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~ C.R.O.S.S.I.N.G ~ T.H.E ~ E.A.S.T ~ S.E.A ~
P.A.R.T. T.W.O
N.O.R.T.H K.O.R.E.A
9 WONSAN
When the Kirogi docked at Wonsan, port officials immediately came on board to examine passports and luggage. The twenty Zainichi Korean passengers were duly checked and brought on shore, accompanied by Chongryon Kim. They were mostly elderly Koreans living in Japan who still felt a close affiliation with their kin in North Korea, unlike the younger generation of Zainichi Koreans. Their relatives had already been brought to Wonsan, and were waiting for them at an undisclosed location. They would be given thirty-six hours to spend with them, after which they would come back to the port again and return to Japan.
The crew of the Kirogi would be staying on board the ship, in the meantime. The captain wasn't willing to grant anyone shore leave for such a short journey. Shore leave, he said, was for sailors who had been at sea for weeks; but the journey from Niigata City to Wonsan had lasted barely more than a day. It would have been impossible for anyone to go ashore, anyway, because in North Korea it was illegal for foreigners to move around on their own without a government minder, someone who would keep a sharp eye on you and see that you only went to approved places, and didn't mix with any of the locals.
Shinsou at first received this piece of news with elation: here was the perfect excuse to give Nakajima as to why he couldn't help him with his personal affairs – the captain would not grant him shore leave!
Shortly after the Zainichi Korean passengers had departed, Shinsou, who happened to be near the gangway, saw a group of four men trying to board the ship. The deckhand on gangway watch was about to stop them when the captain appeared, and waved them in.
"Who are they?" Shinsou asked one of the other deckhands.
"They always come to remove the mineral water from the hold," said the deckhand, "Didn't you notice? The bottles the dog is guarding are good mineral water, not the large, industrial-type bottles found in the rest of the hold that we've been distributing. They belong to a popular brand in Japan, and can probably be sold to the elite in Pyongyang for a good price. The upper class there think it's stylish to drink mineral water imported from abroad. The captain probably gets a cut of the profits for bringing it over."
Shinsou hadn't noticed that the bottled water in Yoshi's part of the hold was in proper sealed bottles. He thought it odd that anyone could make a good profit out of something like mineral water. He watched as the men started pushing crates out on trolleys.
"Doesn't Yoshi-chan bite them?" he asked.
"Nah," said the deckhand, shrugging, "They give him some treat – dog biscuits, or something. And he usually stops acting territorial whenever he sees that the ship has reached its destination."
Shinsou watched as the men loaded the crates onto a truck near the wharf and drove off.
He wondered where Nakajima was, and whether his supervisor would make him brainwash the captain into letting him go onshore. However, Shinsou soon discovered that Nakajima, who was a seasoned veteran when it came to operating in North Korea, had already arranged everything.
The next morning Shinsou was partnered with another deckhand to do gangway watch duty, since he was new. He hadn't been there long when a burly individual, armed with several documents and attired in the dark suit often worn by government minders, came up the gangway. The senior deckhand checked the documents, and then hurried off to get the captain, a frightened look on his face. The minder was carrying a letter signed by the local head of the secret police, or Bowibu.
Captain Jang's face went pale when he saw the letter, and he glared at Shinsou.
"Your aunt's brother-in-law's cousin is the local Bowibu head?" he said hoarsely, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Er – " said Shinsou, but the government minder interrupted.
"We have to get going," he grunted, "His relatives are waiting to see him. Hurry up and grant him the shore leave. I'll bring him back tonight."
Captain Jang barked at Shinsou to change and get his things, and before he knew it, the burly minder was ushering him across the gangway.
Shinsou's companion was silent until they had walked some distance out of sight of the ship, and then he heard Nakajima's voice say quietly, "Thanks, Watanabe."
The minder grimaced. "The things I do for you."
Shinsou looked at the minder in surprise.
