Chapter 52. The Chairman Who Does It All Himself
“…….”
“…….”
Even a casino coin jackpot would have struggled to make the scene more dramatic. Whether it was a casino payout or the shower of ten-won coins currently raining down here, one fact remained the same: it was money.
The difference between a casino and AK Capital, however, was that no one here was cheering as the money spilled everywhere. Far from it. The office had gone so quiet in the face of this wholly unexpected spectacle that it felt dead.
“You people…….”
The person involved, Team Leader Kim Donggeon, was different.
“What the hell are you doing? What do you think this is, huh?!”
With a thunderous crash and a sharp crack, he shouted himself hoarse and hurled the desk phone to the floor.
The landline landed in the middle of the ten-won coins and shattered. Even after that, as if still unable to vent his rage, Kim Donggeon ground the phone underfoot like a madman until it was reduced to scrap.
“Hah…… hah…….”
The team leader’s tantrum and the scattered coins across Personal Credit Management Team 1 had drawn everyone’s attention.
“Yes, I’ll call you later.”
“Please make the deposit. I’m in an important meeting.”
The other teams’ staff, who had been loudly pressuring debtors over the phone, quietly set down their receivers and rose from their seats. One by one, they craned their heads over the partitions, unwilling to miss a spectacle they couldn’t buy with money.
If this had happened in their own team, or if they had been the ones at the center of it, they would have been mortified and furious. But this was another team’s problem. More importantly, the victim happened to be Kim Donggeon, whose reputation was already lousy.
Even though they all worked in the same collection department, the misfortune of a competing team was their good fortune. Naturally, dozens of eyes full of curiosity and a little concern fixed on Team Leader Kim Donggeon.
“Fuck…….”
He’d acted all tough and now look at him. What was he going to do?
Go on, show us. Show us what kind of bastard you are.
Team 1, are you just going to sit there? Aren’t you embarrassed?
Kim Donggeon could almost hear the voices hidden in the stares of the other teams’ employees.
I need to somehow clean this up.
That was the conclusion Kim Donggeon reached.
For one thing, by throwing and smashing the phone, some of his anger had already cooled. And by putting on a violent front against what looked like gangsters, he had preserved his usual image at the company and saved face. Most of all, in Kim Donggeon’s eyes, he had refused to be beaten in momentum by those damned bastards.
Then all that was left was to turn this situation to his advantage. This was a crisis.
A crisis.
In other words, a dangerous opportunity.
Good. I’ll use this chance to show everyone exactly what kind of man I am. But why are these brain-dead bastards just standing there watching while the team leader is this furious?
Kim Donggeon shot a fierce glare at his staff, but none of them could meet his eyes. Like soldiers who would not move until orders were given, like a computer screen with no command entered, they only stared blankly at the coins on the floor.
Fuck, there isn’t a single clever bastard like Do Jaehyun here. And what about the other teams’ team leaders? What the hell are they doing? Thinking this has nothing to do with them? Just going to fold their arms and watch?
This time Kim Donggeon’s gaze swept over the other team leaders beyond the partitions. But all of them were his seniors, men who had cut their teeth in the industry long before and started out learning the business in the private lending market. None of them flinched from his stare.
“Hoo…….”
Kim Donggeon drew in a long, heavy breath.
All right. What now?
Fortunately or unfortunately, Department Manager Lee Jinhee was out of the office. He needed to handle this quickly.
Was the debt collection team leader going to cower over something this small?
It had only lasted a moment, but for an instant he felt as if he had read the other team leaders’ thoughts.
Right. Watch closely, all of you. I’m not some incompetent new team leader with no experience. I’ll show you, right now, exactly who’s the best man here.
That all flashed through Kim Donggeon’s head in a split second.
“Hey. You people.”
With what he considered a final, decisive resolve, Kim Donggeon called out to Bulgom and his group in as low and threatening a voice as he could manage.
In a situation like this, seizing the initiative from the start was what mattered most, and Kim Donggeon’s choice was not wrong.
“Deputy Manager Yoo.”
Unfortunately for Kim Donggeon, Bulgom Gong Hyeongtae had no intention of dealing with him at all.
“Yes, Director.”
“I came here to do something good, and I’m feeling pretty good about it, but once we spread this out, there’s way more of it than I expected.”
“That’s right. But interest keeps piling up every day, so isn’t it better to gather up every last coin in the company and use it for debt repayment?”
“Exactly. That’s it, Deputy Manager Yoo. From now on, whenever our customers are in trouble, help them as fast as possible without looking left or right. That’s what we’re here for.”
“Yes, Director. I’ll keep that in mind.”
For Bulgom Gong Hyeongtae and Wild Dog Yoo Hobin, this level of nuisance was practically polite behavior. Just six months ago, they had gone to the house where a hostess’s parents lived in order to collect money from a girl who had taken an advance on her wages at a hostess bar and then vanished.
Back then, Wild Dog had sent the younger men to collect the debt, and those younger men had naturally gone inside, ordered jajangmyeon, smoked cigarettes, and one of the more enthusiastic ones had even taken a shit on the balcony before leaving.
