The Uninvited Guest
Two days later, after the funeral procession and the burial at the family cemetery were finally over, Choi Jeong-pil was utterly drained.
“Phew.”
He had waited until the very end for Choi Jeong-san, but the brother he had been expecting never showed his face—not even by the time the family plot came into view that day. In the end, the funeral for their father, held as a family-only service, had to be seen through to the finish by Choi Jeong-pil himself.
...Where the hell did you go, brother?
They had never been especially close, but when it came to something as serious as a family funeral, the past hardly mattered.
No matter how much you hated Father, you should at least have called.
Choi Jeong-pil could guess that his brother had probably been beaten by their father. Otherwise, there was no way he would have vanished without a word.
“Honey, let’s go down now.”
“Right...”
With his mind still in knots, Choi Jeong-pil got into the car and fell asleep as if he had been knocked out.
“Honey? We’re here. Wake up.”
“Huh? What?”
Choi Jeong-pil could only remember getting into the car. He had been so exhausted he hadn’t even realized when he fell asleep.
“You haven’t slept a wink for three days straight. You look terrible right now.”
Choi Jeong-pil rubbed the rough stubble on his face and gave an awkward laugh.
“You were like that through the whole funeral too. You really worked hard.”
Just as Choi Jeong-san had been absent from the funeral hall, so had his wife and children. Perhaps it was because news reports had already spread the word that Chairman Choi Tae-yeong had donated his entire fortune to society. In the end, Choi Jeong-pil’s wife had been forced to handle all the miscellaneous tasks that cropped up during the funeral.
“Let’s go inside. I could use a rest too.”
“Sure.”
Maybe because he had dozed off in the car, Choi Jeong-pil felt his head clear a little.
“Ugh...”
There had been so many people around him that he hadn’t even had time to grieve properly.
So this is why people hold funerals...
Because of all the visitors who came to pay their respects, there had been no time to mourn the loss of a beloved family member. On top of that, he had had to keep explaining the cause of death over and over again. Before he knew it, he had simply adjusted to the reality that his father was gone.
“Honey. Over there...”
When Choi Jeong-pil looked where his wife was pointing, his face broke into a broad smile.
“Haha. You came?”
“...Yes.”
James had arrived in front of the house.
“Let’s go inside.”
“...Let me greet you first. There were so many people at the funeral hall that I couldn’t properly introduce myself. I’m James Kane.”
He was greeting Choi Jeong-pil’s wife.
“Ah, I heard about you. You’re the younger brother-in-law...”
“Honey, hold on. Let’s leave the brother talk out of it.”
Choi Jeong-pil hurriedly cut off his wife before she could finish, remembering that James had said he would not acknowledge their father.
“All right. But if I don’t call him brother-in-law, I don’t know what else to call him.”
“Ah...”
James could not exactly force on her the title of paternal uncle or aunt when he refused to recognize Choi Jeong-san as his father.
The way she addresses me doesn’t mean anything.
James had spent a long time thinking about this before coming here, so he had already worked out how he wanted to be called.
“Before Grandpa passed away, he recognized me as his grandson.”
“I heard about that.”
“But whether I’m recognized or not, legally, we have no relationship at all.”
“...So?”
James gave a quick wink at Ho-jung, who was watching him with nervous eyes.
“I was fortunate enough to learn that you’re the mother of a younger friend of mine. So I’ll call you Mother.”
“A younger friend? Who?”
“Ho-jung. Choi Ho-jung.”
The couple’s heads snapped around.
“...You know James?”
“Since when?”
While Ho-jung struggled to figure out what to say, James stepped in again.
“I got to know her because she’s friends with someone I’m currently seeing.”
Ho-jung quietly thanked whatever luck had spared Colt from being mentioned and hurried to jump in.
“R-right! James is my friend’s boyfriend.”
“Your friend?”
“Who?”
That part she could say without any trouble, as long as it wasn’t Colt.
“Su-ji! Kim Su-ji!”
“Huh? The youngest daughter from the ST Group, Su-ji?”
