Chapter 45: The Man Who Ran the Whole Show Alone
At ten in the morning, the alley lined with the women’s establishments near Yeongdeungpo Station was wrapped in an unusual hush. Now that the rush of commuting hours had passed, the street should have been quiet until lunch, but today even that ordinary stillness felt off.
Vroooom! Brrrrrrr…
A deep, low engine note, completely different from an ordinary motorcycle’s, rolled through the narrow alleyways of Yeongdeungpo. It was the unmistakable sound of a Corvette, the kind of supercar that had become famous back then, and it echoed dully through the cramped street.
“Been a while since I was here.”
A moment later, Shin Gilwoo, the Corvette’s owner, walked into the Red Dog Faction office, twirling his key around a finger.
“You’re here?”
“Yeah, hyung. Boss Kim, you’ve been well?”
“Yes, I’ve been doing well. You look good too, Mr. Shin.”
“Well, I mean…”
Shin Gilwoo laughed and sat down.
“Have some coffee.”
“Huh? What’s this, hyung? Your tastes changed? Anyone can see this is a neighborhood coffee shop brew.”
“You’ve been to a neighborhood coffee shop?”
“Hyung. In Gangneung Ganseong, if you don’t know Sergeant Shin at the coffee shop, you’re basically a spy.”
“...”
“See? I knew it.”
“You used to wrinkle your nose whenever I told you to just have something delivered and drink it.”
“Boss Kim made the call.”
“Of course.”
Shin Gilwoo lifted his cup and looked at Kim Museong.
“Mr. Kim Museong, you know your coffee.”
“Coffee is mix coffee.”
“Heh, exactly. Spoken like a man who knows.”
The two of them fell into easy rhythm immediately.
“Gilwoo.”
“Yeah?”
“You finished talking with Chairman Jeong Taeyang yesterday, right?”
“Ah, that. Don’t even ask. After you left in the middle, hyung, he kept me busy until five in the morning.”
“For someone who was dragged around that much, you look pretty fresh.”
“Ah, that’s thanks to our Taeyang hyung.”
At Kim Museong’s words, Shin Gilwoo grinned.
“As expected, he’s a businessman through and through. The guy knows what manners are.”
Hyung? Manners?
Since when had Shin Gilwoo and Jeong Taeyang gotten that close?
“You slept at a tourist hotel.”
“How’d you know? Mr. Kim, you’ve been there too?”
“Well, I…”
“Man, that girl there... no, the woman Taeyang hyung introduced me to was seriously gorgeous.”
“It’s a good place. Still, don’t get carried away. Once you get a taste for it, money and time rot away like a saw handle left out in the rain.”
“Right, right. But with WH Entertainment being in Gangnam, I’m worried I’ll end up looking that way without even meaning to.”
“We have plenty here too. From now on, if you tell me, I’ll send you there myself.”
“Oh? Really?”
That was a fine habit he was developing.
They said a wind that blew in late was the scariest kind, and while Kim Museong might not need managing, Shin Gilwoo looked like he needed a little supervision. Still, the boy was grown; no matter what you said, he wasn’t the type to listen just because someone told him to. If he was going to have his fun anyway, it might be better for him to see women from a side Kim Museong could actually control rather than wandering toward Jeong Taeyang’s territory.
In the long run, it was better to experience things firsthand.
I was like that too, but Gilwoo was especially young. Better to try a little of everything and enjoy himself while he was still young, rather than waiting until he had a lot to lose. It might be better to get those vaccines now, while it still just felt like play.
Unlike his days in the military, when even looking around after women had felt like searching for rice paddies in a mountain valley and finding only an old grandmother weeding the fields, Shin Gilwoo now had to be wildly popular.
He was the Representative Director of the well-known WH Entertainment, young, fit, and with the image of a rising businessman.
To women in the pleasure district, he would look like nothing less than a unicorn.
“Gilwoo.”
“Yeah?”
“Boss Kim.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“Now, shall we talk business?”
“Yes.”
As Do Jaehyun took out a cigarette and put it to his lips, Kim Museong pulled out a lighter and lit it for him.
“Gilwoo, give me a briefing on what you settled with Chairman Jeong Taeyang yesterday.”
“Okay.”
The playful air vanished from Shin Gilwoo’s face. In a tone as serious as he had been back during service, like a Field Training Officer, he explained what had happened the day before to me and Kim Museong.
In summary, it was this.
WH Entertainment had originally been Jeong Taeyang’s company. He had cleanly transferred his shares to my side, while making Shin Gilwoo, who was effectively my proxy, both the official and de facto head of the company. To Johwa Group and anyone else watching, it would look as though Jeong Taeyang had handed the company over to Shin Gilwoo, the younger man he trusted and cherished inside the organization, and that Gilwoo was running it like a front man.
And then there was Jang Junha.
Surprisingly, it seemed Jang Junha had built up quite a friendship with Jeong Taeyang at the table. Apparently Taeyang, unlike his usual self, liked movies and musicals, and the musical actress he genuinely adored happened to be on very close brother-and-sister terms with Jang Junha.
At the table, Jang Junha called over the actress Taeyang liked, introduced her to him, and with Shin Gilwoo’s approval, they decided to bring in the musical actress Yoon Sera, who had been looking for work, as part of WH Entertainment.
Of course, the detailed contract terms and conditions would be reviewed and negotiated by Managing Director Choi Hwangyeol starting today, but the important thing was that the decision had drawn Jeong Taeyang, Shin Gilwoo, and Jang Junha even closer together.
