Chương 10: It Sounded Like a Good Offer

The iron rod had far too much presence in the room. Kichan tried shoving it under the bed. He kept kicking it. He tried standing it inside the wardrobe. The door wouldn't close. When he leaned it beside his guitar case, it looked disturbingly like that was exactly where it belonged. The feeling bothered him enough that he moved it back under the desk.

"What the hell am I doing?" He muttered it while standing in the middle of his room. A guitar, a laptop, and an iron rod sitting together in the room of an ordinary office worker made for a scene that clearly belonged to the wrong genre. But his fingertips were quiet. For some reason, keeping the rod nearby made him a little less anxious. That was the part he disliked most. The next day, Kichan took a half day off work. Reason: personal matters. His team leader messaged him, `Everything okay?

` and Kichan replied, `Family business. ` It wasn't a lie. Lately, the first thing that came to mind wasn't his body, or money, or the strange document. It was home. The front door. The time when his parents ate dinner and watched TV. Kichan didn't want to think about when that ordinary evening had started to feel like something he had to guard. He checked the locations of the neighborhood CCTV cameras and walked the alley in front of his home at a slow pace. The men from yesterday were nowhere in sight.

Instead, there was an unfamiliar car. A black sedan. When Kichan looked at it, the man inside looked away. At that exact moment, his phone rang. Unknown number. This time, Kichan answered.

"Mr. Han Kichan." A woman's voice. Calm, precise diction.

"I handle Korean operations for Golden Dawn."

"Do all of you people go by 'handler' instead of names?"

"I'll give you my name in person."

"I'd rather not meet in person." The woman took a measured breath before continuing.

"I regret what happened yesterday. The field response was overly forceful."

"That's a polished way to say you tried to kidnap me."

"I won't dispute the phrasing." That honesty somehow made it worse.

"So?"

"I would like to correct course."

"With an apology?"

"That as well. But more importantly, I'd like to make a practical proposal." A practical proposal. Money, housing, surveillance. Probably one of those. Kichan looked toward the black sedan at the end of the alley. As if she'd read the silence, the woman added,"This is not intended as a threat. We can meet in a public place. You may choose it yourself." Kichan considered for a moment. He didn't want a cafe. He didn't want someplace quiet, either. It had to be somewhere visible, somewhere with people around.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. And it couldn't be far from home.

"In front of the convenience store."

"Pardon?"

"The table outside the convenience store in my neighborhood. Right now."

"Understood." Fifteen minutes later, the woman was seated at the plastic table outside the store. Black suit, low heels, hair neatly tied back. The impression she gave was so thoroughly put-together that she almost felt less like a person for it. Inside the convenience store, a part-timer was restocking triangle kimbap. At the next table over, two middle school boys were holding down the lids of their cup ramen while watching something on a phone. Kichan checked that scene first. He liked that. A little.

"Lee Seoyoon." She offered him a business card. There was no company name on it. Just her name, an email address, and an overseas number.

"So Golden Dawn isn't a company?"

"It also exists in corporate form. It also exists as a foundation, a research institute, an investment firm, and a publishing house."

"That sentence alone is exhausting."

"I understand how it might feel that way." Lee Seoyoon set a convenience store bag on the table. Inside were two warm canned coffees and a triangle kimbap.

"In case you hadn't eaten yet." Kichan looked down at the bag. It looked like a kindness. Which made it more uncomfortable.

"Don't do that."

"It's not poisoned."

"When you say it, even jokes like that aren't funny." Lee Seoyoon pulled the bag back to her side.

"My apologies." Then she took out a slim file. Kichan immediately raised a hand.

"If it's photos, I'm not looking."

"They're not photos. It's a proposal." Inside was a carefully organized document. Secure housing. Living expense support. Medical examinations. Legal response. Lifestyle assistance for his parents. Relocation support nearby, if necessary. Every line looked reasonable. That was exactly why it felt so bad. It looked like a promise to make sure his parents ate well. Like an offer to move them somewhere better. Like a way to make their lives more comfortable.

But every one of those sentences sounded, in the end, like hand over the steering wheel of your life to us. Kichan closed the proposal.

"You made this sound like a really good offer."

"It is not, in fact, an unfavorable one."

