Chairman Cha Wonseok's Legacy, Part One
"Boss... I'm sorry for making a scene the other day."
"No, no. You stepping in made the whole thing a lot easier to settle."
"You really didn't have to give me an extra ten million won..."
"You put your life on the line. That's the least you should take. Put it away."
As the car rolled on, Na Dohyung kept stealing glances at Choi Seonggi in the back seat. The more he learned about the man, the less sense he made. Afraid another fight might break out, he had waited nearby the whole time.
But there had been no fight at all. Seonggi had simply walked out, perfectly at ease. An ordinary man couldn't close a matter like that. Na Dohyung had done enough dirty work to know it.
Everything the investigation had turned up was a high-school diploma, a job at a trading company, and a stretch as a civil servant. There had to be things about Choi Seonggi that a routine inquiry would never uncover.
"What you said earlier moved me."
"What?"
"When the warehouse was empty. You said you trusted me."
"Oh, that. That was only natural."
"Natural, sir?"
"We've got plenty of work to do together from here on. Let's not get sentimental over something that small."
"...Understood."
He answered as if it were nothing, but Na Dohyung felt his heart drop.
His father, Na Seongwon, had served as Chairman Cha Wonseok's secretary for twenty-two years. When a dump truck driven by a drunk came barreling at them, Na Seongwon wrenched the wheel to the right. He himself was left with horrific injuries, while Chairman Cha Wonseok, in the back seat, walked away with only light wounds. The will to protect the man he served had been stronger than the instinct to save his own life.
When his father died after clinging to a hospital bed for a week, Na Dohyung was only in his second year of middle school. By the chairman's kindness they moved into a spacious, clean new house, and enough money arrived every month that they never had to worry about food. Thanks to that, Na Dohyung and his two younger siblings were able to stay in school without hardship.
When his mother was struck with cancer, Chairman Cha Wonseok mobilized the entire medical staff of Gwangmyeong Hospital to treat her. She held on for five years, in and out of the wards, but she passed away the year Na Dohyung turned twenty.
He had never once imagined a life other than becoming a secretary and attending the chairman. Under Cha Wonseok's unqualified support he mastered English and several other languages, trained in every martial art until he surpassed a twentieth-dan composite black belt, and acquired every skill he would need — management, accounting, all of it. His grades were high enough that a little more effort might have carried him into the SKY universities, Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei, but he applied instead to a two-year secretarial program. The curriculum fell far short of what he had expected, and he didn't care. Body, heart, and mind were already fully prepared. He wanted to finish his studies as quickly as possible and work at Chairman Cha Wonseok's side.
"Where would you ever find a secretary like you? You must truly be the finest in the world."
The chairman, who had cherished him like a grandson, used to say that often.
A father in place of his father, as close as his own grandfather — Cha Wonseok's last words came back to him.
"Butterfly. You go out and live it up in the world with that fellow!"
Na Dohyung glanced at Seonggi in the rearview mirror, and their eyes met.
"Why do you keep looking at me?"
"Ah. It's nothing."
"I understand it when a woman looks. A man looking, not so much. Don't tell me you're that way, Secretary Na?"
"Sir?"
"Do you like men?"
"I like women."
"Good. That's how it should be. I can't stand men clinging to me."
"..."
That baseless confidence, that bluster... it was not easy to get used to. Na Dohyung let a moment pass, then spoke again.
"Um, Boss."
"Yeah?"
"What sort of work did you do in the past?"
In the rearview mirror, Choi Seonggi was smiling at him.
"You already know. Why ask? You ran a full background check."
"I know about your time as a civil servant. But the company before that — Bridge Trading — no matter how I look, something's off."
"What's off about it?"
"It was clearly a small trading outfit... and yet it dealt in rare metals and chemical substances as well."
"They call it a trading company, but it's a general wholesaler at best. If it makes money, they handle anything. That's all it is."
"Ah."
