The protector

The half of something beautiful (M)

BEFORE READING: I understand it can be difficult to follow the story and read the notes at the same time, through this time the notes are necessary for the story, so I thought I'd provide you a few info to better understand what you're going to read. I won't give you links this time because these are basic information that can be found everywhere.

Guides: strangers must have a local guide and a driver, you can't visit the country by yourself. Guides are chosen by the Foreign Office.

Cultural trips: there are places that strangers can't skip if they visit NK, even though they go for work. Usually this includes all the museums and the monuments that show how great the leaders are.

Rason: a city in the North of NK and the first Special Economic Zone, where NK experiments capitalism by trading with strangers. In the Special Economic Zones, strangers can act like locals, so they can both spend the local won and exchange it with foreign currency, and we know In-ah has a lot of local won since she exchanges JH's income.

Chosŏn'gŭl: NK stores everything that strangers and foreign countries have gifted to their leaders in a specific museum outside Pyongyang where they sell you the common diplomatic politeness as a sign of devotion to some Fat-one (yes, I'm bodyshaming).

Sweden cars: back in the 60', Sweden tested the opportunity to produce cars with/in NK. They sent 1000 Volvo cars as a trial. The deal ended in nothing, but the cars have never been paid nor returned. Fun fact: Sweden till now sends every year a polite letter to NK to remind them to pay.

Juche translations: Juche – NK's doctrine – is translated in every language and tourists can find books not only in the souvenir stores yet basically everywhere there could be tourists. The translations are usually on university professors and students. There will be a mention about In-ah having collaborated to a translation: it's a lie, we know she only helped her students in memorizing it for their exam (you'll get why this lie when you'll read it.) 

Sanctions: UE put economic sanctions on NK because of the nuclear program, US did, ONU ecc. Using sanctions against countries to have them stop having a policy of aggression rarely stops them and always starve people, so it's a controversial subject.

Pyongyang, 2028, April 22

"In-ah looks like a princess tonight."

"She looks like a Vikings' hostage!"

Yes. No. Were they sure it was her?

Two were the things that Jeong Hyeok would have never forgotten about the spring of 2028. And those two things were working together, the one enhancing the other, the other enriching the one, like a twisted rope made with distress and angst.

The first, a sensation as if Cho Cheol Gang had come back from hell to hunt him, to harass another of his loved ones. Taking him back, constricting the former Captain to wonder if he still was someone who could win that fight, and to endure the doubt that he wasn't.

The second – slighter and different, yet equally persistent – a feeling, as if a bunch of strangers was threatening to steal his woman from him.

It had been long discussed, that event, that business opportunity. And for the most varied reasons. Not last the fact that In-ah and his dad had considered using it for their plan B since the end of the previous summer.