Filial Duty Is Paid in Money (2)
When I got home, the atmosphere was just as bleak as I’d expected.
My mother kept sighing over and over, while my father sat there looking like a criminal who’d escaped the noose by a hair.
He looked like he’d be perfectly at home with a knife at his throat.
“I’m home.”
My father gave an awkward smile. “Oh, Miru, you’re back?”
By the look on his face, my mother must have been nagging him plenty.
She looked at me and asked, “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Wait there. I’ll get you something.”
I’d expected to get scolded, but while I was eating, neither of them said a single word about money.
After dinner, my mother sat in the living room and peeled fruit for me.
My father cleared his throat for no reason at all. “Ahem. So, work’s going well these days?”
“Yes. I’m working hard.”
“Good, good. Working hard is what matters.”
“……”
Then silence fell.
They were clearly curious about what business I was even doing, and whether the money I’d borrowed was still safe, but they didn’t seem able to bring themselves to ask.
In that awkward silence, I spoke first. “Dad.”
“Y-yeah, what is it?”
“About the money you lent me last time.”
“W-what about it?”
“I’ve spent it well.”
At my words, Sena yelled, “What? You already spent all 1.5 billion won?”
My parents were shocked too. My mother froze with the apple half-peeled in her hand, and my father dropped his fork.
I spoke calmly to the stunned family. “What I meant was that I used it well, so now I’m paying it back. If you give me your account number, I’ll send it right away.”
“Y-you’re paying it back already?”
Apparently they hadn’t expected me to repay it so quickly.
“Yes.”
My father gave me the account number, and my mother added from beside him, “Make sure you check the name carefully before you send it. If you transfer it wrong, it’ll be a disaster.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I transferred the money immediately with my phone.
“Thank you for trusting me with it, Dad. I used it well.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I suppose... but you’re sure your work is still fine even after paying all that back?”
“Of course.”
In a game where the deal sizes were in the trillions of won, 1.5 billion was barely pocket change.
“Ah, and I also prepared a small gift instead of interest.”
“A gift?”
“Come outside for a second.”
I led my parents and Sena down to the underground parking lot.
There, a black luxury sedan sat parked.
I unlocked the doors with the remote key.
Beep.
For my parents’ generation, you didn’t need a Porsche or a Bentley. A Mercedes-Benz S-Class Maybach was the absolute pinnacle.
Honestly, I’d almost gone with a Rolls-Royce Phantom, but I held back.
It would take over a year to arrive, and if I started with that, I’d have nothing left to upgrade to later.
“It’s a Mercedes-Benz S-Class Maybach. From now on, use this.”
I thought they’d be delighted, but there was no reaction at all.
When I looked over, my parents—and even Sena—had their mouths hanging open.
What was with them?
They looked like they were seeing a Benz for the first time in their lives.
A moment later, my father was the first to recover. “You want us to drive this?”
“Yes. Sell the old car. Or give it to Sena if she wants to drive it.”
Our family car was a domestic midsize sedan that was about ten years old. It really was time to replace it.
Sena jumped in alarm. “H-hey, wait. Can’t I just drive this one?”
“Why would you need an S-Class?”
“So I can ride it to school.”
“……”
What kind of nonsense was she spouting now?
My father asked haltingly, “How much does a car like this cost these days?”
“A little over 200 million won.”
“……”
It wasn’t like I’d paid for it all at once, either. I’d taken it on a long-term lease. The lease interest would be nothing by the time I made more money anyway.
“Where the hell did you get that kind of money?”
I said proudly, “I told you. This time, I was going to be filial.”
Maybe because I’d suddenly started doing filial things after never doing them before, my parents couldn’t get over the shock so easily.
“No, I mean, even so, such an expensive car...”
“My old car is fine for now...”
Even as they said that, my mother and father kept looking the car over from every angle.
While they were doing that, Sena grabbed my arm and acted cute in a way that absolutely did not work on me.
