Shut Up!
“...You know him?”
“Of course.”
Kim Seong-oh’s opinion of him rose a notch.
Maybe we’ll meet again.
“But just knowing him doesn’t seem like much help. Friendship is friendship, and business is business.”
If he were assigned a good seat at the exhibition, he could draw more attention and make it easier to introduce ST products overseas. But simple acquaintance was not enough to turn into business leverage.
“It’s not just a face I know. I’m also a member of the Citibank Las Vegas VIP Club. And Tony is very fond of me. I think he’d do just about anything I asked.”
Tony would probably grant the favor anyway, if only because of the King Arthur coin James had given him.
“...The Citibank VIP Club?”
“You can join if you keep a certain amount at the Citibank Las Vegas branch. I only joined recently myself.”
“I’m curious what the threshold is. I’d like to join too.”
“I’m not certain, but I believe you need to deposit roughly one hundred million dollars.”
“!”
Kim Seong-oh’s evaluation of him rose again.
One hundred million dollars? That’s more than ten billion won. This young man has that kind of money?
“Then how much have you deposited?”
“Haha. That’s a secret. I’ve only given an approximate figure to the other VIP members.”
Kim Seong-oh wasn’t asking because he truly expected a precise answer. But he had never been the type to let curiosity go.
“Hmm... If it’s a club full of businesspeople on Tony’s level, wouldn’t you feel out of place?”
“I met the members recently, and their deposits weren’t all that large. By the end of that day, I realized mine was greater than the combined deposits of everyone who’d attended. So no, I didn’t feel out of place.”
“......”
His evaluation rose yet another step.
A magician has more on deposit than a whole group of entrepreneurs? Just how much wealth does he actually have...?
“Then you’re definitely well past the one-hundred-million mark. Something like a billion dollars?”
“Ah... well...”
As Kim Seong-oh pressed him with one question after another, his wife Hwang Ji-hye stepped in to stop him.
“Enough. What difference does it make how much he has?”
“I’m asking because I’m curious. I also want to know what he did to build up such enormous assets.”
“Haha...”
James wanted to escape the situation with a laugh.
“Come to think of it, I’m curious too, James. You were working as a magician, but were you doing other business on the side?”
“...I wasn’t running a separate company. I invested my performance earnings little by little and built it up that way.”
“So you have a knack for investing?”
“I’ve just been lucky so far.”
“Oh? And modest too?”
“I’ll keep an eye on ST Group in the future.”
But Kim Seong-oh still had not satisfied his curiosity, so he pressed one more time.
“Just one more thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“I couldn’t possibly ask about every company you’ve invested in, but I am curious about your most recent one. The last company you invested in.”
Through that question, Kim Seong-oh wanted to determine whether James was the kind of investor who could read the currents of the economy.
“Haha. I already told you about my recent investment.”
“When?”
“I believe I mentioned TY Telecom.”
“Ah. There...”
It had recently suffered a massive crisis because of problems with its communication base stations and the failure of its own servers. Even now, the stock price had yet to recover from the collapse that followed.
“You must have taken a bit of a loss.”
“Haha. A loss? On the contrary, I made a huge profit.”
“...Profit?”
“I didn’t buy TY Telecom stock. I invested through short selling.”
“What!”
James repeated to Kim Seong-oh what he had once told Tom.
“I learned that the company had problems with its base stations and servers. An engineer who worked there tipped me off.”
“...An engineer?”
“Yes. The people on the front lines, not the executives, are the ones who sense danger before it comes for a company.”
For someone who ran ST Group, it was a fresh way of looking at things.
“That is a new approach.”
“Repeated problems will eventually blow up, and TY Telecom’s issues were like a time bomb. They had let the same troubles recur for a long time, patched them over with band-aids, and hesitated when it came to investing in anything that might prevent a crisis. Then, in the end, boom.”
As James had said, the base stations had gone down, and the company’s servers had failed to function properly as well.
“......”
“......”
“I timed my investment to match that moment. That one trade probably made me around two hundred million dollars. That was my most recent investment.”
It had been James’s first investment, but it was also his latest.
“...Two hundred million dollars.”
That is a tremendous profit.
Since the subject of investing was on the table, James told them about something that had been troubling him lately. After making such enormous assets recently, he had become interested in investing, and that naturally led him to pay attention to the global economy as well.
“Companies with problems like that aren’t common, so these days I’m looking for new places to invest. High interest rates and monetary tightening will probably slow economic growth, but consumer sentiment, which had been bottled up, is a positive factor. Still, instability in the financial markets and capital flight from emerging economies are things to worry about. On top of that, persistent inflation and uncertainty in energy supply are making me hesitate.”
It was the field of economics he had begun studying for his recent investments.
...His perspective is broader than I expected.
“Still, isn’t a crisis just another opportunity?”
“That’s true too.”
Kim Seong-oh was beginning to think of James not as a magician anymore, but as a fellow businessman on his own level.
“If you have a good source, I’d appreciate the help. VIP members do share investment opportunities and exchange information with one another, but if you’re the head of a company, your perspective is bound to differ from that of an ordinary investor like me.”
“Business only works when there’s give and take. If only one side gives, that’s not business. It’s charity.”
Fortunately, James had something useful to offer him.
“Then you can think of it as me helping ST Group when the Consumer Electronics Show comes around.”
“Wouldn’t that be an uncertain bargain?”
“Then I’ll help first and ask for a favor afterward. The global situation is still uncertain.”
“...I’ll think about it.”
“At that point, shouldn’t I also think about who might be of more help to me?”
