“Who is…”

The sudden oppa coming down the line threw me.

Sometimes a few of my sisters’ friends track down the number and call.

The voice was familiar in my ear.

“Hnng. You’ve forgotten me already? Are you really going out with Ye-rin unnie?”

My mind snapped awake.

Her—the one I’d forgotten completely.

“Seo-ryeon?”

“Waaaaah! Oppa, that’s awful! Even when I missed you I stuck needles in my thigh and waited, and you forget my voice? How could you?”

Seo-ryeon was on the edge of crying.

Seo-ryeon had called after nearly a year.

Her voice had changed, grown up a little.

The last time, she’d told me not to forget her, and I’d forgotten completely.

A laugh escaped me.

Listening to Seo-ryeon’s voice brought back the way she used to be, bold and unflinching.

She’s still a trainee, not debuted yet.

If my memory is right, the debut date is…

“You’ll be debuting next week, won’t you?”

“Huh? Oppa, you know I’m debuting?”

On a day not long before Christmas, FOB appears in the world all at once.

With choreography that breaks the mold, like winter-kingdom princesses out of a fairy tale, suited to deep winter.

The song is called Ice Fantasia.

From the end of 2007 through 2017, they survive as idols in the music business.

They never broke out huge, but they lasted a long time.

And at the center of it stands Seo-ryeon.

After the group disbanded she became a solo singer, then soon an actress, and enjoyed a second peak.

Along with the looks of a girl-group center, she had a bold character and an unusual sense.

And that Seo-ryeon hadn’t forgotten me—she’d called.

“Speculation pieces went up on the internet. That FOB Entertainment is preparing a perfect girl group.”

“Oh my~ the rumor got all the way out there? Hehe.”

Whatever else, she’s a girl.

Sprinkle a little seasoning on her and she softened at once.

That’s exactly the charm of the Seo-ryeon I knew.

“I’ll be off first, CEO Jang.”

Attorney Jo whispered quietly and vanished from his seat.

I bowed my head to see him off.

“Who were you with?”

“Ah, my attorney.”

“An attorney? Why? Did you beat up thugs again?”

Seo-ryeon had a lot of questions about me.

“I’ve washed my hands of that. Oppa‘s started a business.”

“A business? You, oppa? What about university? Didn’t you get into Hanguk University?”

Seo-ryeon’s voice came out worried.

“The interview is tomorrow.”

“Wow! That’s my oppa! You’ll definitely pass~. Trust me. Every night I set out a bowl of pure water and pray for my husband to do well.” (TL Note: 정화수 — a bowl of clean water drawn at first light and set out for a prayer, traditionally by a woman of the house; and 서방님, the old word a wife uses for her husband, which is what Seo-ryeon calls him here.)

Even as words alone, it was kind of her.

Unlike Ye-rin sunbae, my first love, the one I’d liked, Seo-ryeon claimed me first.

Maybe that’s why her devotion is out of the ordinary.

Using a word like pure water shows she isn’t one of today’s kids.

“Pffhihihi. She said pure water… kee.”

“Seo-ryeon is too funny~.”

Just then bright girls’ voices came through from the other end of the phone.

They seemed to be her colleagues, crowded around Seo-ryeon.

“Quiet! If the manager finds out, you’re all dead and I’m the only survivor!”

The noise was cut off in an instant.

Seo-ryeon put the girls out with real force.

“They still haven’t unlocked your phone?”

“Mm~ not a chance until we debut. Even now I’m barely managing by borrowing the stylist unnie‘s. I can’t stay on long… so hold on a little even if you miss me. I’ll make it big and support oppa through the bar exam.”

Seo-ryeon really does have class.

Her straight-ahead declarations, the ones that throw me, are good to hear every time.

With a few words she had me smiling.

“And when you go into the army I’ll come and do a morale show, so don’t worry about that either! I’ll take full responsibility for supporting my oppa like a wife!”

“Kyaaaaaah! Like a wife, she said!”

“Go, Seo-ryeon, go, sickly-sweet love!”

“Oppa, keep your spirits up. Seo-ryeon thinks about you all day~.”

“Please pass for Hanguk University.”

The girls’ bright energy came pouring through the receiver.

I could tell Seo-ryeon’s feelings were sincere.

However much she hasn’t debuted yet, there must be plenty of cute, handsome trainees around her, and it was admirable that she hadn’t forgotten me.

All right, FOB, I’ll pull you up.

They were a group that never broke out, but with my help it will be different.

What do you earn money for?

Raising one girl group isn’t a bad thing to do with it.

