Young-hoon's Decision (1)
"Chairman Choi is taking charge of the beverage business, so we were discussing how we could be of help to him."
"Heh heh, I figured as much, which is why I brought Managing Director Kim along. Now, let's get down to business. According to him, the first step is selecting the region where we'll build the factory..."
"Naturally. As I see it, the coffee business requires importing all of our beans from abroad, so we'll need a location near a port yet still close to Seoul. Incheon is close, but the land prices there are steep, so I'd recommend Pyeongtaek. What are your thoughts, Chairman?"
"Kim and I really do think alike. I actually discussed this very issue with Managing Director Kim on the way here, and he recommended the Pyeongtaek area as well. As it happens, I own land in Anjung, right near Pyeongtaek. Would that work for you?"
"That settles it nicely, then. How large is the plot?"
"Around 1.65 square kilometers. If it's not enough, we'll simply buy up the surrounding land."
"Then let's proceed with that site. But do we have any coffee specialists on hand?"
"I'm looking right now, but no one's caught my eye yet. And it's not as though I can ask Dr. Sim to take on the research as well."
"Chairman, coffee doesn't seem to have any special medicinal properties, so wouldn't it be better to find someone with a discerning palate and encyclopedic knowledge of coffee itself?"
"I'm searching through every channel, so let's give it a little time."
Chairman Choi, sensing that Young-hoon hadn't been paying much attention to the tea side of things, added a remark of his own.
"By the way, what are we doing about tea?"
"I'll leave that decision to you, Chairman. Whether we launch the coffee and tea businesses simultaneously, or start with one of them first."
"Let's do both at once, then. The tea market won't amount to much outside of Korea, China, Japan, and Britain anyway."
Young-hoon, the two chairmen, and Managing Director Kim spent another hour or so discussing how to move forward with the beverage business—coffee and tea alike—before parting ways.
Young-hoon returned to the office a little after five. But Manager Kim, who should have been sitting at his desk, was nowhere to be seen.
"Deputy Park, did Manager Kim go out on a field call?"
"No, about an hour ago he got a phone call from someone and just walked out."
"What was the mood when he took the call?"
"Not good. I could hear the yelling from over here."
"For a man that quiet to be that worked up... it means he found something out."
"You think so too?"
"The mood on our team is going straight to hell. Honestly, should I just quit this place?"
"Why are you of all people saying that? Even Manager Kim walked out talking about quitting... Maybe I should quit too, while I'm at it?"
"You've got no beef with Deputy Head Cho or Deputy Hong, do you? Those two are tearing apart Manager Kim—what chance does someone like me have? I'd better start lining up an escape route now, while I still can."
"Ugh, the whole vibe here is garbage anyway. Come on, let's grab Jin-man and go drown our sorrows in soju."
Young-hoon, Deputy Park, and Jin-man clocked out earlier than usual and started drinking in the early evening. As they drank, Young-hoon quietly probed at what they were thinking. Deputy Park was already eighty or ninety percent set on quitting, and Jin-man admitted he'd leave in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose.
As Young-hoon saw it, both of them had graduated from K University, one of Seoul's most prestigious schools, so even if they quit, they were more than well-positioned to move to another company. Deputy Park in particular, while not quite born with a diamond spoon, had come from a gold-spoon household—and if all else failed, he could simply take a job at his parents' hospital. Jin-man, with barely three years of experience under his belt, commanded a relatively modest price on the job market. Either of them could land on his feet without much trouble if he walked away from LK Electronics.
Manager Kim, however, was in an entirely different situation. After more than a decade at the company, his price was too steep—the only places that could match his LK Electronics salary were other major corporations. And no major corporation was about to hire a high-salary veteran like him, not when they were actively pushing their most expensive employees out the door through honorary retirement packages.
They had started drinking so early that by nine o'clock, barely past sundown, they were all completely hammered. Young-hoon made it home a little after ten and went straight to bed, collapsing where he stood.
And so yet another exhausting day slipped by.
Young-hoon's stomach was in knots from the night before. The moment he opened his door and stepped out, Su-jin unleashed a storm of nagging on him.
"Are you done with night shifts or not?"
"What, you tired of my nagging already?"
"Yep. Obviously. I'm starting to think I made a mistake letting you move in."
"Then don't eat the hangover soup! And I'm telling Mom everything—how you come home late every night reeking of booze."
"Oh, come on, my beautiful little sister. That's not fair. You don't even pay rent, do you? When we moved in together, you clearly promised you'd handle the cooking. And go ahead, tattle to Mom. If anything, she'll have words for you."
"You're unbelievable. Go wash up and eat. I have to get ready for work too."
"Seriously, though—no more night shifts?"
"Day shifts only from now on. The night-shift allowance is nice, but I'm just going to let it go. It's not like I'm paying rent anyway, so whatever."
After sparring with Su-jin, Young-hoon ate the hangover soup she'd labored over and headed to the office—where, as always, he was the first one in. At this point it was honestly hard to tell whether Young-hoon was exceptionally diligent or everyone else was simply lazy.
Since Deputy Park had promised to fetch the coffee today, Young-hoon lingered in the break room, waiting idly. It felt oddly empty somehow—because it was just about time for the messages to arrive.
Young-hoon finished his text exchange with President Lee Jae-man and checked the clock. Deputy Park would be walking in any minute now—and sure enough, the office door swung open and in he came, two cups of coffee in hand. A man who kept his promises, as expected.
