It Takes Two to Fight
Leaving the conference room, Lee Mun-jong looked at Kim Seong-ho and asked,
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Hyung-nim."
Kim Seong-ho glanced around for a moment. Once he confirmed that the other brothers had put a little distance between them, he spoke to Lee Mun-jong in a low voice.
"No matter what you said, Hyung-nim, you were in a position where you couldn't help but fall out of the Chairman's favor."
"No. If I had come up with the right answer, I might have earned even greater praise than you did."
Lee Mun-jong eyed Kim Seong-ho with open suspicion.
"Don't tell me you kept quiet because you had some other scheme in mind?"
Kim Seong-ho watched the paranoia begin to surface on Lee Mun-jong's face, then shook his head.
"Hyung-nim. I am a Kim."
"Exactly!"
Lee Mun-jong seized Kim Seong-ho by the collar and snarled,
"So stop getting ideas. If you knew what to say to Father, you should have told me. Not gone and said it yourself!"
He yanked the fistful of collar toward himself and drove the words home.
"If you hadn't put those strange ideas in my head in the first place, I would have opposed whatever the second brother was pushing. Then today's praise would have gone to me, not you."
"Hyung-nim. Isn't that already water under the bridge?"
"Water under the bridge for you, maybe. Not for me."
Forgetting that they were still right outside the conference room where Lee Tak-hyeon might overhear, Lee Mun-jong pressed even harder.
Lee Gyeong-eun, who had been walking ahead, thought it odd that Kim Seong-ho was not following and turned around. When she saw him caught in Lee Mun-jong's grip, she cried out in shock.
"Oppa! What do you think you're doing!"
She shoved herself between the two men, trying to pry them apart.
"Let go of him! I said let go! If you don't, I'll tell Dad right this second!"
At her threat to burst back into the conference room and report him to Lee Tak-hyeon, Lee Mun-jong finally loosened his grip.
Kim Seong-ho rubbed his aching throat once, then spoke to Lee Mun-jong.
"As it happens, the Chairman specifically told me to support you well, Hyung-nim."
"And yet you refuse to listen?"
Kim Seong-ho gestured to Lee Gyeong-eun—who was staring in anguish at the mark on his neck—that he was fine, then turned back to Lee Mun-jong.
"As I said a moment ago, no matter what you said, Hyung-nim, you were bound to be scolded. Even if you had said exactly what I said."
"You're telling me I would have been chewed out even if I'd said the same thing you did?"
"Yes. Because someone who knew so much would still have to answer for why an investment originally set at one hundred billion won got raised all the way to three hundred billion."
Lee Mun-jong fell silent. He knew full well that the Lee Tak-hyeon he knew would have said precisely that.
Kim Seong-ho gave Lee Mun-jong a light push on the back to get him walking, then continued in a low voice.
"Even if you're angry now, hold it in. I got an earful myself for not stopping you when you raised the investment to three hundred billion."
At those words, Lee Mun-jong turned a startled face toward Kim Seong-ho walking beside him. The look asked whether that was true; Kim Seong-ho nodded.
"Yes. The Chairman already knew everything. He had already decided how to handle it, given his orders to the secretarial office, and only then summoned us. He didn't call us expecting you and Second Hyung-nim to produce some brilliant countermeasure."
"…So he just wanted to vent his anger."
Lee Mun-jong nodded as if it finally made sense.
Kim Seong-ho gestured for Lee Gyeong-eun to fall back a little and stay out of earshot, then spoke quietly to Lee Mun-jong.
"I am on your side, Hyung-nim. Don't forget that."
The words softened Lee Mun-jong. He looked at Kim Seong-ho with a completely different, almost apologetic expression.
"I'm sorry. You said from the start that you were on my side."
"Why would I make things difficult for you, Hyung-nim, or try to earn the Chairman's praise on my own? I was nothing more than the Chairman's loudspeaker."
"You just said the things Father wanted to say himself?"
"Yes."
Lee Mun-jong studied Kim Seong-ho's face, searching for any sign that it might not be true. Kim Seong-ho met his gaze and thought to himself,
It isn't a lie—but you will interpret my words another way.
The man who had spoken the words Lee Tak-hyeon had wanted to say. Exactly as Kim Seong-ho expected, Lee Mun-jong took the remark differently.
Father ordered him to say those things at today's meeting?
It never occurred to him that Kim Seong-ho had simply read Lee Tak-hyeon's mind and spoken accordingly. The Lee Tak-hyeon he knew never revealed his thoughts to others, and he could not imagine Kim Seong-ho possessed any such ability.
No wonder they traded lines so smoothly and Father even clapped. As if they'd rehearsed…
Looking back now, Lee Mun-jong decided it could not have flowed that perfectly unless it had been arranged in advance.
Watching the last of the doubt drain from Lee Mun-jong's face, Kim Seong-ho smiled inwardly.
From now on you'll serve as my shield of your own free will, won't you?
It was obvious who an enraged Lee Sang-jong would attack first. Inside the Ilhyeon family, the only person who could safely be touched was Kim Seong-ho himself, and he knew perfectly well that the blow would come his way. That was why he had spoken as he had—to set Lee Mun-jong up as the shield.
For Lee Mun-jong, the belief that Kim Seong-ho was moving as Lee Tak-hyeon's loudspeaker meant that any insight into the Chairman's intentions would be invaluable going forward. Of course he would take Kim Seong-ho's side.
Lee Mun-jong laid a hand on Kim Seong-ho's shoulder.
"Forget about today. From now on I'll look after you properly, so don't you worry about a thing, Kim Seobang."
"Yes. Thank you."
Kim Seong-ho bowed his head slightly and watched Lee Mun-jong's retreating back, murmuring to himself,
That's right. A fight only looks proper when there are two of them.
