Chapter 133
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 133
Chapter Title: The Weight of Pride
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At Han Aebom's suggestion to change clothes first, I dazedly pulled out the suit I'd worn to the wedding and mulled it over.
Negotiation? Negotiation? Good heavens... There wasn't a word as foreign to me in my entire life. I was a total dimwit who'd never even haggled over a salary in 29 years. Even if I scoured my whole life, only a handful of memories surfaced.
The bare few that came to mind were negotiating with Mom on weekends whether I'd get two hours on the computer or three. Then, leaping way ahead, a brief chat with the battalion commander when I arrived at my unit about headquarters company or 1st Company. That was it.
'Crazy...'
Looking back, it was even more pathetic. The negotiations I'd faced in 29 years amounted to that? And I couldn't even recall winning a single one.
I'd throw a tantrum with Mom for three hours only to get smashed down to one. During the waiting period, the permanent staff uncles warned me never to go to 1st Company, so I schemed to land in headquarters company, only to wake up in the trash heap of bad habits known as 1st Company with my combat boots already swiped.
"......"
Damn, the more I thought about it, the gloomier it got.
Rustling into the suit, I gazed at Han Aebom's back in the distance—her black panties and that beautiful hip line. She wasn't my mom, nor the bushy-bearded battalion commander. So maybe I could face this negotiation with a relaxed mind?
'Above all, I've changed too.'
It felt weird saying it myself, but even if I'd wasted my years up my ass, I'd shown solid growth lately. My confidence had risen overall, you could say. No longer reflexively dodging eye contact like before.
Huh? Is this self-hypnosis? Muttering nonstop, it started feeling like it'd work. A rock-solid confidence welled up that I could pull it off right now.
Yeah! I can do this!
"Then. Please have a seat for the proper negotiation."
Her voice dripped with razor-thin ice, her cold eyes seeming to pierce straight through me. My confidence from moments ago nosedived in an instant. What even was confidence? Forgotten already.
Yoon Sua, unable to bear it, cautiously spoke up.
"Aebom, how about a more relaxed atmosphere?"
"Sua unnie, I'm not joking around. It's this year's me even allowing this much of a seat—last year's me wouldn't have bothered. I'm compromising plenty as it is."
"Th-then, let's at least eat some fruit. Okay?"
"That much is fine, unnie."
With Han Aebom's permission, Yoon Sua hurriedly peeled the apples prettily and set them on the table. Then she ducked behind Oh Hana. I wondered if she was disappointed or scared of Han Aebom, but no—she was watching us with thrilled eyes. The look of an auntie live-watching her morning drama.
That girl's not all there either. Damn, not the time to worry about others.
"Hyunwoo-ssi, relax too. I'm me, and you're you, after all. At least eat some of the apple Sua unnie peeled and take it easy."
"Ah, yes......"
Reflexively grabbing a piece and popping it in my mouth, Han Aebom tossed a bomb oh-so-casually.
"For reference, know that resolving this situation means I have to give up a lot."
"Guhk, kh, urk...... guhk, kuhk, cough......"
The apple lodged in my throat tried to surge back up but got barely blocked by my palm. I forced it back down somehow, but a second piece was out of the question.
I quietly set down the fork and met Han Aebom's gaze. She regarded me not as a roommate, but purely as a negotiation counterpart.
Utterly indifferent eyes, utterly indifferent voice... They felt like they were drilling right through me.
Even amid it all, her manners and formality were more impeccable than mine. Astonishing, really. I couldn't tear my eyes away. An overwhelming elegance and presence radiated from her.
"Honestly, I might even be a little angry at you, Hyunwoo-ssi."
"......"
"I wanted to confide my personal situation only to you. I had zero intention of spilling my current mess to everyone like this. In a way, you've forced my hand."
"......Yes. I'm sorry."
"Well, quibbling over what's already happened would be silly, wouldn't it?"
She said as much, but her earlier words had already stirred an uncomfortable guilt deep inside me.
Thinking it over, she wasn't wrong. For someone like Han Aebom, how grating must it be to get tangled up like this and expose secrets she'd buried...
My fist clenched tight, but Han Aebom pressed on.
"You know I ran away from home due to circumstances, right, Hyunwoo-ssi?"
"Yes......"
"Asking me for help in that situation? It's the same as telling me to bow my head first to the family I fled."
"......!"
"Sure, you might think, 'Just bend that silly pride a bit.' But human matters aren't so simple."
Han Aebom paused a beat before continuing. Her timing was impeccable.
"Hyunwoo-ssi, before I reveal my family—you've probably guessed already, but I'm from a rather notable house. Which means my grandfather, Chairman Han Serong, has the power to drag me back anytime he pleases. Just like Oh Hanam."
Han Serong? What? It wasn't bullshit—I'd heard the name a ton, but it wouldn't click. Or rather, I had no room to think. Han Aebom was pummeling me unilaterally.
"So why hasn't he dragged me back?"
"Thinks I'll slink home on my own......?"
