Patricide (3)
After finally securing discharge approval from the doctor, Je-gyun spent that night lying in bed with his wife, Kim Majin. It was the first night they had shared in three months, yet the tangled circumstances made any sense of intimacy impossible. As the newly appointed president of QS EnM, Kim Majin already felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work; having one more body would have been a blessing. Now she had a husband who was essentially a ticking time bomb with an unknown detonation schedule glued to her side, and she could not afford to relax for even a moment.
The hospital had warned that the bomb Je-gyun carried in his mind might not have much time left before it exploded. When ordinary speculation came wrapped in the authority of medical experts, anxiety only grew louder. After taking custody of Je-gyun and listening to the precautions, Kim Majin kept circling the same thought: Then at least tell me exactly when it will go off.
Contrary to her usual calm and gentle nature, she felt a surge of irritation at being handed a live bomb with nothing but the instruction to “manage it well.” Exhausted and fighting sleep, she finally let her guard down only after confirming that Je-gyun’s eyes were closed beside her. The hospital had never mentioned sleepwalking, so she reasoned that once he was asleep, everything would be fine. Less than a minute later, her own eyes drifted shut.
Swish.
Unlike his wife, Je-gyun had been forcing his eyes closed despite the excess energy coursing through his body. The moment he sensed no movement from the bed, his eyes snapped open. Kim Majin’s steady breathing told him she was deeply asleep. He had been waiting for this exact moment ever since the discharge was approved.
Moving with extreme caution so as not to wake her, Je-gyun first checked her breathing by watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. Then he lifted his head a little more boldly and studied her face; her muscles were relaxed, her eyes peacefully shut. Once he was certain she was sound asleep, he slipped out of bed, feet touching the floor. Like a cat stepping onto a stove, he crept out of the bedroom and then the house.
Clutching his wallet as though he had something urgent to purchase, Je-gyun entered every convenience store he passed on the night streets. One store, two stores, three stores… The number of stops kept growing, yet the conversation with each clerk remained the same.
“Is this the biggest one you have?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing bigger?”
“If it’s not here, it doesn’t exist.”
“Don’t you have much larger ones for work?”
“Those aren’t for sale.”
“Sell me one anyway. I’ll pay well.”
“I’m sorry. They’re not mine to sell; they belong to the store.”
His nighttime search for “something bigger” continued. After wandering for a long time, he finally emerged from a large convenience store wearing a satisfied smile. He tucked his purchase into the inner pocket of his thick winter coat, hailed a taxi, and gave an unexpected destination.
“Myeongnyun University Hospital, please.”
He was returning alone to the very place he had so happily escaped earlier that day.
* * *
The morning after the official announcement that Chairman Kwon Byung-do would succeed as chairman of the QS Group, Chief Han Seung-woo came to my office.
“Welcome.”
Seated across from him at the conference table, he brought up the subject of my new office.
“Wouldn’t it be appropriate to move you to the top floor of the Tower now?”
The “Tower” he referred to was, of course, QS Tower, where we currently sat. The suggestion was not an invitation to join the secretariat he oversaw on that floor. Now that I had been officially named successor, it meant moving into the chairman’s office—the room that overlooked the entire group.
Thump.
Honestly, the feeling was quite different from when I had first entered this division-chief office. The Central Management Division had always been a temporary stop; ever since I entered Kwon Ho-gyun’s body, my true target had been the chairman’s office. Still, there was no need to show too much excitement. After all, the room would soon be mine. I took a measured half-step back.
“There are still a few procedures left. The temporary board meeting of QS Corporation this afternoon has to approve the representative-director appointment, and holding the inauguration ceremony would help stabilize the stock prices of affiliates that have been shaken by news of Father’s illness.”
“Understood. I’ll prepare for the move within the next few weeks.”
“Please do.”
After discussing the chairman’s office interior and how to handle the existing items, Han Seung-woo jotted down his tasks and left. One side of my mind brimmed with the joy of finally reaching the final destination, while the other side felt the weight of the responsibilities ahead.
