Jung-seo Kim and the rest sat in the waiting room, talking among themselves.

"Aah. Of all the sitting about we do, this is the worst of it."

Du-ho Song, Mu-yeop Shin's driver, said it as he stretched.

"To be in a drinking house and not able to drink is a torment, I tell you. Is it not?"

Byeong-hui Jang seemed to be of the same mind. He smacked his lips and answered,

"If they gave us nothing to eat with it I should not think about it at all — but the food comes and the drink does not, and that is worse still. Is it not so, Brother Seong?"

"Well, for my part…"

Ju-cheol Seong glanced round at the others and put on a face that said he did not mind.

"I can do without the women, but the drink… I do miss that."

Jung-seo Kim agreed with him.

Byeong-hui Jang seemed to like him for it. He clapped his hands and moved over beside him.

"You think so too, younger brother?"

It was a form of address settled without anyone's consent, but Jung-seo Kim took no offense at it.

Because if Byeong-hui Jang had not come at it this way, it was a thing he would have had to do himself first.

"But tell me, younger brother."

Byeong-hui Jang put it to him in a low, coaxing voice.

"Have you driven Vice-Chairman Kim's car a long while yourself?"

"Four years, counting by the year."

"Four years is a good long while, then. You will have become his driver not long after the Vice-Chairman rose to the board."

"Yes. I came in after he had taken a president's chair. Before that, when he was on the board, he used a car and driver the company provided. After that it was me."

"I see. Then you must be on close terms with Vice-Chairman Kim as well?"

Byeong-hui Jang caught Du-ho Song's eye.

The look held in the air a moment and broke, as though something had passed between them in it.

It was an instant so brief that a man…