Advancing Storm
When Seung-hyun returned to the factory, he could feel at once that the atmosphere had sunk heavily.
The machines were still running, but the employees who ran them had faces as rigid as stone.
Several of them had red-rimmed eyes, and Chief Kim Young-sook was sitting in a chair, wiping away tears.
“What happened?”
Seung-hyun asked as he stepped into the president’s office.
The factory manager, who had been waiting after sending the message and continuing to hold on, answered.
“Today, we received a call from Chief Jo Han-gyeol’s wife. She said her husband had... died like that in the car.”
“Sigh... Didn’t he leave any last words?”
“As for our side... even the employees who were close with Chief Jo are in a great shock. There’s been some unrest internally as well.”
No matter how badly Jo Han-gyeol had erred, there would surely be people wondering whether it had really been necessary to drag him all the way to the edge like this through a lawsuit.
Even if they thought that, there was nothing to be done.
Jo Han-gyeol had dealt the company a fatal blow, so a lawsuit had been inevitable.
But for the sake of the family he left behind, it should never have gone that far.
“Please explain things carefully, Manager. I’ll do my best to explain it properly myself later, maybe over a company dinner.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll definitely need one.”
Seung-hyun nodded and said, “Please send a funeral wreath to the mortuary. I’ll go there today.”
“You’re going?”
“I have to. My father used to say that no matter how badly you got along with someone, you had to attend their funeral. Even if I have to take a shower in yukgaejang there, I’ll go. I happen to be wearing a black suit, so I can just go straight there without stopping by home.”
Even though it was bound to be an awkward visit, the young president’s decision not to avoid it made Manager Park Han-soo admire him once again in silence.
He really was no ordinary man.
After stopping by a nearby bank and withdrawing one million won in cash, Seung-hyun took a taxi to the hospital where Jo Han-gyeol’s funeral was being held.
As with any funeral hall, the air was heavy and somber.
Perhaps because he had come early, Haesol Textile’s wreath had not yet arrived, and the place where Jo Han-gyeol’s funeral was being held looked especially lonely.
After paying his condolence money and signing his name, Seung-hyun stepped inside.
A middle-aged woman in black mourning clothes stood there.
Without even introducing himself, Seung-hyun bowed to Jo Chief’s wife, whom he was seeing for the first time.
She seemed to know who this young man was even without being told.
With eyes reddened from crying, she only watched him bow.
“I’m sorry.”
“...I heard about it.”
“...”
“Since you came, please have a meal before you go.”
He had expected her to lash out and tell him to bring her husband back to life.
Even with her two sons beside her, both of them looking barely old enough to be in high school, on the verge of tears, she kept her composure the whole time.
Seung-hyun had been taught by his father that when you came to a mourning house, you ought to eat before you left, so he soon took a seat in a corner.
He was not someone who usually enjoyed alcohol, but seeing a few people around him throwing back soju made him strangely crave it.
Still, he forced himself to hold back, worried he might make a mistake, when to his surprise Jo Han-gyeol’s wife sat down across from him.
“Ah...!”
As he started to stand, she raised a hand to stop him.
“You’re not drinking?”
“Pardon? Ah...”
“Ah, do you need to get back to the company?”
“I can have a few drinks.”
At that, Jo Chief’s wife stood up herself and came back with a bottle of soju.
“Since my boy is still young, I’m practically the chief mourner here, so I can’t drink. Please, President, have some.”
“Thank you.”
Seung-hyun quickly took the soju she had brought and poured himself a glass.
He swallowed it with a heavy heart, and for some reason the soju wasn’t as bitter as usual that day.
Since it didn’t taste bitter, he didn’t even reach for the side dishes, but Jo Han-gyeol’s wife placed a slice of boiled meat onto his plate and said,
“I regretted it a lot.”
“Pardon?”
“When you came to our house, I should have listened to you.”
“...”
“How much must he have suffered alone... When I think about how he must have felt, my chest still feels tight.”
She tapped her own chest a few times and went on.
“He wasn’t really that bad a person to begin with. That’s how our lives are. We don’t have any money to save, and with one monthly paycheck we have to support four people, so the heart you had when you were young disappears, and all you can do is look after your own survival. When someone tempts you at a time like that, a person acts as if something’s been put over their eyes.”
