Into the Tiger’s Den
If you want to catch a tiger, you have to go into the tiger’s den.
The meeting place was a bustling commercial district nearby.
The sky was growing steadily darker, and one by one the streetlamps along the road flickered on, but there was still time left before our appointment, so Angela hadn’t shown up yet.
It wasn’t strange for her to be late. If you were the chairman of a major corporation, you’d be busy beyond belief.
I was just thinking I might have to wait a while when a limousine I recognized at a glance pulled up in front of me.
The person who appeared through the glass as it slowly descended was Angela herself.
"Ian."
"Hello."
I bowed politely, and she answered with an elegant, cultivated smile.
Because the limousine stood out so much, passersby kept glancing in our direction.
Only then did it really hit me that I was meeting privately with a beautiful woman who also happened to be the chairman of a major corporation, and my feelings turned strangely restless.
At Angela’s invitation, I got into the car, and the ride quality and comfort were on a completely different level from an ordinary vehicle.
Even if I’d spent my whole life working as a programmer, I doubt I would ever have been able to afford a car like this.
While I looked around like a country boy who’d just come up to the city, Angela, seated in the passenger seat, turned and looked back at me.
"Thank you for accepting my sincerity."
"Not at all. I’m the one who should be thankful for the invitation."
I gave an awkward smile, feeling oddly self-conscious.
Maybe it was because I was riding in such a luxury car, but I couldn’t help feeling a little intimidated.
"Honestly, I worried a lot about where to take you. I wasn’t sure what sort of food a friend of my daughter’s age would like."
Before I could answer, a strange voice came from the driver’s seat.
"There’s no need to worry, Chairman. I’ve prepared a place that will suit the young lady’s friend perfectly."
"Thank you, Verita."
Angela smiled gently, then looked back at me with an expression that said, Oh dear, how careless of me.
"This is my secretary, Verita. She helps me tremendously, both at the company and at home."
"Ah, yes. Hello."
I bowed toward Verita in the rearview mirror.
She returned the gesture in the glass, though the sunglasses she wore made it impossible to read her expression.
"A pleasure to meet you, Ian. I understand you were dragged to the edge of death because of the young lady. Allow me to apologize on her behalf."
"No, no, it’s fine."
So she was close not only to Angela, but to Selena as well.
"Since the Chairman invited you as a gesture of apology, I do hope you’ll be pleased with the place I prepared."
Her voice was full of confidence, and my anticipation swelled despite myself.
What did a major corporation chairman eat?
Foie gras? Caviar? Lobster?
Maybe it would be some precious dish I’d never even heard of.
Before coming to this world, the height of luxury to me had been a hamburger, fried chicken, or pizza. I’d never dreamed I’d end up enjoying this kind of extravagance here.
"Chairman, we’ve arrived."
When I got out of the car after them, I was too stunned to speak.
...Was this for real?
The place Verita had brought us to was a soup restaurant.
Not just any soup restaurant, either, but O-Halmoni Gukbap, a place that had been run by three generations of the same family.
...There was a gukbap place here too?
Clinging to a shred of hope, I followed Verita inside, but the interior was exactly what you’d expect from a familiar, homey gukbap restaurant.
"Is this really a place you think I’d like, Ian...?"
Well, if I had to say there was any saving grace, Angela seemed to be thinking much the same thing.
But Verita still looked completely confident.
"Of course. According to my research, gukbap is the finest food among the younger generation. There are even young people who’d rather eat dozens of bowls of gukbap than go to a high-end restaurant."
No, that’s usually not meant literally.
Angela looked at me with worried eyes.
She didn’t seem to doubt Verita so much as wonder whether I would truly like it.
"R-right! Of course, when you’re hungry, nothing beats gukbap."
I flashed a forced smile and gave a thumbs-up.
As the invited guest, I didn’t have the shamelessness to complain, and I didn’t want to put Angela in an awkward position.
"Really? I’m glad."
Seeing her sigh in relief, whatever regret I’d had about fancy food vanished in an instant.
Right. What did the type of food matter, anyway?
What mattered most was finding a way to get Angela on my side.
After I settled myself down with Verita’s guidance, I noticed that we were the only customers in the spacious restaurant.
As if she had read my wandering thoughts, Verita said, "I rented out the entire place so you could relax and enjoy yourselves without worry."
"Ah, yes."
It was the first time in my life I’d ever heard of someone renting out an entire gukbap restaurant.
Verita ordered three bowls of gukbap and sat down beside Angela.
The two of them sitting side by side in front of me were still in their business suits, as if they’d come straight from work.
It was such a strange sight—Angela, such a graceful beauty and the chairman of a major corporation, sitting in a suit at a gukbap restaurant.
"How has Selena been lately?"
"Nothing seems especially different from before. When other people aren’t looking, she still picks fights and bullies people…."