"Shinsou," said the invisible Nakajima, "This is Keiji Watanabe, our covert op here in Wonsan. His Korean alias is Kang Heon-woo."
"Shinsou?" said Watanabe, raising his eyebrows, "What's your Korean name, supposed son of Nakajima?"
"It's in the documents you forged, you idiot," said Nakajima, "Han Young-jae."
Watanabe chuckled.
"I'm going to enjoy this," he informed Shinsou.
"How did you get those documents?" asked Shinsou, curiously.
"I managed to duplicate a set I came across," said Watanabe, "It's my Quirk, Duplication. I then modified the papers. The Bowibu one was easy enough to forge. I started out in Support in the Directorate, forging documents, but then somehow got moved into covert ops."
"Where did you get that minder's outfit?" enquired Nakajima.
"I met a minder some time ago who was about the same size as me," said Watanabe, shrugging, "I managed to duplicate one of his suits."
They had slowed their pace, and Watanabe led them into an abandoned building.
"Here," he said, producing a short length of rope and letting Nakajima take it, "time to make us disappear."
"Are you sure the secret police haven't started using infrared goggles here?" asked Nakajima. Invisible people could still be detected using infrared.
"Fairly sure," said Watanabe, "People with invisibility Quirks have mostly defected. The Bowibu stopped using them years ago because they simply never detected anyone with them, and it wasn't worth it. Those goggles are expensive."
In North Korea, people were generally not allowed to move freely within the country. They could travel within the city or town that they were living in, but to move from one city to another, a permit was needed.
For this reason, people with Quirks that enabled them to come and go without detection – such as the power of invisibility, or the ability to teleport or fly – were seen as a threat by the government, and they were closely monitored. Any infringement of the law committed by them meant immediate death or sentencing to a labour camp, together with all the members of their family. As a result, most North Koreans with such Quirks tended to defect, something that was easy enough for them to do, given their Quirks. They would forge a death certificate first so that their family members would not be punished for their defection. Or else they kept their Quirks secret, claiming to be Quirkless; but this was risky, for they would be executed immediately if they were discovered.
Shinsou took one end of the rope, and promptly found himself vanishing. Nakajima was holding the rope in the middle, with the other two holding the rope ends.
"Since we're foreigners, it's better that no one sees us wandering around Wonsan without a minder as far as possible," he informed Shinsou, "Watanabe's not going to wear that minder's outfit all day. And it's easier making people invisible using the rope. After all, we don't want to go around holding hands, do we?"
"I can hold your hand," said Watanabe, playfully.
"Shut up, you disgusting old sod," said Nakajima, irritated.
"Where are we going?" asked Shinsou.
"We're bringing this rascal to visit his old flame, of course," said Watanabe irreverently, "she'd be at the restaurant now."
"What, is it open, at this hour?" asked Nakajima, sounding surprised.
"The restaurant's at Dongmyong Hotel," explained Watanabe, "so it opens from early morning, to serve breakfast for the guests staying there."
Shinsou found it quite odd being invisible. He couldn't tell if he was putting his feet in the right place, and they had to move to one side whenever they saw someone else coming along. Nakajima would usually tug the rope in the direction he wanted them to go, and Shinsou got used to it after a while. He had been looking around ever since they'd left the ship. It was odd to think that they were really in North Korea, at last.
The streets were clean and in reasonable condition, but were strangely empty. There were hardly any cars on the roads, simply because the locals were too poor to afford them. People moved around mostly on foot or on bicycles. In fact, there were so few cars that people tended to walk around as freely on the roads as on the pavement.
The surrounding buildings were largely dull concrete structures, utilitarian in appearance. Propaganda posters could be seen all over the place, many emblazoned with the image of the Supreme Leader. Trees lined the roads, and an occasional park softened the continuum of concrete blocks.
