The Chairman Who Did It All Alone
Beep... beep...
He couldn’t speak, but he could hear.
The flat, relentless beeping of medical equipment.
It grated on his nerves. The signal sounded as if it might cut out at any moment, and yet it kept going, hour after hour, needling him with its infuriating precision.
The machines of the hospital ICU, insisting that he was still alive.
Many long years had passed.
During all that time, he had lived for one thing only: the company.
Do Jaehyun, chairman of Johwa Financial Group.
In the end, people had called him an Asian financial tycoon whose reach extended beyond Korea and out into the wider world.
And even for him, the end had finally come.
I...
am a cowardly failure.
A financial tycoon? The king of cash in Asia?
What kind of tycoon, what kind of king was that supposed to be?
"...I’m sorry. We did everything we could, but it has been a year since Chairman Do entered a coma. As his attending physician, I hate to say this, but further treatment is, in truth, meaningless."
The attending physician delivered the verdict with cold indifference.
"My greed made this friend suffer. Yes, I suppose it’s time to let him go. It would be proper for me to send him off myself in the end."
"Pardon?"
"Could you give us some room? I’d like to be alone with my friend one last time..."
"...Understood."
It was chilling.
The man’s hand as he removed the oxygen mask was impossibly cold.
"Don’t worry about the company. You have me, your lifelong friend."
Friend? Lifelong friend?
If there had been traitors wearing the mask of partners, perhaps. But had he ever really had a friend left at his side?
The people he loved should already have been gone from this world by now...
"Chairman Do. It’s time to go. I’m sure many who left before you have been waiting."
Pathetic. Worthless.
To think that this sick, weakened version of him would meet his end at the hands of some insignificant bastard whose voice and name he could no longer even remember.
But so be it.
If this was the price, if this was the punishment for what he had done, he would accept it.
"Are you... ? Y-you’re smiling?"
He didn’t know whether he had truly smiled, but the trembling in the bastard’s voice was vivid enough. He posed as an equal, as a business partner, but Jaehyun knew the truth.
You’re afraid of me.
That was why, even with a dying man in front of you, you could not bring yourself to call me anything but Chairman Do.
Beeeep--------- beep~
"1:10 a.m. Chairman Do Jaehyun..."
His awareness dimmed. The last thing he remembered was not the voices of the family he had thought he would see after death, but the physician’s death sentence as he rushed back into the room.
"He has passed."
...He was clearly dead, and yet what followed was playing out before his eyes.
The funeral lasted three days.
As expected for the funeral of the chairman of the nation’s top financial group, it was held at an imposing temple that any Korean would recognize, and the company had even arranged the forty-nine-day rite.
There were many visitors to his memorial altar.
"He piled up money as if he meant to take it with him even in death, and in the end he’s leaving it all behind."
"Leaving it behind? It was all taken from him. He was so suspicious that he raised a tiger cub without ever realizing it was a tiger..."
"Exactly. When Chairman Do was at the top, even gang bosses would grovel before him... but time leaves nothing unchanged. Life really is empty."
"But is it true he was that feared with his fists? Even if that old man worked his way up from the bottom, isn’t that rumor a bit exaggerated?"
"What rumor in this world spreads without a reason? There’s a reason he was called a money demon. That man personally took down a violent gang boss and collected a rotten debt on his own."
"Right, I heard about that too. I heard the gang, furious over that incident, buried Chairman Do’s wife and children alive..."
"Tsk tsk. Why would the only people hurt around Chairman Do be his wife and children? Have you ever seen anyone survive getting tangled up with that cursed old man? He lived well. He really did. He should’ve gone sooner, for the good of the world."
But not one person mourned his death.
"He lived a wasted life, a wasted life. Chairman Do. Out of all these people, not a single one is here to comfort you. And yet I, the man who once wanted to kill you with my own hands, am the only one who truly understands you..."
And so three days passed.
When the funeral company staff began to carry out the coffin containing his body, a bent old man struggling forward with a cane blocked their path and laid a wrinkled hand on the casket.
"Why did you live so ferociously if this was how you were going to go?"
