Nothing but Ferrari
If Grandfather was the cat, I was nothing but the mouse.
He had me backed into a corner and was already deciding how to cook me, so the proposal must have struck him as faintly absurd. But what could he do? I was the one holding the microphone. For the moment, he had no choice but to listen.
"One of my classmates sponsors an F1 team—McLaren. He told me something."
"...?"
"McLaren is the strongest team of the age, and yet, of all things, they run Honda engines."
Perhaps the rest was already easy to guess. The executives began to murmur.
"Because of that, Honda races with McLaren every week as one team. The data they pile up will find its way into production cars sooner or later."
The sharper ones had already caught my intent. A system that left you no choice but to build a good car. The answer was simple.
"What if Hyeon-gang entered F1 and competed against the teams at their peak? Is there any faster way to drag our technology up?"
Someone might have objected. Honda had received McLaren's love call. And Hyeon-gang? We had barely learned to walk. Who in the world would put our engine in their car?
There's always a way.
If nobody was going to invite Hyeon-gang...
"Then I'll buy an F1 team myself."
My own money, my own purchase, and a Hyeon-gang engine in the back of it. What was there to argue about?
"Wouldn't that be a proper system—one that leaves us no choice but to build a good car?"
To compete in pure technology with the great cars of the world. For an engineer, it was a stage out of a dream, so of course the executives were stirred up. Even so—
"..."
No one could read Grandfather, and so they could only watch his face. Every eye in the hall had gathered on him when he applauded, without a word.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The executives shot to their feet as if they had been waiting for the cue, and thunderous applause crashed through the hall.
Thirty minutes later, in Park Yonghak's office.
"You're really gonna buy an F1 team?"
I nodded.
"What put that in your head all of a sudden?"
"It's been your dream for ages."
Grandfather shot me a sidelong glare.
"Putting a Hyeon-gang heart into a great car like McLaren, instead of a Honda..."
"Jo Sudeok put you up to this, didn't he."
"He made me promise to see your dream come true."
I had offered it up as filial piety—filial piety with a question mark—and he could hardly tear into me for that. Grandfather, though, had no intention of going down quietly.
"If you're gonna make your old man's dream come true, the team better be worth a damn."
"Of course."
"Then mind if I pick it myself?"
"Be my guest."
The corner of his mouth lifted.
"If you only get one team, is there anything but Ferrari?"
In plain words: did I really have the nerve to buy Ferrari itself?
"Ferrari too much for you?"
"..."
"What's with the silence?"
It was the face of a man who could already taste the win. Quit the fooling around, those eyes said, and just inherit Hyeon-gang Motors like a good boy.
But.
"Sounds wonderful."
"What?"
"A red Ferrari with a Hyeon-gang engine."
"...?"
"It's so good I don't know what to say."
That was my answer. My head, meanwhile, was already racing.
Ferrari.
Grandfather had already dug two traps.
First: Ferrari was the hardest team in F1 to acquire. It was the only team that had entered every single year since the championship was founded. Even while pouring more than a hundred million dollars into it every season, Ferrari had kept the team alive for decades. Motorsport was Ferrari's very DNA. And they were supposed to sell that?
Even if some miracle let me buy them, a second mountain was waiting.
Ferrari, which is a corpse the moment you take away its pride... running someone else's engine?
McLaren didn't build engines, so working with Honda made sense. Ferrari ranked among the finest engine makers in the world. Short of losing their minds, why would they tear out a perfectly good heart and take Hyeon-gang's in its place?
Hmm.
Even if the owner rammed it through, the Italian public would rise up.
Grandfather had picked Ferrari with all of that in mind.
"You sure about this?"
"You want it. So I'll do it."
"Want me to throw in some money?"
Take his money, and he'd only find a way to hold it over me later. I waved the offer off.
"Can you show results before you finish high school?"
"Pardon?"
"What? You planning to take a thousand years to come in first?"
Not exactly.
"Hasn't this year already slipped away?"
"It's August. What are you on about?"
"..."
"Buy it with the time you've got left. Next year you send the engineers to learn the trade, and the year after that you win on our engine. Well? Too hard?"
I wanted to put a hand over my heart and ask him whether he honestly believed it was possible. But what choice did I have? Even if I had to shovel in several times the operating budget, I would have to make it work.
The one mercy was the unspoken rule that already stood between us.
Fly the Hyeon-gang flag in F1, and I take my hands off the car business.
Fail, and you inherit the lot. No wiggling out.
We said nothing. We only looked at each other.
That evening, at the Hannam-dong House.
My brother and I came home with Grandfather. Buying the Ferrari team, developing a Hyeon-gang engine, winning with it—my head was a tangle. But that could wait.
First, my parents.
When the neighborhood of walls high as castle ramparts came into view, it finally felt like Hannam-dong. The car eased to a stop before the most overwhelming house of them all.
How long has it been?
Maybe I was simply desperate to see them. From the gate, across the courtyard, and on toward the building, the walk felt endless. (It was, in fact, long.)
The latch clicked. The moment I opened the front door—
"Jihun!"
