Chapter 4
I became certain of it the moment I saw him kneeling in front of those parents.
He had protected me.
He had stood up for me.
And afterward, without saying anything, he simply patted my shoulder.
That day, I was expelled from school.
But his touch wasn't filled with shame.
It was warm comfort.
[Even I would've done the same. They're your younger siblings, after all.]
The orphanage director had been a real adult.
A man who knew how to take responsibility.
"Hohoho. Look at you. You've got some guts for a brat. What, did you think I ran some huge lending company in Gangnam?"
Jo Sun-ja laughed.
It sounded somewhere between mockery and amusement.
"According to your face, Grandma, you're worth more than fifty billion won."
At my words, Jo Sun-ja's gaze briefly froze.
She pretended not to be surprised.
But her eyes changed.
Because it's true.
I hadn't simply thrown out a random number.
"You certainly have the luck to guess things correctly. I suppose that's why you managed to grab this opportunity too."
As soon as Jo Sun-ja said that, Manager Park opened the office door.
A man and a woman entered with him.
The middle-aged man looked neat.
The woman was young and wore heavy makeup.
Neither of them sat down.
They simply stood there and looked at Jo Sun-ja.
"You want to borrow my money?"
Jo Sun-ja looked between them.
"Yes. If you lend it to me, I swear I'll repay you."
The middle-aged man spoke politely.
At first glance, he seemed trustworthy.
His tone was respectable too.
But something felt wrong.
I couldn't explain why.
His words were smooth.
But there was no emotion behind them.
He's repeating it like a parrot.
That was the feeling I got.
Kim Dong-su was repeating lines he had memorized.
It felt like Manager Park had taught him what to say beforehand.
The woman, meanwhile, said nothing.
She only looked around anxiously.
She bit her lip.
It was obvious she hadn't come here completely of her own free will.
That young woman...
She worked in the nightlife industry.
I could tell immediately.
The makeup.
The habits of her hands.
And more than anything, her silence.
It was a common structure in the world of private loans.
Kim Dong-su was just the person being placed in front.
The real debt problem belonged to the woman.
Right now, she was terrified that she might be sold somewhere.
Her eyes desperately wanted to run.
But there was a closed door behind her.
And Jo Sun-ja in front of her.
This room was already designed so that she had no real choice.
She's pretty, though.
The thought appeared.
And right behind it came a warning.
A woman who was beautiful but foolish could live a very difficult life.
And if she was foolish and not kind either, life could become even more dangerous.
Because no one would protect her.
When you're young and beautiful, it looks like you're doing well.
But everyone gets old.
People become sick.
They become exhausted.
Once wrinkles appeared on that pretty face, her value in that world would fall.
It meant she would eventually become useless in the nightlife industry.
If they can't recover the money they lent...
Women were easier targets than men for loan sharks.
Especially young women like her.
They were easier to pressure.
Easier to exploit.
Why?
Because their bodies could be turned into money.
Make them sign away their bodies.
Send them to some remote island like Heuksando, just like in an old third-rate movie.
And it was over.
No one would know.
No one would come looking.
Anyone who thought such things didn't happen just because this was 1996 was naive.
The Republic of Korea could be terrifying and cruel once you learned how much existed beneath the surface.
The law existed for people who didn't know.
Those who knew had their own methods.
Before I regressed...
Something similar had happened to me.
I borrowed from loan sharks.
And I got completely stripped clean.
What exactly did they strip from me?
That.
My expression twisted as my eyes moved toward the desk.
[Kim Dong-su]
Current Assets: 220 million won
(Owns an apartment in northern Seoul)
Current Loans:
·
100 million won apartment-backed loan
·
·
100 million won secondary loan from a savings bank
·
·
45 million won unsecured private loan
·
Total Loan Usage: All used for gambling
Repayment Ability: Below 5%
Monthly Repayable Amount: Below 50,000 won
Trustworthiness: 93%
Objectively, Kim Dong-su is someone no one should ever lend money to.
His repayment ability was almost nonexistent.
On top of that, gambling had already ruined his life.
But his Trustworthiness was 93%.
That couldn't be ignored.
It wasn't simply a number.
It was a record showing that, somehow, he had always tried to repay his debts.
He lacked the ability to repay.
But he had the intention.
He had never simply run away from what he owed.
At the very least, he had continued struggling to make payments.
And that woman...
[Kim Mi-hwa]
Current Assets: 5 million won
(Rental deposit)
Current Loans:
·
30 million won nightlife advance
·
·
25 million won from private lenders
·
Repayment Ability: 86%
Daily Repayable Amount: More than 350,000 won
Trustworthiness: Below 5%
A nightlife advance?
It was money paid upfront to women working in bars and similar establishments.
They received the money before beginning work, then paid it back gradually through their earnings.
If a woman was attractive, she could usually make a stable income in that world.
But the problem was attitude.
Some people could repay their debt and simply chose not to.
Because while they were working at the establishment, no one necessarily forced them to repay the principal properly.
So the principal remained untouched.
Only the interest piled up.
Eventually, it grew like a snowball.
Trustworthiness below five percent...
