Crispy Outside, Soft Inside: Gil Donggyu (1)
Seonkang Group chairman’s office.
After losing a hundred billion won on futures, Chairman Seon Kangsik had been raging for days.
It wasn’t merely the hundred billion. The real sting was the comparison to Lee Jaseung; for a while now he had become a laughingstock at every business gathering.
The chief secretary huddled quietly in a corner, trying to stay clear of the blast radius, when Seon Kangsik suddenly spoke.
“Secretary Kim.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think he did it on purpose?”
“Pardon?”
“That Lee Jaseung bastard. You think he took the short position just to screw me over?”
The secretary flinched at the pure paranoia. The idea that Lee Jaseung would pull a stunt that dangerous simply to humiliate Seonkang Group was absurd.
“It was probably just a string of coincidences, sir.”
He cut off the nonsense in a carefully neutral tone, then, watching the chairman’s face, ventured the real agenda.
“About that hundred billion, Chairman… how do you intend to handle it?”
“What about it?”
Seon Kangsik’s complete nonchalance threw the secretary off balance. The hundred billion the chairman had pulled out was company money—specifically, funds borrowed under the pretext of acquiring Hitex.
“Shouldn’t we put it back? Until the Hitex deal closes, leaving the hole unfilled could cause problems.”
“…Ahem. That measly hundred billion. I was planning to replace it before the acquisition anyway.”
“Yes, sir. I only mentioned it in case it had slipped your mind.”
“As if I’d forget. Speaking of which—how is the Hitex acquisition progressing?”
The Hitex deal was a core strategy for securing the next growth engine. Even after its workout, Hitex still possessed the best technology in the country. Factoring in synergies with future industries, it was the perfect choice for Seonkang Group.
Then a variable appeared.
“It seems we have a competitor.”
“A competitor? Weren’t you confident we would be named preferred bidder? Who’s sticking their nose in?”
“Gil Donggyu has stepped forward. The eldest son of KG Group.”
“KG already turned it down. They’re jumping in now?”
“No, sir. It isn’t an official KG Group project. The eldest son is pursuing it alone.”
Seon Kangsik narrowed his eyes.
“You’re certain? This isn’t KG using the son as a front?”
“Doesn’t appear so. He’s moving in a personal capacity.”
“Hmm. Is that so.”
Seon Kangsik had spoken with Gil Donggyu privately once. The young man was as solid and straightforward as his size suggested.
Thought he was just a bear, but apparently he’s got drive. Still… something’s off.
“Where does a son get that kind of money by himself? Hitex is worth at least three trillion. Even with leverage he’d need 1.2 trillion in equity. That’s not an amount an individual can raise.”
“Uh… well…”
The secretary faltered. Seon Kangsik’s brow furrowed.
“What?”
“Apparently he invested in gas futures through Lee Jaseung and hit the jackpot. Put in about a hundred billion and walked away with four hundred billion…”
“….”
The anger he thought he had buried flared back to life.
A hundred billion turned into four hundred? While I lost a hundred billion!
Same period, same stake—and Gil Donggyu had made four hundred billion.
Worse still: he was using that money to jump into the Hitex bidding war.
The gas futures already blew up in my face. If Hitex ends up in KG’s hands as well…
Seon Kangsik felt his insides twist.
“We can’t let them interfere with Hitex too.”
“How do you want to handle it, sir?”
The moment a competitor appeared, the price would climb. He had no intention of throwing away extra money because some late-arriving minnow had muddied the water.
He drummed his fingers on the desk for a long while, then finally spoke.
“We keep him from even entering the race.”
“Sir? How?”
Gil Donggyu’s weakness was obvious: zero group support. That was why he had been out risking money on futures in the first place.
“We rattle his financing. Without cash he’ll try to form a consortium. Do we have anything on that?”
“Yes. I gathered a rough list.”
The secretary handed over a thin file.