Becoming the master of the top floor of QS Tower meant acquiring only the shell. The true substance, as Chairman Kwon Byung-do had pointed out from his sickbed, was still only half mine. Until I completely crushed Seong-gyun and made QS Electronics and its subsidiaries my own, I could not become king. I would merely be moving my office to the highest floor of the QS kingdom while remaining nothing more than the head of one faction—exactly as I was now.
Of course, the cards I needed to bring Seong-gyun down were steadily falling into my hands. The information networks I had planted everywhere were proving their worth. Among them, the most intriguing report came from Seok Dong-hoon, the emperor of the night world, whom I had tasked with investigating the attempted kidnapping at JB Group. Even cornered, the eldest son of the QS Group had apparently been colluding with JB Group. On top of that, right after the succession was confirmed, Han Seung-woo had quietly passed me evidence of Seong-gyun’s past misconduct that had been buried in the secretariat files. And although it had not yet yielded anything decisive, Go Deok-man, president of QS Precision Process and Seong-gyun’s most loyal subordinate, seemed to have decided to switch sides; he kept feeding me small pieces of information in hopes of being useful.
If this continued, something big was bound to surface. From now on, my next move would be to cut and paste these fragments into a net that would bind Seong-gyun from head to toe. He was still a live fish and would struggle, but the more he thrashed, the deeper my net would cut into his flesh.
I was lost in these increasingly concrete visions of the future when my phone vibrated.
Bzzt.
A single text message yanked my thoughts back to reality. The sender was the director of Myeongnyun University Hospital. Every time he had contacted me recently, it had been with good news, so I opened the message with a light heart, half-expecting it might be about discharge.
— 8:15 a.m. Chairman Kwon Byung-do has passed away. Please come to the hospital immediately.
This message has been sent exclusively to Chairman Kwon Ho-gyun. I would also like to discuss how to inform the other family members.
What on earth did this mean? 8:15 a.m. was barely five minutes ago. The director had contacted me the moment he confirmed the chairman’s death. The man had regained consciousness, been moved from the ICU to a regular room, and every test and clinical finding had been positive. Yet only days after our long conversation, Kwon Byung-do was dead? I immediately pressed the call button above the text.
“Director. What exactly did your message mean?”
— I’m truly sorry. Chairman Kwon Byung-do has passed away.
“Why so suddenly? The neurosurgery chief said recovery was highly likely, and you were there and agreed. Was there a medical accident?”
At the words “medical accident,” the director’s voice trembled—the same man who had staked his position on the chairman’s recovery.
— It appears to be an “incident,” but not a “medical accident.” I don’t know how to explain it over the phone. You need to come and see the materials we’ve urgently secured.
An incident inside the hospital that wasn’t a medical accident? What did that even mean? Had the chairman, who couldn’t even leave his room, been hit by a car?
“Understood. I’m on my way right now.”
I drove straight to the hospital, handed the car to valet parking, and rushed up to the director’s office.
Thud.
The moment I appeared, the director—who had quickly dismissed the other doctors and nurses—dropped to his knees right in front of my feet.
“I’m sorry. I have no excuse.”
I understood why he felt sorry—he had guaranteed the chairman’s recovery—but what I needed to know was why the man had died.
“Stand up and sit in the chair. What was the cause of death? If a death certificate has been issued, it should include the cause, correct?”
“That’s… I wanted to discuss the contents of the death certificate with you first.”
I let out a short, incredulous laugh. This was getting more and more absurd. In a hospital filled with hundreds, even thousands, of doctors who were the best in the country and world-class by any standard, the director wanted to consult me about the contents of the death certificate?
“Are you saying you don’t know the cause of my father’s death?”
Even after sitting down as I instructed, the director continued to fidget and dodge the question.
“Well, as a doctor, if I had to write the death certificate, the cause is clear. Death due to acute cardiac arrest.”
“You’re saying he suddenly had a heart attack and died?”
Hoo. Realizing he could not keep showing only panic, the director took a deep breath and added an explanation.
“Yes. But medically speaking, cardiac arrest and death are not sharply distinguishable. The heart stops, so one dies; one dies, so the heart stops. What matters is why the heart stopped. In Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s case, it appears to have been caused by an external factor.”
“So it was a medical accident? A medication or procedure error?”
“No. Even upon re-examination, there was no problem with the medical care provided. However, someone who visited the chairman’s room last night neutralized those medical measures.”