A Hidden Trump Card - 1
Park Namil's voice rolled out of the broadcast, and the people beside him nodded along. In the shot that followed, the anchor was already listing every benefit the deal was expected to deliver.
"How did this happen?"
"We're looking into it now, but..."
Cut headquarters out entirely?
Which means...
It was not entirely unforeseen. Even so, Park Namil had gone and done something I had not quite believed he would actually dare.
"Like mother, like son. Truly."
It was the same strategy I had been put through in my days as a secretary. Anyone who would not bend, anyone who would not come over to their side, was pulled up by the roots and left to wither.
"Do we have any partner companies we can reach right now?"
"Most of them seem to be at that signing as we speak. One moment."
Yura hurried out of the chairman's office and began placing calls in a rush. I doubted it would be easy.
I didn't need to wonder. There would be agreements sealed at the level of a recording and nothing more. The Chairman had done the same often enough when he signed deals of his own.
"How good are the terms?"
"And on top of that, they'll have talked about what each of them gets to pocket personally."
"Chairman! I've got Nut on the line!"
"Put them through to me!"
Nut was a partner firm that manufactured the parts our company needed. The Chairman had called on them more than once, so the name was a familiar one.
I sat, lifted the receiver, and an older woman's voice soon came through.
"Aigoo... Chairman, busy as you are, and you went and called all the way out here."
"Not at all. I'm sorry to bother you. It doesn't look as though you joined President Park Namil's contract."
"Aigoo, me? I'm of a mind to hand the business to my boy or my girl before long and retire, that's all. And the terms were so good they struck me as suspicious, if anything."
"What, specifically, was discussed?"
"Oh, do this and you'll make a killing, and so on and so forth. Aigoo, don't even get me started. But you remember what I told the Chairman, back when he came by?"
I did. At that old meeting I had heard why she named the company Nut, and the reason carried a weight far larger than the word itself.
"You know, Chairman, more than profit, I want us to be a company like our name. A nut. The part that's needed everywhere, the part we can be the ones to supply."
The Chairman, moved by those words and trying to press something generous into her hands, overlapped in my mind with the sight of her firmly declining.
"Anyway, I told them that if we did it that way, prices would rise and ordinary customers would suffer, so we would have to refuse. They said all sorts of things on their way out. I still told them no."
I didn't yet fully understand what it meant for something to be beyond the reach of money. Even so, her words were the words of a woman set on protecting that value.
"...Thank you. Ma'am, if any retaliation comes, we will stop it. Without fail."
"Aigoo, I'll be just fine. I've been running a company for years. If I need you, I'll call, so you just mind the Chairman's own work."
"Yes. I understand. Sorry to have taken your time."
The call ended. I let my weight fall back against the chair, and a deep sigh came out of me on its own.
"This is exhausting..."
"Chairman."
Yura was standing in front of me as if she had something that needed saying—and, contrary to our agreement that she could drop the formalities, she was using full honorifics.
"Why... what's wrong?"
"I was going to let it go if I could. This, I have to say."
She set the tablet she had been holding down on the table with the air of someone who had made up her mind. The resolve in the eyes fixed on me pulled me upright before I knew it.
"I don't care how urgent things are. You do not call someone who came to the funeral, someone you've been in debt to all this time, and launch straight into business. Where does that leave you?"
"Huh...? Did I?"
"Of course you did! She's kind, and she knows you, so she let it pass. It would not have been the least bit strange if she'd called you out on the spot!"
I had been in such a rush that I honestly wasn't sure, but turning it over again, jumping straight to the point had been my fault.
Human relationships just work that way, Makina.
The way she said it, as if she could not imagine what was so serious, only confirmed that I really had spoken like that. A killing blow, delivered without meaning to.
"Boss, I really am worried about you, you know?"
Once she had said her piece and finally settled, Yura slipped back into her usual way of speaking. The eyes she turned on me were full of worry.
"Becoming chairman overnight is jarring enough, but nothing can actually be allowed to happen to you..."
A great deal had changed since I became chairman. Yura's brightness, and the way she thought of other people before herself, had not.
"Shouldn't you be worrying about yourself first? They might come after you just to get at me. We don't know what could happen."
"Well, if it came to that, you wouldn't just sit still, would you, Boss?"
I had meant the words as worry. She answered with a teasing smile, and what I felt in it was trust.
"Fair enough... From now on, stay close and keep teaching me what to watch for. You're better with people than I am."
"Close... the whole time?"
She had spent years meeting people and handling external affairs. She could certainly fill in the places where I fell short.
Choi Yura's Favorability Rating has increased.
Why is it going up this time?
I looked at her, puzzled, and found her staring at the floor with her face gone red, just as it had at the restaurant.
"Right beside you... the whole time..."
Something I couldn't parse had caught her, and she kept repeating the same words.
"Yura. Pull yourself together. Keep tracking the press, keep calling the partner companies, and report back."
"Ah... yes! Yes, sir!"
Snapping back to herself, Yura gathered her tablet and left the chairman's office.
"How long has it even been since the press conference?"
> The theory of shaping public opinion is simple. Cover an issue with an issue.
> Answer their good story with a better one. Answer their bad story with a worse one.
> The most basic of basics.
"Yeah. That tracks... How are the employees?"
"And the regular staff?"
For employees who barely knew the inner workings of the company, it was only natural. So long as the paycheck arrived, it hardly mattered who the chairman was.
"Personality aside, Park Namil does get the work done."
"On the surface?"
She seemed to be hiding something again. Makina always had a reason for what she withheld, so I didn't press.
"First, I should meet the directors and the staff."
"What? Why?"
Let them cling to Park Namil if they wanted—and still have those same people come looking for me?
It was a baffling thing to say. It was also, in its way, an attractive offer.
"What kind of method is that?"
Makina laid her strategy out for me. I was appalled, and I asked her again and again, but she showed not the slightest intention of changing her mind.
In the end I chose to trust her. For the next several days, I carried that strategy out to the letter.
"Boss... public opinion is..."
Every morning Yura came in to report, and every morning her expression grew graver. Makina held to her strategy all the same.
"Yeah. I know."
"Are you sure you'll be all right?"
"Yeah. This is the right move."
"Really...?"
"..."
Yes. I was carrying out Makina's strategy faithfully. And that strategy was nothing other than this.
Doing nothing at all.