“Ooo-oppa, I’m fine without a Benz, so could you buy me even a Mini?”
If it was a Mini, there was no reason I couldn’t buy it.
But...
“We’ll see how you do from now on.”
“……”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Later, I drank with my father in the living room.
My younger sister stayed glued to my side.
“Can you sit a little farther away?”
Sena smiled brightly and held out both hands. “Oppa, give me some allowance.”
“Did you maybe leave your allowance with me for safekeeping?”
“Ooo-oppa.”
“……”
Was she an allowance parrot or something?
My father cautiously brought up the subject. “About that car. There’s no chance of a refund, is there?”
“Oh! Don’t you like it? Should I trade it for another one?”
My father waved his hands. “N-no, of course I like it. Who in the world doesn’t like a Benz? But buying a car the moment you start making money is a little risky, too.”
“I bought a Porsche.”
“……”
The reason he was saying this was because he had no real idea how much money I’d made.
If he knew how much I’d earned, he’d probably have shrugged even if I’d brought home a Rolls-Royce.
“Don’t worry. That amount is nothing to me.”
“How exactly did you make that much money?”
“Turns out I had a bit of talent for investing.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Sena jumped in quickly. “What are you talking about? You almost blew even your tuition money back then when you said you were investing with Sunwoo oppa.”
“That failure is exactly what made me who I am now.”
The me back then and the me now were different people.
More precisely, back then I hadn’t regressed yet, and now I had.
I looked at my sister. “I’ve got something to talk to Dad about, so go to your room.”
“Why? I want to drink too.”
“If you don’t want any allowance, you can stay right there.”
Sena sprang up at once. “Please enjoy your conversation, Father and older brother.”
Maybe because the alcohol had gone to his head, my father spoke with unusual honesty.
“I’d been worried all this time, but it seems I was worrying over nothing. It’s such a relief to hear you’re doing well.”
“It’s all thanks to you.”
That really was true. They’d helped me immensely.
I’d already multiplied that money tens of thousands of times over. If I hadn’t been able to borrow 1.5 billion won from home, my profits would have been much smaller.
Maybe I would have even failed to acquire Snow Crash.
“Still, you have to think about hard times down the road. You already have a car at home, so why did you go and buy something this expensive?”
“Think of it as interest.”
“And I don’t think it’ll be easy to drive that car to the company.”
“Why not?”
“Ahem. Because it’d make other people uncomfortable.”
My father’s company, Byungjin Industrial, was a one-factory business that manufactured metal parts to spec and delivered them to clients.
Its customers weren’t big-name conglomerates, but mostly third- and fourth-tier vendors.
In other words, it was a subcontractor sitting near the very bottom of the manufacturing chain.
If the owner of a subcontracting firm drove around in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class Maybach, what would people think?
Obviously they’d wonder how much he’d been skimming to afford such an expensive car, and they’d start trying to drive down the supply price.
That was what my father was worried about.
I casually brought up what I’d been thinking. “I’m making good money now, so if you ever want to quit the company, you can.”
“Quit the company?”
“Yes. I can move the family to a better house and cover the living expenses.”
My father shook his head. “What are you talking about? Even if you make a lot of money, you still have to keep working. Your mother won’t want to live off her son’s money, either. And what’s wrong with this place? A forty-pyeong apartment is more than enough.”
I wanted to move them into a better house right away.
But this home was one my parents had worked their whole lives to afford.
It would be one thing if they moved somewhere better with their own strength, but they wouldn’t want to move there with their son’s help.
“And if I quit, what happens to the employees?”
I’d expected him to say that.
Knowing my father, no matter how much money I brought home, he’d never give up the work he’d been doing all his life.
The biggest reason people work is to make money. But just as important is a sense of personal achievement.
That’s why retired old men still go looking for odd jobs.
“Is the company doing well?”
“Of course. It’s making enough not to run a deficit, so don’t worry.”
Digitalization was spreading rapidly across society as a whole, but manufacturing was still one of the core industries propping up the Korean economy.
