The Benefactor
The workshop was over. It had been billed, from start to finish, as a retreat devoted to nothing but rest. And yet Kang Hyeong-seok could hardly claim he had rested at his ease.
Kwak Young-ho's possession? A heavyweight incident, to be sure, but the time spent fretting over it had been brief. The itinerary ran two nights and three days in all, and setting aside that first day, the remaining two were days that managed to be tranquil and have his nerves standing on end all at once.
"Don't touch that."
"Let's go somewhere else, shall we?"
"Assistant Manager Lee — not over there, over here."
"Min-ah, don't run!"
Apologies to his teammates, but it had felt like escorting a pack of kindergartners out on a field trip. Why were there so many little things to keep an eye on? And why did every last one of them insist on planting a foot in exactly the most dangerous spot available?
Sip. On the company rooftop, Kang Hyeong-seok leaned his weight against the railing and nursed his coffee. It was the slack stretch between lunch and quitting time, and with nothing urgent demanding his attention, he was passing the moment at the same unhurried pace as the sun sinking toward the west.
Clang. The rooftop door banged open, and up came Kwak Young-ho, slapping his open palm with a pack of cigarettes.
"Oh? Chief Kang."
"Good to see you, Department Head."
Kwak Young-ho had promised to visit the hospital. Believing the possession to have been sleepwalking, he'd gone to have himself checked out, if nothing else.
Click-click, fwoosh. A lighter sparked, a flame caught, and Kwak Young-ho exhaled a long sigh of smoke.
"What did the hospital have to say?"
"Nothing they could put a finger on, apparently. Though they did say it can happen temporarily, if a man's under a lot of stress."
Kwak Young-ho smoked with a look that remained distinctly uneasy, while Kang Hyeong-seok held back a wry, bittersweet smile.
"If you're healthy, that's all that matters."
"Ehhh! But what on earth is it, then?"
It wasn't Kwak Young-ho's problem at all. It was like being set upon and beaten on the street for no reason whatsoever — the fault lay with the perpetrator, never the victim.
"Please don't dwell on it. Worrying will only pile more stress on top."
"Mm."
Kwak Young-ho answered in a deflated voice, and silently burned through his cigarette at Kang Hyeong-seok's side. He was a little over halfway through it when—
"Seems the wife's been worrying her head off too."
"Did she say something?"
"There's no room for secrets between a married couple."
His heart must have been sitting heavy, because Kwak Young-ho's voice came out sounding for all the world like a sigh. And Kang Hyeong-seok did feel sorry about it. If he had managed to come up with a better excuse, perhaps the man's mind would be easier now than it was.
"Aigoo, so there I was, just walking out of the hospital—"
"Sir?"
"—and my wife calls me."
Kwak Young-ho looked down at his cigarette for a moment, then set it back between his lips.
"She'd been off to the Dangjip. That wife of mine."
He had forgotten. That Kwak Young-ho's wife was a devoted Dangjip regular — one of those shaman-run fortune houses where spirits were consulted and fates divined.
As Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze clung to him, Kwak Young-ho sent a long ribbon of smoke into the air and opened his mouth again.
"She told me to quit worrying. Said what's done is done — why keep agonizing over a thing that's already over?"
"I imagine your wife was quite pleased, sir."
"Course she was. If it's about the Dangjip, that woman would die happy on the spot."
Kwak Young-ho chuckled, and he did seem a touch lighter at heart than before.
"And you know what else she heard?"
"I'm afraid I wouldn't know, sir?"
"Our benefactor came through for us again, apparently."
"Benefactor?"
"That Dangjip said the same thing last time, remember. When you took care of the warehouse."
"Ah. Right."
The warehouse that had put Lee Jin-pyeong in the hospital. They had resolved the problem of that place, where a spirit had roosted and preyed upon people, and in the process walked away with a contract on terms too good to be believed. Back then, too, Kwak Young-ho's wife had come home from the Dangjip carrying talk of a benefactor.
"Same again this time, she said. That a benefactor's help had kept a disaster at bay."
"Ah..."
"You were right there, weren't you?"
Kwak Young-ho's gaze, which had been fixed on some far-off point, slid across to Kang Hyeong-seok.
"Pardon?"
"When I came to in that valley, you were beside me. You were, Chief Kang."
Kang Hyeong-seok, struck dumb for a beat, soon broke into a hearty laugh and shook his head.
"Don't say such things. Chief Shin was there, and Executive Director Shin Yo-sep besides."
"They weren't there when you settled the warehouse contract, were they?"
"Do you actually believe in the Dangjip, sir?"
He couldn't begin to guess what that crinkle at the corners of Kwak Young-ho's eyes was trying to say.
"Hard to say."
He tossed the words off airily, took a deep pull on his cigarette, and let the smoke drift out.
"Hoo—! I only believe in what's certain."
"And what would that be?"
"That you're my benefactor. That you're a good man, is what."
Kwak Young-ho didn't look like a man who swallowed the Dangjip's words whole. But he did look like a man who was grateful to Kang Hyeong-seok. Sleepwalking or whatever else it might have been — he had a subordinate who would sprint to him until his clothes were soaked clean through. That alone was enough. If a man like that wasn't a benefactor, what else could you possibly call him? Such was the thought that lived in Kwak Young-ho's eyes.
"Hey there, Benefactor."
"...Sir?"
"Shall we head on down, hm? Benefactor."
"Ah — Department Head."
Kwak Young-ho grinned until his face creased with wrinkles, then made for the fire-escape stairs, his shoulder drawing level with Kang Hyeong-seok's.
