The Grosvenor Way

At that same hour, in Northamptonshire, the F1 English Grand Prix was being run.

It was the day the best drivers in the world gathered in one place, and Tennessee was admitted to the circuit on VIP credentials. Everyone else was buried in race preparations. Even so, the team principal of Britain's McLaren outfit came hurrying out to meet him.

"Young master. You've arrived?"

McLaren's brilliant past was long gone. These days the team was spoken of as a side in decline. After the Grosvenor family's outrageous backing, however, they had climbed with a frightening momentum and were challenging again for the throne of F1. In that climate, special treatment for Tennessee was only natural.

The team principal pulled off his enormous headphones.

"I was told you would be bringing a friend today..."

"Something came up."

"Then the tour, and the test drive..."

"Postpone them."

"Ah. Yes. Of course."

Tennessee let out a small, regretful sigh.

The boy spent every weekend training, glued to the dormitory. The most he ever did was step out to Queensman to see to business. Where on earth did he go today?

Operation Surprise. The original plan had been to spring an invitation on Park Jihoon and bring him to the Grand Prix without warning. Tennessee had meant to walk him through every team, and even to put him in an F4 car—Formula 4—so he could feel it for himself.

"..."

The disappointment lingered. Tennessee's mouth pushed into a pout.

He still didn't really know what a friend was. He didn't know it well at all. But it was true that being with that boy was, somehow, easy. And if the boy was a candidate for friend ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠(?), then quietly sharing a hobby could hardly be a bad thing. What he had chosen was F1 racing. It was the one hobby that did no damage to his image. His only (?) respectable (?) taste, in other words, was the race.

So he had wanted to time it to the English Grand Prix and show it off properly. This is what I like. Of all days, the boy had been elsewhere, and every plan had come miserably undone.

Today isn't the only day.

Tennessee gathered himself and made for the sponsors' suite. Perhaps because it was a VIP space, the headphones waiting there let him listen in on the radio between the principal and the driver. An engine screamed.

An hour later, McLaren's lead driver, Aiden Senna, ran exactly the overwhelming race he had boasted of and was crowned champion of the Grand Prix. It was good that their team had won. Still.

Would it kill you to come and watch?

Tennessee had to swallow his regret once more.

Only deep into the night did he get back to school. There had been too many eyes on him, and he had not even managed a meal. He hated killing hours on end, waiting through a race schedule. Maybe that was why he was so hungry. The walk to the dormitory felt endlessly long. At least he had seen Aiden Senna's charge. If not for that, the day would not have been worth thirty points.

And then, of all things—

"Where have you been wandering off to?"

The voice came from a bench beneath a streetlamp. Tennessee turned his head, and there was Park Jihoon, smiling bright as anything.

"On a weekend you're supposed to come back early and rebuild your strength... and you're out until all hours..."

As if he had any right to say that. But the brown paper bag in Park Jihoon's hand melted Tennessee's mood clean away.

"You eating while you're out?"

"Obviously... you were worried I might not have eaten by this hour?"

"Yeah? Guess I bought two for nothing."

He said it like that, and still he shook the bag side to side, the McDonald's mark stamped on the paper. Would a single flower drawing bees sway quite like that? Tennessee crossed the distance in long strides, like a man under a spell.

Who knew the arms mattered that much in a rugby kick?

I was turning Steve's lesson over by myself when Tennessee came back, late, wearing the face of a man who had not eaten in a lifetime. That must have been why. He made a Big Mac large combo vanish as if it had never been there. He kept stealing glances at mine, as though it still wasn't enough, so I coolly surrendered the fries. Then he launched into a speech he plainly did not mean.

"Leaving food uneaten is a sin against farmland. For the Grosvenor family, who understand how precious the land is..."

"I'm not a noble, so I'll just leave them."

"Irresponsible."

With no other choice, Tennessee accepted the fries in the manner of a man forced to eat. A half-melted milkshake did not seem to trouble him. Plop. The fries had to keep ducking their heads into the paper cup. A little later, nothing remained on the bench but empty wrappers.

"Where are you coming back from?"

"None of your business."

At my question, Tennessee's mouth pushed out.

"And you?"

"Me? I was at training."

"Where?"

"A private ground. I went and learned a few things from Steve."

"Kicking?"

I nodded.

"You think one day is enough?"

"The match is right in front of us. I can't just sit on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my hands."

"Carl looks like he's sitting on his."

"Huh?"

"It's been a while since he showed up to practice."

Ah. The magazine's moving a little, so he's shut himself in the office and checks nothing but the numbers. Or else he was confident that first-years, at least, could be flattened without any practice at all. Whichever it was. Prepare half-heartedly, and the only one who loses is you.

After that we talked lightly. How training with Steve had gone. Whether the kick had actually improved. Whether I meant to keep training in that combination. But the conversation lasted only a moment. Tennessee straightened where he sat.

"So what do you actually want?"

"...?"

"You buy me dinner, and you wait until the middle of the night? Obviously you've got a favor."

Tennessee, this guy. Had he already figured out the human being known as Park Jihoon? Even so, I changed my expression without a scrap of shame.

"When you put it like that, it stings a little."

"What does?"

"Do I need an errand just to eat with you?"

"More often, no. But today your eyes are especially suspicious."

"Suspicious?"

"Deep. Deep enough to be a burden."

"...?"

"You look like a butler waiting on his cat."

"Ahem!"

To have a scheme read that easily. It was one of two things. Either we had gotten quite close, or the fellow's instincts were on Jo Sudeok's level. Whichever!

"It's not that I have nothing to ask."

