Perfect at Last, Then Chaos
I’m translating the chapter directly into the required HTML format, keeping the prose natural and preserving the in-universe speech and terminology exactly where needed.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Debt Collected in Coins
“Hey.”
Team Leader Kim Donggeon’s irritated voice thundered through the office.
“You, I’m talking about you. You’re not even on a call, so why are you acting busy and ignoring me?”
“...I’m sorry, Team Leader.”
The new hire, who had only joined the company a month ago, bowed his head to Kim Donggeon with a face as sour as if he’d bitten into something rotten.
“Where’s Deputy Oh?”
“He just... stepped out for a smoke.”
“Jesus, this is fucking ridiculous. We’re one more account away from Perfect, and the debtor isn’t even picking up. If that’s the case, go out on a visit collection instead. What the hell did he do that’s so important he had to go smoke? If he was leaving, he should’ve reported it first. Huh? Am I wrong? Am I?”
“...”
It wasn’t the new hire’s fault, but Team Leader Kim was taking it out on him anyway. The company custom was to place the new employee right in front of the team leader during probation, so the senior staff could teach him the ropes like a mentor. Instead of getting any care at all, the new hire was being used as the team leader’s punching bag, and he wanted to quit on the spot.
Really, if the country hadn’t been in the IMF crisis, if the Munggu Group hadn’t collapsed, he would never have ended up being cursed at in this garbage loan shark company. He’d have stayed a rising assistant manager in the accounting team at a proper company.
But quitting on pure temper wasn’t something he could do, not with a wife at home who still looked only at him, like a fox, and a little daughter who had just turned one, soft and rabbit-like, flashing in his mind’s eye.
“Forget it. Text Deputy Oh and tell him to get back to the office right now. We’re having a meeting.”
“...Yes.”
The new hire returned to his seat, repeating to himself the responsibility of a breadwinner and the character for endurance more than ten times in his heart, then opened his phone.
“Everyone, attention. There probably aren’t any receivables left anyway, so don’t bother pretending to work hard by analyzing next month’s cases. Come gather around my desk.”
At Kim Donggeon’s words, the employees of Personal Credit Management Team 1 stood and lined up behind him.
“Let’s have a meeting.”
Kim Donggeon sat down, clicked his mouse, and brought up customer Kim Yujin’s file on the monitor. The employees of Personal Credit Management Team 1 couldn’t even sit; they stood behind him like a folding screen, staring at the screen.
“I always say this, but when you first learn this kind of work, your seniors drill one phrase into your ears until you’re sick of it: even dried squid yields water if you squeeze it.”
Kim Donggeon’s tone, which had been nothing but casual and abusive until now, shifted into a half-polite form because this was technically a meeting.
“This one here, customer Kim Yujin. You all know this debtor’s overdue account has already lost its term benefit, right? Term benefit means the period the contract allows the debtor to repay the loan in installments, and once it’s lost, the creditor can demand full repayment regardless of the remaining contract term.”
For a week now, from the morning until today, the only thing he’d been saying in these so-called meetings was that they should claw back the last bad account and win first place. The employees weren’t stupid enough not to know that.
“Yes.”
“We know.”
But even so, they had to answer. They all knew Kim Donggeon loved being reported to, and especially loved getting responses to his words. If they just sat there silently and listened, the repeated squawking of the parrot would only go on longer.
“Then why are the people who know that sitting around doing nothing? Do you think we get incentives on individual performance? Isn’t this team performance? Deputy Oh got assigned to Kim Yujin, and since the rest of you probably think you can collect everything else before the month ends, you’re just sitting on your hands and dumping the blame on him?”
Team Leader Kim began shaking down the innocent employees, hammering them with his favorite mix of old-man mentality and collective responsibility.
“Have you even thought about how to wreck that debtor bastard Kim Yujin and get the money? Now that the full claim’s gone out, you could all take turns stopping by his place on the way to work and squeeze his family too until they pay in full. Or you meet the debtor directly, talk him round, get him to sign a settlement agreement, and somehow take at least five hundred thousand won so we can survive this month. Pick one of the two.”
He sat comfortably in his chair, clicking at the occasional delinquent customer’s file, and casually told the employees to stop by the debtor’s house on their own dime before coming to work. That was Kim Donggeon.
