Nothing Ever Goes Exactly as Planned
Thud.
Lee Tak-hyeon stepped out of the car and looked up at the main building of the Blue House.
"Chairman."
Unlike usual, the Chief of Staff to the President himself had come out today to handle the reception and protocol.
"Ah, you. It's been a while."
Lee Tak-hyeon greeted the Chief of Staff with a familiar, friendly face.
The Chief of Staff bent at the waist, respectfully took the hand Lee Tak-hyeon extended, and bowed his head.
"How have you been, sir? I was quite worried when I heard you weren't feeling well."
"Thanks to your concern, I'm fine now. And no matter how uncomfortable I might be, I had to come today. Don't you agree?"
"I'm relieved to hear it. I was actually wondering whether we might have to reschedule if the Chairman couldn't make it."
"Now, now. That won't do."
Lee Tak-hyeon's face hardened as he shook his head.
"The entire nation is praying for this to be over as soon as possible. How could we delay it? Even if I were laid up in bed, I would have come crawling if it was for the country."
"As expected of the Chairman."
The Chief of Staff bowed his head, then glanced at Kim Seong-ho standing beside Lee Tak-hyeon and smiled faintly.
"It seems the Chairman's heart for the nation has been well conveyed to your son-in-law as well. Thanks to Director Kim's active assistance, we were able to proceed without any major difficulties."
"Hahaha. Is that so?"
Lee Tak-hyeon turned to look at Kim Seong-ho with a smiling face at the Chief of Staff's praise.
Gazing at Kim Seong-ho, who was ducking his head as if embarrassed, he continued,
"I did tell this fellow to actively cooperate with whatever the government was doing. I'm glad to hear he kept his word."
"Then shall we continue the conversation inside? The wind is chilly, and I'm worried it might affect the Chairman's health."
"Yes. Let's go in. The President will be waiting as well."
Lee Tak-hyeon nodded toward the Chief of Staff, who was urging them inside.
Kim Seong-ho, who had been quietly listening until then, spoke carefully to Lee Tak-hyeon.
"Then I'll wait in the annex."
Lee Tak-hyeon turned his head, looked at Kim Seong-ho, and nodded.
He then followed the Chief of Staff, who was already heading in, and slowly entered the presidential office in the main building.
"This way, Director."
A protocol secretary who had approached Kim Seong-ho before he knew it guided him to the annex.
And so the two men parted ways—one to the main building, the other to the annex—as the final confirmation meeting for the Big Deal among the five major groups began at the Blue House.
"Chairman Lee. What am I supposed to do? I kept saying it was fine, it was fine, but that fellow under me ended up bringing Ilhyeon Power after all. Truly. I don't know what to say to your late father."
Chairman Jang of the Mirae Group entered, supported by an attendant.
The moment he came in, he offered an apology to Lee Tak-hyeon before even greeting him properly. Lee Tak-hyeon rose from his seat and answered with a bitter expression.
"What can we do? Since it's come to this, we'll just have to make the best of what we've received."
"Right? You should have asked for Mirae Electronics instead. Then we would have handed Mirae Electronics over to Ilhyeon rather than Seonwoo."
Chairman Jang cast a sidelong glance at Chairman Kim Woo-ha of the Seonwoo Group, who was standing beside Lee Tak-hyeon.
Kim Woo-ha, with his glossy bald head, rubbed the top of his scalp with one hand and put on a theatrical air.
"Aigoo, Chairman. Then what was Seonwoo supposed to do? Seonwoo absolutely needed Mirae Electronics."
"Don't talk nonsense. Seonwoo didn't just get Mirae Electronics—you got petrochemicals as well, didn't you?"
"Thanks to which Mirae lost its strongest competitor in the automobile industry."
"Hahaha. Anyone listening would think Seonwoo gave up an entire car company. All you actually gave up were peripheral companies making things like air-conditioning systems that go into cars."
"Come now, Chairman. Don't say that. You, of all people—someone steeped in the automobile industry—know better than anyone that even that alone has enormous value."
Chairman Jang of Mirae and Chairman Kim Woo-ha of Seonwoo faced each other with smiling faces, exchanging sharp remarks without yielding an inch.
Watching the scene from the side, Lee Tak-hyeon burst out laughing.
"Honestly. That's enough, both of you. It's starting to make my stomach hurt just listening."
At Lee Tak-hyeon's claim that his stomach hurt, Chairman Jang and Chairman Kim Woo-ha, who had been glaring at each other, stepped back.
"Tsk. Well, compared to you, I suppose we're better off."
Chairman Jang lifted his cane and pointed at a chair.
He told the attendant supporting him to help him over to sit, then spoke to Lee Tak-hyeon.
"Ilhyeon took a heavy loss on this deal. I know it, and every citizen of the Republic of Korea knows it."
