Byeongjin Industrial (5)
As everyone turned to look, Heo Min-woong covered his mouth and said, “Ah! Sorry. I just found something funny. Go on, keep doing what you were doing.”
Even so, he seemed unable to rein in the laughter that had already burst out of him, and he kept snickering under his breath.
Chairman Yuk Ho-gyeong frowned and asked, “Why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“Then isn’t this funny to you?”
He looked as though he might actually laugh himself to death. The whole thing was so absurd—making such a fuss just to steal a company with one factory that, from a chaebol’s point of view, it probably looked like a grade-schooler yanking yogurt out of a kindergarten kid’s hands.
Yuk Ho-gyeong’s face reddened by the second, and before long he couldn’t hold it in any longer and shouted, “Stop laughing!”
“Heh.”
Heo Min-woong looked at me with an expression that clearly asked whether he could really go on, and I gave a small nod to tell him to let loose however he wanted.
“Honestly. Just standing here watching you is a sight to behold.”
With a face full of contempt, he crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. It was the same arrogant posture I’d seen when we first met.
The only difference now was that he was on my side.
“......”
What was this? This reassuring feeling?
Heo Min-woong looked at Yuk Ho-gyeong and said, “Hey, you.”
“What? You? Where do you get off—”
“Is this how you abuse your power? I didn’t know big companies still did this kind of thing, but a tiny subcontractor like yours is pulling it off? And what now? You can cut off all your business with one word? Want me to try the same thing? I think I could shut your company down with one phone call.”
“You little punk!”
Yuk Ho-gyeong shouted, but Heo Min-woong ignored him and turned to Kim Cheol-woo instead.
“And you.”
“M-me?”
“Yeah, you. You embezzle company funds and then what, you’ve got the nerve to bring your brother-in-law here and act all high and mighty? What, do you think you’re the only one with a family? You think I can’t bring mine too? Want me to drag my father over here?”
“......”
Honestly, if he really brought his father, that would be something worth seeing.
Yuk Ho-gyeong widened his eyes and shouted, “Who the hell are you, anyway!?”
Heo Min-woong shot back, “And who are you?”
“What? Punk? You little—! Do you want to die!?”
Yuk Ho-gyeong clenched his fist and shot to his feet. He looked ready to swing at him any second.
Even after seeing that, Heo Min-woong didn’t flinch in the slightest.
“Sit back down. Don’t do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”
“......”
Just from his tone and expression, Yuk Ho-gyeong must have realized this wasn’t empty bluster.
Maybe the pressure got to him, because he jerked back for a moment. But he clearly hated admitting that, so he snapped, “Where do you get off staring at me like that? You want to die? I’ll rip your eyes out right now!”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew who I was.”
“Then who the hell are you!?”
Heo Min-woong pulled a business card from his inner pocket and tossed it over as if flicking a knife.
Yuk Ho-gyeong picked it up.
“What is this insolent—”
Then he shut his mouth and went rigid.
He looked back and forth between the card and Heo Min-woong’s face. Kim Cheol-woo, who still hadn’t caught on, asked Yuk Ho-gyeong, “What is it, brother-in-law? Who is he, anyway?”
Yuk Ho-gyeong silently handed the card over, and when Kim Cheol-woo saw it, his jaw dropped.
“N-no way... the Hwaan Group’s little demon!”
Heo Min-woong’s face and name were both fairly well known to the public.
He’d made a number of headlines for his past scandals, and during the Thomas Motors fiasco, his remarkable crisis-avoidance skills had earned him yet more coverage.
Heo Min-woong grinned and said, “Yep. That’s me.”
“......”
Both of them looked utterly unable to believe it.
In fact, the most shocked person in the room was my father. His eyes were wide as saucers, his face wearing the kind of expression that refused to accept reality.
And who could blame him? Who would ever imagine running into the chairman’s son from the Hwaan Group in a place like this?
That wasn’t supposed to happen in real life.
And yet it had just happened.
“What was that you said a second ago? That he wanted to die? That you’d rip his eyes out? Huh? What is this, I’m being threatened with murder? Wow. This is chilling. We need to report this to the group legal team and take immediate action. Now, what was the name of your company again?”
