Gangnam 8th School District Alumni (1)
Kim Chirok looked from face to face at the friends gathered around the table. They all had that healthy glow that came from eating well — the complexion of people who had never gone without.
Among those who had married and moved out on their own, one or two no longer lived in Gangnam. Most of them, though, were still Gangnam residents through and through.
Lim Jae-geun was there — the prosecutor's son, now a lawyer at a Top 5 law firm. So was Jeong Chan-young, who worked in the Strategic Planning Office at H Group, the same company as Kim Chirok. Cho Won-beom, the Cornell graduate, was at a global investment bank. Hwang Byung-se was a third-year resident at a university hospital. Min Gyeong-sik had his doctorate and held a full-time lectureship at a provincial university. Lee Su-ho served as Executive Director at his father's small manufacturing firm. And then there was Kim Chirok himself: the cleaning lady's son, employed in H Group's Strategic Planning Office.
Lim Jae-geun shrugged his shoulders.
"Hey, how long has it been since we graduated high school? Good to see you guys."
"Yeah, good to see you."
"Should we collect for drinks up front? Hey, Kim Chirok! You collect fifty thousand from everybody."
Kim Chirok flinched. So this bastard still thinks of me as his errand boy.
Cho Won-beom — Cornell alum, currently at a foreign investment bank — spoke up.
"Is fifty thousand even going to cover it?"
"Then why don't you just pick up the whole tab?"
At Lim Jae-geun's words, Cho Won-beom's head sank into his shoulders.
Of everyone at the table, Cho Won-beom was the one Kim Chirok envied most. He had wanted to land at a global investment firm himself. But when he'd been job hunting, none of the right houses had been recruiting, so he had joined H Group instead. On top of that, Cho Won-beom was a product of overseas schooling, which meant his English was excellent. The bastard even had a Cornell MBA.
Everyone handed over fifty thousand won, and the money was passed to Kim Chirok. He was in a foul mood, but he took it and counted it up. Three hundred and fifty thousand won in all.
Jeong Chan-young, who worked at the same company, said with a crinkle-eyed smile,
"Now that we've gotten together like this, we should meet once or twice a year, don't you think?"
"Sure."
"Then how about we make Lim Jae-geun the president? Kim Chirok can be secretary."
Kim Chirok's mood soured all over again. They'd been in the same class, and now one of them got to be president and the other secretary? If this had been a volunteer organization, he might have taken on the role willingly, as a form of service. But this was a drinking meetup. Drawing those kinds of distinctions left a bad taste in his mouth.
"I'm not doing secretary."
"Who else is there?"
"There are seven of us. What do we need a president and a secretary for? Jae-geun, you just handle everything."
Hwang Byung-se, the university hospital resident, chimed in.
"Yeah. Jae-geun can be president and secretary both."
At that, Lim Jae-geun turned a glare on Kim Chirok.
"Look at little Chirok. All grown up."
Grown up? How long am I supposed to play your lackey? I've still got the scar on my skull from when you hit me, you son of a bitch.
Kim Chirok was seething, but he put on a mild smile.
"I'll put in the order, then. Two large platters of assorted sashimi for the food. As for drinks — sake, or beer?"
Cho Won-beom, the Cornell man, cut in.
"Sake? Come on. Draft beer."
Lim Jae-geun sneered again.
"Chirok even knows what sake is. He really has grown up."
Jeong Chan-young, from the same H Group, jumped in quickly.
"Haha. That's because Chirok just got back from a business trip to an expo in Japan."
Lim Jae-geun made a show of being impressed.
"Whoa, so Chirok joins a conglomerate and now he's flying overseas all the time?"
Lee Su-ho, Executive Director at his father's company, spoke up.
"Are two platters of sashimi going to be enough, though? Let's throw in an order of assorted skewers for each of us, too."
As far as Kim Chirok could tell, even adding the skewers, they wouldn't come up short on the money they'd collected.
"Sure, why not."
Min Gyeong-sik, the full-time lecturer at a provincial university, added,
"We should have some soup, too. How about a Nagasaki champon hot pot?"
So Kim Chirok ordered the assorted sashimi, the assorted skewers, the Nagasaki champon, and the draft beer.
The food arrived.
Lim Jae-geun turned to the friend who lectured at a provincial university.
"Must be rough, going back and forth from the countryside like that."
"I'll tough it out a bit and then come back up to Seoul. My father said he'd pull some strings."
Kim Chirok thought it over. Min Gyeong-sik's father was a senior professor at a university in Seoul. The full-time lectureship he held now had almost certainly come through his father's connections. Landing a position like that at their age was like plucking a star out of the sky.
Once again, Kim Chirok found himself resenting his father, the poet.
When Kim Chirok sat quietly on one side of the table, eating without a word, Lim Jae-geun took a shot at him.
"What's with you, not drinking and just cherry-picking all the good food?"
You son of a bitch. Can't even talk to me decently.
"I am drinking."
"You still living in that villa in Dogok-dong?"
Why's this bastard bringing up the villa again? If he mentions the basement, I swear I'll throw this beer glass at him.
"No, I moved. I'm in Bongcheon-dong now."
"Yeah? Where's Bongcheon-dong?"
"You wouldn't know, since you didn't go to Seoul National. It's the neighborhood right next to Seoul National University Station on Line 2."
"Ah. That place."
