Scumbag Husband, Scumbag Dad - 1
"Naye! Naye! The rolled omelet is so good today!! Hurry up and try it!"
"I'll eat it myself..!"
"Come on, ahhh~~~ ahhhh~~~~"
"Haa.. ah... mmm.. it's good.."
"Right?? Hehe~"
The relationship between the two of them had fully recovered.
They'd been a little awkward for a few days after the last day of the festival, but every night they'd gathered in one of their rooms and talked a lot.
They wouldn't tell me exactly what they'd talked about — said it was a secret — but either way, things had recovered to the point that Yun Jiyeon and Kim Sua were left staring in disbelief.
If anything, they seemed even closer than before....
"Oppa."
"Yeah?"
"I went to hang out at Hayeon unnie's company yesterday."
"For real??"
"Hayeon?"
"Hayeon..?"
"Who's Hayeon?"
"Wh-what..."
The questions came pouring in all at once, and Kim Sua answered in a fluster.
"O-Oppa proposed to her — she's his school senior..."
"Proposed..?"
"Wuuung!!!"
"I-Is that true??"
Cold. Hot. And stinging.
Lee Naye twisted her chopsticks and snapped the rolled omelet clean in two. Eunsol puffed her cheeks out like balloons and leaned in so close she looked ready to inspect my pores. Yun Jiyeon even dropped the kimchi she'd been reaching for onto the table.
"Would you pick your words properly for once!!"
"What did I do?! He did propose!"
She wasn't wrong, technically.
In Korea the word almost always means a marriage proposal, but "propose" itself just means to suggest something, dictionary-wise.
Still, it was a word with more than enough room for misunderstanding.
"Not that kind of propose. She was pretty, so I just asked if she wanted to try being a trainee..."
"Pretty?"
"Wuuung!!!"
"No matter how pretty she is, if she's Sua's school senior, she's a middle schooler, Sunwoo..."
"Ah, damn..! Thanks for the meal! And it's a misunderstanding! A misunderstanding! You — go clear that up and come back!!"
"Hey! Cha Sunwoo!!!"
"I hate you, Sunwoo!!!"
"Middle schoolers are off-limits!!!"
I bolted without even finishing my food properly.
It wasn't an atmosphere where explanations were going to land.
It was nice that they'd gotten closer since that day — except their obsession with me had gotten way too intense.
No — their vigilance had gotten way too intense.
Two days ago I'd only exchanged a few words with a guy from the same class, and I'd still gotten interrogated about what we were to each other and what we'd talked about.
I still had no idea how they'd even found out I'd spoken to a girl....
"Don't tell me it was you."
"What?"
"Are you the spy. For Lee Naye and Eunsol."
"Wh-wh-wh-what are you talking about. Hahaha. Hahahahaha."
The culprit was Park Seongmin.
No wonder he'd been trailing me even to the bathroom — he'd been surveilling me.
"What."
"Wh-what?! It's really not! I did not take pictures every time you met girls and send them over!!"
"You took pictures too?"
"Hup!!"
I cornered him in a bathroom stall.
Stuff I hadn't even done in middle or high school, and here I was doing it as a college student.
"What's the deal."
"Deal..?"
"What are you getting in exchange for watching me."
"I-It's not like that...."
"Ah... lost a friend today."
"Huh..?"
"It's been fun. From now on, don't even act like you know me..."
"Blind dates!!! Th-they said they'd set me up on blind dates... sorry...."
Betraying a friend over blind dates.
I had no intention of meeting other girls at school anyway, so it didn't really matter — but getting interrogated at home just for exchanging a few words with someone was seriously annoying and unpleasant.
"Don't do it again. Unless you want to lose a friend."
"Got it.. then will you set me up on—"
"You little—!"
"Sorry..."
Blind dates I could set up all day.
Unlike Park Seongmin, I'd been a selective loner, and ever since I'd put Kim Areum's clique in their place, I'd been slowly building friendships with other people too.
It wasn't about isolating Kim Areum's group — I just wanted to hang around with a wider circle and actually live a normal campus life.
Thanks to that, even Park Seongmin didn't have to eat alone anymore when I wasn't around.
"Hey! Aren't you coming to eat??"
"I've got a lunch appointment~ Cover for me in afternoon class, will you~~"
"You're going to meet a girl again!! Take me with you!!! Or I'm telling Sol and Naye everything!!!"
