A Tangled Fate
“Uh….”
She quickly turned her face away from James, walked over to Chairman Kim Seong-oh and his wife, and greeted them.
“Did you have a good trip?”
“…Huh. What brings you all the way out here?”
“Suji. You came out to meet us? That’s unusual.”
Suji had come to pick up James, only to run straight into her parents.
How did we all end up running into each other here!
For the moment, all she cared about was getting out of this alive.
“…I checked with the secretary’s office, and they said you were coming today.”
If she’d really heard that from the secretary’s office, there was no way she would have come to the airport today.
“You also had a lecture at school….”
“I didn’t have an afternoon class. …Dad, Mom, let’s go already.”
Suji was desperate to leave this place as quickly as possible, but her mother had other ideas.
“Honey. What did that young man say when we asked him to come with us earlier?”
“Oh. He said his destination was different, so he couldn’t impose on us.”
“Tsk. Then he’d have to take a taxi. He looks like he was probably staying at a hotel anyway….”
“Shall I give him a ride?”
“Hurry up and bring him over. We should at least get a good look at our Suji’s face.”
“Hah, this woman….”
“Bring him over. Hmm?”
“Sigh.”
James had been frozen with one hand still raised when he saw Chairman Kim Seong-oh walking over, and he tensed up a little.
“Wh-what is it?”
He’d thought of him as just some ordinary neighborhood uncle on the plane, but now he felt completely different. He was no longer the chairman of ST Group—he was Suji’s father.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“I-I’m fine, though….”
“If I say come, you come. Bring that man over here.”
At Chairman Kim’s gesture, the secretarial staff grabbed James by both arms and led him over.
“Let’s go.”
“I said I’m okay….”
And just like that, James was standing in front of Suji.
“……”
“……”
James and Suji looked into each other’s eyes, but there was no way they could greet one another.
“Honey. Look at them. Don’t they suit each other? Doesn’t it feel like the whole picture is just perfect?”
“Suit each other, my foot….”
“Suji can’t even say hello. Maybe it was love at first sight?”
“Well, of course she’d be speechless. He’s a stranger.”
While the two of them whispered to each other, Suji was caught in a whirl of feelings, and James wasn’t doing much better.
…How did this end up happening?
Suji… I have no idea either. I don’t understand any of this.
As the two stood there awkwardly, Suji’s mother, Hwang Ji-hye, stepped in.
“This is our youngest daughter, James.”
“Ah… yes… it’s nice to meet you. I’m James Kane.”
“Yes… I’m Kim Suji.”
And so the two of them exchanged the kind of stiff introductions people gave when they were pretending to meet for the first time.
“I heard you worked as a magician in Las Vegas, James. Did you know that, Suji?”
“Ah… really? I didn’t know that.”
“Hoho. It seems he’s not exactly famous in Korea, then.”
“That’s right. That’s right.”
At the moment, fame didn’t matter at all.
“Our Suji’s still a college student. She’ll be graduating soon.”
“Ah. Graduating. Right.”
James had to react as though he were hearing things he already knew for the first time.
“Chairman. The car is ready.”
“Everyone, let’s go.”
“……”
“……”
James and Suji walked a little apart from each other, but their eyes kept slipping back to one another again and again.
Glance. Glance.
Only Hwang Ji-hye seemed to be enjoying the sight.
Young people spark the second they meet.
“Pfft.”
But Chairman Kim seemed irritated.
“What’s so funny?”
“Hoho. I was just worried because Suji’s never even had a man in her life.”
“And what, then? What makes you different from me? Are you going to let her date whoever she wants too?”
If you met your spouse through your parents’ introduction, it was no different from an arranged marriage in the end.
“James is handsome.”
“What? Then what about me? Are you saying I was ugly, and that’s why you hated me?”
“Oh, stop it. Why are you dragging the conversation there again?”
James and Suji couldn’t hear a word of the conversation being whispered around them.
What on earth is going on?
Suji’s eyes were blazing.
…No idea.
James gave a small shake of his head.
Even after they got into the car, nothing changed. Hwang Ji-hye, seated in the front, kept turning around to take the two of them in at a glance, smiling all the while, while Chairman Kim, seated between them, wore a sulky expression.
“……”
“……”
James and Suji, seated on either side, kept sneaking looks at each other.
I’m dying of curiosity. Why is Oppa James here with the two of them….
How on earth did we end up like this….
There was no worse torture than this.
“Hoho. James, are you planning to stay in Korea for a long time?”
“F-for now, yes. That’s why I bought a place of my own to stay in.”
“Really? Where is it?”
“Around Hannam-dong….”
“That area is hard to get a house in.”
“I was able to find a decent place thanks to a friend I met in Korea.”
That friend was sitting right next to him.
“……”
“So are you living alone right now?”
“There’s one person staying with me.”
“A woman?”
If there were a woman, then there’d be no need to introduce her to their daughter.
