Choi Ki-cheon Has Changed
"Ah… this is…"
He would have been better off never opening the file on Noh Mira at all.
Drugs, host bars, every sordid and filthy thing imaginable — all of it tangled together and spilling out in an endless stream. The men she'd been involved with spanned a remarkable spectrum, from college students all the way to politicians in their sixties. The file had clearly been compiled after the divorce, and yet it was stuffed with the messy trail she'd left before the marriage as well.
People usually said that digging into a woman's past was like opening Pandora's box. This felt like he'd thrown open the gates of hell. He thought about searching for the man who might be Lee-seon's biological father, then shut the file before he'd even gotten halfway through.
If the file was anything to go by, the year he had spent living with her had been a miracle. Her record was that of a beast pickled in dopamine, thrashing about in pursuit of pleasure.
Next on his mind was Jo Seong-gi.
"This guy's a problem too…"
The problem being that there was almost no record at all. A psychopath who had lived his entire life without a shred of emotion. No friends, no family left, not even a woman he'd dated. A note suggesting he might be gay had been written down, then struck through with two lines. The investigator had every reason to wonder. Of course he did — the man was a complete void.
Seen in that light, the curses Jo Seong-gi had recently spat at Jung Jinwoo were an extraordinary display of feeling. They said hatred was an emotion as powerful as love, didn't they? The man had everything. Why did he hate Jung Jinwoo so fiercely?
The only crack in his record was pulling strings for college classmates' job referrals back when he worked at a conglomerate. And even then he hadn't been an executive — just a deputy-level employee, practically entry-level. Hardly a serious crime. A flavorless man living in a flavorless world. That was Jo Seong-gi. If anything in his life had ever meant something, it was probably growing SG Global.
Jinwoo felt a pang of pity looking at it. He briefly weighed whether to deal with Jo Seong-gi, then set his mind to it. For twenty-seven years, Jung Jinwoo had lived without being treated as a human being, all so that his adoptive parents could pour everything they had into Jo Seong-gi. The price of that sacrificed life had to be repaid. And Jo Seong-gi, who treated his younger brother's sacrifice as nothing more than his due — that selfish man deserved to be punished.
Next was his former father-in-law, Noh Gyeong-se. Jinwoo didn't even need to look at the file. A second mistress, even a third. He had personally witnessed the second one — watched Noh Gyeong-se dining and carrying on with a young woman nearly Jinwoo's own age. The third was in her twenties. It was enough to turn his stomach.
Dozens of fraud cases, and he'd even served time for a few of them. Those "extended business trips to Europe" had actually been prison stints. Fraud, bribery, embezzlement, breach of trust, commissioning assault, commissioning kidnapping — every filthy charge imaginable was packed in there, down to the last detail. Putting Noh Gyeong-se behind bars wouldn't be difficult.
Like father, like daughter. What else would Noh Mira have learned from? You could roll the man through a sewer and the sewer water would come out cleaner. He was practically the dregs of humanity.
His former mother-in-law, Kim Jeong-ja, was much the same. She held shares in Bando Jewelry, so the list ran to breach of trust, embezzlement, fraud — a drop in the bucket compared to her husband, but still. One item in the file snagged Jung Jinwoo's eye.
Gangnam Cool Ten Host Bar — visits biweekly
Something he had never imagined in a thousand years. He found himself worrying about Lee-seon, growing up between Noh Mira, Noh Gyeong-se, and Kim Jeong-ja.
"Tae-jun! Handle it yourself. Why are you trying to drag me into something this dirty?"
"Hyung, are you serious right now? I've done every single thing you ever asked me to!"
"Yeah, because those were nothing. Why would you need my help to take somebody down?"
"I'm disappointed, hyung! If you said the word, I'd follow you all the way to hell…"
"You little— where do you get off talking that kind of crap…"
Ham Ho-seok snorted, but Jung Tae-jun's eyes narrowed and he pressed on.
"Do you even know who that guy is? Are you talking without knowing?"
"Who is he?"
"He's the bastard who screwed you over! The one who stole your girlfriend…"
Ham Ho-seok's face twisted at Jung Tae-jun's words.
"Really? It's really that son of a bitch?"
"That filthy Casanova bastard is going after my girl now."
