Money-Making Bedding (4)
On an evening in Paris, in the lobby of Shangri-La Paris.
Cha Hee-ju sat on the lobby sofa, still impeccably put together despite the long flight.
Every so often, she checked the time and waited for Seung-hyun.
Coming straight to the hotel the moment she arrived was partly because she wanted to settle this matter quickly, but to be honest, she was also curious about why Seung-hyun was in Paris at all.
“Hee-ju.”
At the familiar voice from behind, Hee-ju turned and saw Seung-hyun approaching in a suit.
He looked different from before, polished and self-assured.
“Seung-hyun. It’s been a while.”
Uneasily aware of her own nerves, Hee-ju stood to greet him, and Seung-hyun answered with a light smile before sitting across from her.
“Was your flight all right?”
“Yes, it was fine. But Seung-hyun, you really do look different. I guess Paris agrees with you.”
Seung-hyun smiled, slightly embarrassed.
“Do I? Honestly, I’m already missing kimchi stew. I really am a Korean to the bone.”
“My, already? In the land of fine dining, no less?”
“I’ve had all sorts of amazing food, but I’m already starting to get tired of it.”
“I see. But why are you staying in Paris for so long? I only heard you were here on business.”
At that, Seung-hyun tilted his head.
“From whom?”
“Ah, well, actually, the reason I came here is because President Jo Kang-min of Hanil International asked me to.”
Since it was something he would find out anyway, Hee-ju said it casually.
If she made a big, serious production out of it, it would only make things more burdensome.
On the other hand, Seung-hyun, who had suddenly come to Paris and met her here, looked slightly thrown off.
He had just firmly turned Hanil International down, so the conversation was bound to be uncomfortable.
“I see...”
“Don’t feel too pressured. I’m not some Hanil International employee, and if we can talk honestly and it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out.”
With a shrug, she spoke lightly, and Seung-hyun’s own tension eased as well. A faint smile touched his lips.
“Thank you for being considerate.”
But Hee-ju found the words “thank you for being considerate” just a little irritating.
Honestly, she had said what she said because she was disappointed, and if he was going to put it that way, he could at least have simply said thank you. Instead, it felt as though he was drawing a line between them all over again.
So she pouted and said, “Why do you have to say considerate? Come to think of it, Seung-hyun, you’re kind of the type who puts a line between yourself and women, aren’t you?”
“Me? Hahaha, did I really?”
“Yes. Well, that’s not the important part...”
Once the conversation started going deeper, Hee-ju quickly changed the subject.
“Hanil International seems to want exclusive rights to GyeolBit bedding for hotels. Ah, but... how did you keep it secret that you were making hotel bedding? I’m hurt.”
“What? Hahaha... Mirae Department Store only sells to individual consumers, so... and I didn’t originally make this with hotels in mind.”
Cha Hee-ju’s eyes widened.
“Then what?”
“The president of Okura Hotel came by Mirae Department Store, liked it, and asked us to introduce it to a few rooms first. But since it was a hotel, I started developing a dedicated fabric that could withstand rough conditions like high-temperature steam cleaning. It happened to fit perfectly, so they installed it in all the rooms, and that’s how The Peninsula Tokyo adopted it too.”
“Ah... so Okura Hotel isn’t the only place with that bedding?”
“That’s right. And right now, the Japanese side keeps sending inquiries to the company. In that situation, if you were me, would you grant exclusivity just because a Korean buyer offered to take a lot of units?”
Only then did Hee-ju realize that President Jo Kang-min and her grandfather still hadn’t fully grasped Haesol Textile’s competitiveness.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t give it either.”
“Exactly. If they had demanded exclusivity only for Korea, I might have considered it... but now even that feels a bit much.”
“Why?”
Seung-hyun considered softening his wording, then decided to be honest.
“Because I didn’t like the way Hanil International made their offer.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Lesser Factory is an SPA brand, so selling a lot at a low price suits its value. But GyeolBit is different. It’s luxury. If you want to buy luxury, then you have to make a proposal worthy of it.”
He would not have understood that in the past, but after learning so much from Chairman Antoine, Seung-hyun had come to see that selling luxury at the right price required not just an excellent product, but a seller with the right attitude as well.
By politely criticizing their lack of respect for the craft, he made Hee-ju realize that the man in front of her had been changing day by day.
If they still thought of him as someone who just made fabric in the neighborhood and sold it around town, they were badly mistaken.
“I’ll apologize on their behalf. I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t need to apologize, Hee-ju. That was just how I felt.”
Hearing that she didn’t need to apologize sounded to her like he was saying he still wouldn’t accept the deal even if she did, and that made her heart sink further.
The contract was President Jo Kang-sik’s problem, not hers, but she had come because she still wanted things to go well.
“Sigh... I guess it can’t be helped. My grandfather was the one who took a direct interest in it, actually. So President Jo may have pushed the contract a little too hard.”
“Ah...”
“Of course, even if it’s you, you still wouldn’t be interested, right?”
Seung-hyun answered by grinning and shrugging.
Seeing that, Hee-ju nodded and said, “All right. I’ll pass this along to Hanil International exactly as it is.”
“Aren’t you making life difficult for yourself because of me?”
“No, not at all. Really, it’s nothing like that. Ah, but you still haven’t told me why you’re staying here so long.”
“Ah, right. Actually, the president of Loro Piana saw my designs and invited me to an event called the LVMH Autumn Innovation Showcase during Paris Fashion Week.”
“What? Wait a minute. That means your clothes are going to be part of the event?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you’re basically going to be standing on a fashion show stage as a designer?”
