Trust Me Once
“Sunbae.”
By the time I got the call and made my way to campus, Seo Min-seung was sitting alone on a bench in front of the humanities building. I settled into the spot beside him.
His face was dark, and for a long while he said nothing. Somewhere in the distance, students' laughter drifted through the air, but between us there was only a heavy, suffocating silence.
Something's weighing on him. Or could it be……
“You. You're a third-generation heir of Sunjin Group, aren't you?”
Ah.
So he found out.
Truthfully, I'd never once stopped worrying about this moment. I'd always told myself I'd have to reveal my identity eventually—
I'd simply believed the time wasn't right yet.
And here he was, beating me to it.
Just as I was bracing myself for whatever would come out of his mouth, Seo Min-seung's voice came—calmer than I'd expected.
“You approached me on purpose, didn't you?”
He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead as he went on.
“I've thought it over a lot. But if it wasn't intentional, then none of it makes sense—how we met, everything you did since. Starting from the very first time you sat down next to me at that restaurant. There were empty seats, and you went out of your way to sit right across from me.”
“Yes. I approached you deliberately.”
I had no intention of hiding it or making excuses.
Now that I'd been caught out, a pitiful justification would only make things worse.
At my words, Seo Min-seung studied me in silence for a moment before speaking.
“Why?”
“Because I saw someone capable, sunbae. I—”
“That's enough.”
Without even letting me finish, Seo Min-seung shot to his feet.
“You want to steal my technology too? Just like Sunjin Motors?”
So he knew Sunjin Motors was making its move. No—Cho Sung-shik must have proposed it to him outright.
Seo Min-seung's face twisted.
“Do you know what Sunjin Motors did to my family?”
His voice had begun to tremble.
“That company was my father's life's work. He started it right out of college with one small factory. Twenty employees at first—three hundred by the end. It took him over twenty years.”
Seo Min-seung clenched his fist.
“And it was gone overnight. Sunjin Motors severed the supply contract out of nowhere. No warning. They never even gave us a proper reason.”
“……”
“Later, we found out they gave the contract to the chairman's brother-in-law. Twenty years of our technology, our reputation—none of it mattered. They cut us off just to line their own family's pockets.”
The rims of his eyes had gone red.
“My father sold our house trying to pay off the debts. And even that wasn't enough, so he went begging to relatives. A man who had never once bowed his head in his life, groveling over money.”
Seo Min-seung's voice cracked.
“My mother started working at a restaurant. Up at four in the morning, working until eleven at night. Her hands are cracked open, her back's ruined—and she still can't rest. She has to put me through school.”
“……”
“If I lose my scholarship, I can't even stay in school. You asked me why I'm always at the university, remember? It's because I can't afford my rent. I can barely eat properly. That's why I go to Mom's Hand every single day. It's the cheapest place around.”
I listened without a word.
His rage was only natural.
I knew exactly what the name Sunjin meant to him.
These were words he needed to pour out. Words someone needed to hear.
So I simply resolved to take them, all of them.
Nothing I said right now would reach his ears anyway.
“It's all because of Sunjin Motors.”
Seo Min-seung glared at me.
“And now you have the gall to reach out to me? To steal my technology? With your professor leading the charge?”
He let out a bitter laugh.
“And on top of that, you. A Sunjin Group scion comes up to me and plays friendly? Eats with me, buys me coffee, pretends to care about my research?”
His voice rose higher and higher.
“No matter how pretty your words are, I won't be fooled. That's how chaebols all are. They play nice only when they need something, and once they've sucked you dry, they throw you away. Like they did to my father.”
Seo Min-seung's fists were shaking.
He looked like a man fighting to hold back the urge to strike me.
I simply kept watching him in silence.
Taking his rage head-on, all of it.
That was everything I could offer him right now.
“They're all the same. Sunjin Group, Sunjin Motors—anyone with the name Sunjin attached, they're all……”
Seo Min-seung's voice grew quieter.
