CTL 22

“Oh my, oh my. Look who it is. Isn’t this our Mr. Yoon Seohwi who, as a mere new employee, worked. from. home?”

“Ah… about that….”

Ah, the target has finally shifted. When I came to work on January 2nd, everyone surrounded me, showering me with questions about what happened and why I didn’t come in. Now, they were surrounding Seohwi, starting another attack, asking how he ended up living with the Executive Director.

Because he was working from home, he had no choice but to explain how I came to live with him, but honestly, I didn’t like it. It was because I didn’t want many people to know about my connection with Seohwi. But what was done was done, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Yoongeon watched Seohwi, who was busy explaining himself with a troubled face while surrounded by people, before entering the Executive Director’s office. When he entered, Secretary Lim followed him in.

“Any movement on that side?”

As soon as Yoongeon saw him, he asked about Ko Yoonchul.

“Yes, and a Happy New Year to you too, Executive Director.”

“……”

Ah, it’s starting again, and on New Year’s Day. Yoongeon forcefully smoothed out his crumpled brow.

“Right, Happy New Year to you too, Secretary Lim.”

“What about my New Year’s money?”

“Haaah….”

The most infuriating thing about Secretary Lim was that he didn’t know when to stop. However, Yoongeon irritably took out his wallet and roughly pulled out some cash to give to him. While his mind was thinking how annoying it was, his body, for some reason, always ended up giving in to Secretary Lim.

“Alright!”

Secretary Lim, with a beaming smile, deftly took the 100,000 won and said that since it was morning, he would buy macarons, a healthy food, to share.

“Since when did macarons become a healthy food?”

Food, he says. Come to think of it, isn’t it not even food? I asked, dumbfounded, and Secretary Lim answered with his eyes wide.

“Well, of course they’re healthy! They don’t have any flour, do they?”

“……”

I wanted to rebut, but Yoongeon didn’t know what ingredients macarons were made of, so he couldn’t say anything. He was genuinely vexed.

“Anyway, I heard there was a huge commotion this morning. The Chairman supposedly called in Vice President Ko Yoonchul and even threw a nameplate at him? They say his forehead got a little torn because of that, and he even went to the emergency room.”

“The old man is still strong.”

“Well, in any case, it will be hard for Vice President Ko Yoonchul to escape public scrutiny now. It’s already been reported by the media, and with more eyes watching the investigation, he won’t be able to just gloss over it. Whatever happens, won’t they at least have to make a show of doing something? Regardless of how the results turn out.”

In any case, it was a remote possibility to lock up someone like Ko Yoonchul in prison for a long time. The highest probability was that he would be released on probation, and even if a miracle happened and he was sentenced to prison, they said he would probably get about six months or a year and three months.

All things considered, it was a sentence short enough to enrage everyone, but what Yoongeon wanted wasn’t for him to be locked up in prison for a long time. He didn’t prefer it because it would just make it harder to get his hands on him if he was locked away.

Yoongeon wanted him to watch with his own two eyes as he was ostracized by society, not in an isolated place. He wanted him to fall into endless despair, and in that despair, to be completely broken. Wasn’t it only when Ko Yoonchul completely crumbled that Yebin could use that time to solidify her position?

It was then. Just as a knocking sound was heard, Yebin carefully came in. Seeing his face, which was completely stiff, it seemed he had just heard the news. He held out the tablet he was holding.

“Oppa, this…. Is this possibly….”

Yebin couldn’t finish his sentence, but what he wanted to say was clear. He was asking if this news was what Yoongeon had intended. Yoongeon didn’t answer, but he understood the answer to his question well enough.

“Oppa, this is dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Dad tried so hard to stop it….”

In Korea, drugs were an issue the public reacted particularly sensitively to, so it was something Chairman Ko Sanghyun had tried to cover up no matter what. He meant that since it had been exposed, there would surely be repercussions.

“Dad might start to suspect.”

“It’s actually surprising he hasn’t noticed sooner.”

There weren’t many people who could overturn something that Chairman Ko Sanghyun, of all people, was trying to block. I had thought that it had to be someone of that stature, which was why I had been able to avoid suspicion until now. But now that Vice President Ko Yoonchul’s drug charges had been reported, it was only a matter of time before his gaze turned to Yoongeon. No, it might have already.

“It’s a good thing. If he’s wary of me, you can be that much freer.”

“Where is the younger brother who would be happy to use his older brother as a shield?”

“Who told you to be happy? Use the time you would have spent being happy to produce results. That way, there will be less noise when you move up.”

“Haaah… oppa, really.”

At Yoongeon’s cold words, Yebin shook his head from side to side.