He nodded as if he understood, but far too much still refused to add up. A company that sold T-shirts, jeans, and imitation gems also handled rare earths and hydrogen fluoride? He was tempted to ask a junior of his at the National Police Agency, then thought better of it. Someday, if Seonggi truly trusted him and counted him as one of his own, he would tell him.
Choi Seonggi had only just arrived at the Yangpyeong Mansion and settled in to rest when the phone rang.
"Yes. This is your husband."
"What did you say? Ha! Unbelievable."
"If I'm going to carry out my assigned duties properly, I have to be thorough in every particular."
"The attitude's good. But it's nauseatingly slick, so don't call yourself my husband."
"Then what should I call you?"
"Jiyeon and Seonggi will do."
"All right. I'll do that from now on."
In a wedding dress, when she kissed him, she had looked like an angel come down from heaven. Day to day she was a witch with a cold wind at her back — an ice witch, no less. What good is being pretty?
"I'm going to the Meeting this evening. Dress so you won't embarrass me. I'll come pick you up."
"The Meeting?"
"Did you forget? Brother Dohyeok told you."
"Oh. That Meeting?"
Some kind of royal membership, wasn't it? The children of chaebol houses gathered there, and they had said they would let him in. The promise had been that, in exchange for telling them Chairman Cha Wonseok's last words, he would be allowed to attend.
"That gathering matters more than you'd think. People look after one another there, and they collaborate. You're attending as my husband, so prepare thoroughly. Don't let me lose face."
"Yes. I'll prepare thoroughly."
"Oh, and one more thing."
He was about to hang up when Cha Jiyeon added something else.
"Call home. Your parents are very worried. I'll see you this evening. Click."
Home? Which home?
Call Chairman Cha Jinpyo? He had seen the man that morning. His parents were worried?
Seonggi was still turning it over when the phone rang again.
"Aagh!"
One look at the number and the yelp escaped him before he could stop it. His mother's number. How had she gotten this phone?
"Uh, Mom?"
"You little shit... where are you right now?"
The thick, rolling curses of his mother — a woman people called an iron lady — bored straight into his ear.
"I'm at an acquaintance's house."
"You, you you... haa... huuuu... Seonggi! You really..."
She couldn't get the rest out. She seemed to be steadying her breath, fighting to keep her composure. He could hardly blame her. He hadn't told them a thing. He had drawn down the apartment loan, even pulled money from private lenders, changed his number, and vanished.
"If you were getting married, you should at least have told your mother and father beforehand!"
"What? H-how do you know about that?"
"Your bride came by yesterday."
"What?"
"She explained it all so gently — that you had to marry in a hurry because Grandfather was on his deathbed. Even so, your parents are alive and well..."
"Things just ended up that way."
"I'm holding my tongue because of that girl. How is someone that pretty so thoughtful, too... Here, give it to me, I want to talk — hold on. Aaagh!"
From the other end came the sound of his father, lunging to snatch the phone, being shoved over by his mother. It was such a familiar scene he could picture it without seeing a thing.
"When you move this time... you bring that girl with you. You hear me? If you don't come, I'll take it that you're cutting ties with your mother."
"You're moving?"
"That big apartment in front of the subway station — nearly eighteen hundred square feet. They said you won the lottery and bought it. Didn't you?"
Clever woman.
Cha Jiyeon had clearly set this in motion. He wasn't sure whether to thank her or tell her to stay out of other people's lives. She must have worried his parents would be ashamed if they heard the place had been bought with her money, so she had told them Seonggi hit the lottery. She wasn't even a real wife, and she was fretting over every little thing.
"That's right! I got lucky and won the lottery, and I hadn't done right by the two of you..."
"Never mind all that. Anyway, thank you, and next weekend you bring my daughter-in-law! I'll make you that aged-kimchi braise you love."
"I'll check my schedule."
"Check your schedule? If you don't come, I really will cut you off! Here, take it. Take it. Honestly."
"Seonggi, that you?"
"Yes, Dad!"
