While Seong-ho was looking around the emptied-out office, Byeong-jin Jo came in.

Seong-ho, who’d been gazing at the bare desk, turned around and studied the Restructuring Headquarters employee who’d come in with Byeong-jin.

“Is this the fellow?”

Seong-ho asked, looking at the employee fidgeting at Byeong-jin’s side.

“Yes. This is the one who was in contact with the Vice-Chairman.”

Seong-ho nodded as if he understood and gestured to the employee.

“Don’t just stand there like that — sit and let’s talk. It got a bit dusty from packing up the belongings, but it’ll be far better than talking on your feet until your legs ache.”

Seong-ho pointed to the sofa left sitting forlornly in the large office and took a seat first.

And he gestured for the still-standing employee to sit across from him.

The employee hesitated, looking at Byeong-jin with a gaze that begged for help, then sat down.

Byeong-jin went and sat beside the employee too.

At Byeong-jin’s manner — as if to say he’d stay close since there was no telling when the man might bolt — the employee grew restless, and Seong-ho watched him with a smile.

“What did the Vice-Chairman ask of you?”

At Seong-ho’s question, the employee could say nothing and only dropped his head.

“Come now, Head… no, that’s not right. He’s not Head now. Anyway, come on and tell him.”

When Byeong-jin jabbed him in the side, the employee flinched and, with difficulty, opened his mouth.

“He said people from Mirae Group would come… and that I should guide the Mirae Group people… and let him know… he said.”

“Is that all?”

Byeong-jin glared at the employee.

At Byeong-jin’s gaze, the employee hurriedly dropped the head he’d been raising and said,

“A-and he asked me to testify later.”

“Oho, testify? What testimony did he ask you to give?”

When Seong-ho asked as if he found it amusing, the employee hurriedly shook his head.

“I don’t know. He just asked me to testify. That Mirae Group people had come… he said I only needed to say that much.”

The employee slowly lifted his head.

And, wearing a wronged expression, he said,

“He really said I only needed to say that. I… I truly had no intention of harming you, Head. Please believe me.”

When the employee, as if about to drop to his knees on the spot, tried to rise from the sofa, Byeong-jin held him down.

“I know. I understand.”

Seong-ho said it was all right and, smiling, extended a hand toward the employee.

“As you know, I’ve come to move to Ilhyeon Securities. Would you by any chance be willing to come along?”

“Me…? Me too?”

The employee asked Seong-ho with a startled face.

Byeong-jin was just as startled.

“The others will remain at the headquarters, but a few employees will come over to Ilhyeon Securities with me. Along with Team Leader Jo here.”

Byeong-jin couldn’t understand Seong-ho’s decision to take along an employee who’d committed espionage.

“How about it?”

When the employee couldn’t answer right away at the proposal to go to Ilhyeon Securities together and hemmed and hawed, Seong-ho told him to think it over for a bit and answer, then sent him out of the office.

Byeong-jin, who’d said nothing until the employee left the office, began asking Seong-ho what he’d been wondering once the man was gone.

“Why are you trying to take him along? Isn’t he Mun-jong Lee’s spy?”

Even after throwing out the question, Byeong-jin still seemed not to understand, tilting his head as he spoke.

“You’re the one who said there’d surely be a spy in the headquarters, so I dug him out — and now you’re taking him? You mean to take him along so he can keep on spying?”

“Right. I’m taking him along because it seems like it’d be good to have him keep spying.”

“…What?”

At the utterly unexpected answer, Byeong-jin stopped for a moment, unable to say anything.

Seong-ho, apparently finding Byeong-jin’s reaction amusing, looked at him for a moment before opening his mouth.

“If he keeps spying, then we don’t have to make the effort to find a spy, do we? You said you had a hard time digging this fellow out, didn’t you?”

At Seong-ho’s question, Byeong-jin nodded.

