Chapter 8
“Hello.”
“Welcome. Have you eaten dinner?”
“What?”
While Kim Si-min was caught off guard by the unexpected question, the woman immediately took him by the hand and led him to a table set up behind the kitchen.
“I figured you probably hadn’t eaten dinner, so I made you something. It’s nothing special, but eat up.”
“I came here to work…”
“You can work after you eat.”
There were no customers yet, so Kim Si-min nodded as he looked at the meal laid out before him.
“…Thank you. I’ll eat well.”
He had come to help, only to be served a home-cooked meal.
Slurp.
Unable to ignore the expectant look in the woman’s eyes, Si-min scooped up a spoonful of soybean paste stew and brought it to his mouth.
It’s delicious. Seriously. It’s really good.
It was a home-cooked meal, something he hadn’t had in a long time.
For a single man living alone, most meals consisted of delivery food or ready-made meals.
Strangely enough, his eyes began to sting as he ate.
Perhaps it was because he had lived alone for so many years without his parents.
Perhaps it was because of all the things he had experienced recently.
Or perhaps it was simply because of the warmth in the food the woman had prepared for him.
He didn’t know.
“Does it suit your taste?”
“Yes… It’s really delicious.”
“That’s good.”
Now that he thought about it, the warm smile of a good person, the bright smile of Park Min-young without a trace of pretense or shadow—he wondered who she had inherited it from.
“There’s more side dishes, so eat plenty.”
“Thank you…”
After finishing his meal, he immediately stood up, cleared the dishes, and washed them.
He said he’s thirty-three. He’s handsome. A decent height, too. And he used to have a really good job.
She watched Kim Si-min with a pleased smile, briefly thinking that having a son-in-law like him would be wonderful.
“How are you planning to help with the work?”
“What?”
“The work. You said you wanted to help. You must have had something in mind when you said that, right?”
“Ah, yes. I thought I could at least help with serving.”
“We don’t really need much serving. Everyone just gets their own food.”
“I noticed last time that Ms. Min-young was helping in the kitchen too.”
“Why are you taking everything so seriously? I was joking.”
“Oh, a joke. Right, haha… A joke.”
Kim Si-min somehow felt as though he was being completely outmaneuvered by Lee Seon-hye.
“Have you ever thought about promoting the restaurant on social media?”
“Social media?”
“Yes. I heard that these days, advertising through social media is more effective than handing out flyers.”
“Min-young did say we should try that.”
“As far as the taste goes, I think it’s excellent, so I don’t think there’s much that needs improving. If you add a few easy-to-make menu items and promote the place properly on social media with an old-fashioned snack-bar concept, I think it could do quite well.”
Through his work handling loans, he had met many restaurant owners whose businesses were thriving, and he had heard plenty about the secrets behind their success. He intended to use what he had learned to gradually help Lee Seon-hye.
“Well, Manager, think about it carefully and let me know. For now, I’d appreciate it if you could help out with serving today.”
“Yes.”
That entire day, he cleared dishes, tidied the dining area, and washed dishes.
As he worked, he realized something.
There were more customers than he had expected.
Wasn’t the request called “Save the Tteokbokki Restaurant”?
It wasn’t as though business was bad enough to require saving.
That evening, Kim Si-min returned home and fell asleep almost immediately.
Early the next morning, he headed to Lighthouse’s office.
Ding.
After entering the familiar eighth-floor office to the sound of the elevator, Kim Si-min headed toward the chief secretary’s office.
“Chief, I’d like to talk to you.”
He lightly knocked before opening the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
There was no response from inside.
“Today, the chief of the secretariat is absent.”
A voice suddenly came from behind him.
He hadn’t sensed anyone approaching.
Kim Si-min quickly turned around.
Standing before him was a young man wearing a gray suit, his hair neatly slicked back. There was something about him that strangely resembled Park Won-jung.
He looked to be around forty.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Representative. I’m Kim Woo-jin, a secretary with the Secretariat.”
“Ah, yes.”
Although he was the company’s Representative, there was still a lot he didn’t know about the company.
If Park Won-jung was the chief of the secretariat, then there must be other employees in the department as well.
“While the chief is absent, I’ll be assisting you with your duties. Of course, if you wish, Representative, I can be replaced by someone else at any time.”
“Ah, yes.”
“You came looking for the chief. Did you have something you wanted to instruct him about?”
“No. I just had a question I was curious about.”
“I see. Unless it’s a personal question about the chief, I can answer it for you in the Representative’s office. What kind of tea would you like?”
“Please prepare some oolong tea.”
Kim Si-min accepted the offer and sat behind the enormous desk in the Representative’s office, gazing out the window.
“Here you are.”
“Oh, thank you.”
After briefly savoring the warm aroma of the tea, Kim Si-min took a sip and looked at Kim Woo-jin, who was standing rigidly before him.
For some reason, the man gave off a stiff and sharp impression.
“I received a field-training assignment.”
“You mean ‘Save the Snack Bar.’”
“Yes, that’s right. But the owner there…”
“She is the family of Park Mun-seong, the man who recently appeared in the news after taking his own life.”
“Yes. You already know?”
“Well, that’s about as much as we know. So what exactly are you curious about?”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the snack bar’s business. What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, the person carrying out the assignment has to determine the specific details of the request. We don’t know either.”
A vague answer.
Kim Si-min simply nodded.
“May I ask you something else?”
“Of course. I’m a secretary, and my job is to assist the Representative, so please feel free to ask.”
“I want to know more about this company.”
“Hmm…”
A troubled expression appeared on his face.
“I’m the Representative. Isn’t it strange for the Representative not to know anything about the company?”
“That is true…”
Kim Woo-jin rose and turned on a projector set up in one corner of the Representative’s office.