“I don’t know why you’re pushing yourself this hard to make things happen. Like you said, the foundation for me to move up has already been laid.”

“The moment that bastard decides he wants to come back, you’ll be pushed out in an instant, Ko Yebin.”

Simply because he is a son, the eldest son. For him, it is a very easy thing to do.

“You have to make it so Chairman Ko can’t mess with you recklessly. I can’t protect you forever.”

At the words spoken indifferently while looking out the window, Yebin could only let out a deep sigh.

“Tell me if there’s anything I can do to help. Don’t try to do it all by yourself.”

“Alright.”

Although his younger brother spoke with repeated emphasis, Yoongeon only replied listlessly. Saying he was tired of this side of him, Yebin also stopped talking.

“Huh? What’s with the 100,000 won?”

It was then. Yebin, who was about to leave with a fed-up look on his face, saw the money in Secretary Lim’s hand and his eyes widened.

“I got New Year’s money from the Executive Director.”

“……Oppa, did you get fleeced by Mr. Seonwoong again?”

Yebin looked back at Yoongeon with a pathetic expression.

“Yeah.”

Yoongeon didn’t deny it.

“How pitiful, really….”

At first, I think I got angry when Yebin disparaged me like this, but after experiencing it so many times, it didn’t bother me anymore.

“Ah, right. I almost left without saying what I meant to. Oppa, there are employees going out for fieldwork today.”

“Fieldwork?”

“Yeah.”

At the question of what there was to go out for at this stage, Yebin came back to him.

“A business partner sent us some component samples, but strangely, the quality is too inconsistent. Look at this.”

Yebin showed Yoongeon what had come in as samples. Listening to him and examining them, the finishing was really not good.

“So I’m thinking of going to check this out. But it’s a good opportunity for new employee training too. So I’m thinking of sending Mr. Seohwi along.”

At that moment, Yoongeon recalled Seohwi’s attire. Fortunately, because Yoongeon had bought him a whole bunch of clothes, his outfit today was quite warm. He had him wear a camel-colored turtleneck knit with black pants, and then bundled him up in a thick coat and even a scarf. When he was out of his mind and tried to wear that damn light down padded jacket again, I tore it up right in front of him, and the look on his face was a sight to see.

Actually, we had a few words about that issue in the morning. The weather was cold, so Yoongeon told him to wear the long padded jacket, but he stubbornly refused, saying it was uncomfortable to move in. But if I had known he would be dragged out for fieldwork, I would have forced him to wear it.

“Oppa? Why aren’t you answering.”

“Ah. …It’s nothing. So who’s going with Mr. Seohwi.”

“Ms. Kim Jia.”

“What? ……Chief Ha is.”

At the unexpected name, Yoongeon, with a sour face, pointlessly looked for Chief Ha, but he was left speechless when Yebin asked back if someone of a chief’s rank would go there, so he kept his mouth shut.

“It’s better for someone at the manager level to go. A regular employee would surely not be able to utter a word if they went.”

What he said was perfectly right, but I didn’t like it. But what could I do? It wasn’t like he was being taken to some strange place. Yoongeon had nothing to say. When he fell silent, Yebin left the Executive Director’s office.

“What’s wrong?”

As Yoongeon just sighed deeply without answering Secretary Lim’s question, the intercom phone began to ring. Usually, when a call came, it would go to Secretary Lim’s phone, but there was only one person in this company who would ignore that and call Yoongeon directly. Sure enough, the extension number for the Chairman’s office was displayed. The phone rang twice and then immediately disconnected. It was a damn summons.

✧ ✧ ✧

As soon as I opened the door and entered, something came flying at me. I dodged it and saw it was a pen holder.

“I only have two damn children, so why are both of them morons!”

Should I be glad it wasn’t a nameplate? Yoongeon looked down at the shattered pen holder below him and let out a sigh.

“It’s not two, it’s three. Why are you leaving out Yebin?”

“How dare you lump Yebin in with the two of you?! Yebin and you bastards are different from the seed, you hear me?!”

Chairman Ko yelled at the top of his lungs, as if it wasn’t even tiring for him. The old man has good pipes, Yoongeon thought, as he stood there listlessly, silently taking the brunt of his anger.

“Is it even right to put a sweet and pretty kid like Yebin among you bastards?! He’s a flower! You guys are vermin!”

This, it seemed, was no ordinary anger.

When Chairman Ko was in a good mood, he acted like he would do anything for you, but if something even slightly displeased him, he couldn’t hold his tongue. Cursing and throwing things to hurt people were daily occurrences, and while he was now going on about how Yebin was different from them, how he was a flower, and other such nonsense, he was the kind of person who would spew harsh words at Yebin too when he got angry. I suppose I should be glad that at least he didn’t do that to my mother.

