Chapter 68: The Fishing Trip
Minho asked to go fishing on a Sunday in February, which was how Daniel knew something was wrong.
Not because fishing was unusual—Daniel went fishing with his father regularly, the Shimano rod still performing with the quiet excellence of a tool that was loved and used. What was unusual was Minho asking to come. Park Minho did not fish. Park Minho’s relationship with outdoor activities began and ended with walking from his car to a restaurant. The man had once described a hiking trail as “nature’s way of punishing people who don’t have Uber.”
“I want to go fishing,” Minho said on the phone, a week after the team debrief in the Songdo living room. “With you. This Sunday. Don’t make it weird.”
“It’s already weird. You don’t fish.”
“I’m expanding my horizons.”
“You’re avoiding telling me something.”
“I’m telling you I want to go fishing. That’s a thing I’m telling you. Right now. Fishing. Sunday.”
“Fine. Songdo pier. 6 AM.”
“Six? In the morning?”
“Fish are morning creatures.”
“Fish are terrible. I’ll be there at seven.”
“Six.”
“Six-thirty.”
“Six. Bring warm clothes. And don’t bring your phone.”
“Don’t bring my—Daniel, I need my phone the way lungs need oxygen.”
“Then your lungs can wait four hours. No phones. Just fishing.”
The silence on the other end was the specific silence of a man who was being asked to do something that terrified him more than any VC meeting or bank negotiation or Samsung-backed competitor. Park Minho without his phone was like a fish without water—theoretically possible but fundamentally unnatural.
“Fine,” Minho said. “No phone. But if I die of boredom, it’s your fault.”
“Nobody has ever died of boredom while fishing.”
“Nobody has tested that theory with me.”
The Songdo pier at 6 AM in February was a study in Korean stoicism. The concrete was frosted. The sea was grey-brown and indifferent, doing its eternal work of being an ocean without regard for the humans standing on its edges trying to extract fish from it. A handful of regulars were already there—older men, mostly, their faces weathered to the specific texture of people who had spent decades outdoors and had developed a philosophical relationship with discomfort.
Daniel’s father was among them. He’d started coming to this pier before Daniel was born, and his return to it after retirement had been so seamless that the other fishermen treated him not as a newcomer but as a long-lost member of the congregation.
“You brought the boy,” Daniel’s father said when he saw Minho climbing out of a taxi at the pier entrance, wearing what appeared to be every warm garment he owned, layered with the strategic confusion of someone who had never dressed for outdoor activity before.
“He asked to come.”
“He doesn’t fish.”
“He says he’s expanding his horizons.”
“Hmm.” Cho Byungsoo’s assessment noise—the one that meant I’ll observe before I judge, but I’m already forming preliminary opinions. “Does he have a rod?”
“I brought the spare.”
“The spare is for emergencies.”
“Minho is an emergency.”
His father almost-smiled—the two-millimeter Cho variant. “Give him the pier spot near the rocks. More shelter from the wind. Less chance of falling in.”
Minho arrived at the pier with the cautious steps of an astronaut on an alien planet. “This is where fish live?” he asked, looking at the sea with genuine suspicion.
“This is where we wait for fish. The fish live down there.” Daniel pointed at the water.
“It looks cold.”
“It is cold.”
“Why would anyone voluntarily stand next to cold water at 6 AM?”
“Because the fish don’t care about your schedule.”
“Fish are sociopaths.”
“Fish are fish. Here.” Daniel handed him the spare rod—a simple setup, nothing fancy, the kind of rod you gave to beginners because its forgiveness was infinite and its expectations were zero. “Hold it like this. Reel goes here. Cast like this.”
He demonstrated. The line sailed out over the water in a clean arc—not as perfect as his father’s, but competent. The years of fishing had given him a muscle memory that was entirely this life’s, earned through dozens of Sunday mornings on this exact pier.
Minho tried. His first cast went sideways and nearly hooked a seagull. His second went approximately three meters. His third—with Daniel physically guiding his arm through the motion—landed in the water at a respectable distance.
“Now what?” Minho asked.
“Now we wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“A fish. Or nothing. Either way, we wait.”
“This is the worst activity I’ve ever done.”
“Give it ten minutes.”
They waited. The February morning warmed slowly—not warm, not even close, but the particular Korean winter thing where the air temperature stayed miserable but the sun, when it appeared through the clouds, offered just enough heat to make standing outside feel like a choice rather than a punishment.
Daniel’s father was twenty meters away, in his usual spot, doing what he always did: fishing with the patient confidence of a man who understood that the sea gave when it wanted to give and that human impatience was not a relevant variable.
Minho’s line sat in the water. Nothing bit. This was normal—the first hour of fishing was almost always nothing, a period of calibration where the fisher and the sea negotiated the terms of their relationship.