“That’s the form of it, yes?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Wow. That’s incredible.”
“It sort of happened that way. So right now I’m working with the Loro Piana designers to make the clothes for the show.”
“No way... Did you always have this much talent for design? And if it’s the president of Loro Piana, he’s the eldest son of the LVMH Group... He can’t have ordinary standards, and yet he’s actively backing you!”
As she spoke, the more clearly she grasped how extraordinary this was, the higher her voice climbed.
“Well, I’m pretty stunned myself.”
“I hope it goes well. Then can you tell me exactly when the show is? I definitely want to attend.”
“Of course. I’ll send you the exact date and time.”
“Looks like I’ll have to come back to Paris in a month.”
Feeling a little disappointed that she couldn’t hold on to Seung-hyun, who was openly busy, Hee-ju could only look forward to meeting him again a month from now.
*
Hwang Seok-jae, the strategy planning director who was practically No. 2 in a company without a president, left the office fairly early.
Today, he wanted to get off work early and enjoy a glass of soju with some raw fish.
After he had moved out before, Director Hwang Seok-jae had been living in an officetel not far from the company.
At first he had wondered whether living alone would make him feel like a lonely old bachelor, but once he actually did it, it was so comfortable it was almost absurd.
He could watch TV without anyone nagging him, and eat whatever he wanted at any hour without hearing a word of complaint.
Maybe if he had never had a long marriage, he would have found that life dull and lonely, but after a disappointing marriage, this kind of freedom didn’t feel bad at all.
“Half mullet and half flatfish, please. For takeaway.”
He stopped by the sushi place near his home, got a generous serving of chili paste, soy sauce, and wasabi, and headed back feeling absurdly excited.
“Mm-hmm~”
When he got home, changed clothes in a hurry, and took out the raw fish he had brought back, he found himself humming without meaning to.
And with baseball on the TV and a bottle of fine soju instead of cheap liquor at his side,
“Ahhh, this is nice.”
He dipped a plump, savory slice of mullet into soy sauce loaded with wasabi and put it in his mouth, and a smile spread across his face on its own.
He had just started to lose himself in the pleasurable tension baseball always gave him when...
Ring-dong.
The doorbell suddenly rang.
Seok-jae hesitated for a moment, then slowly stood and checked the intercom screen by the front door, only to find his wife, Hong Jang-mi, and his daughter, Min-ji, standing there.
“Oh...”
He wasn’t pleased that they had come during such a good moment, but he pressed the door-open button anyway.
As soon as the door opened, Hong Jang-mi came in with a scowl, while Min-ji wore an awkward smile and watched her father’s expression.
“It’s clean in here. Living alone suits you, doesn’t it?”
Seeing that he was doing just fine on his own, Jang-mi said sharply.
Seok-jae quietly closed the door and asked, “What brings you here all of a sudden?”
“What do you mean, what? How long are you planning to keep living separately like this? Do you honestly think this makes any sense?”
Seok-jae was momentarily caught off guard by his wife’s words.
It was strange that the wife who had always looked down on him was suddenly seeking him out like this.
Beside her, Min-ji tried to speak kindly.
“Dad, just come home now. You’ve already lived alone long enough.”
At his daughter’s gentle tone, Seok-jae’s heart wavered for just an instant.
It was the voice of family affection, something he hadn’t heard in a long time.
“You know we can’t keep living like this. Let’s live together again.”
The moment he heard his daughter, he was struck by the absurd thought that his family had missed him, and his chest grew warm on one side.
Had the family that had hated and dismissed him so thoroughly finally come to miss him after all?
Thinking that way, the hard knot inside him began to loosen little by little.
But at that moment, his wife Hong Jang-mi sat down on the sofa and sneered, “If you’re going to live comfortably here by yourself and just save money, then what are Min-ji and Kyung-min supposed to do? You know Min-ji wants to go to graduate school overseas this time, right? If you’ve got money to sit around here and mope with, you should put it toward that.”
Hwang Seok-jae froze.
He realized that the reason they had come looking for him was not because they needed him, but simply because they needed his money.
Even Min-ji, silent at his side and watching the mood without saying a word, made Seok-jae’s heart go cold in an instant.
“So that’s it after all. You didn’t need me as family. You just needed my money.”
At Seok-jae’s icy words, Min-ji and Jang-mi both flinched. Hwang Seok-jae stood up coldly and opened the front door.
“Get out.”
“What do you think you’re doing right now? Min-ji has begged you so hard...”
“Begged? Don’t make me laugh. Since when have you ever begged me for anything? You’ve ignored me and complained your whole lives. What sort of request is this supposed to be? You think I don’t know that you only come around when you need something?”
Hong Jang-mi sprang to her feet, incredulous.
“Are you really going to do this? You’d go this far with Min-ji?”
Seok-jae turned his head with finality and said, “My money won’t be going to you anymore. Figure out your own lives.”
“What does that mean? Are you talking about divorce?”
“You know very well. I’ll send over the papers, so keep that in mind. Splitting the assets in half will probably suit you just fine anyway. Let’s live like that from now on.”
“Dad!”
Even at Min-ji’s shocked cry, Seok-jae calmly held the door open and said, “Get out. I need to eat dinner. You go live well with your mother.”
Seok-jae sent out the mother and daughter, who were too stunned to say another word, and then, unlike before, he went on eating with a blank expression.
Even though Hanwha, the team he had so faithfully supported, had just strung together back-to-back hits with runners in scoring position, for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to laugh.