A Big Star for Her Career
By the time Lee Gyeong-eun had finished a little more than half her meal, Kim Seong-ho rose from his seat.
"Seong-ho? Why are you getting up?"
He had always sat across from her until she finished every last bite, so the question carried a note of mild disappointment.
Seong-ho looked at her and smiled as he explained.
"How about a cup of coffee for dessert once you're done?"
"Coffee?"
Her voice held genuine surprise. Seong-ho only smiled wider.
"Keep eating. I'll fix you a nice cold americano."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it. When I serve, I do it properly. Tonight, Gyeong-eun, you just sit back and receive."
"All right. Then next time it's my turn."
"I'll look forward to it."
With that, Seong-ho headed for the kitchen. He brewed the coffee and returned carrying a chilled americano. In the meantime Gyeong-eun had finished her meal; she accepted the cup, took a sip, and patted her stomach with satisfaction.
"Seong-ho, finishing a meal with a cold cup of coffee like this is wonderful. My mouth feels so clean and refreshed."
Looking thoroughly pleased, she sipped again and regarded him with open admiration.
"I never knew you could make coffee this well. You're as good as a barista."
Seong-ho only smiled quietly at the praise.
"Gyeong-eun, what if we could have a meal like this at lunch and then finish with a cold americano?"
"That would be amazing."
She answered without a second's thought, lifting her cup.
"After lunch the post-meal drowsiness always hits, doesn't it? But a cold coffee like this would wake you right up and make the afternoon's work go better."
"And breakfast?"
"Breakfast would be just as good."
She set the cup down again.
"When you've only just woken up and you're still half-asleep, coffee would clear your head completely."
Having finished her answer, she looked at him with open curiosity.
"But why the sudden questions?"
"Because I feel exactly the same way."
Gyeong-eun tilted her head, watching him. Seong-ho gazed down at the coffee in front of him and explained.
"The weather keeps getting warmer, yet the only coffee we drink at the office is that hot instant mix they keep stocked."
She nodded and looked at the cold coffee before her. Making iced coffee at the company was no simple matter. The pantry had cups and coffee, true enough, but ice was limited and the mix only dissolved properly in hot water—hardly ideal for a cold drink.
While she quietly studied the beads of condensation on her glass, Seong-ho continued.
"If you want cold coffee like this, you have no choice but to go to a café. And even then you sit there and drink it. You can't take it back to the office or walk down the street with it. But in America it's different."
At the mention of America she lifted her head and met his eyes, sensing that the real reason was about to appear.
"I've been watching a popular American sitcom lately. All the office workers walk down the street carrying these huge coffee cups."
"Ah—I know the ones. Those big paper cups with the star logo?"
"That's exactly it."
Seong-ho raised his own cup.
"We sit down in a café to drink our coffee. Americans walk the streets with it in hand. Then they take that same coffee into the office and keep drinking. They drink it on the way to work in the morning, after lunch, after they leave for the day… Coffee has become so common that people drink it as casually as water. From the sitcom you can see how deeply it's sunk into everyday life."
"You're right. If you actually go to New York you see office workers everywhere with coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other."
Seong-ho held his cup out toward her.
"What if you did that, Gyeong-eun?"
"Me? How?"
Her eyes widened. She genuinely could not see what he meant.
In a calm voice he set the cup down again.
"That star-logo coffee brand you just mentioned is currently asleep inside Ilhyeon Department Store."
"Asleep inside Ilhyeon Department Store?"
"Yes."
He leaned a little closer and continued.
"Before the foreign-exchange crisis hit, Ilhyeon Department Store had plans to bring that star coffee brand in and launch it domestically. Then the crisis struck without warning, the project was frozen mid-stream, and everything has been sitting in the department-store warehouse ever since."
"Is that really true?"
"Go to the office tomorrow and check for yourself. You'll know exactly."
Gyeong-eun's expression grew serious as she looked down at her cup. Seong-ho's voice kept reaching her ears.
"Pull that sleeping project out and try it again. I think it has real promise."
"This…"
She lifted her head, eyes half hopeful, half worried.
"Will it be all right?"
"It worked in America, so I believe the potential is more than enough for us. Don't feel pressured. Open the first store on a street where young people gather, watch the response, then expand from there."
When he finished speaking he placed a proposal document—already prepared—on the table in front of her from the chair beside him.
Gyeong-eun looked down at the project proposal, then stared at him in open astonishment.
"You already made a full project proposal?"
"The Restructuring Headquarters will give you full support, so run the project yourself. If it lands successfully, it will put a major mark on your career."
She glanced at the proposal for a moment longer, then looked back at him. A pure, almost childlike sound of admiration escaped her, and she shook her head.
"Seong-ho, did you even know how I would react once I'd finished eating and had coffee?"
"Didn't I just say I feel the same way? And other people will feel the same as well, so this project is guaranteed to succeed."
"You really are something else."
She shook her head again, picked up the proposal, and rose.
"I'll give it everything I've got. Just don't expect too much. Even if it succeeds, it's only a coffee brand."
"Look over the proposal and ask me anything that comes up. Since the Restructuring Headquarters has committed full support, I'll oversee it personally."
"Thank you. I'll go wash up now."