"Here it is, as promised. I'm dying of exhaustion, so mix it up fast."
"Look at you, like I'm on permanent retainer now."
Grumbling out of one side of his mouth, Young-hoon nevertheless stirred the magic herb powder into Deputy Park's coffee and handed it over. Deputy Park wiped the playfulness from his face and asked, dead serious.
"Kim, are you actually going to quit?"
"Looks like it. I'm done by the end of the month. But you stay until the very end. Got it? Listen to your hyung on this one."
"No. I'm quitting when you quit. This morning I told my dad I was leaving the company, and he insisted I keep you around no matter what... Wait, have you met my father or something?"
"You never introduced us—when exactly would I have met him?"
"Right? But he talked about you like he knows you inside and out. Anyway, I'm quitting with you. I got the final word from my dad."
And so another gourd attached itself to Young-hoon's vine.
It was nearly nine by the time Manager Kim finally showed his face. He'd evidently been out late the night before as well; his face looked a little haggard. Now was the time to stay quiet and watch.
Before long, Manager Kim summoned Young-hoon and Deputy Park to the conference room.
"You've all heard the rumors, so you know why I came back to Korea from China. Back when we exposed the internal corruption here, I made a connection with someone on the audit team—he's a manager at headquarters audit now. Yesterday, after chewing over that punk Deputy Hong's loaded little remark, I gave him a call. We've kept in touch now and then since he owes his promotion to me. He said he'd look into it and get back to me, and sure enough, he called yesterday afternoon."
Curious, Young-hoon asked, "What did he say?"
"The audit team already wrapped this phone-dumping affair up internally. The document audit is just going through the motions."
"What? They closed it internally without even auditing anything? Does that even make sense?"
"The audit executive is three years senior to Managing Director Kim. The two of them whispered together for a few days, reached their conclusion, and passed the results down to the team."
Deputy Park leaned in. "And those results are?"
"A formal reprimand for Deputy Head Cho. Six months' suspension for me. Six months' suspension for Team Leader Gyeongbuk. And a reprimand for Deputy Seong, the one handling the Gyeongbuk dealership accounts."
"What?! You get six months' suspension for what, exactly?"
"Apparently I played the decisive role in President Jung of Gyeongin Distribution forcing those phones onto the electronics market... Did I ever meet the man? Did I so much as talk to him on the phone? All I ever did was chase shipment volume to hit my sales targets—"
Deputy Park stared at Young-hoon as if a chill had run down his spine, and muttered, "What you predicted yesterday, Kim... it was right, wasn't it?"
Manager Kim perked up at that and asked for the full story. "What was it you two were talking about yesterday?"
"Yesterday, well... Kim said something like, 'Deputy Hong schemed with the dealership and Manager Kim was strong-armed into forcing the shipments—they had him dump the phones on the electronics market.'"
"Hmm, so that's what he said. If Kim's right, then it all fits together. Which would mean Managing Director Kim, Deputy Head Cho, and Deputy Hong cooked this up together. God, this company is garbage."
"So what are you going to do now, Manager? You can't just sit there and take it."
"What else is there to do in this situation? Quit, because I'm sick of it. I got burned in China too—trust me, the individual never beats the organization."
"Doesn't it feel unjust?"
"What can you do? I guess it's just my fate. From here on out, I need to figure out how I'm going to make a living."
At the note of resigned defeat in Manager Kim's voice, Deputy Park flared up and poured out his frustration.
"I was already decided, actually—Kim and I agreed yesterday we're done with this company. Why don't the three of us go into business together?"
"Why would you two? Only I need to quit."
"Look at what that punk Deputy Hong is doing—the next target is Kim, and after him it's me. I'd rather quit first than watch that happen."
"Ha! You two are hopeless, you know that? Deputy Park, you can just go work at your father's hospital... And Kim, what about you—planning to go farm back in your hometown?"
Young-hoon had been listening to the two of them in silence, and now, as if a decision had crystallized inside him, he spoke.
"What I'm about to say cannot leave this room. As far as the company is concerned, only the three of us can ever know."
Deputy Park practically leapt out of his seat. "What?! Don't keep us in suspense—out with it!"
"I'll explain the why later. First, a question for Manager Kim and Deputy Park. How are your language skills?"
"Sounds like something important. Well, Chinese and English at native level, and Japanese good enough to hold a free-flowing conversation."
"I can get by in English. The rest, not so much."
"Then we shouldn't talk at length here. Let's go somewhere after lunch—the three of us together."
"What is it? Tell us now. I'm dying of curiosity here."
"Even if you're dying, hold it in. I need time to get my own thoughts in order, don't I?"
"Fine. After lunch, we go together. Honestly, just seeing a glimmer of hope feels good."
Young-hoon, Manager Kim, and Deputy Park wrapped up their talk and filed out of the conference room. Young-hoon had made up his mind: he was pulling these two men into his own company.
The problem was that he had nowhere to put them just yet. YH Co., Ltd. was a brand-new company, and the roles it could offer them were limited. No matter how he turned it over in his head, Girin Entertainment seemed like the perfect fit—and yet the two of them knew absolutely nothing about the entertainment industry, its workings or its ways.
He was still wrestling with where to place them when the impractical girls of Five Girls began flooding his phone with a group KakaoTalk chat.
The dice had already been thrown, and the water had long since spilled across the floor. There was no retreating now. The only road left led straight ahead.