A voice so welcome it almost hurt. Mom. Both of my parents had come out to the entryway. Their bright smiles would have been happiness enough, but their hands were clasped tight, fingers laced together, and to a son that looked like the greatest gift of all.
How could it not?
I'll have a home like this someday, won't I?
A peaceful house was the finest education there was. I held on just as tight and went straight into Mom's arms.
Had she been in the kitchen until a moment ago? Her embrace smelled of food. A daughter-in-law of a chaebol house could have lived without a drop of water ever touching her hands. In front of her son, though, she was every inch a mother.
"Long trip. You must be tired."
"A little."
"Good. Come on in. Let's eat."
Father leaned in, looking slighted.
"You only have eyes for your mother?"
"Ladies first."
"This is Korea."
I snorted.
"Brother told me. You've practically been living in the kitchen lately?"
"When did I ever?"
"You're wearing an apron right now."
"Huh?"
Startled, Father yanked the apron off.
"No—this is just because I was checking the seasoning."
"And what's wrong with helping Mom? I like it. Very domestic of you."
"I—I only checked the seasoning!"
While I was talking with Father, Grandfather stepped into the entryway.
"You're home, Father?"
"How'd you get here ahead of me?"
"The moment your speech ended, we came running."
"Look at you, all fired up."
Grandfather shrugged off his jacket as he spoke.
"I'm hungry. Food first."
Oh.
Calling it a feast didn't cover it. I felt as if I had been crowned. Three soups sat in front of me alone: dumpling soup, seaweed soup, and soybean-paste stew. The sides ran from premium Korean beef to grilled short-rib patties, paper-thin royal beef, and marinated meat besides—every kind of kimchi to cut the richness, and a spread of seasoned greens for the sake of one's health. I half wondered whether the table legs might buckle.
Ha!
I was still marveling to myself when Grandfather lifted his spoon.
"Eat."
"Thank you for the meal!"
Ours was a house that prized table manners, so meals usually passed in quiet. But—
"This is really delicious!"
I said it toward Mom. Father seemed to have something of his own to say. He stole a glance at Grandfather. Maybe he decided that today, of all days, it would be allowed.
"Do you have any idea how your mother suffered, just to put one meal in front of you?"
He said it with a put-on gravity. I grinned.
"Looks like you suffered too."
I lifted a crooked dumpling on my spoon. Anyone could tell it was Father's handiwork.
"What, you think folding dumplings is easy?"
"It's hard. That's why I'll eat them gratefully."
I opened wide and bit into the dumpling with a huge chomp. The other dishes, too—two whole pieces of each! If England had left me missing one thing, it was the taste of Mom's cooking. I cleared two bowls without the slightest effort.
Stopping there would have been exactly right. Still, for the sake of my parents' care—so what if I overdo it a little?—I gladly took another bowl.
"They starve you over in England?"
"It's just that good."
"Then have dessert too."
"Pardon?"
Even now I felt ready to burst...
"Bring out some juak."
At Grandfather's word, Mom brought a small bowl from the kitchen. At least it was only a mouthful. That was something.
"What is this?"
"Gaeseong Juak. She made even that herself. Said it was for you."
It looked like a yakgwa, one of those little honey-glazed wheat cakes, only about a quarter of the size.
"Go on. Try it."
Mom was staring at my mouth with nothing but hope in her eyes. Well, well. I picked the juak up without complaint and chewed.
Huh?
The instant I bit down, sweet juice burst from the center. And the texture—wonderfully chewy.
"This is good."
Once again, Dad answered for her.
"Your mother went all the way to Pyeongchang-dong and learned it from a master herself."
Hear that and stop after a single piece? What kind of person would that make me? Fine. I would eat and die.
"Mom, more please. A full plate."
Thirty minutes later, in Chairman Park's study.
Park Yonghak leaned back in his chair. Maybe it was the grandson coming home. The whole house felt alive. He caught himself wishing every day could be like this one.
If every day were today, the water would only sit until it stagnated. What is that but falling behind?
He would not let the sentiment bloom. Park Yonghak cut it off at the root. At times like this, a man had to think about work.
Put our heart in a Ferrari?
The thought alone heated his chest. He picked up the receiver at once.
"You look into it?"
"Yes, Chairman. The acquisition alone is five hundred million dollars. Develop a new engine and actually put it in the car, and you would need to be ready to spend at least three hundred million a year just to operate..."
"Madness."
Then again, even one of America's great companies had felt the financial strain badly enough to sell its team.
"Even for the young master... it is far too vast a sum for one person to bear."
The money was one thing. Spend more than a billion dollars and there was still no promise of a result. It was, quite literally, pouring money into a jar with no bottom. A fight with no odds at all.
He knew that. And still—
That Jihun brat can't possibly not know...
Something about it snagged on Chairman Park. Did the boy actually have a way to pull this off too? The wish to hand Hyeon-gang down, and the desire to test his grandson's gift one more time. Perhaps that was why the contradictory feelings had snarled into such a knot.
Chairman Park's eyes burned, fiercer than they ever had before.