"You rascal, where did you find such a pretty, proper bride? You take after your old man. Luck with women runs in the family."
"It just sort of happened."
"You won the lottery, huh? Any money left?"
"No. I spent it all."
"This man has no shame... Give me that! All right, I'm hanging up. You come next weekend, no excuses! Click."
With that, his mother hung up. To anyone listening, the talk was so raw it practically reeked of fish, but Seonggi's chest tightened. An iron-willed mother who had scraped a household together out of nothing, and a father who watched her moods and bounced from one grinding day-labor job to the next, chasing even a little income.
Cha Jiyeon had gone to see his parents. She had spun the story that Seonggi won the lottery, and she had even arranged for them to move into a large apartment.
"This woman, honestly..."
On one hand he was a little displeased that she had barged into his family's affairs. On the other, he was grateful she had looked after something he himself had failed to.
"Why is she acting like this when she isn't even a real wife?"
It left him pleased and irritated at the same time.
Still, wasn't there something more important in front of him right now? Seonggi decided to search the mansion inch by inch.
The number 1106, and a key. Chairman Cha Wonseok had clearly left something important behind. The second floor held a living room, a study, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The first floor had the large room the chairman himself had used, another study, a living room, a dining room off the kitchen, and four more bedrooms — not counting the separate staff quarters used by Mrs. Go and Chief Sim. There was also a room given over mostly to groceries, a refrigerator, and a washing machine, and a shed for the garden tools. The basement followed a similar plan: a wide space like a living room, three rooms, and a single bathroom, all of it standing empty.
He walked the house first, sketching a bird's-eye view in his head and hunting for anywhere a void might hide.
"Looking for something? If you need anything, just say so."
"No. I'm only looking around."
Mrs. Go said it as she watched Seonggi prowl the house with a hawk's eye.
"Whatever it is, it probably isn't here. At the chairman's funeral, the second young master brought machines and people and went through the place down to the last corner."
The second young master would be Cha Gihyeok.
"Machines?"
"Yes... He even brought some kind of machine and swept the basement floor."
"I see. It's nothing important. Please, go on with your work."
"Yes. I was thinking of making kalguksu for dinner — knife-cut noodle soup. Would that be all right?"
"Kalguksu sounds good."
"Um..."
Mrs. Go started toward the laundry, then looked back at Seonggi and carefully opened her mouth again.
"Um, Boss... Things were tight, so Chief Sim and I put in our own money for the electric bill, the water bill, and groceries..."
"What?"
"The wages, too. It was awkward to bring up. Did Attorney Jeong not say anything?"
It felt as if someone had struck him on the head. He had thought only of inheriting the Yangpyeong Mansion. He had never once thought about salaries and upkeep going out. No wonder the side dishes lately had been nothing but greens.
"That's something I should have been looking after... Don't worry. I'll see to it from now on."
"If you would, we'd be grateful. Then."
Embarrassed to have spoken of money, Mrs. Go bobbed her head and hurried off toward the laundry.
"I forgot the most important thing."
Keeping this enormous Yangpyeong Mansion running was hardly a matter of a few coins. He thought he understood why the rest of the family had been reluctant to take it when the inheritance was divided.
For now he had about eight hundred twenty million won on hand. He would manage somehow.
Even so — if Cha Gihyeok had brought equipment and gone over the basement down to the last inch, he could assume there was no safe hidden beneath the floor. They had clearly searched with gear that used X-rays to find rock and concealed metal underground.
"So everyone already knows Chairman Cha Wonseok hid something."
That was why they had even brought out a lie detector, trying to learn what his final words to Seonggi had been. No matter how he looked, he couldn't see a space where anything might be. The most suspicious things were the three bookcases in the second-floor study, packed tight with books — built-in shelves fixed to the wall. Pull out one dusty volume and the case swings open, the way it did in the movies? Impossible.
Before he knew it, it was nearly time for Cha Jiyeon to arrive. He would have to abandon the search and change his clothes.