Gyeolbit (3)
As the morning sun slowly spilled its light between the glass towers of Gangnam, the eighteenth-floor corridor of Taesung Apparel’s headquarters lay in silence.
Breaking that silence was none other than Kim Pansuk, president of Dongil Sangsa.
He stepped off the elevator with a weary sigh, then another, the lines on his face far deeper than before.
“President Kim, it’s been a while.”
The one who greeted him was No Chaesang, the sharp-eyed section chief from Taesung Apparel’s quality management team.
Even at that early hour, he was already in motion, a gray suit draped over his lean frame and several files tucked under one arm.
The president looked at him with a face gone pale.
“This way, please. I’ll take you in as soon as I finish reporting to the executive director.”
Kim Pansuk said nothing, only nodded and followed behind him. As they walked down the corridor, he caught a brief glimpse of himself reflected in the building’s glass windows.
So this is the state I’ve come to...
He bit his lip, but there was nothing to be done.
By now, he thought, Taesung Apparel was the only place left he could lean on.
“All right, come in.”
When No Chaesang opened the door for him, Kim Pansuk stepped in carefully.
At the far end of the large conference room sat Executive Director Kim Hoyul.
The moment Kim Pansuk entered, Hoyul gave him a brief glance, then closed the file before him as though the matter held no interest at all.
“Have a seat.”
Kim bowed his head and sat down in the chair opposite the conference table.
In truth, he had not expected to meet even Executive Director Kim Hoyul today.
It had been enough, he thought, to meet No Chaesang, the highest decision-maker among the working-level staff, but now that Hoyul himself was here, there was no way he could keep from feeling even more tense.
“You’ve been waiting since early this morning, I hear.”
Kim Hoyul asked the question in a bored tone.
“Yes... Executive Director, I’m sorry. I came by and troubled you first thing in the morning.”
“No need to apologize that much. Speak.”
Kim Pansuk took an old folder out of his briefcase.
Inside were Dongil Sangsa’s recent profit-and-loss statements and a chart of raw yarn inventory, all packed tightly together.
He lowered his eyes, hesitated for a long while, then finally forced out his voice.
“As Taesung Apparel already knows... Haesol Textile is no longer placing orders with us. Since we informed them that we could no longer supply A-grade yarn, there was nothing to be done.
“In any case, things have come to this, and now we’re on the verge of collapse. We were receiving A-grade yarn, but now that Haesol says they can no longer work with us, we’re in a position where our annual steady supply is gone... If this keeps up, we’ll end up going bankrupt with all that A-grade yarn sitting in our warehouse.
“Executive Director, if you could just once hear us out...”
With trembling hands, he flipped through the file and pointed to the inventory list and the losses.
“As you can see, our stock has exploded over the past month, and the problem is that we have nowhere else to deliver it. We can force ourselves to hold on for a few months, but beyond that we need a stable client like Haesol Textile.”
Kim Hoyul gave the papers a cool, impersonal glance.
Then he exhaled slowly and leaned back in his chair.
“Listen, President Kim.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what you think you’re saying. Are you saying we’re blocking your company’s business right now?”
Kim Pansuk swallowed hard and wiped away the sweat sliding down his face.
“That’s not it...”
“And on top of that, you’ve already passed off C-grade yarn to Haesol Textile a few times, not just A-grade. This wasn’t the first time, was it?”
What Kim Hoyul said was painfully true: this sort of thing had happened before.
The previous president had failed to notice the yarn grade had suddenly dropped and had simply turned it into fabric as it was.
Only after shipping that fabric to Taesung Apparel and being rejected as defective had he realized the yarn was the problem...
This time, it was strange enough just to wonder how they had figured it out on the very day of delivery.
Of course, they must have informed Haesol immediately and arranged to take it back to avoid contract trouble, but the changed response from Haesol Textile made it clear things were definitely different now.
“That may be true, but still. In any case, since we’re in a situation where we can’t deliver despite having A-grade yarn... if you could connect us to a stable client other than Haesol Textile, that would be enough for us.”
Kim Hoyul frowned, shut the file he had been looking through with a tap, and asked, “What is Haesol Textile doing right now?”
