A Meeting with Father (1)
The homes of all the alumni who'd gathered today lay east of Gangnam Station, so everyone headed east. Only Kim Chirok went west — Bongcheon-dong, where he lived, was in that direction.
Kim Chirok boarded the subway.
Someday I'll move into a luxury apartment in Gangnam too!
But that was looking more like a pipe dream than anything else. If he climbed the ranks all the way to executive, it might be possible — but by then he'd be well past fifty. He'd have no choice but to live in poverty through his thirties and forties.
Still, because Kim Chirok had graduated from Seoul National University, he at least had the hope of owning a home by his fifties. People who hadn't even that much, he thought, had nothing waiting for them but despair.
On the subway train, his old classmate Seo Jong-hyuk suddenly came to mind.
I wonder how Jong-hyuk is doing these days?
Seo Jong-hyuk had been a friend who'd lived in the same villa in Dogok-dong. Of all Chirok's friends, he was the only one whose name his mother actually knew — because Jong-hyuk had often come over to play at their semi-basement apartment.
The alumni hadn't invited Seo Jong-hyuk today. They probably figured he'd bring the group's level down.
Seo Jong-hyuk was a big guy. And yet even he had gotten beaten by Lim Jae-geun. He had the size, but like Chirok he was poor, and he wasn't a good student either. So he couldn't hold his head up, and Lim Jae-geun had walked all over him.
Once Kim Chirok got into Seoul National University, they naturally drifted apart. Seo Jong-hyuk himself had been the one to pull away.
Still, Chirok was grateful that Jong-hyuk hadn't gone down a bad path and had become a chef instead. Being a chef could be a promising career if you did it well.
He'd heard that if you became a star chef and worked at a famous Michelin-starred restaurant, you could even pull in a salary of hundreds of millions of won a year.
He works on Garosu-gil in Sinsa-dong. I should go visit sometime.
But going alone would be awkward. A restaurant with a proper chef seemed like the kind of place you'd need at least two people, and Chirok didn't really have anyone to go with.
Should I ask Deputy Song from the Strategic Planning Office to come along?
If he did, he'd have to pick up the tab himself. Maybe it would be better to go with his mother instead of Deputy Song. She'd never been to a place like that.
When he walked through the door, his mother waved a hand in front of her face, squinting.
"Ugh. You reek of booze."
"You're still up?"
"Did you eat?"
"Yes. I ate."
"Oh, right — you said you were meeting your old classmates today?"
"Yes."
"Jong-hyuk must have been there too. It's been so long since I've seen that boy's face. I wonder if his parents are still running that shop. They used to have a little snack bar behind Lotte Department Store in Dogok-dong."
"Jong-hyuk was too busy to come out today. He's working as a chef in Sinsa-dong now."
"A chef? What's a chef?"
"It's like a head cook. These days, high-end restaurants have a profession called chef that covers everything from the cooking itself to running the entire kitchen."
"Is that so? So it's like a head cook, then?"
"The scope is a bit broader than that. Want to go together sometime? He said it's on Garosu-gil in Sinsa-dong."
"Garosu-gil? I have a friend who works at a restaurant around there."
"Shall we go together, Mom? Let's visit the restaurant where Jong-hyuk works."
"No thanks. Why waste money for no reason? There are plenty of good restaurants just behind Bongcheon-dong Central Market."
"He said it's a high-end place."
"That fancy Western food doesn't even agree with me. We'll talk about that later — go wash your feet first."
Kim Chirok washed his feet and lay down on the bed in his room.
A KakaoTalk message was waiting for him. It was from Oh Ha-young in the General Affairs Department at H Chemical.
He didn't reply. If he sent an answer, he was sure a barrage of follow-up messages would come flooding in, one after another.
He wanted to start quietly backing away from Oh Ha-young around now.
Another week went by.
The team leader came back from the director's office and called for Kim Chirok.
"Kim Chirok. The director wants to see you. Go on over."
"Me? What's this about?"
"Beats me. I have no idea why he's specifically singling you out."
The head of the Strategic Planning Office held the rank of Senior Managing Director. But he was treated almost like the president of an affiliate company, because he served the Chairman and his daughter, President Jeong-hee, directly.
If he played his cards right, he could even walk away with the presidency of a smaller affiliate. And a man like that had just summoned Kim Chirok — a nobody still wet behind the ears.
The director's office was a separate room, but the glass partitions made the interior clearly visible.
The director was leaning back in his chair, looking at his phone.
"Kim Chirok from Team 2, sir."
"Ah, Kim Chirok! Have a seat."
Chirok sat down in the visitor's chair beside the desk.
The director shrugged, then pulled a large envelope stuffed with documents from a drawer. He smiled and spoke in a remarkably familiar tone.
"Work treating you all right?"
"Yes, sir. I'm working hard."
The director pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses with his left hand and looked Kim Chirok over slowly.
The team leader had once mentioned that the head of the Strategic Planning Office was named Jang Gye-nam, but everyone called him Jang Zhuge. A man of extraordinary cunning, he'd said. Looking at him, Chirok had to agree — he looked the part.
