Gifts (5)
Meggie Lockhart.
The tiny heroine of today’s party sat on the bed in a cone-shaped birthday hat.
We gathered around her and sang the birthday song together, and Meggie closed her eyes to blow out the candles on the cake while making a wish.
David asked his daughter, “What did you wish for?”
“I’ll only tell Dad.”
Meggie whispered so only her father could hear, and David broke into a broad smile.
Jiyu sang the song she had prepared for Meggie.
I’d heard it plenty of times before, but hearing it live felt completely different. I supposed that was why people went to concerts.
“So? Is it fun?”
At my question, Meggie said happily, “It’s the best birthday ever!”
No matter how good the facilities were, kids were always sensitive to changes in their environment. She’d spent so much of her life in hospitals that all her friends were probably still at the old one.
So I’d worried a little about how she’d feel celebrating her birthday in Korea, but seeing how happy she was, I felt relieved.
I stepped a little away from Meggie and asked David quietly, “What was Meggie’s wish just now?”
“It’s a secret.”
“I see.”
“But I will tell only the boss, specially.”
“……”
Honestly, there was no need to tell me at all.
David lowered his voice as if he were sharing some tremendously important secret.
“She said she wanted to become a singer like Jiyu someday.”
“Really?”
The wish was so adorable that I laughed without meaning to.
When we’re young, we all dream of all kinds of things.
When I was little, my dream had been to be a second-generation chaebol. I gave up after realizing that, to become a second-generation chaebol, you had to be born into one.
After that, I entered DA Securities with grand ambitions of becoming a world-class investor.
My first goal had been to become the president of DA Securities, but when I came to my senses, I was running a chicken shop instead.
Come to think of it, then and now, I was still a co-CEO.
The industry and scale were just a little different.
For the record, these days the number one dream job for elementary school kids was apparently aetuber.
Hearing that, I felt the passage of time all at once. After all, when I was a kid, there was no such job as an aetuber to begin with.
As I was thinking that, David said, “Actually, Meggie sings quite well. Her voice is lovely, too. If she became a singer, she would surely succeed.”
“Ah, yes.”
“On last year’s Father’s Day, she practiced a song for me and sang it, and I have never heard anything so beautiful in my life. I recorded it on video. Would you like to see it?”
“Pardon?”
Did he really need to?
Without waiting for an answer, David showed me Meggie’s video on his smartphone.
“What do you think? Doesn’t she seem to have real talent as a singer?”
She just sounded like a little kid singing, nothing more and nothing less.
Where exactly was this “talent” supposed to be showing? Was it only visible to her father’s eyes?
“Honestly, I’d rather Meggie became a lawyer or a professor. But if she says she wants to be a singer, I’ll support her with everything I have. What she wants to do is what matters most. I’m only worried that life in the entertainment industry will be difficult for her.”
“……”
Good grief. One little comment from the kid, and he was taking it this seriously?
Kids that age changed their dream every day of the week, sometimes three times before lunch.
It was a good thing she was in the hospital; if she’d already been discharged, she would have submitted an application to American Idol on the spot.
It was amazing how this cold, unfeeling investor transformed completely the moment his daughter came up.
Still, I understood it well enough.
If I had a daughter like Meggie, I’d probably stop random people on the street just to brag about her.
I stared at David’s face for a moment. He was in the middle of boasting about his daughter when he hesitated and asked, “Why do you ask?”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen you make that kind of face.”
“What does my face look like right now?”
“Kind of stupid, actually.”
“Ahem.”
David laughed awkwardly.
It was strange, seeing someone who always wore such a hard, rigid expression laugh so foolishly.
“I like it better when you smile. Meggie will probably like your smiling face more, too.”
David spoke with complete sincerity. “It’s all thanks to the boss.”
“Not at all.”
We shared the food with the medical staff, too. For the busy ones, we had it packed into lunch boxes so they could take it home and eat later.
I introduced Jiyu to everyone else.
Dongho sunbae I already knew well, so that was easy enough to skip, but I introduced David, Kang Seon-woo, Min Ah-reum, Sung Yoon-ah, and the rest.
Sung Yoon-ah said to me, “I had no idea you knew someone as famous as singer Jiyu.”
“Ah! She’s a junior from my university.”
“Are you in the same department?”
“No.”
I was in economics, and Jiyu was in journalism.
“Then do you keep in touch with all your juniors from different departments, too?”
“Well……”
There was no need to mention that she was my ex-girlfriend’s cousin, was there?
Fortunately, before the conversation could drag on, Min Ah-reum called Sung Yoon-ah over. While the two of them talked, Jiyu came up to me and asked, “Are you very close with that woman, sunbae?”
“She was my starting colleague at DA Securities.”
“But it’s been quite a while since you left that company.”
“Right.”
“Then do you stay in touch with all your other starting colleagues, too?”
“Well……”
There was no need to mention that she was the granddaughter of the DA Securities chairman, was there?
Jiyu looked around the hospital room with clear amazement.
She’d been asked to come to a child’s birthday party, and the acquaintance in question turned out to be none other than David Lockhart, the CEO of Continue Capital!
He was a star in the financial world.
She was still reeling from that when another woman, the one talking with Han Miru, caught her attention. Her name was Sung Yoon-ah. She was every bit as beautiful as celebrity Min Ah-reum.
