“Come now. I said let’s wait out front here.”

“Why wait at the door? We agreed to meet inside anyway.”

“Still, how can we go into the company and wait? We ought to wait in front of it.”

At the words of Seong-ho’s father, Pan-seok Kim, his mother, Myeong-ja Jang, looked at him as if it were strange.

“Did you eat something bad this morning?”

“Eat something bad?”

“Why are you talking nonsense after eating a good bowl of rice?”

“Nonsense? Is that a thing to say to your husband?”

“So you’re telling me it’s strange to go into the company even while you’re looking at that?”

Myeong-ja raised a finger and pointed at the people going in through the department-store entrance.

“To your eyes, those people look like folks going to a company on business?”

“No—well… those people are folks going to buy things, but we…”

“Aigo. Stop the useless talk.”

Myeong-ja shook her head as if she’d heard enough and turned around.

“I’ll go browse the first floor first, just like our daughter-in-law said, so wait here or don’t, as you please.”

Finishing, Myeong-ja walked off like the wind without so much as waiting for Pan-seok’s answer.

Pan-seok watched her retreating figure for a moment, then moved his feet along with a muttered word.

“Good grief. What’s she going to do if the employees recognize us… Hey. Come on, together.”

Pan-seok hurried his feet to chase after Myeong-ja, and so the two of them went into the Ilhyeon Department Store’s Gangnam branch.

Slowly making her way around the first floor, Myeong-ja said in a low voice to Pan-seok, walking beside her,

“How is it there’s not a single person touting for customers here?”

“Woman. This is a department store. A department store. Have you ever heard of touting at a department store?”

“I’ve never heard that they don’t, either.”

Myeong-ja said it as if she wouldn’t be outdone by Pan-seok, and looked around. Then, as some place that caught her fancy came into view, she pointed a finger at it and said,

“Let’s go over there.”

“Tsk. Just wait quietly—why do you keep wanting to go somewhere? All the people here are our daughter-in-law’s company employees. Would they be pleased if the father-in-law and mother-in-law showed up?”

Myeong-ja looked Pan-seok up and down.

“Who on earth would say you’re the father-in-law of the Ilhyeon Department Store president? Didn’t I tell you? Please, for once, don’t come wearing that co-op hat.”

“How fine a hat is this? It’s one they only hand out to members of our cooperative. Cool and grand when you’re working.”

“Are we here to work right now?”

Myeong-ja shook her head and headed for the place she’d just pointed at.

“Welco—”

The staffer at the luxury boutique’s entrance, about to greet them, couldn’t finish the word at the sight of Myeong-ja’s appearance.

“Oh my. All glitter and shine.”

“Be quiet, would you.”

Following Myeong-ja into the luxury boutique, Pan-seok clicked his tongue and looked over the goods on display.

“Looks better than the stuff down at our produce market.”

“How can you compare a produce market to a department store? It’s mortifying, so stop talking.”

Though she told him to stop, Pan-seok kept talking, and Myeong-ja, embarrassed, turned and moved off a good distance.

Pan-seok clicked his tongue at the sight of her, then, hands clasped behind his back, looked around.

“Excuse me… sir.”

A woman in a crisp suit approached Pan-seok as he examined the goods hanging in the store. Pan-seok, hands still behind his back, turned to the store manager who’d come over and said with a smile,

“I’m just browsing, so don’t mind me—see to the other customers.”

“No. Might I ask what it is you’ve come here for?”

“What I’ve come for?”

Even though he’d said he was fine, the manager asked what business had brought him to her store. Pan-seok wore a face that couldn’t comprehend it and looked at her.

“In Seoul, don’t you come to a shop to buy things? Naturally I came to buy something here. What else would I have come for?”

Even at his words, the manager didn’t back off and went on questioning him.

“Is there perhaps something you’re looking for?”

“There’s nothing I’m looking for… can’t a man just look?”

“It’s not that. It’s just that I wanted to check first whether there was something you were after. It’s only that you don’t quite suit our store, sir…”

The manager let her words trail off and looked Pan-seok up and down. A worn co-op hat, a work jacket faded of its color, trousers whose original hue could no longer be made out, socks with the cuffs stuffed inside and rubber shoes. He wore, to anyone’s eyes, the look of a man just up from the countryside.