After venting for so long, he seemed to have run out of strength.
“Just…… don't ever contact me aga—”
“Let's do it together.”
At my words, Seo Min-seung's mouth froze mid-sentence.
The words had clearly caught him off guard; he stared at me, dumbfounded.
“Revenge against Sunjin Motors.”
“……What did you say?”
“That's the reason I approached you deliberately in the first place.”
Seo Min-seung stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak. The fury that had filled his face only moments ago had given way to sheer bewilderment.
“Sunjin Motors tried to take what belonged to my father—and now they're trying to take what belongs to my mother.”
“……”
“The Sunjin Group main family and Sunjin Motors are not the same thing. Sunjin Motors was snatched away by a man named Kang Tae-yong, and my mother inherited nothing but a hollowed-out shell at Sunjin Group headquarters.”
Something flickered faintly in Seo Min-seung's eyes.
“Honestly, from where you're standing, I'm sure it sounds like a chaebol brat talking fat. But it's the truth. I don't want Sunjin Motors taking my mother's things—taking my things—either.”
I looked Seo Min-seung dead in the eye.
“But I don't have the power to stop them. Not yet.”
I drew a breath and went on.
“That's why I'm gathering that power. By bringing capable people together. That's why I need you, sunbae—and that's why I approached you deliberately.”
Seo Min-seung still said nothing, just kept staring at me. Something complicated passed across his face—not anger anymore, not confusion, but something harder to name.
“I will say this—I was never trying to take what you have, the way you think I was. I'm sorry I couldn't be honest from the start.”
“……Revenge.”
Seo Min-seung shook his head slowly.
“I don't care about that stuff. I don't care about chaebol family feuds either, so……”
“You want revenge too, sunbae.”
At my words, Seo Min-seung's eyes wavered.
In my previous life, once Seo Min-seung had accumulated enough technology and power of his own, he had openly and relentlessly shunned Sunjin Motors.
No matter how many times they came calling, he never gave them the time of day, and he refused to work with any company that did business with them.
The thirst for vengeance had never left his heart.
An anger that refused to fade, even after twenty years.
“You're just short on power, that's all.”
I rose from the bench and stood in front of him.
“I will be that power.”
“……”
“What I'm telling you is that I'll give you the chance to take your revenge on Sunjin Motors—while doing everything you've ever wanted to do.”
Seo Min-seung stared at me for a long time before finally speaking.
“You and me, we're both powerless, aren't we? It doesn't matter that you're from a chaebol family. You've barely just turned twenty.”
“Then I'll show you.”
I opened my bag and pulled out the documents I'd been reviewing at the office just before coming here.
The dossier on Cho Sung-shik.
I laid it down on the bench and looked at him.
“To do that, I suppose we'll have to deal with Cho Sung-shik first.”
Seo Min-seung's eyes dropped to the file.
“Read it, and you'll understand everything.”
I took a step back.
“Read it, then contact me. I'll be waiting.”
I bowed my head in parting. I had done all I could. The rest was Seo Min-seung's choice alone.
The next day.
Industrial Engineering Department, Hankook University.
Seo Min-seung hadn't slept a wink the night before.
He read the file Kang Seon-woo had given him from beginning to end, then read it again. Professor Cho Sung-shik's collusions with corporations, his embezzlement of research funds, his record of stealing his own students' technology.
Everything was there, laid out in detail.
I did my research under a man like this.
A self-mocking laugh escaped him.
Seo Min-seung tucked the documents into his bag and got to his feet.
With an expression hardened by some unspoken decision, he opened the lab door and stepped out. He walked down the corridor and stopped in front of Cho Sung-shik's office.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
Cho Sung-shik's voice drifted out from inside.
Seo Min-seung took one deep breath and opened the door.
“Ah, there you are, Min-seung.”
Cho Sung-shik looked up from his desk and broke into a warm smile.
