A Twenty-Year-Overdue Complaint (1)

This was my second visit to the Association President's Office.

He'd said to come first thing in the morning, so I rolled my wheelchair in right on time for the start of the workday. Early rising wasn't in a Civil Affairs Office supervisor's job description.

The first floor of the main building was a racket again today. From first light, hopefuls lining up to become disciples packed the corridor outside the Civil Affairs Office, and a hunter stuck at the very back spotted me heading for the elevator and shouted.

"Hey, old man, no cutting. Get in line at the back."

I waved him off and boarded the elevator. That I was the root cause of that line, and was currently fleeing it, was something no one needed to know. Easier for everyone that way.

As the elevator climbed, I finished sorting through the thoughts I'd left half-done the night before.

There were reasons I'd spent twenty years dodging a seat like this one. Half of it was my own peace. The other half was my comrades.

Do-cheol had rebuilt his life on a ruined leg. Do Ha-gyeong was barely keeping her breath steady in the mountains. Han Bok-hee had even erased her name from the rolls just to protect a single smiling face.

When you dig up a grave, the first people who start to shake are the ones who somehow managed to build a house on top of it. So for twenty years I had let every would-be digger slide past me—reporters, gallery posters, higher-ups, all of them.

But yesterday I saw that woman.

On the other side of the grave were people who had spent twenty years bowing with no headstone at all. Survivors like Seo Jin-gyeong, one for every name on that erased list.

For twenty years I had lived with only the living side of the scale loaded. I had gotten by without looking at the other plate. Yesterday I looked at it head-on, so today the way I sat was bound to be a little different.

I needed to be clear about one thing. Seo Jin-gyeong had not dragged me into this chair. That woman had only come looking for her father. I was the one who finally saw the hundreds of bereaved families standing behind her face. Deciding to look into the plate I had ignored for twenty years, and deciding to sit up straighter afterward—that was me. She had only knocked on the door. The hand that opened it was mine. There was no one to blame, and no one to pin it on.

The elevator doors opened.

The secretary shot to his feet the moment he saw me.

"S-Supervisor. He's waiting for you."

Nowhere on the Association's hierarchy chart did a secretary of the President's Office address a Civil Affairs supervisor with that kind of deference. The man himself looked like he had no idea why. Apparently the President had given him firm instructions and left out the reason.

The Association President's Office was different from last time. Then it had been crawling with guild suits; today the President was alone in that wide room. A gray-haired old man rose from the sofa to greet me.

"Supervisor Kang. Thank you for coming."

He looked like he hadn't slept a wink all night. For twenty years this man had avoided me with admirable diligence. If we crossed paths in a hallway, he hid his face behind a stack of papers; if he spotted my tray in the cafeteria, he quietly moved seats. The man who had spent two decades ducking me had, at ten o'clock last night, walked over and called me himself. Something urgent must have come down from above.

"Would you like a cup of coffee? I have some excellent beans."

"Skip it."

I pulled a Mocha Gold from my pocket and gave it a shake.

"Just hot water."

The Association President went to the water cooler himself and brought back a cup of hot water. While the number one man in the Association fixed coffee for a Civil Affairs supervisor, I parked my wheelchair beside the sofa and took stock of the room. Two document envelopes sat on the table. Both were stamped with a red official seal on the outside—which meant they weren't Association papers.

"Get to the point. I have to be downstairs by the time we open the Civil Affairs Office."

The President scrubbed his face dry with both hands and held out the first envelope.

"This came ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down from above yesterday."

The official notice was short.

They'd padded it out, but the summary was one line: scrape the 1st Generation back together.

"Everything upstairs flipped after Vice Guild Leader Do-cheol's footage. The whole country saw a 1st Generation take down Mutants the System couldn't handle. Public opinion is hunting for 1st Generation, and the government can't just sit on its hands."

"They're even talking about a special support law for the 1st Generation in the National Assembly. People they pretended didn't exist for twenty years—now they want to honor them by statute."

"It's not that they can't sit on their hands. They just smell opportunity."

I skimmed the notice as I spoke.

"Gate clearances are down, guild stock prices are tanking, and the public's losing faith in the System. On a board like this, the only card the government has left is the 1st Generation. The same 1st Generation they ground up and erased twenty years ago."

The President didn't deny it. I tossed the notice back onto the table.

"Familiar phrasing."

"……."

"Barely a few words different from the conscription warrants twenty years ago. That started with 'cooperation' and 'framework' too. Ended with warrants."

The President's face went white. He knew as well as I did what that kind of paper turned into.

"Mr. President."

"Yes, Supervisor."