“Our Lighthouse Co., Ltd. operates between this world and the afterlife. Our company has three main functions. First, lending opportunities. Second, guiding the dead. Third, taking opportunities away.”
As he explained, Kim Woo-jin operated the projector.
“You are already experiencing the first function yourself, Representative. As for guiding the dead…”
“Grim reapers.”
“Correct.”
“Then what does taking opportunities away mean?”
“You’ll find out in time. It’s a form of punishment.”
Kim Si-min was beginning to get a rough idea.
He was also beginning to understand the purpose for which this company had been established.
“Thank you for explaining.”
“Would you like to hear more?”
“I think I’ll understand as I experience things.”
“As I heard from the chief, you really are unusual, Representative.”
“…?”
Wasn’t he just an ordinary person, especially when compared with the other people here?
“I understand you haven’t even been working here for a month yet.”
“That’s right.”
“And yet, you seem remarkably natural.”
Natural?
That was something he had never considered.
“Most people who come here remain tense for quite some time. Everyone is bound to feel fear when faced with something they’ve never experienced before. But when I look at you, Representative, I don’t sense any of that at all.”
Come to think of it, this bizarre space, so different from the world he knew, didn’t feel strange to him at all.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It is.”
“Then that’s that.”
Kim Woo-jin smiled at his calm response.
“I see. Then I suppose that’s fine. Oh, and about ‘Save the Snack Bar.’ It may not necessarily mean that you’re supposed to increase the snack bar’s sales. If something happens to the person running the snack bar, the snack bar itself would also be in danger, wouldn’t it?”
“The circumstances of the person running it…?”
Muttering the words to himself, Kim Si-min turned around.
Ding.
Kim Si-min was riding the elevator down toward the first floor when the doors opened on the fourth floor.
A group of people dressed in black suits poured into the elevator.
“An emergency?”
“Yes. Sigh… Apparently it’s a Level One alert.”
“What happened?”
“A dead person escaped. Apparently they said they couldn’t go up, and they’re unusually strong.”
“Ah, this doesn’t feel good…”
Considering the nature of this place and the conversation among the people in black suits, they were obviously grim reapers.
“Oh, we haven’t met before. Are you the new employee who joined the Secretariat this time?”
“Ah, yes. Well…”
“Ah! I heard about you from Brother Su-ho. I heard you’re destined to become the real power behind the Secretariat before long. Apparently Chief Park Won-jung personally recruited you as a talented individual.”
“It just happened that way.”
“Hahahaha! I can’t even remember the last time Chief Park hired someone. We should have a drink sometime. You might even come to our team for field training, right?”
“Ah, can an ordinary person like me really guide the dead?”
“You call yourself ordinary?”
“Yes. I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything special about me.”
The grim reapers wore expressions of utter bewilderment.
“Someone like you is talking to us this casually?”
“What’s strange about it?”
“Most ordinary people shrink back when they meet a grim reaper. It’s because of the nature of what we are. Well, it’s awkward for me to say it myself.”
I don’t really understand.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. But, rookie…?”
“Ah, I’m Kim Si-min.”
“Yes. Employee Kim Si-min, you don’t have any of that reaction at all. I think that alone proves you’re not exactly ordinary.”
After hearing everything they had to say, Kim Si-min gave a vague nod.
“Anyway, let’s have a drink sometime. We’ve got some urgent business, so we’d better get going.”
“Sure. Let’s do that.”
The six men and women in black suits left the company, and the moment they stepped outside, they rapidly disappeared into the distance.
“…”
For now, I’ll just focus on Mrs. Lee Seon-hye’s shop.
The following day, after finishing his lunchtime workout, Si-min headed toward the snack bar.
When he arrived, he saw several men who looked like gangsters gathered in front of the shop.
Gangsters in broad daylight in the twenty-first century?
Then again, judging by the news, there were groups calling themselves “MZ gangsters,” gathering together with drinks in their hands and acting as though they were living in the era before the war on organized crime.
Maybe the twenty-first century isn’t all that different after all.
Inside the shop, the woman and Park Min-young were standing close together, confronting them.
“So why are you coming to us about our dead father’s debt?! Don’t you know this is illegal?”
“It’s not the dead Park Mun-seong’s debt. It’s Lee Seon-hye’s debt.”
The thugs looked to be in their early twenties at most. They appeared to be the kind of so-called MZ gangsters people had been talking about lately.
“Talk some sense! When did my mother ever borrow money from you?”
“Look closely. Her name and signature are right here.”
The young thug held up several sheets of paper that appeared to be a contract.
“I signed those because you told me to without even explaining what they were. I didn’t know I was taking out a loan. I’ve never even seen your faces before.”
“If you didn’t know, does that make the contract disappear? You signed the paper, so you have to follow the contract. If you can’t pay, then your daughter can pay it for you. At her age, she should be able to pay it off pretty quickly, right? We’ll take you to a business location. You can start working there today.”
The young gangsters pressured the mother and daughter crudely, as though there was nothing in the world they feared.
“Get lost! You think we’re just going to sit here and let people like you push us around? You’re threatening us by showing up in a group like this in broad daylight?”
Park Min-young shouted despite the trembling in her fingertips.
“Don’t you know the world is even scarier these days? The internet makes it easy to ruin someone’s life in an instant. Wanna become famous today?”
“Get lost, you filthy bastard!”
“Ah, you fucking—!”
When Park Min-young shouted at him with a sharp glare, the thug finally raised his hand.
Just as Park Min-young squeezed her eyes shut at the sight of the thug’s raised hand—
Grab.
The thug’s hand, which had been flying toward Park Min-young’s cheek, was caught by something solid.