Proposal in hand, she headed for the bathroom. Seong-ho remained seated, watching her back, and murmured under his breath.
"Ten years from now, that coffee brand's revenue will be larger than Ilhyeon Department Store's."
Right now it was nothing more than a story about a single cup of coffee that seemed hardly worth mentioning. Yet a decade later every citizen of the Republic of Korea would walk around with coffee in hand, and the brand's sales would surpass the combined revenue of the department store and the hotel.
Knowing that future, Seong-ho had chosen the coffee-brand launch as the first method of building Gyeong-eun's achievements. With that foundation he intended to keep pushing her forward until she was firmly inside the succession race.
Confirming that the first button had been fastened correctly, he rose to do the dishes.
The second auction for the previously failed Doa Motors sale was held at Modeu Bank.
"Welcome. We've been waiting for you."
The deputy president of Modeu Bank bowed a full ninety degrees to Kim Seong-ho. The people gathered in the auction hall immediately began whispering among themselves, trying to identify the man who had received such a greeting.
"Who is that?"
"Who do you think? Just look."
A reporter who had come to cover the auction pointed toward the hall.
"He's the youngest person who's walked into this place. That should be obvious."
"The guy next to him is young too."
"Come on. The one beside him is clearly an aide."
At the exasperated reply the colleague finally nodded in understanding and lowered his voice.
"So that means he's Director Kim Seong-ho of the Ilhyeon Group?"
"Who else would get a bow like that from Modeu Bank's deputy president? Look over there—President Park is practically running out barefoot."
Bank President Park Don-su, who had been greeting other dignitaries, hurried over the moment he spotted Seong-ho.
"Oh my, Director Kim! You've arrived?"
"President Park. You've been well, I hope?"
"Oh, of course. Thanks to you, Director, I've been doing just fine."
In a flurry of exaggerated hospitality Park Don-su quickly beckoned a nearby Modeu Bank employee.
"Prepare a seat for Director Kim right next to mine."
"Yes, sir."
The employee shot a quick glance at Seong-ho, then hurried toward the front of the hall to carry out the order. Once Park confirmed that a place was being arranged, he pressed close to Seong-ho's side and spoke to the deputy president.
"From now on, you handle the rest of the arrivals. I have matters to discuss with Director Kim."
"Yes, sir."
With that, Park personally escorted Seong-ho into the auction hall.
"This way, Director."
Watching from a distance, the senior reporter hastily jotted something in his notebook.
"Looks like Ilhyeon's taking Doa Motors today."
"Ilhyeon?"
The junior reporter beside him asked in confusion. The senior kept writing without answering until he finished the note, then tore the page free and handed it over.
"Get this to the desk right now. Say that the Ilhyeon Group has been selected as the preferred bidder."
The junior took the paper but stared at his senior as though he had lost his mind—the auction had not even begun.
"What are you standing there for? Go!"
"Senior, the bidding hasn't—"
Smack!
The senior rapped the junior on the back of the head.
"What kind of reporter are you if you can't even feel this much? The auction is nothing but a formality to hand Doa Motors over to Ilhyeon according to the rules. Open your eyes and look at who the other companies sent as their representatives."
Only then did the junior notice the other firms' attendees. Most of them were people whose positions inside their own companies he could not even name. From the business cards they had exchanged, they appeared to be section-chief level—bid officers, they claimed, but in reality people of little weight inside their organizations. Compared with Ilhyeon, which had sent a president-level figure, the difference was night and day.
The senior tapped the junior's cheek.
"Section chiefs showing up as decision-makers for a multi-trillion-won bid doesn't tell you anything? Wake up. News is a battle of scoops. Get it to the desk."
The junior finally looked around. Other newspapers' reporters were already moving busily; a few had started to run.
Clutching the paper, he said, "I'll get it to the desk as fast as I can."
"Don't talk—run!"
At the senior's barked order the junior spun and sprinted out of the hall.
Park Don-su, smiling faintly at the brief commotion, turned to Seong-ho.
"Looks like the reporters have caught on as well."
"Soon the entire country will know."
Park glanced sideways at him.
"About what we discussed last time…"
"It will proceed exactly as planned. No need to worry."
"Then the debt-to-equity conversion…"
"That too, just as I promised. In three years we will take over all the shares, whatever the price turns out to be."
"Thank you. Hoo… now I can finally breathe easy."
Park had clearly been fretting that Ilhyeon might change its mind. Seong-ho smiled at the bank president who was exhaling in relief.
"And you, President Park, must keep your promise to lend us the full acquisition amount."
"Oh, don't worry about that. Honestly, if it were up to me I'd hand it over this very minute."
The bank lending window might be firmly shut for everyone else, but that rule did not apply to Ilhyeon. When you considered that Ilhyeon Group bonds carried a lower interest rate than even Republic of Korea government bonds, Ilhyeon was the safest place in the country.
Having reassured Seong-ho, Park signaled the staff member in charge of running the auction. With Seong-ho seated and ready to bid, the rest hardly mattered.
The Modeu Bank employee stepped forward and called out to the room.
"We will begin the auction in five minutes. Everyone, please take your seats. Once again—five minutes from now…"
One by one the people gathered in the hall moved to their places. And so the long, winding sale process for Doa Motors began to turn again, back on its proper track.