The Youngest Son of Hanjeong Group (3)
I arrived in front of a lounge bar in Cheongdam-dong.
A young man met me at the entrance.
“Are you Han Miru?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
He handed me a business card.
It read, HJ Food Manager Park Myunghun.
With a faintly tired look, he said, “I don’t know what happened, but he’s really pissed off right now, so just go along with whatever he says. If you do that, this should blow over well enough.”
I had a rough idea.
He looked like the kind of guy who trailed behind a chaebol brat, cleaning up his messes. Just from the way he spoke, it was obvious he’d done this more than once.
Following his lead, I went into a private room deeper inside.
Inside the spacious room, three men were seated, including Ju Hyeon-jin. Ju Hyeon-jin was in the seat of honor facing the entrance, with the others on either side of him.
He’d already drunk so much that his face was bright red, and his posture had gone loose.
When he saw me, he gave a lazy wave.
“Damn, you got here fast. Sit down over there.”
I took a seat without fuss.
Ju Hyeon-jin turned to the man beside him and said, “What are you doing? Pour him a drink.”
“Uh, got it.”
The man who’d been ordered to do it set a glass in front of me and poured the liquor.
“Have a drink first.”
He drained the glass and said, “You’re Han Miru, right?”
“Yes.”
“I thought your name sounded familiar. You’re the one who exposed the Primus Fund’s accounting fraud, aren’t you?”
So he’d finally figured out who I was. Min Ah-reum had seemed to recognize me the moment she heard my name, but this guy had taken his time.
And of course, the instant there were no women around, he started acting up.
“And?”
“Why’d you do something like that? Did Vice Chairman Yang Ja-eun ask you to?”
I said as if it were obvious, “Analyzing the fund and writing up reports was my job. What’s wrong with that?”
He smirked. “You’re awfully full of yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you even know who I am?”
“You’re Director Ju Hyeon-jin of HJ Food.”
“Then why do you think I became a director at my age?”
“Well, I’d imagine it’s because the company recognized business talent so brilliant that no ordinary employee would even dare to imagine it.”
Apparently taking that as sarcasm, he frowned.
Which, to be clear, it absolutely was.
Ju Hyeon-jin stared at me. “My father is the chairman of the Hanjeong Group.”
I put on a suitably shocked expression.
“What? The chairman of the Hanjeong Group? Is that really true?”
Seeing my face, he smiled smugly.
The men beside him burst out laughing too, chiming in one after another.
“What? Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
“Guess you don’t even watch the news.”
“What an idiot.”
Birds of a feather, as they say.
Ju Hyeon-jin nodded to himself as if he’d just reached some satisfying conclusion.
“Of course. If you knew, you wouldn’t have made that mistake. Since you didn’t know, I guess I can let it slide. At least you know now. So you know what you should do, right?”
I wasn’t quite sure, so I asked, “What should I do?”
“Apologize while I’m still being nice.”
“You want me to say I’m sorry?”
“An apology with just words means nothing.”
“Then?”
“If you’re really sorry, you should show some proper sincerity, don’t you think?”
Ju Hyeon-jin flipped over a clear bucket holding a bottle of liquor and dumped all the ice onto the floor. Then he poured whiskey straight into it in a rush.
After that, he picked up the ashtray, emptied its contents into the bucket, and even spat in a thick gob of saliva.
“Khhk—ptui!”
I watched in silence, wondering why the hell he was doing this to expensive liquor, when he shoved the bucket toward me.
“Drink all of that, then take your clothes off, kneel on the table, and beg. Do that, and I’ll pretend today never happened.”
The men beside him laughed as they chattered away.
“Wow! Giving that expensive liquor to a guy who’s already guilty? That’s not punishment, that’s a reward.”
“You couldn’t even afford to buy this with your monthly salary, so be grateful.”
“It’s expensive, so don’t waste a single drop. Spill even one, and I’ll hit you once for every drop.”
They snickered among themselves, having a great time. Idiots playing at being tough—just like that.
How many people had they done this to, I wondered?
The world had laws and morals, and if you broke them, you were supposed to suffer the consequences.
But if you broke them and nothing happened to you at all, was it really acceptable to live like that?
In fact, no matter how big a scandal he caused, he’d always lived just fine.
I grabbed the bucket and shoved it back the other way. Sliding across the table, it stopped right in front of Ju Hyeon-jin.
He frowned. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You drink first.”
For a moment, the room went dead silent.
The men who’d been laughing and talking all shut their mouths at once. Everyone carefully watched Ju Hyeon-jin’s expression.
These guys weren’t chaebols. They were just the sons of small and mid-sized business owners who worked with Hanjeong Group’s affiliates.
They might act like friends on the surface, but in reality they were no different from lackeys. That was why they all kept reading Ju Hyeon-jin’s mood and acting to suit his tastes.
Ju Hyeon-jin was here, playing king of the alley, surrounded by people like this.
In South Korea, the word chaebol carried enormous weight.
But I’d already met the chairman of Yuseong Group and even the Saudi crown prince, so I didn’t feel much of anything. Compared with those two, the son of the Hanjeong Group—the country’s so-called tenth-largest conglomerate—was laughable.
I leaned back and looked over them all. “Don’t any of you have girlfriends? What do you think your mothers would say if they knew their sons were acting like this on Christmas?”
