“You don’t need to say that you’re obliged to do anything. I’ll visit you whenever you feel bored, just give me a call.”

“You really know how to scratch where it itches. There are many people who look spiteful despite their eloquent talking skills, but I like you because you aren’t like that. It’s a skill to make flattery sound good. I hate people who blatantly try to suck on my toes.”

The chairman pressed the bell on the table. Not long later, women wearing hanbok brought new dishes. The main dish, the steamed clams, was placed in the center, while multi-colored seaweed-like food filled the empty spaces. As for the drink, it was just a bottle of rice wine commonly found on the market.

“I was raised in Busan. I was born in Seoul but had to go down there during the war. Everything was chaotic because of the war, but men had to work even amidst the chaos. I sold instant bread^[1] at an age where I should be going to school. I was told I had to pay half of my sales for borrowing the machine, but what could I do about that? I didn’t know how my father was doing since we got separated during the war, and...