This, Too, Is Business
Only a moment ago they had been swaggering about like a pack of cheap thugs. And yet.
"Do you have some business with my friends?"
One sentence from Tennessee snapped their mouths shut. They flinched, then flinched again, and parted like the Red Sea to clear a path. Well, they were Carl Bernstein's lackeys, after all. The instant a greater power appeared, their tails dropped straight between their legs.
"If you've no business, would you step aside?"
"What?"
"Must I say everything twice?"
"N-no. Come on. Let's go."
After the lot of them had drained away like an ebb tide, Tennessee walked up with a blank face.
"You said we were going to work out. Was this meant to be some grand reconciliation between the upper years and the lower?"
Instead of answering, I turned to look at Jack. They had gone on about bloodlines and dragged his family into it, and I was afraid he might chase them down and ram straight into the pack. His expression, though, was steadier than I had expected.
"Fooled once, and then fooled again?"
"...?"
"Military science says that when the enemy comes at you with a reckless provocation, the first thing you suspect is an ambush."
Who knew military theory could double as mind control?
"I'll pay them back on the rugby pitch."
Beautiful, Jack. Magnificent, Jack. Ah, but that aside—I had called them out to lift weights together, and the workout was already over.
He worked himself up to come out at all. Sending him straight home feels a bit wrong.
I looked at Tennessee.
"Want to step out for a bit?"
"Where?"
We had gathered to get closer anyway. If it wasn't exercise, something else would do just as well. True enough, but Tennessee was the sort who wouldn't move an inch without a justification.
"If you're going to be my partner, there are a few things you need to learn."
I had remembered the place only because it was a wonder that London had such a thing at all. Never in my dreams had I imagined bringing the combination of Jack and Tennessee here. While I was lost in that odd little sentiment, Jack had already claimed a seat and settled in. Tennessee, by contrast, was in a full fluster, panicking as if he had wandered somewhere he had no business being.
"What? What's the problem?"
He didn't even look capable of answering. From the look in his eyes, he was worried what would happen if word got out that he had come here.
"So what? We came on business."
"Business?"
And among everything else, the comics that would become our source material were a course we absolutely had to conquer.
"This is work. Work."
"..."
"Sit down."
He bent his knees in hesitant little jerks.
"I said sit."
Only then did he lean back into the sofa, though he kept hitching his hips like a dog that desperately needed to go. What was wrong with him?
"You'll understand once you look. It's work, so quit complaining and look."
"..."
"What do you want to eat?"
"Huh?"
He glanced around, then scratched his head.
"...Anything."
"You really said anything?"
A short while later, the books were in front of him. Anything translated and published in English was a hit by definition, and from among those I had brought only the best of the best—the ones that would later sell more than ten million copies.
One volume and he'll be hooked.
And that was not all.
"Eat this when you get hungry."
"This is junk food."
"Oh, you like junk food, do you?"
They were the potato chips famous for being impossible to stop once the canister was open. You finished the whole thing.
"Damn it. If this weren't business..."
Astonishingly, what he had picked up was nothing less than the new volume of Dragon Planet. Crunch. Perhaps it was aristocratic dignity, but at first Tennessee was ridiculously fastidious. Crunch. Every time a chip went into his mouth, he wiped his hands with a wet wipe, and thanks to that a neat pile of once-used, carefully folded wipes rose on the table in front of him. Crunch. Before long he was eating without wiping his hands at all. By the time some two hours had passed, crumbs of crushed potato chip speckled his shirt.
"It really is studying, I'll give it that. Studying what the public wants."
He muttered something no one had asked, and that shameless face lasted only a moment.
"Ack—!"
Spotting the remains of the chips, he snatched up a wet wipe.
"I was going to say something!"
"You were so buried in your studies."
"..."
"Hardly shows."
He seemed to take a little comfort from the fact that there was no one else around. After frantically brushing the crumbs away, he got to his feet.
"So we're heading back, then?"
"Heading back? We're only just starting."
The second stop was a football stadium. Nobles apparently dismissed football as a commoner's sport, but if you had to name the game the whole world loved without reservation, it was football, no contest.
"Watch."
"..."
The season was already over, so there was no professional match to see. Fortunately, there was a friendly between youth national teams. Maybe it was because the match was England against Brazil, or maybe because this was a country mad for football, but even on a weeknight the ground was packed. England had fielded Manchester United's golden generation intact, and Brazil had sent the famous Ronaldo Gaúcho out as a starting striker. To borrow the cliché, it was a match you couldn't see even if you tried to buy it.
"See Brazil's number nine?"
"..."
"Just watch how that one moves. That alone will be plenty of fun."
At first Tennessee hardly reacted. He couldn't focus on the match at all, too busy worrying that someone might recognize him. But as Brazil's Ronaldo Gaúcho touched the ball more and more—a shimmy, a thud—and every time a single dummy step sent a defender into a ridiculous flailing dance and down on his backside, Tennessee began, little by little, to pay attention.
