I'm Coming to Meet You

Old downtown Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. Between the weathered buildings, a crisp banner threw a hard red light across the street.

The office of Hong Seokho, provincial councilor for the New Democratic Party.

In the wide room, party staff and volunteers sat at their desks with the same tight, anxious faces. The cause was the shouting leaking from Councilor Hong's private office off to one side.

"How the hell do you people do your jobs! You didn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even know the land was sold! You worthless pieces of shit!"

A sofa occupied the middle of the office. At the bellowing from the seat of honor, the middle-aged men stood braced at attention, heads bowed low.

The man beside Hong—Jang Gil-su, chairman of the councilor's support association—stammered out an answer.

"Well, we were still working the price, and the old man up and sold it before we knew. We never thought he'd do it like that."

"Fuck! You call that an excuse? Huh! What did I tell you! I said quit dragging it out and close the damn thing! Did I say it or didn't I!"

The men flinched and swallowed the words surging up in them.

He's the one who told us to knock it down further.

Who was it that said bring it in at a million won a pyeong?

If we'd stamped the seal last time, when Gil-su hyung said to, this would already be finished.

But they didn't dare show what they were thinking. There was no telling what disaster that would bring down on them.

The man in front of them was a three-term councilor with deep roots in the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly, and he currently chaired the Suwon city chapter under the party's central council. Word was already out that he meant to enter the nomination primary for a National Assembly seat at the next general election.

"So what are you going to do now! Huh! The land's sold, so what the hell are you going to do about it! Huh!"

There was a parcel Councilor Hong had been coveting for years.

On the maps it belonged to Hwaseong, but as the crow flew it sat barely four kilometers northwest of Suwon Station. Physically close to that choked transit hub, and yet left undeveloped all this time.

Lately, as one large apartment complex after another rose under a development push out of Hwaseong, the area had started to draw eyes. For a while it had even been talked up as a place that would benefit from a subway extension, and property prices had jumped—briefly.

Then the nationwide real-estate slump arrived, word came that the extension had been scrapped, and the bubble burst. Prices sank again.

But Councilor Hong sat on the Gyeonggi Development Committee.

Not long ago, through a contact at the Ministry of Land, he had learned the subway extension was about to be announced. He meant to make a fortune off this chance. The plan was simple: buy land where a new station would be built, and put a building on it.

If it went the way he pictured, he could puff the value up by billions of won—tens of billions—in a single stroke. Money like that was more than enough to buy the district nomination for the National Assembly seat he had dreamed of all his life, and still have plenty left over.

So Hong Seokho pulled every line of information he had, pinned down the planned station site, and started looking for land nearby. At last he found it, right in front of where the station was supposed to go: a rice paddy just shy of a thousand pyeong, a little over three thousand square meters.

Over several years he moved carefully to acquire it. He left the purchase itself to Jang Gil-su, the support-association chairman he had used as his own hands and feet for more than a decade.

Rumors of the extension had driven the paddy as high as two million won a pyeong. When word spread that the extension was uncertain, the price fell back to a million and a half. Gil-su finished haggling with the owner. All that remained was the stamp on the contract.

Then the trouble started. Seeing the price drop, Councilor Hong got greedier.

"See if you can get it down to a million a pyeong."

He ordered Jang Gil-su, who had been negotiating at a million and a half, to push the price still lower. Gil-su cursed him in his heart, but he didn't dare refuse Hong Seokho.

They went back to the table, and in the end the deal collapsed.

The problem, as always, was that the man who gave the order would never admit the fault was his.

"You piece of shit! You can't even handle one thing right! Huh! You bring me that land yourself! You hear me! Huh!"

Once a deal broke like that, there was no sign it would start again. Time just dragged, and nothing moved.

And now the Ministry of Land had asked Gyeonggi Province for its official opinion on the line extension.

Under the plan that had come in, on top of extending the existing commuter line, another subway line would be tied in, along with a southern Gyeonggi tram and a metropolitan bus transfer center. In plain terms, they meant to build another ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠regional transit hub in the south of the province.

That paddy sat inside the planned site.

If the plan went through, a subway transfer station and a regional transfer center would go in right in front of the parcel. The surrounding land would all be designated a central commercial district and immediately locked down as a land-transaction permit zone. Prices would shoot through the ceiling—that much was obvious—and officially there would be almost no way left to buy the land at all.

Which meant they had to get it back before the announcement.

And in the middle of all that, word arrived that the paddy's owner had sold it to someone else.

