“Where are you?” she asked Mi-yeon.
“I’m taking a break from school to work. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. You know how hard it is to find a job these days. I got lucky.”
Unlike Se-oh, who felt awkward and unsure of what to say, Mi-yeon sounded cheerful, as if implying they merely had to get past this moment.
“We should meet up some time, don’t you think?” Mi-yeon said.
She sounded as casual as if she were asking Se-oh what she’d had for lunch or if she’d seen the news of the latest celebrity scandal.
Se-oh was quiet for a moment while she gathered her thoughts. Over the phone, she heard someone in the background calling Mi-yeon’s name. Mi-yeon’s voice was faint as she replied, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there.”
“Se-oh, I’m really sorry but the team leader needs to see me right now. We have to go over something. I’m sorry to hang up so quickly. Can I call you back later?”
Se-oh nodded, then remembered she was on the phone and said, “Sure, call me back later.” It had shocked her to hear Mi-yeon say sorry. And “really sorry,” at that. The old Mi-yeon would never have apologized for anything.
If she hadn’t called back, Se-oh would have chalked the whole thing up to one of Mi-yeon’s sudden change of moods. But, as if to prove she’d meant what she said, Mi-yeon called back and told Se-oh when and where to meet her. In that respect, she wasn’t so different after all. She’d decided on the time and place without bothering to ask for Se-oh’s opinion. It was good to see that she was the same as ever. Other than sounding friendlier and more considerate, that is, as if conscious of the fact that they were no longer close.
Se-oh couldn’t help feeling a little excited. She’d even ditched her father, who kept heaving deep sighs while cleaning out his shop, to go shopping for a new outfit. On the way to Gangnam Station, she got a call from Mi-yeon telling her to meet near Gyodae Station instead. Sounding excessively polite, Mi-yeon apologized several times for inconveniencing her. Se-oh had a weird feeling about it. The old Mi-yeon would never have apologized for switching locations at the last minute, since she would have had good reason for doing so. Se-oh had never criticized Mi-yeon for being inconsiderate. Their relationship was such that they could give each other that kind of slack.
She was changing trains to head for Gyodae Station when it occurred to her to wonder why Mi-yeon had called her for the first time in three years right in the middle of the workday. If it were Se-oh, she would have waited until after work, when she was home alone for the rest of the night with nothing else to do. Night was when your loneliness enticed you, gave you the courage to contact someone out of the blue.
What kind of day was Mi-yeon having that she suddenly thought of Se-oh while at work? Especially work that was urgent enough for her team leader to come looking for her. Se-oh felt glum. It must have been something very trivial, something she would never guess at, that made Mi-yeon think of Se-oh and decide to call her on impulse. She could only assume Mi-yeon had deliberately chosen a busy time to call in order to avoid addressing the heavy and difficult question of why they hadn’t spoken in so long.
With her mind pinballing from thought to thought, she got off the train. She wanted to go around to the opposite platform and head right back in the other direction. As if guessing Se-oh might be feeling that way, Mi-yeon called just then to ask if Se-oh was almost there. The whole sequence of events, from Mi-yeon inviting her out to changing the location and then checking to see if she was on her way, left Se-oh feeling that Mi-yeon was a little desperate to see her. This wasn’t consideration; Mi-yeon was anxious about something. Se-oh didn’t know why, but Mi-yeon was going out of her way to stay on Se-oh’s good side.
Mi-yeon arrived a few minutes late and headed straight for Se-oh with a big smile spread across her face. Se-oh smiled back. She wasn’t used to being greeted with such enthusiasm. Mi-yeon’s voice had a shrill note of excitement to it, such that Se-oh felt bad for having been suspicious of her.
