Inside Out (Part 2)
It was an era where even the kids looked down on snowflakes, calling them garbage falling from the sky, and refused to meet anyone's eyes. A young man stood outside his house, brushing the snow off his entire body with brisk, brusque motions, muttering under his breath without stopping.
"You stupid bastard... No matter how much heater I can generate with my body, that kind of thing just doesn't work out!"
Jeong Il-hwan, whose body was steaming from head to toe, protested the unfairness of Kim Chomo's eye-makeup battle method. But whether he raised his voice in objection or not, he lost anyway.
"Ha! Bigger energy only dominates everything...!! And it's not even a big hit for the one who won — what a lovely sight."
The winner had taken barely any damage, so he was able to strut through the front door with a satisfied expression. The fight ended with one man as a snowman and the other shivering with cold.
"You could melt it right away, so why don't you feel bad about burning calories by just taking it straight? Tsk tsk."
"You crazy son of a bitch! Where in the hell is someone who can throw a snowball and launch the whole snowdrift piled up on the rooftop building?!"
After a warm shower, Jeong Il-hwan tried to push the fight into a second round with nothing but petty arguments. But unfortunately, even the neighborhood mixed breed had the home-field advantage — and this guy was just a person named Kim Chomo, wasn't he?
"So what's the deal? Suddenly telling me to sleep over even though you have a house and a family — whose friend are you from where?"
"...I was wrong! I was wrong, okay!!"
It was a perfectly obvious situation — you could tell at a glance who was the guest. The young man on leave, dressed in shabby borrowed clothes, sank into a slump.
"I mean... during exam season there's nothing to do besides studying anyway, so it's not like it matters..."
He had no idea why someone on leave would come to a friend's place instead of going home, but the moment he said it, the hesitation in his voice made it clear the atmosphere wasn't one you should ask about.
"...Well, if you've got nothing to do, go hang out with your buddies and come back."
As friends, no matter how much humiliation they threw around, they couldn't cross that line. It was the minimum decency that couldn't be violated. Feeling the thoughtfulness in Kim Chomo's fleeting glance at that line, Jeong Il-hwan's chest warmed up.
"Th...thank you..."
"Oh right, this asshole isn't even my classmate, is he? Ugh, stench of pickled fish. I should set the alarm for the wake-up bell."
"Thank...you, you rotten bastard!! I came out on leave, so I'm an official member of society now!!"
Of course, before he could even feel touched, that feeling got converted into anger energy — but hey, it was still hot, wasn't it?
Studying, fundamentally, is a discipline where your grades are proportional to the history you've built up.
"Alright, for this pitiful soldier whose life is hard, let's drink."
Ching!
"...Aren't exams coming up soon? Are you allowed to drink?"
"You know better than me that you get better grades than me. If you didn't usually do it, even getting struck by lightning would only add a plus one."
With no other strong events worth distracting from, a peaceful college life that was as calm as a plant. For Kim Chomo, this semester was a solid one that started with studying and ended with studying...
"Oh right. This bastard has no friends. So you really just studied all semester, huh."
"...Ugh, should I just not buy the drinks? Should I sneak out while this bastard's sleeping?"
...In the absence of a friend-of-a-friend — a friend-router — to facilitate socialization outside of the semester.
"Will the alcohol even go down? Aigoo, if you don't finish within the given period, the professor's name gets passed along...?"
"What the hell is this — don't you have any ambitions?!! How do you keep slapping your idiot partner every single day but not give them a single second of support...!!"
He could only bring up the topic by lunging at the bastards who were too obsessed with the college festival to turn in assignments, brandishing the sword of academic surrender.
"Still, I did try all sorts of things to test my abilities, you know."
It was one or the other — either talking to the resident living inside his own head, or not talking at all. Not romantic in meaning, but literally an internal tenant living inside himself... or rather, someone who was grumbling internally.
Normally she said nothing and they coexisted peacefully, but she only spoke on weekends when he secretly climbed the mountain — an irregular charging schedule.
"I said I'll handle it myself!!"
And this hot-tempered tenant, who couldn't even stand being teased, ended up blurting something like this out loud?
"...What are you handling yourself? You crazy bastard... Even an ability user can't get drunk off one drink."
Everyone who heard that would unanimously send the look of "Has this bastard finally snapped...?"
"I... I didn't say anything."
"...Weakling. Emo! Bring two more of the frozen clam soup."
There was nothing to be done — no matter how angry he got, he had to swallow it when others were watching. And so, one glass, two glasses... the alcohol that started flowing in was soon stacked in crates instead of bottles.
"Aigoo, boys... this is also jinjib — drink it slowly while we're at it. You'll wreck your body..."
