A Happy Ending, More or Less
"Section Chief Kang! What happened yesterday?"
The next day. The moment he stepped into the office, Kwak Young-ho came hurrying over, worry written all over his face.
"Honestly — a man who's never once done that in his whole career suddenly asking for a half day? You gave me a real fright. Did something bad happen?"
Kang Hyeong-seok set his bag down at his desk, but even that was enough to keep his department head hovering, his concern so plain it bordered on anxiety.
"Well, it's..."
"Come on, tell me anything. I can't help if I don't know what's wrong, can I?"
This was only making it harder to bring up.
Yesterday, Kang Hyeong-seok had texted Kwak Young-ho to request the half day. The reason, of course, had been to pull Chae Young-sik out of that factory — which was exactly what made explaining it to his boss such an ordeal.
"Okay... I'll tell you the truth, then."
Reading the urgency in Kwak Young-ho's eyes, Kang Hyeong-seok opened his mouth with care.
"I visited a factory."
"A factory?"
"Yes. Not on company business, though. I went to meet someone."
For a heartbeat, Kwak Young-ho — who had wondered whether the man had gone to some plant for a meeting — frowned, unable to make sense of it.
"Spell it out for me. Who on earth did you go to see?"
"Someone I met through an introduction. Their family runs a company that makes cutlery, apparently."
Shin Jeong-ah, who happened to be walking out of the pantry just then, watched the exchange with interest — and seemed to have already pieced together the gist of it.
"Hm? Hold on, hold on."
Feeling the conversation drift somewhere strange, Kwak Young-ho creased his brow even deeper.
"Wait, so you went to that factory?"
"No, not that one. The heir was placed at a different factory for his successor training, you see."
"Oh! Ahh."
Kwak Young-ho's brow smoothed out in understanding, and Kang Hyeong-seok went on with a faint smile.
"Had I known you'd worry like this, I'd have said something in advance. I'm sorry, Department Head."
"Section Chief Kang, if that's all it was, you should've just told me. Why waste a half day on it?"
"It's not exactly the sort of gathering you'd bill as a business meeting, is it?"
"Aw, come on! Even so!"
This time it was Kwak Young-ho who looked sheepish — after all, from where he stood, it sounded like his subordinate had gone out to meet a potential client.
"By the way, that person you met yesterday — is the factory his family runs a decent size?"
"I didn't see it with my own eyes, but it didn't sound small. They produce tableware — the everyday kind you'd see in any restaurant."
"Oh?"
Kwak Young-ho's interest sharpened visibly, and Kang Hyeong-seok rolled his eyes upward, digging through his memory.
"And apparently they'll be able to produce brassware before long, too."
"Ooh! Demand for that is through the roof these days, isn't it."
A Korean fine-dining program had aired not long ago. Perhaps thanks to it, brassware — the traditional premium tableware — had stepped into the spotlight and sales had soared, and now a gleam kindled in Kwak Young-ho's eyes.
"So you went and met the heir to a company like that? Well done! You really did well, Section Chief Kang."
"Oh, no, that is — thank you."
"Stay in steady contact with them. That's how the jackpot hits, you know. Got it?"
His department head looked so delighted that Kang Hyeong-seok could only answer with a smile.
"Yes, sir. Understood."
"Aigo, you charmer."
Kwak Young-ho then gave both of Kang Hyeong-seok's shoulders an overwhelmingly vigorous rub and disappeared into his office.
To all appearances, the matter was settled — only the facts had been delivered, and that was that.
Flick, flick. And so, with a mischievous smile, Shin Jeong-ah cocked her thumb toward the rooftop.
Kang Hyeong-seok laughed the breath out of himself, then fixed a coffee in the pantry and filled his tumbler.
The rooftop door clanged open.
The rooftop never changed, no matter when you came up. A few people were already burning through their cigarettes — other departments, so the greetings traded were brief. Kang Hyeong-seok and Shin Jeong-ah settled a good distance away, raising coffee and cigarette to their lips, respectively.
"Phew—! I heard the whole story from Ha-yoon yesterday."
"Is that so."
"She told me to say thank you, by the way?"
Looking a little embarrassed, Kang Hyeong-seok swirled the coffee in his tumbler and took another sip.