The old man had once been Yoon Dogyu, president of DK Money, a man who ruled over half of South Korea’s underground capital. These days, Yoon was as wretched as Jaehyun, but before he had met Jaehyun and been crushed so thoroughly he could never rise again, he had been one of the great powers truly controlling the nation’s shadow economy with one hand.
"Still, go well. If we meet again someday, I hope we can set aside the growling and share a drink as people bound by a better fate."
The one who offered even this lonely tribute to his life was the rival who had hated him most, the man who had suffered the most because of him.
How hollow.
Facing the end of his life, he felt neither grief nor tears, only an empty laugh that would not come out.
A nightmare of a life...
That was his final memory from a place he could not tell was a dream or a past life.
If he had any regret, it was that he had made the growth of the company the sole goal of his life. Because of that, he had ignored and abandoned the colleagues and friends who had endured life and death beside him, cloaking it all under the excuse of unavoidable circumstances.
And lastly...
he had been a man who had betrayed the bonds of family.
Yes, that was enough to make hell feel fair.
No, hell itself would have been a luxury for a villain like him.
“Hey, intern. Bring me the collection phone.”
“Huh? The rank phone? Team leader, do you mean the company phone?”
“What the hell are you talking about, rank phone? What, there’s a different phone for every rank? You moron, don’t go showing you didn’t even graduate college. Idiot.”
What was this?
Why was he sitting here?
“Hey, Jaehyun.”
“Hm? Me?”
“Where the hell did you leave your mind? How did you even train this intern? You didn’t teach him the basics, did you? What’s wrong with you today? You’ve been spacing out since this morning. What, you think you’re perfect or something?”
Perfect...?
Yes, he remembered.
In a company like a loan shark outfit, when an employee was assigned delinquent accounts and managed to collect every last overdue payment so there was nothing left to recover that month, they called it Perfect.
“Deputy Do Jaehyun, sir. Sorry, but what exactly is a rank... a ‘gold’ rank? What is that?”
“The collecting kind of gold. Collection phone. That’s what it means.”
“Huh? Collection phone? Then what is a collection phone?”
Collecting gold.
Collecting money. These days, it was the word used when recovering money that had been lent out. No, not these days exactly, but from the late 1990s through 2010, it was the word mainly used by debt collectors in loan-shark operations and private lending outfits.
A personal phone was a personal phone. A phone used for work was called either a collection phone or a company phone.
Ah, of course, a company phone and a collection phone were a little different.
A company phone was exactly what it sounded like: a work phone. But a collection phone was used mainly when calling for debt recovery. And to prepare for the moment a delinquent customer blocked the number or deliberately refused to answer, they changed the phone number every one or two weeks.
“It’s a company phone. The company phone used when speaking to customers during debt collection is called a collection phone in this industry.”
“Oh, I see... thank you.”
“If you have any more questions, just ask.”
“Yes, senior. Thank you.”
The intern bowed at a perfect ninety degrees and then went back to his desk to look at his monitor.
Then someone came over, placed a hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder while he was still seated, and handed him black coffee with ice in a paper cup.
“Hm?”
“What do you mean, ‘hm’? Hey, hey, I heard you hit early Perfect again this month, in just three weeks?”
“Man, having a good classmate really matters. Help me out a little. This time Kim Yeonje got assigned to me, and I’m about to sink my numbers. That woman is a total nightmare, and nobody can collect from her except you. Huh? Just help me once.”
The man groaned to him like they were close. This man was...
“Director Shim?”
“Director Shim? What are you talking about?”
“Ah... uh...”
He remembered.
Shim Hyogeun, the financial director of Johwa Financial Group. This was what he had looked like in his younger days. A fellow rookie at a midsize lending company, back when they had started together.
“Man, how much did you drink yesterday? You’re talking nonsense. Go wash your face. But...”
“R-right. I should. But what?”
“I heard you’re quitting soon. Where are you going? If it’s a good place, take me with you. Who knows? If I follow you, maybe they’ll make you team leader and me deputy team leader?”
“Uh... let’s talk about it later.”
“Hey, take your phone with you. I heard the team leader and the department head want to call you in for a meeting anyway.”
“Right. Thanks.”
Jaehyun took the phone Hyogeun handed him and got up from his seat. Then he went into the restroom, turned on the tap at the sink, and splashed cold water across his face.
