4. Probation Day 2 – 6: The Sushi Restaurant
Walking toward the escalator, I dialed Dana. She picked up almost before the ringtone finished its first cycle.
"Juhan, all done?"
"Yeah, running a little late. You off work, Dana?"
"I am, just taking a break. You need lunch, right? Anything in particular you're craving?"
"Not really. Something simple?"
"If it's simple, how about sushi?"
"Sushi works for me."
"The place on the first floor of the Garden is quite good. You shouldn't have any trouble finding it. If you head down first, I'll come right after you."
"Okay, got it. See you there."
Call finished, I rode the escalator down. There were definitely more people than before my waxing appointment, and the ratio of women was as high as ever — which meant the eye candy was overflowing accordingly.
Down on the first floor, I searched the directory for the sushi restaurant. I was scanning the board for a Japanese-sounding shop name when one jumped out at me: Chobapjip. Which, translated, meant nothing more than "sushi restaurant." So the place was literally named Sushi Restaurant...
Location confirmed, I set off in that direction. Even as I walked, my eyes kept trailing after the women in hot outfits passing by. Outside, any one of them would have ignored my stare or shot me a disgusted look — here they met my eyes and smiled, and I still couldn't get used to it.
The sushi restaurant, reached after quite a walk, looked about as I'd imagined. White cloths bearing black kanji hung along the walls, and paper lanterns dangled overhead.
I pushed through the cloth across the doorway, and a resounding voice rang out.
"Welcome in~!"
A woman stepped forward and bowed. One look at her and I knew — this place was BD too. She wore traditional Japanese dress, and it was see-through.
In other words, white cloth draped her whole body, and yet her breasts and pussy were on full display. Only her belly was hidden, wrapped in red cloth embroidered with a flower pattern.
At first I took it for an ornate garment covered in floral print — then realized the flowers weren't on the cloth at all. They were painted directly on the woman's skin.
"Are you dining arone?"
Judging by the pronunciation, she was Japanese. I could understand a sushi restaurant hiring Japanese staff — but did her outfit have to be that lewd too?
"No, there are two of us."
"Yes. We wirr esuort you this way."
The shop itself was like any other sushi restaurant. In the center sat the prep station where the sushi was made, three male chefs in deep navy jackets and white sanitary hats working away at it.
Wrapping around that station were wooden tables — the so-called dachi counter seats — paired with waist-high wooden stools. I counted twelve counter seats and three four-person tables. Four diners sat at the counter, three more at the tables.
The only thing that felt off was the staffing: for the size of the place, there seemed to be a lot of employees. Besides the woman guiding me, two more staff worked the floor in see-through kimonos — or yukatas, whichever they were; Japanese garments that concealed absolutely nothing.
"Counter sheat is okay?"
"Yes, that's fine."
The employee led me to the far-left seat. Her back, walking ahead of me, was just as bare as her front — a giant koi was painted across it.
I drew out the stool at my assigned seat and sat, and the employee slipped behind a curtain of navy cloth. There must have been a separate kitchen back there.
The moment I sat down, one of the men making sushi came over to me. Square-jawed and broad-faced, with hair grown out along his chin and upper lip. A transparent sanitary mask covered his nose and mouth.
"Welcome~ What can I get... huh? You're a newbie, aren't you?"
"Excuse me?"
The sudden casualness threw me off. Looking me over, the man brightened even more.
"Ah, sorry, sorry. I'm O-Class too. And I'm a good deal older than you, so casual's fine, right? Name's Ko Hyunsoo."
At the words O-Class, I shot up from my seat and bowed in an awkward half-incline.
"Yes. Hello. I'm Choi Juhan."
"Aigoo, no need for all that. Sit, sit. You're a customer in my shop, after all."
I settled back onto the stool and asked, "Ah, right. Um... do even Omniscients run restaurants?"
"Good grief~. 'Omniscient,' my ass — more like rat bastards holed up in a mousehole, eavesdropping on the world. How long have you been with the company?"
It was the first time since I'd arrived that I'd heard anyone bad-mouth the Omniscient — and that alone told me he truly was one.
"Less than a week."
"Probation period, then. Who knows how they run things these days. You'll learn as you go, but once you fill out your first contract term, you're free to choose your own work. It's possible before that too, mind you — just with a few strings attached. You here alone?"
"No, my companion is on her way."
"Then we've got some time. Mind if I bend your ear about myself a little?"
"Not at all. I'd love to hear it."
The moment I answered, Hyunsoo hollered at the men making sushi across the counter.
"Hey~ You lot take over everything!"
The men bowed their heads toward him.
"Yes, sir!"
"We wirr take care of it, sir~"
While that went on, the employee set down steaming hot tea in a cup with a rough, bumpy surface, then laid out the basic settings — utensils and all.
Hyunsoo wiped his hands on a white towel, pulled off his sanitary mask as well, leaned his elbows on the counter, and launched into his story in earnest.
"Let's see now~. I was working as a shida — a sushi apprentice — at a Japanese restaurant when the company snapped me up. A customer came in one day who turned out to be one of theirs; found out later it was HR, and they'd approached me on purpose.
Anyway, it was wonderful back then. Here I was, some nobody with a 'special ability,' and suddenly I had my arms around beauties I'd never have dared to look at."
"Ah... I see."
"But no matter how I tried, I never got the hang of playing with numbers. Made plenty of money, sure. I couldn't make head or tail of what was what, and if I did exactly as I was told, the money came in — but it was just so damn boring."
"I see."
"So when my twelve-year contract ran out, I took the Cuckoo Contract and opened this place."
