I'll Double the Performance
The siblings who had gathered in Lee Mun-jong’s office relocated as a group to Pyeongchang-dong.
“It’s not even Sunday. What’s brought all of you here?”
Chu Suk-ja stared at her children, who had arrived en masse, her face full of confusion.
“We checked at the company and they said Father was home. Is he here?”
“Your father… of course he’s here. But what on earth is going on?”
Lee Sang-jong tried to put the worried Chu Suk-ja at ease.
“It’s nothing serious. Just company business, so you don’t need to worry.”
He gently rested a hand on her shoulder and turned to Lee Mun-jong.
“Hyung-nim. Shall we go?”
“Right. Let’s go.”
Lee Mun-jong took the lead, with Lee Sang-jong, Lee Jeong-eun, and Lee Chang-jong following behind him as they headed up to Lee Tak-hyeon’s study.
Startled by her children’s sudden appearance, Chu Suk-ja called over to Lee Gyeong-eun, who was sitting idly in the living room.
“Your older brothers and sister have all shown up. Do you know anything about this?”
“Oppa and Unni? It’s not even Sunday.”
“Exactly.”
The mother and daughter who had been sniping at each other only that morning completely forgot the earlier quarrel in the face of this unexpected development and headed together toward Lee Tak-hyeon’s study.
When Lee Mun-jong and the others entered the study, they found Kim Seong-ho already there, deep in conversation with Lee Tak-hyeon.
“Oh, good. You’re here.”
Kim Seong-ho rose from his seat as they came in.
“Hyung-nim. You’ve arrived? Oh? Second Hyung-nim and Cheohyeong as well. And even Third Hyung-nim… Is something the matter with everyone?”
“Something is the matter, all right.”
Lee Mun-jong stepped forward and bowed his head toward Lee Tak-hyeon.
“Father. We’ve come.”
Lee Tak-hyeon, seated on the sofa, looked over his sons and daughter and frowned.
“Why have you all piled in at once? Is today Sunday?”
“No, it’s not Sunday, but we have something we absolutely must tell you, so we came together.”
“Something all of you need to say to me?”
Lee Tak-hyeon took in Lee Mun-jong’s words and studied the children standing side by side. Then he noticed Chu Suk-ja and Lee Gyeong-eun who had entered after them and gave a curt nod.
“Fine. Let’s hear it.”
As Lee Mun-jong and the others took their seats, Kim Seong-ho bowed toward Lee Tak-hyeon.
“Then I’ll take my leave…”
He already had a clear idea why Lee Mun-jong had come. Having worked for so many years under Chairman Lee Mun-jong in his previous life, he could read the man like an open book and anticipate every thought. That was precisely why he pretended ignorance and made to leave—so that he would continue to look like an easy mark in their eyes.
Just as Kim Seong-ho finished his bow and started to rise, the seated Lee Mun-jong called him back.
“You can stay.”
“Me as well?”
Kim Seong-ho pointed at himself with a finger and asked as if he had no idea.
Lee Mun-jong nodded at him.
“It concerns you, so you should be here.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Kim Seong-ho dipped his head slightly, allowing a faint smile no one else could see to touch his lips, and sat back down.
Lee Gyeong-eun moved to his side, settled beside him, and looked at Lee Mun-jong.
“Big Oppa. Did Seong-ho do something wrong?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong.”
The answer came not from Lee Mun-jong but from Lee Tak-hyeon. Brow furrowed, the chairman turned on his eldest son.
“What story are you trying to spin this time that you dragged every last one of your siblings here? Looking to dig up dirt on Kim Seobang again?”
“Father, it’s not dirt. It’s something truly important.”
Lee Jeong-eun stepped in on Lee Mun-jong’s behalf. She shot a sideways glare at Kim Seong-ho and continued.
“Once you hear it, Father, your thinking will change.”
“Is that so? Then by all means, let’s hear what sort of story is supposed to change my mind.”
Lee Tak-hyeon leaned back against the chair as if inviting them to proceed.
At the chairman’s cue, Lee Mun-jong glanced briefly at Kim Seong-ho before opening his mouth in a measured tone.
“As the Chairman is aware, a major incident occurred recently at Ilhyeon Hotel.”
