Engraved in His Bones
Lee Jeong-eun spoke in a voice thick with irritation.
“I’ve been ridiculously busy these days.”
“You’re not the only one who’s busy.”
Lee Mun-jong rebuked her in a tone that made no attempt to hide his distaste. Lee Jeong-eun refused to yield.
“I’m the busiest of all. The busiest person sitting in this room.”
She dropped into a seat and cast a look around at her brothers. Confirming that none of them was prepared to contradict her, she let out a short snort of laughter.
“Everything you people do is more or less the same small-time nonsense. Big Brother is a Vice Chairman who’s barely even there. Second Brother walked into the Prosecutor’s Office once and came out half out of his mind. And Fourth—well, he’s always been the spare. The only one who might have come close is the youngest, and she isn’t even here, so that makes me the busiest.”
“Fine. You’re wonderful.”
Lee Mun-jong realized he could never win a war of words with her and abandoned the argument. When he turned his face away, Lee Jeong-eun lifted her chin in triumph and addressed Chu Suk-ja.
“So why did you call all of us together?”
Chu Suk-ja, who had been sitting in silence, finally opened her mouth.
“You’re so busy you don’t even care how the company is being run?”
Lee Jeong-eun’s face went blank with confusion.
“What do you mean, how the company is being run? What’s that supposed to mean?”
She glanced sideways at Lee Chang-jong, wordlessly asking whether he understood. He looked just as lost. Lee Sang-jong and Lee Mun-jong turned to their mother with the same puzzled expressions.
“Mother, what are you talking about?”
“Oh, you half-wits. You absolute half-wits.”
Realizing she was not the only one left in the dark, Lee Jeong-eun pressed her.
“Well, you have to explain properly if you want anyone to understand. Who’s supposed to make sense of that?”
“Do you truly not know whose hand is playing with Ilhyeon right now?”
Lee Jeong-eun narrowed her eyes at her mother. A single name rose in her mind, and she spoke slowly.
“Don’t tell me you’re about to say the company is dancing on Kim Seong-ho’s palm?”
“Yes. And knowing that, this is the time you choose to let your minds wander elsewhere?”
“Aigoo—I thought it was going to be something serious.”
Lee Jeong-eun let out a sigh laced with relief and looked around at her brothers.
“Who here doesn’t know that already? You know, right, Oppa?”
She pointed at Lee Mun-jong. He nodded with a dark expression.
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it a great deal lately myself—that the company is being dragged around far too much by him.”
He paused, collecting his thoughts, then met Chu Suk-ja’s eyes.
“But the group is in the middle of restructuring, and the man holding the key to that restructuring is Kim Seong-ho. There’s nothing we can do about it. We have to understand that.”
“Understand? How generous of you.”
Chu Suk-ja snorted and turned to Lee Sang-jong.
“Second. Does any of this make sense to you?”
“I…”
When he hesitated, she fixed him with a sharp glare.
“Doesn’t it gall you? Dragged off by the prosecutors and you’re not even angry?”
“That’s…”
Lee Sang-jong could not finish the sentence. Lee Mun-jong watched him for a moment, then spoke in his place.
“Mother, that wasn’t because of Kim Seong-ho. If we’re being honest, it was Father’s decision.”
“And who do you think told your father to make that decision?”
Chu Suk-ja looked around at her children with open frustration.
“Who is moving your father right now?”
She thumped her own chest as if the idiocy of it all were physically choking her.
“To think I gave birth to such imbeciles. I actually called them my children. I ate seaweed soup after bearing these things, so the real fool is me. I’m the halfwit.”
“Mother—”
“Don’t you dare call me Mother!”
When Lee Mun-jong tried to soothe her, she snapped. She flung out a hand and pointed at every one of them.
“You idiots! Do you intend to keep letting that bastard toy with the company? Who walked into the Blue House in your father’s place? And who is sitting pretty on two President’s seats while someone else is still over the moon about finally getting one?”
“Mother, even so—”
“Are you going to claim it was all Father’s decision?”
She cut him off coldly.
“Think carefully. Ever since that Kim Seong-ho entered this house, how has your father moved? And how did that creature climb as high as he has? While each of you was celebrating over a single scrap, how many pieces landed in his hands? Do the arithmetic properly for once.”
Chu Suk-ja poured out the fury she could no longer contain, then shoved her chair back and stormed out without another word.
“Mom…”
“Mother…”
Lee Mun-jong and the others rose halfway in awkward confusion, staring after the cold wind she left in her wake. Lee Jeong-eun watched her mother’s retreating back for a long moment, then sank back into her seat and looked at her brothers.
“What’s wrong with Mom?”
“Didn’t you hear her? She said Kim Seong-ho is trying to control Father and told us to wake up.”
“You’re telling me she dragged us here—when we’re this busy—just to say that?”
Lee Jeong-eun shook her head as if the whole thing were absurd and glanced around the room.
“I’m not joking. I am genuinely, desperately busy. The company is doing so well I barely have time to breathe, and I have no idea what she’s talking about. Look, I’ll be honest—I’ve thought the same thing myself. It bothered me. But what exactly are we supposed to do about it now?”
She turned from Lee Mun-jong to Lee Sang-jong.
“The day they talked about handing over Ilhyeon Power, Mom said your trip to the Prosecutor’s Office was because of Kim Seong-ho. Oppa. Did you tell her that?”
Lee Sang-jong shook his head.
“Why would I say something like that?”
“So she came up with it on her own.”
Lee Jeong-eun stared down the empty hallway Chu Suk-ja had taken.
“And what she just said—what are we supposed to do about that either? Father is backing him. What leverage do we have?”