Flap. Shin Yo-sep sat in his office, working through the backlog of paperwork. It was the karmic debt he had incurred for accompanying Sales Team 1 of Daejeong Mulsan all the way to the end of their workshop. A small mountain of documents awaited his sign-off, and so Shin Yo-sep had been pinned to his chair, toiling without a single moment's reprieve.
Tink. It was just then that a cup of black tea was set down before the hard-focused man.
"Pace yourself, Executive Director."
Shin Yo-sep flashed the man a brief smile and lifted the cup with a weary face. It was a fruit-blended black tea, the rising steam weaving vanilla and tropical fruit into one warm, mingled fragrance.
"Thank you, Secretary Cho."
"Did you enjoy the workshop, sir?"
Shin Yo-sep gave a small huff of a laugh and nodded.
"It wasn't bad. It was almost a revelation that a world like that still existed."
"I'm glad it was to your liking. Might I ask whether it proved a restful holiday?"
Shin Yo-sep shook his head, the smile never leaving his face.
"It was no holiday."
Beaten within an inch of his life, he still could not have called that itinerary a rest. Sales Team 1 possessed an uncanny knack for never once missing a dangerous patch of ground — the sort of knack that left a man wondering, just what is it with these people? So uncanny, indeed, that he suspected every last one of them had been tangled up in some incident or other at least once.
"How regrettable. For once in a great while, I had hoped you might go and rest properly, sir."
"Rest? I'll rest when the chance presents itself."
Shin Yo-sep took a slow sip of the tea, then swept the pile of documents aside with the back of his hand. It felt like an overtime sort of day. But he couldn't stand the sight of them just now, and he wanted them out of his field of vision for a while.
"What became of the matter I mentioned to you before?"
For an instant, Secretary Cho's face went rigid. Then deep creases gathered beneath his jaw; he smoothed his expression into order and spoke.
"I have stationed a man on it."
"And?"
"As anticipated — it is indeed a heretical cult."
"Do you have the materials?"
Secretary Cho indicated the computer with an open palm. Shin Yo-sep connected to the company intranet and downloaded a file from his password-locked folder.
Click, click. Chin propped on one hand, Shin Yo-sep rolled the mouse wheel downward, his eyes grave upon the monitor. These were the records Secretary Cho had compiled through hired eyes. A barrier gate erected at the village entrance. A man surveilling the cars that came and went. The oily glint in that man's stare. Photographs of gatherings held every Wednesday and Sunday. Taken one way, it all looked tremendously suspicious; taken another, it looked like precious little at all. All the more so because the gatherings had the air of an ordinary mission church in some out-of-the-way corner of the countryside.
"You're calling it a cult?"
"I am."
Shin Yo-sep combed through the photographs with meticulous care, then nodded and spoke.
"Make the arrangements for me to go."
"And the Chairman..."
"Whatever he wants to say, tell him to come and say it to me directly. That will be quicker."
It had always been this way between Shin Yo-sep and his father, the Chairman. When he had declared he would become a priest, and when he had returned home again, the two of them clashed, over and over. And so conflict held nothing novel for them — and nothing to fear, either.
"Understood."
"On the village, approach through a newly established office or a regional development fund. With people like these, that road is fastest."
Shin Yo-sep sipped his tea, eyes on the monitor, his expression betraying nothing. Secretary Cho opened his mouth with careful reserve.
"Executive Director — are you quite certain this is wise?"
"The Chairman, you mean?"
"No. I mean you, sir."
Secretary Cho knew, as well. What past Shin Yo-sep carried with him. And why he was now reaching for the company's power itself to chase it down.
"You must find me terribly unreliable, then."
Shin Yo-sep wore a smile that looked troubled at its edges, and Secretary Cho, startled, hurried his words out.
"No — not at all. It was your safety I was concerned for."
"If that's all, I'm perfectly fine. I won't be going alone."
"That is precisely why I asked."
The two of them were speaking with Kang Hyeong-seok in mind. Can that man truly be trusted? That was what Secretary Cho wanted to ask.
Tink. Setting his cup down, Shin Yo-sep rubbed at his stiff, aching eyes and opened his mouth.
"Why do you ask?"
"Forgive the presumption, but I made some inquiries of a private nature. I found that he has no record of any public activity whatsoever, sir."
Shin Yo-sep's brows twitched for the briefest of moments; even so, he nodded as if he understood.
"How am I any different? We are all much the same sort of people."
"But still..."
"Secretary Cho. He is a man I saw for myself and chose with my own hands."
Shin Yo-sep rested his laced hands upon his knee and turned in his chair to face the man. Then he pressed his lips into a firm line, and smiled — as though steadying himself.
"Just trust me on this."
Looking at the hard conviction settled in Shin Yo-sep's eyes, Secretary Cho released a heavy sigh through his nose. And then he gave a small nod.
"I hope he proves to be of help to you, sir."
Shin Yo-sep nodded, a faint smile held upon his lips. Help. What a light word it was, and what a heavy one. And still, Shin Yo-sep believed in Kang Hyeong-seok.
"This time is different. This time, if no other, it will be different. I am certain of it."
Having murmured it like a prayer to himself, Shin Yo-sep drained the tea — gone lukewarm without his noticing — in a single swallow.
"Hurry the preparations, please. And once they are complete, contact Daejeong Mulsan as well."
"Yes, sir."
Shin Yo-sep waved a hand as if to say the rest is in your care, then fixed his gaze upon the monitor. The documents that needed his attention sat stacked upon the desk, but the photographs on the screen refused, for a long while yet, to let his eyes go.