“Have a seat.”
Seo Min-seung settled onto the sofa.
Cho Sung-shik took off his glasses, set them on the desk, and asked brightly,
“So. You've come back with an answer to my proposal, I trust?”
“I have.”
As Seo Min-seung nodded, color bloomed in Cho Sung-shik's face.
“Good boy. That was the wise choice. For someone in your position, no offer could possibly be better than—”
“Professor, I'm leaving the school.”
“What?”
The expression on Cho Sung-shik's face—who had been so certain of acceptance—changed in an instant. The smile drained away, replaced by a look caught somewhere between disbelief and alarm.
“What on earth are you talking about……”
“When I think about it, I was asking far too much.”
Seo Min-seung went on evenly.
“My family's situation is a mess, and I need to be out earning every won I can—not clinging to this place.”
Seo Min-seung's choice was to accept neither Kang Seon-woo's offer nor Cho Sung-shik's.
He refused to be swayed by either side.
He didn't want to fall into a chaebol's grasp, and he didn't want to hand his technology over to a shameless professor.
Better to fold everything up and start fresh.
“I should give up now and focus on making money quickly. Thank you for everything.”
“Hey! Seo Min-seung!”
Cho Sung-shik surged to his feet.
“What is this…… Do you have any idea how disrespectful you're being right now?”
“I'm sorry.”
Seo Min-seung stood and bowed his head.
He knew now exactly what Cho Sung-shik was thinking—and exactly what kind of man he was.
“And thank you. For everything.”
He bowed once more, then opened the office door.
“Seo Min-seung! You little—!”
Cho Sung-shik's roar followed him out, but Seo Min-seung didn't look back.
He shut the door and walked down the corridor.
His heart was pounding, but strangely, he felt lighter than he had in years.
It's over now.
Back at his own desk, Seo Min-seung began gathering his things, one by one.
The stack of papers on his desk, his research notebooks, his personal belongings.
Years of accumulated work turned out to amount to less than he'd expected. A single small box was enough to hold it all.
All that's left is……
Giving Kang Seon-woo his answer.
He sat for a while, lost in thought, then took out his phone.
He scrolled through his contacts until he found the familiar name.
“Hyung.”
Just then the lab door opened and a junior from the shared lab walked in. Seo Min-seung stopped typing and looked up.
“Hyung, is it true? You're leaving the lab?”
“Oh.”
“That's what the professor is saying.”
“……Guess he's already spreading the word.”
Seo Min-seung gave a wry smile.
“Yeah. I'm leaving.”
“Why?”
The junior came closer, worry written across his face.
“No, wait—hyung, the professor is absolutely furious. I've never seen him that angry before.”
That would have terrified him once, but with everything coming to an end anyway, it didn't concern him in the least.
He had no more need to walk on eggshells under Cho Sung-shik.
“And also……”
The junior hesitated, struggling to get the words out.
“He told me to tell you to leave all your research notes and materials behind.”
“What?”
“He said they're lab property, that you didn't do it all on your own……”
Seo Min-seung was dumbfounded.
He'd assumed that simply quitting would be the end of it, but Cho Sung-shik's greed didn't stop there.
The man was trying to drive a knife into the back of someone already walking away.
“And if you don't leave them, he said it could go as far as legal action…… that's what he told me to pass along.”
The junior wore an apologetic expression.
“Either way, that's the message delivered, hyung.”
With that, the junior headed to his own desk and gathered up his bag.
A moment later, Seo Min-seung heard the lab door close.
He stood there, staring blankly into space.
So in the end……
Cho Sung-shik would not let go.
Even after he quit, the man intended to hound him to the very end.
Using his research materials as leverage, using the threat of legal action—whatever it took to keep him in chains.
I can't do this alone.
He'd thought running away would end it.
But his opponent wasn't nearly so accommodating.
Without power, a man couldn't even run.
Seo Min-seung picked up his phone again.
