“What about Jeong Sang-hyeon?”
Since someone was missing, I asked, and Kim Jae-hee hesitated for a moment, rolling his eyes before he spoke.
“The easiest person to recruit into the Church of Infinity is Sang-hyeon. He’s a man in his early twenties—short, ugly, selfish, steeped in an inferiority complex, and living a non-mainstream life. He doesn’t have a firm sense of self, so he’s easily swept away by others’ opinions. He mistakes even the smallest kindness for affection, and he sways like a reed at the slightest one-dimensional benefit right in front of him. If you fill his inferiority complex just a little and promise to introduce him to female believers from the Church of Infinity, he’ll sign up right away.”
“Then why didn’t you proselytize to him?”
Kim Jae-hee spoke to me like a wounded salesman.
“O Savior. That guy is too easy. Our religion is not short on money, nor is it a place that requires massive manpower. Of course, we need it to some extent. Religious life is a part of social life. But I wouldn’t want to bring in Sang-hyeon and have five other decent people leave because of him. We do image management too. And I have very high standards.”
Seo Ji-hyeok looked at the back of Jeong Sang-hyeon’s head as he walked off in the distance, let out a laugh, and said,
“Then what about me?”
“Hyung, you show an allergic reaction to religion. You bare your fangs the moment anyone even whispers about religion. If I’d pushed you to join, you would’ve investigated me first.”
Not a good word to say about Jeong Sang-hyeon. Is it that they have no choice but to put up with him because of work? Having come this far, I was curious, so I asked the two of them.
“For what reason did Mr. Sang-hyeon join the undersea base? He didn’t seem to like working here.”
Seo Ji-hyeok frowned when the people up ahead stopped moving and lingered in place, then said,
“There was a kid named Seo In. He joined here to assist me, Team Leader Shin, and Ae-young. The problem was, after a health checkup, he was found to have a malignant neoplasm in his body within half a year, so he could no longer work here. They urgently looked for someone to take his place, and that was Sang-hyeon.”
It was cancer. The hospital was right nearby. Couldn’t he receive treatment while working?
“There is a hospital on Daehan-do, isn’t there?”
Having a decent general hospital within ten minutes of home is invisible insurance. Especially if you can get there within ten minutes by car, that’s the best. Even if not, you should live somewhere with at least one hospital within thirty minutes. You never know what might happen in life.
“There’s a cancer center on Daehan-do too. There are quite a few people who work like that. Especially among the Canadians and Americans, some come in looking like walking corpses about to drop dead, then work while going to the hospital and leave perfectly fine. But Seo In was horrified when he saw the meal plan at the Daehan-do hospital.”
“What’s so bad about hospital food?”
Having eaten hospital food a few times myself, I asked Seo Ji-hyeok with genuine curiosity.
“As soon as he was diagnosed with cancer, he went to the Daehan-do hospital and checked what they served for breakfast. When he saw two slices of bread, cereal, milk, and a single banana, he had a serious talk with Team Leader Shin. He showed me a photo of lunch—boiled sweet potatoes, boiled potatoes, boiled beans, boiled carrots, boiled beef, all piled on one plate—and in a grave tone said he didn’t think he could last even five minutes at this hospital, then resigned.”
……Isn’t food at that level fine? Do they have to eat Korean food? Hearing about the hospital food made it really sink in that this was a foreign country.
When you’re hospitalized, you have to put your ego aside to a certain degree. You eat what the hospital gives you, go where they tell you, and do as you’re told.
Now that I think about it, there were patients who were extremely picky about food. Some people ordered delivery for all three meals because they didn’t want hospital food. There were also people who got caught eating something during a fasting period.
Those people at least had an appetite, but I had none either, so I just ate whatever the hospital gave me. But whether they were like this or like that, all hospitalized patients ultimately want one thing: discharge. When discharge is delayed, it feels like the sky is falling.
“So did Mr. Sang-hyeon join here to replace this person named Seo In?”
“He is……”
Seo Ji-hyeok looked at the people standing still up ahead, then spoke to us.
“Sang-hyeon is, well. Seo In probably wouldn’t like me saying this, but I don’t think there’s any other way to explain it. Sang-hyeon is a hacker.”
“……Huh?”
Kim Jae-hee wasn’t shaken by Seo Ji-hyeok’s words, as if he’d already known. I had been aware such professions existed, but it was the first time I’d heard of someone among those around me being one. Seo Ji-hyeok looked ahead anxiously and continued.
“During middle and high school, he refused to go to school and holed up in his room doing nothing but playing games. The reason was something like he’d confessed to a girl in his class he liked, got rejected, and his pride, no bigger than a nostril, was wounded or whatever, so after that he stopped going to school. Anyway, while gaming, his hobby was hacking people he didn’t like and making the AI-equipped home appliances in their houses explode.”
Making home appliances explode? Is that even possible? Seo Ji-hyeok spoke, focusing on the loud noises coming from the group walking ahead.
“Especially among appliances, there are ones connected to the internet. He’d hack them and make them malfunction. By changing the voltage settings, he’d make the AI installed in the appliances respond incorrectly. He lived like that until one day he messed with the wrong person.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“Who?”
