Page 79 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
Someone brought warm tea. Jun avoided it until the man drank from the cup. Then he drank it down.
Half the attendants withdrew by some invisible signal. The doors at the end of the room opened, drawn apart from both sides by bowing women in blue hanbok.
The chief of police stepped through. He wore a suit like his attendants. Only the serving women and Jun wore anything traditional. The women closed the doors and left.
The chief of police gazed at Jun.
“You’re a hard man to meet, Gang Junseo.”
Jun kept his silence. The police chief strode deep into the hall. He was older. The hair on the top of his head was fading, and the lines beside his eyes were deep. His lips had thinned by the dint of being pressed together and withered.
“Dinner?” The police chief motioned to the food already laid out.
Silent, Jun turned and took one of the two places at the table. The police chief settled across from him.
One of the attendants poured three kinds of drinks into three cups. Jun watched them work, ignoring the police chief.
“Bak is worried for you, young Gang.”
“Bak is worried for his accounts.” Jun enunciated each word, voice dark and short.
“So you do speak.”
“There was no one worth speaking to before.”
The police chief narrowed his brows, studying Jun’s face. “You cannot be insulted that I was not here. Your collection was spur of the moment.”
“Collection.” Jun tilted his head back, watching the police chief through lidded eyes. “So that is how you refer to it.”
“You still have friends. A word from me and the charges will be gone. We all have moments of youthful indiscretion. There is no record…yet.”
Jun’s lips parted in a pantomime of a smile. In some distant part of him, fear bubbled, and the need to please welled toward the surface. He stabbed it with the knife of memory. All he had to do was imagine Su-jin sat in his place, faced with the same threat.
The police chief dished foods onto his place setting. Jun ignored them. He didn’t trust his plate, his rice, or even his chopsticks. He crossed his arms, his hands disappearing into the wide sleeves.
“As happens sometimes to the young, you are in a difficult position, Mr. Gang. You need a patron. Someone with money, influence. Someone who can protect you.”
Jun waited.
The police chief raised a hand. Every attendant except the ? man melted away, sliding through doors on all sides and closing them behind them.
“Don’t think silence will buy you my good will.”
Jun tilted his head like a prince he had once played in a film. The police chief studied him for a long moment, chopsticks poised above the food.
“Do you understand why you are here?”
Cold flowed over Jun’s skin, but it was a distant, ignorable sensation.
The police chief put a bite of baked fish in his mouth. He chewed, still watching Jun’s face. “I know you can speak. This is not the Junseo I requested.”
Jun let his eyes harden. That Junseo is a fantasy you dreamed.
The police chief went on eating. He kept watching Jun between selecting the best of the food from the spread.
“You are an attractive young man.” When Jun still didn’t speak, he said, “There are men who would kill to be here.”
Jun looked away, out the window. There was a bird on the porch. He didn’t recognize the species. It hopped in the snow. The world was bright, snow reflecting back every scrap of sunlight and moonlight offered up by the hour of the day. It was nearly dark.