“W-what?”
“This bastard…”
I’d already lost any interest in entertaining them.
“If you’ve got nothing else to say, I’m going to head out. You all keep having your fun.”
I got to my feet.
Then Ju Hyeon-jin slammed his fist onto the table and shouted, “Sit down!”
For an instant, the force in his voice made even my body twitch.
His expression and his tone carried the arrogant certainty that anyone and everyone should obey him.
“Ha!”
“You laughing? You think I’m a joke? Sit down, right now!”
I stared at him and said, “No.”
His eyes widened as he roared, “What did you just say, you bastard?”
I didn’t know whether it was genetic or just how they were raised, but the Hanjeong Group family was famous for having terrible tempers.
His mother had once hit a pregnant housekeeper and screamed at her. His sister had thrown things at a subcontractor’s CEO while yelling at him, then ended up bowing her head before the public.
As for him, it wasn’t as if this was the first time he’d gone off his rocker on drugs and started causing a scene.
When you saw the video of him cursing out and kicking a driver old enough to be his father, it made you wonder whether he was even human.
Well, that was only something I knew for now.
Drug use and assault should have landed him in custody for a real prison sentence, but thanks to a psychiatrist’s opinion that he had anger-management issues, he’d walked free on probation.
That’s the unwritten rule for chaebols: show a little remorse and you get probation.
Anyway, in case he hadn’t heard me properly, I repeated myself politely.
“I said no, you bastard.”
For a moment, his eyes went slightly wild.
“You little shit! Do you really want to die?”
Clang!
He hurled the glass he was holding at me. I dodged, and the glass smashed against the wall.
If I hadn’t moved, it would have hit me in the head.
He sprang up, clearly about to come at me, but Park Myunghun quickly grabbed him.
“Calm down. We’re still trying to settle the last incident, and if you cause another problem, even the vice chairman won’t sit still this time.”
“Damn it! Didn’t you hear what that bastard just said to me? Let go! I said let go!”
Watching this was almost entertaining.
What on earth was a grown man doing, behaving like this?
Just then, my phone rang.
I pulled it from my pocket and checked the caller. It was someone I never expected.
Why was this person calling all of a sudden?
Either way, the timing was perfect.
While the room continued to erupt around me, I answered the call as if nothing were wrong.
“Hey, brother. Chairman Yoo Jaeho told me you’re back in Korea?”
“Yes, Yoon-ah.”
“Who’s Yoon-ah? It’s me. Minwoong’s older brother.”
“Are you getting home all right?”
“What are you talking about? I told you, I’m your brother. Hey! Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten me?”
“Why is it so noisy around you? It’s nothing. Some crazy bastard seems to be drunk and throwing a fit.”
“You’re drinking? Are you drunk?”
“Who is it? Hmm. Let me think. I’m curious too. I’ll call you back in a minute.”
“Hey, hey, don’t hang up—”
I hung up and looked at Ju Hyeon-jin.
He was still worked up, but he no longer seemed like he was about to scream or lunge at me.
It really was strange.
Did anger-management disorder only kick in when the mood suited it?
“What were we talking about again?”
“You son of a—”
I held up my phone.
“Should I video-call Yoon-ah and show her we’re having a drink together?”
He looked flustered.
“Y-you’re seriously going to snitch to a woman?”
So he was ashamed of this getting out after all. If he was going to be ashamed, he could’ve just not done it in the first place.
“Snitch? That seems less pathetic than dragging someone to a drinking session, turning the whole room threatening, and forcing them to kneel and apologize.”
Ju Hyeon-jin ground his teeth. “You’re going to regret this today.”
“Regret what?”
“Didn’t you say your father runs some little corner-shop of a business? What do you think will happen if something goes wrong there?”
“Ah.”
The moment I heard that, I was speechless.
I looked at the spoiled brat from a chaebol family and decided to explain a very simple, very common-sense truth.
“You don’t drag family into it.”
But instead of listening to my warning, he only smirked as if he’d found my weak point.
“And what if I do?”
Then I had no choice either.
If he wanted to involve family, I’d involve family right back.
“Didn’t you say your father runs one of the top ten groups in Korea? What do you think will happen if something goes wrong there?”
“……What?”
Everyone in the room looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
A few of them even snorted or openly laughed at me.
At this point in time, nobody could possibly imagine I’d be able to do anything to one of Korea’s ten largest conglomerates.
But sometimes, things no one can imagine become reality. More precisely, I was the one who made them happen.
I made sure everyone in the room could hear me.
“Remember this clearly. If something happens to the Hanjeong Group later, it’ll be because of that one line you just said.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
Then laughter broke through it.
“Ha… ha-ha-ha!”
Ju Hyeon-jin laughed like a madman.
“So that’s what this is. You’re completely insane. I knew something was off about you.”
Ruining him in this room would be easy. One phone call to Chairman Yoo Jaeho right now would be enough to make him kneel.
But considering the bad blood between us, I had no intention of ending this so simply.
“No matter how long it takes, I’m going to crush you.”
Good.
That was exactly what I intended too.
Before I left, I looked at him one last time and said, “We’ll see each other again. Until then, stay healthy and don’t get hurt, Ju Hyeon-jin.”
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