"And to the same degree that Ilhyeon lost, Mirae gained a great deal."
"There's no need to put it so pointedly."
Chairman Jang frowned at Kim Woo-ha as if displeased.
Settling into the chair and handing his cane to the attendant, he continued,
"If you ever need to ask Mirae for a favor later, just say the word. I'll do whatever I can to accommodate you."
It seemed Chairman Jang was trying to ease his guilt over taking Ilhyeon Power by offering to grant a future request.
Lee Tak-hyeon sat down across from him and smiled faintly.
"Understood. I'll think it over carefully, and if something comes up, I'll speak without any burden."
At Lee Tak-hyeon's words, Chairman Jang finally wore a satisfied expression, as if a weight had been lifted from his mind.
Kim Woo-ha, taking a seat beside Lee Tak-hyeon, looked back and forth between the two men and thought to himself,
Ilhyeon making a losing deal… The world really…
Ilhyeon was a company that never took a loss.
From the founding chairman of the previous generation onward, Ilhyeon would count the profit on a single grain of rice—but never tolerate a loss. Yet in this deal, of all things, they had taken one.
Kim Woo-ha tilted his head, finding the present situation—Ilhyeon looking so uncharacteristically like a loser—deeply strange.
Is there something else going on?
The thought struck him that there had to be another reason Ilhyeon had given up Ilhyeon Power.
Otherwise, he could not imagine them surrendering it so readily.
Semiconductors and shipbuilding both require enormous capital…
On top of that, both industries had cycles—you had to make money in the boom years to endure the busts.
Considering all of that, handing over Ilhyeon Power, which held proprietary technology, simply looked too bizarre to Kim Woo-ha.
"His Excellency is entering."
While Chairman Kim Woo-ha of the Seonwoo Group was still watching Lee Tak-hyeon's profile with a puzzled gaze, President Kim Dae-sang entered.
Everyone present rose as one to receive him.
"Chairman Jang. Please, Chairman Jang, you need not stand."
President Kim Dae-sang told Chairman Jang, who was struggling to rise, that it was fine to remain seated, then gestured to the other group chairmen as well.
"Come, sit. Let's talk while seated."
Kim Dae-sang offered a nod of greeting to each of the five major group leaders in turn, then took his seat first.
Soon the others sat as well, and the discussion began.
"I have gathered you all here today for the successful finalization of the Big Deal."
President Kim Dae-sang gestured toward his Chief of Staff.
The Chief of Staff, who had been standing by the office door, stepped forward at the signal and laid a sheet of paper in front of each of the five group chairmen.
Once he confirmed that a paper lay before every man, President Kim Dae-sang addressed them.
"These sheets contain the matters agreed upon by the working-level staff. Please review them and sign."
"Sign?"
Chairman Kim Woo-ha of the Seonwoo Group lifted his head and looked at Kim Dae-sang.
Kim Dae-sang explained to Kim Woo-ha, who was staring at him as if to ask why signatures were necessary.
"At the working level, everything has already been finalized. And everyone here has already received reports and knows the contents. But in my heart, a certain unease still remains."
"Unease? What sort of unease are you referring to, sir?"
"The unease that you gentlemen might not keep your word. The unease that you might say you will do it, only to change your story later. That unease still sits in my chest."
At Kim Dae-sang's words, Chairman Jang of the Mirae Group furrowed his brows and asked,
"Surely you aren't presenting this because you think we might not keep our promises?"
"I trust you will not. But nothing in this world goes exactly as one wishes, does it? So I am simply trying to add a slight binding force. Please understand."
Kim Dae-sang smiled as he spoke to Chairman Jang.
To those present, the President's smile felt like a threat.
And the chairmen who had actually undergone prosecutorial investigation after the previous threat did not take his words at face value.
Yet there was nothing the group chairmen could do about it.
Last time it had ended with investigations, but they had no confidence that the next time would end the same way.
"Very well."
Chairman Lee Tak-hyeon was the first to pick up the pen that had been offered along with the paper.
He signed boldly, capped the pen, set it back down in front of him, and said,
"If one makes a promise and then fails to keep it, there is nothing more shameful. We intended to keep our word even without this, but if having it puts Your Excellency's mind at ease, there is no reason not to sign."
Finishing his remarks, Lee Tak-hyeon looked at President Kim Dae-sang and smiled faintly.
Then he turned his gaze to each of the other four group chairmen in turn.
Ilhyeon Group was widely regarded as the party that had suffered the greatest loss in the Big Deal.
With the head of that group being the first to sign, the other chairmen lost any pretext to refuse.
"Ahem. If Ilhyeon is doing it, then we must as well."
Chairman Jang of the Mirae Group lifted his pen after Lee Tak-hyeon.