People were mostly dressed in dull colours like blue and black, thanks to the presence of the "Fashion Police". However, there were still a few decked out in brighter colours, for North Koreans, especially the young, had become more daring lately when it came to breaking rules. These were mostly the more affluent, for they were able to bribe the Fashion Police into letting them off.
Watanabe was talking to Nakajima. "Did you check on the ship's cargo?"
"Yes," said Nakajima, "I had a look inside all the crates, even those the dog was guarding. There wasn't anything but bottled water there."
"How did you get past the dog?" asked Shinsou.
"Distracted it with some meat I pinched from the kitchen," answered Nakajima. "Have you found out where those men bring those crates?" This question was addressed to Watanabe.
"In case you're wondering what we're talking about, son of Nakajima," Watanabe said to Shinsou, "I've been keeping watch every time the Kirogi comes in, and although I didn't know what was in the crates that those men load onto the truck, I've tried following them every time they were taken away, but without much luck. After driving about a mile the truck stops, and there's some chap with a Warp Gate Quirk who teleports them away."
"Warp Gate Quirk?" said Nakajima, "That's interesting. Who is he?"
A Warp Gate Quirk was considered to be one of the high surveillance Quirks, and it was unusual that the person in possession of it hadn't defected yet.
"Don't know," Watanabe was saying, "it's always night then, and I haven't been able to get close enough to get a good look, even with infrared binoculars. For all we know, it could be that bastard Choe Yong-gon. The slippery old fox has managed to keep his Quirk a secret until now. If it's him, he has his face covered with a hood. Anyway, if it's just bottled water, there's not much point, is there?"
"We don't know whether it's always bottled water that's in the crates," Nakajima pointed out, "I'll come with you next time, and make us invisible so that we can have a closer look at them. Have you seen if anything else gets removed from the Kirogi, other than those crates on the first night?"
"No, nothing," said Watanabe, "I install a camera nearby for constant surveillance of the ship every time it comes into port."
They had been walking along the coast, and soon came to Dongmyong Hotel. It was old and rather faded-looking, with a large garden. There was a pier leading out into the sea to a lighthouse right next to it.
"Youngjae," said Nakajima, "You haven't got enough of a North Korean accent to pass off as a born-and-bred local yet. So don't forget, you're a Zainichi Korean who's moved back to North Korea. If anyone asks, don't pretend that you're jobless. Say that you're a sailor working on a ship that's come to port. It's illegal not to have a job in North Korea."
"Yes, Nakajima-san," said Shinsou. He had already discussed this with Kaneshiro. There was no such thing as a jobless person in North Korea, because the government assigned jobs to everyone.
Watanabe gave a short bark of laughter.
"For crying out loud, boy," he exclaimed, "you're supposed to be talking to your father!"
"Yes, Otosan," corrected Shinsou. He was wondering whether to say Abeoji instead, but after all, they were speaking Japanese.
"I thought Senpai had gone mad when he told me," said Watanabe – Shinsou figured out after a while that he usually called Nakajima "Senpai", probably more because it was an old joke between them rather than out of respect – "that he was going to make his latest trainee masquerade as his son."
Shinsou wanted to say that he thought Nakajima was mad, too.
Nakajima, being used to Watanabe, chose to ignore this. He had evidently been to Dongmyong Hotel before, because he made straight for a secluded spot where no one would see them, and allowed all of them to become visible again. This was the first time Shinsou had seen him since they had left Japan, and he saw that Nakajima was in disguise. He had done a fairly good job with the makeup and prosthetics; although he couldn't hide the fact that he was a large man, his face and hair looked quite different from his real self.
Watanabe, to Shinsou's surprise, was now wearing ordinary clothes. He had somehow changed out of the minder's uniform while being invisible. He was looking at Nakajima warningly. "I've told Soojin we'll be dropping by today. As I've told you before, she isn't the sweet young thing you knew in the past."
"I'm prepared," said Nakajima, drily.
