When Gyeong-eun had eaten about half her rice, Seong-ho rose from his seat.

“Seong-ho, why are you getting up?”

Since Seong-ho always sat across from her until she finished eating, Gyeong-eun asked why he was rising, a note of disappointment in her voice.

Seong-ho looked at her, smiled softly, and told her why.

“To finish the meal—a cup of coffee. What do you say?”

“Coffee?”

Gyeong-eun asked in a voice that hadn’t expected it at all, and Seong-ho said to her with a smiling face,

“Stay and keep eating. I’ll make you a nice cold americano.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. When I serve, I do it properly—today you just receive, Gyeong-eun.”

“All right. Then next time it’s my turn.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Saying he’d look forward to being served himself, Seong-ho headed for the kitchen. He brewed the coffee and came back to where Gyeong-eun was with a chilled americano.

While Seong-ho made the coffee, Gyeong-eun had finished eating; she took the cup he handed her, drank, and patted her stomach.

“Seong-ho, a cold coffee to finish a meal is so nice. My mouth even feels refreshed.”

Drinking the cold coffee once more with a pleased expression, Gyeong-eun asked in an admiring voice,

“I had no idea you brewed coffee this well. You’re no less than a barista.”

Seong-ho smiled quietly at her praise and asked,

“Gyeong-eun. What if you had a cold americano like this after lunch too—how would that be?”

“That would be lovely.”

Gyeong-eun answered the instant he asked, as if it needed no second thought. She lifted her cup and said,

“After lunch, the after-meal drowsiness is bound to come. But drinking a cold coffee like this refreshes you, and it seems it would even raise your afternoon work capacity.”

“And in the morning?”

“Mornings would be good too.”

Gyeong-eun set down the cup she’d raised and said,

“When you’ve only just woken and you’re still half in a daze, a coffee would clear your head.”

Finishing, she looked at Seong-ho curiously.

“But why do you ask something like this all of a sudden?”

“Because I think the same.”

Gyeong-eun tilted her head and looked at him.

Seong-ho gazed down at the coffee before him and told her why he’d asked.

“The days keep warming, and yet the coffee we drink is only the hot coffee-mix set out at the office.”

At his words, Gyeong-eun nodded and looked down at the cold coffee before her. Making iced coffee at the office was no easy thing. There was a pantry, and cups and coffee were stocked, but the ice was limited, and the coffee-mix dissolved only in hot water—hardly suited to making cold coffee.

While Gyeong-eun gazed at the cup beading with droplets, Seong-ho went on.

“To drink cold coffee like this, you’ve no choice but to go to a coffee shop. And even there, you can only drink it sitting down—you can’t carry it back to the office, or drink it walking down the street. But in America, it isn’t so.”

At the mention of America, Gyeong-eun raised her head to look at him. Because she got the feeling the real reason was about to come.

“Watching a popular American sitcom lately, the office workers all walk the streets carrying big cups of coffee.”

“Ah—I know. You mean the big paper cups with the star drawn on them?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

Seong-ho lifted the cup before him and said,

“The coffee we drink sitting in a coffee shop, Americans carry and drink strolling down the street. And they even bring that coffee into the office to drink. They drink it on the morning commute, after lunch, after work… coffee’s grown so widespread they drink it like water, so deeply woven into people’s lives—you can tell it easily just from the sitcom.”

“It does seem so. Actually, in New York you can easily see office workers walking down the street with coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other.”

Seong-ho held out his raised cup toward Gyeong-eun and said,

“How about you do that, Gyeong-eun?”

“Me? How?”

Gyeong-eun looked at him with startled eyes, for she couldn’t tell what he meant.

Seong-ho set the cup down and said in a calm voice,

“That star-marked coffee brand you saw is sleeping in Ilhyeon Department Store right now.”

“Sleeping in Ilhyeon Department Store?”

“Yes.”

Seong-ho drew himself a little closer to her and continued the story of the star coffee.