“Call me when you have time. Oppa is living in Seoul from now on.”

“Really? We’re under the same Seoul sky? Pffhihi! Wonderful!”

“Work hard. You have to succeed so you can support oppa. The bar exam costs a surprising amount of money.”

I gave Seo-ryeon some motivation.

“Don’t worry. I’ve prepared like mad, really. Once we debut the world will turn upside down~.”

I know very well how hard it is for a girl group to survive.

She didn’t say so, but Seo-ryeon and her colleagues must have sweated their own body weight.

“Right. Call me right away if it gets hard. Even if you’re hungry.”

“I’ll buy the good food. Oppa, you’re a student. Heuhihi.”

Seo-ryeon had no idea how rich I am.

If I felt like it, I could take a private jet to America, cut into a steak and come back.

“Fine. Succeed, then buy me the good food.”

“Got it, oppa. I’m definitely making it! So don’t worry about me, just pass for Hanguk University law!”

“Thank you, Seo-ryeon.”

“Pfft, only realized now? Even when I make it I won’t throw you away. So oppa has to think about me too. Don’t only pay attention to Ye-rin unnie!”

Seo-ryeon didn’t know it was finished with Ye-rin sunbae.

I don’t want to tell her either.

Having a reasonable rival will be(?) good stimulation for Seo-ryeon.

Any way you look at it, I’m not cut out to live as a good man.

“Tell me when you have a concert. Oppa will come.”

“Oppa~ okaaay. I’ll definitely send you a royal seat. Do well in your interview.”

“Right. Hard as it gets, keep at it. Youth hurts, they say.” (TL Note: 아프니까 청춘이다, “It hurts because you’re young,” is the title of a 2010 Korean bestseller that told young people their pain was part of being young; it became a national catchphrase and then a bitter joke.)

“Ooh! That’s my oppa. That line was cool!”

In 2020, where I lived, it was a sad phrase.

The phrase stood for an age when young people were being driven into non-permanent jobs.

But the young of 2007, here, still can’t feel it.

They can’t begin to imagine the non-permanent problem ahead. It starts when the non-permanent employment bill passes, and spreads like a virus from the 2008 financial crisis onward.

Only I, who have lived the future, know the whole reality of it in detail.

Say it now and it’s obvious I’d only be treated as a lunatic.

Soon comes the state in which people, swept up in the public-opinion campaign, mostly deny that permanent employment is even a thing.

I only learned it later, but from next year a public-opinion campaign run through the National Intelligence Service is carried out on a large scale.

The arrival of shameless people who brand you a red if you cry out just to stay alive. (TL Note: 빨갱이 — “red”, the Korean slur for a communist sympathizer; since the war it has been the standard way to discredit anyone making a political demand.)

Nobody can be blamed.

It’s the share that has to be carried by a people who, stained with property greed, elected a swindler president.

“Oppa, even if you miss me a lot, hold it in. You absolutely can’t fall for another woman. I’ve changed completely, all curves now. If you saw me you’d faint~ heh heh.”

Seo-ryeon let out a demon’s laugh.

Even in my last life Seo-ryeon was called the last word in figures.

Suddenly I want to see Seo-ryeon badly.

“All right. I’ll hold it in even if I miss you. Be careful. Even after you debut, never lose your humility~ and watch out for the senior men.”

“Ooooh~. That’s you worrying about me, isn’t it? Don’t worry. My nickname is Iron Wall Seo-ryeon.” (TL Note: 철벽, “iron wall” — Korean slang for someone who blocks every approach; 철벽녀 is a woman nobody gets anywhere with.)

“Seo-ryeon! The manager’s here!”

“O-oppa! I have to hang up. The manager’s come, I think. I’ll call next time. I love you so much!”

Click.

The phone cut off before I could answer.

The call with Seo-ryeon brought back memories I’d forgotten.

The little first-year girl who confessed to me so boldly and tried to win love has become an idol.

“Cute kid.”

I’ve become a high schooler, but the mind of a man in his thirties is still in here.

The youth protection law is lodged firmly in my head, so Seo-ryeon still looked like a child to me.

“Tomorrow is finally the interview. Agh!”

Having lived once doesn’t make it as easy as you’d think to walk the same tracks in a second life.

Now comes an important turning point—the moment my social standing gets laundered.

“Wait for me, Hanguk University! I’m coming!”

The Hanguk University regular-admission interview, prepared for in the hotel suite I favor.

Even this counts as an interview, and my heart was pounding.