"...It really is me."
His reflection in the mirror.
"Wait, today’s date is..."
With awkward hands still unfamiliar to him, he opened the clamshell phone and checked the screen.
Wednesday, January 14, 1998, 2:00 p.m.
This was...
the day after the Interest Rate Limitation Act had been abolished.
(Interest Rate Limitation Act: a law that removed restrictions on interest.)
It meant that if a first loan contract stated the interest rate clearly, there was no problem even if you lent one million won and charged one million won in interest, or took ten million won, and so on.
In other words, it was the day the thing loan sharks had wanted more than the reunification of the country had finally become reality.
"Ha..."
He couldn’t feel it.
A flash before death?
No, it was too vivid for that, and too long. More than anything, the cold water soaking his face told him this was no dream.
"I don’t know what happened, but..."
Do Jaehyun, old master of dirty money.
"I’ve never missed an opportunity."
In the past, in the present...
and in the future.
One week later.
Accepting that he had returned to the past had not been as easy as he had imagined over the past week.
It was a blessing to be able to reconnect with the people and opportunities he had lost and discarded because of his own mistakes and wrongdoing. But he also had to accept the curse-like fate of rebuilding achievements he had barely managed to create in the first place, thanks to a combination of his effort, skill, and sheer luck.
In the past, he would have worked for another six months, preparing his business step by step before quitting, but that was no longer necessary. Unlike before, he had to bring the schedule forward.
And he needed power. He had to become stronger than his former self if he wanted to protect his people.
“Good morning.”
8:00 on the dot.
He had arrived the latest in the team, but he wasn’t late. Still, the team leader’s eyes on him were anything but kind.
“I told you to come in twenty minutes early, didn’t I? What’s gotten into you lately? You’re not a new hire anymore, so what, because you hit Perfect you think you can do whatever you want? If that’s how you’re going to be, then don’t bother coming in. Use your annual leave, or go somewhere else.”
He had forgotten.
At the time, legal collection hours were from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., the hours during which creditors were allowed by law to harass and collect from debtors, including phone calls, texts, and visits.
That was why, even though the official start time was 8:00, everyone arrived by 7:40. And based on the collection list they had worked on the night before, they stood ready with their phones, waiting to call the debtors the moment the clock struck eight.
“Everyone, attention. We don’t have time, so I’ll keep this short.”
It wasn’t the army, but every morning they gathered a dozen or so team members and spouted absurd nonsense as if they were someone important. It wasn’t just his team; every other team was the same.
Performance matters, you’re all dispatched contract workers right now. If you want to become regular employees, raise your recovery rate. That’s how you become team leader or deputy team leader, just like me. Back in my day...
All the same crap.
He hadn’t realized it before, but now it only made him laugh bitterly: the bullshit discipline, the rotten habits.
“What, you got something to say? If you’re sorry for being late, then help the other staff out. Don’t just slack off because you hit Perfect.”
“No, please process this.”
“Hey, annual leave isn’t happening. No matter how little work you have, the team’s numbers... huh?”
Kim Donggeon, the team leader, had naturally assumed it was an annual leave request, but the moment he realized the document Jaehyun had handed over was a resignation letter, his face flushed red and purple with rage.
“Hey! Have you lost your mind? It’s the end of the month and we’re in the middle of our busiest stretch, and you want to hand this in?”
“Didn’t you say the team comes first and individuals can be replaced at any time, Team Leader?”
“You little bastard, what did you just say...”
Team Leader Kim Donggeon grabbed him by the collar and glared. And just as he was about to bark another word at him.
“Hey!”
A shout erupted from the department head’s office far away, and it echoed all the way into their room.
“Bring me the resignation paper you approved right now. No, get the other team leaders in here too!”
It seemed the sound of Team Leader Kim Donggeon and Jaehyun’s squabbling had reached the department head’s office.
Team Leader Kim shot him a resentful look, then hurriedly rushed into the department head’s office.
Normally the office should have been filled with the beep of phones and the sound of calls, but now it was dead silent.
And then...
once more, a loud voice thundered from the department head’s office.
“Get out there and bring Do Jaehyun in here!”