“Before the foreign-exchange crisis broke, Ilhyeon Department Store had drawn up a plan to bring in the star coffee and launch it domestically. Then the crisis struck all of a sudden, and the project, mid-course, was halted—it’s sitting in the Ilhyeon Department Store warehouse.”

“Is that really true?”

“Go in to the company tomorrow and check, and you’ll know exactly.”

Gyeong-eun looked down at the cup with a serious expression, and into her ears Seong-ho’s voice went on.

“Take out the sleeping project and try it again. Because I think this project is really rather promising.”

“This…”

Gyeong-eun, who’d been gazing at the cup, raised her head. And with eyes half expectant, half worried, she asked,

“Do you think it’ll be all right?”

“It caught on in America, so I think there’s plenty of possibility for us too. So try it without any pressure. First open a store on a street where lots of young people go, watch the response, then widen out from there.”

Finishing, Seong-ho placed a proposal that had been on the chair beside him in front of Gyeong-eun.

She looked down at the project proposal and asked with startled eyes,

“You’ve already made up a project proposal too?”

“The Restructuring Headquarters will support it actively, so run the project yourself, Gyeong-eun. If the project lands successfully, it’ll be a great help to your career.”

Gyeong-eun looked down at the proposal a while, then looked at Seong-ho. And letting out an exclamation touched with innocence, she shook her head.

“Did you know even how I’d react once I’d eaten and had coffee?”

“Didn’t I tell you a moment ago? I think the same. And others will think the same too, so this project is bound to succeed no matter what.”

“Honestly, Seong-ho, you’re something.”

Gyeong-eun shook her head from side to side and picked up the proposal. Then she rose and said to him,

“I’ll give it a real go. But don’t get your hopes up too high—even if it succeeds, it’s only a coffee brand.”

“If you read the proposal and have questions, ask. Since the Restructuring Headquarters has decided to support it actively, I’ll look after it myself.”

“Thank you. I’ll go wash up now, then.”

Gyeong-eun took the proposal and headed for the bathroom to wash up.

Seated, Seong-ho watched her retreating figure and muttered low to himself.

“In ten years, that coffee brand’s revenue will be greater than Ilhyeon Department Store’s.”

For now, it was a story of nothing more than a single cup of coffee that hardly seemed to matter. But ten years from now, the people of Korea would all go about with coffee in hand, and it would come to generate revenue greater than the department store and the hotel combined. Knowing this, Seong-ho had chosen the launch of the coffee brand as the first method for stacking up Gyeong-eun’s record of achievement. And on this foundation he meant to keep pushing her forward, to slot her into the succession-competition picture.

Confirming that the first button had been well fastened, Seong-ho rose from his seat to do the dishes.

The failed Doa Motors bidding went to a second round, held at Modu Bank.

“Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Modu Bank’s deputy president bowed to Seong-ho at ninety degrees. The people gathered at the bidding hall traded words, trying to make out who it was the deputy president had greeted.

“Who is it?”

“Who else would it be? Look.”

A reporter who’d come to cover the bidding pointed a hand toward the hall and said,

“If he’s the youngest man among everyone who’s come to this bidding, isn’t it obvious?”

“The man beside him is young too, though.”

“Ugh. The one beside him is plainly an attendant, one look tells you.”

At the exasperated remark, the colleague nodded as if he finally understood and said in a low voice,

“So that man is the Ilhyeon Group’s Head Seong-ho Kim?”

“Who but Head Seong-ho Kim would get a greeting like that from Modu Bank’s deputy president? Look over there—President Park’s running out in his stockinged feet, too.”

Don-su Park, president of Modu Bank, who’d been receiving other distinguished guests, came hurrying over to where Seong-ho was.

“Aigo. Head Kim. You’ve arrived?”

“President. Have you been well?”

“Aigo, of course. Thanks to you, I’ve been ever so well.”

Fussing effusively, Don-su Park quickly beckoned a Modu Bank staffer standing nearby.

“Set our Head Kim’s seat here, right beside mine.”

“Yes, understood.”

The staffer stole a glance at Seong-ho and headed to the front of the hall to see to Don-su Park’s instruction.