There was no reason for Kim Hoyul to meet the president of a company like Dongil Sangsa in the first place.
And yet the reason he had called him in personally after the visit to the company was this.
“Haesol Textile? Well... strangely enough, they found more C-grade yarn.”
“They found more C-grade yarn? You mean they specifically asked for more C-grade?”
“That’s right. So we sent them some more of the limited C-grade stock we had, but C-grade is, after all, yarn that came out defective from otherwise normal production. There isn’t much of it to begin with, so it doesn’t help sales all that much.”
“Then how much were they asking for?”
“About one ton in total.”
“One ton?”
Kim Hoyul’s head snapped toward No Chaesang.
“Hey. How much fabric do you get out of one ton of C-grade yarn?”
No Chaesang ran the numbers hard in his head at the sudden math problem, then answered, “It depends on the fabric’s thickness, density, weave, width, and how much loss there is during finishing, but roughly... around 2,500 to 3,500 yards, I’d say.”
Anyone who did not find something strange about that was either an idiot or a fool.
Kim Hoyul felt his temper flare and said to Kim Pansuk, “I’ll find you a client, so you can leave now.”
He waved a dismissive hand, signaling there was nothing more to say. Kim Pansuk looked as though he might cry, as if he were about to say something, but at the executive director’s cold expression, he could only stand up and leave.
Once he was gone, the air in the conference room, with just the two of them left, grew heavy at once.
“You’re saying they can make three thousand yards out of C-grade yarn? Unless they’re determined to drive the company into the ground, how could that even happen?”
“Well... if they don’t have A-grade yarn and are trying to deliver cheap curtain fabric however they can, then it could be possible.”
“How much margin does that even leave?”
“I couldn’t tell you that either... Isn’t this just them clawing to stay alive because they can’t get A-grade yarn?”
Under other circumstances, he might have brushed it off, but Kim Hoyul felt an unpleasant itch in the back of his mind.
“Don’t just stand there. Go check it yourself. Find out what kind of fabric Haesol Textile is making, and who they’ve contracted with.”
That was easier said than done. Going to the company and asking around would not make anyone talk, and it wasn’t something he could just search online either.
But No Chaesang could not say it was difficult.
Once he’d been given the order, it was his job as a conglomerate employee to find out what they were making, even if he had to climb over a wall to do it.
“Understood.”
Then time passed, and by the afternoon the Haesol Textile office was bustling as staff sorted through the documents that had arrived.
Lee A-young tore open a large delivery box and said to Factory Manager Park Hansu, “Manager, this looks like overseas magazines and promotional brochures. I think they were sent by Lime Design.”
“Ah, that. They said GyeolBit art fabric was going to be featured in an official promotional piece, so it finally came out.”
Lee A-young pulled out one of the magazines and flipped it open.
Between the luxurious interior photos, a sofa upholstered in art fabric that the president had personally designed stood out at once.
“Wow, this is really amazing. Our Haesol Textile products are actually being featured this prominently in overseas media... I still can’t believe it.”
“Our president really is something else.”
The factory manager smiled along with her.
Not long ago they had been a company worrying about payroll, and now they were receiving love calls from Europe. It was impossible not to feel moved.
Just then, a familiar face appeared outside, hesitating as he came in with a slight bend in his back.
“No... isn’t that President Kim?”
The visitor, surprisingly, was Kim Pansuk of Dongil Sangsa.
“Uh... is Jo... Seunghyun here?”
He remembered the name with effort, finally pulling the young president’s name back to mind.
“He is here, yes, but...”
At first he had looked pleased, but Park Hansu’s expression soon hardened with unease.
He was the one who had delivered C-grade yarn instead of A-grade yarn and caused all this trouble.
Of course, he had promised to take the yarn back immediately, but then he had gone on supplying C-grade under the excuse that all the A-grade yarn had run out, so it was hardly surprising that the man could not look at him kindly.
“Could I meet him for a moment?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Since when did we need an appointment to meet? When President Jeong came to our Dongil Sangsa, did I turn him away saying he had no appointment?”
That did make sense, and Park Hansu frowned before saying, “Understood. Please wait a moment.”