“Cross-checking the headquarters staff whose movements overlapped with Mun-jong’s side, one by one, to find him — yeah, it was a bit of a slog.”

“Right. And if it’s this much even with 200 headquarters staff, imagine how hard it’d be to move to Ilhyeon Securities and weed out every spy among the staff there?”

The moment he heard Seong-ho’s account, Byeong-jin could feel a sense of dizziness coming over him.

“So rather than that, let’s just open the path for him.”

Seong-ho sat with his legs crossed, looking at the door the employee had just left through, and said,

“We make information flow to Mun-jong through that fellow, and you just have to watch that one fellow. How about it? Then we save the trouble of figuring out which one’s the spy, and we can find out in advance the very information he carries over, can’t we?”

“And depending on the situation, we could run a counter-operation, too?”

Byeong-jin lifted the corner of his mouth and looked at Seong-ho.

“You caught on right away.”

Seong-ho snapped his fingers and smiled.

“Mun-jong won’t try to plant a new spy to extract information. Because he’ll no longer think of me as a threat. I’ve already lost my power, and he thinks I’m on his side. If he ever feels threatened again and tries to plant a spy…”

“He’ll go looking for the fellow he used before.”

“Right. And as it happens, that fellow will be right beside me again.”

Seong-ho looked silently at Byeong-jin, who’d chimed in with his words.

The two of them could tell what the other was trying to say just from exchanging glances.

And so the two spent their last day at the Restructuring Headquarters.

News spread that Ilhyeon Group’s Restructuring Headquarters Head had been replaced.

That they’d suffered a wretched affair at the American electronics show was something already known through the press, but people expressed surprise that the fallout from it had materialized.

People had only thought of it as Tak-hyeon being very angry.

They’d figured a person could get that way when angry, and that a reaction of that degree could come out.

So they’d expected that once he returned to Korea, he’d take his words back, and it would wrap up with Seong-ho saying he’d take the American affair as a lesson and never let the same thing happen again.

But that expectation was completely overturned.

“So what happens now?”

“What do you mean, what happens — didn’t you see the headquarters announcement? They said they raised the Deputy Head to Head and posted him to our company.”

The Ilhyeon Securities employees gathered before an ashtray set up in one corner of the office, smoking as they talked.

“Wow, I never even imagined he’d really fire him…”

“Who would ever have imagined it — what kind of place is the Restructuring Headquarters? It’s a place Head Seong-ho Kim built and directed. It’s thanks to that we could get through this IMF era without a big blow… Other companies were busy cutting staff and pulling out of businesses, but Ilhyeon didn’t, and that was all because of Head Seong-ho Kim…”

The Ilhyeon Securities employee, apparently thinking the treatment of Seong-ho was too harsh no matter how he looked at it, trailed off, shook his head, ground out his cigarette in the ashtray, and opened his mouth again.

“Anyway, our Chairman is coldhearted in a frightening way. How could he drive out Head Kim, of all people?”

“But isn’t ‘drive out’ a bit much? Of all places, it’s Ilhyeon Securities… Ilhyeon Securities is counted among the front lines within Ilhyeon Group, isn’t it?”

“Of course he was driven out. You look at this place and still call it front line?”

The employee who’d ground out his cigarette in the ashtray raised a hand toward his colleague.

In this spot, smoke thick as if they were smoking out a raccoon, many Ilhyeon Securities employees were gathered, smoking.

“There are more people gathered here than there are in the office. And that during trading hours, of all times.”

Ordinarily, this was a time to be watching the market’s movements, sparing even the time to eat.

But the employees, not content with just smoking, were gathered making idle chat, waiting only for quitting time to arrive.

“This is exile. Exile. And from that, I’ve come to know one thing for certain.”

“What did you come to know?”

“That the Chairman means to give up on Ilhyeon Securities.”

“Huh? Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

At the sudden remark, the other colleague’s eyes went round.