“Team Leader Shin’s older sister. It seemed like she played games as a hobby, and I guess she beat Sang-hyeon in a fighting game. He hacked her like he always did and made her appliances explode, but Team Leader Shin was on vacation acting as a punching bag for his nephews when he saw the appliances explode right before his eyes. The TV exploded, the washing machine exploded, the air conditioner exploded, and Jeong Sang-hyeon’s life exploded too.”
“Heh heh heh.”
“Team Leader Shin went mad trying to find Sang-hyeon. Strangely, only the refrigerator and microwave didn’t explode, while the rest of the home appliances all blew up and started a fire. Seo In explained something about the voltage, but it was so long ago I can’t remember. Team Leader Shin’s sister’s family either lived in a hotel under Team Leader Shin’s recommendation and financial support, or moved out entirely, and replaced all their appliances. But at the time, Team Leader Shin thought it was a retaliatory attack targeting him and blamed himself a lot, but when he found out it was some damn kid……”
Seo Ji-hyeok was about to curse but stopped when he looked at me and said,
“When he found out it was a minor holed up in his room, crazy about games, who pulled that shit on an opponent who beat him in a fight, he grabbed the back of his neck in disbelief. When they tried to handle it as a criminal case, the kid had no decency despite his young age, talking back to his parents without hesitation. No sign of remorse whatsoever. And that bastard Sang-hyeon probably never imagined anyone would catch him. He never thought someone like Seo In existed. He thought he was a genius among computer geniuses, but there was a more humble genius at a higher level than him.”
Seo Ji-hyeok shook his hand at the side of his own head, then at a position about a hand’s breadth higher.
“So did Mr. Sang-hyeon go to prison?”
“He was a minor and a first-time offender, so even if they calculated the maximum sentence, it wouldn’t have been much. And the home appliance companies refused to admit that their products had such flaws. Probably because if they admitted it, they would’ve had to recall every product they’d sold.”
I vaguely remembered seeing a newspaper article about washing machines and TVs being recalled. Was that related to this?
“When Team Leader Shin said he’d drag the kid to the police station by the scruff of his neck, Sang-hyeon’s mother cried tears of joy that her son was finally coming out of his room. When they said they’d go the civil route, Sang-hyeon’s parents said they were the ones who raised the child wrong and that they would take responsibility, crying and offering to pay whatever was needed. But that bastard Jeong Sang-hyeon didn’t come to his senses, thinking he could just pay money! Rolling on the floor asking what he did wrong.”
“And what happened?”
I asked because Shin Hae-ryang didn’t seem like someone who would let it slide.
“Well. If it were me, a guy over 150 kilograms who only ate greasy food committing a crime at that age, I’d probably bury him somewhere in a stone mountain and grant his parents freedom. But it seems Team Leader Shin decided to torture Sang-hyeon with all his might. This is the kind of person who’s scary. It’s not scary when someone ends it cleanly with one blow—what’s scary is a guy who continuously stabs you with an awl. There’s a camp somewhere. Very small, mainly focused on physical training and etiquette education. Of course, the etiquette education is problematic because it involves kicking you in the shins or slapping your face. As for the food, well. It’s not great, but occasionally bugs come out as protein, and the water is grayish and mostly porridge. While sleeping at night, snakes crawl by; when you shake out your shoes, scorpions come out; and instead of background music, you always hear artillery shells. It’s a warm and hospitable little neighborhood like that. He dumped Sang-hyeon at a camp run by a grumpy old man who’d served in the U.S. Marines, saying he’d come back in three months. The contract was for six months.”
“Did he go to pick him up after three months?”
At my question, Seo Ji-hyeok smiled slightly.
“He signed a six-month contract but told Sang-hyeon he’d come back in three months. Our team leader has a really nasty temper, right? Anyway, the guy who threw a fit saying he wouldn’t eat unless there was seasoned fried chicken, nearly 150 kilograms, became 60 kilograms in three months, and he became a guy who could pick up and eat even bread crumbs fallen on the street, let alone ham or chicken. His height didn’t grow, probably due to genetics. As for phones—forget about them. It was a place where the only electronic device was barely a shortwave radio, yet he stole several radios and the camp instructors’ phones and contacted the Korean consulate after five months, begging to be saved. Our team leader, who came after receiving the consulate’s call, pulled him out and put him on a plane to Korea. Team Leader Shin asked Jeong Sang-hyeon just one thing. ‘Will you live a good life? Or will you live here? Choose.’”
I was so dumbfounded I could only laugh. Seo Ji-hyeok grabbed a can rolling nearby, shook off the water, and continued.
“After returning to Korea, didn’t he have a tearful reunion with his parents? His manners were polished. The kid had been on the verge of dying from hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes, but he became healthy. He ate whatever was put in front of him and said he would live a good life. How grateful Sang-hyeon’s parents must be to Team Leader Shin. To their son who had no friends and was a piece of trash, a guy seven years older suddenly appeared as an acquaintance, good-looking on top of it and well-mannered. Their son was the perpetrator and Team Leader Shin was from the victim’s family, yet he said he wouldn’t take any money. Instead, he asked to borrow their son, who hadn’t crawled out of his room for five years, just for six months, and took him away to exercise with him, teach him manners, send him on an overseas trip, and later even got him a job.”
Then Seo Ji-hyeok grabbed the can and threw it with all his might toward the group up ahead. A clang rang out.