By switching to the title “Chairman,” he signaled that this was company business, then calmly laid out the matter of Ilhyeon Hotel.
“We sent him to restructure Ilhyeon Hotel, and he turned everything upside down.”
“As it happens, we were just discussing that.”
Lee Tak-hyeon spoke as though there was nothing more to say on the subject, then turned to Kim Seong-ho.
“I told him he did an excellent job.”
The look he gave Kim Seong-ho was entirely different from the one he had fixed on Lee Mun-jong.
“When I heard that those DS scum had been eating away at the company from the inside, I was furious beyond words. Yet Director Kim uncovered it and cleaned it up—how could that not be outstanding work? And he even dealt with the employees and executives who had joined hands with DS to bring the company down…”
As he spoke, Lee Tak-hyeon turned his head and fixed his gaze on Lee Jeong-eun. It was the stare of a man who knew everything. Unable to meet that look, Lee Jeong-eun dropped her eyes. Lee Tak-hyeon snorted at her and returned his attention to Lee Mun-jong.
“Did you all troop over here just to talk about that?”
“Chairman. If you hear the rest, your view will change.”
Lee Mun-jong kept his composure as he pressed on.
“I also believe this matter was handled extremely well. If something is devouring Ilhyeon Hotel, of course it must be rooted out. However…”
“However?”
“What I want to know is whether there is a plan for what comes after.”
Lee Mun-jong turned his head toward Kim Seong-ho and fired the question.
“So what do you intend to do next?”
Kim Seong-ho gave no answer. Remaining silent was far more advantageous to him right now. But Lee Mun-jong, who could not see that, took the silence for genuine helplessness and began to press harder.
“You threw out the executives and staff all at once, so there are barely any people left at Ilhyeon Hotel who can actually do the work. How do you plan to run the place? The whole point of restructuring is to make a company healthy and profitable, yet now the company itself can barely function.”
He posed the questions and watched Kim Seong-ho for a moment. Lee Gyeong-eun, sitting beside him, looked worried enough to take her husband’s hand, yet Kim Seong-ho himself still said nothing. Lee Mun-jong turned away from him as if he had expected exactly that.
“Chairman.”
He even shifted his whole body toward Lee Tak-hyeon and spoke in a grave voice.
“Because of everything that happened at Ilhyeon Hotel, I received a report that occupancy has fallen to less than half. Reservations for the next three months have also dropped to forty percent of last year’s levels. People are saying that at this rate we may not even be able to keep the hotel running.”
Lee Tak-hyeon’s face darkened as he turned to Kim Seong-ho.
“Is that true?”
“Yes. It is true.”
Kim Seong-ho answered without the slightest hesitation. Lee Mun-jong kept his eyes on him as he continued.
“There’s a saying about burning down the whole thatched cottage while trying to catch a bedbug. Ilhyeon Hotel looks exactly like that right now. When an employee makes a mistake, you punish them and give the new person time to settle in. Everything has a proper order to it.”
He turned back to Lee Tak-hyeon, who was still watching Kim Seong-ho.
“As the Chairman knows better than anyone, if you simply throw out everyone who has done wrong, filling those empty seats is no easy task. If you cut and punish people without understanding even that much, how do you expect to run a company? If you take a knife to a boil and dig around in the flesh, you may not remove the festering sore—you may kill the patient instead.”
“So what you’re saying is that Ilhyeon Hotel might go under?”
“Not ‘might.’ It’s already on the verge of collapse.”
Lee Jeong-eun, who had been sitting quietly under the weight of Lee Tak-hyeon’s presence, suddenly cut in.
“That Kim Seobang destroyed a perfectly good company all by himself.”
Her voice was thick with resentment and rage toward Kim Seong-ho.
“He wrecked a company that was running just fine. How is he going to take responsibility?”
“Running just fine? Did those words really come out of your mouth?”
Lee Tak-hyeon swung his gaze toward Lee Jeong-eun. She flinched and fumbled for words.
“W-well, at least the company was… still operating…”
“And that looked like a functioning company to you?”
“Th-that…”
“Chairman.”
Lee Mun-jong stepped in again, unwilling to let the focus drift to Lee Jeong-eun. He drove the conversation firmly back onto Kim Seong-ho.
