Whether True or False, That's Not What Matters
Whether true or false, that wasn't what mattered right now.
"Chairman. Congratulations."
"Chairman. You've finally got your hands on Doa Motors. Congratulations."
"Father. Congratulations."
Gathered at the house in Pyeongchang-dong, Lee Tak-hyeon's family members all but tumbled over one another to offer him their congratulations.
Ordinarily he would have snapped at them for the noise, but today Lee Tak-hyeon wore a pleased smile as he accepted the greetings from his children and daughters-in-law, who seemed to be competing to outdo one another.
"It's not even finished yet. Why all the fuss?"
Lee Jeong-eun cut in sourly, as if the whole celebration were ridiculous.
"We've only been named preferred bidder. Doa Motors hasn't been fully absorbed into the Ilhyeon Group. Why is everyone acting like this? Celebrate after we win the final bid."
"Being named preferred bidder is as good as locking down the acquisition. Why so negative?"
Lee Sang-jong looked at her as if he couldn't understand.
"Once the talks are done and the first button is fastened, it's basically settled. Something doesn't have to be in your pocket already to be yours. If it's confirmed it's coming later, that's enough. Right, Director Kim?"
Kim Seong-ho smiled faintly at the question and answered.
"The fine points are still being coordinated, but the broad framework won't change. The acquisition of Doa Motors will go through even if the heavens split in two. There's no need to worry."
"See? Director Kim says so."
The moment Seong-ho finished, Sang-jong turned on Jeong-eun as if that settled it.
Unable to pick any further fight, Jeong-eun turned her face away. The rest of the family resumed their congratulations to Lee Tak-hyeon, once again as if competing, and the atmosphere stayed warm and lively for a while.
When the congratulations finally ran their course, attention shifted elsewhere.
What would become of Ilhyeon Motors now that it had absorbed Doa Motors had become the greatest concern of everyone present.
Yet no one wanted to be the first to raise the subject.
Speak up too soon and you might become the target, the one taking all the arrows.
They watched one another carefully and waited for Lee Tak-hyeon to speak.
Whether he was savoring their tension or not, Tak-hyeon merely watched his anxious children with a faint smile.
While they waged their silent war of nerves over who would break first, Chief of Staff Hwang Do-beom approached with a flustered look.
"Chairman. A moment…"
Still smiling, Tak-hyeon asked with his eyes what the matter was.
Hwang glanced briefly at Lee Mun-jong and the others, then only made an awkward face and said nothing.
Sensing something off in that expression, Tak-hyeon rose from his seat.
"Wait here a moment."
On any other day he would have simply ended the gathering. Today he told them to stay and wait.
Mun-jong and the others had a vague sense that whatever Tak-hyeon meant to say concerned Ilhyeon Motors after the Doa Motors acquisition.
Once Tak-hyeon left with Hwang, Jeong-eun spoke first.
"He's going to say he's spinning off Ilhyeon Motors and giving it to someone, isn't he?"
"You made a scene about wanting the president's seat at Ilhyeon Card not that long ago. Now you're eyeing Ilhyeon Motors?"
"And you, Oppa? You said Ilhyeon Construction was enough for you. So why are you eyeing Ilhyeon Motors?"
"When did I eye it?"
"You're only snapping at me because you want it yourself."
"When did I—?"
As their voices rose, Mun-jong scowled.
"That's enough. Father hasn't gone far."
At that, Sang-jong and Jeong-eun shut their mouths. Both glanced toward the study where Tak-hyeon had gone, gauging the situation.
When there was no reaction from the study, Jeong-eun looked away first, and Sang-jong followed, averting his gaze. The brief uproar settled.
Silence settled over the living room for a moment. Then Mun-jong turned to Lee Chang-jong.
"Is your wife ready to leave?"
"She must be."
Chang-jong answered as if speaking of a stranger, as if it were none of his concern.
Mun-jong also wanted to ask about the child. But with his other siblings, their wives, and even his own wife present, he couldn't bring it up and only watched carefully.