"That… son of a bitch…"
The corners of Ham Ho-seok's narrow eyes ticked upward. He still had no idea why Choi Jieun had left him. He'd never even been caught seeing other women — and then she'd dumped him out of nowhere and shown up at a gathering with that guy who had nothing going for him but his looks. And now the same bastard was trying to get his hands on another woman. Do Ye-rip, no less — Jung Tae-jun's girl, which made her part of Ham's own crew. He could call that an attack on himself and it wouldn't be a stretch. His blood began to boil.
"You. Don't you lay a hand on that guy."
"Why not?"
I have to spell it out? I went to a fixer and asked them to work him over, and I was the one who got beaten up.
"That bastard is dangerous. From what I saw, he's connected to the mob."
"The m-mob…"
Jung Tae-jun froze for a beat, then nodded.
"So that's why the bastard was so cocksure…"
No wonder. Tae-jun had even given him the name — Jung Tae-jun of Samkwang Enterprises — and the guy hadn't so much as flinched. He'd snorted. He'd laughed. Any kid from a family with a little money knew what those words meant: get mixed up with this one, and you're in for a thoroughly exhausting, insufferable pain in the ass.
And he'd had the gall to say Tae-jun should try conveying his true feelings to Do Ye-rip? Where did some two-bit nobody get off spouting garbage like that? True feelings? Did such a thing even exist?
"Then we just use the law…"
"The law? You know somebody on that side?"
"The hell would I have connections like that? Maybe my dad, but… you don't know anyone, hyung?"
"How would I know? I've only ever greased a prosecutor through a lawyer…"
He had gotten off a DUI that way once — fed money to a prosecutor through his attorney and walked. Ham Ho-seok thought for a moment, then lifted his head as if a brilliant idea had just struck him.
"That's it! Ki-cheon… let's go find Ki-cheon. He'll have connections in the prosecutor's office."
"Ki-cheon hyung? H-hyung, you know Ki-cheon hyung? Are you close?"
"Of course we're close. Ki-cheon hangs on my every word."
"Whoa… Ho-seok hyung! I'm sorry I ever underestimated you… I had no idea you were tight with Ki-cheon hyung."
"Just wait a little. Before long it won't be Number Five — I'll be in, and it'll be Number Six."
"H-hyung, you're getting into Number Five? For real?"
"Daeban C&C's joining the Cambodian alluvial gold mining project this time, right?"
"I thought some JW-whatever company held the mining rights… your family's in on that too?"
"Those JW Development guys are idiots. They found a gold vein and couldn't mine it all themselves, so they handed it off to us. Projected revenue is ten trillion a year. Ten trillion."
"Uwaaah…"
Until now, Daeban C&C's annual revenue had been a few tens of billions of won on a good year, maybe a few hundred billion. Trillion-won figures had always been someone else's story. At the mention of trillion-won revenue — more than ten trillion, no less — Jung Tae-jun nearly jumped out of his skin.
"So hyung's really getting into Number Five and making it Number Six? Isn't your family a little… small for that?"
"A little small, sure, but Ki-cheon said he'd bring us in, so it should be possible. Besides Jin-ho, they say Ki-cheon has the strongest say in that group."
"I knew it… getting close to you was the right call, hyung."
"Speaking of which, let's go see Ki-cheon."
"Now? We can just show up? Ki-cheon hyung seems pretty busy these days…"
Jung Tae-jun hesitated, and Ham Ho-seok's mouth curled into a smirk.
"Don't worry. The second I walk in, Ki-cheon's going to be over the moon. I'm his right-hand man, after all…"
"Wow… Ho-seok hyung! Let's stay close, okay?"
Jung Tae-jun — infamous as the most insufferable pest of all insufferable pests — seized Ham Ho-seok's hand in both of his.
"Hey, hey! Get off me! I like girls…"
"Aww, hyung… you like me too, don't youuu…"
That same insufferable Jung Tae-jun was putting on a nasal little aegyo act for Ham Ho-seok.
"Hoooh… hoo… hoooooh…"
Choi Ki-cheon finished his squats and set the 120-kilo barbell down from his shoulders. He'd been lazy about working out once; these days he was getting a taste for it again. Every eye in the group was on him now, and more than that, the way his father, Chairman Choi Dae-hyun, looked at him had changed. Expectation. Favor. The whole of it, resting on his shoulders.
For a man who had always been slow in body and slower still in understanding, a change like this could have only one cause: Jung Jinwoo. He'd made a decent sum off Gold Coin, smoothed out SA Oil's crude supply, and when the American markets bucked, he'd made no small amount of money. Ten billion won, five times leveraged, on an inverse position — he'd walked away with more than fifteen billion. Only then had Chairman Choi Dae-hyun's gaze toward his son begun to shift.
