Everyday Life 2 (1)
After we finished eating, we moved to a nearby twenty-four-hour café and kept talking.
“Really? You met Emily Chloe?”
“You know her?”
“Of course. I read that article—the fake heiress scandal. I never imagined Miru would actually meet that woman.”
“She even talked to me, saying she was preparing to start a business.”
Emily Chloe’s scam had become known all the way in Korea thanks to Trish.
She had visited the detention center more than a dozen times to interview Emily Chloe, tracked down everyone involved, and written a series of columns about the whole affair.
The result had been a massive hit.
It drew the highest view count of any WST article, and a production company bought the rights, saying they wanted to turn her story into a drama or a film.
I also told her about meeting Mike Goldenberg.
“Ah! You bought a private jet, too.”
“Really? What’s it like?”
“Pretty good. I gave Sena a ride once, and now she wants me to buy her one too.”
“Pfft! Your little brother made a joke like that?”
“Are you sure it was a joke?”
If she was my little sister, she was exactly the kind of kid who could say something like that with complete seriousness.
“Do you have a photo?”
When I showed her one, Sung Yoon-ah let out a breathless laugh.
“That’s amazing. Hearing stories like this makes you feel like you live in a completely different world, Miru.”
“Me? You’re the chaebol here.”
She laughed as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Compared to you, what’s a chaebol supposed to amount to?”
I changed the subject.
“How’s DA Securities these days?”
“Since the GL Entech incident, it’s been growing steadily. The group’s been backing us hard, too.”
“That’s a relief.”
“We may be doing well, but only among mid-sized securities firms. Brokerage revenue can’t compete with the big houses that handle far greater trading volumes. What do you think we should do to grow beyond this?”
It wasn’t the sort of worry an ordinary employee would have.
But if she was the daughter of the next chairman, it was exactly the kind of worry she should have.
“How about investing in fintech?”
At my words, she perked up.
“Fintech?”
“Yes. IT companies are clawing their way into finance right now. If that’s the case, finance has to push out into IT as well.”
In truth, that was a problem every financial firm was now wrestling with.
Until recently, competition had been limited to finance companies battling one another. Now, giant IT firms and startups had entered the ring as well.
If they stood still, they could lose the market entirely.
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“Actually, I already have a pretty good idea in mind.”
“Really?”
“I’ll tell you next time when your mother’s with us. Vice Chairman Yang Ja-eun is doing well, right?”
“She is, but she’s been incredibly busy lately. It’s gotten hard just to see her face.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Grandfather’s health has gotten a lot worse, so he was admitted to the hospital. She works during the day and stops by the hospital at night.”
“I see...”
Chairman Yang Hyeon-seong had brain cancer.
He’d likely kept up treatment all this time, but now he was probably reaching his limit.
“Should we head out soon?”
Only then did she glance at the clock and gasp.
“Oh! How did it get so late?”
We had planned to have one cup of coffee and leave, but before we knew it, our conversation had carried us well past midnight.
We got to our feet.
“Come on. I’ll see you home.”
* * *
When I woke up after a long, deep sleep, the sun was already high in the sky.
Sunwoo was in the living room.
“You up?”
I looked at him for a moment.
“Feels like it’s been forever since we last saw each other, doesn’t it?”
Sunwoo nodded.
“It really has been a long time.”
“Have you eaten lunch yet?”
“Not yet. What do you want? Chicken?”
“What is it with you and chicken the second you wake up?”
...I thought that, but the moment he said it, I suddenly wanted some.
If you stayed abroad long enough, you ended up craving K-chicken just as much as Korean food itself.
“Order it.”
“What kind? Half and half?”
“What half and half? Just get two whole chickens. One spicy, one fried.”
At this point, with the kind of money I made, I could have one chicken per person and not blink.
We sat facing each other and ate chicken.
Doing this made me think of the days when we ran a chicken place together. Those had been fun in their own way, too. Business had been good.
I asked Sunwoo, “How’s work?”