"How is the child?"
Having read Mun-jong's mind, Kim Seong-ho asked Chang-jong in his place.
Mun-jong shot Seong-ho a grateful look and listened closely to the answer.
It was the same as when he had asked about Jang Eun-ah.
"He's growing up fine, I suppose."
The way Chang-jong spoke of the boy as if he belonged to another household made the siblings stare at him strangely.
Even if the child had been born outside the marriage, this one, unlike the eldest whose paternity was uncertain, had been proven by blood. They had assumed Chang-jong would dote on him.
Instead he talked about the boy as if he were someone else's, and Sang-jong and Jeong-eun eyed him with open suspicion.
"You don't mean…"
Jeong-eun was about to say something to Chang-jong when Lee Tak-hyeon reappeared.
She stopped mid-sentence and looked at him, tense.
Unlike when he had left the living room, he returned wearing an expression that looked ready to explode at any second.
Tak-hyeon surveyed his children and raised a finger.
"Vice Chairman Lee, Vice President Lee, and Director Kim stay. The rest of you go home."
The finger pointed at Mun-jong, Chang-jong, and Seong-ho.
Jeong-eun and the other family members stared at him in incomprehension.
"We're not supposed to stay?"
"I said stay because I have something to say. Stop the nonsense and go."
Jeong-eun, who had been reading the room, pushed back.
"You're not planning to hand Ilhyeon Motors to Eldest Brother or Chang-jong, are you?"
"No."
"You are. That's why you're keeping them."
At her words, Sang-jong's eyes changed as well.
He had told himself Ilhyeon Construction would be enough, but the truth was he had his own greed for Ilhyeon Motors after it absorbed Doa Motors.
Tak-hyeon looked from the defiant Jeong-eun to Sang-jong and then bellowed.
"I said it is not about Ilhyeon Motors. And even if it were, am I supposed to listen just because you don't like it? Is Ilhyeon Motors yours?!"
"No. That's not what I—"
Tak-hyeon's face, already dark with fury from the moment he returned, flushed a deep red. He jabbed a finger at Jeong-eun and raised his voice.
"Listen carefully. Ilhyeon is mine. Everything you enjoy was given by me. Don't forget that. Nothing with the Ilhyeon name on it is yours."
Jeong-eun could not say a word.
Still seething, Tak-hyeon turned his glare on the other children and daughters-in-law as well.
"Anyone who brings harm to Ilhyeon or to me will not be left alone. No matter who it is…!"
Mun-jong wondered whether the words were aimed at him; he could not meet his father's eyes and lowered his head.
Tak-hyeon snorted at the sight and spoke again.
"If you understand, all of you leave. You three, follow me."
He turned and headed for the study.
Mun-jong and Chang-jong rose carefully from their seats and followed toward Tak-hyeon's study with the fearful eyes of cattle being led to slaughter.
Only Kim Seong-ho kept an untroubled face. He soothed the worried Lee Gyeong-eun and then headed for the study himself.
"Hyung-nim, what on earth is going on?"
Faced with Tak-hyeon's towering rage, Mun-jong asked Hwang Do-beom, who stood outside the study.
Hwang looked from Mun-jong, who had come close to press him, to Sang-jong waiting beside him for an answer. He let out a short sigh and pushed Mun-jong's back.
"Go in. You'll find out once you're inside."
Mun-jong could tell Hwang found the subject difficult to discuss.
"What could possibly—"
"What are you all doing out there? Get in here."
Tak-hyeon's voice carried from inside the study. Mun-jong hurriedly opened the door.
"Yes. We're coming in. Come on."
He told Sang-jong and Seong-ho to enter and went in first.
Sang-jong followed with a baffled expression, and Seong-ho entered last.
Whap!
The instant Mun-jong stepped into the study, a magazine flew straight at his face.
"Ow!"
Never expecting a magazine to come flying, Mun-jong cried out and clutched his face.
"Look at that properly. What the hell is going on?!"
Instead of asking whether he was all right, Tak-hyeon ordered the man covering his face to look at the magazine.
