Forced to Marry 6

"Hello."

Choi Seonggi dipped his head in a bow.

"So you're the fellow."

Cha Dohyeok, the eldest at forty-one, vice president of Gwangmyeong Electronics and vice chairman of Gwangmyeong Group, had the look of a gentleman about him. His wife, Gong Eunseon, did not so much as pretend to see Seonggi.

"We all know it's a sham marriage. Why drag yourself all the way here? Into family business, of all things..."

The second son, Cha Gihyeok, thirty-seven, president of Gwangmyeong Construction and another vice chairman of the Group, was a man with the eyes of a snake.

"Oppa! I told you, that's not what this is."

Cha Jiyeon tried to smooth it over, but every one of them answered with a snort. Not that Seonggi would have believed the story either. All that nonsense from three years ago about the Hagia Sophia ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in Turkey.

"If you'd actually been seeing a man, we'd have known ages ago. This girl really does take the intelligence-gathering of Gwangmyeong Corporation's secretarial staff for a joke."

"Honey, that's enough. We're in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a hospital... I'm rooting for both of you!"

Gihyeok's wife, Ham Eungyeong, director of Gwangmyeong Gallery, said it with her fist clenched tight in a little show of cheer.

"Thank you, unni."

Jiyeon's gaze moved on to the woman beside her, Cha Jiseon, and to Jiseon's husband, Yoo Jeonggyun, vice president of Gwangmyeong Country Club. A light dip of the head was returned in kind. Half a step behind Jiyeon, Seonggi watched everything and simply followed her lead.

"He still hasn't regained consciousness, but you're to come in."

At Secretary Kwon's word they poured into the hospital room in a rush. By rights he belonged in the emergency ward or intensive care, yet Chairman Cha Wonseok lay in a private room, with nameless machines ranged all around the bed.

"It doesn't look as if he'll last the night, so see him, all of you, and say your goodbyes in your hearts!"

Chairman Cha Jinpyo had been speaking to the family when his eyes met Seonggi's.

"Where do you think this is, that you dare—"

"Dad..."

Doctors, nurses, and secretaries were in the room, so Jinpyo's voice did not climb any higher. Still, Seonggi had been told to come, and so he had come. He had met the man before; offering a greeting was only proper, and that was why he had come to pay his respects. He felt bitterly wronged, and angry besides, but he swallowed it for the moment. As Jinpyo said, no one knew when Chairman Cha Wonseok might slip away.

"Director, is Grandfather in very serious condition?"

While the rest of them stood ringed around the bed, looking down at Cha Wonseok, Cha Dohyeok turned to the doctor.

"His oxygen saturation keeps falling. We've given him medication, and it still won't come up. At this rate... I don't think he can hold on more than a few hours."

"Secretary Kwon! Did you call Attorney Jeong?"

The moment the director finished, the second son, Cha Gihyeok, rounded on him.

"Ah, not yet."

"Then call him. What are you doing, standing there without calling?"

Secretary Kwon glanced at Cha Jinpyo and Cha Dohyeok. Neither of them said a word, but both looked ready to side with Gihyeok.

"We'd better call Attorney Jeong, as Gihyeok says."

Once Dohyeok added his voice, Secretary Kwon bowed his head.

"Understood. I'll have him come at once."

Even a rough look told Seonggi what this was about. The man they called Attorney Jeong was almost certainly the lawyer who would execute Cha Wonseok's will. The instant the former chairman died, they meant to hear that will through him and move at once. And the man was not even dead yet, and already they were thinking of the execution.

"The doctors and nurses are watching him closely, so please don't trouble yourselves too much."

As if he had heard something he was never meant to hear, the director finished in a hurry and left the room. The nurses, reading the air, slipped out after him.

"All of you..."

Cha Jinpyo spoke low.

"There will be no lawsuit. Not under any circumstances."

"Yes."

"Of course."

"You will proceed according to your grandfather's will, and if it falls short, you will take the shortfall as it comes. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir."

Only the eldest, Cha Dohyeok, and the second son, Cha Gihyeok, answered. Jinpyo turned his head as if he had no need to hear anyone else.