I answered bluntly, but honestly.
I had no reason to protect Selena, and besides, if Angela really wanted to, she could find out everything her daughter had done anyway.
Besides, if I wanted to create a point of contact with Angela, it would probably help if she felt even more guilty toward me.
"That girl still...?"
Angela’s brows drooped with a soft sigh.
"I warned her about it before, but whenever the subject turns to men, she practically loses her mind…."
She trailed off and sank into thought.
She looked as though she were wondering whether she should say what was in her head.
After a moment, she seemed to make up her mind, and her pretty lips, which had been closed, opened again.
"Actually, my husband cheated on me. After Selena found out, she started hating men with a vengeance."
"I see."
"My husband passed away not long ago, but the fact that she still reacts that way makes me think the betrayal really hurt her in relation to her father."
"Ah…."
I nodded with a serious expression, though I already knew the story.
Earlier, while washing up with Dania in the shower room, I’d asked her why Selena hated men.
But there was a slight difference between Dania’s version and Angela’s.
According to Dania, Selena’s father—the former chairman of the Brantchel Corporation—had been no different from a monstrous sex criminal.
He lured in young women desperate for money and made a pastime of grotesque sexual torture.
Apparently, filming those scenes was also the former chairman’s hobby, and Selena had stumbled across the footage by chance.
Just what was on those videos to make her like that?
When I asked Dania that out of curiosity, she shook her head.
"I only heard from the young lady that the videos existed. I don’t know the details."
Still, if it was enough to turn his own daughter into a man-hater, it clearly wasn’t something normal.
In any case, the reason Angela had described it as mere infidelity was probably because she didn’t want to expose the family’s shame for all to see.
But that raised another question.
Would Angela really have overlooked her husband’s crimes, no matter how gentle she might be?
Enough to change the values of the daughter she cherished so much?
Maybe Angela didn’t know Selena had seen those videos—or even that she might never have known the true nature of her husband at all.
"I’m sorry, but would you keep this between us? It’s not the kind of thing that should spread…."
The fact that she was telling me about her family’s affairs meant I’d apparently made a decent impression on her.
I said I wanted revenge on Selena, but I didn’t want the whole Brantchel family to become unhappy, so I nodded.
"Yes, of course."
"I’m sorry for bringing up something like this after inviting you."
Right when the mood needed changing, the gukbap I’d been waiting for was brought to the table.
"Chairman, try adding some of this perilla seed powder. It’ll make it much richer. And don’t put the rice in right away—taste the broth and meat first, then…."
Verita, who had been quiet until now, changed completely the moment the gukbap arrived and started talking nonstop.
"Adding kkakdugi to the broth is good too. But it’s a matter of taste, and once you put it in, there’s no going back, so you should decide carefully."
Was she saying that for me, or because she wanted to eat it herself?
While I entertained that entirely reasonable suspicion, Verita continued her enthusiastic lecture on how best to enjoy gukbap, and Angela looked dazed, as if she simply wasn’t familiar with the dish.
...Hmm. Not bad. Honestly, it’s hard to make gukbap taste bad.
As we ate, the conversation with Angela continued naturally.
To be honest, “conversation” was a bit generous. It was more like Angela talking about her one and only daughter—praising her, complaining about her—and me nodding along and listening.
They say overprotective parents only ever have one topic to talk about anywhere they go, and Angela looked exactly like that.
"Haa... sorry, just a moment."
After going on for quite a while, Angela took off the suit jacket she’d been wearing and was left in a dress shirt.
"I sweat a lot, and after eating something hot...."
"As expected of the Chairman. Your service spirit is admirable."
"Pardon?"
Angela asked back, not understanding Verita’s words, but I instantly grasped what she meant.
Her claim that she sweated a lot wasn’t a lie; Angela’s dress shirt was drenched through.
Because of that, her pure white skin and beige bra were laid bare for anyone to see.
...Was that really the body of a woman with a twenty-year-old daughter?
Her lush, voluptuous figure radiated a mature sensuality, and before I knew it, even as I ate, my lower half had gone rigid.
Angela noticed a beat later and said, "Honestly, Verita. What kind of appeal could an old woman like me possibly have?"
Instead of looking embarrassed, she wore a relaxed smile.
She must have felt like I was a child because I was the same age as her daughter.
She also seemed to have no idea just how alluring she really was.
"Chairman, you probably don’t realize just how intense the libido of a young man can be. A man in his twenties can get worked up over the hole in a tree he found while hiking."
No, it wasn’t quite that bad….
"Anyway, Ian has a lovely view to enjoy, so that’s a blessing. If the eyes are happy, the gukbap will taste even better."
"Verita does make strange jokes sometimes."
Angela brushed it off without much concern, which only made it clearer that the two of them were quite close.