On the spot, Jang Junha and Jeong Taeyang made an oral agreement that doubled as a business partnership.
Jeong Taeyang would scout as many actors and actresses as possible for WH Entertainment, and in return, he would use every connection he had to help Jang Junha and WH Entertainment.
“Good work, Gilwoo. Jang Junha did better than I expected.”
“Yeah. I was surprised too. He looked so gentle and so proper, but when I saw him drinking with people, he was like a completely different man.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Taeyang hyung even gave him a nickname right there at the table.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“Mr. Nightlife Jang.”
“...”
“Anyway, he’s seriously good at having fun. Not in a dirty way either. He’s a total mood-maker. And his character is genuinely good. The kind of person who puts others at ease.”
As expected of Jang Junha.
In my previous life, I hadn’t had much connection with him, but his reputation had apparently been true. Besides, at this point in time, no one yet knew Jang Junha’s real value. To other people, it would look as though I’d given Jang Junha absurdly favorable treatment, but in just three years everyone would be envying me.
They’d ask where I had found someone like that.
“Jaehyun hyung.”
“Yeah?”
“How did you even spot Jang Junha in the first place?”
“Just a feeling.”
“...”
“A good one, too.”
“Chairman. May I have a cigarette too?”
“Hyung, I’ll have one too.”
Kim Museong, who had been listening carefully to Shin Gilwoo’s story until now, put a cigarette in his mouth, turned his head, and lit it.
“Boss Kim.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“Honestly, doesn’t Gilwoo get on your nerves?”
“No, hyung. Why would you drive a wedge between me and Mr. Kim when he’s just sitting there?”
“He does.”
Kim Museong snorted and sided with me.
“What? Why me?”
“He’s younger than me, but the way he speaks to the Chairman is like he’s your blood brother. It’d be impossible not to find that irritating. If Shin Gilwoo had come up as a thug, then Director Shin and I couldn’t possibly share the same bowl of rice. How can some young punk be smoking over the heads of his elders while they’re talking?”
“Right?”
“Yes.”
“Ha. I didn’t think Mr. Kim Museong was that kind of guy, but you’re a real old man. In the army, age doesn’t mean a thing. It’s all about commissioning order.”
Shin Gilwoo spoke with his forehead creased into a deep zigzag of irritation.
“Here, I’m basically like a senior sergeant who got commissioned before Mr. Kim. Right? Tell me I’m right, Jaehyun hyung.”
“Huh? By that logic, isn’t Mr. Kim an officer rather than a noncommissioned officer? He used to be the boss of the Red Dog Faction.”
“Whoa... hyung, you stab me in the back like that? Captain? That’s a little much, isn’t it?”
“Still, I’m fine with it.”
Kim Museong picked up the coffee cup, half of its ice already melted, and looked at Shin Gilwoo the same way Gilwoo had looked at him.
“From what I can see, the Chairman and Mr. Shin are practically blood brothers. Not adopted brothers or anything like that, but truly more like real brothers than real brothers. Gangsters make exceptions for that kind of relationship too. It’s a little complicated, but still.”
“Oh, as expected, Mr. Kim really has an eye for these things.”
“I know what the Chairman is worried about. Still, I think there’s no need to forcibly sort out the ranks between Mr. Shin and me. It’s fine to go on addressing each other properly like this. The younger men underneath might have something to say about Shin Gilwoo, but even if Hwangyeol and Hyeongtaeseon have to rough them up, I’ll have it cleaned up neatly. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure no one talks.”
As expected, Kim Museong thought deeply before he spoke.
“Still, I’m counting on it.”
Maybe people do grow alike when they spend time together, because Shin Gilwoo and Kim Museong both reached for another cigarette without thinking, and Gilwoo lit Kim Museong’s for him.
“Later on, once we’re a little closer, I do sometimes think it’d be nice if I could call Mr. Shin hyung in private.”
“Well, it’s not impossible, but I’m a little shy around people, so it’ll probably take a few years.”
Shin Gilwoo didn’t seem to dislike Kim Museong all that much either. In fact, from where I sat, this was the most ideal shape for the organization.
The former thug employees would be handled by Kim Museong, while the legitimate office staff and contract workers we would recruit in the future would fall under Shin Gilwoo.
And though it was still premature, I was also thinking of swapping the roles of Shin Gilwoo and Kim Museong before long, so they could each build leadership in organizations of very different character.
Above all, money and power are hard enough to split even between parents, siblings, and children.
So even if they didn’t think about it now, there was always a chance that in the distant future, with far greater wealth and authority on the line, the two of them might turn on each other.
In my previous life, when I lost my health and gradually started losing control over the company, Kim Museong revealed his ambition, and Shin Gilwoo grew sick of that kind of internal politicking and left the company.
Back then, Gilwoo passed on everything he had, both his power and his shares, to someone other than Kim Museong. But Kim Museong was different.
Kim Museong never betrayed me. Until the day I died, he wanted to stay by my side and inherit everything I had.
The unfortunate part was that Gilwoo, after leaving the company, seemed to live fairly peacefully, while Kim Museong never got to realize that dream and was killed by someone.
Just like Han Suyeong had been, in the end.
“Good. Then let’s get serious and start working. From here on, both of you are going to be busy.”
I told Shin Gilwoo and Kim Museong about what had happened yesterday with Chairman Jeong Taeyang and Directors Cheon Subeom and Kang Inmuk of Johwa Group.
“So Johwa Group is finally moving in earnest.”