Nurses came running at the shrill alarm, and a moment later a doctor followed. The family, who had sat outside the room all evening until they were limp as boiled greens, hauled their exhausted bodies upright. After a short while the doctor came back out.

"His heart has just stopped. How do you wish to proceed with life support?"

Cha Jinpyo looked around at the family, then spoke.

"No. Let us send him off in peace. Father wouldn't have wanted it."

No one answered.

"Even so, we ought to at least try CPR."

It was then that Secretary Na Dohyung stepped forward and spoke in a rush.

"You are not family. Step aside. What you've done up to now is already more than enough."

"B-but still..."

Na Dohyung's eyes were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shot with blood.

"Attorney Jeong has arrived. He's waiting in the lobby downstairs."

"Has he? Come along, all of you."

The moment Secretary Kwon announced the lawyer's arrival, the whole party trooped after him down to the lobby. Before the hospital room, only Cha Jiyeon, Choi Seonggi, and Na Dohyung remained.

Seonggi rose from his chair and stood at the door.

"What are you doing?"

"What are you planning to do?"

Jiyeon and Secretary Na both turned the question on him.

"This isn't right. Sending him off without so much as trying CPR... I can't accept that."

"Th-that's for a doctor or a nurse to do."

"And will they? When the family told them not to?"

However he looked at it, this was wrong. The man was old, yes, and no one could say whether he would go today or tomorrow, but were they simply going to leave him like this? In Seonggi's book, that was not a thing that could be allowed.

"If you're not going to help, then don't. If you are, follow me."

With that he went into the room, took his place beside the bed, and began CPR.

Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press.

He tipped the head back, opened the airway, and drove ten compressions into the chest. The old man was not connected to an electrocardiograph, so there was no way to see whether the heart was beating; Seonggi had to bend his ear to the lips and listen.

Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press.

He compressed again, and again. Five minutes after a heart stops, the brain dies. Even if the beat returns after that, what remains is a vegetative state. Something like three minutes seemed to have passed. If he hurried, he could still turn the breathing back on.

"What can I do?"

"I'll help as well."

Cha Jiyeon and Na Dohyung came into the room.

"Jiyeon, check whether his breathing has come back. Secretary Na, trade off with me on the CPR."

Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press.

Put too much weight into it and the ribs break. Put in too little and the heart never compresses. The trick was to bear down with just enough.

Seonggi set his strength into the rhythm and kept pressing. He had not been at it long, and already sweat was beading across his brow.

"So he has passed. My condolences."

"Enough of that. Let us confirm Father's will."

"Ah, yes. You must all be exhausted, so allow me to read it."

Attorney Jeong showed the sealed envelope to everyone, broke the seal, and drew out what was inside.

"I will omit the resident registration numbers. Ahem. Ahem."

At the lawyer's words, Cha Jinpyo clenched a fist without a sound. Add twenty-two percent to the eighteen he already held, and he would command forty percent of Gwangmyeong Corporation. He had been called chairman all this time, and yet a chairman without shares was chairman in nothing but name.

"Furthermore, eight percent of the shares in Gwangmyeong Corporation shall be inherited by my eldest grandson, Cha Dohyeok."

Cha Dohyeok was just clearing his throat when the door of the examination room opened and a nurse poked her face through the gap.

"Excuse me..."

"Can't you see we're in the middle of something important? Continue, Attorney Jeong!"

The second son, Cha Gihyeok, barked it and pressed the lawyer to go on reading. The nurse did not retreat.

"It's just... Chairman Cha Wonseok has woken up."

"What?"

"What did you say?"

Every face turned to her in shock.

"He came to a little while ago. I thought you ought to go up and see him."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"What happened?"

Meeting Director Kim outside the room, Cha Dohyeok put the question to him.

"The granddaughter's husband performed CPR. Heh... If we'd known it would come to this, we would have done it ourselves. The strange part is that his blood pressure and his oxygen saturation have both returned to normal. Even so, we'll keep him under close watch, just in case."

For a physician, a moment like this could only burn. He had pronounced the man dead, and the patient had lived. Under the family's accusing stares, Director Kim made a quick retreat.