Yoongeon thought such a Chairman Ko was despicable. He was a typical opportunist, weak to the strong and strong to the weak. If it were like the old days, I wouldn’t have shown any mercy, father or not. No matter how I think about it, that bastard was born in the right era. As I was thinking what a shame it was, this time a pile of documents came flying. It was too much trouble to dodge, so I just took the hit.

“You can’t even get your act together, you just take drugs and lie around, you couldn’t even stop one single article about your hyung from getting out!!”

Ah, so that’s why he’s angry. It seemed Chairman Ko thought Yoongeon was responsible for this matter because of the time Yoongeon had dropped an article before. He believed that because Yoongeon had attempted suicide, he missed the timing when the article broke.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you decided to block it once, you should have blocked it until the end! What the hell were you doing that you missed it, that you let it slip! What are we going to do about all this, huh?! What are you going to do when your hyung’s detention and investigation begins! You know how fucking bad drugs are for a businessman’s image, and you couldn’t even stop that one thing!”

“……”

He said he would support Yoongeon, but as soon as Ko Yoonchul was in danger of being arrested, his true colors showed. I knew it was just a ploy to win my mother’s favor, so I hadn’t paid it any mind in the first place.

It was nothing new. This had happened once or twice. Chairman Ko was always this kind of person. When a young Ko Yoonchul grabbed Yebin by the scruff of his neck and made him fall off the terrace just because he was crying loudly, he got angry in front of my mother, but in the end, he was the one who gave Ko Yoonchul no punishment whatsoever. It was because he was the son of the ‘legal wife’.

Even while telling my mother that she was his one and only love, to Chairman Ko, my mother was ultimately not the legal wife, and because of that, my mother suffered for a long time. My mother, who was an ordinary nurse, had married him looking only at the person, but she realized her judgment was wrong after getting married and fell into shock.

So at one point, she tried to get a divorce, but it was impossible to separate from Chairman Ko, who held their child hostage, and in the end, my mother resigned herself to something within her and stayed in that position. Their current affectionate relationship was built upon my mother’s sacrifice.

“Block it, no matter what! Turn it back right now!”

“How can I turn back what’s already been released.”

Was it because he didn’t like that Yoongeon was looking down at him while he was sitting? Hearing Yoongeon’s listless reply, Chairman Ko stood up from his seat and stood in front of him. And without a moment to stop him, he raised his hand and began to slap Yoongeon’s cheek several times.

“Chair, Chairman!”

Chairman Ko’s secretary was startled and fidgeted, but his momentum was so fierce that he couldn’t stop him. With a brutal sound, Yoongeon’s cheek was even turned, but not even a groan of pain escaped his lips.

“You, you fucking, son of a bitch, who do you think you’re talking back to!”

Chairman Ko committed acts he couldn’t dare to do where my mother was present and let out a roar. He kept slapping his cheek even as he spoke, and perhaps because he knew Yoongeon wouldn’t let my mother see, he was relentless in his violence.

“……”

However, unlike the enraged Chairman Ko, Yoongeon himself had no thoughts. He was just tired of it all. This old man is at it again, he thought.

“This son of a dog…. You lowborn bastard.”

“Are you done?”

Aah, these bastards who don’t know their place and run wild are truly born at all times and piss people off. As he thought that, Yoongeon gauged when he would grab Chairman Ko by the neck and crush his spirit. There was no need to touch him right now, but seeing his current rampant momentum, it seemed it wouldn’t be too long.

‘What kind of face will he look at me with.’

Yoongeon had seen, ad nauseam over several lifetimes, those who looked at him engulfed in fear. He remembered the final moments of all those who tested his patience, walking the line, and then finally crossed it. Now, among those people, Chairman Ko’s face would also remain.

‘If I were to snap his neck right now….’

He was so annoying that such impulses would arise from time to time, but Yoongeon endured it this time as well. As I was leisurely having such thoughts, the hand that was hitting him was trembling, so it seemed the old man’s strength had finally run out.

“Keep it moderate. If you grab the back of your neck and collapse, you’ll die.”

“What did you say?!”

“I’m saying you should consider your age.”

Looking like someone who hadn’t just been hit, Ko Sanghyun glared at Yoongeon, panting heavily.

“One of them is a druggie, and the other one doesn’t even know how blessed he is and pulls fucking stunts like attempting suicide. I don’t even want to see your face, so get the hell out!”

At the words chasing him out, Yoongeon just gave a nod and came outside. When he came out of the Chairman’s office, Secretary Lim, who had been waiting, looked at the Chairman’s office with a startled face.

“Wow, he really went at it.”