"...!"
Then came the moment Ronaldo Gaúcho beat three defenders and struck a lob.
"Whoa—ah!"
As if he had flung every scrap of national pride out the window, a huge cry burst out of him. Realizing the eyes around him, he belatedly yanked his cap down, but it hardly mattered. Even after that, he couldn't take his eyes off the pitch for a long while. When the first half and the second were both done, Tennessee hid his excitement and returned with the same blank face, as if none of it had happened.
"Is that everything now?"
"We ought to eat before we head back."
"Eat? I don't believe there's a proper restaurant anywhere around here."
A restaurant, he says.
"How about McDonald's?"
Jack nodded at the question.
"...!"
By a Devon-style majority, dinner was thereby settled as hamburgers. Hesitant step by hesitant step, Tennessee looked deeply out of place this time as well. From the look of him, it was his first time in a McDonald's. Right—McDonald's was something you learned from your elders. Jack went ahead and grabbed a table, and Tennessee and I stayed at the counter.
"What do you want?"
"..."
"If you don't know, shall I just order for you?"
He answered in a very small voice.
"It looks extremely hazardous to one's health."
"It's wonderful for your mental health."
"What?"
"Because it tastes good. So you end up in a really good mood."
His face said he still wasn't keen, so I brought out the magic word.
"This, too, is part of the business."
Only then did he raise the white flag.
"Okay."
Tennessee and I went up to the cashier. He pulled his cap down low again, like a man who had committed a crime. Let him. I placed the order.
"Three Big Mac meals, please. And three more large fries on top of that."
His expression asked why I was adding fries when we had already eaten potato chips.
You think these are the same thing? Just try them. You'll say you've never tasted anything like it. Your eyes will roll back.
"And milkshakes as well. Extra salt on the fries, please."
Perhaps because the food came out in less than five minutes, Tennessee's eyes went round.
"Why is it so fast?"
"There's a reason they call it fast food."
We each took a tray and headed for the table where Jack was sitting.
"Let's eat!"
Jack was the first to grab a fry and drag it through his milkshake, and Tennessee's face twisted strangely.
"Th-that's a sin."
"What is?"
"A sin against the body. If you're going to eat that, you absolutely have to consume an enormous quantity of salad along with it..."
Hey. Have you considered that going your whole life without knowing how good this is might be the greater sin?
"But is this really part of the business?"
"I told you it is."
Ten minutes later, Tennessee's face was sunk in deep contemplation. He was someone who had eaten only pure things until now. And yet this body he had kept so clean, so immaculate—how could it want food like this so fiercely? His eyes said he couldn't understand it at all. And when you can't understand? You chew, and you think later. The combination of fries and shake seemed to suit him rather well. He ate so diligently that the shake was nearly down to the bottom. Then, as if his senses had suddenly returned, he came out with something that had nothing to do with anything.
"Making money isn't easy."
No one had asked, but he stubbornly went on.
"To think that running a single company means you have to keep eating things you don't even want..."
Jack and I pretended not to hear.
"..."
Tennessee didn't really seem to be saying it for our benefit, either. He was only talking to himself, trying to talk himself into it. At any rate, the unplanned outing was, in that fashion, drawing to a close.
Meanwhile, in Chairman Park Yonghak's office.
"So the first- and second-years are going to knock heads at rugby, are they?"
Park Yonghak asked it as he closed the magazine.
"Yes. They seem to mean to cover the whole affair and maximize the publicity."
"This isn't a thing you finish by selling a few suits of clothes. Not a chance."
He was surely aiming to acquire the company.
"The money enough?"
"A fair amount of capital is tied up, so no. It won't be sufficient."
"Even so, that... what was it."
"Capsulemon, sir."
"Right. That one's been paying out nicely these days, hasn't it?"
"Yes. With the North American launch approaching, expectations are surging."
"Leave that with his granddad, and I might even lend the boy a bit of money."
"But given the young master's temperament..."
"He won't split the yolk. Not ever."
Was that really so delightful? Park Yonghak broke into the most pleased laugh in the world, then turned his eyes back to the magazine.
"Book me a business trip to Britain."
"...Sir?"
"That rascal Jihun has made up his mind to stir something up. Shouldn't his granddad go and see it for himself?"
"Ah. Yes. Understood."
But the question had not fully cleared. If he were simply going to look in on his grandson, he would never have used the word business trip. Had he read the curiosity on the chief secretary's face?
"While I'm there anyway, I mean to have a look at British cars."
"B-but, Chairman, the automobile business was to be scaled down little by little..."
"Uk-hwan."
"Yes, Chairman."
The voice had sunk low, and the chief secretary, startled, had already answered it.
"...!"
He swallowed hard. Overwhelmed by the giant's command, he managed a reply.
"I-I'll have the schedule drawn up at once."
He bent into a deep bow and fled the room as if something were chasing him.