That meant she had basically never repaid properly.
That was reality.
If I absolutely had to lend money to one of these two, and I were an ordinary private lender, I would lend it to Kim Dong-su instead of Kim Mi-hwa.
Because the willingness to repay was more important than repayment ability.
There were always people who had nothing but still struggled until the very end.
On the other hand, someone who could earn money but lacked the will to repay would eventually fall into the same hole again.
Trustworthiness represented both someone's past and their future.
But if I were an evil parasite who lived by sucking other people's blood...
Then I would do the opposite.
I'd lend money to Kim Mi-hwa.
I wouldn't even care about recovering the principal.
I'd simply keep draining her through interest.
I'd bind her with debt until she was too old to be useful.
Whenever she earned money, I'd take it.
Whenever she couldn't earn, I'd threaten her.
That was what truly predatory loan sharks did.
Of course, I had no intention of becoming that kind of devil.
Not yet.
No.
Never.
"Done looking?"
"Yes, Grandma."
"If it were you, who would you lend money to? You said you're good at reading faces, so let's see what you've got."
Grandma spoke as if she were testing me.
Her tone was light.
But her eyes were serious.
She remembered exactly what I had claimed.
It looked like a game.
But this was definitely an examination.
I looked between the two people standing before me.
Anyone could tell that Manager Park had brought them here because both had already used this private lending office before.
Their clothes.
Their eyes.
Even the way they stood.
They were familiar with this place.
"Sir, what's your name?"
"Kim Dong-su."
I nodded slightly.
The name lingered in my mind.
His old jacket sleeves.
The rough skin on the backs of his hands.
His anxious eyes.
It felt as though his entire life flashed before me.
But I wanted to confirm more.
"Judging by your face... Sir, you gamble, don't you? Or someone very close to you is addicted to gambling."
The moment I finished speaking, Kim Dong-su's eyes widened.
His reaction was immediate.
He couldn't hide his surprise.
Even Jo Sun-ja glanced at him.
Her eyebrows tightened slightly.
For one brief moment, the entire office seemed to freeze because of what I had said.
The silence didn't last long.
I quietly watched Kim Dong-su's face.
I already knew he wouldn't deny it.
Grandma actually looked more surprised than he did.
I was correct.
Gambling.
Private loans and gambling often walked together.
Gambling made people borrow money.
Loan sharks stepped into that gap.
Once someone became addicted to gambling, quitting was extremely difficult.
Temporary breaks were possible.
Truly escaping was rare.
I had seen plenty of people like that.
The patterns repeated themselves.
The way they collapsed was almost frighteningly similar.
Whenever they found money, they gambled instead of repaying their debts.
It became a habit.
Then an addiction.
A person's life could fall apart in an instant.
As the debts grew and family members disappeared from their life, only defeat remained.
Kim Dong-su was no exception.
I immediately realized that he had already reached that stage.
That was why Kim Dong-su was dangerous.
Even if he said he would repay, he ultimately couldn't.
Kim Mi-hwa was different.
Her attitude was rough and she lacked manners, but she had the ability to earn money.
That was why a truly predatory loan shark would lend to her.
The goal would be to make her pay interest from every bit of money she earned.
But I wasn't judging them from that perspective.
I was looking at trust and the possibility of recovery.
If this lending office wanted to survive for a long time, that was what mattered.
Before lending money, the most important thing was distinguishing between people.
Someone who could repay.
Someone willing to repay.
Someone who wouldn't completely collapse.
Choosing correctly was the key to surviving in this industry.
I carefully watched the trembling of Kim Dong-su's fingertips.
Even his breathing.
The way he hesitated before lowering his head was typical of someone who had already broken down.
For a second, I wondered whether someone like him still deserved one more chance.
But reality was cruel.
Once credit had collapsed, neither money nor determination could easily restore it.
"How long have you been gambling? Even if you're not the one doing it."
I asked Kim Dong-su again.
He lowered his head.
He didn't look ready to lie.
"From what I can tell, you probably owned an apartment somewhere in northern Seoul. It's probably underwater now. If you had never crossed the river, your life would've gone pretty smoothly."
At the word "river," Kim Dong-su's expression trembled.
He clearly understood what I meant.
The river.
Gangnam.
An area where gambling, legal or illegal, concentrated.
Korean citizens couldn't freely enter official casinos.
But illegal gambling had no such limitations.
Proxy betting.
Illegal currency exchange.
Forged foreign passports.
Once gambling addiction took hold, people found a way around anything.
My words didn't sound like a warning to Kim Dong-su.
They were simply reality.
It probably didn't sound like fortune-telling.
It sounded like someone had looked directly into his past.
The office remained silent.
Kim Dong-su's shoulders dropped.
Jo Sun-ja uncrossed her arms and slowly interlocked her fingers.
I organized my thoughts again.
What this man needed wasn't money.
He needed a rope to pull himself back toward life.
But that rope was already badly worn.
"What do I have to do if I want to start over?"
Kim Dong-su clasped his hands tightly as if asking a shaman for guidance.
He sounded desperate.
And sincere.
But I knew better than most that sincerity alone couldn't solve everything.