Yuk Ho-gyeong panicked.
“I-I’m sorry!”
The head that had been held stiff a moment ago, as if it were fixed in a neck brace, was now bowed toward the floor.
His back bent past ninety degrees until he was nearly folded in half like a laptop.
Flexibility like that was impressive.
Kim Cheol-woo stared at the sight in confusion. “Br-brother-in-law.”
“What are you doing, idiot? Bow too!”
Unlike Kim Cheol-woo, who still couldn’t wrap his head around what was happening, Yuk Ho-gyeong was trembling all over.
As someone perched on the edge of the big-company supplier chain, he understood better than anyone just how much influence a chaebol could wield in Korea.
So this was the stature a chaebol held in South Korea?
“No, why is everyone acting like this? If anyone saw us, they’d think I was the one bullying you. I’m the one who got wronged here.”
“V-vice president...”
“Vice president? You were just calling him this punk and that punk a second ago.”
“I-I’m sorry!”
“Sit down first. Staring up at people gives me a crick in my neck.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Yuk Ho-gyeong sat down meekly like a lamb. A man that large hunched over like that made him look almost pitiable.
In an instant, the entire situation had reversed.
Heo Min-woong stole a glance at me, and I gave him a discreet thumbs-up to show he was doing well.
This was K-chaebol for you.
“What brings Vice President Heo here?”
“Why? Is this someplace I’m not supposed to come?”
“N-no, not at all.”
Heo Min-woong rested a hand on my shoulder and said, “I came because I’m close with this guy and wanted to help him grow Binjin Industries a little. I didn’t expect someone else to already be brandishing a knife over it. So what do you say? Chairman, do you want to take it?”
Yuk Ho-gyeong waved his hands frantically. “N-no, no! I’m fine.”
“Sure you are. The man who was about to fence off the front of the factory so he could swallow the company whole.”
“I-it was a joke.”
“Really? Seemed fun, so I was thinking of trying it myself. Wouldn’t it be interesting to buy up some land in front of your factory and put up a fence so not even an ant could get through? That’s the sort of thing you like, isn’t it?”
“N-no, it isn’t. I don’t like it.”
He was the Hwaan Group’s runaway son.
A man who actually did what he said he would.
To be fair, because he was this easy with me, it was easy to forget, but when you were the chairman’s son at the Hwaan Group, wiping out a small or midsize company with a single remark probably wasn’t all that difficult.
Of course, he’d be called out for chaebol abuse of power if he did that, but Heo Min-woong was infamous for having a filthy temper and not caring one bit what other people thought. He was already stuck with a ruined image, so there wasn’t much left to fall from.
Sometimes, notoriety was useful like that.
Never underestimate a K-chaebol again.
I said to my father, “If you have something to say, go ahead.”
“Oh. R-right.”
My father held back his emotions as much as he could and asked Kim Cheol-woo, “Why did you do it?”
Kim Cheol-woo answered with his head lowered. “I did it because I felt wronged.”
“Wronged?”
“You know how hard I worked for the company, don’t you? And then they said they were going to kick me out...”
Unable to hold it in any longer, my father barked, “Then you shouldn’t have touched company money from the start!”
Kim Cheol-woo argued back as if he truly had been wronged. “After all the suffering I’ve gone through, what’s the big deal about taking that much?”
“......”
People who refuse to admit they’re wrong always do this—they pile on excuse after excuse and rationalize themselves into innocence.
Maybe the logic sounded decent in their own heads, but to everyone else, it was just bullshit.
My father let out a long sigh. “Fine, forget me. But what did the employees do wrong? If your deals fall through and the company goes under, every employee here becomes unemployed. Would that make you feel better?”
“......”
Kim Cheol-woo had nothing to say.
At this point, a few words of scolding weren’t going to change him anyway. It was better to end this quickly.
I slid the contract in front of him. “So? What’ll it be? Quietly hand over the shares and walk out, or do you want to do this the legal way?”
“I-I...”