“The Chairman knows this better than anyone, but there is a world of difference between a company that is still rolling along and one that can no longer roll at all. Right now Ilhyeon Hotel is in a state where it cannot roll.”
He locked eyes with Kim Seong-ho, determined to crush him completely.
“Even if we assume it somehow keeps limping forward, the primary goal of any restructuring is to normalize the company. Does Kim Seobang have a plan for that? How exactly do you intend to generate revenue? If all you did was pick up a knife without any of that, then I cannot accept what has been done here. Anyone can put a blade to a human body—even a butcher, not just a doctor.”
Lee Mun-jong pressed the attack as if he had steeled himself thoroughly before coming. Kim Seong-ho simply smiled at the words.
Still a mild season for him.
Lee Mun-jong looked full of venom, yet compared to the Chairman of the Ilhyeon Group that Kim Seong-ho had known in the past, he seemed almost gentle. Seong-ho understood perfectly well that Lee Tak-hyeon was still alive, so the man could not yet bare his true claws. Moreover, while Lee Mun-jong stood ahead in the succession race, he had not yet secured the inheritance for certain. That was why he still hid his real nature and only snarled—something Kim Seong-ho could see clearly.
Once Lee Mun-jong’s remarks seemed finished, Lee Tak-hyeon looked at Kim Seong-ho.
“Then it appears that part of the discussion is over. Kim Seobang, let’s hear from you. Cleaning up Ilhyeon Hotel is one thing… but did you have a way to make money with the hotel before you dismissed all the executives and staff? I’m curious myself.”
When Lee Tak-hyeon appeared to side with their argument, Lee Jeong-eun stared at Kim Seong-ho with a look of smug satisfaction. In their minds, he had absolutely no such method. But Kim Seong-ho was already fully prepared.
“Of course I do. If I hadn’t, I would never have gone this far no matter how much of a mess it was.”
“Oh? You’ve thought of something?”
At Lee Tak-hyeon’s question, Kim Seong-ho turned to Lee Mun-jong.
“I haven’t been able to check Ilhyeon Hotel’s sales figures yet. You’re saying this month’s revenue has plummeted?”
“That’s right. And performance is projected to get even worse next month and the month after that.”
“If it’s going to be bad through the month after next, then from the month after that it should start improving.”
“What did you say?”
Lee Mun-jong bristled at what sounded like wordplay. With Lee Tak-hyeon present, however, he could not properly explode at Kim Seong-ho and only raised his voice a little.
“Do you think running a company is a game?”
“I wasn’t joking either.”
Kim Seong-ho’s expression turned serious as he addressed Lee Tak-hyeon.
“I can’t guarantee next month or the month after that. Time will be needed to settle the chaos, after all. But starting the month after that, I will put the company back on a normal track. And I will make next year’s performance double this year’s.”
“What? Double?”
“You’re just saying whatever comes into your head to paper over this situation!”
Lee Jeong-eun and Lee Chang-jong cried out in shock at the word “double.” Lee Tak-hyeon raised a hand and silenced them, then asked Kim Seong-ho again.
“You’ll make it double next year? Double what, exactly? Sales? Operating profit? Net profit? Speak clearly.”
He smiled as he asked, yet everyone in the room could feel the cold blade hidden inside that smile. It meant that if the promise was broken, he should be prepared to offer up his neck. Even so, Kim Seong-ho answered with a calm smile.
“As long as it’s a loss-making company, operating profit and net profit mean nothing. I will double the sales.”
“Hahaha. If you’d claimed you’d raise operating profit and net profit that are scraping the floor, I’d have scolded you for having guts the size of a pea… but you’ll double the sales?”
Lee Tak-hyeon looked over the children seated beside Lee Mun-jong.
“He made a promise, so all of you can go back now. If he fails to keep it, I’ll handle it myself.”
Lee Mun-jong and the others had nothing more they could say. Lee Tak-hyeon swept a cool glance over his silenced children, then regarded Kim Seong-ho with open amusement. Under that gaze, Kim Seong-ho only smiled. The smile reflected exactly what was in his heart: Lee Mun-jong and the rest had come of their own accord and laid out a stage for him to shine, and the whole thing simply looked ridiculous to him.
And so, in the tension-filled study, only Lee Tak-hyeon and Kim Seong-ho faced each other with smiling faces.