Verita, despite her rather rigid manner of speaking, also seemed to be surprisingly open-minded.
"Right, so. Ian. My daughter, back then…."
And once again, the mother launched into a story about her child.
As I listened dutifully to Angela, my impatience began to rise.
I needed to find a way to make Angela my ally, but at this rate, the meal would end with nothing but Selena stories.
Then a server came over and set another bowl of gukbap on the table.
What was this? A service item?
Angela stopped speaking too, staring at the newly arrived gukbap with the same bewildered expression I had.
"I ordered one more. Please continue, Chairman."
My suspicion, which had only been a suspicion until now, hardened into certainty.
This secretary had definitely come here because she wanted to eat the gukbap herself.
"No, it’s fine. I feel like I’ve been talking about myself too much. Sorry, Ian."
Maybe the arrival of the new gukbap had freshened the atmosphere. Angela said that with a small laugh.
She probably hadn’t intended it, but in my heart I silently thanked Verita.
"No, it’s okay."
Now it was my turn to say something.
At that moment, I noticed the area under Angela’s eyes.
There were faint dark circles there—not severe, but visible.
"You must be busy with the company, and yet you still treated me to this meal. Thank you."
"Oh, no. It was a promise, so of course I had to keep it."
"You look a little tired around the eyes."
"Ah... Actually, we’ve been reorganizing the internal structure lately, so I haven’t been able to get much rest."
I’d worked in a company in my previous life, so I knew how big an event restructuring could be, and it sparked my curiosity.
"A restructuring?"
"Yes. I’m trying to set things up so the company can keep running even if I’m not as directly involved as before."
"I see."
I was curious about the reason, but I hesitated to ask any more about the company’s internal affairs.
I guess the instinct of being one of the gears in a company was still in my body.
Just then, Verita helpfully added an explanation.
"The Chairman has been troubled by the fact that, until now, work has kept her from paying much attention to Miss Selena."
Feeling embarrassed that her inner thoughts had been exposed, Angela gave a self-conscious smile.
"That’s right. I want to spend more time at home, and be with Selena more often."
She wasn’t exactly a child anymore—she was twenty—but it did feel a bit overprotective. Still, Angela cherished her daughter so much that I could understand it.
"And there’s been trouble in the household as well... the head butler and the other butlers had to resign because of their own circumstances."
Once someone starts opening up, they tend to keep going.
Angela was exactly in that state now.
"Dania too?"
"Thankfully, Dania stayed on. Even so, I feel bad leaving everything to her alone, so I should hire more people... but."
She spoke as if it were weighing on her mind, though it didn’t quite land with me.
Wouldn’t the pay for a Brantchel family butler be enormous?
I imagined people would be lining up for the job.
Hmm.
Then again, even if lots of people wanted it, they probably wouldn’t just hire anyone as a butler.
They’d said Dania herself had worked incredibly hard to become an excellent butler.
"I’ll also be spending more time at home, and Verita has agreed to serve as head butler, so I’m thinking of hiring just one more person. But I can’t find anyone suitable, and it’s worrying me."
So the position really wasn’t an easy one, even for the Brantchel family.
Wait. A butler?
Wasn’t that a job where you stayed in your employer’s home and helped out with the household?
If I became Angela’s butler, wouldn’t that give me a chance to get her on my side?
And since I’d be living with Selena too, I might even pick up useful information for planning revenge.
"Angela."
"Yes?"
"Could I apply for that butler position too?"
"I’m sorry. I’m afraid that’s a little…."
Angela trailed off, sounding troubled.
Still, I didn’t give up and met her gaze with pleading eyes.
"I’ve spent a lot of time living on my own, so I’m actually pretty good at housework. Wouldn’t that work...?"
"Well...."
My gaze seemed to soften her resolve, and after a moment’s hesitation she spoke again.
"Actually, since I have Verita and Dania, I was thinking the remaining person would be more of an assistant butler, so I wasn’t planning to judge too harshly on ability. But my daughter is terribly picky...."
Ah. I understood immediately why Angela was having trouble hiring a butler.
"It’s hard to find a woman—no, even among women—to find one who suits my daughter’s taste."
Her sigh afterward was so deep it felt like the floor might cave in.
"If it were a sturdy man like you, Ian, you’d be able to help in many ways and be someone she could rely on... but because of Selena, I’m sorry."
Her refusal was perfectly reasonable, and her attitude was so polite that it felt natural for me to back off here.
But I couldn’t give up this easily.
No matter how I thought about it, there was no better scenario than becoming a butler of the Brantchel family.
If it didn’t work, I’d have to find another way, but for now I should do everything I could.
If the person sitting in front of me had been anyone else, maybe it wouldn’t have worked. But this was Angela—kind, compassionate Angela. If I appealed to her emotions, maybe I could still make it happen.
I called up a painful memory and began my method acting.
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