He handed him a tissue. Yoongeon spit out the blood that had collected in his mouth and threw the tissue in the trash can.

“Let’s go back.”

“Yes.”

There was nothing Secretary Lim or I could say right in front of the Chairman’s office. Even the usually talkative Secretary Lim said nothing inside the elevator on the way back to the Executive Director’s office. He was clearly being careful lest any untoward words leak out.

“Oh, what the. Executive Director! What happened to your face?”

“I fell.”

As soon as they arrived at the office, not only Chief Ha but also Yebin stood up and rushed to him. Wondering if it was that obvious even from a distance, Yoongeon told a lie that wouldn’t work. Chief Ha, perhaps thinking it was a difficult matter for him to answer, did not press further.

“Assistant Manager Ko, see me for a moment.”

Yoongeon called for Yebin as he entered his room. As soon as he came in, he looked at Yoongeon’s face with worry, but Yoongeon just absentmindedly took out a cigarette and then put it back. His heart felt heavy because of Seohwi’s empty seat that he had seen on his way in.

“It seems Chairman Ko really needs the Vice President. Otherwise, this reaction doesn’t make sense.”

When Yoongeon told Yebin what had just happened, Yebin, who had been listening intently, also nodded his head.

“Dad definitely said he would support you last time.”

“Did he?”

“Yes, Mr. Seonwoong wouldn’t know since he wasn’t there, but our dad seemed sincere at that time. Like he was sick of his first son, so you, the second son, should do well.”

“Hmm….”

At Yebin’s words, Secretary Lim pondered and then spoke.

“His behavior is quite suspicious.”

“I think so too, Mr. Seonwoong. You think so too, right, oppa?”

Yoongeon nodded his head.

“If Ko Yoonchul is kicked out of the Vice President position, I will naturally move up to that spot as the next logical step. But Chairman Ko will not be happy about it at all.”

“Yes. If a capable son like the Executive Director snags the Vice President position, wouldn’t Chairman Ko-nim’s position be precarious? It feels like he has to hand things over quickly, that kind of feeling? Well, of course, it’s probably not just a feeling.”

“That’s probably right.”

Yoongeon was a competent employee who produced good results, and among Chairman Ko’s two sons, he was someone who had a pretty good reputation in terms of character. So, if he were to be promoted to the Vice President position, it was highly likely that Chairman Ko would feel his own position was threatened.

I’m tired. It was because, as always, I couldn’t sleep properly last night. Yoongeon cracked his neck until it made a popping sound, then leaned back in his chair and sat down. In this mood, I should be smoking a cigarette, but I had no choice but to endure it since it was working hours.

“He’s a greedy old man. Just because he’s gotten a little older doesn’t mean he’ll have any desire to step down from the Chairman position.”

“I really don’t get it. If it were me, I would have just quit everything and lived my life traveling and having fun….”

Secretary Lim muttered. Right, there are people like that. But there’s a saying that those who have more want more. Ko Sanghyun was a man who fit that saying perfectly.

“It’s clear that Dad is keeping you in check. It’s not like I didn’t know at all, but….”

Yebin muttered, furrowing his brow.

“Even so, is it okay for him to do this to your face where Mom can’t see?”

“Don’t even think about telling mother.”

Yoongeon, who clearly knew what he was thinking, stopped his younger brother. Sure enough, Yebin looked a little angry.

“Mom needs to know what she needs to know.”

“Just leave it. There’s no need to make her heart troubled for no reason.”

“Hah, really….”

Yebin looked frustrated, but Yoongeon was unfazed. There had been countless incidents like this over the years, so what was the need to react to it now as if it were something new?

“Chairman Ko will try to stop Ko Yoonchul from being kicked out of that position with all his might.”

“But will that even be possible? We’ve cornered him this much.”

“You never know. Well, it would be realistically difficult, though.”

Calling Yoongeon in and slapping him was, of course, a warning, but more than that, it would have also been an attempt to gauge whether Yoongeon had truly let the article slip by mistake or not. And if he wasn’t a fool, by now he would have realized what was on Yoongeon’s mind. If he found out that Yoongeon had condoned it, things could get a little more difficult from now on.

“Hah….”

Yebin, who was listening to the two of them talk, shook his head from side to side as if he were fed up.

“Okay, I get it for now. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No.”

At Yoongeon’s immediate reply, Yebin glared, but Yoongeon just shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not deliberately leaving you out, it’s because there’s really nothing for you to do yet, so don’t make such an openly disappointed face.”

“My goodness. What do you mean it’s not? You think I don’t know that you leave me out of everything as soon as it seems a little dangerous?”

“Your job is to make this project succeed.”