His face said, well of course, out with it.

"You know it as well as I do. From the rugby, to the magazine serial, to the Guccio collaboration—everything is running exactly along the story I laid out."

Tennessee nodded, as if granting the point.

"What we need now is the protagonist of that story."

A prince on a white horse, to throw the frame of good and evil into relief. An overpowered lead, to hand us a clean and satisfying ending.

"You mean you want me to step forward as the hero of your story?"

"Exactly."

The request must have caught him off guard. For a little while he sank into thought, until the streetlamp, near the end of its life, had blinked like an eye again and again.

"Hmm."

Tennessee opened his mouth quietly.

"If I grant your request, what can you give me?"

"What do you want?"

"I shouldn't say it yet."

"...?"

"If I name it within six months, will you accept?"

"Time doesn't matter. The question is whether it's an equivalent exchange."

At that, the corner of his mouth hooked up.

Meanwhile, Park Yugeon—the original article to Park Jihoon's act—was in Hannam-dong, Seoul.

What's gotten into Jihoon?

He was reading the letter his younger brother had sent. It was written in an easy, unforced voice, the tension let all the way out, and yet the sentences were precise and without a wasted word, one catching the tail of the next. Park Yugeon read his brother's writing with open admiration.

The letter ran to three pages. The first briefly set down what had happened in Britain. First came the trouble with Carl Bernstein. Park Yugeon was famous for his gentle temper, but even he could not help bristling at that passage.

"He's just a bad person."

And so out came the strongest curse in Park Yugeon's arsenal. The fortunate part was that, true to his brother, Jihoon had turned even that trouble into business. Not content with a select shop and a magazine, he was now preparing to acquire a luxury house.

Honestly, he's something else.

The second page was full of the new friends he had made. The one who stood out, of course, was Tennessee, heir to the most famous family in Europe.

Rather like me, isn't he?

If there was a single difference, it was that Tennessee denied his own tastes to the bitter end.

And yet I feel as if I understand that, too.

A pitying smile rose to Park Yugeon's face. Jihoon had added that he wanted to transfer a certain portion of equity to Tennessee, and what did his brother think. He was only handing over a reasonable cut of his own share. He needn't have asked. Even so, the considerate younger brother had brought the matter to the brother who was his partner. A grin.

The last page held Jihoon's request. If it was all right as it stood, he wanted to package it at once and unveil it for the first time at the rugby tournament. Off to study, and still he wasn't slowing down on recruiting talent!

Jihoon, honestly...

Faced with an incurable workaholic, Park Yugeon could only shake his head. Beneath that, a caution had been written in bold.

In the box delivered with the letter was a coat said to be made of vicuña wool.

Reading his brother's note, Yugeon lifted the corner of his mouth. Right. He would answer that kindness with feedback.

Talent that caught Jihoon's eye. I'm looking forward to this.

What is this?

At first he thought it was a piece of violence dressed up as rugby. But the more he played, the more he found things worth digging into, hidden all through it. Above all—

They fit all of this into a file this size?

If the maker was the same age as his brother, that was a high-school freshman. And they had skill that put professionals to shame? Did that even make sense?

At this level, they're a genius.

Park Yugeon wore a freshly startled face, like a man who had forgotten his own past entirely.

A few days later, in New York, Jo Sudeok had fallen, of all times, into a trance of reading. The reason was simple. He was editing the American edition of Queensman, and whenever a manuscript flew in from Britain he ended up reading it more carefully than anyone.

And the thing is, it's actually fun.

The previous issue had been a special feature (!) on President Park Jihoon, which Lukashi had made with his whole heart. Jo Sudeok had enjoyed that one more than usual.

And what about today?

Perhaps because the sales figures had been exploding lately, the number of advertisements was the same, but the roster had been swapped for clients paying a much steeper rate. Quite a few of those ads were ones he himself had landed.

"Heh heh heh."

Jo Sudeok's shoulders went as smug as shoulders could go.

"Right. The rates that matter are watches, cars, and real estate!"

In high spirits he turned past the advertising section and began the feature. Let's see... today's figure...

Huh?

Te—Tennessee Grosvenor?

Even Queensman could not casually run a piece on Tennessee. Once the Grosvenor name was in it, writing without his permission meant bracing for an answer on the scale of the house. But what was this?

Why is there so much of it?

The enormous manuscript told Tennessee's full story. His past as a rugby player from childhood. This time, his run for student-council president, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the fact that his first pledge had been to push a showdown with the second-years. There was even an interview that appeared to have been conducted by the president himself.

If one had to pull a single sentence from it that lodged in the heart, it was, without question—

Hah! Now that was a line you could only get away with because you belonged to a ducal house. Frankly, imagine if he himself had gone around declaring, This is the Jo Sudeok way. Nothing but question marks would have been floating over the readers' heads.

Still, I do have a sense for these things. I do.

Anyway! He had no idea how President Park Jihoon had buttered the boy up. But the cover of this issue carried Tennessee's august countenance (?) in nothing less than a blown-up close-up. Well, well. Putting Tennessee at the front meant they intended to focus the story on the rugby showdown between the first-years and the second-years. Carl Bernstein would want to dress it up as an ordinary selection match.

As if that were up to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him.

The public would take the whole affair as a contest between Tennessee and Carl. They would go further and read it as a collision between the Grosvenor and Harris houses. And then what?

One of the two gets smashed to pieces.

Today's conclusion!

Which is why you don't get on the boss's bad side. You don't get on his bad side.

Jo Sudeok shook his head, as if there were no saving the man.