“No… he’s a colleague I performed with in Las Vegas. He came to Korea as a trip.”
“Oh. A colleague. So a man?”
“Yes. A man.”
“I was wondering….”
She’d mistaken it for a live-in girlfriend.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“……”
James knew exactly what answer he needed to give right now.
“No.”
At his firm denial, Suji shot him a sharp look, but in this slightly awkward atmosphere, saying no was clearly the right answer.
“Hohoho. You don’t? You don’t. Hohoho.”
But then Suji seemed to remember something and quickly pulled out her phone.
“……”
Right now, Ho-jung is….
Ho-jung had gone to James’s house to meet Colt. Suji had planned to pick up James at the airport today and then all hang out together after they arrived.
The moment Ho-jung saw that message, she flew into a panic.
“Aaaah! Colt! I’m in trouble!”
“What’s going on?”
“Wait a minute. I’m busy.”
Even as Colt asked, Ho-jung started frantically gathering her things. Colt picked up the phone she’d set down and checked the message, and then, before he could stop himself, he blurted out in Korean,
“...James’s parents are coming here? Then should I go out too?”
“……”
At Colt’s natural Korean, Ho-jung’s head snapped around with a creak.
“Colt?”
“Why?”
“Since when could you read Hangul and speak Korean?”
“Ah….”
He’d been hiding it as well as he could until now, but the truth had finally come out here.
“I-I’ve been studying hard. I really have.”
“Colt Evans. Stop making excuses.”
“……”
“From now on, tell the truth. Colt.”
“…I studied hard. Seriously.”
Colt had wanted to keep pretending he couldn’t speak Korean, but now that the language felt as natural as his mother tongue, pretending not to know it was even harder.
“You understood everything I just said because I spoke Korean? And you even caught the honorifics?”
“…I’m smart. Not stupid. I Ivy Leaguer.”
“Huh? What? Colt graduated from an Ivy League university?”
“I graduated from Columbia University’s Business School. I’m smart!”
“…Business school, too? But why are you talking like that? What surprises me more is how good your Korean is.”
“…Damn. Then how am I supposed to talk?”
“Hey. Hey. That was totally native.”
Ho-jung wanted to keep digging into it, but right now the priority was getting out of the house.
“We can talk about this later.”
“……”
And just like that, Ho-jung managed to slip out of the house just before Chairman Kim’s group arrived.
After sending Ho-jung that text, Suji also sent one to James.
James looked at the message and quickly stuffed his phone back into his pocket. Replying now was far too dangerous. Fortunately, they were almost home already.
“This is it. Thank you, Chairman.”
“…You bought this house?”
Chairman Kim seemed more surprised than he’d expected by the size of the house.
“Isn’t it too large for one person?”
“It is a little big. But I thought bigger would be better than cramped.”
“That’s true. Better big than narrow. Still, it must have cost a fortune….”
Suji felt like she could finally relax, as long as James was sent away first.
“Dad? We’ve arrived. How much longer are you going to keep him here?”
“…Go on in carefully.”
“Yup. Thank you. Thanks to both of you, I had a comfortable ride.”
James only bowed to Chairman Kim and his wife, making a point of not even glancing at Suji. But to Hwang Ji-hye, it only looked like he was being shy.
“Look at that. Now the two of them can’t even make eye contact.”
“If they’re not even dating, why would they need to make eye contact?”
“!”
“!”
The word dating made the two of them flinch without meaning to.
“Hoho. That’s because the two of them look so good together.”
James hurriedly opened the car door and got out.
“Please go in safely. Thank you for the ride. Thanks to you, I got here comfortably.”
“See you again sometime.”
“Go on in.”
“Yup.”
As Suji moved farther and farther away from James’s house, she watched his reflection in the side mirror of the car.
“Suji.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“That man seems pretty good, doesn’t he?”
“……”
Suji couldn’t answer, but Chairman Kim replied in a gruff tone.
“Pretty good? You meet some man on a plane for the first time, and you trust him enough to introduce him to your precious daughter?”
“He’s famous. And talking to him, he seemed like a solid person.”
Now that James was no longer there, Suji finally spoke with a little more ease.
“The telekinetic card magician really is famous….”
“Right. The telekinetic card magician….”
Hwang Ji-hye, who had been mulling over Suji’s words, suddenly whipped her head around. She had never mentioned the phrase telekinetic card magician to Suji.
“You said you didn’t know James a moment ago. And I only introduced him as a magician earlier, remember?”
“…Ah, well, I thought I didn’t know him, but then I suddenly remembered. There are a lot of videos of him on YouTube.”
“Really? Shall we take a look?”
As she scrolled through YouTube videos of James’s magic shows, she gasped again and again.
“Goodness. The cards are flying around like butterflies? That’s incredible.”
“…Let me see too.”
Even Chairman Kim, who had been sitting still, craned his neck forward.
“…He’s flying around on a cloak now? Th-those cards… it’s like they’re alive….”