Confirming that the Modu Bank staff were preparing Seong-ho’s seat, Don-su Park pressed close to Seong-ho’s side and said to the deputy president,

“From now on, you handle guiding the people who arrive. I have things to discuss with Head Kim.”

“Yes, understood.”

Hearing the deputy president’s reply, President Don-su Park personally guided Seong-ho into the hall.

“Head. This way, please.”

A reporter watching from a distance as Seong-ho was ushered in under Don-su Park’s guidance hurriedly scribbled something in his notebook.

“Looks like Ilhyeon takes Doa Motors today.”

“Ilhyeon?”

A junior reporter beside him asked, puzzled, at the senior’s words.

The senior didn’t answer, and didn’t stop writing his article; only once he’d finished did he set down his pen. Then he tore the page from the notebook, handed it to the junior beside him, and instructed,

“Get this to the desk, quick. Say the Ilhyeon Group’s been selected as the top-priority negotiation target.”

Taking the torn page the senior handed him, the junior looked at him strangely—the bidding hadn’t even begun, and here he was telling him to send the article to the desk first.

“What are you standing there for? Aren’t you going?”

“Senior, the bidding still hasn’t…”

Smack!

The senior struck the junior on the back of the head and snapped,

“A reporter with no instinct at all? The bidding is nothing but a formality to hand Doa Motors over to the Ilhyeon Group by the book. Look, if you’ve got eyes, at who came as the representatives of the other companies bidding besides Ilhyeon.”

At his words, the junior only then took in the reps of the other firms. Most were people whose positions within their companies he couldn’t even place. From exchanging business cards, they turned out to be manager-level personnel—nominally each firm’s bidding officer, but in truth people of little weight within their companies. A stark contrast to Ilhyeon, which had sent a president-level figure.

The senior patted the junior’s cheek.

“When manager-level people show up as the decision-makers for a bid worth trillions of won, don’t you get it? Wake up. The news is a breaking-story fight. Get it to the desk, fast.”

At the senior’s words, the junior came to his senses and looked around. Reporters from the other papers had begun moving briskly, and a few had already broken into a run.

The junior held up the page and said to the senior,

“I’ll get it to the desk as fast as I can.”

“Instead of talking, run, would you!”

At the senior’s bellow, unable to hold back any longer, the junior turned and dashed out of the hall.

President Don-su Park smiled for a moment at the noisy mood and said to Seong-ho,

“Looks like the reporters have caught on now too.”

“Soon every citizen of Korea will know.”

President Don-su Park glanced at Seong-ho and said,

“About what we discussed last time…”

“It’ll proceed exactly as agreed, so you needn’t worry.”

“Then the equity-swap matter too…”

“That too, as I promised—in three years we’ll acquire all of the shares. Whatever the price by then.”

“Thank you. Hoo… I feel I can finally set my mind at ease.”

President Don-su Park had been anxious that Ilhyeon might, just possibly, have changed its mind.

Seong-ho said to the relieved-looking Don-su Park with a smile,

“It’s you, President Park, who must be sure to keep your promise—to lend us the amount corresponding to the acquisition funds.”

“Aigo. Don’t you worry. If it were up to my own heart, I’d want to hand it over this very instant.”

The banks’ loan doors were said to be shut fast, but that was no story that applied to Ilhyeon. Considering that the Ilhyeon Group’s bond yields ran even lower than Korea’s sovereign bonds, one could call the Ilhyeon Group the very safest place in all of Korea.

Having told Seong-ho not to worry, President Don-su Park gestured to the staffer in charge of running the bidding. With Seong-ho seated and his intent to participate expressed, the others hardly mattered.

At Don-su Park’s gesture, the Modu Bank staffer stepped forward and called out to the people in the hall.

“The bidding will begin in five minutes. Everyone, please take your seats. I’ll say it once more. In five minutes…”

At the staffer’s words, the people gathered in the hall made their way, one and two at a time, to their seats. And so the Doa Motors sale process—which had seen so many twists and turns—began to roll normally once again.

(End of Chapter 135)