“...”
“Still, I know my husband was wrong. That’s why, back then, if I had listened to what you said and somehow persuaded him, this never would have happened... I really regret it.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Then Jo Han-gyeol’s wife took something out of the wallet she had been carrying and handed it to Seung-hyun.
“This is...?”
“It’s his phone. I checked, and there were several recordings inside.”
“Recordings?”
“Yes. Even in that situation, he left evidence behind. I don’t know what good it will do, but I thought you might need it. So I waited for you to come. If you hadn’t, I would’ve carried it in my chest forever.”
Seung-hyun gripped Jo Han-gyeol’s phone tightly and bowed to her.
“Thank you. I’ll make good use of it.”
Back home, Seung-hyun checked the phone.
The password had already been unlocked, so it was not difficult to find the recordings inside.
But then,
The roughly five-minute recording was so vicious and base that even Seung-hyun, who had already guessed much of the content, was startled by it.
“Those bastard sons of bitches...”
He was about to move immediately with the phone, but he forced down his anger and judged the situation coldly.
Then he backed up the recording and made a call.
“Manager, could you look into the executive staff at Taesung Apparel for me?”
Seung-hyun looked down at Jo Han-gyeol’s phone with cold eyes.
*
The next day, at Taesung Apparel’s headquarters in Gangnam.
“I’m here to see Executive Director Kim Ho-yeol.”
Early in the morning, Seung-hyun arrived in the lobby of Taesung Apparel, dressed impeccably.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes. If you say I’m Jung Seung-hyun, president of Haesol Textile, he’ll know.”
Because the meeting had been arranged in advance, Seung-hyun was easily shown upstairs to the executive offices.
Knock. Knock.
“President Jung Seung-hyun of Haesol Textile is here.”
“Tell him to come in.”
When the secretary opened the door to the Strategic Planning Headquarters office and he stepped inside, he saw a man who looked not yet forty sitting expressionlessly at his desk.
“...”
He stared without offering even a greeting, and Seung-hyun casually looked around the office before settling down on the reception sofa.
“You don’t even offer tea here? We’ve been working with Haesol for quite a long time, after all.”
Without changing expression, he stared at him for a moment before calling the secretary through the intercom and ordering tea to be brought in.
He watched silently as the tea was brought in, and as Seung-hyun took a sip of the hot tea, he finally spoke.
“How old are you?”
“I’ll tell you my age when we meet in private. I’m here today as the president of Haesol Textile.”
Something flickered in Executive Director Kim Ho-yeol’s eyes.
“For now, could you call one person for me?”
“Who?”
“Section Manager Lee Sang-moo. You know him, don’t you?”
“...And why would I do that?”
“Aren’t you curious? Why I asked to meet you?”
From his point of view, it had been a long time since he had heard such insolent words from anyone other than a family member.
“I am curious.”
Why else would he summon the president of some subcontractor to meet him in person for no reason at all?
The warning that he would regret it badly if he did not meet him had been the reason for today’s meeting.
Of course, since he had been keeping close watch on Haesol Textile all along, he had also decided that it wouldn’t hurt to meet him once.
“Then please call him.”
Kim Ho-yeol rubbed at the corner of his eye.
He was not stupid.
By now, he could tell this went beyond simple curiosity and that something highly unfavorable to Taesung was being arranged.
Even knowing that, he pressed the intercom again.
“Send up Section Manager Lee Sang-moo.”
After issuing the order, Kim Ho-yeol stared at Seung-hyun again and asked, “I heard you’ve decided not to do business with us anymore. Can you tell me why?”
“Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what? I’m not sure I know.”
He put on an expression that said he had no idea what Seung-hyun was talking about.
Seung-hyun played along, even though he believed the man knew perfectly well.
“You kept beating the price down so hard there was no way we could make a living. You bumped the contract up by only twenty thousand won and then sent QC at us every chance you got, trying to dig up some excuse and squeeze us to death. Even you, Executive Director, wouldn’t have been able to put up with that.”