She finished and slowly turned her gaze on Lee Mun-jong. Whether they meant to cut Kim Seong-ho down or simply pin him under their heel, the only person who could still crush him while Lee Tak-hyeon stood behind him was Lee Mun-jong.
Feeling every pair of eyes settle on him, Lee Mun-jong folded his arms and sank into thought. He had always considered Kim Seong-ho an ally. Lee Sang-jong and Lee Chang-jong had thought much the same. They had all regarded him as a blade that would cut in their favor, and so his high position had never felt like a true threat.
“Even so, Kim Seong-ho is only a son-in-law.”
Lee Jeong-eun relayed what she had heard from their mother.
“I told Mom the same thing. Do you know what she said back? She said that in Ilhyeon, nothing is impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible in Ilhyeon?”
“She told me to remember how Father—who was the second son—inherited the group from Grandfather. But that’s a completely different story from Kim Seong-ho…”
Lee Jeong-eun still shook her head, unable to follow the logic. Lee Mun-jong, however, felt the words land squarely in his chest.
“She’s right. Nothing is impossible.”
He nodded slowly.
“…There have been quite a few times lately when he crossed the line.”
He turned to Lee Sang-jong.
“How much is the fine this time?”
“About twenty billion for Ilhyeon Construction.”
“That might have been Kim Seong-ho’s handiwork as well.”
Still with his arms crossed, Lee Mun-jong twisted his lips.
“We can’t just leave him alone. Mother’s right—we need to stay sharp. And before that, it wouldn’t hurt to step on him a little. Before he realizes what’s coming.”
No matter how useful an ally might be, allowing him too much power was never wise. Lee Mun-jong wanted Kim Seong-ho clinging to his rope for survival—not the other way around.
Lee Jeong-eun listened and broke into a gleeful little smile. Already she was bouncing slightly in her seat, eager to see how Kim Seong-ho would react to a decision made in his absence.
But Kim Seong-ho was not ignorant simply because he was not in the room. The behaviors of the Ilhyeon family—behaviors he had endured for an entire lifetime—were engraved deep into his bones.
Kim Seong-ho sat with Jo Byeong-jin, Jeong Byeong-ju, and Deputy Head Lee Gyeong-deuk. It was not a formal meeting; he had simply called them together for a short conversation. These were the people who had been with him the longest—his closest circle.
They gathered in his office and talked freely.
“The group restructuring is finally wrapping up.”
Lee Gyeong-deuk, legs crossed, spoke in the easy tone reserved for unofficial gatherings. Jo Byeong-jin, seated beside him in the same posture, picked up the thread.
“It’s a good thing we started before the real waves hit. Made everything so much smoother.”
“That wasn’t all. With the strength we conserved, we were able to scoop up every solid asset that hit the market. For Ilhyeon, the storm actually turned into an opportunity. I haven’t been here since the founding, so I can’t speak for everything that came before, but since I joined, this has been the biggest chance we’ve ever had. Seong-ho was right—this will be Ilhyeon’s second leap.”
Lee Gyeong-deuk looked at Kim Seong-ho and gave him a thumbs-up. Without Seong-ho, none of this would have been possible. Even if someone else had seen it coming, no one could have delivered results this spectacular. The achievement was dazzling, almost gaudy in its brilliance.
Jeong Byeong-ju’s expression showed full agreement.
“Closing out the Big Deal successfully on top of everything else—the results are nothing short of massive.”
A soft knock sounded. Seong-ho’s secretary stepped in.
“Head of Headquarters, I’ve brought four coffees.”
“Thank you.”
Seong-ho thanked her, then personally lifted the iced coffees from the carrier and set one in front of each of the three men.
“Whoa—so this is that famous star-shaped coffee?”
“That’s right. A branch just opened in front of the company, so I ordered some.”
“I’ve heard people line up for it… but one cup is forty-five hundred won?”
“The smaller size is cheaper.”
“Aigoo—forty-five hundred won would buy you a full meal with change left over, and they’re spending it on a single coffee. I just don’t get it.”
Jo Byeong-jin wore the face of a man who could not comprehend standing in line for a coffee that cost more than lunch. He put the straw to his lips, took a sip of the iced coffee, and shrugged.
“Still, coffee someone else is buying always tastes good.”
Jeong Byeong-ju followed with a sip of his own and spoke to Seong-ho.
“Expensive or not, I hear it’s doing insanely well?”
“Their goal is fifty stores by the end of the year.”
“They only launched the brand not long ago and they’re already targeting fifty locations this year? That’s impressive.”
Lee Gyeong-deuk took a drink and added his own note of admiration.
“Coffee more expensive than a meal, flying off the shelves like this—imagine how much money they’re raking in. Of course they’re expanding aggressively. Husband and wife are just racking up hit after hit.”
“Exactly. Which is why some of the staff have started whispering that Seong-ho is already Ilhyeon’s number two.”
“Why wouldn’t they? He closed the Big Deal with the Blue House in the Chairman’s place. Of course he’s the second-in-command. It isn’t even wrong.”
“I think the same.”
When Jo Byeong-jin raised the subject of the second-in-command, Lee Gyeong-deuk agreed at once, and Jeong Byeong-ju joined them. None of it was empty flattery meant for Seong-ho’s ears. It was what ordinary employees inside Ilhyeon believed, and it was how the outside world had begun to see the group.
Seong-ho was well aware of the talk.
“That’s exactly why I asked the three of you to sit down for a moment.”
“That talk?”
Jo Byeong-jin blinked, straw still between his lips. Seong-ho, who had not yet touched his own coffee, looked him straight in the eye.
“The number-two talk. That’s what I wanted to discuss.”
His face was set and hard as he opened his mouth.