The Part of the Villain
The dormitory. Park Jihoon's room.
The phone was ringing harder than it had any right to. Rrrrr! I knew at once who it was. Tennessee. I lifted the receiver, and sure enough a familiar voice came across the line.
Worn thin, if I had to name it.
I glanced at the clock. Barely eight. Anyway.
I let a beat pass, and he went on.
I was still blinking, trying to decide what he meant, when he added the rest.
That was how the call ended.
He hasn't been in Britain five minutes, and he's already talking about Guccio. If Tennessee was going to roll his sleeves up like that, then I, his partner, owed him a result of my own. I took a coat and left the room.
Queensman.
When I stepped into the shop, the first face I saw belonged to Victor Wenyar, chief executive of Malenciaga. He was flushed, deep in conversation with Faber, and at the sound of my footsteps he turned at once.
"Oh—you've come?"
He seized my hand before either of us had managed a proper greeting. "Of all the houses you might have chosen, you chose us... I can't tell you how shocked I was when the call came through."
"Why the shock? You gave us such a fine briefing."
"Good grief, I was in such a state I can't even remember what I said."
"Sit down, first."
"Ah. Yes."
We talked through the concept of the collaboration. More than once a theme surfaced that a luxury house might have found genuinely burdensome, and every time it did, Victor only smiled, bright as a man newly pardoned.
"You pulled a drowning man out of the swamp. Whatever you want is okay."
"Even so..."
"If I could have done it my own way, I would have done it alone. Why else would I have come offering a collaboration? Please, do as you like. I mean it."
Perhaps it was the permission, falling so cleanly from the chief executive's mouth. Faber began to pitch ideas unhinged enough to worry a pharmacist.
Fine. In the years to come Malenciaga would roll out stranger things than this, one after another... Ahem.
He was so unbound that clothes, bags, and shoes were settled almost without effort. One thing, though, brought him up short. At accessories, Faber tipped his head.
"Sir, it turns out I'm not good at everything."
"Oh, come on..."
"I mean it. Watches, bracelets, that sort of thing. The pieces you wind around a wrist. I have no gift for them at all..."
I turned to Victor.
"Accessories may certainly be left out. Of course they may."
"No. That isn't what I meant."
"...?"
"Would it be all right to give only the accessories to another house?"
While he was in America, Jo Sudeok had handled every task I left him with meticulous care. He had recruited a Young Gun to take charge of Guccio. And above all else, he had acquired a brand only just born in Los Angeles—more precisely, fifty-one percent of it, for 5.1 million dollars.
The money was spent. Now the world would have to hear of it.
"Shall I show you a sample?"
"No, we could simply go ahead on your judgment..."
"You ought to see it, and then decide."
I drew a small case from my bag. One day it would grow into a luxury house that stood for America itself, but in this season it was barely hatched, and the case was as plain as that fact. The ring inside it was another matter. The aura on it refused to be taken lightly.
"Goodness. There's writing all over it. The hand is rather peculiar..."
"It's Forever."
"Ah. Forever, is it."
Victor studied the ring for a long moment. "Even at a glance, I'd say that's silver."
"Yes. Their aim is to make silver more precious than diamonds."
His eyes asked whether such a thing was possible. My answer was simple.
"Have you ever heard of a stone that costs more than gold?"
"That can't be."
"Stone is far cheaper than gold. But what happens if Michelangelo carves it?"
"...!"
"Never mind gold. Wouldn't the result be more precious than diamonds?"
"So to fixate on silver as a material... is to stand before a work of art and haggle over what the stone cost. Is that what you mean?"
Of course, a judgment like that becomes possible only when the work has reached the realm of art. And of course, in the end, they would prove it.
"Might I ask the name of this house...?"
"Gromhats."
An hour later, the meeting done, I went straight to Dmitri's lodgings.
It had only been a courtesy call. I told him that if the hour hadn't been so late I would have come at once, and that I had held back for fear of tiring him. The answer that returned was that a can of Mad Bull had left him in peak condition.
I laughed under my breath. So I took the address and went at a run.
And then— Wait. This isn't a hotel.
It puzzled me at first. Still, a house that old would have more than one residence. I assumed they had simply lent him one of them. The place I arrived at was, astonishingly, a castle.
I had heard of plenty of guest rooms. This was Grosvenor, after all; I was prepared to stretch my understanding as far as a guest house. But this?
A castle, kept for putting up guests. Does that even make sense?
Astonishingly, it seemed that it did. I stood there and took it in.
"Well, now."
The scale was modest, and yet it was, beyond all argument, a castle: set on a cliff above a clear green river, holding its head up in solitary dignity. They do insist on outrunning every expectation.
Dmitri had come out to the drawing room. The place did not appear to fit him any better than it fit me. He asked, with a thoroughly awkward face, "Would you be the president?"
"Yes. I'm Park Jihoon."
A businessman to the bone, apparently.
"I ran Mad Bull, met a benefactor, settled the shares, and became rich overnight. Dmitri."
He offered it as a joke, and as a way of breaking the ice. Then I owed him one in return.
"I'm one of those benefactors."
"My. A precious man, met in a precious place."
I had heard the transfer agreement was already signed. Tennessee and I at forty percent each, and Dmitri holding the remaining twenty.
"There was something I wanted to ask..."
"Please, speak freely."
"No, no. You're the president. This is more comfortable." He waved the offer off and went on. "You might simply have taken the shares. Why bring me in as well? I still haven't heard the reason."
"Because you're necessary."
"What on earth made you feel that I was...?"
My answer was simple.
"...!"
"Is there a catchphrase anywhere better than that?"
"I... I don't know how you knew it. If the line had truly been that good, it ought to have sold as if wings had sprouted on it..."
"It sold, all right."