“That’s right. James is seriously seeing Su-ji.”
It was news to him, but Choi Jeong-pil still reached out and gave James a light pat on the shoulder.
“Ohhh—our nephew’s got some serious talent.”
“I’m not your nephew. Please just call me James, Father.”
James thought the title he had chosen was perfectly appropriate, but Choi Jeong-pil ignored him completely and kept a hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll talk about the rest inside. I’ll introduce you to your cousins once we’re in.”
“I’m not your nephew, I’m James...”
Once inside Choi Jeong-pil’s house, James was introduced to his children for the first time.
“This is our eldest, Mu-jin. Isn’t he ridiculously handsome?”
“...I’m Choi Mu-jin.”
“......”
“And this is the second, Yong-jin.”
“Hello.”
“......”
“And I guess the youngest doesn’t need introducing?”
“James oppa, meeting you at our house makes this feel kind of different, huh?”
James gave only a slight bow in response to their greetings, his expression as stoic as ever, but he could not so easily brush off Ho-jung’s greeting.
“Yeah. You, get out of here.”
“What? So that’s how you want to start today?”
“Don’t act up whenever you feel like it.”
“Hah! Bring it on!”
It was the kind of exchange that proved the two of them were close.
“Honey. Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Ah, right. I forgot.”
Choi Jeong-pil pointed to his wife, Jeong In-ae, with both hands in an almost formal gesture.
“This one here is the boss of our family. Mrs. Jeong In-ae.”
“Ah. Then let me greet you again. Mother. I’m James Kane.”
At her husband’s teasing introduction, Jeong In-ae gave him a light warning glance before accepting James’s greeting.
“Wouldn’t ‘Auntie’ be a fine way to address me too?”
James was reluctant to use anything that intimate.
“No. Since you’re Ho-jung’s mother, I’ll just call you Mother.”
“You really are stubborn, aren’t you? I guess the Choi family stubbornness doesn’t go anywhere.”
“......”
Before the mood could turn awkward, Choi Jeong-pil quickly stepped in.
“All right, all right. Since we’ve introduced our family, it’s only fair that our nephew introduces himself too, right?”
“I’m not your nephew, so please call me James.”
While Jeong In-ae muttered under her breath that he was indeed stubborn, James pretended not to hear and continued his introduction.
“I was sent to an orphanage right after I was born. I lived in Korea for six years, and then I was adopted to Texas in the United States.”
“......”
“......”
As soon as James began speaking about himself, no one could say a word.
“The father and mother who adopted me raised me with love, and I grew up in a happy home. Then, when I was in high school, they died in an accident, and after that...”
At James’s words, Choi Jeong-pil let out a helpless sound of sympathy.
“Oh, dear...”
“...I managed to keep going somehow. I went to Las Vegas and became a fairly well-known magician. I made some money too. I also multiplied what I had through investing.”
That was his explanation for the enormous sum of money that had allowed him to take over TY Telecom.
“A few years ago, I quit that life and came back to Korea to find my biological parents. Once I arrived, I found my biological mother, but I learned she had passed away not long after I was born...”
“...Your birth mother died too? Oh, my.”
“As for my biological father...”
Everyone already knew who that was, even without him saying it.
“...I don’t really want to talk about that man. Anyway, it was a terrible beginning, but I’m glad to finally meet all of you. I’m James Kane.”
“......”
It was a brief summary of James’s life, and Jeong In-ae and her sons were left speechless. Ho-jung, at least, already knew about James’s past, so she wasn’t shocked.
“Why is everyone acting like this? Have you never seen someone adopted overseas before?”
“Ho-jung. Didn’t I tell you not to run your mouth?”
“It’s because the mood is way too depressing. What, did someone die here?”
“...Someone did die. Grandpa passed away, remember?”
“Ah. My bad...”
At least thanks to Ho-jung, the atmosphere managed to loosen up again.
“Anyway, since our nephew came all this way, let’s give him a round of applause!”