“Daniel,” Minho said.
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t come here to fish.”
“I know.”
“I came here because I need to talk to you about something and I didn’t want to do it in an office or a cafe or anywhere that has walls and other people.”
“I know.”
“You know everything, apparently.” A tired smile. “Since the debrief. The thing you told us about your—your regression. And about what I did in your first life.”
“The embezzlement.”
“Yeah. That.” Minho reeled in his line and recast—the motion smoother this time, his body learning the rhythm even as his mind was occupied elsewhere. “I’ve been thinking about it. Every day since you told us. Every hour. I wake up at 3 AM and think about it. I look at my hands and think: these hands stole fifty million dollars. Not in this life—but in a life that was possible. A life that I was capable of.”
“Minho—”
“Let me finish.” His voice was steady but fragile—the steadiness of a bridge under maximum load, holding but aware of every ounce. “You told me because I asked. Because I deserved the truth. And I’m grateful. But the truth is heavy, Daniel. Knowing that a version of me—a version that shares my face, my name, my brain—was capable of destroying his best friend’s life? That’s—” He searched for the word. “That’s a lot to carry.”
“I’ve been carrying it for ten years.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. Not for what the other Minho did—I can’t apologize for a person I’ve never been. But I’m sorry that you had to carry it alone. That you had to look at me every day and see both the friend and the thief. That you had to build guardrails around me because the guy who shares my face couldn’t be trusted.”
The sea lapped against the pier. A seagull circled overhead, evaluating them for food potential and finding them lacking. Daniel’s father, twenty meters away, caught a small fish and released it with the casual competence of a man who fished for the process, not the product.
“I’m not him,” Minho said. “I know you know that. You’ve said it. But I need to say it too, out loud, standing on a freezing pier at 6 AM, because some things need to be said in the cold.” He turned to face Daniel. His eyes were bright—not with tears, with something harder. Determination. The specific determination of a man drawing a line between who he was and who he refused to become. “I am not the man who stole from you. I will never be that man. Not because of the guardrails or the E&Y structure or the spending limits. Because I choose not to be.”
“I believe you.”
“I know you do. But I needed to say it.” Minho turned back to the sea. Recast his line. The motion was almost natural now—the body adapting faster than the mind, as bodies do. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Bright Horizon. The consulting company I set up for my dad. I told you I did it because my dad needed work and I was embarrassed to ask for help. That was true. But it wasn’t the whole truth.”
Daniel felt the old alarm—the smoke detector in his nervous system, calibrated over two lifetimes to respond to the specific frequency of Minho and money. But he held it. Didn’t let it show. Let Minho speak.
“The whole truth is that when I set up that company, for about five minutes—maybe less, maybe just a moment—I thought about it. About what it would be like to have access. To be the person who handled the money instead of the person who was kept away from it. Not to steal—I never thought about stealing. But to—” He struggled. “To matter in that way. To be trusted with the thing that everyone trusted everyone else with except me.”
“You felt excluded.”
“I felt watched. Which is worse.” Minho’s jaw tightened. “And the Bright Horizon thing was—in some small, stupid way—a test. Not of the system. Of myself. Could I touch money without becoming the thing you were afraid I’d become? Could I set up a company, route a payment, handle a financial transaction, and do it the right way?”
“You didn’t do it the right way.”
“No. I did it the wrong way for the right reason, which is—” He laughed. A short, self-deprecating laugh. “Which is exactly the kind of rationalization that the other Minho probably used when he started. ‘It’s for a good reason.’ ‘Just this once.’ ‘Nobody gets hurt.'”
“You caught yourself.”
“The system caught me. E&Y caught me. You caught me. If none of those things had been in place—if I’d had the access that the other Minho had—would I have caught myself?”
The question hung in the February air, suspended between them like breath made visible in the cold.
“I don’t know,” Minho said. “And that terrifies me.”
“It should.”
“It does.”
“Good.” Daniel reeled in his line. Empty, as always. He was still the worst fisherman in the family. “Minho, the fact that you’re asking this question—the fact that you’re standing on a pier at 6 AM, freezing your ass off, telling me that a version of yourself scares you—that’s the answer.”
“How is that an answer?”
“Because the Minho who stole fifty million dollars never asked the question. He never stood in the cold and said, ‘I’m scared of what I might be.’ He didn’t have that conversation because he didn’t have a friend who told him the truth.” Daniel looked at him. “You have a friend who told you the truth. And you’re here. On a pier. At 6 AM. Freezing. Asking the hardest question anyone can ask.”
“Which is?”
“Am I good enough to be better than the worst version of myself?”