"That's the problem." Lee Seoyoon watched him quietly. Kichan caught sight of his own reflection in the convenience store window. Tired. Strung tight. Sharper-looking than he wanted to be. And still, his eyes kept drifting to the cup ramen and triangle kimbap on display behind the glass. Suddenly he thought of dinner at home the night before. Kimchi stew. The stir-fried anchovies his father had silently pushed toward him. His mother's voice asking if he wanted another scoop of rice.

None of those things ever make it into a proposal.

"What do you get out of taking me with you?" he asked.

"You gain safety."

"And you?"

"We gain access to the materials, and to you."

"You really are honest."

"I consider it preferable to lying."

"I've seen cases where it wasn't." Lee Seoyoon lowered her gaze for a moment, then raised it again.

"You are a rare contact case, Mr. Han Kichan."

"There it is again. Contact case."

"I know you dislike the term. But the document you came into contact with is not a simple old manuscript. It is highly likely to be part of the original Voynich manuscript line, or a fragment of it. Contact of this kind is extremely rare in the record." Rare. Exceptional. Contact case. Words like that had a way of turning a person into an expensive object. Kichan hated it.

"So what, a research lab?"

"A place with materials that can be interpreted. A place where the changes you're undergoing can also be managed more safely."

"Managed."

"Controlled, if you prefer." That part was true enough. The dreams. The medicine. The iron rod. There were already too many things in his life that weren't under control. But he hated the idea of admitting that only to land directly in their hands. Lee Seoyoon didn't miss the opening.

"We can also provide a better environment for your parents. Security near the house, living support, hospital coordination, and if necessary, relocation to somewhere quieter."

"Why does that sound so terrifying?"

"That is not my intention."

"I know. That's why it's worse." Kichan leaned back in the plastic chair outside the convenience store.

"My family's place isn't anything special. It's old, the front door sticks sometimes, and around dinnertime the smell of doenjang gets into everything. Whenever a package arrives, everybody opens the door together to see what it is." He tapped the proposal with a finger.

"But it's my home." Lee Seoyoon said nothing. Kichan kept going."'Lifestyle assistance for parents.'

'Nearby relocation support.'

'Secure housing.' Written down like this, it all sounds great. But to me, it just sounds like you want to keep my parents within reach."

"That is not our intent."

"Maybe not by your standards." He exhaled.

"And I'm not going with you over food." For the first time, Lee Seoyoon lost her composure a little.

"Excuse me?"

"If I go there, I can't eat my mom's cooking." One of the middle school boys laughed, only to get elbowed by his friend. Kichan felt embarrassed, but he kept talking.

"It probably sounds stupid, but it's a big deal to me. Eating a meal, coming home, seeing my parents' faces. Lately, that's everything." After a brief pause, Lee Seoyoon said, "Precisely to protect those ordinary things, you may need a larger system of protection."

"See? That's exactly what makes it sound like a good offer." Kichan pushed the bag and the file back toward her.

"But I hate good offers the most. The second I accept one, I lose track of what it cost me." Lee Seoyoon picked the bag back up.

"You may regret this."

"I already regret plenty of things by default." Kichan stood.

"One more won't even show." He took a few steps, then stopped. Without turning around, he said,"Don't make proposals using my house as leverage again." Lee Seoyoon's voice followed from behind him.

"Mr. Han Kichan." Kichan didn't answer.

"There is still a path where we are not enemies, but allies." For some reason, that line stayed with him. When he got home, his mother was making kimchi stew for dinner. The smell of it took some of the sharpness lodged in his throat and pulled it down. His father, seated at the table, asked,"Did you meet someone outside?" Kichan flinched.

"How did you know?"

"It's written on your face." As his mother set the stew down, she said,"If something's hard, say so. We may not be able to solve it, but we can still eat together." Kichan looked at his bowl of rice. The words hit harder than they should have. We may not be able to solve it, but we can still eat together. That sentence wasn't anywhere in Golden Dawn's proposal. That night, Kichan pulled the iron rod out from under the bed. Its surface was rusted. Its end was bent.

With his fingertips, he read the grain of the metal. A little straighter. A little sturdier. Fitted to his hand. Not to attack. To keep from being stripped of what was his. The sprout-mark on his fingertips heated up, and the grain inside the rod shifted, very slowly. Kichan gritted his teeth. The voice from the dream said,"Make something of your own." Kichan answered under his breath.

"Fine. But I'm not naming it." The voice laughed. The next morning, the iron rod was a little different. To the eye, it still looked like nothing more than an iron rod. But the part Kichan held fit his hand with uncanny precision.