"You know, I should've been the one going to things like that."
Shin Jeong-ah sounded wistful, so Kang Hyeong-seok lobbed back a joke.
"I take it you can handle such things now, then?"
"Handle what? ...Oh."
Apparently the trauma from gorging on pork offal back during the dokkaebi incident had been fully conquered. Even as Shin Jeong-ah twisted her lips into a warped uuugh and shuddered, her reaction was nowhere near as violent as before.
"Oh, drop it. That was ages ago."
"And how's Young-sik doing?"
"Him? Still all over the place, I'd guess. His whole family apparently had a proper blow-up over the whole thing, too."
In a way, it had been the parents' own dealings that brought calamity down on their son — it would have been stranger if there hadn't been an uproar.
"And didn't his father head straight over there that very night?"
"He did...?"
"Well then, get this."
Shin Jeong-ah thrust her face in close, dropping her voice to a murmur.
"The police got called in over there. Total pandemonium, supposedly."
"Sorry? The police?"
"Oh, you didn't know. Well, it never made the news, after all."
Shin Jeong-ah clucked and scratched her head. To her mind it had the makings of a major story, and she seemed honestly let down that the headlines never picked it up.
"Not every incident becomes news."
"Still... Anyway — the CEO took a hammer to one of his own employees, of all things. Blood on the floor and everything. Sheer mayhem, I heard."
"The CEO did? Why ever would he—"
"I got it thirdhand, so your guess is as good as mine."
"Huh."
Clicking his tongue, Kang Hyeong-seok knit his brow. He had, after all, sins enough to answer for. And with calamities detonating one after another like this...
"So was he arrested for murder?"
"Attempted, by the sound of it."
"Attempted...?"
Rolling her eyes as if retracing her memory, Shin Jeong-ah took a long drag on her cigarette, then exhaled.
"Mm. Attempted, that's right. But he took a bad hit to the head."
"Ah."
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded as if he understood. He could piece the shape of it together well enough. The CEO, at war with Director Kwon, had lashed out in a moment of fury — and it was Director Kwon who bore the damage. With his head injured that badly, the life he once lived was gone for good.
So that is the price you'll pay, is it?
A lifetime spent unable to rise from that bed, needing another's hands even to relieve himself. The fortune piled up by offering living people as sacrifices — never to be properly enjoyed, only to be devoured by hospital bills.
And that won't be the end of it...
Do not think of this life as hell. The true hell awaits you beyond death. And do not hope that the retribution owed by a defiled shaman will be measured on the same scale as any ordinary sinner's.
"What's with the face?"
Kang Hyeong-seok shifted his gaze to her; Shin Jeong-ah, as if copying him, rubbed at her own knitted brow.
"By any standard, that's a happy ending, you know."
"It's nothing. I just wish things like this never happened in the first place."
Shin Jeong-ah said nothing for a moment, then smiled a bitter smile.
"It wears on you, doesn't it. That kind of work."
Words he had no choice but to agree with — Kang Hyeong-seok smiled bitterly too. Society was people living tangled up in one another. Where good people existed, bad ones followed as sure as night follows day — if incidents like this never happened, that would be the strange part.
"Still. I'd like it if only good things happened."
The words came out like a sigh; he checked his wristwatch.
"You'd better head down soon. Work hours, you know."
"What's your schedule look like today?"
"Busy. I've got paperwork piled up."
"Share your to-do list. Anything I can take off your plate, I will."
Starting for the stairs, Kang Hyeong-seok tossed her a smile.
"Then could you look over the contract paperwork Min-ah drew up this time? And give the PPT she made for the afternoon meeting a once-over?"
"Got it. And what else?"
They went down the stairs together, trading shop talk one item at a time. He had been living at a frantic sprint as a shaman all this while. Only now did it feel like he had finally come home to being an office worker.
The busy hours had quietly carried the day toward quitting time.
In the conference room, midway through the weekly wrap-up, Kwak Young-ho cleared his throat and looked around the table at his seated team.
"Alright — one last item to cover."
"Department Head, it's dragging on."