It was a woman, yes — but not a place he could come along.
"You made it?"
"Sorry I'm late."
"Not at all. I just got here myself."
It was a meal with Won Chaeyoung, concurrent president of Dawon Media and Lime Entertainment.
There were two other people I'd never met before as well.
"Pleasure to meet you. Jeong Dong-hyeok."
"Gu Hong-jun. Just as President Won described — quite the striking figure, hahahaha~"
"Thank you. Pleasure to meet you. Cha Sunwoo."
Jeong Dong-hyeok was the newly appointed president of the OTT platform Witch, and Gu Hong-jun was the newly appointed president of Future Studio.
In Gu Hong-jun's case, he'd been promoted from within; Jeong Dong-hyeok had been recommended through President Won Chaeyoung's network.
"I received the email you sent, but rather than contracting only for those specific titles, what about partnering with the broadcasters themselves? I believe that would be far more effective at pulling their audiences onto our platform. Besides, the more content there is, the less resistance people feel toward a paid service."
"President Jeong."
"Yes, go ahead."
"Does a restaurant get more customers just because it has a long menu?"
"......"
"It's more efficient to contract only for the titles we actually need. People won't watch something for free if they weren't going to watch it anyway. More importantly — when will the interface and design overhaul be finished?"
This wasn't a meal so much as a presidents' meeting in all but name.
Which was why the conversation mattered more than the food.
"The changes you pointed out are currently being implemented. We expect to finish within next month."
"I'll say it again — the interface and design have to be intuitive. 'Wow, that looks cool,' 'Nice idea' — we don't need that flashy surface-level stuff. The core is people actually using it and thinking, this is convenient, this works. It has to be comfortable and practical, not flashy. And please pay attention to the subtitles as well. Mistranslations are unacceptable, but liberal translation is fine — even preferable. The goal is to convey the meaning Korean carries so that foreign viewers can actually take it in."
"We're contracting translators who've lived in-country for at least seven years. We'll proceed without any issues on that front as well."
Until now, over ninety-five percent of Witch's subscribers had been Korean, so the platform's translation systems had never been properly built out.
But starting with the Korean-style zombie series Emperor, and including Godeungeo Game and a host of other titles, we were planning to put a large slate of co-productions with Metflix — or fully in-house productions — on the platform.
This couldn't be a scramble. Everything had to be ready, completely.
"I spoke with the Metflix people not long ago. President Jeong was with me, of course."
"How did it go?"
"They said it's a title they don't want to miss. Barring any major surprises, Godeungeo Game will move forward as a co-production."
"That's a relief. And Emperor?"
"They're firm on producing that as their own original series. Filming's already well underway, and they've already marketed it as an original — reversing course would be difficult."
"Still, set up another meeting. Maximum seventy percent of production costs covered, co-production. If they turn even that down, drop it cleanly."
"The losses would be too large. Existing Metflix subscribers can just watch it there, so Witch's new subscriber numbers won't jump much. The return on investment is terrible."
As a businessperson, President Won Chaeyoung had made a perfectly rational call.
But this was a loss we had to absorb.
If, after that thud of the Metflix logo, the Witch logo appeared in any form before the show started — the promotional value alone would be enormous.
"What's the total production budget for Emperor?"
"Currently two hundred billion won. There may be additional costs."
"So seventy percent is a hundred forty billion? A hundred forty billion in advertising. Not a bad investment, is it?"
"As you know, Representative, Dawon Media doesn't have that kind of free capital right now. As a holding company we could pull funds from Future, Witch, or Lime, but none of the three is exactly flush either."
"Of course I'll supply the ammo. Four hundred billion will be deposited by tomorrow."
"......"
"......"
"......"
Not just President Won Chaeyoung — President Jeong Dong-hyeok and even President Gu Hong-jun, who'd been quietly eating, all lifted their heads and stared straight at my face.
It wasn't that shocking.
This future hadn't changed; it had flowed exactly as scheduled.
The stock I'd invested eighty billion in had risen precisely 491.25 percent, and I'd sold at an average of about 430 percent up.
After taxes, roughly 417 billion had landed in my hands — and of that, I was putting 400 billion into Dawon Media.
"President Gu."
"Yes, Representative!"
"Tell them to produce Emergency Exit. You'll get the investment from President Won."
"Emergency Exit? The script's funny, sure, but isn't it getting hard for comedy films to succeed in Korea these days..."