Even so, the subcontracting sector was facing fierce competition from emerging countries like China.
They were compensating for the widening gap in price competitiveness with quality, but that would only last a few more years before the others caught up. To avoid that fate, they needed technology no one else could copy.
I thought back to my first life.
Back then, South Korea lost control of the industries of the future, and the major conglomerates were hit hard.
And when the conglomerates suffered, the smaller companies underneath them were crushed even harder. My father’s company hit a severe crisis around that time and eventually shut its factory doors.
Well, there had been another decisive cause too...
After that, my father lost all his energy and sank into gloom. It was like he had turned from a middle-aged man into an old man in an instant.
It wasn’t just about money. The shock of seeing the company he’d devoted his life to go under was that great.
Even if it was only a small, nameless one-factory business, to my father it was no different from a child.
I remembered the sight of him sitting forlornly in the living room before I regressed.
Back then, I hadn’t talked to him like this, and I hadn’t cared much about the family situation.
After the Primus incident, I’d stopped coming home much at all.
My grown son was doing nothing, with no drive and no ambition, and I could only imagine how miserable that must have been for my parents.
And when I said I’d do something like open a fried chicken shop with Sunwoo, they’d been so happy that they’d supported me as much as they could, despite how hard things were for them.
Come to think of it, all I’d done was keep being an unfilial son.
So this time, I really needed to be filial.
“So you really have no intention of quitting, then?”
My father said with a hard face, “That’s enough of that!”
If I pushed any further, he’d probably get angry.
Then again, my father was the head of this household and the president of his company.
For his son to tell him to quit as he pleased was its own kind of unfilial behavior.
And honestly, a father burning with purpose was far better to look at than one sitting around listlessly, crushed and dispirited.
If he’d wanted to retire, I would’ve found a proper way to sell the company. But if he wanted to keep running the business, there was only one answer.
I had to make the business he was already in thrive.
It would take a lot more effort, sure, but that was the right direction.
If the company did well and he made a lot of money, then he could buy a better house and move. That way he’d keep the dignity of the family head, while still feeling pride and satisfaction in what he’d built.
Even after he retired, he’d be able to watch the company he created continue to grow and feel proud of it.
“What was your dream, Dad?”
“My dream?”
“Yes. You must have had a goal when you first started the company.”
My father smiled a little awkwardly. “Well... nothing too grand.”
“Tell me.”
After hesitating for a moment, he said, “I wanted to build a strong mid-sized company with real technical skill, even if it wasn’t a conglomerate. One that big companies would beg to supply for them.”
“And foreign companies would be competing to place orders with us too?”
“Exactly. It would be nice to export too. Bring in foreign currency.”
Just imagining it seemed to please him, and he wore a satisfied smile.
But in reality, they were probably still begging third-tier vendors to take their deliveries.
“Even if it didn’t turn out that way, I’m still satisfied enough.”
“...Yes?”
No, what did he mean, satisfied?
An employee could be satisfied with a paycheck, but a president couldn’t afford to be satisfied.
A business that doesn’t grow inevitably declines. That meant it had to keep moving forward, endlessly.
It was a little odd for me to say it myself, but my father lacked the temperament of a businessman. If he’d had the ability, the company would already have grown much larger than it was now.
Because he was generous and always took care of the people around him, he’d lent money here and there and been taken advantage of more than once.
That kind of personality might be good for a person, but it was terrible for a company president.
On top of that, the industry he was in didn’t have much of a future. That didn’t mean I could just tell him to shut down the factory and switch to IT or start a startup instead.
I drank and thought.
Money didn’t solve everything, but it usually solved most things.
On top of that, I now had connections I hadn’t had before. If I used those well, maybe I could turn a corner shop into a department store.
Yes. If there was no vision, I just had to create one for him.
I set down my glass. “Would it be all right if I invested a little in your company?”
“...Huh?”
“I’ll invest 1 billion won to start.”
After all, filial piety was best expressed in money.