Mi-yeon had lost quite a bit of weight. She looked tired, but she also had the respectable, credible air of someone with a good office job. Like two old friends seeing each other after a long time apart, they asked what was new, where they lived now, how their families were. Even while asking questions and giving her own short answers, Mi-yeon kept looking around and glancing back at the entrance. When she saw that Se-oh was staring at her, she hurriedly smiled and made an effort to soften her face. Once they ran out of the easy conversation topics, Mi-yeon let out a deep sigh. Then she began talking about how she was making good money at her job. She launched so seamlessly into one work anecdote after another that Se-oh could hardly get a word in edgewise. Se-oh assumed she kept talking about work out of the awkwardness of meeting after such a long time. If not for Mi-yeon, Se-oh probably would have done the same, latching on to any random topic that came to mind. In fact, she had worried that their conversation might hit an awkward lull and that Mi-yeon would get bored and regret having called her.
After talking at length about her job, Mi-yeon finally asked, “How’s your father’s store doing? I heard that all of those places have been going under lately.” Se-oh felt suddenly like she’d been talking to a perfect stranger all along. It was inconsiderate and downright rude of Mi-yeon.
To what extent was she still the Mi-yeon that Se-oh had known? At what point had she stopped being a friend? The old Mi-yeon had been cold and unpredictable, but also discreet and thoughtful. Even while seemingly indifferent, she could be considerate in subtle ways.
But not anymore. The longer they spoke, the more sarcastic she seemed. She smiled but didn’t look like she was enjoying herself. Her exaggerated small talk was not due to awkwardness; she was trying to hide something.
Each time Mi-yeon paused for even a second, it was to glance around or look at her watch or check her cell phone. Se-oh needed to say something. Otherwise the silence would expose the fact that their friendship had long been over. She kept belatedly tacking on comments to whatever Mi-yeon said and asking the same questions that Mi-yeon had asked her. When did she move, was her job hard, when did she plan to return to school? Questions that made plain how long it had been since they last saw each other.
Mi-yeon answered each question brusquely and then suddenly turned serious.
“Let’s get dinner now.”
She sprang up and headed straight out of the café. It was a little early for dinner, but Se-oh followed. Se-oh paid for the coffee and joined Mi-yeon outside. Mi-yeon was on the phone with someone.
“What should we eat?” Se-oh asked, after waiting for her to hang up.
Mi-yeon ignored the question and started walking. Se-oh followed. She couldn’t see her face very well while walking beside her, but the look in Mi-yeon’s eyes had darkened noticeably since leaving the café.
“Let’s go there.”
Mi-yeon took her to an ox-bone soup place not far from the café. Considering how quickly she headed for it, Mi-yeon seemed to have had it in mind already.
Se-oh wrapped her hands around the bowl of soup with its milky-white broth that the waitress had set in front of her. She had the brief thought that this was the first time she and Mi-yeon had gone out for soup together. And it was proving to be a disappointment. A very unmemorable first. Their reunion was as bland as the broth.
Mi-yeon worked on her soup without saying a word. She was completely different from how she’d been in the café. She put down her spoon and stared at Se-oh.
“Se-oh,” she said finally, “the truth is . . .”
Se-oh swallowed her mouthful of broth and waited to hear what Mi-yeon was about to say. The soup had already cooled, but it seemed to scald her throat. Her face flushed, and her whole body grew hot. It scared her to think that none other than Mi-yeon was having this effect on her.
Mi-yeon’s eyes were as big and dark as ever. Those eyes had once bewitched Se-oh. Each time she’d looked at her, they’d sparkled. Now her eyes were different, but th
ey were still bewitching. Se-oh stared into them for a long time before realizing they held a completely different allure than before. She wasn’t sure just what it was. Se-oh’s face must have hardened, because Mi-yeon cracked a tiny smile. It was an impeccably natural smile. The more natural she thought it looked, the more Mi-yeon’s face seemed to darken with a certain ruthlessness. If there was such a thing as a face that had been eaten away by life, this was it.
19
The morning after Se-oh withdrew the cash from the ATM and counted it over and over, Mi-yeon disappeared. She didn’t show up for the 6:00 a.m. assembly. Maybe she’d just stepped away for a moment. Maybe she was using the toilet. Maybe she’d woken early and gone for a walk, or popped out to buy some missing ingredients in the middle of preparing breakfast. Despite all of those possibilities, Se-oh knew that Mi-yeon had simply left. It wasn’t a guess so much as a conviction.
