In the defendants' waiting room at the Seoul Southern District Court, Sang-jong Lee stood turning this way and that in front of the mirror. The suit was one he had not worn in a long while, and he seemed pleased with it.

"I never much noticed before, but looking at it now I cannot think why these clothes should look so fine. They do say a man has to go through hardship before he feels any gratitude for the ordinary world — and only now do I understand what it means."

"Sang-jong."

Do-beom Hwang spoke with a face full of worry.

"What do you mean to do?"

"What is there to do? I shall simply go ahead."

"You truly mean to go ahead with it?"

"What else is there? They will not take it on."

Sang-jong Lee, who had been examining his clothes, turned to Chang-jong Lee sitting beside Do-beom Hwang and asked,

"Is that not so?"

Chang-jong Lee wore a bitter expression and nodded.

"That is so."

And he repeated to Do-beom Hwang what he had said a little while before.

"They say the insurance cannot be done because it is a special zone. That North Korea is not in any of the region categories the insurers have set."

"I dare say. Who would write insurance for a man going into North Korea? To my own mind it would be madness to insure anybody going there."

Sang-jong Lee nodded as though he understood the insurers' decision perfectly, and said to Do-beom Hwang,

"So what is to be done?"

"How would it be to think it over once more?"

"Do not keep telling me to think it over — give me an alternative. You must persuade me by saying there is such and such a way, how about this; if you only keep telling me it cannot be done, what am I to do?"

Told to produce an alternative, Do-beom Hwang was left with nothing to say.

Because to his own mind as well, what he was saying now would not persuade Sang-jong Lee, not without an alternative to set…