"Youngjae," said Watanabe, as they made their way into the hotel and up the stairs to the restaurant on the second floor, "I'm told that your Quirk is brainwashing. Tell the manageress to give us the private room, will you? The hotel staff normally only open it for guests who look wealthy."
They entered the restaurant, which had quite a nice view of the sea. There were three waitresses serving the hotel guests, but Shinsou was too busy trying to summon up enough Korean to brainwash the manageress to wonder which was Park Soojin.
The manageress was quite easy to identify because she had a smart jacket on, and was strutting around importantly in it. Shinsou swiftly wished her good morning before she could say a word, and brainwashed her when she responded. To make things simpler for himself, he simply said to her in Korean, "Do whatever these two men with me ask you to do."
"Good," muttered Watanabe. He instructed the manageress to bring them to the private room, and to send the waitress Park Soojin to them.
Shinsou knew that Park Soojin must be in her forties, but when she entered, holding a couple of menus, he saw that she had retained her good looks and figure. There was, however, a hardness in her face which spoiled her beauty. Shinsou glanced at Nakajima to see his reaction, but his supervisor's face was impassive.
She came up to them without much expression, and Shinsou realised that she couldn't recognise anyone, because Watanabe as well as Nakajima was in disguise.
"Soojin-ya, it's me," said Watanabe, in Japanese.
"Keiji-san?" she said, startled. She looked at Shinsou, confused, obviously wondering who he was. Then she looked at Nakajima, realising who he must be.
"And this is me," said Nakajima mildly, "Keiji-san says he's told you our real occupations. I'm sorry we're not able to appear as our real selves."
Park Soojin did not look pleased to see him.
"That's a good way to start the conversation, after not having seen each other for years," she said coldly, "Why have you come?"
"To see you," said Nakajima.
She smiled, not very pleasantly.
"You've seen me, now," she said.
"Yes," said Nakajima evenly, "You still look good." And then he added, "Which is more than can be said about me, if you could see the real thing."
She looked at him, and her eyes softened. Shinsou wondered if Watanabe had told her about his medical condition.
"Well, you've seen me now," she then said again, haughtily, "so now you've done what you came here to do."
"I've come to see my daughter, as well," said Nakajima. He paused, and then looked reproachful. "Why didn't you tell me about her?"
"Would it have made any difference?" asked Park Soojin, her face darkening.
"It might," said Nakajima, quietly.
She looked angry.
"So, only having a daughter mattered," she said bitterly, "On my own, I wasn't reason enough to make you marry me."
"It wasn't so simple," said Nakajima, "You now know what my real occupation was. It would have been difficult for me to marry a non-citizen."
She gave a short laugh.
"I thought it such a coincidence," she said, "your daughter's going to follow in your footsteps!"
"So I heard," said Nakajima, keeping his voice steady, "and I'm here to see if I can't do something about that, as well."
"Do?" said Park Soojin, staring at him, "What can you do?"
"I didn't just come to see the both of you," said Nakajima, "I came to make amends."
At this point, Watanabe jerked his head in the direction of the door and said quietly to Shinsou, "Let's give them some privacy."
They left Nakajima and Park Soojin alone together, and went back into the main restaurant. There weren't that many people dining at the moment, since it was already late morning. Watanabe spotted a thin man sitting at a table at the far end of the room, and made his way over to him.
"Youngjae, this is Titus Choi, my so-called 'boss' here in Wonsan," he said quietly to Shinsou, in Korean. They were some distance from the other diners, so there wasn't much chance of being overheard. "He runs a tour agency here, and I'm 'working' as one of his tour bus drivers. But the agency is just a front. He's actually a missionary who holds clandestine prayer services in obscure places on the side."
Titus stood up, and he and Shinsou bowed to each other.
"Titus-ssi only speaks English and Korean," added Watanabe, after they had all sat down at the table and ordered some coffee, "Are you able to follow if we converse in Korean?"
"A little," said Shinsou, cautiously.
"Stop us if you're lost, and I'll translate into Japanese," said Watanabe.