From the first time he'd seen him, though, Chirok had thought this Jang Zhuge resembled Cao Cao more than Zhuge Liang. It was the impression of those slightly protruding front teeth.
Director Jang smiled a peculiar smile.
"I heard from your team leader. He says you do good work."
"I'm just doing my best, sir."
"Would you mind taking these documents over to the lady secretary in the Chairman's office?"
"Pardon? The secretary? I just need to deliver them?"
"Just deliver them. Go find Secretary Bang Mihee."
Bang Mihee? Does he mean that famous Chairman's secretary — Bang Yeo-jeong?
"Understood. I'll deliver them."
But it was strange. Why was he sending him?
There were plenty of Team 1 staff right outside the director's office. Calling someone from farther away just to run an errand didn't make sense.
A suspicion crept in. This man had the nickname Jang Zhuge, after all — was he cooking up some sly, underhanded scheme?
As Kim Chirok walked out with the documents, Jang Zhuge pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up with his left hand once more, wearing an oddly inscrutable expression.
Kim Chirok went up to the Chairman's office on the twelfth floor.
This side of the building was quiet, with little foot traffic. Abstract paintings hung along a wide corridor laid with carpet. The only people who passed through were presidents and vice presidents coming to have documents approved.
Kim Chirok was now walking into the very heart of H Group, one of the nation's foremost chaebol conglomerates. It felt exactly like heading into a dungeon.
A wide desk stood at the entrance to the Chairman's office, and Bang Mihee sat there as still as a still-life painting. It was utterly quiet. There was a male secretary in the next room, but here it seemed to be Bang Mihee alone.
When Kim Chirok entered, Bang Mihee sprang to her feet.
He gave a slight bow, then took another step forward and spoke.
"I've been sent by Director Jang of the Strategic Planning Office."
"Would you happen to be... Kim... Chirok?"
"That's right."
Bang Mihee's eyes sharpened as she looked him up and down.
Why is this woman looking me up and down like that? It's giving me the creeps.
Seen up close, Bang Mihee was indeed a beauty. But she seemed to be wearing far too much makeup. Vivid red lipstick, and her false eyelashes were long.
A subtle scent of Chanel perfume drifted from her.
Hmm. Is this the "monster" Oh Ha-young from H Chemical General Affairs was talking about? She's not a monster — just a flashy beauty.
Kim Chirok spoke a little hesitantly.
"I brought the documents from the director."
"You can just leave them with me."
Kim Chirok gave a light bow and left the secretary's office.
Why did he send me to do something this trivial?
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand why he'd been sent. But a terrifying scheme of Director Jang's was hidden in all this. Kim Chirok had no way of knowing that yet.
When Kim Chirok returned to his desk, the team leader asked,
"What did the director want you for?"
"He told me to deliver a document to the Chairman's secretary's office."
"What kind of document?"
"It was sealed with Scotch tape, so I couldn't tell what was inside."
The team leader tilted his head, equally baffled.
Saturday arrived.
Kim Chirok decided he ought to go see his father — not so much for his father's sake as to make his mother happy.
Strangely enough, his mother was always pleased when he went to visit his father, even though this was a man who had put his family through hardship without the slightest sense of responsibility toward the household.
Kim Chirok headed to Dong Seoul Terminal. From there, buses ran to Kimhwa-eup in Cheorwon County, Gangwon Province.
Kimhwa-eup was a sparsely populated town, but the 3rd Infantry Division — known as the White Skull Unit — was stationed there, which was why the buses ran at all.
Only later did Kim Chirok learn that Wasu-vegas was what the soldiers called Wasu-ri, the heart of Kimhwa-eup. With its restaurants and bars, a hospital and a supermarket, Wasu-ri was the busiest spot in the region.
It even had an internet cafe and a pool hall, of course.
Kim Chirok hadn't served on the front lines himself. He'd done his military service as a personnel administration clerk at a unit in Yangju, close to Seoul — preferential treatment for a Seoul National University graduate.
He hadn't bought his father a down parka, but he had picked up a set of thermal underwear.
The bus from Dong Seoul Terminal passed through Pocheon and Uncheon before rolling into Cheorwon. It took nearly two hours just to reach Wasu-ri.
From there, he still had another ten kilometers to walk into the mountains where his father lived.
In Wasu-ri, Kim Chirok bought a whole roasted chicken and a few cans of food. He also bought a five-kilogram sack of rice and stuffed it into his backpack. He'd wanted something bigger, but a ten-kilo sack would have been too heavy to carry and wouldn't have fit in the pack anyway, so five kilos it was.
His father happened to be drying acorns in front of his hut.
He looked even older and smaller than before. He'd become such a pitiful, shabby old man that Chirok could no longer even bring himself to resent him. His back seemed more bent than ever.
"Father!"
"Good heavens! Who's this?!"
Tears welled up in Kim Chirok's eyes, unbidden.