“Heh. You’re an amusing one.”
“Like my card tricks?”
“!”
There was a deck of cards in James’s hand again.
Kim Seong-oh hurriedly reached into the pocket of his stitched-up jacket, and of course, he felt nothing there.
“Huh, when did... You never even came near me.”
“Don’t underestimate a magician’s hands. Haha.”
James pulled out the K of spades he had used to say he liked Kim Seong-oh earlier, left his number on it, and handed it over.
“Take this as a sign of our promise. Contact me before the Consumer Electronics Show. We’ve made a connection like this, so I can’t think only of my own interests.”
“...Hmm. All right.”
That was the end of the conversation between them. But for the couple, the conversation was only beginning.
“I had no idea he was holding such substantial assets.”
“...Hmm.”
“His card magic was really something too. No wonder they called him the telekinesis magician.”
“...Hmm-hmm.”
“And he was handsome enough, too... He must have been extremely popular.”
“Are you interested? Want his number?”
“Hoho. Are you jealous?”
“Jealous of what...?”
He wasn’t feeling jealous so much as a fresh sense of interest. What had started as curiosity over his card tricks shifted to his wealth and grew from there, and the conversation continued.
“...He just didn’t seem like the young people we see these days.”
“Kids these days only look at the profit right in front of them. Their vision is narrow, and they’re selfish...”
“Exactly. Even our two boys...”
The couple had two sons. They were currently working at ST Group and receiving management training. But the reports they brought in every time, calling them new opportunities, were childish to the point of embarrassment, and they cared nothing for what might happen afterward as long as there was profit to be made now.
“They’ll improve with time. That’s why they’re being trained in management.”
“Think about it. If those boys had started with nothing, could they have succeeded like that young man?”
“I can say that for sure.”
“They could have succeeded?”
“No. I mean it’s absolutely impossible.”
Even though they were her own children, the mother’s assessment was harsh.
“Pfft. True. They grew up like flowers in a greenhouse.”
“If the conditions were the same, our youngest daughter would be the one to succeed, not them. She takes after you a lot.”
“That girl...”
Kim Seong-oh had never considered his daughter as a successor because she was a daughter and not a son.
“You know there’s no such thing as male or female now. Haven’t you seen what other companies are doing? They bring them into the company and train them alongside the sons. They’re all pulling their weight.”
“......”
“Don’t think about marrying her off too early. I want her to live with someone she likes.”
“Honey.”
Hwang Ji-hye turned to face her husband.
“...Are you not confident?”
“About what now?”
“About building the company without other people’s help.”
“...Ahem.”
“If you need to borrow a daughter’s family’s help just to grow the company, say so now.”
“And if I do?”
“I’ll take the youngest and move out.”
“!”
That was more than Kim Seong-oh could stomach.
“So stop entertaining nonsense and leave her alone.”
“I want the girl to live well too. If she marries into a poor family, do you know how hard that would be for her?”
“And in the process, ST Group gets help too?”
“...Well. I can’t say I haven’t thought about it.”
“Of course, if things go well, it could be a case of killing two birds with one stone. But you’re thinking that the order of things might get reversed, aren’t you?”
That was exactly what her husband was thinking. He wanted to find the best possible son-in-law for the company to benefit from. His daughter’s feelings were not on his mind.
“Ahem.”
Since her husband didn’t openly object, she let out her worries. They were her worries, and they were also her daughter’s.
“She seems to have a lot on her mind lately, now that graduation is coming up.”
“...Really?”
“She just keeps smiling, so it looks like she’ll listen to anything you say. But if you do whatever you want, how long do you think she’ll keep respecting and following you?”
“......”
He thought of his youngest daughter, who had grown up from birth until now without causing a single trouble.
“Our daughter has a deep heart. She’ll follow your lead, but if that happens, I think her tie to her father will be over. That’s why I’m against forcing her to marry someone chosen by the family, the way I did.”
“...Are you saying you were miserable after meeting me? Is that what this is? Is that why you were awkward with your late father?”
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t like that. My father and I were both just incredibly stubborn, that’s all.”
“That really sounded like what you were saying.”
“Hoho.”
“Trying to laugh it off?”
“I told you it wasn’t that.”
“Just be honest. Hm?”
“Hohoho.”
I hope Su-ji and I can live like that too.
James listened to the old couple’s whispered banter like it was a lullaby and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
When James arrived at the airport, he looked around.
There was someone supposed to be there to meet him.
Where is Su-ji...?
The trip had only been a brief one, but for two people in the middle of a fresh romance, it had felt far too long. While James was searching the area for Su-ji, Kim Seong-oh from the flight approached him.
“Young man.”
“Ah. Chairman Kim.”
Just before landing, he had looked up ST Group on his phone.
“Is it Chairman now? Earlier you were calling me president.”
“I looked up ST Group as soon as we landed. Chairman, you own quite an impressive company. Haha.”
Only after arriving in Korea did James realize how huge ST Group really was. It was a major conglomerate with substantial recognition overseas as well. Compared with TY Group, it was so much larger that James considered having made this connection a stroke of extraordinary luck.
He’ll be a big help.
“If you’re headed home, I can take you.”
“No need. I’m sure you’re going in a different direction, so I couldn’t impose.”
“Hmm... Then I hope we meet again.”
“Yes, Chairman. Please go in.”
As Chairman Kim returned to his entourage of secretaries and left with his wife, Su-ji’s face came into view in the distance.
“Su...”
Just as James was about to call to her, he caught sight of her stiff face and the shape of her mouth moving quickly.
Shut. Up. Shut up!