Mun-jong rubbed the cheek that had been hit, then picked up the fallen magazine.
"Which part…"
Unsure what he was meant to look at, he started to ask and lifted his head.
That was when the small print on the cover caught his eye.
I Group in Uproar Over Chaebol Heir's Illegitimate Child
Panic flashed across Mun-jong's face. He flipped the magazine open in a rush and began reading the article that matched the cover line.
Domestic I Group is currently in an uproar over an illegitimate child. It has been reported that the eldest son of the leading conglomerate I Group fathered a child with his secretary. I Group is one of the most prominent enterprises in the country, and its eldest son currently holds the post of Vice Chairman of the group…
Mun-jong could not finish the article. He raised his head, face pale with shock.
"Let me see that."
Chang-jong snatched the magazine from Mun-jong's hands and read the rest of the piece.
Tak-hyeon fixed his stunned, flustered eldest son with a hard stare. Then, in a heavy voice, he asked about the story in the magazine.
"The magazine says the child is yours. What is this nonsense?"
"My child…"
Hyung-nim. No matter what happens, you have to insist it isn't yours. Even if it's Father.
Mun-jong recalled the words Seong-ho had drilled into him again and again.
In any situation, he was to insist the child was Chang-jong's. And he must never admit the truth—not even to Lee Tak-hyeon. Seong-ho had emphasized it repeatedly.
At the time Mun-jong had found the lectures tedious. He had answered half-heartedly that he understood and tried to brush it off with a "don't worry."
But Seong-ho had held him there and repeated the point until it was exhausted, and because of that, Mun-jong could summon those words even now.
"It is not my child."
"Not yours?"
Tak-hyeon glared as if he meant to scrape the inside of Mun-jong's mind clean, then asked again.
Even under that stare, Mun-jong did not yield. He denied it.
"Yes. The DNA test showed Chang-jong is the father. How could the child be mine? It's nothing but baseless talk."
After staring at Mun-jong for a long time, Tak-hyeon let the force leave his eyes, nodded, and spoke.
"Fine. From now on, wherever you go and whoever you meet, that is what you say."
"Sir? Ah… yes."
Hearing Tak-hyeon say almost exactly what Seong-ho had said, Mun-jong was startled.
"This story is spreading fast."
Tak-hyeon pointed at the magazine that had passed from Chang-jong's hands into Seong-ho's.
"It first appeared in that magazine today. Tomorrow it will surface in a couple more places. Within a few days it will reach the daily papers—it's only a matter of time. Who leaked it? Was it you?"
He pointed at Chang-jong.
"How could I? If this gets out, I'm the one who takes the most blame. Why would I plant the story?"
"Then was it you?"
The finger swung to Seong-ho.
Seong-ho, who had been skimming the article quickly, closed the magazine, rolled it in his hand, and faced Tak-hyeon.
"It's only out in one place so far. We can still contain it. I'll do everything I can to shut it down."
Tak-hyeon stared hard into Seong-ho's eyes, which had answered a different question than the one asked.
Seong-ho did not flinch under that gaze. If anything, he pressed first, as if time were short.
"Chairman. We have to stop this before it spreads further. The article is written so that people will think of us. The only eldest son in Korea who also holds the title of Vice Chairman is Hyung-nim. We have to contain it before it goes any further."
"So was it you?"
Even as he listened, Tak-hyeon never took his eyes off Seong-ho and asked again.
Seong-ho unrolled the magazine in his hand and held it up.
"Whether I did it or not, that is not what matters right now. Stopping it comes first. Chairman. Please give the order at once."
He was the one prodding Tak-hyeon, insisting that who had spread the story was beside the point.
Under that pressure, Tak-hyeon closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and moved toward the sofa.
"Sit down first. We'll discuss how to respond."
At his words, the flustered Mun-jong and Chang-jong headed for the sofa.
Last of all, Seong-ho—who still held the magazine that had leaked the story—sat down as well, and they began to discuss how to handle the illegitimate-child affair.