Se-oh had woken to the sound of voices. Each time she woke up in that room, it alarmed her to realize she was lying next to strangers. The different densities of darkness kept bleeding into each other only to redefine themselves the next moment as Se-oh marveled repeatedly at where she was. Later, she lay in a faint, almost colorless light and thought about nothing at all. She could see the dark brown molding that edged the ceiling, but she could not make out the pattern on the ceiling. Patterns kept shrinking down and growing large again.
The walls were empty. There was nothing strange about that. As recently as yesterday, Mi-yeon had dozed off leaning against the wall next to Se-oh. Now Mi-yeon could rest easy. Five million won had made sure of that. Se-oh had lied to her father to get that money.
There were two rooms facing each other, with a combination living room and kitchen in between as narrow as a hallway. Those who’d already woken up were gathered there and whispering to each other, clearly trying to keep something secret. As others joined them, the whispering grew louder.
“Mi-yeon will be working with a different team starting today,” their team leader said, even before Se-oh could ask about her.
The look of curiosity in everyone’s eyes dimmed. The ensuing silence made Se-oh lonely. If they’d kept whispering instead, she wouldn’t have felt so alienated, so left out of the open secret.
She walked next to the team leader on the way to the training center. Fortunately, the team leader did not loop her arm through Se-oh’s this time. Instead, she was staring off into space absent-mindedly, in stark contrast to the friendly demeanor she’d maintained up until yesterday.
“Can I tell you something?”
Se-oh figured it was going to be another example of a success story. The same stuff she’d been hearing throughout her training.
“We had a team member once who tried to run away. She only made it as far as a nearby convenience store. She had nowhere else to go, and it was the only place open at that hour. She stepped through the door and screamed at the cashier. She must have been feeling very desperate. I don’t know what she had to feel so desperate about, but then again, the thought of running away itself ought to make anyone pretty desperate. They said she yelled like crazy, ‘Help me! Save me!’”
The team leader’s impression was so realistic that for a moment it sounded like she really was begging for help. It clearly wasn’t the first time she’d told that story.
“What do you think the cashier did?”
The team leader stopped short and looked at Se-oh. She waited, as if to give Se-oh time to think about her answer. Then she continued.
“He yawned. A great, big yawn, like this. His shift was almost up and he must’ve been exhausted. Finally, he said, ‘What? You were locked up, too?’”
The team leader laughed and resumed walking.
“The escaped team member begged the cashier to loan her his cell phone. As you know, the team leaders confiscate everyone’s phones. You couldn’t even call the police if you wanted to. But the cashier wouldn’t loan her his phone. It was brand-new, the latest model. You can’t loan just anyone your brand-new phone. It’ll get stolen. You know the type. They ask if they can use your phone for a second and then they take off with it. Of course he didn’t dare. So the team member begged him to at least call the police for her. She kept staring out the window like someone was after her. The cashier had no choice but to call the police. Instead of telling them that someone was asking for help, he reported a strange person loitering inside the store. While waiting for the police to arrive, the team member hid behind the trash can, even though no one came looking for her. You know how they have separate trash cans in the convenience stores for dumping the leftover broth from instant noodle cups? The ones that smell and have bits of soggy, discarded ramen stuck to the floor around them? Yeah, she was hiding behind that. And each time someone came in, she ducked between the shelves. The cashier kept staring at her, annoyed, and then finally yelled at her to stop messing with the displays. Each time, the team member cowered and apologized over and over. She refused to leave. After twenty minutes or so, a police officer arrived. Taking his sweet time. He opened the door with no sense of urgency whatsoever and said, ‘Someone call for the police?’ The team member sprang out from hiding and hugged him as if it were her mother herself. The officer brushed her off in annoyance and said, ‘The pyramid? Not that place again.’ There were so many others like her, you see. But do you know what ended up happening to that girl?”
The team leader stopped again, suddenly dropping her polite register. She said nothing for a moment before resuming walking. She wasn’t doing it to give Se-oh time to think. She was telling her to imagine the future of a runaway whom even the police wouldn’t help.