“This is the roster Gil Donggyu is approaching for the consortium.”
“Perfect structure for a little pressure.”
A consortium—an alliance of interested parties. And interests were thin things; they could be peeled off and reattached elsewhere with ease.
Seon Kangsik smiled.
“Let’s peel the consortium members over to our side.”
Gil Donggyu clenched his trembling hands into fists so the shaking wouldn’t show.
After a deep breath he turned to his secretary.
“They suddenly say they can’t join the consortium? What the hell wind blew through them?”
“We’re still confirming the exact reason, but it appears they reversed their position overnight.”
The plan had been perfect: five hundred billion of his own equity, seven hundred billion from the consortium, the rest finished with project-finance loans.
Why did the consortium collapse out of nowhere? And if it collapses… time is already short…
He forced the rising anxiety down and spoke again.
“I need time to look into this. Clear my entire schedule. And the moment you reach any of the companies that were supposed to join, report to me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
For the next several days Gil Donggyu’s life became a nonstop blur of phone calls. After every conversation he scribbled notes; when the final call ended he snapped his pen clean in half.
“Seonkang Group.”
A European semiconductor-equipment firm had committed two hundred billion to the consortium. Then Seonkang Group promised that, once they acquired Hitex, they would use that firm’s equipment exclusively.
Gil Donggyu hurled the broken pen to the floor.
“Damn it!”
He was the third-generation heir of KG Group, and he was being discarded like this. Granted, the opponent was the seasoned Chairman Seon Kangsik… but it still wounded his pride.
Seon Kangsik’s intention was crystal clear.
He wants me shoved off the board entirely so I can’t even sit at the table.
With a key participant gone, the consortium was unraveling at speed; major private-equity funds were one by one shifting to a wait-and-see stance.
Gil Donggyu knew how finance worked. A consortium that started to wobble would collapse like dominoes.
A dizzying hollowness seized him. As if hypnotized he reached for his phone.
“Father…”
His finger hovered over the call button, then stopped.
His father had drawn the line from the very beginning.
— Don’t even think about using group money. We will never buy Hitex back with group funds. Once we’ve sold a company, we don’t repurchase it at a premium.
If Gil Donggyu succeeded, the company would be folded into the group and no one would interfere. But there would be no capital support either.
The group had always been the final backstop. With that power gone, everything felt empty.
He sank deep into the chair and closed his eyes.
I made four hundred billion and I’m just supposed to walk away? Too wasteful. Should I go beg Father? Ha, as if that would work. He’d just lecture me again. Doing this alone really was too much. Even if I fail, it’s only my failure—it won’t become the group’s. In a way Father was right. Stop? Stop here? Really stop? Ah, damn it, it’s just too much of a waste!
While he was thrashing through every possible argument inside his head, the phone vibrated.
Lee Jaseung was straightening papers on his desk when a knock sounded. He lifted his head.
That’ll be Gil Donggyu.
He casually tossed and caught the ball resting on the desk.
Good. Still reality.
He rose and opened the door himself.
“Come in.”
Gil Donggyu’s imposing bulk walked in with steady steps. For a man whose consortium had just collapsed, he looked remarkably composed.
Han Juhyeong would already have stormed the office and started grilling him nonstop.
This one’s not easy.
Clicking his tongue inwardly, Jaseung gestured to a seat.
“Sit. Tea?”
“Please.”
Jaseung took his time preparing the tea himself. In that interval Gil Donggyu organized his thoughts and spoke first.
“You already know the situation, right?”
“More or less.”
Neither wasted time recapping what the other already understood.
Jaseung crossed his long legs and waited in silence. After a moment of lips moving soundlessly, Gil Donggyu finally forced the request out.
“This is sudden, but… is seven hundred billion possible?”
“Seven hundred billion…”
That would mean staking every last won earned from the gas futures. Which meant he had to extract more than that in return.
If I hand over seven hundred billion, what do I get?
