“Chairman. Congratulations.”
“Chairman. You’ve finally got Doa Motors in hand. Congratulations.”
“Father. Congratulations.”
The members of Tak-hyeon’s family gathered at Pyeongchang-dong offered their congratulations, every last one of them. At the sight of his children and daughters-in-law tendering their greetings as if in competition, Tak-hyeon—who ordinarily would have called it noise—today alone wore a delighted, smiling face as he received them.
“It’s not over yet—why are you all in such a fuss?”
Just then Jeong-eun said, bluntly, what was there to fuss about.
“He’s only just been chosen as the top-priority negotiation target. Doa Motors hasn’t been fully absorbed into the Ilhyeon Group at all, so why is everyone like this? Isn’t it right to rejoice after the final award comes through?”
“Being made top-priority negotiation target is as good as the Doa Motors acquisition being confirmed. Why so negative?”
Sang-jong said to Jeong-eun as if he couldn’t understand her.
“The talks are already done and the first button’s fastened, so it’s as good as settled. A thing doesn’t have to be in your pocket to be yours. As long as it’s confirmed to come in later, that’s enough. Isn’t that right, Head Kim?”
Seong-ho smiled softly at Sang-jong’s question and answered.
“The details are being tuned, but the broad frame won’t change. The Doa Motors acquisition will come to pass even if the sky splits in two, so there’s no need to worry.”
“See? Head Kim says so himself.”
The moment Seong-ho finished, Sang-jong said to Jeong-eun, wasn’t he right.
With no more room to throw up objections, Jeong-eun turned her head away, and the other family members once again offered their congratulations to Tak-hyeon as if in competition, conjuring a warm and convivial mood.
When the congratulations, which had gone on a while, came to an end, people’s interest tilted elsewhere. The fate of Ilhyeon Motors—which had acquired Doa Motors—rose to the top of everyone’s concern.
But not one person was first to raise it. Broach it carelessly and you might become the target, the one catching the arrows. Those present read one another’s faces and waited for Tak-hyeon’s word.
Whether he was enjoying his children’s anxious watching, Tak-hyeon only gazed at them with a faint smile, letting them stew.
As a wordless war of nerves passed back and forth over who would speak first, Chief Do-beom Hwang approached Tak-hyeon with a flustered face.
“Chairman. A moment…”
Tak-hyeon, who’d been smiling, sent Do-beom a look asking what the matter was.
Do-beom glanced for a moment at Mun-jong and the others present and, wearing only a troubled expression, couldn’t answer.
Sensing something off in Do-beom’s face, Tak-hyeon rose from his seat.
“Wait here a moment.”
Ordinarily, Tak-hyeon would have wrapped up the gathering right there. But today he told them to wait rather than leave. Mun-jong and the others faintly sensed that what Tak-hyeon meant to say concerned Ilhyeon Motors, the company that had acquired Doa Motors.
When Tak-hyeon left, following Do-beom, Jeong-eun was the first to speak up.
“He’s going to say he’ll split off Ilhyeon Motors and give it to someone, isn’t he?”
“You made a scene not long ago about taking the Ilhyeon Card president’s seat—and now you covet Ilhyeon Motors?”
“And what about you, then? You said Ilhyeon Construction was plenty for you—so why do you covet Ilhyeon Motors?”
“When did I covet it?”
“You covet it, so you drag me into it, don’t you?”
“When did I?”
At the steadily rising voices, Mun-jong knit his brow and said,
“Stop it. Father hasn’t gone anywhere.”
At his words, Sang-jong’s and Jeong-eun’s mouths shut. The two glanced toward the study where Tak-hyeon was, reading the mood. Confirming there was no reaction from the study, Jeong-eun turned her head away first, and Sang-jong followed, avoiding her gaze, and the brief squabble settled.
As silence hung over the living room for a moment, Mun-jong asked Chang-jong,
“Is your wife all ready to leave?”
“She should be.”
Chang-jong answered vaguely, as if speaking of someone who had nothing to do with him.
Mun-jong wanted to ask about the child too. But with the other siblings, his sister-in-law, and even his own wife present, he couldn’t ask about the child and only read the room.
“How’s the child?”
Sensing Mun-jong’s heart, Seong-ho asked Chang-jong on his behalf.
Mun-jong sent Seong-ho a grateful glance and listened for Chang-jong’s answer. But this answer, too, was the same as when he’d been asked about Eun-a Jang.
