Crossing The East Sea

14 The Simulation Room

The months seemed to fly past after the outing to Masikryong. Shinsou gave up on his vapid strategy, and resigned himself to spending the entire day with Yeonha whenever the Kirogi docked at Wonsan.

She was always there the morning after the ship arrived, waiting for him to be escorted out by Watanabe. Nakajima was not around; because nights were currently taken up at the bar looking for the drug smuggler Baek, he now spent time with Park Soojin during the day instead. Watanabe, muttering that he wasn't in North Korea to run a matchmaking agency, forged medical letters for both Soojin and Yeonha every month so that they could have the day free.

Watanabe didn't tell Nakajima that Yeonha was skipping school, and Shinsou's supervisor didn't think much about where his trainee was going during the day. He was distracted by the fact that Choe Yong-gon, angered by Yeonha's loss to Shinsou in the match, and even more by the fact that Park Soojin seemed to be enjoying her old flame's monthly visits, had stopped giving the mother and daughter the monthly allowance he normally provided for their living expenses. It was a simple solution for Nakajima to give an equivalent amount of money to Soojin instead. It didn't amount to much, for the standard of living in North Korea was extremely low. Indeed, he gave her much more than that, for he was trying to persuade her to stop seeing men in her apartment, and the money he gave her was more than enough to cover her loss of earnings.

After the Masikryong outing, Shinsou did some thinking when he got back to Tokyo, and concluded that there were some things he needed to take action on.

His main concerns were the cigarette lighter that Yeonha had given him, the peculiar penchant she had for holding hands, and her enthusiasm for spending as much time with him as possible. It was difficult to ascertain what all these meant; she was a nice girl and he enjoyed her company, but he was dead certain that he was not about to get into a relationship with his boss's daughter.

Besides, he was also still in limbo with regards to Ayumi. Although they had broken up and she was probably with someone else now, on his part he had meant the breakup to be temporary, and he had said that they should separate only until his assignment was over. He meant to keep his word. And so, he planned to wait until the assignment had come to a conclusion and then contact her, and confirm that both sides agreed that they were no longer together. Until he did that, he didn't feel free to pursue a relationship with anyone else.

As a result, when Shinsou next arrived in Wonsan, he came armed with a length of rope, and the next time Yeonha needed to make the both of them invisible, he had insisted on using it, saying that it was more secure. She was a little surprised but didn't seem to mind too much, which he took as a positive sign that she might not be interested in him in that manner, after all.

He also reminded her often that his visits to Wonsan might end one day, so that she would realise that when it came to having a relationship, there was simply no hope. And he made sure that he didn't say or do anything that hinted at being romantic. She was a sensible girl and, except for the holding of hands in the beginning, had on the whole only been polite and friendly. She didn't behave like Ayumi, who liked to coquette, and openly expected him to kiss her or make love to her.

He assumed, with typical masculine ignorance, that all these precautions were adequate to prevent any feelings from developing. He didn't realise that Yeonha merely figured that he was being practical in not openly showing affection; for in North Korea, besides the "Fashion Police", the Ministry of People's Security also ran patrols that acted as a sort of "Dating Police", whose duty it was to act as law enforcement with regards to "assaults against public decency".

Students were considered too young for dating. If a couple was caught behaving intimately in public by the Dating Police, their educational establishments would be notified, and a member of the Youth League would then call the students in question and interrogate them. Most couples, when caught, would usually bribe their way out of being reported.