Shin Jeong-ah fussed as the meeting stretched on. Lee Jin-pyeong, seated across from her, looked entirely vacant of thought, while Namgoong Min-ah at his side beamed her a look of one-hundred-percent agreement.
"This is the last one, the last! And it's good news."
Kwak Young-ho read his team's faces, then pressed his lips firmly together and set the mood.
"Now, this is a truly momentous announcement, so listen up."
"Yes, sir."
"Understood."
Only the section chiefs had answered. Then—
"We're going on a retreat."
Kwak Young-ho loaded the words with all the weight of a royal decree.
"I'm sorry? A retreat?"
"That's awfully sudden, isn't it?"
Shin Jeong-ah and Kang Hyeong-seok echoed, startled, while—
"What's a retreat?"
"The one from new-hire training."
"Ahh, going somewhere fun? That was like a school trip — it was a blast."
"Er... yes."
Namgoong Min-ah and Lee Jin-pyeong carried on in their own little corner.
Tap-tap!
Kwak Young-ho rapped the whiteboard with the bent knuckle of his index finger, pulling every gaze back onto himself.
"Listen up. What's all this racket?"
"Because the Department Head insists on running meetings this long, that's why."
"Section Chief Shin, does that not hurt my feelings a little?"
"Yep. Sorry."
Kwak Young-ho heaved a hefty aigoo of a sigh, then let slip a smile that was half mischief, half embarrassment.
"I said it like a joke, but the retreat is real. You do know how well our department did this time, right?"
Every gaze in the room converged on Kang Hyeong-seok. First place among all the sales teams. Kang Hyeong-seok had carried the largest share of it, and Shin Jeong-ah, who had joined midway, had diligently filled in the rest.
"So funding came through that nobody saw coming. In the name of a retreat."
A first in all his years — Kwak Young-ho couldn't keep the grin off his face.
"Live long enough and you see everything, I tell you. So — team-building trip, all of us together. Where's everyone thinking?"
"Anywhere but the mountains."
Shin Jeong-ah answered straight as a blade, and one by one the others called out their picks.
Scritch, scritch-scratch.
Having taken everything down, Kwak Young-ho surveyed the whiteboard and blew out a long breath through his nose.
"Valley, ocean. Mountains — crossed out. Overseas... Min-ah, overseas is a bit of a stretch."
"Okay..."
"So that leaves valley and ocean. Which of the two is better?"
Kwak Young-ho asked, doing a poor job of hiding that his finger kept drifting toward the word ocean.
Truth be told, the sea suited his tastes better — sea fishing, and fresh-caught fish turned to sashimi on the spot.
"The valley."
"Valley."
"The, um... valley for me."
But Shin Jeong-ah and Namgoong Min-ah had claimed the valley in record time, and the moment Kang Hyeong-seok followed suit, carefully reading the room, the corners of Kwak Young-ho's eyes sagged.
"Aw, come on — why not?"
"I just don't like it."
Shin Jeong-ah recoiled as if determined to leave not an inch of room for negotiation, and Kwak Young-ho's shoulders sank along with his hopes. The sea came bundled with a certain image: fishing, breezy clothes, harsh wind, and salt that stayed on your skin for days. And merciless UV rays. Every last item on that list was something Shin Jeong-ah and Namgoong Min-ah despised.
"Then what about you, Assistant Manager Lee...?"
"The valley works for me."
Lee Jin-pyeong said it flatly, and even Kwak Young-ho had to concede.
"Hnnngh! Fine — valley it is."
"What about the schedule?"
"I'll start scouting out a pension first."
Kwak Young-ho had played his move early, bent on booking somewhere with fishing no matter what — and nobody minded. Everyone had their own work to drown in; the tedious errands went to the department head. Not a word of it was spoken aloud, but all of them were thinking the exact same thing.
"So — everyone prepare on your end. I'll post the schedule as soon as it's set, and until then, juggle your client visits so we don't inconvenience anyone. Handle anything urgent ahead of time."
"Yes, sir! Got it!"
"Ye-e-es."
"Yes."
Despite the yearning in his eyes, Kwak Young-ho still wore a smile as he touched marker to the whiteboard.
"Alright! Let's all keep the fire going until next week's retreat!"
Scritch, squeeeak, scritch-scratch.