“Growing well, I suppose.”
At Chang-jong speaking as if of some other household’s child, the siblings present looked at him strangely. Because however much it was a child fathered outside, unlike the eldest’s child of uncertain paternity, this was a child even proven by blood to be his—so they’d assumed he would dote on it. Yet Chang-jong spoke of it as if it were a stranger’s child, and Sang-jong and Jeong-eun looked at him with puzzled eyes.
“Don’t tell me you…”
Just as Jeong-eun was about to say something to Chang-jong, Tak-hyeon showed himself again. Jeong-eun stopped what she’d meant to say and looked at Tak-hyeon with a tense face. Unlike when he’d left the living room, Tak-hyeon had come back wearing an expression as if he might explode at any second.
Tak-hyeon looked around at his children and raised a finger.
“Only Vice-Chairman Lee, Vice-President Lee, and Head Kim stay—the rest of you go home.”
With the finger he’d raised, Tak-hyeon singled out Mun-jong, Chang-jong, and Seong-ho.
Jeong-eun and the other family members looked at Tak-hyeon with faces that didn’t understand.
“We can’t be here?”
“I’ve something to say, so I told them to stay. You, no useless talk—go.”
Jeong-eun, reading his mood, pushed back against Tak-hyeon’s words.
“Don’t tell me you mean to hand Ilhyeon Motors over to eldest brother or to Chang-jong?”
“No.”
“It is that. That’s why you told them to stay.”
At Jeong-eun’s words, Sang-jong’s eyes changed too. Sang-jong, who’d thought getting Ilhyeon Construction was enough, coveted Ilhyeon Motors—now that it held Doa Motors—after all.
Looking between the covetous Sang-jong and the defiant Jeong-eun, Tak-hyeon suddenly shouted.
“I said it is not about Ilhyeon Motors. And even if it were about Ilhyeon Motors, must I grant it just because you don’t like it? Is Ilhyeon Motors yours?!”
“No. It isn’t, but…”
The face of Tak-hyeon—already full of anger from the moment he’d returned to the living room—burned red. Jabbing a finger at Jeong-eun, he raised his voice.
“Listen well. Ilhyeon is mine. Don’t forget that everything you enjoy is something I gave you. Among the things with the word ‘Ilhyeon’ written on them, not one is yours.”
At his words, Jeong-eun could say nothing.
Still not cooled, Tak-hyeon spoke to the other children and daughters-in-law present as well.
“If there is anyone who does harm to Ilhyeon and to me, I will not leave them be. Whoever it may be…!”
Perhaps the thought struck him that it might be aimed at himself, for Mun-jong didn’t dare meet Tak-hyeon’s gaze and dropped his head. Tak-hyeon snorted at the sight of him and opened his mouth again.
“If you’ve understood, all of you go. You three, follow me.”
Tak-hyeon turned and headed for the study.
Mun-jong and Chang-jong rose carefully from their seats and, with the eyes of oxen being dragged to the slaughterhouse, went to Tak-hyeon’s study in dread. Only Seong-ho, wearing an unbothered face, reassured the worried Gyeong-eun and then headed for the study.
“Brother, what on earth is going on?”
At the sight of Tak-hyeon in such a fury, Mun-jong asked Do-beom, standing before the study.
Looking back and forth between Mun-jong, who’d come close to ask, and Chang-jong, who stood beside him waiting for an answer, Do-beom let out a short sigh and pushed at Mun-jong’s back.
“Go in. You’ll know once you’re inside.”
Mun-jong caught that Do-beom found it hard to speak of.
“What in the world could it be that…”
“What are you doing out there? Get in here, quick.”
At the voice of Tak-hyeon, who’d gone into the study ahead of them, Mun-jong hurriedly opened the study door.
“Yes. We’re coming in. Let’s go in, quick.”
Telling Chang-jong and Seong-ho to come in, Mun-jong went in first. Chang-jong followed with a look that said he had no idea what was happening, and Seong-ho went into the study last.
Fwap!
The instant Mun-jong stepped into the study, a magazine came flying at his face.
“Ow!”
Not having expected a magazine to come flying at all, Mun-jong cried out before he knew it and clutched his face.
“Look at that properly. What in the world is this!”
Instead of asking whether he was all right, Tak-hyeon had told the face-clutching Mun-jong to look at the magazine.