She was tall, with a slim figure and exceptional curves, and…
What is this? She says they’re former colleagues, but why do they look so close?
Just then, a middle-aged man in a suit and glasses walked into the room.
Han Miru greeted him warmly.
“Oh! I thought you wouldn’t be able to make it.”
The man smiled. “My work in China finished early, so I stopped by in case I could get a slice of cake.”
“You came at the perfect time. If you’d been even a little later, there wouldn’t have been any left.”
“Then I’m lucky.”
At the sight of him, Jiyu could not help but be shocked.
There was probably no one in South Korea who did not know this man’s name.
W-wait, could that be Yoo Jae-ho, chairman of Yuseong Group?
Chairman Yoo Jae-ho greeted Meggie politely.
“A pleasure to meet you, little lady. I am a friend of your father.”
Meggie bowed her head.
“Hello, mister. I’m Meggie.”
Han Miru cut the cake and handed a slice to Chairman Yoo Jae-ho.
“Please, eat. Would you like some coffee, too?”
“That would be appreciated.”
Han Miru chatted calmly and smiled between David Lockhart, the representative of Continue Capital—the world’s most famous private equity firm—and Yoo Jae-ho, chairman of the biggest chaebol in Korea.
Judging by the way they spoke, they seemed to be on very good terms.
Even seeing that, Jiyu still could not quite believe it.
Just how does senior know all these incredible people?
Since Meggie was still under treatment, the birthday party wrapped up quickly.
Jiyu also had to leave because she had another schedule.
I escorted her to the hospital entrance.
“That’s a shame. I wanted to stay a little longer.”
She really did look disappointed.
I thanked her once more. “Thanks for coming today.”
“No, it was fun for me too. The cake and food were delicious. And thanks to you, I got to meet so many famous people.”
Come to think of it, David, Min Ah-reum, and Yoo Jae-ho were not the sort of people you ran into just anywhere.
Jiyu had looked like she wanted to say something to me for a while now.
“Did you want to say something?”
At my question, Jiyu seemed to make up her mind and finally spoke.
“Um… but what exactly are you, senior?”
“Huh? What do you mean, what am I?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? You work at the Korean branch, but you’re close with Representative Lockhart, and you’re close with Chairman Yoo Jae-ho too.”
“Well, I just ended up getting to know them naturally through work……”
“And Representative Lockhart called you boss.”
“……”
Well, unless someone was as clueless as Han Sena, they’d probably have pieced it together just from how everyone around me treated me.
Anyway, this wasn’t some huge secret. Anyone who needed to know already knew.
“Don’t tell anyone else.”
Jiyu nodded earnestly.
“Yes. I’m super tight-lipped. I know which idols are dating whom, and I still don’t tell anybody.”
“Uh……”
That was actually something I was curious about, too.
I wondered if she’d tell me later if I asked casually.
“Actually, I founded Continue Capital. That’s why David and I are co-CEOs now.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
I was glad she accepted it so quickly.
After nodding for a while, Jiyu suddenly cried out, “What? What? What did you say?”
House hunting was over quickly, and Seon-woo and I packed our things and moved.
With the feeling that old wine should go into a new bottle, we decided to throw away all the furniture we had been using and buy everything new.
Just as with fashion, consistency mattered in interior design.
You could not make a good interior just by throwing money at it.
I had learned that the hard way living in my previous place.
Unfortunately, neither I nor Kang Seon-woo had the faintest talent for interior design.
Luckily, Min Ah-reum helped us with that.
“What can two men do by themselves? Leave it to me.”
“We’d appreciate that.”
I stared in admiration at the finished place.
Unlike the empty shell I had seen before, the house now had furniture and appliances arranged neatly with a unified, polished look.
Seon-woo clicked his tongue, too. “It feels like a top-class hotel.”
“Yeah.”
As expected, it really was different when a professional handled it.
“So this is my house now?”
“Yep.”
“My parents worked their whole lives to buy a single apartment. Wouldn’t they faint if they saw this? How am I supposed to explain later what money I used to buy it? They’ll know my salary couldn’t have covered this.”
“Just say you made the money from coins or something.”
“Guess I’ll have to.”
Seon-woo flopped onto the bed.
“Oh! This bed is insanely good.”
I looked at the interior estimate. “It costs 200 million won.”
Seon-woo’s eyes nearly popped out. “Seriously? How does a bed cost 200 million won?”
“Beats me. They say it’s the kind used by the Swedish royal family.”
Now that I thought about it, I might have seen something about it in a hotel brochure once.
It was a good world when enough money could buy you a life fit for royalty.
The dining table and chairs were all in the tens of millions, too. Still, since we’d bought them through Shinsegi Department Store, we got them at close to wholesale price.
Even though we’d thrown everything away and moved only our bodies and our clothes, somehow the moment the move was done, I felt hungry.
“Let’s eat.”
“What should we get?”
“How about chicken?”
Seon-woo nodded. “Chicken is always right.”
I opened the app to place an order.
“Whoa!”
When I jumped, Seon-woo asked, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“A single chicken is over 20,000 won.”
At that, Seon-woo gave me a dumbfounded look.
“What are you talking about? Chicken’s been over 20,000 won for ages.”
“Why is it so expensive? Does that even make sense?”
“And it makes sense that one bed costs 200 million?”
“No, a bed and chicken are different.”
I could accept a 200-million-won bed, but I could not accept a 20,000-won chicken.
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