"Ah. True. Only it was the company that sold, instead of the drink."
We traded the light jokes, and then I said, "I asked you here as an expert in marketing, Mr. Dmitri. Growing Mad Bull would be a fine thing, but..."
I knew the Mad Bull model of success well enough already. And so: "I would like to ask you to take the marketing, overall, for the businesses I have a hand in."
Capsulemon, Queensman, Ultimate, Gromhats—if Dmitri were the one shaping them. And further on, if he were the one to take the whole of Hyeon-gang's phone campaigns!
"As for the cost, I'm prepared to pay you in fees or in equity, whichever you prefer."
"On what grounds would you trust me with that..."
"Those words. Give it wings."
"...?"
"To me, that sentence is worth more trust than a sovereign bond issued by Austria."
At the answer, Dmitri's eyes narrowed, and something in them shook.
The next day, in the second-year student council room, Ralph sat at a desk with a copy of Forbes open beneath his eyes. In the photograph, Park Jihoon was smiling as if the world had been arranged for his amusement.
One of the twenty most influential people alive under the age of forty? And he had built Queensman and Ultimate on top of that?
Ha. A heavyweight like that, and he had— Even a foul is fine. Cameras or no cameras, put him down, and put him down hard!
"Damn it."
One slip, and he would have wrecked his life. The thought still crawled his skin; he shuddered. To be blunt, he had not even refused Carl. Carl had pitched a fit as if refusal would get him killed, and so Ralph had thrown a few tackles at Park Jihoon. And every single time a hand had clamped the back of his neck, and he had been put down far too easily.
He had been speechless then. Maybe it was a mercy. What if they had simply gone at it with their fists? He had tested himself against Park Jihoon over position, and he had felt the truth of it. Even in a real fight, I think I'd lose. If he had taken the beating then, at least his conscience would be easier now.
He was dragging out that belated sigh when a knock came at the door, and it opened.
"You ready?" A clerk from the office stuck his head in.
"Is it already my turn?"
"No. Carl's in the middle of his statement."
"Then why call me..."
"Ah. That."
"...?"
"Carl says he never ordered a single thing. That you, Ralph, were only excessive in your loyalty, and that he himself knows nothing. That's the claim."
"Consistent to the end."
"Hm?"
"Not treating people as people. That part is remarkably consistent."
Ralph set it all down without adding or leaving anything out. The wrongs Carl had instigated, and the excesses he himself had stepped forward to commit—he confessed every one of them. Then he said, "I'll file the withdrawal and go. Process it, or refuse it and expel me. Either way, please follow school policy."
He walked out of the academic affairs office on that. Late as it was, he no longer knew whether setting the wrong right was even possible. Asking to be forgiven felt like too large a thing to want. If I'm to leave as a human being, an apology on the way out is the least I owe.
He stopped by the first-year classroom and bowed his head to Jack and Peter. Perhaps it was the contrast with Carl, who was holding out to the bitter end. Perhaps the rumor that he meant to withdraw had already gone around. Either way, the two of them accepted his apology, and he was grateful for it.
Damn it. What have I even been doing with my life? Tears stung, but what good was regret at this hour?
"Where's Park Jihoon?"
"He should be on the bench."
"Class is..."
"He does that sometimes."
"Ah."
Peter was right. Park Jihoon was sitting on a bench with a latte in his hand, staring vacantly out over the grounds. Ralph did as he had done with Jack and Peter, and bowed his head before he spoke. He listed his faults one by one. Along the way he admitted the whole of the harm Park Jihoon had taken. He was bowing again, promising to do everything in his power to make it right whether or not there was a lawsuit, when Jihoon said something he had not expected.
"What's so grand about all this?"
"From what I hear, all you did was clean up after Carl. Tormenting someone else—this was your first time, wasn't it?"
"I wasn't living in any way worth praising before that, either."
At that, a small smile rose on Jihoon's face. "So you mean to pay for it by dropping out?"
"It won't be enough... but the least..."
"If you drop out, you're the only one who's comfortable."
"What?"
"Isn't it a heavier punishment to come to school while your juniors curse your name?"
Ralph looked at him and did not look away. Those were not the eyes of someone keeping him here in order to grind him down. That sort of thing you knew at a glance. He had been looking into Carl's eyes every day for the past year.
"Stay, and you'll be too busy watching my mood to manage any real harm anyway, won't you?"
"I'm... the guy who tried to mess with you."
"Everyone takes a swing at something hopeless, once or so."
"If I stay, won't that bother you?"
"Me?"
"...?"
"The uncomfortable one is you, senior. You'd be busy every day keeping out of my way."
"Why... why are you giving me a chance?"
"Because you're not trash who denies it to the end."
"...!"
"And you're not shameless enough that you can't rest until you've been forgiven."
Just swear at me instead...
"Shall I say I saw a spark of reform in it? You going around to juniors you could have simply never seen again, once you'd withdrawn, and apologizing all the way to the end."
"You got more to say?"
"Your face says I ought to leave it there."
Honestly, in that moment, if a rathole had offered itself he would have crawled into it. The fact that he had trailed after a wretch like Carl and called him leader was too much, viciously, mortally shameful. And then a thought he knew he should not have—knew, if he had any conscience at all, that he must never say aloud.
Damn it. To hell with it. God damn it.
He envied the first-years. Born a single year later, he could have gone to school alongside them.
He was swallowing a deep sigh when Jihoon spoke again.
"Then we've settled."
"What?"
"You said you'd repented. So we've come to terms, within a proper line."
"...!"
"Oh, right. I forgot to mention the settlement."
Had he seen it wrong? For the barest instant, something wicked curled at the corner of Park Jihoon's mouth.
"Taking money off a senior doesn't sit right."
"...?"