"It'll succeed, so Future will produce it. And for the time being, send every scenario that comes in to me. Drama, film — doesn't matter."
"Yes, understood."
"President Won, make sure the other presidents are well supported. Don't let them run short of money. Additional funds will be deposited in September. Larger scale than this time, too."
"......"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"What, are you printing money somewhere? Hundreds of billions aren't kids' play money — they just appear if you wait long enough?"
"In my case, yeah, they do. Not printing — they just kind of multiply on their own, hahahaha~"
The ACM stock I'd put 54 million dollars into had risen 29.61 percent in barely a month.
At this rate, the 200 percent rise I'd been hoping for might actually be possible.
If it hit that, the projected profit was around 150 billion won.
For overseas investments, once profits exceeded 2.5 million won, a flat 22 percent tax rate kicked in no matter what — so the take-home inevitably shrank.
Take the Tesla I was still sitting on, for example. Projected profit around two trillion — meaning a tax bill of a full 440 billion.
Highway robbers, the lot of them.
"Thanks for lunch~"
"It's a corporate card, so technically you paid for it, Representative."
"....Say thank you."
"Thanks for the meal~"
"Tch... thought it was free food.."
After the meal, I stopped by a nearby café with President Won Chaeyoung.
"Where have you been reporting to lately?"
"Lime. Dawon's basically a one-person investment firm right now, so there's not much to do yet."
"Then did you see her?"
"See who?"
"The friend Sua brought yesterday."
"Trainee Kim Sua? You know her?"
"Ah... did I not mention it?"
When I told a blinking President Won Chaeyoung that I was boarding at Kim Sua's house, she nearly shouted in shock.
"You're boarding, Representative?! Then how much money does that family have..!"
"Haha.. Sua's family doesn't have money. They're breaking their backs every month paying off loan interest someone else dumped on them."
"Really? Then why are you boarding there?"
"That's a little too personal a question for me to answer."
"Ah, I'm sorry."
"It's fine. More importantly — would you meet that friend once? Ask her for me whether she'd be interested in trying as a faceless singer."
"Ah... someone who sings well but has issues with her looks?"
"No. You'll be shocked when you see her. Actress-level."
"Then why a faceless singer?"
Barely three years after debuting, she had taken her own life.
Knowing that future, I couldn't propose she become a regular singer.
But I wanted to hear the song that had once comforted me again.
So I would help her release albums as a faceless singer — nothing more.
If we stopped right there, that terrible future might still change.
And if even that was too greedy, I'd be satisfied just recording the songs she sang as a hobby and listening to them myself.
"Because she really can sing..."
"Who?"
"Augh, damn! You scared me..!! Get that hideous thing out of my face?!"
"......"
Geum Gangsan, who'd shoved his face in close with his back ramrod straight, scowled down at me after I shoved it away, then claimed a seat.
The one President Won Chaeyoung had been sitting in until a moment ago.
"If you weren't such a cash cow of a customer, I'd hit you one. I'm holding back because you pay well."
"If you need to loosen up, go to the gym and spar."
"Pass. Can't bring weapons in there."
"......"
"Don't glare at me like that. I fight better with something in my hands. Think of it like Mun Seong-hyeon."
"He's a kendo athlete. You're just a thug. How are you the same?"
"Ah... this is how you treat someone who just came from working hard."
"You worked? You just hired people."
"He just does the charming-people part — I set the whole board! And I handled the cleanup myself!"
I checked the document envelope Geum Gangsan had practically thrown down.
Photos of Kim Jinsu with a young, pretty woman on his arm, and so on.
Yun Jiyeon's husband — the man Kim Sua believed was a dead father.
Looking at that smiling face made my blood boil.
"You handled it cleanly, right?"
"That bastard leveraged private loans to the hilt and invested. That's the deposit record. And the USB is packed with photos and videos of the two of them rolling around naked. If you're bored, go home and watch them alone in secret."
"And the mistress?"
"Gone. I sent the same stuff straight to Madam Jo at the used-car place. As of yesterday she got kicked out of the company and kicked out of the house. That bastard's a broke homeless wreck with nowhere to go. No — not just broke. He's got about a billion won in debt?"
It had been a problem the law couldn't solve.
So I'd paid him back in kind.
So he'd spend the rest of his life drowning in debt.
"This is why men have to be careful around women."