“What’s going on?”

Myeong-ja, who’d been watching from off to one side, came over to where Pan-seok was. Though she and Pan-seok had been snarling at each other only moments before, she was a woman who couldn’t stand outsiders laying a hand on family, and she planted herself in front of Pan-seok and said to the manager,

“Is something the matter?”

“It’s not that. It’s just that our store doesn’t seem to carry products the two of you would need.”

“No products we need here? Isn’t this a place that sells clothes and bags?”

“It is.”

“Then why say there’s nothing we need? I came here to buy clothes.”

The manager looked Myeong-ja, who’d stepped in front of Pan-seok, up and down. She was in slightly better shape than Pan-seok, but Myeong-ja too was every inch the country auntie. The tightly-crimped permed hair, the loud purple trousers and the knit fur vest—it was attire you’d commonly see at a rural market.

Having looked over Pan-seok and Myeong-ja and, it seemed, finished her arithmetic, the manager came at them a little harder.

“Ma’am. As I see it, the two of you don’t suit this place. If you go down to the basement, there’s a store that sells cheaper clothes.”

“Now hold on. A department store even drives customers out? It’s not as though we’ve disturbed your business—so why are you driving us out?”

“There are no products here that you could buy.”

“Why do you say there aren’t? This—”

“Don’t touch it.”

Pan-seok reached out a hand to touch a garment hanging on the rack. Just then the manager let out something close to a scream. His hand still stretched toward the clothes, Pan-seok looked at the manager with a dumbfounded face.

“Why are you shrieking like that? Is my hand dirty or something?”

“Sir.”

The manager hurriedly threw herself between the clothes and Pan-seok and gestured to the security guard standing at the entrance. Then, raising her voice at the still-flabbergasted Pan-seok, she said,

“This is a place that sells only high-priced products. Products the likes of you customers cannot buy, is what I’m saying. So go on to the cheap store in the basement.”

At her words, Myeong-ja set her hands on her hips, her pride wounded.

“Why do you say we can’t buy? Our daughter-in-law told us she’d buy them for us.”

The manager looked this way and that around her and said to Myeong-ja,

“And where is your daughter-in-law?”

“Our daughter-in-law’s busy, so she told us to look around first…”

“Then come back when your daughter-in-law arrives. Though from where I stand, it looks like it won’t make any difference even if she does.”

“What did you say?”

“I’ll make a special exception today, so just go.”

The manager waved her hand as if she had no wish to talk any further and said to the security guard,

“See these people all the way out of the department store.”

Seeing the guard coming toward them, Pan-seok spoke in as dignified a voice as he could manage.

“Now, now. Really. Isn’t that too harsh? Country folk though we may be, this is the first I’ve ever heard that you have to pay money just to look. And if you didn’t want us coming in, you could just say so—but trying to throw us clear out of the department store, what’s that about? Are we thieves or something?”

Once the guard had come to stand beside Pan-seok and Myeong-ja, the manager—completely unlike the polite manner she’d shown a moment ago—said to them,

“This is Gangnam. Gangnam. Not a place for country people like you.”

“What? ‘You’?”

“I’ve no idea where you heard Gangnam was nice and came to gawk, but get out. And just live in the countryside. Don’t come to places like this out of some idle curiosity.”

As if she couldn’t bear to listen any longer, the manager dug at her ear and pinched her nose as she said to the guard,

“Drag them out, quick. There seems to be a smell of dung coming from somewhere. If they stay in the store any longer, it’ll be an offense to the customers.”

“Dung? Look here. No—let go of me. Look here, what dung smell do I have? Just because we came up from the country, you think you can trample on people like this?”

Hearing at last that he supposedly smelled of dung, Pan-seok’s face flushed red. Myeong-ja, feeling even a stab of shame at the stares of the crowd that had gathered, bowed her head.

Just as the two were being dragged from the store by the guard—

“What do you think you’re doing right now!”

Gyeong-eun approached, her face full of fury.