"Finding people isn't hard. Do-cheol's already putting together a list of the living—one cooperation request to Baekho Guild will do it. But there are conditions."

I raised one finger.

"Whether a name goes on that list is up to the person. Not a single line for anyone who wants out."

Han Bok-hee's smiling face flashed past—the woman who had asked to have her name removed. Do Ha-gyeong, barely keeping her breath in the mountains. Those people had spent twenty years crawling out to where they were. A single sheet of paper was not going to drag them back down.

"Same goes for cooperation. We'll take a request. We won't take a warrant. If they come at us the way they did twenty years ago, then I'll answer the way I did twenty years ago."

I hadn't even raised my voice, but the President's shoulders twitched.

"I—I'll pass that along. Upstairs, too. Exactly as you said."

He pulled a notebook from his coat and wrote down my words. His hand was hurried, like a single wrong character would get him killed.

"And one more thing."

I took a sip of the mix coffee. From here on was something the me of yesterday never would have brought up.

"I'm filing a complaint."

"Excuse me?"

"Complainant: Kang Tae-hyun. Matter: document cleanup."

The President stared at me, baffled.

"The conscription records from twenty years ago. Among the people dragged in back then, there are some who were never properly listed as killed in action or missing. On paper, people who were never born and never died."

"Clean that up. The dead as the dead. And notices to the bereaved families."

The President's mouth fell halfway open.

"Supervisor, that is…"

"It's a complaint twenty years overdue. The processing deadline is long past."

He looked at me for a long time.

"You stayed quiet for twenty years… why now?"

"Because a complainant showed up."

He didn't seem to understand what that meant, but he didn't ask further.

"Those records aren't at the Association."

He forced the words out with difficulty.

"Everything was recalled after that day. People came down from above and took every last sheet of paper. I know, because… I was the one who helped them collect it."

"Two truckloads of paper. I don't even know where it went. Asking was forbidden."

I had known his hands had been on the sealed documents. Hearing it from his own mouth was a first.

"At the time I thought it was damage control. The country was about to collapse, and upstairs said the chaos had to be stopped first. I was a low-level clerk. The stamps came from above me."

It was less an excuse than a confession.

"That's also why I've avoided you for twenty years. I didn't have the face to meet you."

I looked at the old man for a moment. Even on the side that did the erasing, there had been foot soldiers. And it seemed that foot soldier had spent just as long sitting on top of that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grave as the people who had been erased.

I didn't accept an apology. It wasn't mine to take. Most of the people who should have received it were lying somewhere without even a grave.

"Keep your face. Just run the paperwork."

I set the paper cup down.

"If the records are upstairs, demand them from upstairs. That's an Association President's job. If you need one, I'll cut you a complaint receipt."

He made a sound that might have been a hollow laugh or a sigh.

"You come back after twenty years and file the single most terrifying document of my career."

"That's what a Civil Affairs Office is for. We take the complaints nobody else will touch."

The President laughed briefly. When the smile faded, his voice dropped a register.

"But Supervisor. Upstairs has been extremely sensitive about that area ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lately."

"That area?"

"The records from twenty years ago. An access request came up not long ago, and the rejection order came down from above in person. They told us not to even attach a reason. First time I've seen an instruction like that in my entire term."

Seo Jin-gyeong. One access request from a single reporter, and upstairs had reached down with its own hand. The people who buried that grave knew better than anyone how shallow it was.

The President reached for the second envelope.

"The truth is… the reason I asked you here today is this."

It was the envelope that had been catching my eye since I walked in. Thinner than the first. But the hand that picked it up was shaking worse than before.

"It came down with the official notice. This isn't even a formal document. No sender. No seal."

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper. The sentence was exactly one line.

The side that did the erasing was, after twenty years, hunting for the name it had wiped out with its own hands.

I could guess why. The public was looking for the 1st Generation, and at the top of the 1st Generation sat the name Baekjeong. From upstairs' point of view, Baekjeong was the best card and the worst bomb at once. Alive, he was a card you could hold and shake to flip the board. The second that mouth opened, he was a bomb that would blow the twenty-year-old grave wide open. So they were looking. Card or bomb—they needed to know where he was before they decided which.

And the thing they were looking for was currently sitting beside the sofa in the Association President's Office, sipping mix coffee. Upstairs didn't have the faintest idea.

The President looked from the paper to me and back again.

"If I write the truth, they'll summon you upstairs. If I write a lie, I'm deceiving them. But I—"

He set the paper down on the table.

"Twenty years ago, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I wrote what I was told. Once. And I've lived like this for twenty years because of it."

The only person in this building who knew exactly who I was asked, in a trembling voice:

"How… how would you like me to report you, Supervisor?"