“They say even the entrance exam’s perfect scorers are at risk this time…”

“Of course. What power does a grade-band system have to tell anyone apart? The entrance exam score is the first round; the interview and the essay exam decide who passes.” (TL Note: For the 2008 intake the entrance exam reported only nine grade bands, not scores, so thousands of students shared the top band and the universities’ own tests did the sorting.)

“Heh heh heh. I don’t know who they are, but a lot of people are going to come out of this feeling robbed.”

“If we’re getting juniors, I hope plenty of them are women.”

“From next year there are no juniors, because of the law school! Treat this as the last one and keep your eyes open.”

I’d arrived at the Hanguk University law school interview hall.

I got there in the Porsche, in a very comfortable frame of mind.

A lot of people are in front of the law building.

Not only candidates but parents too.

The moment you pass, your life takes a different route.

Seniors handing out order slips or warm tea to the interviewees prowled around the law school interview hall with their eyes gleaming.

They’re males who’ll be future judges, prosecutors and attorneys.

To the female students whose looks were worth a second glance, they extended excessive kindness.

Against that, the eyes looking at me were full of hostility.

They didn’t know they weren’t in my league.

This is what comes of living life twice.

I’d never imagined a Hanguk University interview myself.

The essay exam is already finished.

I got one question wrong on the entrance exam, but with the grade-band system I qualified as a perfect scorer.

My school grades pass too, up to the second band for this academic year.

In the first-round entrance exam screening I joined the ranks of the perfect scorers on the band system.

The second round is the school record, the essay exam and the interview.

The essay questions gave me no trouble either, since I’d worked through them when I repeated a year in the past.

For the humanities track it was paternal bloodlines and the same-surname-same-clan question, and a comparison between democratic majority rule and the various collective-council systems of kingdoms like Silla and Baekje. (TL Note: 동성동본 — until 1997 Korean law barred marriage between two people sharing a surname and an ancestral clan seat; the rule, and the court case that struck it down, is standard material for an essay on tradition against individual rights.)

It called for creative essay writing where you have to find the artery, not simple memorized knowledge.

I worked through every question without a hitch.

The answer isn’t fixed, but you can only get a high score if you present concrete measures too.

That too, passed easily.

All that’s left now is the interview.

They said the interview questions are pot luck.

The Hanguk University interview boasted of being hard to fathom.

The questions the professors ask were all famous for striking where you don’t expect.

“We’ll begin the interviews. We’ll take you five at a time, from number one to number five. Numbers one to five, please enter.”

Someone who looked like a teaching assistant announced the interview in a stiff tone.

At the entrance to the large lecture hall, assistants and seniors gave off an aura that pressed down on the newcomers.

That no-manners Oh Dong-seong was nowhere to be seen.

It’s the vacation, so obviously he’s off somewhere chasing women.

The seniors’ eyes aren’t warm.

Their stance is that they won’t acknowledge the interviewees as juniors.

You have to pass before you’re acknowledged as a junior.

For now everyone waited their turn like court ladies waiting for the king’s favor.

I’m part of that too.

I could be on the world rich list, and today I was enjoying playing an ordinary exam candidate.

If I set my mind to it, buying a university outright is nothing.

But the name Hanguk University holds in Korea boasts a history and a tradition that money can’t buy, and an enormous web of connections in society.

It’s a process I don’t especially need now, but I wanted to experience it once.

It wasn’t a bad experience either, being a member of Korea’s highest intellect, the one everybody looks up to.

“Haa…”

“Hoo.”

Sighs popped out here and there, from nerves.

It isn’t a corporate interview hall, and yet everyone is in a suit.

The weight Hanguk University law carries left no choice but to wear one.

I’d dressed in a two-tone semi-suit myself, gray and light black.

I closed my eyes, sank quietly into meditation and kept my composure.

Maybe because of having died once, I’m not at the level of needing a calming pill. (TL Note: 우황청심환 — a traditional herbal pill, taken by generations of Korean students to steady the nerves on exam day.)

Click-clack.

Just then the regular sound of high heels came from the corridor.

“Wow…”

“Oh!”

Beside me I heard men’s gasps of surprise.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

The walk kept a steady stride.

I didn’t open my eyes, but I could tell she was a beauty enough to draw gasps out of stiffly frozen interviewees.

Stop.

The steps halted in front of me, just like that.

A soft, faintly sweet perfume reached me in a rush.

What’s this?

“Oh! What brings you here?”

Just then the law department’s assistant, startled, spoke to the woman who had stopped.

At the strange feeling, I opened my eyes.

And in that moment, what I saw…

(End of Chapter 72)