"Huh? No, now that I've loosened up a bit I'm feeling nice and tipsy..."
Woooon-wooong...!!
Ignoring the shock of the people around them who were drinking hard liquor while either finishing exams early or abandoning them entirely, the two men who'd gotten just tipsy enough to talk about social change and the future lit their cigarettes.
"...Krrgh. Drinking from small cups doesn't even let you feel it."
The man who could be classified as a living human alcohol lamp in the first place — Jeong Il-hwan, of course.
"Augh, so higher-proof than makgeolli, huh? It seems like it's less filtered since the buzz is kicking in."
For Kim Chomo, alcohol distilled from various plants — sweet potato, tapioca, rice, potato — was just quality food.
And so, another crate of empty bottles was stacked on top of the empty bottle graveyard beside them, and it was only when the bar owner — who'd been thinking "these bastards won't leave tonight" — handed over the water of life² that things got interesting.
"Uuugh, Chomo... I've been thinking about whether to enter the job market right after next semester ends..."
The deep voice from his friend's heart reached Kim Chomo's eardrums.
"Our house went to auction, and when I went to the new place, my two younger siblings share one room... I don't even have my own room."
With middle schoolers as siblings, they can't even have separate rooms — they have to huddle together in a cramped space. They'd have to spread a mat in the living room, sleep, and when mom wakes up in the middle of the night, get up and go back to the same spot to sleep a second time.
In a situation like this, no matter how well you study, if the present isn't guaranteed, you can't aim for the future.
"That's why I was running around online like that... A soldier can't earn money."
In the middle of all this, the last person stubbornly refusing to ask Kim Chomo for help was driven by nothing but pride.
"Hey, you saved me once when you became a Corporal — asking you for help a second time is too much..."
Jeong Il-hwan's life philosophy — that you can never inflict harm on someone who once did you a favor — made no exceptions.
"...So what's our friend going to do, being short on money?"
"Heh heh, what can I do... I was thinking of getting a stable job and saving up for a key deposit."
Just because you were born first doesn't mean only your path to college is open — that's far too unfair.
"Whether it's tutoring or getting a job... we have to send our family to a room-lease situation where everyone has their own room first, before anything else... Gah."
Thud!
"...You crazy bastard. Where in the world is someone who chugs unfiltered Bulgarian vodka like drinking water?"
No matter how tough his body was, Jeong Il-hwan, who drank cocktail-grade high-proof vodka like water, collapsed. Kim Chomo, who caught the one drunkard with his right arm, pulled a card from inside his own chest.
"Bar owner, the check."
"...Wait, I put orange juice next to it so you could dilute it and drink together... Did you just light up a cigarette on top of that?!"
Almost all the alcohol in the store disappeared, and the shop owner, who was forced to close for the day, spoke with a mix of concern:
"If your condition gets any worse, send you straight to the hospital."
"Hmm... I wonder if anything like a parasite will come out if I eat it..."
His words, as he returned to his room, drifted into the pitch-black winter sky.
***
No matter how much of an ability user he was, drinking near-pure alcohol like water and then lighting up a cigarette on top of it was over the line.
"Kk... Kk...!! My body... it's my body!! Krrraaaagh...!!"
He'd been unconscious too long, so his ability started decomposing the alcohol into energy before his liver could even get to work. No matter how skilled he was at flying, Jeong Il-hwan had to spend some quality time getting acquainted with the bathroom toilet.
After all was expelled through every exit in his body, he finally calmed down — but...
"Want me to make a hangover remedy? I boiled three packs but ended up eating them all myself."
"Krrraaaagh, why does instant noodles even smell so greasy...!!"
His body, littered with alcohol bottles, went on full strike against any food intake.
"...Ugh, I should go for a walk around the school campus and have a healthy day..."
"Go to hell. I'm going to take my exams."
While Kim Chomo went to take his exams with a calm face, the alcohol trash headed for the forest to absorb phytoncides. When you knock, the door opens — or so they say. Watching his friend's stubbornly shabby back disappearing into the distance, Kim Chomo...
"Tsk... that bastard's only stubborn, so he won't fall for anything ordinary."
Was it worth sacrificing a part of the Gordian knot in his head? He scratched his head and thought about it.
***
The next day, the only exam left for Kim Chomo was one liberal arts course.
"Um... Kim Chomo student? We have a business meeting we need to split, and..."
The university dean, who looked kind-hearted, dragged a half-dead body and came looking for him.
"What, why are you calling me again?"
"Aigoo, the forest was all dried up and dead, so I came toward the trees... and it turned out to be the graduate school grounds."
