Living Sacrifice
The favor Kang Hyeong-seok had asked of Shin Yo-sep was a sudden one. Even so, the reply came quickly.
Lunchtime the next day.
Clunk.
Expecting the call to run long, he'd bought triangle kimbap from a convenience store, and now, settled into his car, he reached for his phone.
Rrrring.
The dial tone had barely rung a few times before the call connected. Hyeong-seok propped the phone on its mount and began peeling the wrapper off the kimbap with both hands.
"It's me. Got a minute to talk?"
(Wouldn't have picked up otherwise.)
As if he were wearing a Bluetooth earpiece, the connection felt a touch more distant than usual.
"Did you look into that company? Anything unusual come up?"
(It made for interesting reading, actually. Where did you dig up a place like this?)
"A friend of a friend. He's the one they keep on fixed night duty. I went to see it for myself, and it didn't look good."
(Tsk.)
He had just started putting the kimbap in his mouth when Shin Yo-sep's voice flowed out of the phone.
(Baekju Metal — founded in 1998. They bought up a factory on the cheap after the IMF crisis. The cash flow looks perfectly stable. Model corporate citizens, honestly.)
None of that was what he was curious about.
"So?"
(Doesn't it strike you as odd? 1998, of all years — the height of the chaos.)
True enough.
He'd been young back then, but even so he knew how dreadful those days had been — turn on the news, and every broadcast was a tally of how many companies had gone bankrupt, how many people had taken their own lives.
A period when the entire nation spent its days in hardship.
(And of all things, metal processing. Yet somehow they always managed to land the work, and they've grown nicely because of it. They have never wobbled. Not once.)
The undertone Shin Yo-sep had laid beneath his voice seemed to say one thing, plain as day: Even you can see this isn't normal, right?
"It looks like they keep the same person on night duty there. Did you look into that too, by any chance?"
(That one took some digging.)
So he had looked into it. As Hyeong-seok took a big bite of kimbap, the flutter of paper came through the phone. Apparently Yo-sep was flipping through documents or reports as he talked.
(Long-running metalworking plant — nothing impressive, but they've had quite a few industrial accidents. And those accidents share one common thread. Care to guess what it is?)
Given the direction of the conversation, the answer was obvious.
Hyeong-seok bit off another mouthful, glanced at the skimpy filling with half-lidded eyes, and spoke.
"The night-duty worker?"
(You already knew?)
"Don't toy with me."
(That friend of a friend of yours. Is he, by any chance, the one on night duty?)
Hyeong-seok swallowed what was in his mouth before answering.
"He is."
(Tell him to quit. This place is suspicious.)
"I'd already told him yesterday — to hand in his resignation today, if he could."
(Hmmmm.)
Yo-sep let out a hum with intent behind it.
I know exactly what you want to say. I'm thinking the same thing right now.
"It won't be easy, will it. Whatever excuse they have to invent, they're not going to let him go."
(That's my read too. These bastards are making living sacrifices of their people.)
Hyeong-seok laid the hand still holding the kimbap — two bites left — down on his knee. Then, pushing a sigh out between his teeth, he nodded.
"Yeah. Figures."
"Um... Manager, sir?"
It was lunchtime. In the smoking area beside the factory, Chae Young-sik addressed a middle-aged man with every ounce of deference he could muster. Blue work jumper; black trousers so faded they looked gray.
"What is it, Young-sik?"
Yet for all his gruff looks, the manager had never once treated Young-sik roughly. He answered in a soft voice that carried real warmth, and Young-sik forced open lips that refused to part easily.
"Um... I'm sorry, but I think I have to quit."
"...What?"
"I've written up my resignation. Before I submit it, I wanted to tell you firs—"
Clatter!
The manager flung the cigarette he'd been smoking to the ground, its embers scattering in a brief spark before dying out.
An attitude he had never once seen before. Startled, Young-sik flinched — but the corners of the manager's eyes were already climbing in a menacing slant.
"What's this about quitting?"
That thorn-studded voice, too, was unfamiliar. While a flustered Young-sik hesitated over his answer, the manager's sharpened glare came flying at him.
"Damn it, I asked you a question. You going to answer me or not?"
"I-It's just..."
"Ha—! Young-sik, what exactly do you think you're doing, up and quitting out of nowhere, hm?"
Young-sik forced himself to swallow. The whole situation was awkward — frightening, in a way that wrung his heart and left it squeezed dry.
"...I'm sorry."
"Sorry, my ass. A person needs a sense of responsibility. If you up and quit without a word, who's going to stand the night shift? If there's no one on duty and the company gets robbed — or worse, catches fire — are you going to take responsibility for all of it? Huh?"
Young-sik rubbed his dampening palms against his trousers. He had merely stated his intention to resign — was this really the sort of thing that warranted being cornered so hard?
But as though determined to leave him no opening to argue back, the manager poured out his voice, fearsome and relentless.
"I said, are you going to take responsibility!"
"...I'm sorry."
"Ha. Honestly. What a nuisance."
The manager muttered it just loudly enough for Young-sik to hear, then abruptly thrust out a hand. Young-sik looked up, uncomprehending, and the hand wagged in front of his eyes.
"Give me the resignation letter."
