Burger Landing, Part 2
Yeouido was only a short ride away.
We got out of the car and walked together around the neighborhood.
“It feels similar to Wall Street, but a little different too.”
People in suits passed by, glancing at us out of the corners of their eyes.
Seoul was practically half an international city already, so seeing foreigners on the street wasn’t all that rare.
Even so, if people were still staring like this, it had to be because she was beautiful, didn’t it?
Trish had dressed casually, but she was tall and sleek. Standing next to her, I couldn’t help feeling like I was drawing envious looks for no real reason.
“Where was it that Miru worked?”
“Over there.”
I led her toward DA Securities.
Trish lifted her camera and took a shot of the building’s exterior.
“Do you really need to take a picture here?”
“This place is important to you, isn’t it? Wait there for a second. I’ll take your picture.”
“Pardon?”
Trish took a few photos of me right there on the spot.
“Did they come out well?”
At my question, Trish checked the shots and answered with confidence.
“Of course. That’s a professional’s touch.”
We walked a full loop around Yeouido and then went into a nearby Starbucks to order coffee.
As she gathered her loose hair and tied it back again, Trish said, “There are a lot of Starbucks in Korea. I think I saw three just on the way here.”
“There are probably more in Seoul than in New York.”
“Right! I saw that in an article.”
For the record, Seoul ranked first, and New York second.
“What’s your plan while you’re in Korea?”
“First I’m going to write about the O'Connor Burger launch in Korea, and then I’m planning a feature on K-pop. As you know, K-pop is hugely popular in the U.S. these days.”
It wasn’t unusual for songs by foreign artists to become popular in America.
But most of them were in English, and songs in other languages usually rose for a while and then disappeared.
This was the first time songs in a language other than English had maintained their popularity for such a long stretch.
Because of that, people were even starting to say K-pop had become a genre in its own right in the U.S.
“For my analysis of K-pop’s popularity, I’d like to interview idols and agency people.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place. I’ll tell Dong-ho, no, Lee Dong-ho, the branch manager. Just mention my name, and he’ll cooperate with your reporting.”
“Thank you. Oh, and there’s a singer I’d really like to interview personally.”
“Who? A male idol?”
“No. Jiyu.”
I flinched for a moment at that.
“What? Why Jiyu?”
“Most K-pop singers who are popular in America are idols, but she’s a solo singer, right? And I heard she’s appearing in director Oliver Page’s film this time, and that she also has an important role in Seven Round. Besides, I just like her voice personally.”
“Ah…”
Seeing my expression, Trish asked, clearly puzzled, “Continue Capital invested in Rainbow Records, Jiyu’s agency, didn’t it? Is it not possible?”
“No, no. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be.”
Anything that helped Jiyu when the article came out would be good for her too.
Still, why did I have such a bad feeling about this?
“What’s the plan for the O'Connor Burger launch in Korea?”
“We’re planning an event right now...”
When Trish heard what I had in mind, she clapped her hands.
“Oh! That sounds fun.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
By the time we finished talking, the coffee cups were already empty.
Then Trish suddenly let out a small laugh.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I was thinking about when I first met Miru. You know it was at Starbucks then too?”
“Of course I know.”
I had signed a contract with David Lockhart there, and Trish had been typing up an article on her laptop.
After my regression, I’d made a great many plans, and I met people according to them.
Chairman Yoo Jae-ho, David Lockhart, Senator Phillips, and so on.
But my meeting with her had been truly accidental.
If I hadn’t met her, I never would have invested in O'Connor Burger. When I thought about it, life really did seem to refuse to move exactly according to plan, no matter how carefully you arranged it.
When we’d met by chance in a Starbucks in New York, neither of us could possibly have imagined that we’d be facing each other again in a Starbucks in Seoul.
“What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t met there that day?”
“Well. It’s hard to imagine.”
Trish smiled softly.
“I’m really glad I met Miru that day.”
I nodded.
“Me too.”
* * *
Late that evening.
I met one person at the hotel bar.
“Hey, bro. Long time no see.”
“Have you been well?”