At the remark about not having gone to Seoul National, Lim Jae-geun's face seemed to twitch. He had graduated from one of the Geon-Dong-Hong schools — Konkuk, Dongguk, Hongik — respectable enough, but a far cry from SNU. Even so, as a prosecutor's son, Lim Jae-geun had gotten into a provincial law school after several years of retaking the exams. Now he worked at a Top 5 firm on the strength of his father's connections.
Lim Jae-geun asked again.
"Apartment prices in Bongcheon-dong have gone up a lot too, right?"
"I wouldn't know."
Kim Chirok currently lived in a rundown villa behind Bongcheon-dong's central market. He had no reason whatsoever to know apartment prices.
Lee Su-ho, Executive Director at his father's company, looked over at Lim Jae-geun.
"Your place has gone up a lot, hasn't it?"
"The apartment I live in, in Garak-dong — yeah, that's gone up quite a bit."
"You used to complain that your dad bought you a place in Songpa-gu instead of Gangnam-gu."
"It's gone up some, so I'm living with it."
"How much has it gone up?"
"I bought a brand-new 83-square-meter apartment last year for 1.8 billion won. It's probably worth about 2.5 billion now."
Kim Chirok was stunned.
So he made 700 million won in a single year? Just sitting there?
Kim Chirok was currently pinching every penny, saving three million won a month. That came to 36 million a year. Ten years of that would be 360 million. And Lim Jae-geun had pocketed 700 million in unearned income in a single year. It was staggering.
If Lim Jae-geun's apartment is worth 2.5 billion, I could run myself ragged for the rest of my life and never catch up. That's money I'll never see in this lifetime. Even if I'd graduated from Seoul National University's grandfather instead of Seoul National itself — if you're born with nothing, this is a height you can never reach.
The alcohol buzz drained right out of him.
This time Min Gyeong-sik, the provincial university lecturer, looked at Lim Jae-geun.
"Your father retired as a chief prosecutor, didn't he?"
"He never made Prosecutor General. He retired as a chief prosecutor and now he's an advisory attorney at the firm I work at. Being a former chief prosecutor, he's doing well for himself."
"Your wife's still in the provinces?"
"Yeah, she's out there. She's a judge in the regional courts, so we only see each other on weekends. She'll be coming up to Seoul soon."
Kim Chirok let out a faint sigh. Father a former chief prosecutor and advisory attorney at a Top 5 firm, wife a judge, Lim Jae-geun himself a lawyer — it really was a family that had it all. And when his father died, this bastard would inherit that spacious apartment in Dogok-dong, no question. No wonder he treated Chirok like a dog and rapped him on the back of the head whenever he felt like it.
It's all money and connections. That's everything.
With that, Kim Chirok drained his half-liter glass of draft beer in a single gulp.
Min Gyeong-sik looked at Lim Jae-geun again.
"You're a lawyer, so you must be making the most money out of all of us, right?"
"Doctors do better than lawyers. Hey! Hwang Byung-se! How much are you making right now?"
"I'm still a third-year resident, so not much. Maybe once I open my own practice. Right now my salary's probably about the same as Kim Chirok's, working at a conglomerate."
"When you finish your residency, come to Gangnam and open a plastic surgery clinic. I hear those guys rake it in."
"I'm internal medicine. My father was too. I'll be taking over his clinic."
Kim Chirok looked at Hwang Byung-se's face. That was right. This one was the son of an internal medicine clinic director.
It really was all money and connections.
And right now, Kim Chirok had neither. What connections could a former cleaning lady of a mother possibly have? And what connections could a father have, living like a hermit in the mountains, writing his peculiar poetry?
The more he thought about it, the more pathetic he felt, so he just kept drinking.
As the alcohol began to take hold, the others broke off into twos and threes, talking among themselves. Even here, Kim Chirok was an outsider. They'd included him in the gathering, sure — but he still felt like a permanent stranger among them.
The provincial university lecturer was the first to get up from the table. The university hospital resident stood as well, saying he had to get home. That left five of them. Jeong Chan-young, who worked at the same conglomerate as Kim Chirok, spoke up.
"It's gotten late. How about our president, Lim Jae-geun, leads us in a Bravo, and we call it a night?"
"Shall we? Has it gotten that late already?"
They all shouted "Bravo" at Lim Jae-geun's lead and clinked their glasses. Kim Chirok clinked his too.
Still, he thought, at least he worked at a conglomerate — that was why he got to sit at the same table as these alumni. And these weren't just any classmates. These were the ones who'd run at the top of the class, whether with their fists or their grades.
The one he'd actually been close with — a guy named Jong-hyuk — hadn't even made the cut for this gathering. Jong-hyuk was currently working as a restaurant waiter on Garosu-gil in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam.
When they got up to leave, Kim Chirok settled the bill. It came to 380,000 won. They'd collected 350,000. They were 30,000 short.
Lim Jae-geun asked him,
"How much was the bill?"
"380,000. We collected 350,000, so we're 30,000 short."
"Yeah? Collecting the rest is a hassle, so you cover the 30,000. It's pocket change. Just pay it."
This bastard had always been a seasoned pro at squeezing money out of Kim Chirok — back in school and now. The rich ones always bled the poor ones dry.
Kim Chirok just smiled and let it go. He found himself thinking that the phrase "the strong eat the weak" hadn't been coined for nothing.