Lips pressed firmly shut, Young-sik handed it over. The manager opened the envelope, read the contents top to bottom, and let out a heavy sigh. Then he folded it in half and slipped it into his inside pocket.
"I'll hold on to this for now."
"Um. M-Manager, sir—"
"Young-sik. Listen to me carefully."
The manager's voice turned gentle again, just like always — so abruptly it seemed impossible.
"I was startled, and my words came out rough. That wasn't right of me. It wasn't proper courtesy, either."
"..."
"Why do you want to quit, anyway? Is the work too hard? The pay too low?"
"It's not that. It's..."
"Then there's no problem at all. You look tired, Young-sik. I'll put in a good word upstairs, so take the rest of today off."
"Manager, sir—"
At that moment, the manager's thick hand came down on Young-sik's shoulder.
"When your body wears down, thoughts like that can creep in. But everyone knows how hard you work — and how important you are. Would you really betray all that trust? You're not that kind of heartless man."
The tone was gentle; the atmosphere was anything but. Crushed under the weight of it, Young-sik gave a heavy nod with his jaw clenched tight, and the manager patted his shoulder in consolation.
"There we go. Go get some rest. Don't let anything get to you today — go into town and clear your head a little. Come back when you're ready."
"...Yes, sir."
With a face that had fallen somewhere far away, Young-sik turned and began to trudge off — and behind him, the manager's gaze clung to his back like a shadow.
"Hah... shit."
As though cramming every grievance in the world into his mouth, he pulled out his phone, scowling.
"They've made up their minds to block that resignation. Word will have gone out to the executives as well."
Inside a car thick with the smell of kimbap, Hyeong-seok spoke in a low voice. Far across the parking lot, the faint sound of employees chattering and laughing drifted over — but he couldn't bring himself to share in that lightness. The conversation was growing heavier by the minute.
(How old is he, this friend of a friend?)
"About our age."
(Then what — they'll just grind him down with rank.)
"Heh!"
Hyeong-seok let out a short laugh that shook his belly. Not out of any disrespect for Shin Yo-sep — it was simply that a man born with a gold spoon in his mouth could hardly be expected to know. How it feels, for instance, to have injustice pressed down on you inside a company in the name of hierarchy.
"He's probably said his piece by now."
Right after clocking in, or else at lunchtime. Both good windows for reporting something out of the ordinary, like a resignation.
(Still no word from him?)
"Doesn't seem like the type to."
The way Hyeong-seok saw it, Chae Young-sik was the sort to agonize over things all by himself.
The situation was bad. And so most rites took the shape of praying for matters to turn out well, or for the soul of someone who had died unjustly to be delivered safely to the beyond — but the opposite case existed as well. There were spells of a kind that wished for one's own prosperity even if others had to be made the sacrifice.
A company, offering up its own employees as sacrifices...
Out of nowhere, a phrase he'd once seen online came back to him — something about how employees were a company's slaves — but this was a graver matter than that. Hyeong-seok drew a long, deep breath, and a strange bitterness seemed to coat the inside of his mouth.
(So what are you going to do? If it comes to it, we'll be holding a funeral.)
Yo-sep asked it as casually as if inquiring about his schedule after work.
"I'll have to go there myself. There's a shaman tangled up in this for sure."
(Well, you would know — you're one.)
Hyeong-seok leaned forward and answered like a sigh.
"You're not so different yourself."
Their callings differed, but they were the same kind of men, Kang Hyeong-seok and Shin Yo-sep. A shaman and an exorcist priest — both in service of gods, both doing what was right here on this earth.
"Thanks for digging all this up. I'll take it from here."
(When are you moving?)
Hyeong-seok checked his wristwatch as he answered.
"Right now."
Then he started the engine and gripped the wheel.
Vrrrm.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he scrolled through the navigation's recent destinations, found the factory where Chae Young-sik worked, and pressed it.
Rustle.
The CEO's office.
The man who took Chae Young-sik's resignation letter — handed over by the manager with deep deference — read through its contents and clicked his tongue.
"This little bastard. And here I took him for a meek one."
"I've talked him around for now, Director."
Three men were gathered inside. One was the manager; the other two wore business suits — the CEO and the Director.
The Director was gaunt as a stick of dried kindling, but his eyes held an uncanny gleam. Nothing about him looked easy to deal with.
"Director Kwon — we do have to stop this resignation, don't we?"
To the question from the CEO — a relatively sturdy, well-built man — Director Kwon answered only with a nod. The mood in the room was a strange one: the manager and the CEO alike hung on the man wearing the title of Director.
"Where's this bastard now?"
"I sent him into town to get some air. Told him to be back by night."
"Tch. He needs to stay at the company as long as possible — I told you that."
"I-I'm sorry."
This came after the manager had spoken, his neck drawn in — and then the Director folded the resignation letter in half and waved it toward the CEO as he opened his mouth.
"Leave this to me. I'll see it handled properly."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
He did not mean he would accept the resignation. If anything, it was closer to a promise to put that handwritten letter to some use. The Director's greasy eyeballs said as much.
"There are exactly two weeks left now. Keep him held in place just until then, and you and this company will remain standing for the next three years."
The CEO nodded in small, repeated strokes, as though those words had brought him great comfort.
The shaman who had lent them his aid ever since they first acquired this factory. That man was Director Kwon.