“Father!”

Late at night, Sang-jong came to Tak-hyeon’s darkened house in Pyeongchang-dong. From the yard onward he called loudly for Tak-hyeon as he came inside.

“What on earth is this behavior?”

Suk-ja Chu, in a thin outer garment, came out with a frown to meet him. “Have you been drinking? What are you doing coming here in the dead of night?”

“Had a little to drink.” Sang-jong lifted his fingers right up before his eyes as he said it.

Suk-ja went to him and struck his back with the flat of her hand.

“Ow! Mom. Why are you hitting me?”

“If you’ve something to say, you come and say it while the sun’s up. What kind of behavior is this now? What if your father found out?”

“I really came because I have something to say to Father. Something truly important.”

Displeased, it seemed, at the sight of Sang-jong speaking with his tongue thoroughly tangled, Suk-ja sighed and waved a hand. “Enough. Off you go.”

Terrified of the thunderous scolding that would fall if Tak-hyeon happened to see this, she kept glancing back at the master bedroom as she shoved at Sang-jong’s back.

But Sang-jong dug in, refusing to go, and went on calling for Tak-hyeon. “Father. I’m here. It’s Sang-jong. I’ve something to say, and it’s truly important.”

“Has the boy lost his mind? Why are you like this today of all days!”

Startled by Sang-jong’s steadily rising voice, Suk-ja pushed him away harder. But Sang-jong shoved past her and, going further into the house instead, called for Tak-hyeon louder still.

“Father. I said I’m here!”

In the end, his voice brought out not only the household staff but Seong-ho and Gyeong-eun from the second floor, throwing coats on.

“Brother. Are you drunk?”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Gyeong-eun. Kim. Take him out, would you? If your father sees this, there’ll be trouble.”

Unable to bring herself to tell the staff to take Sang-jong out, Suk-ja asked Gyeong-eun and Seong-ho to do it.

But making a mockery of her worry, Tak-hyeon’s voice came from the master bedroom. “Bring him in.”

At the booming voice, Suk-ja pictured in her mind Sang-jong’s future — a severe dressing-down from Tak-hyeon — and brought the flat of her hand down on his back once more. “Ugh. You fool of a boy.”

As if the back she’d struck stung, Sang-jong flinched once, then walked toward the master bedroom where Tak-hyeon was.

Watching him go in, Suk-ja turned to the staff who’d come out and waved a hand. “Everyone, back to bed.”

At her word, the staff who’d come into the living room wondering what was going on turned, one by one, and went back to their rooms. Seong-ho and Gyeong-eun headed up to the second floor to turn in again as well.

“However drunk Sang-jong gets, he was never the type to come to Pyeongchang-dong and make a drunken scene — do you think something’s really happened?”

At Gyeong-eun’s question, Seong-ho recalled what had been written in the leather diary he’d looked at a few days before.

January, 19XX. Dubo Steel was finally declared insolvent. The Dubo Group — which had been engulfed in controversy years earlier, tangled up in a corruption scandal that had set the whole country abuzz — collapsed at last. And of all people, second brother got mixed up in this matter. Dubo Group had put Dubo Steel—

Recalling the memory of that former life and the writing in the diary, Seong-ho looked at the master bedroom Sang-jong had entered. He could anticipate the sort of conversation that would pass in there.

So to the curious Gyeong-eun, he offered a word of counsel. “Are you paying down the debt as I said last time?”

“Yes, I am, but… there’s fierce pushback internally.”

“Did they have something to say about clearing even bank loans you don’t strictly need to?”

“They did. Well…”

Coming into the room, Gyeong-eun leaned back against the head of the bed and sat. Awake now anyway, she didn’t lie straight down, meaning to talk with Seong-ho at least.

Seong-ho climbed onto the bed and sat too, and picked up where he’d left off. “So how far did you decide to clear?”

“At the executives’ meeting, the talk is leaning toward early-redeeming the bonds issued at 9% and carrying the bank loans to maturity.”

“Clearing the 9%-rate bonds was well done… As for the bank loans — do they by any chance include dollar or yen loans?”

“Yes. There turned out to be quite a lot of foreign-currency loans taken back when the exchange rate was favorable. The rate’s climbed a good deal recently, but even so it’s lower than won-denominated loans, so the talk is leaning toward just leaving those. If the rate happens to fall, we could even see a foreign-exchange gain.”

“That won’t do.”

At that, Seong-ho shook his head firmly.

“Won’t do? What is it that won’t do?”

“The foreign-currency loans need to be cleared too.”

“Really? They recommended keeping them, saying that if the rate drops, we’d see the loans shrink just sitting still.”

“You have to think of the reverse, too.”

Lying side by side under the covers, Gyeong-eun and Seong-ho turned their heads to face each other and went on talking.

“In reverse — if the rate rises, the debt piles up just sitting still. Right now the dollar’s in the mid-800-won range. Every 100 won this rate climbs, the debt grows by more than 10%. The interest rate is a secondary matter.”

Gyeong-eun cocked her head. Because Seong-ho was saying something entirely different from what the finance director had said. She told him what she’d heard at the meeting. “They said that even ten years ago it never got past 900 won. That even with something enormous like the June Uprising, around 890 won was the ceiling… and that with nothing amiss now, there’s no way it’ll ever reach 900 — it can only fall.”

“If nothing’s amiss, that would be so.”