Shinsou nodded.
"Youngjae-ssi," said Titus very quietly, "As Heonwoo-ssi mentioned, I'm actually a Korean-American missionary. I've been here for many years, and I've helped a few of our North Korean prayer group members to defect. I got to know Heonwoo-ssi by chance, and when I discovered he has a duplicating Quirk, I would occasionally ask him to help me forge some of the papers the defectors might need to cross the border. That was how we came to know each other, and I eventually asked him to work in my tour agency. I only found out much later that he is a Japanese agent. He waited a long time before deciding he could trust me, and he only told me because he was hoping I could help your friends Soojin and Yeonha to defect."
"I see," said Shinsou.
"In the past, it was easier for someone to defect," continued Titus, "you just needed to raise enough money to bribe your way through. There are brokers, too, who will get you out of the country for a fee. But the government has been cracking down hard on anyone who defects or helps others to defect. There are informants everywhere, and it's a lot more difficult and dangerous, now. The brokers' fees have become enormously high, so that it has become difficult for people to raise the required amount of money."
"I only approached Titus about the defection because I feel Soojin and Yeonha should go to the U.S.," said Watanabe, looking at Shinsou, "if we wanted to resettle them in Japan or South Korea, Nakajima could probably handle it. Titus can arrange for them to seek asylum in the States, as he has with the other defectors he's helped. He's gotten to know Soojin and Yeonha over the past year, and they've been occasionally attending some of his prayer meetings.
"Right now, there are several American missionaries who have been detained here, in North Korea," Watanabe continued, "Titus has some contacts looking for some way to help them escape from prison, and if they succeed it'll be Titus's job to get them out of the country and back to the U.S. If he manages to do that, then I'm hoping that he can bring our two ladies over, at the same time."
"But we would first have to persuade them to leave," added Titus, "Soojin told me she had a very hard time when she came over to North Korea. She spoke more Japanese than Korean, and whatever Korean she knew was different from the locals. She was ostracized, and was constantly reminded of her lack of a proper accent and rich revolutionary vocabulary. Even now she feels isolated, and hates people discovering that she is a Zainichi Korean from Japan."
"She doesn't speak English, and has become hesitant about going to the U.S.," added Watanabe, "In the past, she didn't mind going because she was young and she planned to go with Nakajima, who would have taken care of her. But she got played out by Choe Yong-gon when she came here, and North Korea didn't turn out to be what she hoped it would be. She's afraid the same thing will happen all over again if she goes to the U.S., especially if she goes there without anyone she knows to take care of her and Yeonha, and no knowledge of the language at all, this time."
"I've told her that I'd help her seek asylum, and settle her in and put her under the care of members of my church back in California," said Titus, "There's a large Korean-American community there. And there are also organisations set up by other North Korean defectors which help fresh defectors establish new lives in the U.S. But Soojin feels that Choe also promised her many things before coming here, and it turned out to be all deception; she's not willing to trust anyone that tells her similar things now."
"But Nakajima's here now," Shinsou pointed out, "He would probably be willing to accompany them to the U.S."
"Yes," said Watanabe, "but as you've seen, she's given him a rather cold reception. She probably won't trust him not to play her out as well. He's going to have to put in some effort to win her trust back."
"Youngjae-ssi," said Titus, looking earnestly at Shinsou, "Heonwoo-ssi told me about your Quirk, and so I came here to meet you partly to ask if you would aid us, should we need help getting Soojin and Yeonha out of the country."
Shinsou was reluctant to commit himself. He tried to summon up enough vocabulary in Korean to make his point clear to Titus.
"I have to think of Japan's interests first," he finally said in Japanese to Watanabe, "My first priority is the Shiramine. I can't do anything that would compromise Japan or the success of the assignment. Especially if this is also going to involve the escape of American prisoners."
