The Consultant by Im Seong-sun

Author:Im Seong-sun [Seong-sun, Im]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526654137
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Addiction

It was shortly after my break-up with Hyeon-gyeong that the class president contacted me. I was surprised because I didn’t expect to hear from anyone I had met at the reunion. My being beaten up in an alley that day had made a stronger impression on my companions in just five minutes than my entire high school days had done; we had not been close to each other in school and hadn’t been in touch since graduation. He went on to work in a large company, had smooth promotions, a normal career. I was involved in the death of the chairman of his company, but he didn’t know that. No matter how hard I tried to guess, I couldn’t recall any reason why the class president should get in touch with me. Therefore, I suddenly wanted to meet him.

Meeting him again, he seemed unchanged except for a little more belly. He held out his hand with a nice smile. We shook hands. He took me to a nice place. It was one of the Apgujeong neighbourhood’s wine bars, created by the sudden wine craze of recent years, low ceiling, dimly lit, the interior walls decorated with wood and red bricks, with bottles of wine piled up on cellar racks. It seemed a little strange to me, who rarely drank alcohol. Perhaps some people would call it some kind of style, but I, ignorant of such things, just liked the fact that it was dark.

‘Nowadays, I’ve been craving some Burgundy wine.’

He ordered a wine with a long name that I cannot remember and added, ‘Please give us the assorted cheese for the side dish, but without any goat’s cheese.’

I remembered a day in autumn when I was a senior in high school. At the tripe restaurant where we had gathered to drink before the college entrance exam, the class president had ordered in just such natural tones. In his way of speaking, which seemed to show that he was familiar with this place, I felt a certain sense of separation as well as familiarity.

‘You seem to know about wine?’

‘Know? Business requires it. It’s the same as it was in high school. If you didn’t wear Nike, you were a dickhead, and now it’s wine. Your company isn’t like that?’

‘Actually, I don’t have to mix with my co-workers.’ I shrugged.

‘You’re lucky. But if you want to be a part of office life, you have to know about things.’

I felt strange when he pronounced the words ‘office life’. He went on about wines for a while. All of them seemed to have figured in the weekend issues of daily newspapers. I was grateful for his passionate readiness to talk about anything, because I had nothing to say, but I soon started to tire of it. Before I knew it, he had moved on to his dream wine.

‘Really, if you put an ’86 Château Mouton Rothschild, a ’90 Château Margaux, and a 2000 Haut-Brion together for a tasting and savour the fragrance, talk about heaven .

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