Minho was quiet. The sea continued its work. A cloud moved over the sun, and the temperature dropped two degrees, and neither of them moved because the conversation was more important than comfort.
“Am I?” Minho asked.
“You tell me.”
“Yes.” The word came out solid. Not loud—solid. The sound of a foundation being set. “Yes. I am.”
“Then that’s the end of the other Minho. Right here. On this pier. In the cold.”
“In the cold.”
“In the cold.”
Minho’s rod dipped. A sharp, sudden pull that jerked the tip toward the water. He grabbed it with both hands—instinct, not skill—and the line went taut.
“I’ve got something!” The panic in his voice was genuine and entirely disproportionate to the situation. “Daniel! I’ve got something! What do I do?”
“Reel it in!”
“How?!”
“Turn the handle! The round thing! Turn it!”
Minho reeled. The rod bent. The line sang. And from the grey February water, struggling and silver and very much alive, a fish emerged—a sea bass, decent-sized, thrashing with the indignation of a creature that had been minding its own business at the bottom of the Yellow Sea and had been rudely interrupted.
“I CAUGHT A FISH!” Minho held it up like a trophy, dripping and gleaming, his face transformed by the pure, uncomplicated joy of a man who had just done something he’d never done before. “DANIEL! I CAUGHT A FISH!”
Daniel’s father appeared beside them, summoned by the commotion. He looked at the fish. Looked at Minho. Looked at the fish again.
“Not bad,” Cho Byungsoo said. Which, from the man who had been fishing for thirty years, was the equivalent of a ticker-tape parade.
“IT’S A FISH!” Minho was practically vibrating. “AN ACTUAL FISH! FROM THE ACTUAL SEA!”
“Where else would a fish come from?” Daniel’s father asked, genuinely confused by the enthusiasm.
“I DON’T KNOW! BUT IT’S HERE! IN MY HANDS! A FISH!”
“He’s never fished before,” Daniel explained to his father.
“I can tell.” His father took the fish from Minho’s hands with practiced gentleness, examined it, and held it at arm’s length. “Keeper size. Just barely.”
“We’re keeping it?” Minho asked, eyes wide.
“You caught it. You decide.”
“I want to keep it. Is that weird? I want to keep a fish.”
“It’s not weird. It’s fishing.” Daniel’s father produced a bucket from somewhere—the man always had a bucket, the way other people always had pockets—and deposited the fish in water. “Your first catch. That’s important.”
“Is it?”
“A man’s first fish teaches him patience. A man’s first fish that he catches after a hard conversation teaches him something else.”
“What?”
“That the sea doesn’t care about your problems. It gives fish to everyone equally—saints, sinners, and boys who wear too many layers.” He patted Minho’s shoulder—the Cho physical-affection limit, three seconds, no exceptions. “Welcome to fishing.”
Minho stood on the pier, wind in his hair, fish in a bucket, surrounded by old men who caught fish without drama and a best friend who had just heard his deepest fear and hadn’t looked away.
“I like fishing,” Minho said.
“No you don’t.”
“I like this specific instance of fishing. On this specific pier. On this specific morning.”
“That’s fair.”
“Can we come back next Sunday?”
“We can come back every Sunday.”
“Every Sunday.” Minho looked at the sea—really looked, not the suspicious evaluation of a man who didn’t trust nature but the open gaze of someone who had just discovered that the world contained things that couldn’t be networked or monetized or optimized. Things that just were. “Every Sunday sounds right.”
They fished until noon. Minho caught two more fish—small ones, released back. Daniel caught nothing, maintaining his perfect record of fishlessness. His father caught seven, because the sea was generous to men who had earned its respect through thirty years of showing up.
They ate lunch at the pier—kimbap that Daniel’s mother had packed, because Kim Soonyoung packed kimbap for every departure from the Songdo house the way other people packed umbrellas. The rice was perfect. The tuna was fresh. The winter sun was cold but present, doing its best.
“Daniel,” Minho said, mouth full of kimbap, fish in a bucket, the other version of himself buried under a pier in Songdo on a February morning.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for telling me the truth.”
“Thanks for handling it.”
“Handling it is ongoing. It’s going to be ongoing for a while.”
“I know. I’ll be here.”
“On the pier?”
“On the pier. In the office. At the tteokbokki cart. Wherever you need.”
“The dream team.”
“The dream team. Always.”
The sea continued. The fish swam. The old men fished. And two friends who had survived the worst truth one could tell the other sat on a pier in the cold and ate kimbap, and the morning was—against all odds—good.
Not perfect. Perfect was for timelines that didn’t exist. But good. Honestly, genuinely, sitting-in-the-cold-with-a-fish-in-a-bucket good.
And that was more than enough.