The crowning touch had been the copper investment Jung Jinwoo had tipped him off to. SA's backbone was telecommunications; anywhere you ran electrical equipment and communications networks, copper was essential. Data centers were no different. SA Telecom had been tearing its hair out, unable to source copper even at two or three times the cost — and that was when Choi Ki-cheon, acting as if it were nothing at all, handed over five thousand tons of copper he'd bought on the futures market.
Hearing those words from Chairman Choi Dae-hyun, Ki-cheon had thought his chest might burst. Afterward, word began filtering through the secretariat that Choi Ki-cheon was being formally lined up for the presidency of SA Telecom. The employees and executives who had quietly looked down on him were watching him now with respect, even envy.
And when Choi Ki-cheon dropped a bombshell declaration that SA Telecom should massively expand the 50-gigabit lines it was preparing, not a single person objected. Not even Chairman Choi Dae-hyun, a man they called a born merchant of his era. If it had been the old Choi Ki-cheon — slow, vacant, always a step behind — they all would have laughed in his face.
The truth was, Choi Ki-cheon himself hadn't changed at all. The copper futures had even worked out because he'd been late to sell, dumping them at the peak. And once JW Dive In was officially unveiled and the whole world knew what it was, Choi Ki-cheon's foresight in pushing the 50-gigabit expansion would pass into legend — not just at SA Telecom, but across every chaebol family in Korea. Jung Jinwoo had told him in advance, of course. But still.
Why had he scrambled to attend a wedding that wasn't even Jung Jinwoo's own, but his friend's? Because every last bit of it was thanks to Jung Jinwoo. If he could make even a slightly better impression this time… wouldn't this goose that laid golden eggs keep dropping gold into his lap?
The rest of Number Five was just as desperate as he was. Loiter anywhere near Jung Jinwoo and you walked away hundreds of billions of won richer, your claim as heir locked in, seated in a position of genuine respect. The three hundred million he'd given as a wedding gift was pocket change. He'd have gladly put down three billion. But that would have landed him on the front page, and the other members of Number Five would have torn him apart for it — so he'd held back.
Life was delicious. It felt as though the entire world existed for Choi Ki-cheon. That was why he was working out. That was why he was sculpting his body.
"I told you, I'm here to see a friend… just let us in for a minute."
"Sir, you can't do this here. This is a members-only fitness center…"
A commotion drifted over from the entrance.
"Hey, Choi Ki-cheon! Ki-cheon! It's me! Ham Ho-seok!"
An irritating face. Ham Ho-seok — the one who used to sidle up and stroke his ego back when Choi Ki-cheon was living like a beaten dog.
"You there. Let them in."
"Yes, sir!"
At Choi Ki-cheon's word, the security officer waved the two of them through.
"I had a feeling, and they said you were here, so I came! Ki-cheon, you been well?"
Stalker. I never should have gotten friendly with this guy. Back then he'd been bored out of his mind with nothing to do, and he'd needed a lackey who would listen. That was all.
"I've been well. You look good too, Ho-seok."
"Look good? Jieun dumped me. I'm a mess…"
Ham Ho-seok laid the groundwork fast, angling for the real subject.
"And who's this?"
Choi Ki-cheon jerked his chin at the young man standing beside Ham Ho-seok.
"Ki-cheon hyung! You don't remember me? I'm Jung Tae-jun. Jung Tae-jun of Samkwang Enterprises. We even drank together two months ago."
"Ahhh… Tae-jun. Sorry I didn't recognize you. I've been swamped lately… haha."
Small companies swarm like flies — thousands of them, tens of thousands. How am I supposed to remember them all? And if it's a drinking table that dozens of people cycle through in a single night, even less chance. Two months ago I was still doing third and fourth rounds every night with bottom-feeders like Ham Ho-seok.
"Ki-cheon's just been busy, that's all. Ki-cheon, let's get out of here! We'll grab a beer and talk."
"Beer? I don't drink during the day anymore."
"It's evening."
"Ah, sorry. I've sworn off drinking for a while because of work. Seems like you've got something to say to me, though… can't we talk here?"
Whatever it was, it was going to be sordid. He could tell from a mile away.
"Here? Well… fine… it's nothing else, I just have a favor to ask you…"
Sure enough, the dirty story came pouring out of Ham Ho-seok's mouth.