After going inside, he quickly returned at the young president’s unexpected willingness to meet and led Kim Pansuk to the president’s office.
“Welcome.”
At the unexpectedly calm manner of the young president, Kim Pansuk felt a little relieved and sat down on the visitor’s sofa.
“I’m sorry for coming without warning like this.”
“It’s all right. That happens. I’ll get you some coffee.”
Seunghyun brought him a packet of instant coffee from the president’s office and took his seat.
“You’ve got a lot to say, don’t you?”
Kim Pansuk asked while slurping his coffee.
Seunghyun drew in a shallow breath and tilted his head.
“Why would you think I have a lot to say?”
“Well...”
Kim Pansuk could not bring himself to continue.
“Because you deliberately didn’t sell us A-grade yarn?”
Seunghyun lifted one corner of his mouth.
“That’s a misunderstanding. If you’d hear me out...”
Just as he was trying to explain in earnest, Seunghyun cut him off.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes. It was a misunderstanding. You wouldn’t have deliberately given Haesol Textile C-grade yarn just to watch us get screwed over, would you? Since it was a misunderstanding, you must have arranged to take it back immediately. I understand.”
At that, Kim Pansuk seemed to relax a little.
“It’s hard to find a young man this easy to talk to. President Jeong really raised his son well.”
“...”
“I was worried President Jeong might be misunderstanding things too.”
Leaning all the way back in his chair, Seunghyun stared at him with a faint, awkward smile on his face.
“So, what brings you here?”
“Huh?”
“There must be a reason you came.”
“Haha, well, you see...”
“And also.”
“Yes?”
“You may have been close with my father, but I’m the president of Haesol Textile now, so I’d rather not be spoken to casually.”
The mood had changed. Kim Pansuk swallowed, then hurriedly took a gulp of coffee and burned his tongue.
“Hff! Ah, right. My mistake. No, I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry.”
“I understand.”
He wiped the coffee that had spilled onto his trousers with a tissue from the table, then said, “At the moment, we don’t have any more C-grade yarn left to give you either... but I think we might be able to get something to you in about a month.”
“In about a month... and you think it might be delivered?”
Seunghyun’s words were laced with irony, mocking the fact that neither the timing nor the delivery itself was certain.
Of course Kim Pansuk picked up on that, and forced down the rest of his coffee with a mouth gone dry.
“As President Jeong knows, there are so many variables between the ship’s arrival, the containers, and the factory... ”
In truth, Dongil Sangsa’s delivery of A-grade yarn depended entirely on when Taesung would release the yarn shipments.
But since there was no way to know that, Kim Pansuk had come to the Haesol Textile that had handled goods most steadily and wanted at least some firm promise that they would pay in a month.
If Taesung did not attach a new client by then, they would have to deliver to Haesol Textile just to survive.
But then,
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“Sorry... about what, exactly?”
“We don’t have any plans to receive A-grade yarn for the time being. And we’ve already received enough C-grade for now.”
“What did you say?”
At the thunderbolt of a reply, he jerked in his seat.
“And also.”
“...”
“To be honest, the quality of the yarn Dongil Sangsa supplied to Haesol Textile was far too unstable. So...”
“So?”
“We won’t be receiving yarn from Dongil Sangsa anymore.”
Only then did Kim Pansuk realize he had just shot himself in the foot. He lunged forward as if he might take flight and grabbed Seunghyun’s sleeve.
“There’s the matter of your father and me, so don’t do this...”
“Manager!”
At Seunghyun’s shout, Park Hansu rushed into the office, quickly took in the situation, and pulled Kim Pansuk away from the young president.
“Listen, we may have made a mistake, but you can’t do things this way. You can’t just...”
Seunghyun did not answer. He only flicked his eyes toward Park Hansu, and then a few more employees came in to haul Kim Pansuk away.
Outside, Kim’s tear-choked protests could be heard, but Seunghyun merely lowered his gaze to the notebook his father had once used.
Father, you were too soft-hearted.
Seunghyun made a quiet vow that he would not become like his father, who had gladly embraced the mistakes of everyone else, even when those mistakes carried malice in them.