“Sure. You know your big brother’s always thinking about you, right? Making sure you’re eating well, sleeping well.”
“You don’t need to worry about useless things like that. Let’s just drink.”
We kept in touch now and then, but it had been a while since we’d actually met.
The reason we were meeting today was business.
“Representative O'Connor arrived safely in Korea, right?”
“Yes.”
We drank together and talked.
“How’s Hwaan F&B doing?”
“We’re practically cheering to the heavens. I never imagined we’d actually win the Korean rights.”
Bringing a popular American franchise into Korea made success almost a given.
That was why so many companies had fought fiercely for the Korean rights to O'Connor Burger. Several major conglomerates had even joined the contest.
So how had Hwaan F&B beaten such formidable rivals and secured the rights?
Well, obviously...
“Seriously, thank you. How would your brother have survived without you? You know I love you a lot, right?”
Because of my connection.
In business, you really couldn’t ignore the power of personal networks. Big corporations didn’t spend a fortune on lobbyists for nothing.
On the surface, Hwaan F&B had simply been chosen as the Korean franchise partner.
But beneath that was a more complicated meaning.
Heo Min-woong would understand that perfectly well. That was why he was thanking me like this.
“I heard Shinsegi Group pushed hard until the end too. I also heard Executive Vice President Min Gijin worked his ass off.”
“He was the most aggressive of all. He contacted headquarters several times too.”
Shinsegi Group was a powerhouse in distribution, with department stores, supermarkets, and shopping malls under its belt.
Executive Vice President Min Gijin had strongly courted the deal, saying he would expand the business from there.
With department stores and shopping malls in hand, they’d have an advantage in expanding directly operated locations, so they had been a solid partner.
“Didn’t they reach out to you through Areum?”
I nodded.
“They did. If Areum had formally asked, I would’ve accepted. I owe her a bit from before.”
“Owe her? For what?”
“There’s history there.”
“Hmm. So?”
“When I said it like that, she said it was fine, that she was only passing the message along and I didn’t need to worry about it.”
Heo Min-woong laughed at that.
“See? Areum’s smart.”
“She is.”
Pretty, wise, and quick on the uptake.
For Senior Dong-ho, who liked to drift through life without much thought, a woman like that had to be by his side.
“So anyway, how are the preparations going?”
Heo Min-woong puffed himself up with visible pride.
“Perfect! Do you know how hard it’s been keeping this under wraps? You know it better than anyone—keeping your mouth shut is the hardest job in the world.”
“You’ve worked hard.”
Again, a franchise was about image just as much as it was about taste.
O'Connor Burger had the image of being the hottest hamburger in Silicon Valley, so that image had to be firmly stamped onto Korea as well.
That was why we had prepared an event.
The reason the O'Connor Burger sold in a New York pub had become famous in the first place was the food truck that started in Silicon Valley.
We needed to plant the image that it led the cutting edge of Silicon Valley’s trends.
So the first event had been planned as a food truck launch.
Once we announced it, everyone would be shocked.
* * *
Nightlight and Block Valley were massively popular around the world.
These two games had already gone beyond games and were being called a new cultural phenomenon.
Nightlight had pulled in players in their twenties and thirties, along with FPS and TPS users, while Block Valley had gone even further and established itself as a social network for teenagers.
We ran an event in both games that gave random boxes to Korean users who completed missions.
The random boxes contained items like potato buns, scrambled eggs, patties, and cheese at random.
If you collected them all, you could make a hamburger.
It was basically a kind of complete gacha.
But because it was free and didn’t affect gameplay, no one paid it much attention.
Each user could make only one hamburger, and once a certain period had passed, all the ingredients disappeared except for the finished burger.
Most users just thought of it as a little surprise event.
Then, all at once, a notice went up.
Starting tomorrow, an O'Connor Burger food truck will open in Korea. We will exchange the hamburger items you have for O'Connor Burgers. We look forward to your participation.
The event would run for three days.
Fifteen food trucks would move from location to location across the country for those three days.
Regular customers had to line up, but those who had a hamburger item could make a reservation through the app and receive their burger immediately by showing a QR code on-site.
When the news broke, users lost their minds.