“Looks like James only showed us the tip of the iceberg.”
“Even now, I still can’t figure out how he did that trick earlier. How did he get my pocket… huh?”
When Chairman Kim put his hand to the empty pocket of his jacket, he felt something hard and tugged the lining open.
“…When did he slip this in here?”
“There are cards in your pocket again?”
“Looks like he only put a few in this time….”
Chairman Kim tore the stitching in his pocket and pulled the cards out.
Thud.
[A♠, Q♠, J♠, 10♠]
There were four cards in his pocket.
If I add the card he gave me…
He added the K♠ with James’s phone number written on it, and a royal straight flush was complete. It was the highest hand in poker.
“Heh. The more I look at him, the more interesting he gets….”
He had once said he didn’t enjoy gambling in front of James, but as the head of a company, he did end up playing poker fairly often. It helped him socialize with clients and overseas buyers. Chairman Kim usually did quite well against them, to the point that he thought of himself as something of a poker expert.
Those cards….
And Suji understood the meaning James had hidden inside the cards. It was a sequence she saw often enough in everyday life.
“It means that even the best cards aren’t complete without a king.”
“Oh? So our chairman is the king?”
“Yes. Because once the king is there, everything becomes complete. And spades mean success. Those cards can also represent a family, you know—everyone gathered together and happy. In that sense, the K♠ means the head of the family.”
“Then what about the highest card, the A♠?”
“The A♠ is treated as the youngest. It means the one everyone cherishes the most.”
“Then James must have been wishing for ST Group’s success and our family’s happiness too. Right, honey?”
“Ahem. Suji, how do you know all this so well?”
“Ah….”
It wasn’t that Suji had put any meaning into it herself; she had simply memorized the patter because James liked assigning meanings to cards, and she’d watched his card magic every day.
“Yes, I think I saw something like that in a video once….”
“There’s nothing like that on YouTube.”
“…If you look hard enough, it might be there. Or maybe the person who uploaded it deleted it.”
Suji thought she had successfully escaped today’s crisis, but the driver’s words made her heart drop.
“Oh… isn’t that young lady your daughter’s friend?”
“Who….”
On the roadside, Ho-jung was standing there, looking down at her phone and waiting for a taxi.
“……”
I told you to run….
“Should I pull over?”
“No, just keep driving. Step on it!”
There was no way she could drag Ho-jung into a mess like this on top of everything else.
“Ah. Yes.”
Vroom.
“Suji. Wasn’t that girl just now the youngest daughter of Chairman Choi? Ho-jung? You went to school together and were close, right?”
“I figured she probably had plans of her own….”
“Does Ho-jung know someone in this area too?”
“……”
She does, actually. She’s at that house from earlier….
“I’m not really sure about that.”
Ho-jung was dating Colt, and Suji had been riding in the car with James until just now.
But how on earth did the two of you end up meeting James…?
Now that James wasn’t sitting next to her, she could ask whatever she wanted.
“Mom. How did you meet that man earlier?”
“I was on the plane coming back from the Milan fashion walk, and this young, handsome guy sat in the seat next to mine. The way he gulped down the bottled water the flight attendant gave him looked just like something out of a commercial. Oh! James Bond from 007! That was exactly the kind of spy-movie hero he reminded me of. Dangerous, but with this inexplicable pull to him, you know? And then he said his name was James. Isn’t that amazing?”
“……”
Oppa James really is handsome.
Suji found herself lifting her chin a little.
“Then he pulled out this thick Korean book and started reading it. That’s when I was sure he was Korean.”
“...He’s American, though.”
“Sure. But he looks Korean, doesn’t he? And he spoke Korean beautifully.”
Suji nodded and spoke up.
“He was adopted to the United States when he was young.”
“Really? So he was adopted as a child, not an immigrant? How do you know that?”
“Um, well. There were rumors like that.”
“That would explain it. His Korean was incredibly fluent. It must have been easy for him to learn since he’d known it from a young age.”
“……”
“I asked if he was coming back from a fashion walk, and he said he’d just been to an event at the Vatican. So….”
Suji decided not to interrupt her mother’s story from there on out. If she did, James’s private life—known only to her—would probably spill out by accident.
“Suji. The moment I saw James, I had this thought. If I were twenty years younger….”
At his wife’s words, Chairman Kim leaned over with a frown.
“If you were younger, what? What then?”
“…I’m just saying it would’ve been nice. What else do you want me to say?”
“……”
He had already threatened to leave the house if they ever tried to force their youngest daughter into an arranged marriage, so Chairman Kim could only clear his throat awkwardly.
“Ahem. Cough!”
“Men really do get more jealous as they get older….”
“When did I ever say I was jealous?”
Suji didn’t hear her parents bickering anymore.
…James.
Suji had figured out how James and her parents had met. And she also knew that James knew who her parents were—meaning he knew they were part of ST Group.
Buzz.
Just then, a message from James arrived.
“!”