Lee Sang-jong, ready to attack Kim Seong-ho, and Lee Mun-jong, ready to protect him. The actual target, Kim Seong-ho, stepped back with a silent smile, already looking forward to watching the two brothers tear into each other.
Bang!
The door nearly flew off its hinges as Lee Sang-jong stormed in. His wife, Oh Min-yeong, looked up in pure tension.
"What is it? What happened?"
"Why is everyone so desperate to tear me apart!"
"Who?"
"Who do you think?!"
Lee Sang-jong stopped in the middle of the living room and yanked his necktie loose, shouting,
"Every single person in this family is itching to devour me!"
Oh Min-yeong frowned and asked carefully,
"What happened?"
He gave her a clipped account of the day's events. When he finished, Oh Min-yeong answered in a voice thick with irritation, as if she had seen it coming all along.
"What did I tell you? I said it would turn out like this, didn't I? There's a reason Father keeps the youngest sister and her husband so close. And honestly, what has the youngest son-in-law ever done that was so impressive he gets a hotel handed to him? Everything he has is just payment for playing Father's puppet."
"We can't just leave that household alone any longer."
"That's what I've been saying from the beginning—kick them out."
Oh Min-yeong stamped her feet as if vindicated.
"Something smelled wrong the whole time. Think about it. From the moment Father paired the youngest sister with some nobody he picked up off the street, he already had this situation in mind. Using that Nonsan country bumpkin to pressure you and your older brother."
"I think the same thing."
Lee Sang-jong had felt something was off from the start. A man who used to haul snack bags around Ilhyeon Distribution suddenly normalizes a company collapsing under restructuring and then turns a massive profit overnight? The whole thing stank.
"Father set the whole stage, and that Nonsan hick just danced on it."
"Exactly. Even if he ate something weird, a person doesn't just transform overnight and start posting results like that."
"As long as he's sitting pretty in Pyeongchang-dong, Father will keep shoving him in my face. We can't allow that. He has to go."
Lee Sang-jong nodded, the decision fully formed. Just as Kim Seong-ho had predicted, the most convenient target inside the Ilhyeon family was Kim Seong-ho himself, and Lee Sang-jong was already gearing up for the first strike.
Having made up his mind, Lee Sang-jong turned and began looking for something. Oh Min-yeong watched him and felt a wave of dread.
"What are you doing? Don't tell me—no, you wouldn't."
"Jun-myeong and Dong-myeong are both home, right?"
"Honey!"
The moment she realized he was looking for their sons, Oh Min-yeong cried out in alarm. She planted herself in front of him and shook her head hard.
"No! Why do you always take it out on the kids!"
"What? Get out of the way!"
He shoved her aside; she fell. Lee Sang-jong strode to the golf bag standing in the corner of the living room and unzipped it.
Oh Min-yeong scrambled up and threw herself at him.
"If you do this again I won't just stand by!"
"Oh really? So today you want to go first, is that it?"
"Honey!"
Lee Sang-jong pulled a 5-iron from the bag. The instant she saw the club, Oh Min-yeong squeezed her eyes shut. He gave a short, contemptuous laugh and swung the iron at her thigh.
"Ahk!"
The blow dropped her where she stood. Stepping past his weeping wife, Lee Sang-jong headed for the children's room, calling out as he walked,
"Jun-myeong! Dong-myeong! Daddy's in a bit of a bad mood."
Still crying, Oh Min-yeong clutched her barely working leg and tried to stop him. But by then Lee Sang-jong had already entered the room where the children were…
For a long while after that, the house filled with Oh Min-yeong's sobs and the children's screams.
Every major daily newspaper led with the story of Dubo Steel. The scale of the insolvency at Dubo Steel—core affiliate of the fourteenth-ranked Dubo Group—was far worse than previously known: 5.7 trillion won. Even that figure was not an announcement from Dubo Steel itself but an estimate by the creditor banks; the true size of the hole remained impossible to gauge. And the snowballing insolvency, the reports warned, was likely to spread beyond Dubo Steel to the entire Dubo Group.
People simply could not understand how any single company could produce more than five trillion won in bad debt. A figure not merely several times its own size but dozens of times over was something that could never have been created through normal procedures.
The moment the bankruptcy was announced, the government moved with surprising speed. It convened more than fifty creditor banks, verified the scale of the claims, and filed for bankruptcy protection with the courts, straining every muscle to keep the crisis from cascading like dominoes.
Lee Gyeong-eun speared a piece of apple with a fork and held it out to Kim Seong-ho while asking about the Dubo Steel coverage still playing on the screen.
"Anyway, the government has promised support for the subcontractors, so this shouldn't spread any further, right?"
"We can only hope so."
Lee Gyeong-eun studied his face. Unlike his usual clear answers, he had replied with a mere hope, and that alone made her uneasy that the matter might not end so cleanly.
Just then the intercom in the room where Kim Seong-ho and Lee Gyeong-eun sat began to ring.
Beep—beep—
"Yes."
Lee Gyeong-eun lifted the handset to her ear, listened in silence for a moment, then said she understood and hung up.
"What is it?"
"Father says he wants a brief word with you, Seong-ho. He asked us to come downstairs."
She had been tilting her head from the moment the intercom first sounded; now she pointed at the device.
"That thing hasn't rung even once until now."
She turned from the intercom to look at Kim Seong-ho.
"I'd completely forgotten it was there because someone always comes to find us in person… and Father, who never consults anyone about anything, is suddenly saying he wants to talk with you first. Seong-ho, do you have any idea why?"
At her words Kim Seong-ho rose from his seat. He cast a sidelong glance at the television, where the Dubo Steel segment had ended and a newscaster was complaining that recent dramas had grown far too worldly, then answered,
"I have a fairly good idea what this is about."