Once Chairman Jang had signed without complaint in Lee Tak-hyeon's wake, the remaining chairmen, one by one, raised their pens as well.
President Kim Dae-sang watched the chairmen signing their commitment to honor the agreement, smiling quietly without a word.
In the car returning from the Blue House, Lee Tak-hyeon recounted to Kim Seong-ho, who sat beside him, what had happened in the presidential office.
"The President shoved a paper in front of us telling us to keep our promises."
"Is that so?"
Kim Seong-ho reacted as if it were nothing of particular note.
The stronger reaction, in fact, came from Hwang Do-beom in the front seat.
"A paper? He wanted to put the promise in writing?"
Hwang Do-beom, seated in the passenger seat, twisted around to look into the back and asked.
Lee Tak-hyeon gave a short laugh at seeing the reaction that should have come from Kim Seong-ho come from Hwang Do-beom instead.
"Why so surprised?"
"Of course I'm surprised."
Secretary General Hwang Do-beom turned his body even farther and said,
"If it was already settled at the working level, it was as good as done. Why go out of his way to put it in writing?!"
"Kim Dae-sang said there might be parties who would change their tune later."
"But it was an agreement reached at the working level. Who would reverse something like that?"
Hwang Do-beom shook his head as if he could not understand.
Lee Tak-hyeon seemed to share the same thought; he chuckled lightly and turned to look at Kim Seong-ho.
Kim Seong-ho, too, had a smile playing about his lips.
Yet to Lee Tak-hyeon's eyes, that smile looked different.
"You think such a thing could happen, do you?"
At Lee Tak-hyeon's unexpected question, Hwang Do-beom, who had been smiling, turned his head in surprise.
He hurriedly looked at Kim Seong-ho and tried to speak in his defense.
"There's no way Director Kim would think something like—"
"That's correct. I believe that as time passes, there may well appear parties who fail to keep their promises."
"Director Kim!"
Hwang Do-beom, who had been about to cover for him, twisted around with a startled face to stare at Kim Seong-ho.
But unlike the shocked Hwang Do-beom, Lee Tak-hyeon was looking at Kim Seong-ho with an expression that suggested he had expected exactly this.
"So you were the one who told him, after all."
"Pardon? Told him? What is it that Director Kim is supposed to have told him?"
"The document promising to fulfill the agreement."
"I wouldn't say I told him so much as I gave him a hint."
"A hint?"
Hwang Do-beom's mouth fell open, while Lee Tak-hyeon's lips curved upward.
Kim Seong-ho shifted slightly to face Lee Tak-hyeon, who sat beside him, and said,
"When he was fretting that someone might not keep the promise later, I simply suggested that he put it in writing. That was all."
"Haha."
Lee Tak-hyeon had half expected it, yet still let out a hollow laugh and shook his head at the confirmation that Kim Seong-ho had been the one to tip him off.
Hwang Do-beom turned to Kim Seong-ho with a stunned face.
"These aren't ordinary people—they're the chairmen of the five major groups. To extract signatures from them promising to keep their word… How did you think they would take that…?"
"Because the man who shoved the paper at them was the President."
"Exactly. So no one could make a sound of protest, and they had no choice but to sign."
At Kim Seong-ho's words, Lee Tak-hyeon recalled the scene in the presidential office and spoke.
Hwang Do-beom still looked astonished as he asked,
"No one said anything at all?"
"Didn't you just hear what Director Kim said? When the President says he doesn't trust you and shoves a paper at you demanding a promise, who is going to refuse? Apart from me, the other four have all stood on the prosecutors' photo line. If they had said no this time, that photo line might have been drawn at a prison instead of the prosecutors' office."
Lee Tak-hyeon delivered the line like a joke, but Hwang Do-beom found himself thinking it might well be true.
And even Lee Tak-hyeon, who had said it lightly, believed the possibility was very real.
That was how little room the group chairmen had had to refuse the President's proposal.
"And since I signed first, they had even less room to say no."
"You signed first, Chairman?"
"Yes. According to Director Kim, this is a deal that is unconditionally advantageous to us. What if the deal fell apart over some misstep? When people think you've taken a loss, that's exactly when you have to step forward even more."
Lee Tak-hyeon spoke to Hwang Do-beom with a smiling face, then turned his head.
The smile left his face as he addressed Kim Seong-ho.
"It had better be a deal that favors us, just as you said. I have no desire to become the man who personally signed the most idiotic deal under heaven with his own hand."
"You need not worry. It will be a deal that is unconditionally advantageous to us."
Lee Tak-hyeon looked at Kim Seong-ho and smiled again.
And he regarded him with a gaze full of curiosity as to why the young man could be so confident about a transaction that everyone under heaven was calling a terrible deal.