“I’m working hard. We’ve started making a Block Valley game, too. Promoting a brand through a game... it seems like a decent idea.”
“Right?”
“Thanks to this whole project, Nightlight and Block Valley have both shot up in recognition. Tom Scott’s become a hero in the game industry, too. I bet the people waiting to meet him are lined up around the block.”
“You should meet him, too.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. The games you make from here on out are going to use Surreal Engine 5.”
“Where’s Legend Games again? Columbia?”
“That’s right. You can go there yourself, or I can have him come to Korea. CEO Tom Scott’s been wanting to meet you, too.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. When I told him I had a friend who was a genius game developer, he was ridiculously interested.”
“What? Hey, how are you introducing me?”
I pretended not to hear him and asked, “Anything fun happen in Korea while I was gone?”
“Hmm, something fun, huh. Ah! You know it’s election season right now, don’t you?”
“What? It’s still not over?”
“The vote hasn’t happened yet, but it’s already feeling pretty much decided.”
The race was between Saehan Party candidate Seo Jun-hong, the heir apparent to President Oh Young-hwan, and Namgoong Seok of the Our People Party.
Unfortunately, President Oh Young-hwan’s approval ratings were scraping the bottom, and public sentiment for a change in administration was higher than ever.
Namgoong Seok’s momentum was so strong people were already saying, “It’s Namgoong Seok, no matter what.”
Maybe that was why the chaebol groups were already lining up behind his side.
“Are you planning to stay in Korea for a while?”
“Yeah. I need to rest and prepare for what comes next.”
David handled things in the United States, Dongho senior managed things in Korea, and with those two in place, the company could run smoothly even if I took a break.
Besides, until I actually stirred things up, not much happened anyway.
* * *
I rested at home until evening, then headed to a lounge bar in Cheongdam-dong.
“Hey! Bro!”
As soon as I stepped inside, a broad-shouldered man in his early thirties waved at me warmly.
His name was Heo Min-woong.
He was vice president of Hwaan Energy.
“How long has it been?”
“It really has been a while.”
I handed him the shopping bag.
“Here.”
“Hm? What’s this?”
“A gift.”
“A gift?”
California was famous as a New World wine region.
While I was taking time off, I’d gone touring a winery and picked up a few bottles to give out as presents.
“I bought you a bottle of wine.”
Heo Min-woong looked absurdly moved.
“Ah, no. Man, you didn’t have to.”
“It wasn’t that expensive. I don’t think it was even a hundred dollars.”
“Who cares about the price? What matters is that you were thinking of me.”
“I just picked it up while I was at the winery.”
“What? You went all the way to a winery just to buy me a gift?”
“No, I just went there to look around.”
What on earth was he talking about?
For someone who looked the way he did, I hadn’t expected him to be the type to get moved by something so small.
Still, I was glad he liked it.
Lately I’d met so many hostile people that just running into someone who liked me put me in a better mood.
“Let’s have a drink first.”
Heo Min-woong poured whiskey into a glass with ice.
“How’ve you been?”
“Busy. I’ve been stupidly busy. You wouldn’t believe how much there is to do. Between politicians and businesspeople, the day just disappears.”
You could idle around as much as you wanted, but once you decided to work, the busiest person was always the CEO. Employees might do the actual labor, but the CEO’s job was to make all that labor mean something.
“It’s good to see you working hard.”
“As if you’re one to talk. You really kicked up a storm in the States this time. Just how much did you make?”
“Well, you’ve got to make hay while the sun shines.”
I wasn’t some genius investor like Aaron White or anything. I was just surviving on the benefits of regression. My plan was to squeeze everything I could out of that edge before it ran out and then retire cleanly.
“You went on vacation, too, right? Take me with you next time.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“How about Ibiza in Spain? I hear the clubs there are great.”
“Ah...”
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
I shouldn’t have gone to a resort. I should have gone there!
“How’s the Baejin Industrial project going?”
