Hanjeong Mulsan Shareholders' Meeting (2)
The moment I said I was in favor of the motion, shouts erupted from every corner of the room, and some people even hurled the documents in their hands to the floor.
The shareholders' meeting hall turned into chaos in an instant.
Kim Sung-gwun, the first to regain his composure, sprang to his feet and shouted, “What are you doing? Announce the vote results already!”
At that, Vice Chairman Ju Cheol-jin cried out in alarm, “Stop! Suspend the shareholders' meeting right now!”
We had to buy time. Then, somehow, we could drag Ju Hyeon-jin here and flip the vote back our way.
If they shut the meeting down now that things had turned against them, it would be no different from admitting that Hanjeong Mulsan was not a corporation at all, but a private business belonging to the chairman’s family.
Still, no matter how much abuse they took, that was better than losing the company.
The Hanjeong Mulsan people sprang up as well and started shouting over one another, “Shut it down!” “Don’t announce it!” “Stop the meeting!” “Stop!”
Yoon Han-bin looked flustered. This was an unprecedented disaster, something no one had expected.
Should they keep going, or suspend the vote and verify the proxies again? That decision belonged to the chair.
Then Yoon Han-bin met my eyes. I mouthed a few words at him, and even from a distance it felt as if my voice were right there beside his ear.
Keep your promise.
Only then did he understand.
Why I had come to see him that day, and what I had meant when I spoke to him then.
Could he have seen this coming from the very beginning?
To everyone in that room, it must have looked as if they were all dancing in his palm.
It was beyond surprise. I felt something close to awe.
This shareholders' meeting was a complete defeat for the chairman’s family.
When he still did nothing and simply stood there, the Hanjeong Mulsan side rushed the dais as if they meant to snatch the gavel away by force.
Yoon Han-bin finally stopped hesitating and brought the gavel down.
“The motion has passed.”
At those words, everyone making a scene fell silent all at once. It was as if time inside the meeting hall had frozen.
And then…
The moment that frozen time started moving again, cheers and groans and shouts all burst out at once.
The people from Hanjeong Group looked stunned, while the KSGI and Elliott Management side grabbed one another and shouted in celebration.
“Wooo!”
“We won!”
“Quit now, right this second!”
“This meeting is invalid!”
“Call the police!”
Ju Cheol-jin collapsed into his seat as if all the strength had been drained out of him.
Only moments ago, he had been the heir to an empire. Hanjeong Group, including Hanjeong Mulsan, had belonged to him.
And now, in this instant, he had been reduced to a commoner.
He still couldn’t believe what was happening.
“N-no, this is impossible. How could this….”
Only minutes ago, he had been certain of victory. But the result had come out in exactly the opposite direction.
And it had happened because of his own little brother’s betrayal.
The board could not simply refuse to accept a vote decided by the shareholders.
Now he would have to give up the vice chairman’s seat at Hanjeong Mulsan, and someone else would take it.
As he stood there in despair, the person who had caused all of this walked up to him.
I spoke to Ju Cheol-jin in a tone that almost sounded sympathetic.
“I told you. You don’t mess with family.”
So why did you hit your little brother?
[Breaking News] Hanjeong Mulsan shareholders' meeting ends in a complete rout for the chairman’s family!
[Breaking News] Vice Chairman Ju Cheol-jin loses his position as representative director!
[Breaking News] Is Hanjeong Group about to lose control to a hedge fund?
[Business World on Alert] Corporate Korea rushes to defend management control!
[Federation Issues Statement] "A deeply regrettable development"
[Other Major Conglomerates] Could the same thing happen to them at any time…?
As I walked out of the shareholders' meeting hall, a swarm of reporters came rushing toward Kim Sung-gwun.
“What do you think about this shareholders' meeting?”
“Did you expect this result?”
“How does it feel to win?”
“Just one comment, please.”
He answered the dozen microphones in front of him with calm composure.
“Removing executives who have committed crimes from management is the global standard. A manager who has harmed shareholders through embezzlement and breach of trust should never be allowed to run the company again. I believe today’s result reflects the wishes of shareholders who demand ethical management. As we have said many times before, KSGI will continue to do everything it can to strengthen shareholder rights.”
After the shareholders' meeting ended, I quietly slipped out of the hall.
The area around the building was a mess of reporters and supporters, but once I got a little farther away, things quickly grew quiet.
I went into a convenience store nearby, bought a can of beer, and sat down in a terrace chair. Then I popped it open and drank it right away.
“Ahh.”
I’d been thirsty the whole time, and now I finally felt human again.
Just as I was catching my breath, my phone rang.
I answered brightly. “Ah, Yun-ah.”
“I’m watching the news. You really won.”
“That’s because you helped me, Yun-ah.”
“What are you talking about? But that was close. What if they’d bought just one percent more?”
“Then there wouldn’t have been anything I could do. But I figured they wouldn’t.”
“Congratulations. You pulled it off again.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up and finished the rest of the beer.
With the alcohol came a surge of exhilaration.
Only then did it finally feel real. I had won.
“Hahaha!”
I met Kim Sung-gwun at KSGI headquarters.
After the shareholders' meeting, he had been hammered by one interview after another, and he looked as if every ounce of strength had been drained out of him.
“So this was the method you meant by making a miracle happen one hundred percent of the time.”