“President.”

Gyeong-eun ignored the guard and ran straight to Pan-seok and Myeong-ja.

“Father. Mother. Are you all right? What on earth happened?”

“Dear child. Let’s just go. I’m too mortified to stay here any longer.”

Looking back and forth between the crestfallen Myeong-ja and Pan-seok—his face reddening and paling, saying nothing—Gyeong-eun turned her gaze to the guard.

“Explain what happened.”

At the sight of the furious Gyeong-eun, the guard, with a tense face, told her the whole of what had happened.

“Father. Mother. Please follow me.”

Having heard it all, Gyeong-eun rolled up her sleeves and all but flung the documents she was holding to the secretary who’d followed her. Then, instructing her attendants to escort Pan-seok and Myeong-ja and bring them into the store, she went inside first.

“Welco— …huh? President.”

“So you recognize me?”

“Yes. How could I not recognize you? At the inauguration recently you even attend—”

Slap!

Before she could finish saying she recognized her, Gyeong-eun’s hand struck the manager’s cheek.

“President?”

The manager, with a startled face, cupped her cheek and looked at Gyeong-eun.

“Who are you to drive my father and mother out of the store? I clearly told you not to discriminate against customers—child or elder, moneyed-looking or not.”

“President. That’s…”

“Luxury-hall director!”

“Yes.”

The Ilhyeon Department Store luxury-hall director, who’d come with Gyeong-eun, stood before her with an ashen face.

“Did you not convey my words properly?”

“I conveyed them. I clearly conveyed them…”

“You conveyed them, and yet this is the situation? I clearly said to treat customers like my own family—and instead you tell an elder the age of my parents that he smells of dung and drive him out? How badly must you have disregarded my words for this to happen? Sales director!”

“Yes, President.”

The sales director, who only moments ago had wrapped up a meeting in a warm and pleasant mood, stepped before Gyeong-eun with an ashen face.

“Report the sales performance of this luxury hall over the last three months.”

“Over the last three months…”

The sales director wrung his head trying to recall the store’s sales figures. Gyeong-eun watched his face for a moment, then waved a hand.

“No. Never mind. Let’s pull this store out.”

“Sorry? Pull the store, you say?”

“Pull it from every Ilhyeon Department Store branch, Gangnam included. A store that treats customers like this has no reason to be in an Ilhyeon Department Store.”

“…Yes. Understood.”

The sales director, about to object, stopped and said he understood. Because in a situation where the one giving the order as president was who she was, and the couple insulted by the store manager were whose parents they were, he judged that trying to talk Gyeong-eun out of her decision was utterly meaningless.

Gyeong-eun turned her head, glared at the store manager still cupping her face, and said,

“To have seated someone like you as the manager of the Gangnam branch—your brand is plain enough too.”

“President. Our brand is a luxury brand. Befitting that—”

“It’s the person who ought to be the luxury. What good is it if these mere clothes are luxury?”

Gyeong-eun lifted a garment from the rack and flung it to the floor. Then she reached out to her secretary for the wallet, drew a check from it, and threw it onto the clothes fallen on the ground.

“These clothes. Aren’t they just a rag you can buy any time, so long as you’ve got money?”

Then she stepped up to the manager and said in a small voice only she could hear,

“Touch my parents, and I won’t let it go.”

Finishing, Gyeong-eun looked at the store manager as if she’d devour her, and handed the wallet back to the secretary. And then, with a smiling face as if nothing at all had happened, she looked at Pan-seok and Myeong-ja and said,

“Father. Mother. My father says he’s waiting for you two in Pyeongchang-dong. Let’s go to Pyeongchang-dong.”

Gyeong-eun linked her arms through Pan-seok’s and Myeong-ja’s.

Hearing that the three were going to Tak-hyeon’s house, the sales director and the other Ilhyeon Department Store executives resolved to handle this matter quickly. Because it occurred to them that if they carelessly dawdled and took the store’s side, they might be swept away along with the store.

Her face reddened where Gyeong-eun had struck her, the store manager, still not recovered, only watched Gyeong-eun’s retreating figure.

(End of Chapter 141)