“I’m taking care of it to the best of my ability. At this point, I’d say they’re one of Hwaan Energy’s most indispensable partners.”
I nodded.
“That’s a relief.”
Before coming here, I’d heard the rough outline from Vice President Park Yong-jin.
Business had been growing smoothly, and by now there were several vendors supplying Baejin Industrial.
At this point, could you even call them a mid-sized company? If there was a downside, it was that Hwaan Energy still made up too large a share of their revenue, but... the industry itself was growing, so they’d be able to expand their client base little by little.
“A while ago I took your father out for a round of golf, and his swing has improved a lot.”
He seemed to take better care of my father than I did, which was reassuring.
With Vice President Park Yong-jin, a former executive from a major corporation, handling the work diligently, my father could afford to spend his days at leisure, playing golf all he wanted.
“Hwaan Energy’s been doing incredibly well lately.”
“Not as well as Continue Capital. You even crushed Enple and Guble this time.”
“Crushed is a bit much.”
At most, I’d left a scratch.
“Still, the hydrogen trucks are no joke. Everyone’s showing interest.”
The shift toward eco-friendly vehicles was a global trend.
In the passenger car market, companies like Tisla were competing fiercely, but the commercial vehicle market was practically an open field.
And that was exactly where Nextrogen had managed to plant its flag first.
Nextrogen began mass-producing the hydrogen truck platform HY07, and GM and Ford built and released hydrogen trucks based on it.
Not only were they eco-friendly, they were also more economical, so logistics companies kept placing orders.
“I heard Daeyeon Motors is rushing to increase hydrogen truck production, too.”
Originally, the company most ahead in hydrogen vehicles was Korea’s Daeyeon Motors.
They’d been the first in the world to mass-produce a hydrogen truck and even export it. But because demand had been so weak, they’d barely produced any. Thanks to Nextrogen, the whole thing had caught fire again.
Toyota, Daimler, Volvo, and others were scrambling to speed up hydrogen truck development and release.
When it came to eco-friendly vehicles, China was a country you couldn’t leave out.
China was number one in the world in both EV production and sales.
The Chinese government had declared a hydrogen push, and each company had announced its own hydrogen roadmap.
By next year or so, we’d probably be seeing hydrogen trucks from a wide range of brands.
“Competition is a good thing.”
The presence of competitors would only make the market grow faster.
Hydrogen trucks had begun rolling onto roads in earnest, led by the United States.
What they needed now was charging infrastructure—no, fueling infrastructure.
Fortunately, unlike EV chargers, you didn’t have to install them everywhere across a city. You only needed them at freight truck departure points, destinations, and key hubs.
Unlike electric charging stations, which only needed a power line, hydrogen stations required production, transport, and management of hydrogen itself.
Without a certain scale and technical capability, you couldn’t even begin to touch the business. That was why there were only a handful of companies worldwide that could manage it in an integrated, systematic way.
In Korea, Hwaan Energy was the only one.
To be honest, Hwaan Energy didn’t have some overwhelming technical advantage no one else possessed. But while other companies hesitated, they’d made bold, large-scale investments early on.
They’d already started the business in the United States, and invitations were pouring in from Europe as well.
Thanks to that, Hwaan Energy’s stock had been climbing steadily.
Originally, Hwaan Energy’s market cap had been only about seventy percent of Hwaan Solutions. But during the Thomas crisis, the order of those market caps flipped, and now the gap had widened to more than threefold.
It was now the largest affiliate in the entire Hwaan Group.
All thanks to me.
“The money going into this investment right now is insane.”
“Issue corporate bonds.”
We weren’t just building a few charging stations; we were constructing the whole infrastructure around them, which meant an enormous amount of capital up front.
On the flip side, that would become a barrier to entry for anyone coming in later, so the leader would enjoy a powerful first-mover advantage.
“And if it goes bust?”
“It won’t, so don’t worry.”
Heo Min-woong grinned.
“Saying it like that really does make me feel better.”
He looked not merely reassured, but genuinely relieved.