At this reaction from his colleague, the employee pulled another cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and said,

“Look at the company’s mood. Is any proper work getting done right now? Or is the company even making money properly? If anything, it’s spending money like pouring water into a bottomless jar, so much that there’s even talk of whether we’ll have to pull funds in from somewhere. And on top of that, they send down someone who’s fallen out of favor? What could that be but an intention to abandon the company?”

“Give up our Ilhyeon Securities?”

Instead of answering his colleague’s question, the employee let out a long exhale of cigarette smoke.

And it wasn’t only the two of them exchanging talk of that sort.

Byeong-jin, getting out of the car with Seong-ho, studied the apartment complex visible in the distance and said to Seong-ho,

“Housing prices have dropped enormously here too. They say that model apartment over there doesn’t even go for 200 million won.”

Seong-ho looked at the model apartment Byeong-jin had pointed to and nodded.

“There’s no way apartment prices would be fine here of all places.”

“They say this is one of the hardest-hit areas. And it makes sense — with all the companies here about to close their doors, how would the homes around them be fine?”

Byeong-jin spoke, looking around at the buildings of the securities firms visible nearby.

If you were to name the industry hit hardest by the currency crisis, it was, no matter what anyone said, the financial industry.

And among those, the securities industry had taken a blow so large it was beyond comparison with anywhere else.

More than ten securities firms had closed their doors, and even the remaining companies were mostly either awaiting sale or seriously considering pulling out of the business.

“If you like one, buy it. Buying a home right now isn’t a bad idea. Especially Yeouido or the Gangnam area — if you buy, you’ll have some fun with it later.”

Byeong-jin looked at Seong-ho with a dumbfounded gaze.

“Hey. The price dropping a lot so it doesn’t even go for 200 million won doesn’t mean I have 200 million won, does it? What good is it dropping? I don’t have the money.”

Seong-ho looked quietly at the head-shaking Byeong-jin and said,

“Shall I lend it to you?”

“Hey, hey.”

Byeong-jin was aghast at Seong-ho’s words and waved his hands.

“Don’t go saying things like that so easily and lead me into temptation.”

“What?”

Finding Byeong-jin’s words funny, Seong-ho asked, barely holding back laughter.

But Byeong-jin, the one concerned, spoke with a very serious expression.

“It may be words you say easily, with no meaning behind them, but I get shaken by those words.”

“I’m sincere, though?”

“Argh, sincere or not, if I say don’t, then don’t.”

Byeong-jin shook his head hard, turned it the other way, and said,

“If I borrow from you like that once or twice, I’ll get used to it and turn lazy. And if that happens, the way you look at me will change too.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

Byeong-jin spat out the words resolutely, turned his head, and looked at Seong-ho.

“I know you’re rich and have a lot of money. But even so, I can’t just latch onto that and take help and all that.”

“I’m only trying to lend you money. It’s not that I’m looking down on you or anything.”

“I know. Of course I know you don’t mean it that way. It’s just that what I mean is…”

Byeong-jin, pausing for a moment, spotted several people approaching at a hurried pace toward where he and Seong-ho stood, from inside the building.

And, realizing it was about time to wrap up the conversation, he said to Seong-ho in a slightly lower voice,

“What I borrowed from you to invest when we went to LA is enough. If I get into the habit of borrowing money from you again and again, I’ll keep relying on you. And then our relationship might change into something strange rather than friends. You know what I mean, right?”

Seong-ho nodded and looked at the Ilhyeon Securities executives who were opening the door and coming in at some point.

Byeong-jin drew close to Seong-ho and spoke in a voice only Seong-ho could hear,

“It’s true now, but I want to keep being your friend from now on, too.”

At Byeong-jin’s words, Seong-ho felt his chest grow warm.

“Of course. No matter what anyone says, you’re my friend.”

The two smiled facing each other, and toward the two of them came the voices of the Ilhyeon Securities executives.

“We welcome President Seong-ho Kim.”

(End of Chapter 169)