstick, in particular, was a deeper red.
She beamed at him.
"The raw fish place right next door. I made a reservation, so shall we?"
The restaurant was on the second floor of a building along the strip famous for marinated herring sashimi—high enough for a view of the sea.
Kim Chirok handed her the menu.
"You go ahead and order the sashimi. How many people are coming tonight?"
"The girls said they had prior plans. So it's just me."
"Just you?"
"Isn't that better? If a bunch of people showed up, it'd cost you. Tonight let's drink, just the two of us. Nice and cozy."
Just the two of us? Nice and cozy?
Kim Chirok felt a strange twist in his stomach. But he had come all this way; he could hardly turn around and leave.
Oh Ha-young smiled sweetly.
"What should we drink? Soju and beer?"
She didn't wait for his answer. She ordered the soju and the beer herself.
Oh Ha-young looked thoroughly, boundlessly pleased. Kim Chirok, for reasons he couldn't quite name, could only feel uneasy.