Mun-jong Lee laughed a good while yet, then raised his glass and said to Seong-ho Kim with a smile,

"Two good younger brothers at a stroke — that must please you?"

Seong-ho Kim looked quietly down at him.

In those days too he made brothers of men like these, and readily enough.

It was partly to draw out just this that he had come.

Whatever else, what matters now is not me but Driver Kim.

The leading man tonight was not himself but Driver Kim. With that in mind, Seong-ho Kim spoke.

"Brother. Then I shall tell you."

"Yes, yes. From now on you may speak freely with these two here."

Mun-jong Lee said it as though it were nothing, and raised his glass to his lips.

Chan-seok Park and Mu-yeop Shin set their glasses down and said nothing, their eyes moving quickly.

They too knew that what mattered just now was not the business of taking Seong-ho Kim for an elder brother.

Seong-ho Kim looked at the pair of them a moment, and began on the reason he had come.

"This morning I saw the second brother, and the fourth as well."

At the word that he had seen Sang-jong Lee and Chang-jong Lee, Mun-jong Lee's face did not change.

Because the affairs of those two no longer held any interest for him.

But what Seong-ho Kim said next changed that.

"The fourth brother asks to be given Ilhyeon Chemical."

"What? Asks to be given what?"

Crack!

Mun-jong Lee set his glass down on the table so hard it was a wonder it did not break, and spoke in a voice full of rage.

"He asked to be given Ilhyeon Chemical? The mad little— does he know what that is, to be asking for it?"

"He says he will take it out with my sister-in-law."

"Jeong-eun?"

"Yes. He asked me to pass on to the Chairman and to you that he wishes to separate with Ilhyeon Chemical."

"Ilhyeon Chemical is a thing we could not give if three of them asked, or four."

He said it in a hard…