As Kim Cheol-woo hesitated, Heo Min-woong tossed in a line.
“Don’t tell me you’re still clinging to hope?”
Then Yuk Ho-gyeong barked at Kim Cheol-woo, “Hey! What are you waiting for? Sign it already!”
“Brother-in-law...”
No matter how he looked at it, there was no one here on his side.
In the end, Kim Cheol-woo signed with trembling hands. With that, forty percent of the company’s shares returned to my father’s hands.
I gathered the papers and said, “Then all that’s left is to pay back the company money you took.”
Kim Cheol-woo cried out in shock. “H-hold on. That wasn’t part of the deal!”
“Excuse me? What wasn’t? I said I wouldn’t file charges. I never said I wouldn’t take the money back. Isn’t it common sense to return money you stole once you’re caught?”
There was a lot of money that would have to go into the business if we were going to switch industries. So if there was money to be recovered, I was going to recover it.
Maybe surrendering the shares was one thing, but having to cough up 500 million won too was more than he could stomach, because Kim Cheol-woo fell to his knees and begged.
“Brother! I was wrong.”
It was a truly sincere apology.
After all, if 500 million won is at stake, anyone can produce a heartfelt apology.
Heo Min-woong snorted at his lightning-fast change of face. “What, you were just acting all tough a second ago, telling us to hand over the company. Why the sudden turnaround?”
Kim Cheol-woo pressed his forehead to the floor and burst into tears. “Sob! I swear I’ll never touch horse racing again. I’ve worked so hard with you all this time, brother. Please forgive me just this once. Please, I’m begging you.”
If he wanted forgiveness, he should have asked for it from the beginning. Crying now was nothing more than crocodile tears.
“Cheol-woo...”
I looked at my father, meaning for him to make the decision himself.
A moment later, my father seemed to have made up his mind and spoke.
“That money isn’t mine. It belongs to Binjin Industries. In memory of what we’ve shared, I won’t file a complaint, so return the money to the company.”
“Brother! Please...”
As Kim Cheol-woo tried to cling to him, my father cut him off firmly. “And don’t come here again. Don’t contact me again, either. Our relationship ends here.”
The fact that he said it so firmly meant he must have learned a great deal from this mess.
There was nothing more frightening than someone soft-hearted finally turning away.
Realizing begging was useless, Kim Cheol-woo let his head hang.
Heo Min-woong said with a grin, “If you’re short on money to pay it back, Chairman Yuk Ho-gyeong here can lend you some. Right?”
Suddenly saddled with a joint guarantee, Yuk Ho-gyeong looked flustered. “Huh? Me? Why would I...?”
“You said a second ago that if your brother-in-law’s problem is your problem, right? Then your brother-in-law’s debt is your debt too.”
“......”
“Well? Answer me.”
Yuk Ho-gyeong answered with great difficulty. “...Understood.”
I looked at the two of them and said, “I think that’s everything. Why don’t you both get up and go now?”
Yuk Ho-gyeong hauled Kim Cheol-woo up from the floor. He looked so drained he could barely stand on his own.
“I apologize for all the discourtesy today, Vice President.”
Heo Min-woong said in an irritated voice, “Tch. If you knew it was discourteous, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
“I-I’m sorry. Please forget everything from today.”
“Just pay back the embezzled money as fast as you can. Then I’ll forget it. Otherwise, I’ll report that murder threat you made to every one of your business partners.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Once the two of them left, the noisy office fell quiet.
My father let out a long breath. After seeing the bottom of someone he’d trusted, he must have felt pretty shaken.
Then he lifted his head and looked back and forth between me and Heo Min-woong, clearly with a lot on his mind.
He probably never imagined that while Kim Cheol-woo was causing a scene and dragging his brother-in-law into it, the chairman’s son from the Hwaan Group would show up and clean things up.
Silence hung for a moment.
My father asked me in a low voice, “Is he really the vice president of Hwaan Energy?”
“Of course not. He just looks like him.”
That startled my father.
“What!? Then he was impersonating a chaebol? If this gets back to the Hwaan Group...”
“I’m kidding. It really is him.”
“......”