Mun-jong rubbed the cheek the magazine had struck and picked up the fallen magazine.
“Which one…”
Not knowing what he was being told to look at, Mun-jong raised his head as if to ask which one. And into his eyes came the small letters printed on the cover.
[I Group in Uproar Over Chaebol Second-Generation’s Out-of-Wedlock Child]
Flustered, Mun-jong hurriedly flipped the magazine open and read down the page where the cover story was printed.
“Domestic I Group is in an uproar over an out-of-wedlock child. It has come to light that the eldest son of I Group, a leading conglomerate, fathered a child with his secretary. I Group is a company without peer in our country, and I Group’s eldest son currently holds the group’s vice-chairman post…”
Unable to finish reading the article, Mun-jong lifted his head with a flustered face.
“Give it here.”
Chang-jong, beside him, snatched the magazine from Mun-jong’s hand and read the rest of the article.
Tak-hyeon stared hard at the flustered, startled Mun-jong. And in a weighty voice, he asked about the article printed in the magazine.
“The magazine says it’s your child—what is this about?”
“My child…”
Brother. No matter what happens, you have to insist it isn’t. Even if it’s Father you’re facing.
Mun-jong recalled the words Seong-ho had impressed upon him so many times. He’d said that no matter what situation Mun-jong fell into, he had to insist it was Chang-jong’s child. And he’d emphasized over and over that even if the one before him was Tak-hyeon, he must never, ever admit it. At the time it had struck Mun-jong as nothing but a nuisance, so he’d answered half-heartedly and tried to brush it off with an “I understand, don’t worry.” But Seong-ho had held onto him and repeated it to the point of tedium, and as a result, in a situation like this, Mun-jong was able to recall Seong-ho’s words.
“It’s not my child.”
“It’s not your child?”
Tak-hyeon glared as if to scour out his insides and asked again. But even under that gaze, Mun-jong didn’t back down and denied it.
“That’s right. The DNA test came out that Chang-jong is the father—how could it be my child? It’s nothing but nonsense.”
After glaring at Mun-jong for a good while, Tak-hyeon eased the force from his eyes, nodded, and opened his mouth.
“Right. From now on, wherever you go and whomever you meet, you must say it exactly that way.”
“What? Ah… yes.”
At Tak-hyeon saying the very same thing Seong-ho had, Mun-jong was taken aback.
“This article is spreading fast right now.”
Tak-hyeon pointed a finger at the magazine, which had passed from Chang-jong’s hand into Seong-ho’s, and said,
“The story first broke through that magazine today, and tomorrow, they say, two or so more places will run it. That it reaches the dailies within a few days is only a matter of time… Who spread it? Was it you?”
Tak-hyeon pointed his finger at Chang-jong.
“How could it be? If it gets out, I’ll be the one cursed the most—why would I have spread the article?”
“Then was it you?”
Tak-hyeon’s finger pointed at Seong-ho.
Having swiftly skimmed the article, Seong-ho closed the magazine, rolled it up in his grip, and said to Tak-hyeon,
“Only one place has it so far, so it can be stopped. I’ll do everything I can to stop it.”
Tak-hyeon bored his gaze into Seong-ho’s eyes—Seong-ho had given a different answer to his question. But Seong-ho wasn’t shaken in the least under that gaze. If anything, he was the first to speak, in a manner that said there was no time.
“Chairman. We have to stop it before it spreads further. The article is written to bring us to mind. The only man in Korea who is both an eldest son and carries the title of vice-chairman is Brother here. We have to stop it before it spreads any further.”
“So—was it you?”
Not taking his eyes off him even as he listened, Tak-hyeon asked Seong-ho once more.
Seong-ho unrolled the magazine he’d been gripping, held it up, and said,
“Whether it was me or not, that’s not what matters right now. Stopping it comes first. Chairman. Give the order, quickly.”
Seong-ho had, on the contrary, pressed Tak-hyeon—what did it matter who had spread the story? Tak-hyeon closed his eyes at Seong-ho’s pressing, opened them, and headed for the sofa.
“Sit, for now. Let’s sit and talk over how to respond.”
At his words, the flustered Mun-jong and Chang-jong went to the sofa. And Seong-ho—the very one who’d leaked the story—sat down last, the magazine still in his grip, and began to discuss the countermeasures for the out-of-wedlock-child affair.
(End of Chapter 136)