“When I was an employee, I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t make Perfect. So if I decided I absolutely had to collect interest from some bastard, I’d wake up at six, get dressed, drive over, park in front of the debtor’s house, and wait until eight. The moment the clock hit eight, I’d ring the bell and ask if the debtor was home. When I got off work, I’d wait in front of the house until ten at night. So why is everyone so unmotivated? So unmotivated!”
While Team Leader Kim kept rambling, the employees of Personal Credit Management Team 1 had their heads bowed, swallowing their curses. If you were so damn sure, why didn’t you take responsibility as team leader and collect it yourself, you bastard? The words rose to their throats and hovered at their lips, but they forced them back down with inhuman patience.
Ha... it was good when Do Jaehyun was here.
This idiot Kim Donggeon. Serves us right for driving out the guy who was good at his work.
What a useless bastard, drowning in inferiority. The only thing he’s good at is bootlicking, and all he ever talks about is effort with no plan at all. Do Jaehyun really wasn’t wrong about a single thing.
Every time this happened, the employees would think of Do Jaehyun, who used to finish his own work and then help the others so incidents like this wouldn’t even happen, and in their own ways they would chew Team Leader Kim up in their heads.
“Come on, don’t just sit there with your heads down like you’ve got honey in your mouths. Come up with a countermeasure. A countermeasure!”
To be honest, there was no countermeasure. The debtor’s cellphone had been disconnected a long time ago. Sure, he could get a new phone under a family member’s name, but tracking down that number was a job in itself, and even if they found it, it was over the moment the debtor denied he was the one using it.
Then what, visit collection?
They’d only come back after being told things like, “We don’t live there anymore,” or “That’s family, but they live somewhere else,” or “We can’t reach them either.”
Or, as a last resort, apply for asset seizure and collection order?
You needed someone with something to seize, or at least a real job, if you wanted to garnish a bank account or wages. Right now, debtor Kim Yujin was a twenty-five-year-old college student who only did part-time work. The employees could only keep swallowing the thought that maybe the company was the one at fault for lending ten million won to someone like that, or maybe the screening team had screwed up.
“Say something, anything. Fuck, am I the only one working here? If you’re getting paid a salary, shouldn’t you be doing your best?”
The bastard who did the least work and got paid the most was shouting at the workers who were actually trying.
Then, all of a sudden.
“Team Leader.”
Deputy Oh, the man responsible for debtor Kim Yujin and the source of all this trouble, came into the office and called out to Kim Donggeon.
“You little shit, what the hell took you so long? Didn’t you see the text?”
“The text? I just went out for a smoke.”
“A smoke? You felt like smoking at a time like this? What, you’re short on nicotine?”
“Why is everyone gathered here?”
Deputy Oh always made a living by flattering and smoothing things over just enough to keep Team Leader Kim in a good mood, but this time his attitude was a little strange. Even in this situation, with the employees being called in and lined up behind the team leader like a screen for a group scolding, Oh wouldn’t be dumb enough to grin and joke around without reading the room.
“You asking because you don’t know? It’s because of Kim Yujin. That bad debt you’re handling, what are you going to do about it?”
“Ah, that one. I took it because I wanted to handle it. You assigned it to me, Team Leader. And honestly, hasn’t nobody collected it for six months?”
“Fuck, if Do Jaehyun had been here, that would’ve worked. Damn it, I should’ve just chewed him out a bit when he came earlier and taken it.”
Before he even realized it, the name Do Jaehyun had slipped out of Kim Donggeon’s mouth.
“...Do Jaehyun?”
Now that Do Jaehyun had resigned, Deputy Oh, who had been recognized as the ace of Personal Credit Management Team 1, twitched his brow.
His pride had been hurt.
“What, did I say something wrong?”
“It’s solved.”
“Huh?”
“Customer Kim Yujin’s account has been resolved.”
“Seriously?”
Kim Donggeon, who had only moments ago been raging like a locomotive boiler, shot to his feet with delight all over his face.
“How, how did you solve it? Deputy Oh. Did the customer’s family contact you? Are they asking for an interest reduction? A settlement agreement? When’s it happening? We need this wrapped up by this month, and you know we have to process it within a week if we’re considering business days, right?”
At last, with the joy of being able to achieve team Perfect, Kim Donggeon spat out words like a machine gun.
“Right now.”
“Right now? Really?”
“Yes.”
At Deputy Oh’s confident reply, everyone’s gaze fixed on him, and before anyone noticed, four broad-shouldered men had appeared behind him.
Black suits, white shirts. Red ties to match, as if their entire uniform had been chosen to say one thing: We’re gangsters.