It was the price of Kim Chomo, who couldn't even conceive of sucking it dry, having gone there of his own volition — straight into professor hell.
***
And so the story came full circle. The dean told the two of them it was for the university's new revenue model.
"A 'model case support' — packaging our desire to suck them dry into presentable words..."
"Haha, help with job placement? I could just use raw strength and become a savior of the manual labor industry. Don't need it."
The special problem child, whose living expenses weren't a huge issue even without a job, openly expressed his refusal. In the first place, the reason he'd enrolled in college was nothing but herd mentality — "Everyone's going, so I should too?" And the reason he'd come back was to enjoy the civilian life he hadn't experienced in military service, wasn't it?
"Udduk, this is a decided matter! During the department consolidation process, if we merge the department you're in right now, what are we going to do?!"
Of course, the dean used all his authority to threaten with "Then it won't be fun!" But for the young man who had no affection for the department and had only come because it was the best university he could get into with his grades, it was nonsense that didn't even rank as a threat.
"I mean, just get rid of it. Switch to the free elective track and do something similar. That's all."
"Wh-what?! It's just one department that's not profitable — it doesn't mean my admission to this university disappears! You really don't get it."
Since the main target — the crazy bastard — had failed to be persuaded, the dean turned to plan B and looked at Jeong Il-hwan.
"Then, Jeong Il-hwan student, what do you think about the whole department?"
"...How about I aim for a firefighter or special hire position? I have heat resistance, after all."
"Augh, how did everything end up going wrong...!!"
From Jeong Il-hwan's perspective, who was technically a college student, he couldn't bother caring about the whole department situation. "...They've already brought in the equipment and done all the talking with the cooperating companies..." The dean, who'd been double-crossed by two undergraduate girls in a row, hung his head in dejection.
***
The grand plan — to create a department researching ability users, pull in national tax money, and build a future growth engine.
The planner, upon hearing that every sketch from the start had to be redrawn, spoke up:
"...Since all the plans we wrote are ruined... what do we do now?"
"Kk... I thought I could build up my achievements and get both a book deal for the school and transparent funds...³" The National Assembly member — the persistent ghost haunting Yeouido — who was real-time gold-plating his badge. If anything happened, just showing his face would get the job done, wouldn't it?
"Uu...ugh. Leave Kim Chomo alone."
But no matter how much authority a National Assembly member boasts about making the laws of the country, the other side was a human being who shouted "I don't want to be in the military anymore, you bastards!" and ran wild in Yeouido. If he showed up personally to pressure them, what would come back would most likely be a fist full of power.
So unless he had a special fetish for being whipped, there was no need to poke the hornet's nest.
"But the other one... Jeong Il-hwan — isn't there still a chance for 'persuasion'?"
"...When you say 'persuasion,' what method of persuasion are you referring to?"
If he was going to persuade him again for the department's sake, he should be less of a criminal and more of a realistic friend.
"Becoming a firefighter means civil service employment... ability users can earn a lot more money if they take a better path, after all."
Everyone knew the heat ability user's natural heat resistance made him a perfect fit for a firefighter, but...
"Now that I think about it, there have been reports that private military companies are starting to eye the gates."
As everyone knew, the inside of the gate — with its danger pay — was their gold mine.
"Or there are also various major corporations' research institutes that are very eager to scout ability users."
When you think about it, who could look at this and not see that the ability to raise temperature to absurd levels just by providing sufficient fuel was perfect for power generation? He could go the turbine route — generating electricity by boiling water — and if he could produce ultra-high temperatures beyond imagination that decompose even gas, burning pollutants would be no problem.⁴
"With so many clearly better career paths available, why aim for firefighter special hire?"
Even if he liked a stable job, wasn't this a bit too stable?
"Should we... do a quick survey of the surrounding situation?"
An ability user from the ability unit, an intuitive fire ability user who was obviously easy to handle because of his young age — an A-class talent. Wouldn't investing in snatching up this lamb for a few pennies be a worthwhile investment?
"Agreed. And if there's even the slightest chance of persuasion..."
No matter if it was money or family — selling grace is a faster recruitment method than exploiting weaknesses. The snakes who had survived countless times by devouring each other in the palace of the National Assembly — the professors who held sway over numerous "unrecognized slave groups" — saw a kindred face and smiled a thin, cold smile.
"Hey, sign your name on this."
"...What is this? A promissory note?"
"I happen to have some money, so if you write this up and pay interest exactly according to the tax law standard, there won't be any problems."
But the world flows according to plans far less than it does according to surprise variables. At the global level of chafing, Kim Chomo spit saliva — unconsciously — onto their "benevolent investor" plan.