After a storm of curses and shouting, Hong Seokho drained the water glass on the table.

"Hah. Fuck. I'm supposed to get anything done trusting idiots like this!"

He spat out one more burst of irritation, then steadied his voice and spoke again.

"The bastard who bought it. You identified him?"

Jang Gil-su's voice crawled inward.

"We checked. His address is listed in Hwaseong New Town. Mid-thirties, they say. Looks like a company man."

Hong Seokho's face twisted.

A company man. If he were self-employed, or ran his own business, there were plenty of ways in. You could squeeze the shop. You could sink your teeth into the company and not let go. But an ordinary office worker left a provincial councilor with little his title and authority could actually touch.

Which left only one card.

"Fuck. So I have to step in myself. Huh! Useless bastards. I swear."

Councilor Hong picked up the phone, found a number, and dialed. The line rang for a moment.

Because it was farmland and not ordinary land, the sale was a tangle of procedures. Fortunately my current address was inside the Hwaseong area, and the straight-line distance to the paddy I wanted wasn't far, so qualifying as a cultivator gave me no real trouble. The smaller snags, the lawyer I'd hired for the real estate and the incorporation handled on his own.

I paid the deposit out of cash on hand. The balance I meant to cover with a loan secured against the farmland and whatever was left of the auction loan on the villa I'd won. Loans stacked two and three deep, and the interest I owed kept swelling, but I already had cash hidden away far beyond my salary, so the interest didn't burden me at all. Paying it was just irritating.

While that work sat in other hands, a buyer finally appeared for the new-town apartment. No one was living there, and I could clear the place out at once—on that promise the deal closed fast.

In the meantime I went to see my uncle.

He was a salaried man in Uijeongbu, thin, with half his hair gone. But he was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠always smiling, and he had the look of a decent man.

"Last time everything was such a rush I never even thanked you properly."

"It was nothing. I was investing a little myself."

"Even so. They say an auction like that, you could've bought it a lot cheaper. Taking it the way you did, you lost a good bit. For other people's sake."

"Well, that's actually why I called. I was hoping you might be able to help me with something."

"Me? What could I possibly help you with? A sharp kid like you, already doing so well."

On my mother's side of the family they treated me, the one working at a major corporation, like some kind of superman.

"It's nothing else. I'm trying to set up a corporation."

"A corporation?"

"Yes. Trade, and real-estate investment. To be honest with you, the company can't find out. I'd be in violation of the ban on side work."

"Ah. Of course you would."

"So I was wondering if I could put you down as the representative. Or one of the younger ones, if not you. I won't let any harm come of it. Absolutely not."

My uncle hesitated a moment, then nodded.

"Well. You'll handle it properly, I'm sure. The kids are still too young for something like that. And you've already done something for us. I ought to help. If you need it, I'll lend you my name."

"I'd appreciate that. But will it be a problem where you work?"

"What problem? At a small company this sort of thing is everywhere. Long as you don't openly mess around on company time, nobody says a word. Don't worry about it."

"If a salary or a bonus started going out under your name, it still might become an issue. So instead I'll open an account in the corporation's name and issue you a corporate card. Use it for the car and for living expenses. It ought to help you about as much as a paycheck would."

"You don't have to do any of that. Don't trouble yourself."

"No. It's easier for me this way. In a sense I'm bringing you on as a professional manager. If I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠want my own say in things later, I ought to do at least this much."

I had thought about quitting and running a company of my own, but for now I decided to stay where I was. The biggest reason was the loans in my name. Outwardly, every plan I had was being run on borrowed money, so I needed to keep my current job and my position if those loans were going to stay in place. Walk out without thinking, and every line could be frozen at once, with demands for repayment right behind.

One way or another, until I cleared the debt down to something manageable, I had no choice.

I had a name for the representative. With that, the preparations for becoming a building owner moved forward, one piece stacked neatly on the next.

Everything was going so smoothly it was almost dull when a single text came in.

A bad feeling closed in. Then the phone rang. Ring— ring—

I answered, and a voice I didn't know came through, thick with arrogance.

I thought it over for a moment.

A nightclub. They smelled like gangsters, and I had no idea why they'd called out of nowhere. I could ask them to their faces.

Click.

I hung up before he finished. No reason to accommodate people like that.

I put the phone down and took out a burner instead. It was a phone I'd bought in Europe; back in Korea I'd picked up a flat-rate plan and slotted it in. The line rang briefly, and then Maximus answered.