"I suppose the will ought to be sealed again. Still, since I'm here, I'll pay my respects to the Chairman before I go."

Attorney Jeong stepped into the room, and Cha Jinpyo followed him in at once. Inside, Cha Wonseok was watching his son with a cold, level gaze.

"Chairman Cha will wait outside."

The voice was clear, as if he had never hovered at the edge of death at all.

"Ah, Father..."

"I told you to wait outside."

Spoken that plainly, it was not a will Cha Jinpyo could cross. He left the room.

"You made good time."

Cha Wonseok looked at Attorney Jeong and said it as if the whole thing had been emptied out of him.

"So it happened."

He did not need to see it to know the picture. The moment he died, they had reached first for the fortune that would come to them.

Tears gathered in the eyes of Cha Wonseok, a man who had lived his whole life on a grand scale. He had thrashed and struggled to raise the house of Cha, and yet his son and grandchildren, far from looking after him, had gone for the property first. The heartlessness of it drove straight into his chest. If he had known it would be like this, he should never have come back. There was nothing left but a bitter taste.

"Attorney Jeong!"

"Yes, Chairman."

"Can the will be changed now?"

"And do you imagine your son and grandsons would sit quietly for that? Your condition is critical. You might pass in the middle of the notarization, and they might also sue on the claim that the illness had left you not in your right mind..."

"......So they would."

A fortune built across a lifetime, and because he might die at any hour he could not even dispose of it as he pleased. If he had known, he would have carved off half and given it to charity.

"I want to do something for the grandson-in-law who brought me back from the dead."

"Well. Changing the will at this moment does not seem wise."

"Yes... I suppose not."

The instant he revised it, lawsuits would break out over the will, and while the courts decided which document had legal force, Gwangmyeong Group would descend into pandemonium.

"Who is set to inherit the Yangpyeong house?"

"In all likelihood, the Wonseok Welfare Foundation."

"Why? The children aren't taking it?"

"They all seemed reluctant to inherit it."

"Reluctant? It cost a good ten billion won to build, once."

"That was then. The building is more than forty years old. Would it even fetch five hundred million now?"

"It has fallen that far?"

"Yangpyeong property prices are a wreck, and it would be better to tear the place down and build again."

What they all wanted were the buildings and the companies standing on the choicest ground in Seoul. The old Yangpyeong mansion, they declined. Inheriting it would not make them money, and it would only become a nuisance in a dozen small ways.

"I see. Yes... Then give the Yangpyeong house to my youngest granddaughter's husband. And have the grandson-in-law sent in."

"Understood."

Attorney Jeong stepped out through the door and spoke.

"He asks that the grandson-in-law come in first."

Cha Jiseon's husband, Yoo Jeonggyun, moved to enter.

"No, not you... The youngest son-in-law. The one who brought the Chairman back."

Every eye found Choi Seonggi. He let out a short breath of a laugh and went in.

"I hear you saved me. Thank you, in any case."

"Not at all. It was only what I ought to have done."

"Yes... My own family left me for dead... and you, a stranger until not long ago, saved me."

Seonggi said nothing.

Cha Wonseok, who had been studying him in silence, spoke again.

"Come closer... yes, closer still... put your ear to my lips."

Seonggi set his ear to Cha Wonseok's mouth.

The sound was thin as a thread, barely there at all, and yet what was being said came through with perfect clarity.

"What?"

"Hush!"

Cha Wonseok glanced toward the door, as if someone out there might have heard.

"Do you remember what I said?"

"Yes. But what is it?"

"Just know it. You must not tell a soul."

What kind of thing was that to say out of nowhere? Seonggi looked at Cha Wonseok, plainly at a loss.

"You'll come to understand it all later."

"Ah... yes."

"And one more thing..."

When Choi Seonggi opened the door and came out, the others closed in on him at once.

"What did he say?"

"What did he tell you?"

"He just said thank you? Oh! Right. He did say this."

At that, every one of them locked onto him.

"He said Secretary Na Dohyung should come in."

"What?"

"What..."

Disappointment sat on every face, but Na Dohyung only gave those same relatives a thin little smile and went into the room.