Still, if there had been some legal gray area back then, the job Do Jaehyun had ordered this time was almost entirely clean, and more than anything else, the method was so inventive and satisfying that it made you want to laugh.
“You—hey, you bastards!”
Unable to contain his fury at being so completely ignored by Bulgom’s group, Kim Donggeon shouted at the top of his lungs.
“What’s with you, you fucking asshole!!! You blind? I’ll tear your eyes out.”
What came back was an even louder, richly seasoned stream of abuse. And not from the man who looked like the leader, Bulgom or Wild Dog, but from the one who seemed to be the youngest.
There was one rule that was practically the first principle of gang behavior.
You could swallow an insult aimed at you, but if someone talked shit to the boss you served, you were supposed to crush him on the spot. It didn’t matter whether the guy was a prosecutor or a cop or whoever.
The youngest one, who had only recently entered the life, looked ready to smash Kim Donggeon’s face at any second.
“Deputy Manager Yoo.”
At that moment, Bulgom Gong Hyeongtae called his right hand, Wild Dog Yoo Hobin, in a quiet voice. Just from his tone and the look in his eyes, Yoo Hobin immediately understood what he needed to do and how Bulgom wanted this handled.
“Juim Hataeseon.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll talk.”
“Yes, Dea— Deputy Manager.”
The youngest swallowed the habitual word “brother” as it was about to slip out and fell back.
“Team Leader Kim Donggeon.”
“What are you people? I’m calling the police.”
“Go ahead. I don’t know whether they’ll be much help.”
“What did you say?”
He’d thought that mentioning the police might make these men, who looked like gangsters, back down a little. But contrary to Kim Donggeon’s expectations, they didn’t shrink at all.
“Should I call them for you? Juim Hataeseon, dial 112.”
“Yes, Deputy Manager.”
No, they pushed even further.
“What kind of bullshit are you pulling now, you bastard!”
“You keep speaking too informally.”
“So what? What are you going to do about it? You make this kind of mess in someone else’s workplace and you think I’m going to say anything nice? You’re disrupting business!”
“Honestly……”
A smile spread slowly across Wild Dog Yoo Hobin’s mouth.
“I……”
With a smiling face, Yoo Hobin walked slowly toward Team Leader Kim Donggeon and whispered into his ear in a voice so low only Kim Donggeon could hear it.
“Sometimes you get guys who look easy to push around because they’re a little small. Like the bastard standing so politely behind me with his hands folded in front of him. You see him? The one with the cross-shaped scar on his face.”
Chills ran down Kim Donggeon’s neck. His eyes drifted naturally to Juim Kim Jooyoung, a large, rough-looking man with a cross-shaped scar across his face.
“That bastard’s nickname is Mullae-dong Knife. When he was young, he messed around with knives and sent three or four people to the hospital, then spent six years in school. The moment he got out, for reasons I still don’t know, he came looking for me.”
“…….”
“I was so damn dumbfounded watching some punk whose head hadn’t even dried from the blood try to climb over me that I went ahead and gave that bastard a pretty little tattoo across the face. But isn’t it strange? Do you think a big bastard like that would have just sat still until he got cut up in the face? Or do you think he fought like hell?”
“W-well…….”
“Right? Even from where you’re standing, I’m a little on the small side. So what was I supposed to do to him with my bare hands? I had no choice but to pick up a knife too. It’s been a while, so my memory’s a little foggy, but I’m pretty sure the grease and blood that spilled out of that bastard’s belly and back came to about a full mal. Anyway, he nearly went to the grave that day, but the doctors miraculously saved him, and now he works under me.”
Yoo Hobin gave Kim Donggeon’s shoulder a light pat. From the moment he had started whispering in his ear to now, the smile had never left Yoo Hobin’s face.
“You’re not someone who’s going to work under me, Team Leader Kim Donggeon, are you? So let’s handle this nicely, just the two of us. Hm? Let’s keep it civil. You got that?”
“…….”
Kim Donggeon gave a reluctant nod.
“Uh, Deputy Manager?”
Just then, Hataeseon, the youngest, who had been waiting for the conversation between Kim Donggeon and Yoo Hobin to finish, called out to Deputy Manager Yoo with a slightly awkward expression and pointed at his phone.
“What?”
“The cops…… no, the police connected.”
“Tell them it’s nothing serious, that they must have dialed the wrong number, and that everything’s been resolved. Right, Team Leader Kim Donggeon?”
Kim Donggeon, feeling the cold killing intent hidden behind Yoo Hobin’s smiling face down to his bones, bobbed his head up and down like a roly-poly toy.
“Yes…… it’s been resolved. No, there’s no need to dispatch anyone.”
Then.
“Don’t move.”
A man who suddenly burst into AK Capital’s office changed the situation in an instant.
“Everyone put your hands up and move to the wall. This is a real gun.”
“……Youngest.”
Bulgom called out to Hataeseon, who was still holding the phone and hadn’t hung up yet.
“Tell the police officers to hurry up and get here.”