He had always loved leverage—using a small fulcrum to move a massive stone.
If he could use Hitex itself as leverage to gain influence over KG Group, that would be an extremely attractive deal.
There was only one answer.
Hitex equity.
Hitex would eventually be absorbed as a KG Group affiliate. When that day came, his stake would become a critical variable. Gil Donggyu would therefore be even more reluctant to yield any shares.
Chaebols were hypersensitive about equity. The ownership structure of an affiliate was inseparable from group control.
Jaseung rolled the ball under his palm while studying Gil Donggyu.
Not a single crack in the posture. It made him realize just how loosely Han Juhyeong had always been put together.
Persuading this one won’t be simple.
He glanced at his watch. Almost three o’clock.
Time, at least, was on his side.
He decided to draw things out slowly.
“That’s a large sum. I’ll need to think it over.”
“Of course. Take your time.”
Jaseung gave a faint smile and waited one more minute.
Three in the morning.
The future he stepped into that day showed him this:
Gil Donggyu, trembling so hard his entire body rattled—clatter-clatter-clatter—out of control.
“…?”
I was flustered.
More precisely, the flustered emotion of my future self reached me. I was thinking:
What am I looking at right now?
I pieced together the irregularly surfacing memories and grasped the situation.
In the end Gil Donggyu had abandoned the acquisition. Since it had never been an official KG Group project, his withdrawal didn’t even make the news.
Afterward he was promoted to CEO of KG Electronics, and the moment he took the seat he was forced to shut down the smartphone business.
Okay. All of that makes sense…
Being pushed out of the bidding war by Seon Kangsik’s interference—fine. Tanking the smartphone division wasn’t surprising either. Caught between Seoseong Electronics and the A-Phone, K-Phone had already lost any presence; if it had thrived in the future, that would have been stranger.
But does something like that actually change a person?
I watched Gil Donggyu pace the room in frantic agitation, still unaware of my presence.
“Why the hell do I have to kill the smartphone line the second I take office? Then I’m the only one who looks incompetent again. Uwaaah… What am I supposed to say at the earnings call? ‘Global economic conditions deteriorated’? No, too obvious. ‘Market competition was simply too fierce’? That just sounds pathetic… I’m going crazy. The previous CEOs all got to ride the good times, so why is it only me…”
Then our eyes met.
“….”
“….”
Silence.
“Ahem.”
Gil Donggyu cleared his throat once and, in an instant, returned to the composed CEO presence I knew.
“Oh, Jaseung. You’re here. Sit down.”
I studied him carefully, but he simply met my gaze with calm steadiness.
Flawless recovery.
“Stressful days, huh?”
“Of course. I become CEO and immediately have to shutter an entire division.”
The tone was unusually defensive.
I smiled faintly.
So he was a worry doll all along.
Somehow I felt I had the measure of him now.
Back in reality.
While Jaseung rolled the ball, replaying the harvest he had just reaped, Gil Donggyu called to him.
“Finished thinking?”
Jaseung turned his gaze on him.
Gil Donggyu still looked composed; only the faintest urgency flickered in his eyes.
Over that image the future scene overlaid itself—the flood of anxiety that poured out the moment he was gently prodded.
— If we shut down smartphones the stock will crater immediately, and I’ll be the one who eats every insult. The previous guys made the mess, so why am I… Haah. If the share price tanks, how do I even recover it? If only I’d acquired Hitex back then…
Gil Donggyu pressed again.
“Seven hundred billion—do you think it’s doable?”
The moment their eyes met, hope mixed into the look, Jaseung understood exactly how to crack him.
“No.”
Refuse first.
Then add a troubled smile for good measure.
“That’s going to be a bit difficult.”
This work is a work of fiction. All characters, groups, place names, and events appearing in the story are entirely fictional and bear no relation to any real-world counterparts. Specialized knowledge described herein has also been restructured and adapted for narrative purposes and may differ from actual information.