I nodded.
“That’s right.”
“I still can’t quite believe it. Would you explain what happened?”
He probably had questions about everything.
I told him about something that had happened a few days before the shareholders' meeting.
“A few days earlier, I went to Jeju Island.”
The more cornered Hanjeong Group became, the more responsibility Ju Hyeon-jin had to bear.
That made sense, too. The verbal abuse toward the chauffeur, the contempt for minority shareholders, the suspicions of backdoor lobbying—all of it had come out of his own mouth.
The media kept bringing up the recordings, and Hanjeong Group threw everything it had into trying to steer public opinion another way, but nothing worked.
Not only his family, but everyone around him, had begun looking at him with colder and colder eyes, and the space he had left in the company kept shrinking.
But he still refused to let go of hope.
In any case, public opinion would settle down once enough time passed.
If this one thing just ends safely, I can go back to how things were.
Then one day, Ju Cheol-jin came to the house.
He held out a plane ticket to his younger brother.
“Go stay down in Jeju for a while.”
“Pardon?”
Ju Cheol-jin looked at the bewildered Ju Hyeon-jin and said as if it were no big deal, “As you know, the shareholders' meeting is right around the corner. If you keep wandering around outside and the reporters spot you, wouldn’t that be a problem?”
“That’s….”
“Think of it as a vacation and stay there for a while. If you get bored, take a few women with you too. I’ll call you once everything’s settled.”
“…..”
Vacation, in name only. In reality, it was exile.
And besides, he hadn’t said “after the shareholders' meeting.” He had said “once everything’s settled.” When, exactly, was that supposed to be?
Ju Hyeon-jin was about to say something, but when he saw his brother’s face, he shut his mouth. This wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.
He had no right to refuse.
That same day, he packed his bags and went down to Jeju.
It was a villa in Seogwipo, on Jeju Island.
It was far from the city center, but because it had everything inside, there was nothing especially inconvenient about living there.
To him, though, it was no different from a prison.
Will I be able to go back to how things were before?
While he was stuck there, his presence inside the company was rapidly disappearing.
The struggle for control was growing fiercer by the day, and with only a few days left before the shareholders' meeting, no one even contacted him.
As for Hanjeong Group, all he could do was catch scraps of information from the news.
He was already at the point where he couldn’t sleep without alcohol every day.
The terror of losing everything and the helplessness of being unable to do anything wrapped itself around him from head to toe. But even greater than that was his rage.
He had been born into a chaebol family.
He had done whatever he wanted, and taken whatever he wanted.
But now….
Are all these bastards treating me like an idiot?
It was the first time in his life that he had ever been treated this way.
How had it all come to this?
No matter how he thought about it, there was only one answer.
“Han Miru….”
Crack.
Just thinking of my name made rage surge through him.
I had helped expose the chauffeur’s testimony, and I had ratted out what had happened between him and Ju Cheol-jin. If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have turned out like this.
It’s all because of that bastard. If it weren’t for him….
If he had never run into me at the department store that day, would nothing have happened?
For some reason, he had a feeling that wasn’t true.
The other man had targeted him with obsessive persistence.
Come to think of it….
There had been something unsettling about me from the very beginning. It had felt like standing face-to-face with some pitch-black malice. Maybe that was why he had wanted to crush me so badly.
Could he have approached me on purpose, pretending it was a coincidence?
It felt as if the pieces were finally clicking into place.
And if that was true, then why?
He hadn’t even known my name before the day we met.
Did he use me for this whole mess?
Only now did the puzzle seem to fit.
Ju Hyeon-jin ground his teeth.
I’ll kill that bastard! I’ll kill him with my own two hands!
He drank while imagining, over and over, tearing Han Miru apart piece by piece.
He was getting that drunk in broad daylight when a woman in her underwear walked out of the room.
“Drinking again?”
“What else is there to do here? You drink too.”
Sea quietly said, “Oppa, can’t I go to Seoul for a bit?”
“Why?”
“I want to see my friends. Do a little shopping, too.”
“If you want to see your friends, call them here. If you want to shop, shop here. I’ll give you my card, so buy whatever you want outside.”
“Tch. There’s not much to do here.”
At first, she had happily come along when he suggested they go to Jeju together.
And because he gave her money under the guise of pocket money, her income was actually much better than what she made working at the shop.
The first few days had been fine.
But after a week, she started getting restless. She missed the days when she used to bounce from club to party every single night.
Every time she saw the photos her friends were posting on social media, she wanted nothing more than to run straight back to Seoul.
But Ju Hyeon-jin wouldn’t let her go that easily. After all, if she left too and he was the only one left here, he might go insane from boredom.
“I’m gonna sleep a little more.”
Sea went back into her room, and after checking that the bottle was empty, Ju Hyeon-jin swayed to his feet and pulled another drink from the refrigerator.
Then the doorbell suddenly rang.
Who’d be looking for me?
Had someone come from the house, or from the company?
Ju Hyeon-jin hurried to the door and opened it.
“Hello, Ju Hyeon-jin. It’s been a while. Have you been well?”
“…..”
The moment he saw the face standing outside, he lost the ability to speak. It felt as if all the alcohol in his system had vanished at once.
This isn’t a dream, is it?
The face he wanted to kill was right there in front of him.
“You, you bastard….”