"The Cuckoo Contract?"
"Slang, just slang. It's what we call the ones who keep their O-Class status on the company roster but don't do the company's actual work anymore — all they do is pass along whatever information they dig up. The company grades what you hand over and pays you accordingly, so the money's still tidy, and I get to do what I want to do.
Of course, what I earn now doesn't hold a candle to my company days. But me? Being able to do as I please matters more."
"Ah — so that's when you learned to make sushi? I'd have thought sushi wasn't easy to learn."
"That was pure luck. I got posted to Japan for quite a long stretch, and as it happened there was a decent sushi joint near where I was staying, so I picked up a bit there. Weekends, after hours, whenever I could steal time. Normally that'd be a pipe dream, but money talks. The shop was struggling at the time, too."
"I see."
Hyunsoo turned and swept a hand toward the employees.
"Every girl working here, I brought over from that place. The shop went under in the end — the owner's son was a good-for-nothing."
"That's... possible?"
"Of course, they have to clear the company's vetting and go through training first. A few of them couldn't make it because of that."
"Wow~. But how's business? It doesn't exactly seem packed..."
"This is an expensive place."
"Ah."
"What would you know. This kid hasn't even had a proper taste of the company's money yet. Of course the store itself doesn't turn a profit — I use nothing but top-grade ingredients, the place is tiny, and it carries a whole crowd of staff. I told you, I run it because I want to.
Over my twelve-year first contract, even spending freely by my standards, the money piled up like you wouldn't believe. I handed it over to BD Group. They invest it for me and return the returns. Like a fund, more or less. And of course, that's only possible because I keep my O-Class status. Not something just anyone can do.
The fees are steep, but it's BD Group doing the investing — there's no such thing as losing money there. That alone would keep me fed for generations."
"Wow~."
"You're still on probation, so you can't quite picture it, but before long you'll be living without a single money worry. Now, don't get me wrong — no money worries doesn't mean no worries at all. Something new to fret about always finds you sooner or later."
"Does it?"
"Welcome in~!"
At the staff's chorus, I looked toward the door. Dana was stepping into the shop. The jacket from that morning hung from her hand rather than her shoulders; she wore a white blouse and tailored slacks. And now that I really looked, the blouse was thin.
Where the lighting fell, the black lace bra beneath it was plainly visible. A half-cup, no less — even the generous swell of her gathered cleavage was faintly on display.
Dana caught my eye, smiled, and walked over.
"Have you been waiting long? I'm sorry. Oh! Hello, Manager Hyunsoo~."
She'd greeted me, and now she bowed to Hyunsoo standing before me as well.
"Well, well. Park Dana. So you were this newbie's handler?"
"Yes, I'm attending to Juhan. You two have already met, I take it?"
"Yeah, we have."
"And this poor kid's been wearing himself out listening to an old man's stories. So — the O-Course, then?"
"Yes, please. Juhan, the manager simply brings out whatever delicious things he decides on. It's truly good. You have to try it."
"Sure, sounds good."
Hyunsoo pushed himself up from the counter and called toward the back.
"You must be starving — bear with me just a moment. Hey! O-Course for seats one and two!"
"Yes, sir~!"
First came the appetizers: sashimi arranged on small, pretty plates, alongside miso soup, tempura, and the like. Then Hyunsoo, who had slipped into the back kitchen, reappeared with his sanitary mask back in place. In his hands was a dressed whole fish, which he held up for us to see.
"This here's wild red sea bream, caught yesterday — a beauty. Let's start with this one."
And so came the sushi, each piece explained and made by Hyunsoo's own hands. He barely left his post, standing before us and shaping nigiri in an unbroken stream of chatter.
"That's it. That one you eat like so."
"The maguro — tuna — I got in this time is out of this world. I'll give you the cuts one by one, so give each a try."
"Yes, thank you."
Unable to tell one cut from another, I simply ate whatever Hyunsoo handed me. Every time he passed a piece over, he'd explain it — otoro, chutoro, akami in Japanese, belly cut and lean cut in Korean — but the moment the next piece arrived, it all evaporated from my head.
After the tuna came an enormous shrimp nigiri and clam sushi, then even sea urchin. The last of the sushi was eel.
"And to finish, udon alright?"
"Yes, I'd like that."
With a small bowl of udon as dessert, the meal was done. I settled the bill and we stepped out of the shop. Thirty G — among the lunches I'd eaten in my life it ranked among the priciest, and yet it came in under what I'd expected. Of all the places I'd seen in the Garden, setting aside the floor staff's outfits, it was the most normal establishment yet.
Walking out, it dawned on me that the waxing and this lunch alone had burned through a month of my old living expenses. I had my severance pay, so money was no worry — but I felt, anew, just how much I'd changed in a matter of days.
"Was the food good?"
Dana had come up beside me at some point, hooking her arm through mine.
"Yeah, it was delicious. And I was thinking — there are even normal places around here after all."
"People live here too, you know. Besides, that shop is run by an Omniscient who's completed his first contract term. The manager takes such fierce pride in his sushi that nobody dares step out of line inside."
"Now that you put it that way, it makes sense."
The first contract term was twelve years, and he must have been running that place for several years by now — so he'd likely been with the company some fifteen years. A man who'd lasted that long; I could understand why no one would dare act up around him. Anywhere at all, holding out in one place for over a decade was an achievement in itself.
Dana must have read my pensive silence rather differently.
"I take it you're disappointed the place was so normal?"
"No, that's not what I..."
"Then shall we go somewhere properly BD? How about tea?"
Smiling sweetly, Dana led me away.