"You're totally correct," said Watanabe approvingly, "and I'll be around as well. I'm not going to let him ask you to do anything that would compromise us. Besides, we don't even know whether Titus will need your help, in the end."
He translated Shinsou's concerns to Titus in Korean, and the missionary smiled and nodded.
"How does Yeonha feel about defecting?" asked Shinsou in Korean, "and what is she like?"
"She's different from her mother," answered Titus, "for one thing, she's from a different generation. In the past, the population here were brainwashed into believing that the government was all-powerful and omnipotent, and that the Supreme Leader was like a god. But that changed some years ago because there were floods and a terrible famine, and more than a million people died. It was a disaster, and it became obvious to the people that the government was in fact quite fallible and couldn't provide for them."
"The floods destroyed all the crops and a large part of the infrastructure in the country," added Watanabe, "The government itself is almost broke. There used to be a state-run food distribution system, but that had to stop, and people starved. People didn't have basic necessities. Salaries are now too low to survive on. Almost everyone now knows that they can't rely on the government any more, and have side jobs, trading and selling in illegal markets and smuggling things into the country. Unlike the older folk, Yeonha comes from a generation of young North Koreans who have the perception that they have never received anything from the regime."
"She also speaks Korean fluently, unlike her mother," said Titus, "She knows Japanese as well, because she speaks that to her mother at home. And Choe Yong-gon wants her to be a spy, so when she graduated from high school he put her in a Foreign Languages School so that she could learn English. She's studying there now. When she graduates she'll be taken in by the SSD– that's the State Security Department, which does most of the surveillance here – and groomed to be an intelligence agent."
"Does she want to be one?" asked Shinsou, with interest.
"No," said Watanabe, suddenly looking extremely tickled, "she wants to be an aeroplane pilot!"
"Pilot?" said Titus, astonished.
"It started with the Wonsan Air Festival," said Watanabe, chortling in amusement, "the first one was held several years ago. All those aircraft flying around, doing low fly-bys and acrobatic stunts. Of course, to me most of them were old and dated, but she thought they were wonderful."
"It's unwise for her to have an ambition, though," said Titus seriously, "most people here don't bother to think about what they're going to be, since they have no choice in the matter. She'll just be disappointed in the end."
"Well, people can't help feeling a certain way, sometimes," said Watanabe, "anyway, all the more she should want to defect then, so that she can realise her dream." He passed some money to Titus to pay for the coffee, and then looked at Shinsou. "Let's go back in and see if those two in there haven't killed each other yet."
Nakajima and Park Soojin were still very much alive, and were standing near the door, talking about their daughter.
"She takes after you," Park Soojin was saying disapprovingly, "She has the same Quirk as you. We've kept it secret, of course."
"She has?" said Nakajima, his face brightening. Evidently this was news to him, and his eyes shone with pride.
Park Soojin looked at him, and some of the hardness went out of her face.
"Why did you choose the name Yeonha?" Nakajima asked.
"Well," she hesitated, "So that I could call her Yuna at home. It sounds almost the same. We speak Japanese at home, you know." She flushed.
Nakajima looked baffled. "But why would you want to call her that?"
"Because," she said softly, "Yuna is a name that can be found in many different languages, including Japanese, and …"
She stopped. Nakajima looked at her, and he smiled, suddenly.
"And you wanted her to have a Japanese name, because she is half-Japanese," he finished.
Park Soojin said nothing, but looked at him, and Shinsou thought that she looked a little sad. Then she took a piece of paper and a pencil out, and wrote something down on it.
"Come around seven," she said abruptly, handing the paper to Nakajima, "It'll be after dinner. We normally eat at six." Then she picked the menus up, and went out of the room.
Nakajima looked at the piece of paper, and then put it into his pocket. When they came out of the private room, Titus had disappeared.
Park Soojin was serving some of the other customers, and no longer took any notice of them. Nakajima nodded at Shinsou and Watanabe, and they made their way out of the hotel, and back into the empty and carless streets of Wonsan.