“...And who are those gentlemen?”
Kim Donggeon’s tone softened a little.
“They’re the people who’ll be paying back customer Kim Yujin’s debt.”
“Is that so? Everyone except Deputy Oh, back to your desks and get to work.”
Kim Donggeon’s eyes moved toward the Brown Bear’s group. When he’d been sitting at his desk, the partition had blocked most of their bodies, but now that he was standing, he could see just how rough-looking they all were. More than anything, those heavy, unidentified burlap sacks were deeply annoying.
“What’s your relationship with customer Kim Yujin?”
Kim Donggeon stood and asked as politely as he could. Assistant Manager Kim Jooyoung, the one with an X-shaped knife scar on his face, opened his mouth.
“I’m a brother he knows, and I’m here to pay it off for him.”
“You’re not family?”
“So what?”
“So what...? Sir, your tone is a little short, don’t you think?”
The instant Kim Donggeon finished speaking, the employees of Personal Credit Management Team 1, who had been seated at their computers, all stood at once and silently glared at the Brown Bear’s group.
This was a method used in the end days by loan shark companies and debt collectors.
Groups of thuggish-looking men didn’t usually come swarming in all at once like this, but it was a highly effective tactic when a debtor’s parents, siblings, or friends came to file a complaint.
Usually, debtors themselves or people acting on their behalf would storm into the office furious beyond reason, whether they intended to pay or not, and start yelling about high interest rates or accusing the company of tricking some naive kid into a fraudulent loan. Loan company employees didn’t bother trying to persuade them.
When sturdy, rough-looking male employees all rose at once and silently pressured the complainants like this, about nine out of ten lost their nerve and became obedient.
And even if actual gangsters showed up like this, there was no real problem. If things got out of hand, they could just call the police. And if those bastards looked like they were about to go crazy, then not just the employees of Personal Credit Management Team 1, but every male employee in the office could stand up and stare in silence, and the situation would be over.
“Ha... you tiny little things are testing my temper.”
Assistant Manager Kim Jooyoung muttered quietly, but Kim Donggeon wasn’t so deaf that he couldn’t hear it. Just as he was about to lose his patience and fire back, Brown Bear Gong Hyeongtae stepped forward.
“My guy here was a bit rude. No need for people in the same line of work to fight. What’s the debt amount as of today?”
“...I think you need a little staff training. Just a moment. Deputy Oh, how much is customer Kim Yujin’s payoff amount as of today?”
“Yes, Team Leader. To the last won, it’s exactly 11,754,983 won, but if we drop the last three digits, the payoff amount is 11,754,980 won.”
“You heard that, right?”
“I don’t want trouble, and I apologize. I’ll offer a proper apology, so take the money and let’s be done with it.”
“Fine by me. Will you transfer it? Or take out a refinancing loan through another company?”
“No. We’ll pay it in cash, in full, all at once.”
Gong Taehyung answered Kim Donggeon politely with a smile, and Kim Donggeon, too, curled a sly grin at the corner of his mouth. It felt like he was finally standing his ground even against gangsters, as though his status had risen, and that made him even happier.
“Understood. Hand it to me.”
“Count it carefully. It’s 11.75 million won, but we brought 12 million in our heads.”
“Ah, of course I’ll return any excess. Don’t worry, just give it here.”
At Kim Donggeon’s answer, a wicked smile traced itself across Gong Hyeongtae’s mouth.
“Manager Yu. Give him the money.”
“Yes, Director.”
It was the moment the greatest disaster since the founding of AK Capital began. As soon as Wolf Dog Yoo Hobin took Gong Hyeongtae’s order, he yelled excitedly.
“Deputy Kim, Assistant Manager Ha, give him the money.”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
Kim Jooyoung and the youngest, Ha Taeseon, had been waiting for nothing but those words. They hoisted the burlap sacks high and swung them enthusiastically through the office of AK Capital’s Personal Credit Management Team 1.
Clang, clang. Crash, crash, jingle, jangle!
Coins that looked like they numbered in the thousands, no, at least tens of thousands, scattered everywhere across the office floor, between desk legs, into the gaps around the monitors, and into every corner imaginable, and AK Capital’s office turned into pandemonium in an instant.
And then...
“W-what the hell are you doinggggg?! You fucking baaaaaastards!”
Kim Donggeon, who had been momentarily stunned by the absurd scene unfolding before his eyes, finally let out a scream that echoed through the office.