At Choi Jeong-pil’s words, everyone clapped awkwardly, and James accepted it with a slight bow.
“Thank you for welcoming me.”
“Nephew, make yourself at home.”
James had already half given up on correcting the title that Choi Jeong-pil refused to stop using.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for Chairman Choi’s burial, so I came here instead. You must have had a rough time on your own.”
“Don’t even get me started. I still don’t know where my brother disappeared to, and he isn’t answering his phone...”
Ho-jung quickly joined in on her father’s complaint.
“Big Aunt went too far too. I mean, I get that she might be thinking about divorce, but it still isn’t finalized, is it? And her father-in-law died, and she didn’t even bother to show her face? And don’t even get me started on Yong-jin oppa not coming. Sure, Tae-jin oppa is in the United States so he couldn’t make it, but Yong-jin oppa should have come.”
None of Choi Jeong-san’s family had shown up at the funeral.
“I called Yong-jin oppa several times...”
“What did he say when he refused?”
“At first he said he’d go himself, but once that article came out about Grandpa donating his entire fortune to society, he completely changed his tune. He said we’d never have to see each other’s faces again!”
Choi Jeong-pil looked away, almost embarrassed, as he responded to James and Ho-jung’s conversation.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have let the donation article out so early...”
“You did the right thing. Thanks to that, he was able to go off with the sympathy of so many people.”
At the shareholders’ meeting for TY Telecom, the shareholder coalition had emerged victorious, and the founding family had stepped down from management, allowing some of the bad press to be cleaned up. Then came the news that Chairman Choi Tae-yeong was in the process of liquidating his holdings. After declaring a complete break with TY Group and donating his vast fortune back to society, most of the scandals that had plagued the TY family since the previous year were washed away. Choi Tae-yeong’s funeral was therefore held with him being praised as a titan who had built a corporate empire.
I guess that counts as my doing too.
If James had not forced the issue with magic, the old man would have clung to wealth he could never take with him into the grave.
“I still can’t believe Dad and Big Uncle are brothers. How could they be so different? And my cousins are just like Big Uncle too. That whole branch of the family seems like they came from another world. Tae-jin oppa has always been garbage, and when I saw Yong-jin oppa this time, he felt cold as ice on the inside. Big Aunt too...”
Through Ho-jung’s mouth, James found himself looking back at himself as well.
Am I really that different from them?
“......”
James believed that, among them, he was the worst of all. Apart from Choi Jeong-san, the others had at least never crossed the smallest boundary that still made them human. But James had gone beyond that and labeled them enemies to be erased, creatures not even worth standing beside.
In the end... I’m still blood of Choi Tae-yeong and Choi Jeong-san. I inherited everything from them, so that must be why.
James himself had a sensibility so unlike ordinary people that he might as well have come from another world.
“Ah, no...”
Lost in thought, James’s silence made Ho-jung think she had said something wrong again.
“Hey. Your mouth really is a menace.”
She slapped her own mouth a few times in embarrassment.
“...What you said is right.”
“I didn’t mean James oppa is like that too...”
“It’s fine. Even if I weren’t of the same blood as them, it wouldn’t change who I am now.”
James didn’t regret dealing with Choi Tae-yeong and Choi Jeong-san. The revenge he had taken for his mother, who had died in vain, was more than enough to bear that weight.
“Come on. Since our nephew came by for the first time today, let’s at least have a meal together—”
Just as Choi Jeong-pil was rising to break the increasingly awkward mood, the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong.
“I’ll go see who it is.”
Choi Jeong-pil’s wife hurried to the intercom, and on the screen showing the front door, she saw a familiar face.
“Huh?”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Mr. Kim.”
“Mr. Kim?”
It was Kim In-su, the chief who had once headed the strategic secretariat back when Chairman Choi Tae-yeong still ran the company. He had learned that James was the illegitimate son of Choi Jeong-san and had been sent overseas with a hefty sum of money. The idea was to keep Chairman Choi Tae-yeong from ever learning the truth.
He came back?
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