“She came back a week later. Makes sense when you think about it. She would have learned the hard way that the world never gives losers a second chance. No one would have helped her. She realized the only way to succeed was to make her own opportunities. By that, I mean working really hard to succeed here, in this place. Because, here, opportunities are given out fairly. It’s the only truly democratic place in the whole world. That person, by the way, was me.”
Se-oh was hardly surprised. She nodded without saying anything. The five days of training she’d received so far had been pretty effective. If you went along with it, more or less, then the work wasn’t too hard to do. It had a way of disarming people, allowing you to get what you wanted. What Se-oh wanted right now was for the team leader to stop talking.
She seemed to be saying that Mi-yeon would return eventually. She knew that was what Se-oh wanted to hear. Mi-yeon had to come back. She had to come back and apologize. Even if it was nothing more than the pricks of a guilty conscience that brought her back. Even if it had nothing whatsoever to do with the long, deep friendship they’d once shared.
It was also a warning to Se-oh that there was no point in trying to run. Why think about escaping when you could think about succeeding instead? Se-oh stayed, though not because of the team leader’s story. She worked hard and used what she’d learned from the manual and the training she’d received from the team leader.
She thought often about Mi-yeon. But she thought even more about herself, stuck there on her own. Thinking about Mi-yeon only left her feeling depressed at the thought that Mi-yeon would never return. Thinking about herself at least helped her to understand to some extent why Mi-yeon didn’t come back.
After Mi-yeon ran away, Se-oh fell into the habit of listening for someone sneaking up behind her. She would leave the dorm in the morning feeling no hope at all, but upon returning after work, the thought that Mi-yeon might be there gave her a tiny bit of strength. She even spent whole days waiting in stupid anticipation for Mi-yeon.
A week passed. Mi-yeon did not return. Coming back was the sort of thing that only happened to people like the team leader or the other team members. It did not happen to someone like Mi-yeon, who would never, ever look back once she’d started walking away. Despite how badly Se-oh wanted to deny it, the fact remained: Mi-yeon had not changed in the slightes
t.
She hated Mi-yeon. She hated her as much as she’d once relied on her and befriended her. She didn’t hate her for not returning Se-oh’s friendship as she once had. She hated her for waiting until Se-oh had become a full-fledged member, when they could have left together instead. She hated her for choosing Se-oh as her final recruit before disappearing. For leaving her behind when she ran away. Above all, she hated her for not telling Se-oh that she was planning to escape. Just as she had in the past, Mi-yeon had kept her secrets from Se-oh.
Se-oh began working in earnest. To keep the friends she called up from realizing how broke she was, she kept her voice cheerful and spoke clearly and with confidence. At first, she focused on those she thought she could rely on the most. Later, she contacted people she had at least some acquaintance with. She called people she hadn’t spoken to in years, old high school classmates whose names she barely remembered, people she’d gone to elementary school with, middle school classmates who’d gone to the same church, and college classmates she’d spoken to once or twice. The most effective networks were the ones like Se-oh and Mi-yeon’s relationship. That is, friends who were once special to each other but had since fallen out of touch.
With each number she called, she feared being turned down. But after experiencing it enough times, she began to take it in stride. She relied on the team leader’s instructions that if you only called ten people, you would be turned down ten times, but if you called a hundred people, then at least twenty of them would hear you out. She had no choice but to place call after call. It shamed her at first to think that she was involved in something shady, but those thoughts gradually faded. Despite what they thought, she was not begging for money or luring them into guaranteed failure. She was simply teaching them about a special opportunity that would enable them to choose their future.
She kept on contacting people she barely knew, was rejected each time, and met others in person only to return humiliated. It didn’t happen often, but now and then she would convince someone she knew to spend five days in the dorm, just as Se-oh had, after which they would deposit five million won to change their status from recruit to team member. Friends who began doing business under Se-oh brought in other friends. Later they attacked Se-oh, cursed her, and left together. Family members of those she’d recruited came to the dorm, too, to physically accost Se-oh, grabbing her by the collar and shoving her around. She would shout back, shove them to the ground, with no clue of what it was she was really trying to protect, and cling to her downline to try to keep them from leaving. But in the end, they all left.
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