"Chairman. Drive Sang-jong out? You must not."

Tak-hyeon Lee, who had been quietly sunk in thought, raised his head.

"What is it?"

Looking at Do-beom Hwang as though he found it strange, Tak-hyeon Lee lowered the hand that had been propping his chin and asked,

"It isn't as though it were the first time."

"It is different from Jeong-eun's time and Chang-jong's."

"Different how?"

Tak-hyeon Lee looked at Do-beom Hwang with a face that did not follow.

Do-beom Hwang explained to a Tak-hyeon Lee like that in as calm a tone as he could manage.

"With Jeong-eun and Chang-jong there was a justification. They siphoned off company funds and did the company great harm. But is this matter not a private delinquency? And the Secretary Park business can be spoken of as a decision made for his son's sake."

"A private delinquency…"

"He committed a wrong, so he must be punished. But there is not justification enough to put him out of Ilhyeon."

"You mean because he did the company no direct harm. Well… that is not a wrong thing to say either."

When Tak-hyeon Lee showed himself to understand, Do-beom Hwang let out a breath of relief.

And with a sense that it was fortunate, somewhat calmer now, he carried on.

"Settle it with the expulsion from Pyeongchang-dong alone, and let this matter pass."

"Even so, did he not smear ink on the company's name?"

"That he smeared ink on the name of Ilhyeon is true."

Do-beom Hwang agreed that Tak-hyeon Lee was not wrong, and took a step closer to him.

"I think a stern reprimand would be sufficient."

Tak-hyeon Lee nodded.

In truth he was of the same mind as Do-beom Hwang.

Because committing a crime out of feeling for his son, and felling a paulownia that was a natural monument for Suk-ja Chu's sake, and the rest of it, had in truth little enough to do with Ilhyeon.

But with the fact of a crime committed standing all the same, he was troubled as to whether it was right to keep him seated in the president's…