He lit the screen and deleted the half-written message.
Then he began typing anew.
Seo Min-seung picked up his bag and left the lab.
As he walked down the corridor, Seon-woo's words from last night came back to him.
I will give you the chance to take your revenge on Sunjin Motors—while doing everything you've ever wanted to do.
Honestly, he still found it hard to believe.
But right now, he had no other options. Alone, he could never beat Cho Sung-shik—or Sunjin Motors.
I need power.
With that final thought, Seo Min-seung began to walk—to meet the man who would give him that power.
“He's even worse than the dossier made him sound.”
The bench in front of the humanities building.
I had come here as soon as Seo Min-seung contacted me.
And I'd heard from him everything that had happened that day.
How he'd rejected both offers and tried to walk away cleanly.
And how Cho Sung-shik had responded.
The threat to leave his research materials behind, the talk of legal action—all of it.
Cho Sung-shik was an even worse man than the documents had shown.
“Well, if you came looking for me, sunbae, I take it you've changed your mind?”
“……No. I'm still leaving the school.”
Seo Min-seung shook his head.
“I stayed up all night thinking about what you said, and all I could think was that I really was asking too much. My family's in this state—what good is a doctorate?”
I studied him quietly.
There wasn't a trace of lingering attachment left in his eyes.
These were the eyes of a man who had truly given up.
“But.”
Seo Min-seung went on.
“Even if I leave, Cho Sung-shik won't let me go easily. No—more precisely, my thesis.”
He looked me square in the eye.
“I'll sell you that thesis. The price: you get rid of Cho Sung-shik for me.”
Seo Min-seung still seemed to be laboring under a deep misunderstanding about me.
“I don't need your thesis, sunbae.”
“What?”
“Like I told you—I didn't approach you because I coveted your research.”
At my words, Seo Min-seung's face showed his bewilderment.
So he still didn't believe me.
Apparently he'd dismissed everything I'd said last night as nothing more than a cleverly wrapped package.
“Then let's change the terms of the deal.”
I looked him straight in the eye as I spoke.
“I'll remove Cho Sung-shik for you. The price is you, Seo Min-seung—sunbae, exactly as you are.”
“……”
“Whether you choose to keep studying or go out into the world and make money, that's your choice, and I won't touch it.”
I paused for breath before continuing.
“But whichever path you take—your choices from here on out should be made for me.”
Seo Min-seung stared at me, dumbfounded.
He clearly hadn't grasped a word.
“And I will support you so that you can do whatever it is you truly want to do.”
“What you actually want is……”
“Yes. Revenge against Sunjin Motors. And rebuilding the Sunjin Group.”
I said it firmly.
“This plan needs you in it, sunbae.”
For a long moment, Seo Min-seung said nothing, just studied my face—searching, it seemed, for whether I meant it, and where the trap might be hidden.
I didn't look away.
A long silence stretched between us.
“And if it turns out you're no different from Cho Sung-shik or Sunjin Motors?”
Seo Min-seung spoke slowly.
“What do I do then?”
The question drew a chuckle out of me.
“What do you do? If that happens, you walk away, sunbae. Let's not overcomplicate it.”
“You'd just let me leave?”
“If that's your choice, there's nothing I can do about it, is there?”
I meant every word.
Forcing someone to stay never worked.
Without sincerity, nothing lasts anyway.
If Seo Min-seung wanted to leave, he should leave. That failure would be on me, for not earning his trust.
At my words, Seo Min-seung lowered his head, as if wrestling with something.
How much time had passed?
Seo Min-seung raised his head.
“All right.”
A short answer.
“I'll try believing in you. Just this once.”
The words I'd been waiting for had finally left his mouth.
I nodded with a broad smile.
“Good.”
I stood up and extended my hand to him.
“Then shall we start by dealing with Cho Sung-shik?”
Seo Min-seung stared at my outstretched hand for a moment—then slowly clasped it.