“And yet we gave you quite a bit of work. Do you think you can hold out without us? The textile market isn’t exactly doing well these days... and it’s not as though Haesol Textile has uniquely unmatched technology either... hmm?”
His words that Haesol’s technology was nothing special cut straight into Seung-hyun’s chest.
His father had been proud of Haesol Textile, so the remark hurt more than it should have.
“Who knows. How long Haesol Textile’s technology will stay at that level...”
“Oh? Have you developed some new fabric, then? If so, I’d love to hear about it. If it’s Haesol Textile’s own technology, I’d be willing to pay the proper price.”
“Hmph. I’d be relieved if you didn’t steal the technology to begin with.”
At that instant, Kim Ho-yeol’s expression turned cold.
“I understand that youth gives you nerve, but in society, there are things you can say and things you can’t. You seem not to have learned that.”
“I did learn that. From my father. And I learned one more thing. Even if you’re a beast, if you don’t bare your claws, people will think you’re a cat.”
“What?”
Then,
Knock. Knock.
“Section Manager Lee Sang-moo is here.”
“Send him in.”
When Lee Sang-moo opened the door and came in, he froze at the sight of Seung-hyun.
“Executive Director, what is this about...”
As he began to look uneasy, Seung-hyun idly touched his phone.
And then,
At first, Lee Sang-moo only seemed puzzled, but once he realized what the recording was, his face drained to a sickly gray.
“E-Executive Director. There’s been a mistake here!”
From beginning to end, Seung-hyun had not once looked at Lee Sang-moo, only at Kim Ho-yeol.
Having noticed the recording and seen the wavering in his eyes, Seung-hyun no longer held back as the audio played. He abruptly snatched at Lee Sang-moo’s wrist just as Lee reached out to grab the phone.
“You, you... you bastard...”
With his wrist held fast, Lee tried to spit out an obscenity with his eyes bloodshot, but
Smack!
Even Kim Ho-yeol, who had remained composed through the unexpected turn of events, dropped his jaw.
Anyone would have been shocked to see, right in front of them, the representative of a subcontractor slap the face of Lee Sang-moo, the man who sat at the very top of the working level.
“You bastard...”
Smack!
“You son of a...”
Smack!
At first, Lee Sang-moo had been struck only because he was caught off guard, but after several blows, his vision went white and he could no longer resist.
In the end, unable to endure it any longer, Kim Ho-yeol seized Seung-hyun’s arm and glared at him as if he could kill him.
“Hey, you bastard. Do you want to die? Do you even know where you are?”
Seung-hyun held up the phone playing the recording and switched to another section.
[...How dare you threaten me? Evidence? You fucking bastard. Go ahead, show me. You think I can’t kill you? You think Taesung can’t handle one lowlife like you? You little fucker, where do you get off... Go blast it to every newspaper in the country, asshole. Which paper do you think will listen to you? But there’s one thing you need to understand. Taesung is going to kill you.]
After hearing that, Lee Sang-moo’s face turned even more livid than when he had been slapped.
“Executive Director! This is all fabricated! It’s all fabricated!”
Seung-hyun glanced down at Lee Sang-moo, now on his knees and wailing, and then said to Kim Ho-yeol, “As you heard, there’s clear evidence that Taesung bribed an employee of a subcontractor, so this isn’t something I can let pass.”
Kim Ho-yeol could not believe what was happening in front of him.
But in this situation, if he let his temper run wild, he had no idea what result that would bring, so with a face like he’d chewed on shit, he had to bite back his anger.
He knew that if this recording reached the chairman’s ears, he would be destroyed far more miserably than Lee Sang-moo, who was now kneeling on the floor in disgrace.
“What do you want?”
“First, you’ll compensate Jo Chief’s family. And Taesung has records of all the times it tried to beat down Haesol Textile’s prices. I don’t know whether that was our fault or not, but...”
Before Seung-hyun had even finished, Director Kim replied, “I’ll compensate everything. So get out of my sight right now.”
“We’ll wait.”
As Kim answered, his gaze was not on Seung-hyun leaving the office.
Slowly taking off the watch on his wrist, he walked toward Lee Sang-moo, who was trembling in fear.
---