Gyeong-eun nodded, then said, “So there is something.”

In answer, Seong-ho only smiled quietly. But that alone seemed answer enough, and she spoke as if resolving herself. “All right. Then I’ll press harder and give the order to clear the foreign-currency loans.”

“And if you can manage it, I’d also recommend converting some of your cash into dollars.”

“Convert part of the funds into dollars, even?”

Sleep chased clean off her face, Gyeong-eun looked at him. Because she’d realized this wasn’t simply a matter of clearing debt to improve financial soundness.

To the startled Gyeong-eun, Seong-ho began, in a calm voice, to explain the things Ilhyeon Hotel had to prepare for.

Having stayed up the whole night talking, Gyeong-eun was getting ready to leave for work. Checking one last time that her makeup had gone on well, she said to Seong-ho, “I’ll proceed just as you said, right away.”

“If there’s any pushback, get help from Deputy Head Jeong and Manager Jo. I’ll have a word with them.”

“With those two helping, we’ll be able to press down the objections without trouble. Those two still pass for grim reapers around the company, after all.”

Gyeong-eun said it with a bright smile. And she looked with amusement at the sight of Seong-ho — called the living blade of Ilhyeon Group for the way he’d restructured Ilhyeon Watch and Ilhyeon Hotel — standing before her, tenderly holding her coat and waiting.

“If the staff knew you were this attentive, they’d be shocked.”

“Just how do the staff think of me, exactly?”

“How do they think of you? As a terrifying man with no blood, no tears, and a heart made of steel. No — they may not think of you as a person at all.”

Coming down still with smiles at their lips, the two met Tak-hyeon, likewise getting ready for work.

“Oh my. Dad. You’re leaving for work already?”

Gyeong-eun looked at him in surprise. He usually left around ten or eleven, but it was now just past six.

“Ugh, Sang-jong woke him clean up, so now he says he’s going in,” said Suk-ja, her eyes bloodshot, smoothing Tak-hyeon’s clothes with her hand. “Won’t you sleep a little more instead of just going? Or at least eat before you go.”

“I’ll eat out, so don’t worry.” Having told her not to worry, Tak-hyeon looked at Gyeong-eun. “You see to your company work and then come straight over to head office.”

“Sorry? Is something the matter?”

“You’ll know when you come, so just come over.”

At the words that she’d know when she came, Seong-ho thought to himself, So second brother’s late-night visit really was about that.

He’d anticipated why Tak-hyeon was going in from dawn.

Tak-hyeon gazed quietly at Seong-ho, who was watching him without a word, then opened his mouth. “Do you have anything else to do today?”

Gyeong-eun and Suk-ja looked at him, taken aback. Because Tak-hyeon — who ordinarily took no interest in whatever Seong-ho did — was today asking Seong-ho whether he had other business.

Seong-ho shook his head. “No. Nothing in particular.”

“Is that so?” Tak-hyeon considered a moment, then pointed a finger at him. “You come out too.”

“To head office?”

“Come straight up to my office.”

With that order to come to his office, Tak-hyeon left the house ahead of them.

Watching Tak-hyeon’s car pull away, Gyeong-eun asked Seong-ho, “Do you know why Dad told you to come?”

“It’s probably because of Sang-jong coming yesterday.”

“Sang-jong?”

“Yes.”

When Gyeong-eun’s car arrived, Seong-ho went himself to the back door and opened it. Ushering her in, he said, “Just settle the matter we talked about last night, then come straight over.”

“Do you happen to know why Sang-jong came, too?”

“Faintly… I think I do.”

At his answer, Gyeong-eun smiled a knew it smile and climbed in. Before he closed the door, Seong-ho offered her one word of counsel. “It’ll likely be hard to speak separately before we meet in the chairman’s office later, so I’ll say it now. Whatever’s said in there later, you take the opposing position.”

“Oppose it? But we don’t even know yet what’ll be discussed.”

Gyeong-eun said it — how could she oppose before knowing what would be said? But she soon realized Seong-ho already knew what the matter was, and laughed lightly.

“You said you know why we’re gathering, didn’t you? All right. I’ll do that. I’m against it, whatever it is.”

“Yes. That’s right. Against it, no matter what.”

Having gotten his confirmation once more, Seong-ho left Gyeong-eun a word about seeing her shortly and closed the car door. Then he stood in place a while, quietly watching her departed car, before turning and going inside.

The chairman’s secretariat was moving busily.

At the order of Chairman Tak-hyeon, who’d come in early at dawn, every staffer in the secretariat was mobilizing every channel it could to gather information.

Do-beom Hwang, directing the secretariat at the front, compiled what had been gathered so far. “How’s it going?”

“Modu Bank holds about 150 billion won in bonds. All maturing in three years, at a bond rate of 6%.”

“Modu is 150 billion… and what about Gangdong Bank?”

“Gangdong Bank is 80 billion. There’s six months to maturity, but they said discussions about extending it are already underway with the Dubo Group side.”

“Maturity’s nearly due, but talks about an extension are beginning…”

Do-beom organized the information the secretariat staff had brought into his notebook. Then he glanced toward the chairman’s office where the Ilhyeon family had gathered, and murmured to himself, “If Dubo Steel passes to Sang-jong… how will that turn out.”

Thinking that Ilhyeon Group was in for a noisy time ahead, Do-beom shook his head.

(End of Chapter 59)