THE TRUTH MANSION'S
Chapter 3
People who are not eligible to become Citizens, can get a L2 residence permit if they do not have a criminal record and successfully pass a simple general evaluation and health test. As per the name of their residence permit, these people are called “L2”, and they can stay in Town for two years. Just two years. For two years, they could do any job without fear of being expelled. However, most places that require L2 power are places that offer low-paying jobs such as construction sites, logistics warehouses, and cleaning companies. If they wish to remain in Town after the two-year term ends, they must return to the general evaluation and health tests to obtain a length of residence permit.
Most L2s are natives who are forced to undergo general evaluations and degrading health tests every two years for not having the qualifications to become Citizens, but also cannot leave their hometowns as well as the biological children they do not really want. Jin-kyeong can't even get into the L2 category. He is called “Saha”, Saha are people who are not L, not L2, are nobody, and are nameless. Usually Saha is a term for people who live in the Saha Mansion, but people who do not live in the Saha Mansion are also still called Saha. The term seems to imply, You can only get to this point.
"But nobody drinks it..”.
Jin-kyeong thinks about people who actually can't be spelled out “no”, because they “hilang” just like that. For the last two days he hasn't seen Do-kyeong.
Jin-kyeong enters the front door of the Mansion and looks up towards the seventh floor of Building A. Her eyes narrowed at Do-kyeong's apartment, her front door and her kitchen window. The window is pitch-black, as if Do-kyeong is indeed planning to leave. Tired from work today, soreness in his hands and feet, and the burden of plastic bags in both hands hit Jin-kyeong at once. The handle of the plastic bag was thinned by heavy bottles of drink, piercing his fingers.
The pouch in his right hand was torn off and the bottles fell on the front lawn. Jin-kyeong bends over, trying to hold the bottles, but the plastic in her left hand slips off the handle. All the juice bottles from the plastic bag on his left hand were also rolling in the courtyard. The bottles he had held fell back as he tried to hold the other bottles. Jin-kyeong stands with her hands drooping and eyes staring blankly at the plastic bottles rolling away. The torn plastic bag floated lightly in the wind.
“You're overwhelmed by this?”
The old man picked up a plastic bag that was not torn, started picking up plastic bottles from the ground, and stuffed them into the bag. After the bag was full, he stuffed the remaining bottles into all the pockets in his clothes, and clamped them under his armpits. Then, he walks back to the building supervisor's office while saying to Jin-kyeong, “There's another one that rolls down the water tap.”
Jin-kyeong picks up a bottle next to a bucket under the water tap and walks over to the old man. The man stuffed bottles of juice into a refrigerator in the building's supervisory office. The refrigerator was already filled with many food containers, bottles of mineral water, and bottles of soju, so there was not much empty space left, the old man shifted the food containers here and there, but there is still not enough space to fit two bottles. He opened the freezer and looked at the inside.
“You drink?” ask her while closing the door of the frozen closet.