My voice shrank as I forced it out, but Han Aebom let out an incredulous chuckle. That tiny laugh sent my heart plummeting like a stone. Felt like I'd made a colossal blunder.
"That doesn't matter one bit, Hyunwoo-ssi."
"......"
"If anything, the worse I suffer out here, the more he's probably grinning. 'Knew it'd happen—serves you right,' that vibe."
Heavens, a grandfather like that?
Oh Hana's tale was legend of legends, but Han Aebom's kept rewriting the record every time. Had I lived too much in my bubble? Frog in the well or something?
"It's a pride war, plain and simple. Pride. He wants to watch me shatter and bend mine on my own."
"......"
"Frankly, how much longer can Grandfather even live? And before that, the odds of everything he's built crumbling? Even if it does, what won't he get to enjoy?"
"......"
"Nothing. So why does that man cling so viciously to the chairman seat without retiring?"
This was spinning my head. Felt like a real lesson in chaebol psychology today. Cold sweat streaming, I scraped together an answer. My voice trembled as I spoke. Terrified of being wrong again.
"B-Because he feels alive only through work...?"
"Exactly."
Her affirmation let me sweep relief across my chest instantly. What the hell—why was I this intimidated? The tension made me hypersensitive to even that one word.
"The chairmen who dominated his era haven't retired yet. He compares himself to the young upstarts clawing their way up relentlessly, reveling in his own greatness every time."
Hard to grasp why a tycoon with everything keeps grinding for that. I'd have retired and jetted off world-traveling. Could be a rich bum—everyone's dream—anytime.
As if reading my mind, Han Aebom spoke.
"This word—I don't use it often myself. But a commoner's pride and ours? Worlds apart in value and weight."
If anyone else said it, I'd brush it off as offensive nonsense. But from her, I found myself nodding despite myself.
"Now, back to the beginning. To resolve this somehow, I'll have to bow to the family I ran from—to Grandfather himself. He'll burst out laughing in delight, and I'll taste a bitterness I've rarely felt in life."
Gulp.
"So how do you plan to compensate me for that, Hyunwoo-ssi? Let's discuss that from now on......"
My breath hitched, a faint vertigo rising—then Oh Hana shot her hand up and shouted.
"Wait! Uh, Aebom unnie, isn't that a bit harsh? We're still bonded under one roof with real affection—saying it like that is......"
Oh Hana clamped her mouth shut. Han Aebom's face had soured sharply.
"I'm the one who hates the 'affection' excuse—jumping to save a drowning soul only to demand the bundle upfront. If anything, that's when you need things crystal clear between you. Weirdly, people never get it. Who do you think is responsible for this mess in the first place?"
"Hik!"
"Hana. Know what I saw first before my family education?"
Overwhelmed by Han Aebom's aura, Oh Hana shriveled and shook her head. The Han Aebom at this 'negotiation' table was a whole different person.
"People camped silently from dawn to dusk at the agency drowning in complaints."
"......"
"What's a complaint? Demanding specific action from a public institution, right? But there, I saw them—trash running amok under the guise of 'complaints.'"
"......"
"I've seen struggling folks when I was young. Felt heartbroken too. But after that education? Ice cold. Told you—saw it. Ironically, with my own eyes: the poorer they are, the more vicious they can get."
Come to think of it, I'd heard something similar in passing from my civil servant friend. The well-off are more polite, solve things via the internet themselves.
The poor, on the other hand? To them, those workers might as well be devils. Not everyone, sure, but my friend—who worked as one—said his heart was dead now. Can't kill them, after all...
Back in high school, he was so innocent he couldn't even get mad—kids playfully punching his shoulder, he'd just dumbly laugh. Less than two years in, fully blackened. Plenty must've thought inwardly, Good he didn't stick with it.
Not me. I'd have killed to be a civil servant. Fuck.
"Ah, n-no. I-I'm not asking shamelessly or anything... If I receive, I'm a give-and-take girl... U, uu."
Oh Hana probably hadn't meant it that way, truth be told.
Everything at this negotiation table played out exactly as Han Aebom willed. She crafted that atmosphere. The fact was straight-up chilling.
"Ugh, totally shot down. Anyway, unnie... Is your family that big a deal? Th-the Ilha Group's no slouch either?"
Even now, aggrieved at getting steamrolled by Han Aebom, Oh Hana drags out her hated family name. She's something else—that brazenness.
Han Aebom snorted.
"I could've sworn I dropped 'Han Serong' earlier. You don't know which group's chairman that is?"
Really, I'd heard it a million times. Why the blank now?
As I, Oh Hana, and Yoon Sua all tilted our heads, Han Aebom looked genuinely stunned.
"Not that I like Grandfather or anything. He'd clutch his neck seeing this. Other companies' chairmen, maybe if you're clueless about business—but living in Korea and not knowing him? First I've met."
Her next words left us all—including me—staring wide-eyed.
"Hanban Group."
That was the name of the conglomerate—exaggerating slightly—shouldering half of Korea.